Kevin explained that he was the dog walker, hoping that this information would not be the legal paperwork loophole that nullified the whole case. The kid was transfixed by his clipboard, trying to think up an exit strategy.

Finally, he jotted down a few notes and asked, “What is it you want me to do?”

“Investigate,” Kevin said, as if the answer was obvious. “The lady who lives here, she did it.” He knew better than to let his voice show too much emotion, or he would be in the back of the cop car himself in no time. Make a fuss and the cop would run his info through the system and find out he had a record, and then he’d have to get Linda to pick him up from the police station. So, with extreme calm, he added, “You know, check out the neighbors, examine the scene, ask questions.”

“If I ask anyone if they did this, they’ll just deny it,” the cop said.

Kevin was trying to keep himself from getting visibly annoyed. “You know,” he said evenly, “I’ve seen a lot of cop shows. And I’ve never seen anyone on Law and Order say, ‘Hey guys, if we investigate this murder, the people who did it will just deny it.’”

“Those shows are about people who got murdered, not dogs,” the cop said, equally evenly.

“I thought you guys protected and served,” said Kevin, letting his rising anger show now, which caused the cop to walk toward his car.

“We protect and serve people, not dogs.” He got in and started the engine. Then, apparently feeling he had been too harsh, he rolled the window down. “You can investigate but you’d have to pay for it yourself. I mean, you could fingerprint that container of antifreeze but a fingerprint test is, like, five hundred dollars. And if it was the lady of the house, all it would prove is that people touch their own antifreeze.”

Utterly deflated, Kevin just stared at the cop as he drove out of the driveway. He called Mrs. Parker at work and listened to her fake the emotion of shock for a while, then ask him if he could dispose of the dog’s body. So he put little Scotch’s body in a trash bag and placed it in the back seat of Linda’s car, then drove off to walk his next dog.

WHEN HE GOT to Jeffrey’s house, Jeffrey was alive, which was nice, and the shifty doctor who owned him was home, which wasn’t. Kevin groaned as he got out of the car. The last thing he felt like right then was face-to-face contact with another human being. Part of the reason he enjoyed his job was that such contact was a rarity.

“Hi,” said the doctor, whose name Kevin could never remember because the checks he got for dog-walking were from a pharmaceutical firm. The doctor was a young man, early to mid thirties, and he had the slicked back hair and fit appearance of a stereotypical eighties stockbroker, reminding Kevin more of an extra from the movie Wall Street than of a health care professional. He also seemed too young to own this magnificent house, but hell, Kevin knew very little about how much doctors got paid.

“Hi,” Kevin said, trying to fill his voice with exhaustion to dissuade further conversation. Jeffrey bounced up to him and Kevin greeted the dog, hoping to get him leashed and be on his way.

“Come inside for a second,” the doctor said. “I want to talk to you about something.”

Shit.

Kevin went into the house, which was at least warm. It felt good to get out of the elements, if only for a few moments.

“Take your shoes off,” the doctor said brusquely. He had a manner about him that dissuaded argument of any kind. “Come back here.”

Kevin spent a good two minutes unlacing his boots, then went into the den, the same room where he had opened the safe a few weeks before. There was no way the doc could have found out about that, Kevin thought. Besides, the guy looked cheerful, not like someone about to begin a conversation about home invasion. There was a fire going in the fireplace, and the doctor sat down behind his huge cherrywood desk and pointed Kevin toward one of the ornate European-style red felt chairs.

“I have to ask you something, Kevin, and I hope you won’t take offense,” he said, leaning back in his chair, folding his hands across his stomach as he put his feet on his desk.

Kevin shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“You were in prison for a drug charge, is that right?” The question caught Kevin off guard, but it was asked with such self-assurance and directness that Kevin could hardly take offense. How the hell did this guy know that? Obviously, as Kevin’s job entailed access to people’s houses, his prison record was something he preferred to conceal.

“That’s right,” Kevin said. “How did you know about that?”

“I give you the keys to my house, I’m going to run a background check on you,” the doctor said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I have a lawyer who handles these things.” Kevin figured that he was about to get fired, which would mean he had lost two clients in one day. Fine, dickhead, go get yourself a dog walker with no criminal record, he thought. It was a competitive business, he knew, and there was no shortage of dog walkers with clean backgrounds. He waited calmly for the news of his dismissal.

“That intrigues me,” the doctor said and looked at Kevin expectantly.

“How so?”

“Well, I’m curious. About, you know. What exactly you did.”

Kevin leaned back in the chair, aware that snow was dripping off his jacket onto this guy’s antique furniture, which made him feel even more out of place. “Look,” he said. “It was a long time ago. If you want to get someone else to walk your dog, that’s cool with me.” He got up to leave.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the doctor, motioning for him to sit down, and what was supposed to be a friendly smile, but to Kevin seemed like a cheap salesman’s grin, flashed across his face. “No, no, that’s not it. I still you want you to walk Jeffrey. I’m just curious.”

If he still wanted him to walk Jeffrey, that made Kevin an employee again, so he had to tame himself and remember his manners. Having lost the freedom of the freshly fired, he said, “I dealt marijuana.” He decided he wouldn’t mention the growing.

“Did you grow it?”

“Yuh.”

“Because it says here manufacture and possession.”

“Damn. You got my rap sheet?”

The doctor took his feet off the desk and sat up straight in his chair, pulling it closer to the desk. “Kevin, I’ve got a problem. I was hoping you might be able to help me out with it.”

Kevin knew what it was right away. The freak was going to ask Kevin to deal off the thousands of pills he had in the safe. Obviously, Kevin couldn’t let on that he knew the guy had thousands of pills in a safe, so he had to sit there for five long minutes while the doctor went on tangents about Medicaid and the health care system, and how this somehow caused thousands of white pills to wind up in his safe. It was far too complicated for a non-health care professional like Kevin to understand, the doctor explained delicately, but perfectly legal. This last part he said with a death grimace meant to be a trustworthy smile.

“I just don’t know that many people who would buy these,” he said. “I figure someone who knew the streets might be able to help.”

“I don’t know much about pills,” Kevin said, his mind whirring. He did know one fact, though, and that was that it wasn’t “perfectly legal” to have your dog walker sell them. To the doctor, Kevin knew, a guy who “knew the streets” was really just a euphemism for a scumbag. It might even be on his to do list: Find a scumbag. Kevin really didn’t want to have anything to do with this but maybe Doug would. Not that Doug was a scumbag but he had just lost his job, and he loved pills. “But I know a guy who does. I should introduce you to him.”

“No, no.” The doctor waved his hands about, shaking his head, a neurotic gesture which belied his bossy confidence of moments ago. “No, I don’t want to meet people. I’m sure you understand how sensitive this is. But there’s a lot of money to be made.”