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  “My name’s Nora,” the woman said in a rush. “Nora Rees. I work down at LifeHouse. I mean, I’m a volunteer there, I don’t have—I’m a student, but I work there, volunteer work.”

  The girl was borderline incoherent, but Ginny picked up the essentials. LifeHouse was the name of the local animal shelter where Ginny had gotten Georgie last summer. She’d been innocently minding her own business, doing some window shopping, when they’d ambushed her with a row of animals up for adoption, and she’d ended up going home with a gangly, half-grown, mostly shar-pei puppy.

  “I know the place, yeah,” she said now. “I got my dog there.”

  “The shar-pei mix outside, yeah, I know. Um, I checked the records, when . . . I mean—”

  “When you came looking for me?” Ginny asked.

  “Yeah. I mean, when—”

  This woman was never going to get to the point. “And?”

  “And I want to hire you. To investigate. The shelter, I mean.”

  * * *

  Teddy had been checking the taps when the Greenie-hipster child approached Ginny. He noted it out of the corner of his eye, not really paying attention, the way he kept his eye on everything that happened at his bar, and Stacy monitored the tables during busy evenings. At first he didn’t think anything of it—with her curls and curves, Ginny got attention, even if she didn’t always notice it. But when she got that look on her face—the one that usually meant her brain was firing on all thrusters—he casually moved back down to that end of the bar, just in case. In case of what, exactly, he didn’t let himself think about. He was just listening. That was what bartenders did.

  “You think there’s something wrong at the shelter?” his sometimes partner was asking the girl.

  “Yes. I don’t know. Maybe.”

  The girl was not exactly inspiring confidence. He took a closer look. Definitely a Ballard Baby, he decided: too crunchy-granola for Downtown, too poor to live in Fremont these days. Mostly harmless.

  “Something funny’s happening,” the girl was saying now, her hands emphatic. “Not funny hah-hah, funny wrong. Money-funny. Not counterfeiting, um, no. I, it’s just. . . .” She took a deep breath and started again. “It’s about our finances. We’re working in the black—the shelter’s founder sank a lot of money to get us started, and donations and adoption fees keep us going, plus all our professionals donates their time, but we rely a lot on grants.”

  Ginny nodded, indicating that she was following along so far.

  “And I’m not an accountant or anything, I don’t handle our books, but we have this one grant, specifically, that funds our ability to offer low-cost neutering. It gets renewed yearly, and all the paperwork has to be just so, you know? We’re coming up for renewal, and Este, she’s the one who founded the shelter, her and her partner, she wanted me to go over the paperwork, make sure everything was in order.”

  “And everything wasn’t?”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  Teddy got the feeling that this girl, Nora, was used to having the answers ready to hand, that people had always told her how to behave to save the earth, be a good citizen, be a good daughter, and it had always made sense to her. This was the first time she was running into something that didn’t make sense.

  He shook his head. She’d get used to it, eventually.

  “There’s a lot of paperwork, not just going forward but to back check previous grants,” the girl went on, “and I’m not sure, this isn’t my thing, really, but I don’t think all the funds this year are accounted for properly. I think someone’s been taking it. I thought at first maybe I’d miscounted, or missed a receipt somewhere, one of the payment records, or there’d been a misallocation, but I checked all that, twice. And the only thing left is that someone’s been stealing it.” She sounded horrified, and her face twisted in confusion. “Who would do that? Steal from a shelter? Steal from animals?”

  “Animals are less likely to call the cops.” He joined into the conversation now, leaning over the bar, his elbows planted in the standard bartender pose that Ginny joked could convince a hardened felon into spilling their guts. “How much money are we talking about?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe two thousand?” She didn’t seem at all surprised that he had joined them; he didn’t know if she’d been expecting him, or her world assumed that everyone was interested in what she had to say. “It’s not a lot of money, really, but the grant allows us to fix any animal that’s brought in, not just the ones we’re hosting. Going to the vet could cost you a hundred dollars or more—we can do it for half that, because the grant covers the rest of our expenses, the supplies our vet uses, all that stuff. But if we run out of money, we have to turn animals away until the grant’s renewed. And if we can’t account for everything, the grant might not be renewed.”

  “The grant money’s all been in cash?” Teddy asked.

  Nora nodded. “It’s set up so that we get a check from a special account every quarter and that gets cashed so we have the money we need on hand, instead of throwing it into the main operating fund and figuring out what goes where every month. That’s supposed to allow us to pay for supplies and stuff more easily. Or something?”

  Or if someone wanted to muddy their tracks, if you were being cynical. Teddy tried not to be cynical, but money tended to bring it out in him. Penalty of growing up with too much of it, probably. That was one of the reasons he was on this side of the country, and the rest of his family was on the other side.

  “So if you think the money’s been stolen, why not go to the cops and report it? Why come to us?” Ginny asked. It seemed a logical question to Teddy, too. That would start the official process, and insurance would cover whatever was missing, right?

  The girl shook her head, her colored braids twitching slightly with the movement. “Oh, no. We can’t afford to. If the cops get involved—if we get any kind of negative publicity at all—never mind the grants, we might lose our permits! There’s all this paperwork that you have to get approved before you can run a shelter, and they can yank it if they even think you’re doing something wrong. I couldn’t risk that!”

  “And even if they didn’t, I bet you’re right: a hint of misused funds, even a small amount, and you could forget about ever getting another nonprofit grant,” Ginny said. “From them, probably from anyone. And there’s no way public donations can keep a shelter going.”

  Nora’s braids practically danced this time as she nodded emphatic agreement. “Este and Roger funded the shelter, to start. It was all their own money that bought the building and got us set up. But there’s no way they could keep us going on their own. And if we lose any of the larger grants . . . we’ll have to shut down, and the animals will all be sent to a shelter that isn’t no-kill.

  “Please. Say you’ll help? I can’t pay much, but . . .”

  She included both of them in her plea, looking back and forth between the two with absolute assurance that they would say yes.

  “We need to discuss it,” Teddy said, before Mallard could jump in and commit them. “We’ll get back to you.”

  The girl fished into her bag, a bright yellow canvas courier bag, and pulled out a business card. She held it in her hand a minute, clearly unsure of whom to hand it to, and then placed it down on the bartop between them.

  “That’s the shelter’s number. It goes directly to the back office, not the reception desk, unless nobody’s there to pick up. But I answer the phone in the office most days; if I’m not there, they’ll know how to reach me.”

  “I take it nobody else knows about this yet?” he asked, based on her earlier words.

  “No. And they don’t know I’ve come to you. You can’t say anything!” She suddenly went from worried to panicked, like he was about to take out an ad in the trades.

  “If we take this job, our discretion is assured,” Ginny said, moving smoothly back into the conversation. “We simply need to discuss this between ourselves.”

  “Okay. I’m
, I’ll wait until I hear from you, then.”

  Nora turned and walked out of the bar without pause, her back straight and head high, as though she was aware that they were watching her, an audience of two.

  Teddy picked up the business card, smoothing one finger over the slightly crumpled edge. Ginny swung around on her stool to look at the card in his hand.

  “You think she’s even twenty-one?” she asked, sounding somewhere between depressed and amused.

  “Maybe. Barely. I wasn’t going to card her unless she asked for a drink.”

  Ginny’s mouth quirked upward, then firmed again, all business. “This is the shelter I got Georgie from.”

  He looked to his left, through the plate glass window that fronted Mary’s, a remnant of its earliest life as a dry goods store, and saw the dog in question, sleeping in her usual spot. He’d talked Patrick into adding a rubber mat under the bike rack, better for sleeping dogs and tires alike than plain sidewalk. The local newspaper had done a write-up about them, for that. He didn’t know if it had gotten them any more business, but it hadn’t hurt.

  And now Patrick was talking about changing things, cutting corners on the menu, focusing on foofy drinks and bringing in a band for the weekends, like that would be a good thing. . . .

  “Yeah, I figured,” he said to Ginny, putting his worries about the bar to one side for a moment. “That’s why she came to you?”

  “I don’t know. Apparently, people are talking about—” She stopped, and he understood why. Other people might talk about it, but they didn’t. They’d been there. Their erstwhile client had been tagged by the feds for money laundering—thankfully after paying them and nobody had been around to sniff at that money, or tell them they had to give it back—and what more was there to say?

  “Reputation?” he said, to fill in the uncomfortable silence. “We have a reputation?”

  Ginny frowned at him, and he guessed that it wasn’t because she didn’t get the joke, but because she was thinking about their new case. Potential new case, he clarified, to soothe his nerves. They hadn’t agreed to take it, yet.

  “The shelter’s pretty new; it’s only been around a few years. They’re no-kill; they keep the animals until they can find a home for them.”

  “So they’re probably always strapped for cash.”

  “Yeah, I think so. They had about a dozen dogs, when I found Georgie, and more cats.” Her frown deepened. “They’re the only shelter in the area that takes in pit bulls and pittie mixes. If they close . . .”

  Teddy wasn’t much of a dog person, for all that he’d gotten fond of Georgie, but even he had read about the trouble finding homes for pit bulls, deservedly or not. He didn’t like to think about what would happen then.

  “They can’t pay much, if they’re strapped,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow at that, or tried to, anyway. Both went up, making her look more surprised than disapproving. “You’re in this for the money?”

  Now it was his turn to frown at her. “You know I’m not. I’m just not sure this is a good idea. I told you that.” He meant the entire venture, not merely this particular potential job, but he’d take it one battle at a time.

  “We’d be doing a community service.” Her voice had a singsong tone to it he was starting to recognize.

  “We’d be snooping,” he said bluntly. “In financial records. And she’s not the owner, not even the manager. She has no right to ask us to do this.”

  Ginny waved that off with a hand. “But she was the one who was asked to handle the grant paperwork. Which means she has access to all the records we need.”

  “Access doesn’t mean authority, Mallard.”

  “Well,” she said brightly, “then it’s a good thing we’re not official PIs with licenses that could get pulled, isn’t it?”

  “Damn it, Gin.” He pulled back from the bar and crossed his arms, staring at her.

  “Look, just think about it, okay? If you don’t want to do it, fine. I won’t ask again.”

  There was that voice again. “But you’re going to do it, anyway?”

  She gave an elegant half shrug and took the business card out of his hands, tucking it into the case of her cell phone, as usual set on the bar next to her like a digital IV.

  “Ginny Mallard. Are you taking this case?”

  “I don’t know,” Ginny said. “I’m going to think about it, too.”

  He wasn’t convinced, but short of calling her a liar, there was nothing he could say.

  * * *

  Four and a half years ago, the owners of LifeHouse Shelter had taken over an abandoned warehouse down by the old docks, buying it for pennies on the dollar, and set up shop. Lacking the money to gut the building entirely, they had to adapt the existing structure as best they could, which meant that on the outside it still looked like an old warehouse, although what had been the loading dock area was now fenced and turned into a dog run.

  The kennels were at one end of the building, the clinic at the other end, so that the smells of sick animals and chemicals were kept away from the adoption areas. In between there was a reception area, and behind that was what remained of the building, split into two areas by a Plexiglas wall inserted floor to ceiling, the remaining space filled with old sofas and remnant carpets, and climbing structures for the cats, where humans met with animals and scoped each other out.

  LifeHouse was certified by the state to house twenty dogs and up to thirty cats. They’d been near or at capacity since they opened their doors, proving that the founders had been right: there had been a real need in the community.

  The shelter opened early in the morning so that volunteers could come in to care for the animals, but visitors weren’t allowed until much later. According to the sign by the front door, open adoption hours were from noon to 5 p.m., five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday.

  At 4:30 that afternoon, the shelter was filled with light and activity. There were humans bustling about, cats sprawling and prowling, dogs being exercised in the fenced courtyard off the parking lot or wandering freely in the meeting areas, being socialized with each other. The receptionist at the front desk monitored the humans as they arrived, while volunteers kept an eye on the animals. A family with two preteen children were in one of the socialization rooms, sitting on the carpeted floor and letting kittens tumble over them, waiting for the right one to show itself.

  At 5 p.m., the shelter’s doors closed to the public, and then the slow shutdown began as the animals were fed and exercised one last time, and then the dogs were placed in their kennels for the night, the cats rounded up and placed in their own cages. The sounds of barking and the patter of paws on floors and endless scratch-scratch of claws on carpeted surfaces faded, the murmur of human voices slowing likewise as the volunteers ended their shift and went home.

  At the other end of the building, in the clinic, the vet tech made final rounds, ensuring all the cases were locked and equipment put away. There was only one dog in need of care that night, a new arrival still in twenty-four-hour isolation before being let into the general population. The tech paused to give the older hound mix an affectionate ear-pull and make sure that he was comfortable before turning off the lights and locking up.

  At 8 p.m., the lights were out all over the shelter, pale red emergency lights glowing in each hallway, reflecting off linoleum floors and metal fire doors.

  An occasional bark or whimper came from the canine quarters and was answered by another, then most of the animals, knowing the routine, settled down to sleep. Pale red and yellow lights shone through the windows, alarms activated on every door and window. The security company’s patrol started after 10 p.m., swinging by the building twice an hour to pass a flashlight beam through the parking lot and make sure that there were no disturbances.

  A little after midnight, a noise broke the silence, a low, unhappy yowl, followed by something else less identifiable, then the sound of heavy thumps. Throughout the shelter, heads lifted, ear
s picked up, and low whines rose from throats. No barks, no howls, nothing that might draw attention to themselves, merely the sound of anxious worry, waiting.

  If the security guard heard them during his pass, concrete walls being no barrier to a determined dog’s voice, he didn’t react; one howl was much like another, and the alarms were unchanged, no sign of activity outside the walls. His job was to prevent disturbances from the outside, not to investigate possible disturbances within.

  He never considered the thought that someone might have come in through the narrow windows set high in the clinic walls, the glass carefully cut and removed, and bodies lowered on ropes into the space while others busied themselves outside, in the parking lot, black-clad shapes blending into the shadows when he passed by.

  Eventually, when nothing more was heard, and no one came to investigate, most of the heads went back down onto paws, cats recurling themselves. Most, not all. Along the rows of kennels, noses were pressed up against the mesh, nostrils flaring, ears alert. Older cats and streetwise newcomers rested in alert pose, the tips of their tails barely twitching, waiting. Listening.

  At 5 a.m., the first sound of human voices returned, the clatter and clank of wheels and doors, a man’s familiar low voice calling out greetings to the first animals on his route.

  Only then did the sentinels relax.

  2

  We’ll talk about it tomorrow,’ you said,” Teddy muttered to himself, slapping the rim of the steering wheel in frustration. “Brilliant. Because now it’s tomorrow, genius.”

  It was tomorrow, noon already, and he still hadn’t made a decision. And Ginny would be here soon, expecting an answer.

  He got out of his car and checked the parking lot out of habit: an old beater Ford he didn’t recognize, but otherwise empty, and the trash bins had been emptied last night, the lids left open. All was as it should be.