The only thing that smells worse than wet dog is dead dog. I’d meant to wound the big idiot, but I’d also meant to not get pummeled. Priorities have a funny way of falling into place.

“Thomas!” came the shrill call, preceding the good homicide detective’s entrance into my office. She came in with a huff, hands on her hips and her hair done up perfectly. The words started tumbling out of her mouth faster than I could register, the usual tirade about messes, her time, needing to sweep up after me, and property damage. I wasn’t inclined to point it was my property that had been damaged.

Paws up in surrender, I yielded the crime scene to her and hit the streets. She didn’t even make a pretense of warning me against retribution as I left. If there’s one constant in this part of town, this crazy, upside down world which we inhabit, it’s that what goes around comes around.

As far as I was concerned, Jerry had been sowing chaos and violence long enough from behind those big, dopey, ’I’m so innocent’ eyes.