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“Picketing is our right,” the woman said. “And we have a permit for the pamphlets. It's all perfectly legal.”

“And defacing private property? What's next, guys? Smashing more windows? Destroying property? If this escalates, you're the ones who lose. If my clinic is damaged . . .”

“We're not here to hurt anyone,” the man said. “Just to make our point.”

“Your point . . .” is insane, he wanted to say, but bit back the words.

They all stared at each other for long seconds, while the woman he'd wanted to speak to fell into conversation with someone else, turning and walking, not toward the refreshments area with the others, but toward the back of the hall. They paused and then, still talking, left together through the emergency exit.

“Damn it,” Williams said, not quite under his breath. “Fine. You tell her . . . tell her what I said. If you're doing anything more than pamphlets, stop. Now. Believe me, you're not going to be helping your cause.”

“Like you care about our cause,” the man said. “You—”

“Stop it,” the woman said, although it wasn't clear which
one of them she was talking to. Possibly both. “You're going to start yelling, and I won't have it.”

“Whatever. I tried.” Williams threw up his hands in a classic expression of disgust and turned to leave the building.

“Scott!” the woman called after him.

He stopped but didn't turn around.

“Be careful.”

He made a scornful, dismissive gesture over his shoulder, and left.

“Do you think he knows?” the man asked quietly.

“No. If he did, he would have gone to the police already. But be careful. He's right about one thing: getting caught won't help us at all.”

*  *  *

When Tonica arrived at Mary's, Ginny was already sitting at her usual table near the front window, a half-empty martini glass at her elbow, and her tablet in front of her.

“No Georgie?” he asked, sliding into the chair opposite her, indicating the greyhound and the shaggy black mutt tied up outside, but no shar-pei.

“I got home to discover that she'd eaten something that didn't agree with her.” Ginny made a face, and waved a hand in front of her nose to illustrate. “I was afraid I'd get a ticket for air pollution, if I brought her out.”

She gave him points for not laughing.

“Is that normal for dogs?”

“Sadly, yes. Or at least, not unusual. But at least I don't have to deal with a litter box.”

As though summoned by the mention, a small gray tabby wound herself around Tonica's ankles, asking to be picked up. He obliged, giving her damp fur an absent scritch behind one ear before offering up his own news.

“No litter box here, either. Best of both worlds.” He changed the subject before she could bring up the topic of responsible cat ownership again. “And speaking of shared worlds, guess who showed up at the meeting tonight?”

Normally a challenge like that would rouse her interest—or her irritation, because there was no way you could actually
guess
something like that with any hope of accuracy. Ginny wasn't in the mood for games tonight, though: after the noninformational meeting with Wendy, she'd gotten home to a message from last week's date, calling to cancel their plans for this weekend with an excuse that was both vague and unapologetically lame. She understood about cancellations, and it wasn't like they were an item or anything yet, but he could at least have put some effort into the excuse.

“Not in the mood, Tonica. Who?”

“Scott Williams. The shelter's on-call vet.”

“A vet's antineutering?” That was the craziest thing she'd ever heard. Or in the top ten, anyway. Her brain started to hum over the possibilities.

“I don't know. He showed up late: the speechifying was almost over. Maybe he was there to check out the opposition, or . . . The shelter side was the one that was vandalized, so maybe he was there . . . no. He didn't look mad, or even pissed-off.”

“Did he see you there?” If he was a member, or somehow connected, and he saw Tonica . . .

“No. Like I said, he came in late, and I figured it was better to slip out before he did see me.”

“Smart.” She knew it sounded grudging, but Tonica just grinned, and half turned to get Jon's attention, pointing to the tap to order a beer. “So what do we know about Dr. Williams,” he asked, “other than the fact that the animals at the shelter didn't seem to like him much?”

She was just about to answer when her phone rang. She looked at the display and then pushed the tablet across the table. “Look for yourself,” she said. “I'm taking this outside, where it's quieter.”

Outside, the chill air had shifted to cold rain, and people were moving quicker, some carrying umbrellas, more just ducking their heads and trying to pretend that the drops didn't bother them. She leaned against the slight overhang, wishing she'd thought to grab her jacket, and answered the phone.

“Hi. I didn't expect to hear from you so soon. What's up? Did you find anything?” She could see Tonica through the plate glass window, first trying to figure out how to work the touchscreen, then sorting through the sheet she'd opened for him. Ginny allowed herself a smirk: Tonica might be better educated, and might come from more money, but when it came to technology, her sixty-three-year-old mother could manage better.

“What? No, wait, back up.” She listened intently, making mental notes as the CPA explained what she'd found.

When she came back inside, her face was set in grim lines, but there was a sparkle in her eye.

“The books were cooked.”

Tonica did a double take that was almost funny. “What?”

“The books. Okay, not cooked, exactly. There were improprieties.” Ginny was more or less parroting what Wendy had told her. “She started looking over the entries, and discovered the dead guy had made notes, things he was seeing that didn't look quite right. He hadn't gone anywhere with it yet, just starting to connect the dots, but someone had been embezzling, and not just a couple thousand dollars. Maybe a lot of money, over a long period of time. She said it was really well done.”

Tonica leaned back in his chair, and ran his hand over the top of his hair. Not for the first time, she envied him the relative lack-of-fuss of his brushtop.

“Shit,” he said. “That's going to complicate things.”

Understatement. “If it's the same person. It may not be. In fact, it probably isn't. I mean, someone who's been gouging the shelter for a long time isn't going to risk stealing relatively small amounts of cash, right?”

“Even if it's not the same person, whoever it is will have a vested interest in us not poking around or finding anything.” He drank half of his beer in one gulp, and then put the glass down on the table with a hard thump. “So we've got a thief, an embezzler, a dead guy, and animal rights graffiti artists who may or may not be vandals, thieves, and killers. Even at double what we're getting paid, Gin, it's not enough.”

“Do you think we should give up?” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her folded hands. “It's a legitimate question. This is not what we signed on for, you're right. Este and Roger would probably hold the door open for us. And I have other clients I need to deal with, and . . .”

“Gin Mallard, giving up?” He meant it to tease, she thought, but the words stung.

“Normally when a job spins out of parameters, I negotiate an increase in my fee,” she said tartly. “That's not going to happen here; I doubt they're even going to be able to pay us, if they're being squeezed dry, and Nora . . . I doubt she even has the original fee, honestly.”

“So?”

“So.”

They stared at each other, and Tonica blinked first. “For the puppies.”

“And the kittens,” Ginny added.

“Hell, we always knew we weren't going to get rich doing this.” It had been more about the mental challenge than anything else. “On the plus side, hey, nobody's threatening us with bodily harm.”

“Yet,” she said direly, and waved for a refill.

“Yeah,” Tonica said quietly. “Yet.”

G
inny Mallard wasn't the sort
to shirk from doing things that had to be done. But so far that morning, she'd had to deal with doggy vomit on the hardwood floor, deflected a panicked email from a client she wasn't scheduled to work with for another two weeks, but who had suddenly decided she had to have things done
now
, and her favorite mug's handle had broken when she picked it up, spilling coffee all over her pajamas.

And then her mother called with an update on the Thanksgiving Situation, and a side run by her stepfather, who suggested that they all run off to Hawaii for that week instead—and not tell her aunt and uncle.

By the time Ginny had dealt with her parents, showered, and actually gotten to drink her second mug of coffee, she was in no mood for anyone else giving her grief. Not even her dog.

“Georgie, come on.”

The dog, usually more than happy for a walk, lay on the floor and looked up at her mistress mournfully.

“I know, baby, you feel like crap. But you need to walk.”

She had called the vet, and then double-checked half a dozen pet care sites to confirm the advice, and they'd all said the same thing: make sure Georgie got exercise, and as many chances to empty her system as possible—preferably out the back end, rather than throwing up. That, and change her diet to a brand that, of course, cost twice as much as what Ginny had been buying.

“If I'd known you were going to be a fart machine, I'd . . .” Ginny paused. “I'd have taken you home anyway,” she admitted. “But seriously, this had better be a passing phase, and I can't believe I just made that pun. Georgie, come
on
.”

The dog got to her feet with a sigh, and went to where Ginny was waiting, letting the human attach the leash to her collar and lead her out the door.

“How's the kid feeling?” Tonica was waiting outside, looking far too awake and alert for someone who had still been in the bar, matching a group beer for beer, when she left around eleven o'clock. To have gotten here by ten, he had to have been up well before his usual time.

“She feels fine,” she said. “How she smells is another thing entirely.”

He looked down at Georgie dubiously. “And in my car . . . oh hell, we can leave the windows open, I guess. That the evidence?” and he nodded at the folder in her hand.

“Yeah. Scans of the relevant pages from the ledger, Jimmy's original notes, and Wendy's notes on those notes. I'll
pick up the originals this afternoon, and return them . . . assuming everything goes well.”

“So what's the plan, boss?” He didn't mention that he'd originally claimed lead on this, and she didn't bring it up.

“The plan is to lay out what we've discovered, and see what happens. Missing money, the possible connection to the antineuter group, the evidence of embezzlement. Then we tell Este to take it to the cops, come clean, and it's entirely possible that they come out like a sterling silver victim, tarnished but polishable.

“They can't try to sweep this under the rug the way they did the theft, not all of this. And once it's out in the open . . . well, if they're lucky the thief will get scared away, decide it's not worth the increased risk, and the spray-painting loonies are likewise deterred by police presence, and they hold that fund-raiser in the dead guy's name, like they planned, and replace the missing money that way.” The entire thing made her mouth taste icky, but there wasn't anything else they could do, not really. Wendy had made that clear to her on the phone the night before: This was too much for them. Way too much. And once they knew it was this big, they were obligated to say something.

“For lack of cash, a shelter was lost,” Tonica said, softly. “Damn it.”

“Maybe not,” Ginny said, but she didn't feel too optimistic, either.

Georgie took that opportunity to release some pressure,
and both humans winced. “You sure you want to bring her along?” he asked, breathing into his hand.

Ginny shrugged. “Comic relief   ? Or canine protection, if anyone snaps and tries to blame us. We may need both. I can't imagine that this is going to go well.”

*  *  *

Not going well, Teddy decided half an hour later, was a slight understatement.

Nora hadn't gotten in yet, the receptionist told them cautiously when they arrived, but Este was, and would meet with them as soon as she finished the morning staff briefing. He didn't imagine that meeting was going to be a lot of fun, even if she didn't mention anything about the missing money.

While they waited, they'd brought Georgie out to the dog run area, Ginny hoping that the chance to roughhouse with other dogs would work whatever was bothering the shar-pei out of her system. Having been exposed to the unhappy flatulence twice on the walk down to the shelter, Teddy was all for working it out somewhere he wasn't. And he supposed other dogs wouldn't even notice; they seemed to delight in disgusting smells.

The staff meeting ended promptly at 10:30 a.m., but when Este came out to meet them, she didn't lead them to the office where they'd met previously, but through the opposite door, into the clinic wing.

“Ah, I'm not sure . . . ,” Ginny started to say, exchanging
a glance with Teddy. He shrugged: the vet only came in on the weekends, right? So they should be fine. Or not.

Este indicated the battered sofa and chairs of the waiting room. “Please excuse the surroundings, but everyone came in this morning for our meeting, and even with the door closed, the walls in the office are not particularly thick. There has been enough upset lately, I would rather these discussions not fall within general knowledge.”