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of conversation Sam had had with her before we’d left. (“Yes, I’m going to my brother’s wedding, but I’m taking Sookie because she’s more presentable.” I thought not .) And truly, it was another thing that was none of my business.
    Then I fell to wondering if there were any other two-natured in Wright or its environs. If there were, maybe Sam could ask them to help when—if—trouble arose. The two-natured didn’t always stick together. Of course, neither did any other minority group I’d ever heard of.... The owl hooted again.
    I woke the next morning to the welcome smell of coffee and pancakes with a side of bacon. Oh, yeah . I could hear a couple of voices in the kitchen, and the water was running in the bathroom. The household was up early. This was the day of the rehearsal and the wedding. I smiled up at the ceiling in anticipation. My room looked over the front yard, and I got up and padded over to the window to see what kind of day it was.
    It was a bad day.

CHAPTER TWO
     
    I pulled on shorts and a T–shirt, and hurried out into the kitchen. Sam and his mother looked up as I appeared in the doorway. They’d been smiling, and Sam was raising his coffee cup to his lips while Bernie was flipping the bacon in the frying pan. Sam put down his cup hastily and jumped to his feet.
    “What?” he said.
    “Go look in the front yard,” I said, and stood aside while they hurried from the kitchen.
    Someone had stuck a big sign in the yard, facing the house. The message was definitely for Bernie. DOGS BELONG IN THE POUND, it said. I’d already jumped to a conclusion about its meaning.
    “Where is it?” I asked Sam. “The pound? I hope I’m wrong, but I have to check.”
    “If you go back to the highway, head south,” he said. There was a ring of white around his mouth. “It’s on Hall Road, to the right. I’m coming.”
    “No. Give me your keys. This is your brother’s wedding day. You have to take care of your mother.”
    “It’s not safe.”
    “Whatever’s happened there, if anything has . . . it’s already done.”
    He handed me his keys without another word. I hurried out to the truck, noticing along the way that not a soul was outside in any of the yards, though Saturday mornings are good for washing cars, yard work, garage sales, shooting hoops. Maybe Bernie’s neighbors had already seen that trouble was brewing and wanted no part of it.
    In fact, not that many people were out and about in the entire town of Wright. I saw a stout man about Sam’s age putting gas in his car at the filling station. I caught his eye as I drove by, and he turned away pointedly. Perhaps he’d recognized the truck. I saw an elderly woman walking her dog, an equally elderly dachshund. She nodded civilly. I nodded back.
    I found Hall Road without any trouble and took a right. It was a dusty stretch of asphalt with a few straggling businesses, places in little faux-adobe structures spaced far apart. I began looking at signs, and it didn’t take long to spot the one that read LOS COLMILLOS COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER. It stood in front of a very small cement block building. Roofed pens extended in a long line on either side of a concrete run behind the building.
    I turned off the motor and jumped out of the truck. I was struck by how quiet it was. Outside any animal shelter, I would expect to hear yapping and barking.
    The pens out back were silent.
    The front door was unlocked. I took a deep breath, let it out. I steeled myself and pushed it open, left it that way.
    I stepped into a little room containing a desk topped with a battered and grimy old computer. There was a phone with an answering machine, half-buried under a pile of folders. A dilapidated file cabinet stood in a corner. In the opposite corner were two huge bags of dog food and some plastic containers of chemicals that I supposed were used to clean the pens. And that was all.
    A door in the center of the rear wall stood open. I could see that it