The China Dogs by Sam Masters

female voice answers: “Gwen Harries.”
    â€œGwen, this is Lieutenant Walton from the Miami police. You wanted to speak to me about the fatal dog attack.”
    â€œI did, thanks for calling back.” She searches her desk for the details she took down earlier. “Seventeen-year-old girl, right? Bitten to death on some beach?”
    â€œSchoolgirl named Kathy Morgan. Hey, can I start off by asking why the NIA is interested in this?”
    She sees no harm in telling him. “NIA isn’t. Director Jackson is. I think it’s a personal thing. He’s with the President as we speak. As you might have read, the Moltons got a new dog some months back, so I suspect that’s what’s sparked the interest.” She finds her notes. “Here we go. What was the breed of dog that carried out the attack? Your office didn’t seem to know.”
    â€œVet wasn’t sure. She thought it was a cross. Maybe a Staff, pit bull or small mastiff.”
    â€œYou got any photographs you can send?”
    â€œI can call the vet and get some to you. Do you also want the PM reports on the dog and victim when they’re in?”
    She thinks on it for a minute. “May as well. I’ve got your electronic mail details on my screen. I’m sending you mine right now, so you can zip it to me. Would be good sooner than later.”
    â€œYou’ll have it sooner.”
    The line goes dead.
    Then the phone rings again.
    Ghost clicks the Bluetooth and assumes the officious NIA woman got cut off. “You’ll have to give me twenty minutes; I’m still in backed-up traffic.”
    There’s an awkward silence.
    Then Zoe speaks. “I’m keen to see you, Lieutenant, but twenty minutes is a bit soon.”
    â€œShit. I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
    â€œNope. Still the same person you left in the café and who left you a message earlier. So how are you fixed tonight?”
    â€œI’d love to meet up. Sorry I didn’t get around to returning your call. You still at your friend’s place?”
    â€œOne sixty-one Huffington, just off the bottom of Coral Way.”
    â€œIs there anything you don’t eat?”
    â€œHumble pie and bullshit. Aside from that, no.”
    â€œThen be ready for eight.”
    â€œWhere we going?”
    â€œThat’s a surprise.”
    â€œI don’t do surprises. I end up wearing the wrong clothes in the wrong places. Where we going?”
    â€œThen dress smart. Smart is always good.” He pulls into the police station parking lot and hangs up. His mind is still on the call from the NIA and the crap about the President getting a new dog.
    19
    Coral Way, Miami
    Z oe is left staring at the dead phone—and at a real problem. She has nothing to wear but what she’s dressed in. Plus maybe whatever she can borrow.
    â€œJude!” She shouts through to the bathroom where her friend is sitting behind a locked door. “You got anything super smart in your closet that I can borrow?”
    â€œLook for yourself, though on my wages don’t expect Chanel.”
    Zoe wanders through to the front bedroom and pulls open the mirrored doors of an anorexic closet.
    The racks are squashed tight with a lifetime of clothes—skimpy dresses, a rainbow of tops, a great bird-print number that looks miles too big, a vividly floral tunic dress that might do at a push, a rose-print prom number that looks terrific, a pleated-front dress that is way beyond hideous, and a black sequin maxi dress so clingy and tight it must have been designed by a gynecologist.
    She pulls out the maxi and the tunic and holds them up side by side. “Okay, looks like one of you is going out tonight—who is it going to be, clingy and black or flowery and nostalgic?”
    â€œClingy and black,” says Jude from over her shoulder. “You don’t want too many pastel colors going on around albino boy. I