“Already had my cup today,” Griffin replied.

“Just one, Irene.”

She smiled, then left. The chief opened the book, turned it so that it was facing the right way for Griffin, then slid it toward him across the desk. “You know much about guns, son?”

“Enough to know I never want to be on the wrong end of one,” Griffin said, looking up at the chief through the rim of his glasses.

“Expect you reporters don’t get around them much. These here? Extremely deadly.” He tapped a photo of a metal long box containing an assortment of weapons. Off the top, Griffin recognized a ­couple of AR–15s and some semiautomatic AK-­pattern rifles. Below that were at least two dozen more long guns, most of which, due to bad lighting, Griffin couldn’t see clearly enough to identify. The chief tapped the page. “You hear of that bungled operation the Feds were running? Made all the news recently, letting all them guns cross the border into Mexico? Straw buyers and gun walkers?”

“Vaguely. I usually cover the human interest side of things.”

“Well, this here cache of guns, every serial number traced back to that operation. Every one of them was found in the trunk of my officer, Calvin Walker. I’d say that makes him guilty.”

“Allegedly,” Sydney pointed out. “If I’m not mistaken, there hasn’t been a trial yet.”

The chief scoffed. “See, that’s what’s wrong with the media these days. Always so warm and fuzzy.” He glanced at Sydney, then leaned back in his chair and pinned his gaze on Griffin. “There wasn’t nothing alleged about it. What happened is that Officer Walker was moving them guns from his house here in town out to the McMahon property so he could hide ’em. Or he would’ve if we hadn’t caught him. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Walker jumped bail, missed court, and that tells me he probably headed straight to Mexico where his cartel friends are hiding him. Which makes him Mexico’s problem, not mine.”

Griffin turned the page in the book, curious to see what other evidence there might be. One was a picture of the Victorian mansion he’d seen in Trish’s photograph. “This the McMahon place?”

Sydney leaned in for a look. “Impressive.”

“It was,” the chief said. “Back in the day. McMahon and Sons Mining. Old McMahon sold it and moved out of state some years ago. The new owners went bankrupt and the house was repossessed. Been empty so long, had to fence it off as a public nuisance. Of course, you turn to the next page, you’ll see why it’s being detonated in the morning.” Griffin did as asked, and the chief said, “Either of you know anything about explosives?”

Sydney looked wide-­eyed, and Griffin replied, “Let’s just say they don’t cover that in journalism school.”

“That,” Chief Parks said, tapping the photo, “is dynamite. Old mining towns, we expect to find this. But not there, in the McMahon basement.”

Sydney moved closer for a better look. “Could it have been left behind by the past owners? For their mining operations?”

“No, ma’am. Because that there basement was empty when the last owners abandoned it. We know, because we rousted a few kids out of there over the years, which is why we had to erect the fence around the property. Too dangerous,” he said, as Irene walked in with his cup of coffee. “Thanks.” He turned his attention back to the binder. “We found that dynamite in a search of the property after Calvin jumped bail. Most officers I know don’t keep cases of explosives around unless they’re up to no good. And now we gotta blow up the place.”

“Blow it up?” Sydney asked, playing the ingénue to perfection. “Why?”

“Wouldn’t take much to set it off. Nitroglycerin’s degraded. ­Couple of them sticks even rub together and boom!” He slammed his hand on the desk.

Sydney’s brows went up, and Griffin asked, “But what about Officer Walker’s dog? Can’t we at least get in there and take it out?”

“Like I said, too dangerous. Right now, my officers are under orders to arrest anyone who shows up. Afraid I can’t make any exceptions.”

“Even for photographs?” Sydney asked. “For our article?”

“Tell you what,” he said, steepling his fingers together. “You can take all the photos you want. As long as it’s outside the fence line. That’s the best I can do.” He made a show of looking at his watch, then standing. “You two got any other questions? I got a town council meeting I gotta get to.”

“Actually,” Griffin said, “there is one thing. Now, mind you, I’m not the investigative expert here or anything, but we heard rumors that maybe that dog’s waiting on that property because there’s a body buried there somewhere.”

“A body?” He shook his head. “Said it was beneath that rock pile by the broken wall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I take it you been talking to Walker’s sister? Well, dog or no dog, I assure you there’s no dead body beneath that rock pile or anywhere else on the property.” He turned to his computer. “Who knows why the damned dog is there. Now this,” he said, typing something on the keyboard, “is a photo taken a ­couple years ago, when we decided to fence the house off, due to it being a public nuisance. Last thing we wanted was to be sued ’cause some drunk-­ass kid fell in one of them old mine shafts that litter the area, never mind falling down the stairs in the abandoned house.” He waited while the article loaded, then turned the screen so Griffin and Sydney could see it. “You can see the fence crews working in the background. That puts it about two years ago. And there? Same broken wall. Same location. Same configuration. So unless someone went to the trouble of piling it up in exactly the same way, ain’t no way they moved ’em to bury a body there.”

“Is it possible to take a look ourselves? At least to retrieve the dog?”

“Can’t let you do that. Ain’t no reason that dog’ll get hurt where it’s at. Dynamite’s in the basement. Dog’s a few dozen yards away. Trust me. We got experts out there overseeing the whole thing, and they assure me that house is going straight down, not out. Ain’t no one gonna get hurt, as long as they stay outside the fence line.” He walked over to the door and opened it. “But tell you what. You want to be here in the morning when we blow up the place? I’ll give you front-­row seats. In the meantime, you leave the explosives to the guys who know what they’re doing and we’ll leave the article writing to you.”

“Well?” Trish asked Griffin, once they were back at the car where she was waiting.

He removed his glasses and tucked them in his pocket. “Guess we’re going to save a dog.”

Sydney reached out, hugged him, and he forced himself to let go when she did. “Thank you,” she said softly, and he hoped she’d remember that there was a good side to him, when they finally did get that chance to sit down and discuss his past. “What made you decide?”

“He’s lying through his teeth. At least about the dynamite.”

“I’m not the expert you are,” Sydney said. “But I was under the impression that nitroglycerin is very unstable once it degrades.”

“It is. And like he said, I’d expect to find long-­forgotten dynamite in an old mining town like this. But what I saw in that photo happened to be military-­grade explosives, which is made without nitroglycerin. The military designed it specifically for its stability. So either there’s another dirty cop who fed Chief Parks a line of bull about what sort of explosives are down in that basement, and he’s clueless, or he knows exactly what it is, and he believes we’re clueless.” He looked over at Sydney as she slid into the passenger seat. “Guess which scenario I’m banking on.”

Sydney smiled. “Score one for the mild-­mannered reporter.”

Griffin started the car, then pulled away from the curb.

“So,” Trish asked. “Where do we go from here?”

“The old McMahon place,” Griffin said. “Seems to me if the chief’s so hell-­bent on keeping us out, that’s the first place we need to check.”