The Cop, the Puppy and Me

Unlocked.

He went inside and stepped over an overturned basket of laundry and a plastic tricycle. His sister had once been a total neat freak, her need for order triggered by the death of their parents, just as it had triggered his need for control.

He supposed that meant the mess was a good thing, and he was happy for her, moving on, having a normal life, despite it all.

Sullivan found his sister in her kitchen. The two boys pushed by him, first Jet at a dead run, chortling, tormenting Ralf by holding Ralf’s teddy bear high out of his brother’s reach. Ralf toddled after him, determined, not understanding the futility of his determination was fueling his brother’s glee.

Della started when she turned from a cookie sheet, still steaming from the oven, and saw Sullivan standing in her kitchen door well. “You scared me.”

“You told me to come at five. For dinner.”

“I lost track of time.”

“You’re lucky it was me. You should lock the door,” he told her.

She gave him a look that in no way appreciated his brotherly concern for her. In fact, her look left him in no doubt that she had tuned into the Tally Hukas show for the afternoon.

“All Sarah McDougall is trying to do is help the town,” Della said accusingly.

Jet raced by, cackling, toy high. Sullivan snagged it from him, and gave it to Ralf. Blessedly, the decibel level was instantly reduced to something that would not cause permanent damage to the human ear.

Sullivan’s eyes caught on a neatly bagged package of chocolate chip cookies on the counter. His sister usually sent him home with a goodie bag after she provided him with a home-cooked meal.

“Are those for me?” he asked hopefully, hoping she would take the hint that he didn’t want to talk about Sarah McDougall.

His sister had never been one to take hints.

“Not now, they aren’t,” she said sharply.

“Come on, Della. The chief is already punishing me,” he groaned.

“How?” she said, skeptical, apparently, that the chief could come up with a suitable enough punishment for Sullivan refusing to do his part to revitalize the town.

“Let’s just say it looks like there’s a lot of puke in my future.”

“Humph.” She was a woman who dealt with puke on a nearly daily basis. She was not impressed. She took the bagged cookies and put them out of sight. “I’m going to donate these to the bake sale in support of Summer Fest.”

“Come on, Della.”

“No, you come on. Kettle Bend is your new home. Sarah’s right. It needs something. People to care. Everyone’s so selfish. Me. Me. Me. Indifferent to their larger world. What happened to Kennedy? Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?”

“We’re talking about a summer festival, not the future of our nation,” he reminded her, but he felt the smallest niggle of something astonishing. Was it guilt?

“We’re talking about an attitude! Change starts small!”

His sister was given to these rants now that she had children and she felt responsible for making good citizens of the world.

Casting a glance at Jet, who was using sweet talk to rewin his brother’s trust and therefore get close to Bubba the bear, Sullivan saw it as a monumental task she had undertaken. With a crow of delight, Jet took the bear. She obviously had some way to go.

If she was going to work on Sullivan, too, her mission was definitely doomed.

“Why on earth wouldn’t you do a few interviews if it would help the town out?” Della pressed him.

“I’m not convinced four days of summer merriment will help the town out,” he said patiently. “I haven’t been here long, but it seems to me what Kettle Bend needs is jobs.”

“At least Summer Fest is an effort,” Della said stubbornly. “It would bring in people and money.”

“Temporarily.”

“It’s better than nothing. And one person acting on an idea might lead other people to action.”

Sullivan considered his sister’s words and the earnest look on her face. Had he been too quick to say no? Strangely, the chief going after him had not even begun to change his mind. But his sister looking at him with disapproval was something else.

It was also the wrong time to remember the tears sparkling behind Sarah McDougall’s astonishing eyes.

But that’s what he thought of.

“I don’t like dealing with the press,” he said finally. “They always manage to twist what you say. After the Algard case, if I never do another interview again it will be too soon.”

Something shifted in his sister’s face as he referred to the case that had finished him as a detective. Maybe even as a human being.

At any other time he might have taken advantage of her sympathy to get hold of those cookies. But it was suddenly there between them, the darkness that he had seen that separated him from this world of cookies and children’s laughter that she inhabited.

They had faced the darkness, together, once before. Their parents had been murdered in a case of mistaken identity.

Della had been the one who had held what remained of their family—her and him—together.

She was the one who had kept him on the right track when it would have been so easy to let everything fall apart.

Only then, when she had made sure he finished school, had she chosen to flee her former life, the big city, the ugliness of human lives lost to violence.

And what had he done? Immersed himself in it.

“How could they twist what you had to say about saving a dog?” she asked, but her voice was softer.

“I don’t present well,” he said. “I come across as cold. Heartless.”

“No, you don’t.” But she said it with a trace of doubtfulness.

“It’s going to come out that I don’t even like dogs.”

“So you’ll come across as a guy who cares only about himself. Self-centered,” she concluded.

“Colossally,” he agreed.

“One hundred percent pure guy.”

They both laughed, her reluctantly, but still coming around. Not enough to take the cookies out of the cupboard, though. He made a little bet with himself that he’d have those cookies by the time he left here.