Page 59 of Evil Bones
Following Slidell up the mud-coated walkway, I heard music playing somewhere inside. Jazz piano. Maybe Thelonious Monk.
Slidell paused for a moment, then knocked.
A dog barked, high and frenzied.
No human responded.
Slidell knocked again, louder.
The music stopped but still no one appeared.
“CMPD, Mr. Bright. We need to talk to you.”
Hearing Slidell’s voice, the dog went batshit. Its paws made softthuppingsounds as it jumped up and dropped back to the floor.
“Easy, Millie.” Though muted, I could tell that the voice was male.
Millie paid no attention and kept on yapping.
“Millie! Shut the freak up!”
Millie stopped in mid-yap with a sharp expulsion of breath. Locks snicked, and the door opened.
Bright was pale, baggy-eyed, and disheveled. His shorts were cutoffsweats. His dingy white tee was stretched to its full tensile capacity across a frame not yet obese but poised on the edge.
Millie eyed us from a position of safety tucked under Bright’s right arm. I wouldn’t say she was the ugliest dog I’d ever seen. But she was a contender. Her eyes were simultaneously beady and bulging, her snout unnaturally long and pointed. She may have come from a gene pool involving long-haired chihuahuas but could easily have passed as a rat.
Bright took in the scene with a slow five-second sweep. Slidell. Me. The Trailblazer parked on his drive.
“What’s up, officer?”
“It’s Detective. You Jordan Allen Bright?”
“Oh, my God. Here we go again.”
“You Bright?”
“What? Did some child go missing in Outer Mongolia?” Then, to Millie, “Have the police nothing better to do than harass honest citizens who’ve paid their debt?”
“I’ll bet you washonestwith that kid you groped at the A&W.”
“Oh, my freakin’ lord. That was eight years ago.” To Millie. “Eight years!”
Millie rendered no opinion.
“I know you’re real busy these days squeezing puppy glands and all, but we’re hoping you got a minute to do your civic duty.”
“Actually, I was—”
“You got a minute.” A statement, not a question.
“Of course.” Bright stepped back, Millie squirming and whining in his grasp. “Please, come in.”
We followed Bright through a foyer into a parlor, both floored in linoleum trying to look like oak. Gesturing us to a sofa draped with dog hair–coated red wool blankets, he dropped into a chair opposite.
I sat, already planning a trip to the dry cleaner. Slidell remained standing. Millie settled on her master’s lap.
Propping his chin on one hand, Bright assumed an expression of bored tolerance.
