Tricks had jumped up when the kids entered and was in the middle of the group, getting her required petting. One of the girls said, “We even have a tiara and a feather boa for her.”
“She’ll do okay with the boa, but I don’t know about the tiara,” Bo said, not blinking an eye. “I tried putting a cap on her once and she wouldn’t have it. But she did like the Christmas bow I stuck on her head.”
Morgan kept his mouth shut. The conversation was getting weirder by the minute. What the hell were they doing?
“Let’s get her loaded up and see what she’ll do,” the boy said. “I’ll drive really slow, Chief.”
Bo and Tricks and the whole group went outside. Loretta left her cubicle to stand on the sidewalk and watch, so Morgan joined her. The boy lowered the tailgate of his truck and tried to get Tricks to jump up in the bed, but she was too busy with the petting. Bo said, “Tricks, up,” and patted the tailgate. Tricks obediently jumped up, then immediately jumped down again.
“Tricks, up.”
Same result.
Sighing, Bo climbed into the bed of the pickup, sat down, and said, “Tricks, up.”
With the center of her life sitting there, Tricks jumped up and covered Bo’s face with a mad flurry of licking. A couple of the girls climbed in the back with them. One had the aforementioned tiara and boa. She looped the pink boa around Tricks’s neck, and carefully set the tiara on her head. With one shake, Tricks had the tiara off. It was tried again, with the same result.
“I think there’s a sticky bow in the break room,” Loretta said, and went inside to see if she remembered right. She didn’t bother explaining why a sticky bow might be in a police station.
She returned with a slightly crushed and mangled glittery green bow. The backing was peeled off and the bow carefully stuck on top of Tricks’s head.
The boy closed the tailgate and got into the cab. Bo scooted against the back of the truck bed, and the two girls flanked Tricks in the middle, each with an arm around her. “Go!” the boa girl said, and all the vehicles slowly pulled into the street like a parade, their lights on, and blowing their horns.
Morgan looked around to make sure he was still on Earth. Or maybe this was just some weird small-town custom; his small-town experience was thin, so he had to allow for that. “What the hell is going on?” he asked Loretta.
“They’re practicing for the Heritage Parade,” she explained. “The junior and senior classes get to each decorate a float for the parade. The seniors this year want Tricks to ride on their float, but the chief said she probably wouldn’t unless they got her used to it first, so they’re practicing with her. The real floats aren’t ready yet, not that they’d show them ahead of time anyway. My guess is the next time they’ll use a hay-hauling trailer, get her used to the size.”
Well, that explained the tiara and boa.
The sidewalks began filling as shopkeepers and customers came outside to watch the little parade. People began bellowing, “Tricks!” and waving. The two girls flanking Tricks waved, practicing their parts. Tricks woofed left and right, her doggy face beaming.
“She looks like a homecoming queen,” Loretta said happily, stepping into the street so she could continue watching. Bemused, Morgan went to stand beside her.
A few blocks down, at the traffic light, some man stepped into the middle of the intersection and stopped traffic coming from all four directions, not that there was that much, but still. Waving, he directed the little procession to make a U-turn so they could head back toward the police station. The kids, driving carefully with their precious cargo of police chief and dog, sedately swung around in the intersection to reverse course.
As they neared, he could hear the happy “Woof! Woof!” and see the golden head adorned with a bedraggled green bow turning from side to side with each woof, as Tricks accepted the applause and cheers of an entire town.
Somehow, Morgan thought, getting shot had thrown him into the fucking Twilight Zone.
What the hell. Might as well fit in.
He began waving and clapping too.
CHAPTER 12
WHEN THEY GOT HOME, BO LET TRICKS OUT OF THE Tahoe while Morgan followed more slowly. He hated to admit it, and he’d certainly enjoyed the trip to town, but the unaccustomed activity had tired him. Normally he still napped during the day, or whenever he got tired, but today he hadn’t had that luxury and it was telling on him. He thought of the sofa with longing, wanting nothing more than to stretch out and close his eyes.
Bo unlocked the door, and the dog darted inside. She looked back at him. “Today was more of an effort than you thought it would be, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he admitted.
“You can put your feet up and relax while I’m throwing supper together.” She stepped aside and waited for him to enter, then closed the door behind them. Morgan headed for the sofa, then stopped dead in the middle of the floor.
Tricks sat in the middle of the sofa, the extravagant, long white feathery strands of her tail draped over the cushion like a fringed shawl. She was looking off, as if she had no idea they were on the premises.
“Or not,” Bo said, standing as still as he was. “Oh, dear. You got her seat, so now she’s got yours. I’m not getting into the middle of this. You have to handle it, make it up to her somehow. I’m warning you, she holds a grudge.”
Evidently. On the other hand, she was a dog. Morgan said, “Is it all right with you if I give her a treat?”
Tricks’s eyes flicked toward him at the word “treat,” but she didn’t abandon her post.