Deadline(8)

            “Yup. I’d be a little nervous about eating them, down at this end, anyway. Lots of old septic systems, don’t work so good, anymore. Up on top, by the spring, the crick would be cleaner than Fiji Water.”

            “You know about Fiji Water?”

            “Fuck you.”

            —

            THE FIRST HABITATION in the valley was a single-wide trailer, crunched on one end, as though a tree had fallen on it. Two nineties cars were parked in a hard-dirt yard, with a mottled-gray pit bull tied to a stake.

            “That’s the lookout,” Johnson said. “There are more places further in.” Johnson tried to scrunch down in his seat, and pulled his hat down over his eyes. “They might kinda recognize me up here.”

            “Is that bad?”

            “I prefer to remain anonymous.”

            They passed a few more mobile homes, most, like the first one, located fifty or a hundred feet off the road, up the valley wall. “Must be hell to get up there in the winter,” Virgil said.

            “Doubt they try. They all got cutouts down here on the road,” Johnson said. He pointed out over the dashboard to an old yellow clapboard house, with narrow fields on either side of it, running steeply down to the creek. An apple tree stood next to the house, with a Jeep Wrangler parked in front of it, and a half-dozen stripped and abandoned cars off to the right. “That’s Zorn’s place. His wife’s name is Bunny. I think she’s probably his sister.”

            Virgil looked over at him, and Johnson said, “Okay. Maybe not.”

            Virgil turned off at Zorn’s place, past a no-trespassing sign, and pulled up into the yard. All of the doors and windows at Zorn’s were open, behind screens; and when they pulled into his yard, they saw Zorn look warily out through the door, disappear for a minute, then come through the door to his porch, where he stood waiting. As advertised, he was a tall, rawboned red-haired man with about a million freckles splashed across his face.

            Virgil said, “You wait here.”

            “Yes, dear,” Johnson said.

            Virgil got out of the truck, keeping his hands in view, and ambled up to the porch.

            “You can’t read my sign, or you just not give a shit?” Zorn asked.

            “I’m an agent with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Virgil said. “A state cop.”

            “What you want with me?” Zorn asked. His head twitched to one side. Virgil saw a movement at a window to his left.

            “We’re looking into some stolen dogs,” Virgil said. “We understand you’ve had some problems in that area.”

            “Never done a single thing illegal—got them all fair and square, and sold them up to the university for important medical research,” Zorn said. “Now, if you’re done with me, I’ll thank you to get the fuck off my lawn. You come back, bring a warrant.”

            “Don’t want to talk about dogs, then,” Virgil said.

            “I don’t know nothin’ about dogs,” Zorn said.

            “Don’t know anybody up or down Orly’s Creek who might have come up with a few extra?”

            “I don’t stick my nose into other people’s business,” Zorn said. “Now git—or I’ll call my attorney.”

            Virgil considered for a moment, looking into Zorn’s narrow green eyes, and then said, “You keep that attorney close, Mr. Zorn. These recent dog thefts—the dogs are valuable, and the thefts amount to felonies. When I arrest you for them, you’ll be going away for quite some time. So keep that attorney close—and you might want to buy a new toothbrush.”