Chapter 4

Before we get down to business about my heartless neighbor, Sheriff Erickson insists that I call him by his first name.

Like the force of two magnets pulling together, I struggle to peel my stare away from his trusting eyes. Sheepish, I say, “I’m sorry…Philip.”

“Don’t apologize. Besides,” he adds with a shrug, “we’re no strangers to each other.”

Translation: May I take you to dinner?

But I might be jumping the gun.

I swallow a gulp of piping hot coffee and ask, “Can you charge Bret Hicks with animal cruelty?”

Philip fingers the mug’s handle as if the edge is too hot to touch, and slowly raises his heavy eyes to me.

His expression tells the grim story. He snakes his spidery-long fingers around the mug and shakes his head. “But you might be happy to know that one of Hicks’s buddies ratted Bret out to me about stealing booze at the 24-hour convenient store in town on Leonard Street early this evening.”