The Monahans investigator, a woman named Casey Pugh, was waiting at the edge of town, waved at Tanner when he slowed at the end of the off-ramp, then followed their little convoy to a tiny beige house on South Allen Avenue. The house might have been built during World War II and was worn by time and neglect. The only decoration was a narrow wooden two-step stoop that led up to the front door.
They parked and got out of their cars. The house was surrounded by a chain-link fence, with a worn spot in the dead grass around a single tired evergreen tree. A sign on the gate said bad dog, and a chain was looped around the tree, but nothing was on the end of it.
Tanner introduced Letty and Kaiser to Pugh. Tanner and Pugh had spoken by phone on the way down, and Pugh had been filled in on the Blackburn murders, the oil thefts, and the possibility that Max Sawyer might know something about it.
Pugh was a parched-looking woman, tight through the jaw, with blunt cheekbones under deep-set eyes, and had a solid Texas accent. She said, “Might not be anybody here, but if there is, watch out for the dog. Hate messing with dogs. They’re my best friends, truth be told. I got four, but you put them with a bad guy . . .”
“We had Belgian Malinois in Iraq,” Kaiser agreed, putting a hand on the top rail of the fence. “You don’t want one of those bad boys hanging from your throat.”
They all looked at the house for another minute, then Tanner said, “Fuck it. I don’t see a dog,” and unlatched the gate and stepped through. The other three lined up behind him, but as Tanner started up the dirt path leading to the front door, a white-and-pink pit bull came out from under the stoop like a rocket and, without a single bark or whine, hit Tanner in the upper leg, knocking him down.
Tanner screamed and thrashed, the dog’s jaws sunk deep in his thigh, its head whipping back and forth, ripping Tanner’s leg. Kaiser shoved Letty and Pugh aside and grabbed the dog by its hind legs and lifted it straight up.
The pit let go of Tanner and twisted to bite Kaiser, but Kaiser threw it over the fence and shouted at Letty and Pugh, “Inside, inside,” and when they were through the gate, slammed it. The pit hit the fence, but it was too high for the dog to get over. Tanner, pushing himself to his feet, pulled his gun and, stumbling to the gate, as Kaiser and Pugh shouted “No!,” shot the dog in the head.
The dog dropped and Tanner went down at the same time, groaning, and Letty shouted into a sudden silence, “He’s hurt, he’s hurt.”
A double-hand-sized bloodstain was already spreading across Tanner’s pant leg, and Kaiser pushed Tanner flat and said, “Let me look, let me look.”
He pushed his fingers through dog-bite holes in Tanner’s pant leg and ripped the fabric, wiped Tanner’s leg with his hand, turned to Pugh and said, “He’s pumping blood. The dog hit his femoral artery. Didn’t rip it open, probably poked a hole in it. You got a hospital here?”
“Yes—Ward Memorial.”
“Got to get him there, right now,” Kaiser said. “Let’s put him in your car, you drive . . . I’ll keep pressure.”
A short, square-shouldered blond man exploded out of the house, a pistol in his hand. He was wearing an Army-green T-shirt with a Walther logo. “Who fired . . . Did you shoot my dog?”
Pugh pointed a finger at him. “You’re under arrest. You’re under arrest. Drop the gun.”
“Fuck that,” the man shouted. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Police,” Pugh shouted. “Your dog attacked us—”
“You shot my dog—”
Tanner cried out, “Oh, God,” as Pugh put her hand under her jacket, on what might have been a gun.
“Pull that fuckin’ gun and I’ll kill you,” the man shouted. “This is my property.”