Above the Paw Read online

  I turned to find that my backup had arrived in the form of Derek “the Big Dick” Mackey, a cop who’d been my partner before Brigit. Derek was tall, broad, and as obnoxious as they come. He had rust-orange hair cut in a buzz cut, ruddy skin, and a close personal relationship with the chief. During the time when he was supposed to be training me, he’d taught me little other than how to be a crude, arrogant, and self-important ass. When he’d made one lewd comment too many, I’d somehow ended up with my Taser in my hand, delivering fifteen hundred volts to his genitalia. I claimed temporary insanity.

  Fortunately, while his personal relationship with the chief usually worked only in Derek’s favor, in that instance it worked in mine as well. Knowing I could paint a very colorful picture of just how offensive he’d been, Derek realized reporting me to Internal Affairs might end my law enforcement career but that his would take a hit as well. Instead, he’d taken the matter directly to the chief, who didn’t want to see his golden boy in hot water and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse—partner with Brigit or turn in my badge.

  At first, the thought of being partnered with a K-9 sounded like a punishment, a burden. She wouldn’t be able to help with paperwork or evidence, or question suspects. She wouldn’t be able to engage in conversation during the dull moments on our shifts. Heck, she wouldn’t even be able to open her own door! I’d be responsible for her while on duty and have to deal with her disgusting poop, not to mention the fact that proper bonding required that the dog live with its partner so she’d be mine 24/7, like a conjoined twin of another species.

  Oh, how wrong I’d been.

  Brigit proved to be incredibly smart and capable. While she couldn’t open her door, she could sniff for drugs or disturbances, making searches much more efficient and productive. When a suspect led me on a foot chase and I ran out of steam, Brigit was there to pick up where I left off, continuing the pursuit until she caught the lawbreaker. She might not be able to engage in conversation, but she communicated quite well nonverbally and was a good listener when I needed to vent. I won’t sugarcoat things. Having to feed and water her, and deal with all the fur and poop was no picnic. But she more than made up for it by providing me in return with free home security services and amiable companionship.

  Brigit cast a glance at Derek. The dull look in her eyes, as well as the fact that her tail wasn’t moving, told me she felt the same way about Derek as I did.

  As Derek ripped a bite from the mustard-covered corn dog he was holding, I held up the plastic bag of pills and jerked my head to indicate the young man in cuffs. “He threw this in the river. I had to retrieve it.”

  “Let me see that,” Derek said with his mouth full, treating me to a stomach-churning view of half-chewed animal innards, cornmeal, and mustard. As he snatched the bag from my hand, the sun glinted off his silver badge, burning a temporary white stripe across my field of vision. Derek examined the bag before swallowing his food, turning to the guy, and pointing an accusing half-eaten corn dog at him. “Bet you don’t have a prescription for the Xanax and Ritalin, do ya?”

  The scowl on the young man’s face was his answer. Nope. No Rx. Looked like a judge would soon be issuing him a prescription for some jail time and probation.

  A drop of mustard fell from the corn dog to Derek’s shoe, leaving a bright yellow dot. He stuck his foot in Brigit’s face. “Hey, dog. Clean that up.”

  Brigit gave Derek a look that said My name isn’t “dog” and, unless you want to share that corn dog, you can clean your own shoe, dumbass.

  When she turned her head away, he barked a laugh and wiped his shoe on the grass. Taking another bite of the corn dog, Derek manipulated the bag, more closely examining its varied contents. “What are these white pills? Is this Molly?” He looked to the young man for an answer.

  The answer he received was, “I’m not telling you shit!”

  Molly, short for “molecule,” was the seemingly benign name for methylenedioxy-methamphetamine or MDMA, also otherwise known as ecstasy. The drug simultaneously boosted three brain chemicals—serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. As I’d learned during training, the drug first surfaced as a club drug in the eighties and nineties, when it was known more commonly as XTC or X, but had had a recent resurgence in popularity, especially among the younger crowd and college students.

  While the drug produced feelings of warmth, euphoria, exhilaration, affection, and unity, users paid the price for this high with nausea, chills, sweating, muscle cramps, involuntarily clenched teeth, and blurry vision. Users had succumbed to dehydration, seizures, and loss of consciousness. The drug caused restrictions in blood vessels, and could lead to heart attack or stroke. A stimulant, Molly increased the user’s blood pressure and heart rate, which led to many becoming severely overheated, which in turn led to organ failure. Overdose cases with body temperatures of up to 107 degrees had been documented. And these were just the short-term problems with the drug. Depression and memory loss were more long-term complications. It was a big price to pay for a high that lasted only a few hours.

  As with other unregulated street drugs, Molly suffered from a severe lack of quality control. While buyers might think they were getting pure MDMA, such was often not the case. The drug was often impure, cut with other drugs such as methylone, a related stimulant, with the end product varying wildly. Other times it was cut with flakka, a drug that was chemically related to bath salts, highly addictive, and had resulted in dozens of horrific deaths in south Florida, where a virtual epidemic was under way. Users could never be certain exactly what they were getting.

  It seemed every time we turned around we heard reports of another Molly-related tragedy. While single-victim incidents were common, in one instance eleven students of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, had been hospitalized after taking the drug. And Molly wasn’t just filling the news, it was filling the morgues, too. The problem with the drug came to a head after a string of deaths, including two at a New York City music festival, another at a concert in Boston, and yet another in Washington, D.C. Four deaths had been reported in Britain from the sale of a drug with a Superman logo. While the drug was purportedly Molly, it contained a lethal dose of another substance. Federal government reports indicated that over ten thousand people had ended up in emergency rooms for Molly-related health issues in a recent year. This kid wasn’t offering his customers a good time. He was offering them the chance to unknowingly commit suicide. And while it might have been easy to write the victims off as stupid or reckless, many of those who’d succumbed had been otherwise good kids who’d simply made a poor decision. They didn’t deserve to die.

  Derek cut me a look of disgust and muttered, “You realize the street value of these pills is more than you and I earn in a week?”

  I shrugged. “Nobody ever got rich being a cop.” Not unless they were crooked. Those who joined the force did so for reasons other than the compensation. In my case, I’d joined to be an instrument of justice. Of course I hadn’t realized when I’d signed up that justice was such an elusive concept. I stepped into place to pat the guy down. “Is there anything sharp in your pockets?”

  “No,” he snapped.

  I patted him down, finding only a wallet in his pocket. According to the driver’s license inside, the guy was twenty-one years old and named Graham. Appropriate name for a drug dealer, given that it was a homophone for gram. Still, he looked much more like the boy next door than the stereotypical drug dealer from the streets. Of course that was the problem these days. More and more everyday people had gotten into the drug game, and there was no stereotypical dealer anymore.

  Per the license, Graham’s last name was Hahn. Another card in his wallet indicated he was covered for health risks by his parents’ Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance policy, while a third card showed he lacked only a single punch to earn a free haircut at Snippy’s, a discount barbershop. A purple and white student ID pegged the kid as a student at Texas Christian University, or TCU, a loca
l university that sat within the confines of my usual beat, the Western 1 Division. Go Horned Frogs!

  I held out the wallet to Derek. “You’ll take him in for me?”

  While Brigit was great at taking suspects down, the fact that her special K-9 enclosure took up the entire backseat of my cruiser meant there was no room for transporting the suspects we apprehended. We had to turn them over to another officer. On the bright side, that meant we didn’t have to deal with all of the paperwork that came with processing an arrestee and any evidence collected.

  “A Molly dealer?” Derek snorted. “Hell, yeah, I’ll take him in.”

  In 2012, Fort Worth police arrested seventeen students from TCU. The students, who included a number of football players, were charged with selling marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine, and prescription drugs. Since then, stopping the flow of drugs on campus and to the students had become a priority not only of Fort Worth PD, but of the university’s police force, as well. With an enrollment of over ten thousand students who were constantly turning over, it wasn’t an easy job keeping tabs on drug activity at the college. The arrest of this student would earn me and Brigit some gold stars. Of course I had no doubt that Derek would try to claim those gold stars for himself. The guy was nothing if not a narcissist.

  While Derek polished off what remained of his corn dog, I read Hahn his rights. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

  The kid snickered. “No hablo inglés.”

  I wasn’t sure whether the kid was just being a turd in general, or whether the crack was intended to be more personally directed to me. While my first name was derived from my mother’s Irish roots, my surname—Luz, which was on the name tag on my chest—came courtesy of my Mexican-American father. My lineage also boasted some Cherokee. Like my mixed-breed partner and most of the American population, I was a typical mutt, a little of this, a little of that, and none of it having much to do with who I really was.

  I ignored the jibe, instead putting a hand on his arm to help him up. “On your feet.”

  He jerked out of my grasp, nearly falling to the side as he attempted to stand. No easy feat when you couldn’t use your arms for balance. He should’ve let me help him. Oh, well. His problem, not mine.

  Derek wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked around for a trash can. Seeing none, he shoved the napkin into his pants pocket along with the baggie of drugs. As for the corn dog stick, he waved it in the air in front of Brigit. “Fetch, bitch!” he called to Brigit, hurling it toward the river.

  Brigit made no move to retrieve the stick, instead tossing Derek a look that said Bite me.

  As Derek hauled the suspect away, I walked toward the river to retrieve the wooden stick. Derek seemed to think being a cop meant he was above the law. Maybe I should’ve pressed the point by issuing him a citation for littering.

  Brigit and I made our way back to rejoin Seth and Blast at the entry gate, where we continued to serve as a welcoming—or unwelcoming—committee, as circumstances dictated.

  “Have a fun time.”

  “Enjoy yourselves.”

  “Sorry. No coolers allowed.”

  As we continued to work the gate, which sat near the law enforcement parking area, I saw Derek leave with both another corn dog and Graham Hahn. He returned without either an hour and a half later. Derek climbed out of his cruiser, shutting his door with far more force than necessary—SLAM!—and stormed toward me, looking as pissed off as I’d ever seen him.

  “Everything all right?” I asked. “Corn dog give you heartburn?”

  He ignored me, charging past as if I didn’t exist. Whatever.

  Seth cut his eyes to Derek’s retreating back. “You ever get the urge to Taser that guy again?”

  “All the time.”

  “I could arrange to turn a hose on him,” Seth offered. “I can make it look like an accident.”

  “Thanks for the offer. Any more of Derek’s BS and I just might take you up on it.”

  A few minutes later our shifts ended and other K-9 teams arrived to relieve us. Brigit and Blast exchanged butt sniffs and tail wags with the Belgian Malinois and black Lab that were taking over. The male officer with the Mal gave me a nod in greeting. “We’ll take it from here. Go find some shade.”

  Shade? Heck, I’d rather see if the staff at one of the food trucks would let me sit in their freezer for a few minutes.

  “Thanks.” I raised a hand in good-bye as we headed off.

  Seth did the same for his counterpart. “Later.”

  Beyond parched, we aimed straight for the concessions.

  I spotted a sign up ahead with a yellow lemon on it. “A frozen lemonade would taste darn good about now.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who’d had the thought. A dozen people stood in line at the booth. Blurgh. I hoped they’d spot me and Seth in line behind them and give us cuts. After all, we were public servants working to protect them while they enjoyed the day. But no. The only person who turned around was the woman in line right in front of me, and she gasped and backed away when she saw Brigit and Blast. Not a dog lover, evidently. So much for catching a break today.

  Inch by inch, we made our way forward, finally reaching the front of the line, where Seth placed our order. “Two frozen lemonades, please.”

  While he paid the woman at the counter, I grabbed a couple of spoons from the bin. We turned away from the booth, ripping off the lids and digging into the frozen concoction. The icy treat hit my taste buds and I cringed, both from the tart taste and the brain freeze. Owww!

  Seth had a similar grimace on his face.

  Once our instant migraines subsided, we set off again. Rather than fight the crowds and risk Brigit’s and Blast’s paws being stepped on, we stuck to the perimeter of the grounds, making our way along the fence until we reached the Trinity River at the northern border. Spotting a couple of ducks on the water, Blast went still, looking up at Seth for permission to give in to his instincts as a Labrador retriever and to round up the ducks.

  Seth unclipped his leash. “Go for it, boy.”

  Blast leaped from the bank, belly flopping into the water, and took off swimming after the ducks he had no hope of ever catching.

  Brigit dragged me closer to the riverbank, excitedly rearing up on two legs and barking up a storm. Woof! Woof-woof-woof!

  Might as well let the dog have some fun and cool off, right? I reached down and freed her from her lead. “Go on, Brig.”

  She dashed into the water, swimming after Blast. When the ducks took off faster than the dogs could ever hope to swim, they aborted their mission, instead swimming in circles around each other and playing chase.

  Seth stepped to the edge of the water, bent down, and scooped up a handful of river water, playfully sending it up in the air over my head, the resulting shower providing some welcome relief from the heat. Meandering through both the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, the Trinity was far from the cleanest river around, but as far as I knew nobody had contracted cholera or dysentery from its waters.

  I stepped to the edge of the river and raised my arms out to my sides for maximum exposure. “Splash me again,” I begged, desperate to cool down.

  “Okay,” Seth replied. “Just remember you asked for it.” He obliged, this time using both of his strong arms to scoop two generous handfuls of river water in my direction.

  I turned my head skyward, closing my eyes. Instead of sprinkling down on me, the water hit me square in the chest. I lowered my arms and skewered Seth with my gaze. “Your aim was a little off.”

  A grin played about his lips. “No it wasn’t.”

  A voice on my radio interrupted our conversation. “Officers requested to the stage. VIPs en route.”

  Darn. “Gotta go. Duty call
s.”

  “Can you meet up to watch the fireworks?” Seth asked, cocking his head in question.

  I raised my palms. While both police work and firefighter duties involved a significant amount of downtime, it was impossible to predict how a shift would go. A calm, quiet shift could turn on a dime, becoming a shit storm with no warning. I’d learned not to count my chickens. “I’ll do my best.”

  I called out to Brigit, issuing the order for her to return to my side. She gave me a scornful look similar to the one she’d given Derek not long before, but nevertheless obeyed, climbing out of the river, her wet body looking scrawny compared to how fluffy she was dry. When she reached my side, I stuck a hand into my pocket and retrieved one of her favorite liver treats as a reward for her behavior. “Good girl.”

  I tossed a second treat to Blast, who remained in the water. He managed to snap it out of the air. “See you two later,” I called as Brigit and I headed off.

  THREE

  SHAKE YOUR BOOTY

  Sergeant Brigit

  While taking a dip in the river had cooled Brigit down, it had also given her a serious case of flat fur. No self-respecting shepherd would go around looking like some pathetic short-haired breed. Of course there was only one remedy to that. Shake.

  Brigit began her full-body shimmy, starting at her back end and working her way forward until she’d rid herself of most of the river water she’d soaked up. Her fur was once again proud and fluffy, as it should be. To her surprise, Megan had voiced no objection to being doused with the spray today.

  Megan clipped her lead to her collar and Brigit walked by her partner’s side. They passed a pony ride, where a half-dozen of the beasts were tethered to a metal wheel, taking toddlers and tykes in incessant circles. A small boy on a brown Shetland pony rocked in the saddle, kicked the pony in the ribs with his sneakers, and yelled, “Giddyup!” With its bridle tied to a metal pole and the weight of the other ponies acting as a counterbalance, the poor pony couldn’t giddyup even if it wanted to.