clean up that awful mess?”
“If you’re willing to wait, I’ll see that Pete does it. It’s coming up to lunchtime, and I’ll root him out and make him come over and deal with it.”
Gladys sniffed, nodded sharply. Justice, she thought, was justice, and the Todds usually found a way to meet it. “I want it done soon and I want it done right.”
“I’ll see to that. Pete’s going to get slapped with a fine, too.”
Gladys folded her lips. “Been fined before.”
“Yes, ma’am, he has.” Okay, Ripley thought, what would Zack do? The dog was harmless, puppy-friendly and dumb as a turnip. His major flaw was his obsession with dead fish parts, which he either joyfully rolled in or greedily consumed. Each with revolting results.
As inspiration struck, Ripley hardened her face. “The fact is, that dog’s a public nuisance, and Pete’s been warned.” She tapped her fingers on the butt of her weapon. “We’ll have to impound the dog this time.”
“Well, I should think . . .” Gladys trailed off, blinked. “What do you mean, impound?”
“Don’t you worry about that, Mrs. Macey. We’ll take care of the dog. He won’t be coming around your yard to do any kind of mischief in the future.”
The little clutch in Gladys’s throat had her voice quavering. “Now wait just a minute.”
As Ripley had counted on, Gladys gripped her arm. “Do you mean to take that dog in and . . . and have it put down?”
“He can’t be controlled . . .” Ripley let the sentence, and its implication, hang. The dog cooperated by sending out a pitiful whine.
“Ripley Todd, I’m ashamed of you for suggesting such a thing. I’m not having it, not for a minute.”
“Now, Mrs. Macey—”
“Don’t you Mrs. Macey me.” Incensed, she wagged her finger in Ripley’s face. “That’s the most heartless thing I’ve ever heard! Putting that harmless dog down just because he’s stupid.”
“But you said—”
“I said he pooped in my yard!” Gladys waved her arms, currently covered in the shocking-pink wool of her sweater. “What are you going to do, pull that gun and put a bullet in his ear?”
“No, I—”
“Oh, I can’t even talk to you right now. You go on, and you leave that dog be. I want my stoop cleaned, and that’s the end of it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ripley hung her head, let her shoulders droop as she walked away. And winked at the dog.
Zack, she decided, couldn’t have done it any better.
She tracked downPete, read him the riot act. He would go without lunch, the Macey stoop would sparkle, and the dog, who already laid claim to a snazzy red doghouse complete with a heated blanket, would get a stronger chain to keep him on the Stahr property when no one was home.
And that, Ripley thought, would likely wrap up the keeping of the peace of Three Sisters Island for the day.
On her way back to the station house, she spotted a small figure climbing through the first-floor window of a clapboard saltbox.
Okay, she decided with her hands on her hips, maybe there was a bit more peace to be kept.
Her brows lifted, then knit. It was the home of one of her cousins, and the bright blue jacket on the B and E man was very familiar.
“Dennis Andrew Ripley, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She heard his yowl of pain when he bumped his head on the window, and felt no sympathy. He was twelve, and any boy of twelve who didn’t own a hard head should, in her opinion, develop one.
He went still for a moment, half in, half out, battle-scarred hightops dangling. Then, slowly, he wiggled to the ground. His hair was pale blond and stuck out in tufts around his ski cap. Freckles exploded over his face and stood out in sharp relief against his bright flush.
“Ah . . . hi, Aunt Ripley,” he said innocently.
He was, Ripley thought with admiration, an operator. “That’s Deputy Todd to you, you little weasel. What’re you doing crawling in the window?”
“Um. I don’t have a key?”
“Dennis.”
“Well, I don’t. Mom and some of her lady friends went over to the mainland to shop and stuff. She must’ve locked the door.”
“Let’s try the question this way. Why are you crawling in the window of your own house instead of sitting at your desk at school?”
“Because I’m sick?” he answered hopefully.
“Is that so? Come on, then, I’ll take you over to the clinic right now. Your mother has her cell phone, doesn’t she? We’ll just give her a call and let her know her sweet baby boy’s feeling poorly. I bet she’ll come home on the next ferry.”
Ripley had the satisfaction of watching his face blanch. “Don’t call her. Okay? Please? I’m feeling a lot better. It musta been something I ate is all.”
“I just bet. Spill it, kiddo, and if you try to bullshit me again, I’m hauling you to the clinic and telling them to get out their biggest, dullest needle.”
“We’re having a history test,” he blurted out, and talked very fast now. “History’s the pits, Aunt Rip. It’s all about dead people, anyway. So, you know, who cares? And it’s like European history crap, and we don’t evenlive there. I mean, hey, do you know the capital of Liechtenstein?”
“Didn’t study, did you?”
He shifted from foot to foot—Jeez, what was it with boys and their big clown feet, she wondered—and attempted a pitiful look from under his lashes. “I guess maybe not.”
“So you decided to blow off the test and hook school.”
“Just one stupid day. I could take the test later. I was going to hang out in the woods today, and study,” he added, with quick inspiration. “But it’s too cold.”
“So you were going to go inside . . . and study.”
“Um. Yeah! Yeah, I was going to hit the books. Couldn’t you just pretend you didn’t see me?”
“No.”
“Aw, Aunt Rip.” He sighed, recognizing the look on her face. “Deputy Todd.”
She hooked him by the ear. “You’re getting a police escort to school.”
“Mom’s going to kill me.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m going to fail the test.”
“Should’ve studied for it.”
“I’ll get in-school suspension.”
“Kid, you’re breaking my heart.”