“Three nights ago. I let him out to do his business. When I called for him, he didn’t come. And he always comes.” The other man’s voice had gotten thick. As Bucky watched, Vaughn drew a bandanna from his back pocket and gave his nose a noisy honk.
“Jesus,” said Bucky. “I’m sorry.”
Vaughn managed a nod. “Will you keep your eyes open?”
Bucky promised that he would, even though keeping his eyes open, just lately, meant he’d been seeing what struck him as a higher-than-normal number of roadkill. Dead squirrels and skunks and deer, reduced to red smears on the road; sad heaps of fur and dessicated guts in the ditches. Anheuser wasn’t the only pet who’d gone wandering, either. Little Maura Farley had lost her kitten—he’d seen a MISSING KITTY sign at the Superette, lovingly hand-crayoned—and the Kaplans’ Thanksgiving had ended badly when Mrs. Kaplan had come across the corpse of her little bichon, Ellie, on Saturday night. Mrs. Kaplan had found Ellie in the backyard, her belly ripped open and dripping, all her pretty white fur drenched in blood. She’d called Bucky, still crying, and guess whose job it had been to scoop the mess into a garbage bag and carry it away?
Bucky swallowed hard, hoping Vaughn hadn’t heard about Ellie, or seen the dead coyote in the ditch on his way up the drive. Bucky thought of himself as the strong, silent type (Ha ha ha, he heard Laura laughing in his head), and he’d never been too fussed about blood and guts. What had happened to that poor little dog, though…
“So what do you think?”
Bucky blinked. Vaugh was leaning against his skimmer, looking at him expectantly.
“Say again?”
“I said,” said Vaughn patiently, “that we should go on a little recon mission. Check out the Jenkinses’ tenant.”
“Why do you think she’s got anything to do with your dog?”
“She’s the only new person on the Island,” said Vaughn. “And I’ve got a bad feeling about her.”
“You’ve never even seen her!”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Bucky opened his mouth to say that Anheuser had probably just wandered off into the woods, or had gone chasing some female dog in heat. What he said, instead, was, “If you’re wrong, the Jenkinses will fire you.”
“So what?” Vaughn asked, his voice truculent, but Bucky saw the way his brow had furrowed, like he was attempting to subtract what the family paid him each year from the sum he declared to the IRS. “What if she’s got Anheuser?” Vaughn asked.
“What would she want with your dog?” asked Bucky. Vaughn just shook his head, and Bucky finally got a good look at his friend, and could see the dark circles that ringed his eyes.