lady whose house got robbed?”
John regarded her wearily. “I know who she is, Marguerite.”
“Well, she says she has to talk to you, and you only. I told her you were busy, even though it doesn’t look to me like you are, actually. But she said it was important. I bet it’s something about her insurance. What do you want me to do?”
John waved a hand. “Put her through.”
“Right, Chief. If you don’t mind me saying so, you look like crap, Chief.”
“Why, thank you, Marguerite. That is so kind of you.”
“Just letting you know, Chief.”
Marguerite closed the door on her way out. The call from Mrs. Tifton came through a few seconds later.
“Hello, ma’am,” John said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible and knowing he was failing. “What can I do for you this fine morning?”
“Sheriff.” Mrs. Tifton’s voice was hardly above a whisper. “I want you to know, I’ve got him.”
“I’m sorry,” John said. “I can barely hear you, Mrs. Tifton. Can you speak a little louder?”
“No, I can’t. Because I’m on the tail of that animal who broke into my house, and if I speak any louder, he might notice me.”
This caused John to sit up a little straighter in his chair. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Tifton. Did you say—are you—are you with Dylan Dakota right now?”
“If you mean the High School Thief, that’s right,” the old woman whispered. “Only that’s not the name he told me. He told me to call him Larry.”
John was so excited that he stood up behind his desk. Stood up and threw his stapler as hard as he could at his office door. The stapler broke the glass in the center of his doorframe, on which the words Sheriff John Hartwell had been written. Now, thanks to the stapler, there was only a gaping hole—a gaping hole soon filled by the face of Marguerite Ruiz, wearing an incredulous expression and mouthing the words What the hell?
John pointed at the phone receiver he was holding to his ear. We have him, he mouthed. Aloud, he said, “So where are you, Mrs. Tifton?”
“I’m at 24 Hour Fitness,” Mrs. Tifton whispered. “I don’t normally work out here, but I might change gyms, because they were very nice just now about letting me bring my dog in—you met my dog, didn’t you, Sheriff? My dog, Daisy?”
“I did meet your dog,” John said, while scrawling 24 Hour Fitness on a pad near his phone and holding it up for Marguerite to see. She nodded, then spoke quietly into her shoulder radio. “Your dog, Daisy, is lovely.”
“She is, isn’t she? Anyway, I was walking Daisy this morning, like I usually do, and thought I’d stop by the Cuban coffee place, because they make the best café con leches, don’t you think?”
“Of course.” On the pad, John wrote, NO SIRENS. DO NOT SPOOK HIM and showed it to Marguerite. She nodded and again spoke quietly into her shoulder radio.
“Well, I was there ordering my coffee, and who do I see but this boy, also ordering coffee, and he starts petting my dog—everyone loves to pet my dog because she’s just so cute, if I do say so myself. And I think to myself, ‘Well, this boy looks just like the boy from the photo in the paper this morning.’ Only he’s wearing a baseball hat, maybe as a disguise, but I think, ‘Well, that’s not a very good disguise, because you can still see all the tattoos and the ear thingies.’ And do you know what, Sheriff? I could smell him. And this boy smelled exactly like the hooded shirt you all found at my house! Not only that, but do you know what he said to me?”
“I do not,” John said.
“He notices me looking at him and he says, ‘I bet you’re thinking I’m that guy from the paper today.’ Well, I couldn’t have been more shocked, because that’s exactly what I was thinking! And I said to him, ‘As a matter of fact, I do. You know that boy robbed me and also vandalized my library.’ And he laughed and said, ‘Oh, that was your library? I thought it was the people’s library.’ And I said, ‘It is, but I’m the person who donated all the money to renovate it.’ And he said, ‘Well, thank you for that. We need more libraries in this world. I’m sorry my friends and I did that to your library. But you know it technically belongs to the people, and we’re the