In the picture, Lucy had filled out since that first day in the pen, put on some muscle. She was sitting in the grass in a sunlit field, sitting proud, head held high and that big, goofy smile on her face, that tongue lolling out of her mouth. She looked happy. She looked good, as good as Mason had ever seen her.

There was a note on the back of the picture. Linda Petrie’s handwriting. Lucy—with thanks, LP. That was all it said.

Mason had studied that photograph and that handwriting in his basement bedroom after the telephone conversation with Linda Petrie. He’d known Lucy six months, practically night and day, trained her, never known her to tend toward violence. Yet she’d gone and attacked somebody? That didn’t make sense.

There was a building behind Lucy in the photograph, across the grassy field. Looked like a school, one story, nothing special. A sign on the cinder-block wall, the words cut off in the middle: N COVE H.S. HOME OF THE RAVENS.

Mason had set the picture aside. Left the basement bedroom and climbed the stairs to the kitchen. His sister and her husband kept a computer in a den off the living room; Mason found the den, found the computer unlocked. Brought up an internet search window, typed: “N Cove High School Ravens.”

The results loaded: a high school, a small town in northwest Washington State, the Olympic Peninsula, way out on the farthest edge of the country. Mason ran another search, just the town name, got a few pretty pictures: the ocean, forest, a few fishing boats. An Indian reservation nearby, the Makah tribe, a big museum, and a few ecotourism outfits. The town of Deception Cove was too small to have its own animal control people, so Mason dialed up the Makah County seat in Neah Bay, figured he’d start with the central office.

“Calling about a dog,” he told the woman who answered. “Supposed to have got in an incident, bit someone.”

“Got more than a few dogs who’d fit that description,” the woman replied. “You want to be more specific.”

“Black-and-white dog, medium sized,” Mason said. “Name’s Lucy, or it was. This would have been over in Deception Cove.”

“Oh,” the woman said. “Yeah, all right. You’re talking about that pit bull who went and bit the sheriff’s deputy.”

Mason blinked. “She bit a deputy?”

“Yes, sir. Bit him pretty good, from what I heard. Left him in a whole mess of stitches.”

“A deputy,” Mason said. “I mean, dang. What were the circumstances?”

The woman sucked her teeth. “A house call gone bad, I guess. Who knows? The sheriff’s deputies down at Deception Cove handled that one themselves. We just heard it through the grapevine.”

“Who’s the owner?” Mason asked. “I mean, how’d he let this happen?”