And now as he rode into the courthouse parking in Ryan's truck, he was highly impatient, tense to fly out. Ryan found a parking slot just to the right of the glass doors, one of those spaces marked Visitors Only, Ten Minutes, where the cars nosed up to a wide area of decorative plantings. Stepping out of the cab, commanding Rock to heel, she locked the door behind her. While she stood waiting to be buzzed inside, Joe dropped from atop a toolbox into the bushes. Behind him, the kit and Dulcie would take another route. As Ryan moved inside, Joe slipped in behind her and under the booking counter. Rock rolled his eyes at the tomcat, but didn't make a wiggle.
The shelves under the counter were stacked with rolls of fax paper and computer paper, cartons of pens and pencils, and all manner of forms, neatly arranged. Slipping in between boxes of printer cartridges and computer disks, he crouched where he could see both the front entry and the holding cell, but could pull back quickly out of sight. Curtis sat in the cell looking glum. He had apparently been brought up where he could speak freely, out of earshot of Gramps. Joe could hear from above the ceiling the faintest rustle of oak leaves as Dulcie and the kit swarmed up like a pair of commandos to the high, barred window mat looked down into the cell.
But where the sun shone in against the cell wall, silhouetting the oak branch, it silhouetted, as well, two pairs of feline ears, sharply pricked. Joe prayed Dulcie would see the reflection, that she and the kit would back off.
Ryan stood outside the cell with Rock waiting for an officer to unlock the door. Rock stared in at the boy, whining. And beyond the glass doors of the front entry, a police unit pulled into the red zone. Talk about timing! Joe could see, behind the unit's wire barrier, the golden-haired passenger. He watched Detective Juana Davis and Officer Green emerge from the car observing the area around them, then quickly unlock the back door and order Marianna out.
She slid from the car maintaining her grace despite being shackled by handcuffs. Immediately Davis marched her toward the glass doors. The dispatcher hit the admittance button. Joe glanced to the cell's telltale shadow again, and saw that the two pairs of pricked ears had vanished. The officers and Marianna were hardly inside, with the door locked behind them, when all hell broke loose. A roar of anger greeted Marianna, and a leaping gray streak went for her, held back only by Ryan, crouching with the leash across her legs. The dog fought the leash snarling and barking. Joe glimpsed, in Ryan's eyes, a terrible hunger to let the dog loose. She held him as he fought her trying to get at Marianna, ignoring her command to sit.
Marianna did not back away. "Hold!" She snapped at him. The dog froze stone still, his lips drawn up over killer teeth.
"Rock, sit!" Marianna commanded.
Rock sat, but he kept snarling, torn between hatred and what he'd been trained to do. So, Joe thought. So they had indeed found Rock's owner. Ryan stepped to the dog's side, taking hold of his collar.
But a catch of breath made Joe look past the rigid tableau to the holding cell where Curtis Farger stood at the bars, his face white, his dark eyes burning not with anger but with fear. The boy's knuckles were white where he clutched the bars.
Marianna-Martie, drawn by that hush of breath, turned. The look between Marianna and Curtis was so filled with hatred that Joe Grey backed deeper among the boxes, shivering as if their mutual rage were daggers flying or lethal gases ready to explode.
The keys, Joe thought. Curtis did take those keys for Marianna to copy. Somehow he did it and brought them back again. And now… now her look has warned him, Don't talk, Curtis. Don't dare tell them…
At the sound of Rock's barking, Garza and Harper had appeared in the hall with several officers. The whole station seemed to be gathering, crowding down the hall, all the officers watching the dog, Martie, and Curtis. Only Davis and Green remained focused totally on their prisoner. Rock, though still sitting as he'd been commanded, was tensed to leap, his gaze fixed on Marianna's throat.
"Down, Rock. Back and down."
Now, he defied her. He backed one step, but he wouldn't lie down for her. He stood snarling as, beside him, Ryan turned to look at Curtis.
She said no word, just looked. Curtis looked back, his eyes huge.
"Whose dog is this?"
"Her dog. He's her dog." His voice was unsteady.
"Shut up, you little bastard!"
"Hers. She tried to train him like the others, like those rottweilers, but she only made him mad, made him turn on her." Curtis looked terrified. "She beat him, beat him bad. She shot at him with a shotgun. You feel his skin, the little lumps? Buckshot where she shot him to run him off the place because half the time he wouldn't mind her. He wouldn't attack for her so she didn't want him anymore."
Marianna swung around, fixing on Detective Garza. "You have no right to allow this dirty little boy to say such things. I still have rights. My lawyers will take you apart, officer. Get that little bastard out of my sight, get him out of here."
Dallas looked at Curtis. "How do you know who owns him?"
"I… Someone I know works up there. I went with him sometimes. I saw her try to train Rock, her and that real-estate guy. It takes two to train a guard dog. That Williams was the… I don't know what to call it. He wore the padded suit."
"The agitator?" Dallas said.
Curtis nodded.
Marianna was very white. "I've heard enough of this. If you insist on arresting me-and you will ultimately be very sorry for that, officer, then I insist on being shown to my cell or whatever you call it, and afforded some modicum of privacy-if your little hometown jail can offer such a thing."
"Larn was good friends with her?" Dallas asked Curtis.
"I said..." Marianna began. But Davis gripped her arm in a way that silenced her.
"He was all over her," the boy said. "Her husband never knew, he was gone half the time. Hu-my friend saw Williams sneaking around."
Dallas said, "Why didn't you tell me before, who owned the dog?"
"Afraid you'd take him back to her"
"And what about the sheriff?" Dallas asked Curtis. "Did he know where the dog belonged?"
"He knew. He didn't want him taken back there and penned up. She'd have killed him. So Sheriff just…" Curtis shrugged. "Sheriff keeps his mouth shut. Maybe he hoped Ryan would take him. Then when you didn't," he said, looking at Ryan, "and my gramps told me…" He stopped speaking, and his face reddened. "When I decided to hitch a ride home to Mama, I brought Rock with me. Well, he wanted to come. Couldn't drive him away if I'd tried. Couldn't leave him there."
"And your gramps wanted you to come back," Ryan said softly.
"No! I told you, I decided to come back to Mama."
"Then why didn't you go on down the coast to your mama?"
"I called her to come get me but she wasn't home, she didn't answer the phone. I thought to stay with Gramps for the night and call her again."
"Did you take my keys?" Ryan said. "Did you give them to Marianna?"
"I want my lawyer now! You can't question that boy like that. I want…" Davis twisted her arm, hard.
Curtis glanced at Marianna and looked away. He nodded. "Yes," he said softly. "I got them for her."
"Do you know what she did with them?"
Curtis shook his head. "She said she'd keep her mouth shut about… certain things, if I'd get the keys."
Ryan, keeping Rock close to her, had moved nearer to Curtis. She stood just beside his door, her back to the gathered officers and to Marianna. Rock stuck his nose through the bars, licking Curtis's hand. Looking around at Dallas, Ryan nodded. Dallas nodded to Davis, and the detective led Marianna away, down the hall toward the jail. Ryan stayed focused on Curtis. She spoke quietly, as if they were alone.