A lean brownish gray dog ambled out of the woods onto the porch, where it stood looking up at me. Great. Just what I needed—a watchdog between me and the car.

“Doggie!” Timmy exclaimed, squirming to be put down. “Want doggie.”

“But doggies chase kitties,” I said. “You don’t want the doggie to chase Kiki, do you?”

He frowned and pondered that. The dog sat down as if waiting for me to let him in.

I knocked again and then stood on the porch for a few moments, listening for footsteps or any other sound from the house and hearing nothing but bird songs, insect buzzes, and the whining drone of a window air-conditioning unit laboring to keep the small house cool in the humid Virginia heat.

The dog wagged his tail slowly whenever I glanced at him.

I squatted down and held out my hand. He came over to me, unafraid.

“Nice doggie,” Timmy said. The dog seemed friendly enough, so I didn’t interfere when Timmy reached out to pat him. And I didn’t mind at all when the dog began licking Timmy instead of me.

While Timmy and the dog made friends, I looked at the tag attached to the dog’s collar. His name was Scout, and anyone who found him was urged to call J. Walker. I pulled my notebook out of my pocket and checked the phone numbers I’d written down from Karen’s “While-you-were-out” stack. Yes, the J. Walker number matched the one Jasper had left when he called her office.

“Good boy, Scout,” I said. I reached in my other pocket and found a couple of cheese crackers I’d picked up from the floor of the car. I offered Scout one. He took it eagerly, but it seemed like normal canine eagerness, not the desperation of an abandoned and starving animal.

I knocked several more times. I called out, “Mr. Walker? Jasper? Mr. Bass?” a couple of times.

No answer.

I peered into the front window. The house was—well, empty wasn’t the word. Less junked up than the yard, but not by much. But empty of people, as far as I could see. Not unoccupied, though. On a coffee table in the living room I could see a pizza box and a couple of beer and Pepsi cans, none of them dust-covered. Someone had been here recently.

Scout followed as I left the porch. He seemed happy to have me around. I wanted to circle the house, maybe find someplace to climb in, but I couldn’t very easily do that carrying Timmy. Too much junk to trip over, not to mention the undergrowth to wade through. No wonder Sherlock Holmes had stayed a bachelor.

Just then, Timmy threw his head back and began uttering wordless howls of misery.

I set him down and squatted down beside him so I could get a better look at him. And also to get his mouth a little farther from my ear.

“It’s okay,” I said, while scanning for injuries.