FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Danny Hayes is trying to turn over a new leaf. I think. Unfortunately he's easily provoked, and shepherd girls need lessons, so... maybe not.

Aka: "Millennials Are Fucking My Wife and Making Me Watch," an Important Thinkpiece. Cannon Shoals returns to its roots with a mix of cynical political commentary, pop-culture references and Danny Hayes being... well. Danny Hayes. I've got other plans for the setting that aren't quite so Dannyriffic, but I figured what better way to ring in May Day, eh?

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"Irony and Improv," by Rob Baird

---

When his partner offered to come with him to check out the scene of the crime, Sergeant Daniel Hayes had snorted. "I think I can probably handle this one." The crime in question was a break-in, it seemed; an upstanding citizen named James Horvath was missing something from his garage. Danny knew that he was an upstanding citizen because Horvath took the time to remind Danny that he ran Horvath Marine Supply, and so he had 'more than a few important things.'

It didn't take Hayes long to drive over. Cannon Shoals wasn't big enough for real neighborhoods. The newest development, Salmon Run, dated to the early '90s and its cookie-cutter homes were tidy but small. Danny lived in one of the town's two apartment complexes, which had once been the site of a Forestry office.

The Horvath residence lay in what passed for upscale Cannon Shoals: oceanfront property north of town, in the strip between Highway 101 and the Pacific Ocean. A short, steep driveway led down to the wrought-iron gate, where a woman was waiting. She dragged the gate open for him, and he pulled his car in to park next to a late-model Lincoln Navigator.

He was supposed to be impressed, of course. If not by the luxury SUV then by the flowers to either side of the walk, or by the gate, or by the carved wooden sign that said "The Horvaths" on it, like it was some fucking country estate in England instead of a weatherworn ranch house at the end of the United States.

"Hi, I'm Billie," the woman said, holding out a tan-furred paw. German Shepherd, he guessed. She was certainly not a wolf, although the other Horvaths Danny knew were.

"Danny," he answered, and shook her paw.

"You're from the police? You're the one they sent?" Dan looked behind him. His car was clearly marked with the department's insignia, even if she'd somehow been too unobservant to notice the lightbar. "Well--I mean, of course you are! Jim's working in the yard, so he'll be a moment, I think. Can I get you something to drink? Water? Juice?"

"I'm fine. Can you--"

"Finally!" another voice called out. The other resident of The Horvaths, this one clearly a wolf, made his way around the corner of the residence. "Took you long enough, son, now didn't it? Guess you had better things to do."

"It wasn't really presented as an emergency situation." Danny tried to gauge, from the wolf's surliness, how likely he was to get out of the visit in a reasonable amount of time. He pulled out his notebook, in the hopes that it might hurry the process along. "Let's get started."

"Well I have to say, the response time is pretty damn lousy, anyway. I let you guys know this morning, and ain't I been here for the whole damn day, Billie? Tell him how long I waited."

"The whole day," Billie agreed.

"Whole damn day." The wolf grunted, emphasizing his displeasure, then pointed sharply at the door of his garage. "No wonder they were able to get away with this."

He was evidently referring to the door handle, which seemed to have been smashed into its panel. "Does it still open?" Dan asked.

"Yeah, of course. That's not the problem." Jim twisted the handle, and gave the door a shove. It swung easily, on well-maintained tracks. "Hell, sonny, that was our first sign something was wrong."

"We came back from dinner and the door was open," Billie added.

"I just said that," her husband groused. "But maybe this guy'll take note or something. What do you think, son?"

The only definite thing Danny thought was that he was clearly not related to the wolf. Jim Horvath looked to be in his 50s, silver-furred and stocky. "Guess they probably waited until you were gone. Maybe. You said things were stolen?"

"Yeah." Jim walked him over to a bare spot on the cement, up against the wall, much less dusty than the surrounding area. "See this? Used to be our fridge."

"Not our main refrigerator," Billie quickly said, as if Dan might've been about to think them the sort of plebes who only had one, and kept it in the garage, no less. "Where we keep the frozen stuff."

"They took that, a couple old broken TVs and an old AC unit, and my lawnmower. And some pipe from the kitchen remodel--heck, almost did me a favor there; was gonna throw it out."

Dan jotted a few short notes. Fridge. TVx2. AC. Lawnmower. "Anything else?"

"No. They might maybe have tried to unlock the boat, but I can't tell. That padlock's pretty beat-up anyhow."

Danny pulled out his flashlight, and flicked it over the handle of the door that led from the garage into their house. It didn't look particularly damaged.

That wasn't much of a surprise. The stoat already figured the thieves hadn't stuck around long. He closed his notebook, and Jim immediately bristled. "That's it?"

"Not much more I can do, sir."

"The hell's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, it's pretty obvious what happened. Like, I'll take a statement, but this ain't really worth calling the FBI on. You got insurance?"

"Yeah."

"Then file a claim and let them take care of it."

Jim put his paws on his hips. "You're not going to do your job?"

Dan's patience was starting to wear thin. "I'll be honest with you, sir. There hasn't been any string of crimes this fits into, and we've been down a man at the station since last year. What do you want me to do? I said I'll take a statement. Let's take a damn statement."

"I deserve better than this," the wolf answered. He muttered it again, directing it to Billie in expectation of her moral support.

The shepherdess opened the door into the house, and led them to the living room. The inside, Dan decided, looked a lot like the outside. Clean, unremarkable, and trying in all the wrong ways to overcome itself.

A big-screen television dominated the room. Two bookshelves flanked it, occupied not by books but various knick-knacks. He recognized some quartz crystals, a signed baseball; bronze sculpted busts depicting some of the early and less controversial presidents.

Jim took a seat on the leather couch, directed Billie to bring some glasses of Diet Coke, and waited expectantly for Dan to do his job. There was a leather armchair, too, which Danny took for himself. The wolf didn't need any extra hint of chumminess.

"So you're James Horvath, you've lived here since--"

"1988. Paid it off ten years later. I've been in the chamber of commerce since '96, too. That was the year I took over the marine supply on Roosevelt from my father, Ted Horvath. My brother owns the Katie Coefeld--probably heard of it. Me, I got the little boat, but I wouldn't make a living out of it."

Dan wrote none of this down, irrelevant as it was. "On good terms with your neighbors?"

"Yeah, of course. They're good people. Don't talk so much to the Booths. They keep to themselves. But Tom Galvan next door, we've been drinking buddies since... heck, son, before you were born. My store's the only one on Roosevelt that never had to ask him for an extension on a loan, you know that? We were smart that way." Billie returned, with the Diet Cokes, and sat down on the sofa next to her husband. The wolf, having proclaimed his intelligence, looked to her as if for confirmation.

Friends w/neighbor, Dan noted. "They didn't see or hear anything?"

"Tommy, no. You best talk to Shannon and Ron your own self, though. For the record. Tommy had an early night, and with his hearing aid out he can't hear much anyway."

"What about you? Has there been any suspicious activity? Cars you don't recognize... anything like that?" Not that there was much room to park any cars, right off the highway.

"No. It's quiet, son, that's why we live here."

"Actually," his wife spoke up. "Remember? Two weeks ago."

"Well, shit," Jim said. "Yeah. Had a couple Mexicans come through. I remember, it was on the weekend. Came to the door asking if we wanted some... hell, I don't know, now. Mexican bread or something. The, uh... uh. Tostitos."

"They said they'd brought it for Shannon but had some extra," Billie added. "I mean, if you believe them. It was obviously for the drug thing she's so proud of."

Dan tapped his pencil on the notebook. "Drug thing?" You maybe coulda mentioned that earlier? Jesus Christ. Shannon Booth worked for the local radio station, and ran a cooking show. She didn't seem like the druggie type, but who the fuck knew? Took all kinds.

"Pot. Marijuana," Billie corrected, as if he might've been confused, or slow-witted.

Jim doubled down on his wife's batshit assumption. "Weed. We called it weed when I was in school. With her, it's always the pot. I thought it was gardening at first, when she said pot cast."

"Jim even asked. Because he knows to use a machine shop, he asked if she meant casting pots, iron or, you know. Nope. Pot cast. She's a weird one. Older than me... you'd think she'd be out of that phase, but..."

Danny found himself happy that he hadn't bothered to write anything down, and therefore didn't have to call attention to crossing anything out. "You recognized the visitors? No, I take it?"

"The Mexicans? Nope, sure didn't, son." Jim's snort, and look of vague disgust, added the suggestion that maybe the question was rhetorical.

"You know they were Mexican? They spoke Spanish, or..."

The wolf rolled his eyes and snorted again. "Didn't ask. Seems like some people get real touchy about that. Gosh, I wonder why? Now, son, did you ever pull anybody over and have them act like you were offending 'em asking for ID? We ask down at the marine supply. Now, you're selling a twenty thousand dollar outboard, you're gonna do that. We don't sell that many of those, but we did--"

"Let's stick with the, ah, the Mexicans, sir. Did they walk over?"

"Drove. Must've. That's a good point, son, why now... why, it would've been big enough to fit my stuff in, yep. I'm almost sure of it."

"Their car? What kind of car was it?"

"Oh, I dunno. I guess the tire track's are all gone, with the rain and all. Some sorta standard beaner-wagon, though. White, I think. Had windows. Maybe sliding doors."

"Definitely sliding doors," his wife said.

Yeah. I'll put an APB out on that one right away. The diversion hadn't led to anything useful. Ten more minutes of questioning and he ascertained that the refrigerator was old, but had been a 'real nice model' when new, and that the lawnmower was recently tuned up.

Sensing the interview ending, Jim announced that he was going to go to the marine supply, because 'some people' had work to do. He glared at Danny when he said this, and instructed his wife to make sure the stoat 'did his job.'

Dan watched him go, shook his head, and closed the notebook. Most of the words that came to his mind were profanities, which he polished into something reasonably acceptable. "Jesus wept."

Billie offered a smile that was intended to be sympathetic. "Hey, he's stressed. There's a lot of stress going around. I don't think we're expecting to get any of it back, just... well, we were worried. In case anything happened..."

"Like what?"

"Well." The shepherdess shuffled uncomfortably on her feet. "The lawnmower still had gas in it, and... I don't know what kind of chemicals they have in televisions, but it could be dangerous. Plus the pipes. We got to thinking, uh, if... why else would you take those things? And with the terrorists, and..."

Danny couldn't suppress his bemused expression, so he ran with it instead. "Are you fuckin' for real?"

"Well, with the... you know, with ISIS, and... the attack in Boston, and Sweden, and... this thing in Vancouver--"

"What thing in Vancouver?"

"I don't know. Not the details. It was on the news. I saw it on the news. Well, Jim saw it. Look, no, no--I mean. We're not stupid, officer. We know they wouldn't attack Cannon Shoals. But if they wanted to steal, you know, terrorist parts, this would be a good place not to get noticed."

He stayed unabashedly baffled. "It's not terrorists."

"Aren't you worried? We're up against... well..."

"Here? Jesus fuck, lady, they gave me body armor and an M4 for the fuckin' union riots in '14 and those assholes couldn't even afford gas for their goddamn molotovs. That's what we're up against."

Strangely, his rising temper didn't seem to have fazed the dog. "But if they had a drone--the news said that if they had a drone--"

"They'd put your goddamn refrigerator on it?"

"Why else would they take it?"

He held out, with diminishing hope, the notion that a practical joke was being played. Her expression said otherwise. "Because it's good scrap, lady. They sell it for scrap. Copper's good money."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

She nodded carefully. "You're sure you don't want to take another look around?"

Considering the stoat's notorious temper, he had managed to cultivate one hell of a poker face. He put it on, watching the shepherd girl. Her expression suggested more than just concern about the lost property. It looked kinda... hopeful. "Well, not sure it'd accomplish much. I know all I need to know."

"Oh." Yep. The expression had been hopeful, because it turned to a sort of disappointment. "Well, would you like another drink, maybe?"

"I'm on the clock. So, yanno. Much as I'd love to stay and chat..."

"You would?" Her ears perked.

And she walked him back out to his car, when he said that he needed to be leaving. Without prompting, she told him about her hobbies: pottery, gardening, painting... reading, oh, you know; whatever's new at the bookstore. The kind of things that get you out of the house, Billie said. "Mm-hm," Dan agreed.

"Not that it's a bad house."

He could've asked for a tour, and he half-suspected the dog's tail would've wagged clean off. But he didn't take the hinted offer, pulled the door of his car closed, and started the engine. "I'll let you know if anything comes up," he said. The shepherdess smiled, thanked him for coming over, and watched him go until she thought he was out of sight.

Carlos Ortiz was still at the station when Danny got back. Danny mostly called him 'Scout,' because he'd owned an International Scout, and Carlos called Dan 'asshole' because he was. Both of the nicknames had caught on.

While Danny was out solving crimes, Scout had spent the afternoon going through the station's old paperwork, trying to decide which of it needed to be kept and what could be discarded. Or sent to the Library of Congress, the coyote had said, snorting dismissively.

He didn't look thrilled with the progress he'd made, but when he saw his partner's expression Scout seemed to understand he might have gotten the better end of the bargain. "Well?" he asked. "Found any bodies?"

"I don't even know where to begin." He sat down, shut his eyes, and thumped his head into the back of his chair a few times. "Is it quitting time yet?"

"Just for today, or what?" Though his eyes were still closed, it didn't take much to picture the fatalistic grin Scout wore from the way he laughed. "What, Danny? Getting tired of all the civil service?"

"What kind of service?"

"You too, huh?"

The stoat opened one eye. He didn't like the way Scout was smirking at him. Coyotes never smirked for good reasons. "Out with it."

"Did you really not know? I figured by this point she'd have a file." Scout, mischievous bastard that he was, saw an escape from the tedium of the desk work and put the papers he was sorting aside to focus on the conversation. "She has a thing for uniforms. Or maybe authority. I heard Clint and Miller talking about it once. Jackie said some shep bitch hit on one of the coasties, too."

"Any of 'em do anything?"

The coyote shook his head. "She's just flirty, I think. it doesn't mean anything for real."

"Dangerous game."

Scout's smirk came back even stronger. "Apparently not. You resisted. I got the impression she was bored, really. Cannon Shoals doesn't offer many hobbies for trophy wives." Other than pottery, gardening, painting, and reading whatever came in new at the bookstore.

"Is that it?" It explained a few things. Of course, it also created new puzzles, since it wasn't like the town had many opportunities to show a trophy like that off, either.

"She isn't from here. Beaverton, maybe? I met her at the IGA a couple months ago--and no, in case you're wondering, I didn't do anything either. She wanted to know if I was a cop. Her husband didn't seem too impressed, but I did pick up she was from out that way. Beaverton or Hillsboro or something."

Big city, in other words--at least, the Portland suburb was close enough to 'big city' for anybody in Cannon Shoals. "How'd Horvath get her, anyway?"

"Young love? Beats the hell outta me, man. Maybe she knows something we don't."

Maybe. Dan was skeptical. Cannon Shoals, a town that ran with bald tires and its fuel gauge perpetually hovering over 'empty,' wasn't the place for heady, starry-eyed romance. And if she'd turned to flirting as a hobby along with the arts and crafts...

Flirting was not the stoat's forte. Sometimes a bitch knew what she wanted without dancing around it, and that was fine. Sometimes they needed a bit of convincing to know what they wanted, and that could be fine, too. It was even fun, in its own way. Flirting was unrewarding work, and he had plenty of that as it was.

The robbery, for instance. "Anyway, back to business. I'm required to do some due diligence. For some fuckin' reason, I don't know." He rolled his eyes, and flipped his notebook open to the most recent page. "You know your cousin up in PC?"

"Vince or Eva?"

"The one we met at the Fourth barbecue last year. Works at the salvage yard."

"Yeah?"

"Can you ask him--all, yanno, polite-like and shit--if they're hearin' anything about copper goin' missing?"

"Missing?" the coyote echoed. He crossed his arms. "Why would Vince know?"

"That's why I said 'polite and shit,' Scout," the stoat grumbled.

"Is this because I'm Hispanic? Is this--"

"Y'ain't fuckin' Hispanic, Scout, you're from Texas or some shit."

"I'm from New Mexico, and--"

"Same diff."

"And it is, isn't? You think: 'oh, stuff's going missing, I bet señor Ortiz knows.'" He glared, with whatever self-righteousness a coyote could muster, and naturally came up short. When Danny lifted one paw, and slowly but firmly flipped him off, the coyote's glare broke and he laughed. "For real, why?"

Dan tossed his notebook over, in case Scout was in the mood for any policework of his own. Failing that, in case Scout wanted to know what he'd been putting up with.

"'Suspicious Mexicans,'" the coyote read aloud. "Wait, what's this: 'possible terrorism'? What, like MS-13? Your words or theirs?"

"Theirs. And no, Scout. They're worried about suicide bombers. Horvath called us because they're worried about suicide bombers."

Scout flipped back a page, read that too, and groaned. "Oh, wow. They... they can tell coyotes and jackals apart, right? They know there's a difference? Don't you shrug at me, weasel. I'm good. Good. Me good American, asshole."

"Yeah? Can you pass a loyalty test? C'mon, Scout. When is July Fourth? Who's buried in Grant's tomb? What's the preamble to the Constitution?"

"We the people," the coyote began, in an atrocious Russian impression pulled straight from Boris Badonov. "Uh... have nothing to lose but our chains? Fuck," he laughed, and dropped the act. "They'd probably take that one. Kinda on the nose, sorry."

"Try German next time."

"Jawohl," his partner drawled, the pronunciation no better. "From what I remember, we don't have anything in the logs about any thefts recently."

Dan nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. Even the mill's been quiet, and those guys used to be in here every week bitching about wire and shit goin' walking. I concede the evidence is thin for a conspiracy of traveling radicalized Mexican produce salesmen with a side business in scrap metal and the caliphate, but... give Vince a call?"

Scout knew Danny too well to think it would make him uncomfortable, so the thick accent he put on had to have been for the coyote's own amusement. They were bored, too, after all. When he hung up the phone, Carlos shrugged, and gave the obvious answer: "Nah."

"Nothing?"

"Sorry, esse. He said the shop's busy, but they've got enough work just handling spring cleaning dropoffs. Anyway, the spot price leveled off a couple weeks ago, everybody's got enough stock, and... whatever, esse. Probably a target of opportunity."

"Probably. 'Whatever' is a good way of putting it. Guess it's done."

It was close to quitting time, anyway. Normally he'd head down to the bar with Scout, but the coyote wanted to take care of some errands and Dan wasn't in the mood to deal with the regular crowd at Annie's by himself. Fishermen were one of the only things worse than marine supply store owners.

Instead he called up one of his friends, a mutt girl named Melissa who enjoyed company and generally took the hint when he asked her over for dinner and a movie. 'The hint,' in this case, was cornbread, made with pie cherries so it took the form of an ersatz cake.

"I've been experimenting," Melissa explained.

Probably it said something about Cannon Shoals that culinary frontiers were defined by throwing random shit into cornbread, but she was good at it and he wasn't about to complain. He also didn't complain when, for the dozenth time in a row, she declined to watch Aliens.

Melly was an odd girl. Her dad ran the millworker's union up the road at the Martin-Barlow plant: he was a rough-hewn, surly dingo who had impressed upon her the need not to take shit from anyone, even asshole weasels. On the other hand, quiet and soft-spoken, she managed to avoid confrontation by deftly slipping around it, instead.

Some people weren't really meant for the town. The Shoals was caught in a time capsule, and a lot of the residents seemed to be caught, too. Some of 'em had big, dumb dreams about getting out, as though everything would be different in a Big City like... well, Beaverton.

Some of them didn't. Dan liked to think of himself as content. Sure, things were fucked up sometimes. Like Lieutenant Kendrick getting himself into trouble; wasn't his fault, no, but a dead civilian was a dead civilian. He was pretty messed up on account of it.

Would he have been better in Portland? No. No, and neither would Danny. One of these days, he'd have to ask Melissa what she thought. Melly seemed happy most of the time. Sometimes, though, there was a hint of something else coming through. The thought that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't worth trying to save the town, and if it wasn't worth that, it wasn't worth living there.

Yes. Some day, he'd have to ask. But not then. Melissa was good company, a low-stress way to relax in the evening through a movie and a couple of drinks and no goddamn pressure. Sometimes it was nice to have someone to not talk to.

The next morning, Scout and Danny traded places; Scout was out on call, and watching the speed trap on the south side of the bridge over Neatasknea Bay. Dan was supposed to be sorting through their files, but he could really only manage for ten or fifteen minutes at a time before wanting to kill himself from sheer boredom.

He was dicking around on his cell phone on a break between slogs, though not so engrossed as to miss it when a light on the desk phone went off. He paused the game he was playing and answered the phone. "Police."

"Hi, this is Mrs. Horvath. Somebody came by yesterday to investigate some things that were stolen from our house."

The receiver hadn't been designed for stoats and it was too old to be adjustable; with the earpiece close enough to hear anything at all, he had to raise his voice. "Yeah. That was me. What's up?"

"My husband wanted to know if there'd been any progress?"

Yeah. Yeah, actually I have the president on hold. Once he figured out there was this terrorist connection, he said it was priority number one. "There aren't any answers, if that's what you mean. But I'll keep at it. You'll know if anything changes."

"Today?"

"Yeah. I'm in until two, and then Sergeant Lopez takes over. But he's not involved with this file." Something told Danny her husband wouldn't have been happy to find anyone named 'Lopez' near it, anyway. He didn't say that. She didn't comment either, but she got the message.

Danny hated to admit it, but the worst part of manning the desk wasn't dealing with the shepherdess. It wasn't even the paperwork, and their paperwork was a catastrophe. Filed out of order, misfiled, incomplete... the kind of attention to detail you got, in a town of under two thousand people where nothing ever happened.

And that, in fact, was the worst part. His predecessors hadn't bothered keeping a close eye on the paperwork because they had no reason to. It didn't matter. None of it, so far as he could tell, mattered any more than the game on his phone.

Another call interrupted his morning, an hour or so later: a concerned citizen, reporting gunfire from the adjoining property. Their neighbor was shooting at gophers, the caller said. That can't be legal, right? Danny radioed Scout to take a look, if he wasn't busy with anything else.

After he'd done that, the stoat gave the report a second thought. The person calling lived next to property owned by the Martin-Barlow Western mill. The mill had a permit for taking care of vermin, which they'd extracted--after being cited for discharging a firearm unlawfully--by calling county animal control separately on each gopher for a month. Scout wouldn't find anything suspicious; there was nothing suspicious to find.

Indeed there was nothing, suspicious or not, until nearly one in the afternoon, when the bell on the front door chimed and Billie Horvath stepped in from the outdoors. "Oh! Hi, Sergeant Hayes."

The stoat lifted an eyebrow at her. The lighter tan parts of his fur angled downwards, and always lent his sharp-eyed expression a bit of scorn: with one of them raised, the effect was enough to shut most people up.

Not the shepherdess. "Just a pleasant surprise to, you know... I wasn't sure if..."

"You knew I was here," he pointed out, his voice flat and dry. "Because you called us three hours ago, and I said I'd be here. I said I'd be here, or Gus Lopez would be in at two."

"Is Mr. Lopez here now?"

"In at two."

"Oh, so you're alone?"

Jesus wept. He held up his paw, open upwards, and swept it in an arc to encompass the room. "Yep."

Satisfied, and without permission, the shepherdess sat down in the chair on the other side of his desk. "My husband wanted me to check in--"

"On the case, yes, you said it on the phone. I heard it on the phone."

"Right. But, it's always nicer to do it face-to-face, right?"

"I dunno, there are advantages to some of the other ways."

"Hm?"

"Depends on who you're with." He had yet to lift his voice above its low monotone.

Billie cocked her head sharply. "Hm? I drove by mys--oh! Oh! No, no, no. I mean--well not--no, but--"

"Please stop."

Her head slowly straightened. "I just wanted to... clarify it."

"Yeah. Mrs. Horvath, let me explain, okay?" He spoke slowly, as if to add: I'll use small words. "We don't have a whole lot of resources. We've been down a man last year, and even assuming Clint comes off leave, we're still a small unit. Plus, the mill in Oak Valley is open at capacity again, and it's basically a full-time job making sure the union isn't pulling anything obviously illegal."

"Yes," Billie said, stretching the word out like she had to think things over.

"You're talking about a thousand dollars in insurance-covered property in a case that has no real point. You're not getting your fridge back. You don't want your fridge back."

"But it's more than that."

"I know the intrusion into your personal space is upsetting, but..."

"No, no. I mean it's worth more. Jim said they said it was worth more."

"Who?"

Billie looked at him blankly, like maybe she thought it could've been the perpetrators of the Vancouver Incident. "I don't know. Somebody. People. I didn't pay attention. Jim..." She stretched that word out, too. "He can be pretty boring to listen to."

I noticed. "Okay. But if you don't know who..."

"I just know he's not going to let it go. So maybe you could... work on it a bit more."

"No."

She tilted her head, more softly, and put on a smile. "Maybe as a favor to me?"

Danny flexed his claws slowly. As long as the specter of a federal investigation hung over the department, it wasn't good to cause trouble. Much as the bitch was in clear need of sterner tactics, he restrained himself. "I don't know you. Favors are normally between friends."

"You... seem like a nice person?"

He blinked. "No I don't."

The question wasn't whether or not she believed it, it was whether or not she'd been dumb enough to think he might've thought she did. No, she wasn't quite that oblivious. "Fine, no, but you're... a reasonable person. Maybe... maybe if it's not a favor, you could think of something I could do for you? I could help you out here, couldn't I? You said you didn't have enough people."

"Don't you have enough to do at home? With the pottery and everything?"

"Well..." The shepherdess shifted about in her chair. "Home, sure. If you wanted to come over, uh, Jim--well, when he's working, I don't honestly have much to do. So."

Danny stayed quiet, cracking his knuckles one by one until at last, finally, she cleared her throat to say something else. Then he spoke. "Does he know you do this?"

"Do... what..."

"Don't play stupid. Easy girls are one thing. Dumb ones aren't worth it."

He'd half expected she might at least flatten her ears at that one. No, but it did get a hesitant denial: "It's not really like that."

"Fits in the same kinda package, don't it? Does he know or not?"

"He... knows I like being friendly with people. So what if I do?" she asked, with a little heat, seeing the look he was giving her. "I know what you're going to say. Okay? It's not going to be as good of an insult as you think, Sergeant Hayes. Yes, it's... kind of lonely. I don't really like it here. Fine. I... can get carried away."

There was the rest of the dumb act gone, too. Mostly. "Where do you figure this ends?"

"Here. You won't do anything and it's nice to actually... talk to someone. In a respectable place."

Once again, this explained a bit, although it suggested she wasn't too familiar with the saying about power corrupting. "That's why you go after uniforms? Because you think we're safe? Well, shit, let's call that bluff. My replacement won't be here 'til two. Plenty of time to really kick this up a notch, huh?"

"I don't know what that means."

"Sure you do. Been missin' out on why most folks do this, huh? Most folks like you do it 'cause, well, if you're feelin' low and slutty it ain't hard to find someone to fuck ya into a better mood. Guessin' yer wolf falls a bit short. We can fix that. See, most folks like me do it 'cause... well, don't matter. Maybe it's just a good deed."

"That's not really what 'good deed' means, I don't think..."

"I gotta say everything twice? You missed out. Maybe I did, too." He shifted his gaze easily into a pointed, suggestive leer. "Hell, I don't even have a knot--keeps things easy. Unless that's a problem?"

"No... I--"

"I can call Scout back. We can get a litter in ya by two, easy."

Finally he provoked a pinned ear from her. Just one. "It's not--no, I don't want--it's not--I don't want that either."

"If you keep lying, you don't get fucked and I have to listen to you run your mouth." He counted the consequences off on the thumb and index finger of his left hand, then shrugged with both palms turned upwards. "It's a lose-lose situation."

"I'm... not lying?"

He couldn't tell if she meant it to sound so insincere, but it didn't matter. He was done. "I have some bullshit paperwork to take care of. I should do that, 'cause it's my job. But. You did get my temper up. And I'm still a guy with a workin' dick. And you're still... well, let's not kid ourselves, lady. You're the kinda girl that gets called 'all-American' when they need somethin' that means 'wholesome and goddamn but you want to fuck it outta her.' We could both use it."

"Hrnh," she said. Again, not exactly an objection.

"Or. You get up, go home, and tell your husband to shut his mouth and stop wasting my time with this bullshit. Two options."

"Or..."

He glared the bitch into silence. "Two. No fuckin' choice that says you keep comin' here and you pretend it's 'cause you want a pen-pal. I ain't savin' you from your husband unless I get somethin' for it."

He could've pushed her, he thought. That was obvious. She might not've liked hearing the truth, might've wanted it couched in playfully feigned ignorance, but Dan's version of playing did not extend to self-delusional innocence.

She stopped at the door, looked at him one last time, then left. Nothing else came of it before Carlos Ortiz got back. Dan looked up at him from behind a messy stack of papers. "Good day at work?"

"You know it, dear." The coyote grabbed their log book and sat down to begin filling it out. "Making the Oregon coast great again, one ticket at a time."

"What about the gunshots?"

"Somebody from the mill. Goin' after gophers." He looked up from his writing. "Nice piece, though. 300 Winchester. Sweet NightForce scope, too--you know, Danny, I think they don't pay us enough. I couldn't afford it."

Dan cocked an eyebrow. "For gophers? Guess it makes the disposal easier if they just... explode."

"God bless the Second Amendment, right? What about you, Danny? You makin' progress on the case of the year? Oh, put those away. Asshole," he added, grinning at the two middle fingers that greeted him. "It is your job, you know."

"Being an asshole?"

"Solvin' crimes. Protecting the citizenry! We gotta have some excitement, don't we? You see the bulletin from the county? Hey, maybe we can borrow a rifle from the mill union."

Coast Guard Air Station Cannon Shoals, a few miles up the coast, had reported a new problem the week before. Some rich kid with a quadcopter and an eye for action photography had been coming too close to the helicopters. The bulletin requested that they be on the alert for anyone flying drones in restricted airspace.

Neither of them could afford a drone like that, either, which made the prospect of shooting one down all the better. Particularly since the odds were quite good the victim wouldn't be from the Shoals; Jim 'I Run the Marine Supply' Horvath aside, few of them made much more money than Dan Hayes, and they spent it at the bar anyway.

"Maybe drone guy has some pictures of the crime scene," Danny said.

"If you weren't gonna take this seriously, you coulda asked me to go..."

"You know as well as I do it's just some self-entitled asshole and his bored housebitch, Scout. It's not worth taking seriously."

"No. That being said..."

"What?" Scout needed to come up with something interesting, because Danny was ready to close the file as not worth either of their time. "What being said?"

"Kinda fucked up they didn't take anything else. A refrigerator's hard to move, right? What kind of target of opportunity is that?"

"Maybe they're not as lazy as we are. I don't know what you've heard about those Mexicans, but--"

Scout was the one to raise a baleful middle finger that time. "Fuck off. It's weird. You crack some guy's garage, and you... go for the fridge? And an AC unit? it's almost like... I dunno, I almost wonder if... hm."

"Oh, Jesus, hold the fuck up." Danny got his notebook out and opened it to the last bookmark. He stared at the page, pretending to read from it. "What did Scout notice about the AC unit? If you think you know, turn to page 106 for the answer to the Mystery of the Vanishing Large Appliances." He snapped to a new page, and then brought his gaze up to glare at the coyote. "It's blank."

Unfortunately, Scout--despite being a coyote--had worked with the stoat long enough to be able to deal with him. "Probably needed a crew, though. You figure many copper thieves just hang out with a gang of heavy lifters?"

"What are you trying to say?"

Scout didn't have an answer, though. Or, if he did, he was ready to knock off, too. "Trying to say we're almost done for the day?"

That night, and into the next morning, Danny occasionally returned to what the coyote had said. Objectively, he was right. It was a little odd, but he didn't want to do more work than he had to for the Horvaths. By his calculations, Billie could get maybe one more conversation about him before he decided to fuck some understanding into the dog, and he had to figure Jim wouldn't like that much.

Not that he cared about that, either, but it wasn't the break from routine he felt like committing to. He volunteered to stay back at the station for the second day in a row, hoping he could deputize Scout in case anything further came up.

A red light starting to flash on the desk phone gave him two seconds to ponder the futility of his existence before it burbled to life. Danny growled, and picked up the receiver. "Cannon Shoals Police, what's up?" At least they hadn't called the emergency number.

"This is the police?" The voice sounded troublingly familiar. "Speak up?"

"Yes. This is the police. How can I help you?" He debated trying to fake an Indian accent and figured he was too far in.

"This is Jim Horvath. Look, I want to know what's going on. Has anybody down there looked into my missing stuff?"

"I spoke to your wife about this yesterday, and--"

"She said you just gave her the runaround! I want some answers! I want to know where those fucking Mexicans took it--now you know--you know--I expect to see some results! Come on!"

A glance at the clock told him Chief Pacheco was liable to be up already. He sent Mike a text, briefly summarizing the situation and crossing his fingers until the chief wrote back: well more improtent then filing go take care of :)

Fuck. Danny didn't text that back, much as he wanted to. Nor did he ask what Pacheco meant by 'improtent,' since it could go a couple different ways. No point in picking fights, now that he was out of options.

Dan gritted his teeth, set up call forwarding from the desk phone to his cell, and went to see what brilliant fucking clues he could uncover. He skipped the squad car in favor of his own; they were keeping track of the mileage. First good news of the day: Blue Oyster Cult on the radio.

And it wasn't that great news, really. Still, the stoat thumped his paw steadily against the steering wheel, and when he pulled his car to a stop he waited until the song had faded away completely before turning off the ignition. Baby, I'm your man.

Right.

He skipped the Horvaths house and went to the Booths, next door. He didn't have to knock; Shannon was on her knees in the front yard, examining a row of planters. She looked up; the sight of the police uniform caught her attention, and the otter's head tilted. "Good morning?"

"Hey. You got a sec?"

Shannon gestured to the planters with a spade. "These'll wait, sure."

For a spring morning, at least it was bright and warm. He decided they could stay outside, and waved a paw to keep her in place when she started to get up. "Shouldn't take long. I'm Daniel Hayes, from the town police. Just had a couple of questions, I guess."

"I know who you are, Danny." Shannon worked at the radio station with a girl named Sandra, whom he'd had some encounters with. If the wolf bitch had told Shannon his name, that explained her odd smile, too.

Couldn't be helped. "You talk to Jim Horvath much?"

Shannon was of the impression they kept to themselves. He explained, with as much concern as he could muster, about the break-in. No, Shannon said, nothing was missing from her house. No, she hadn't seen anything suspicious at the Horvaths'. No, she wasn't aware of a gang of miscreants stealing things from good, hardworking Americans. No, she also wasn't aware of any rogue Mexicans. She raised her eyebrow when he asked it.

"It's what Jim said. He also said you had some over for your cooking show."

"As far as I know, that's not a crime. It isn't even suspicious--I don't know what country you think this is, but I can have who I want over."

"Sure," Danny said.

"I don't have to justify myself."

"Nah."

She looked like she couldn't read him. Her next question kinda seemed rhetorical. "What the hell happened to this country if you think I do?"

"Beats me," the stoat admitted. "You have names, by chance?"

"Of my guests? Why, so you can report them?" Shannon watched him long enough to decide his glare meant he was putting her on. "I dunno. Sorry, I got a bit paranoid."

"'Cause I'm a cop? Come on, we ain't all tools in an oppressive system of institutional violence. Some of us are just good old boys." He paused. "What the hell happened to this country if you think..."

Shannon shook her head. "Cute. Cyril Carrasco was the main one. He runs a restaurant all the way out in Philomath, but I had him here to talk about food trucks. If you have to know."

"'Out in' Philomath, huh?" It was maybe sixty miles away, and unlike Beaverton its five thousand people didn't count as a 'big city' even by Shoals standards. "Didn't know the station had a travel budget that big."

"We don't have a travel budget. I met him accidentally--he was a friend of some coyote who came by. Ortiz something... Philip? Victor?"

"Vincent?"

She nodded. "Could be. A figure 'already known to the authorities'?" The otter quoted those words with dirt-stained fingers.

"I work with his cous--god damn it. Fuck. Fuck." Fucking Scout. Fucking coyotes. The whole fucking mess, all of it. Shannon looked mildly alarmed. He shook his head, thanked the otter for her help, and stomped back to his car to make a phone call. When it was done, he threw his cell phone into the footwell. "Fuck."

The sound of a claw tapping on his window wasn't calibrated to improve his mood. It was Billie Horvath's claw; that didn't help, either. He rolled the window down. "Uh... hi?" The shepherdess began cautiously.

"I told you to tell your husband to go away," he reminded her.

"Yes, but... he doesn't listen very well, and..."

Dan glared harder. "You don't, either."

Billie lowered one ear. "I listened, Mr. Hayes. My hands are tied, though. Jim saw you talking to Mrs. Booth and told me to have you talk to him."

"Well, that's all kinds of too bad, ain't it?"

"Aren't you going to?" Her other ear lowered when she saw his expression. "Jim feels he's been kind of... wronged, somehow, and... he expects you to fix it. I can't change that."

"The fuck has he been wronged by?" He shook his head, and turned the key in the ignition. "Whatever. I don't care."

She leaned over, into the window. Figuring he wasn't liable to drive off with her like that, probably. "It's the way he is. He just... sometimes I think it would be better if someone... put him in his place. Sorry to be so blunt. Can't you talk to him? For me?"

"Already told you." He put two fingers on her chest and shoved, pushing her away. "You keep at it, gonna have to give ya a demonstration instead. Think he'll listen to that?"

"Maybe."

It was a weird answer. Truth was, based on what he'd learned Dan was starting to become concerned that wrapping the investigation up would take more effort than he felt like putting in. Perhaps, with some creative persuasion, Jim would leave well enough alone.

He was relaxing on the sofa and catching up with the news when Billie and Dan came in. The wolf looked a bit surprised to see him. "Well, look who finally showed up. I thought you gave up."

"To be more clear," Danny said, doing a poor job at keeping the growl from his voice, "I told you to drop it and let this go."

"Not a damned chance. Not 'til I get answers. What'd you come here for, son? Just to tell me off?"

He took a seat, facing the wolf, whose attention he still didn't seem to have. "Your wife said you wanted to talk. Coincidentally, I'd like to, too."

Jim looked over, head tilted. "'Wanted to talk'? Well, sure, but..." He was distracted by something on the television.

Protests up in Portland, on account of some executive order. Probably a dumb as fuck order, all things considered, but Dan wouldn't have to care about that in Cannon Shoals. Wasn't exactly like the locals were much for demonstrations.

Jim kept watching for a few seconds before shaking his head. "You know, I don't get these kids. The hell are they bitching for? You know? Get the hell over it, already. We won. Grownups like us are back in charge."

"Uh huh," Dan said. And then, while Jim stuffed his head full of continued blathering, he thought back to that offhand question: wanted to talk? The wolf must not have known he was there, after all.

That meant it was Billie's doing. He was still thinking that part over when Jim Horvath finally turned off the television, giving one last derisive snort. "Kids. Glad I didn't have any, you know? My dad turned the store over to me 'cause he knew I could take care of it. Your generation... there's a disappointment, huh? Are you going to disappoint me, son?"

"Yes." There was no guilt to that. "But I'll keep it quick. This is over. All of this is over, you're not getting your stuff back, and--you know what? I'll even do you a favor. Never bother us again, and I won't report you."

Jim scoffed. "You? Report me? I'm the victim here, sonny. I got rights."

What is your problem, you dumb fuck? "What are you even trying to do? You know it wasn't a robbery."

"Yes it was!"

"I called Vince Ortiz. He's got the goddamn paperwork for your hardware. The stuff you asked him to pick up." He opened his notebook and held it up, although the wolf didn't bother reading the notes from his call.

"Yeah, and did the spic told you he stole from me, or could you not understand him?"

"He didn't steal shit." There was a line to walk, because he didn't really need to get in more trouble from Chief Pacheco--but Christ, even he had limits. "What are you not understanding?"

"Back before the election, he said it'd be worth eight hundred dollars this spring. Somehow, now we only got six hundred. Now, he said 'fair market value' but of course, I guess these damned illegals got to skim it off somehow, now don't they? Where's my two hundred dollars? Awful convenient."

Suddenly what Scout said made a lot of sense, and Danny stole it for his own. "The spot price for copper leveled off. If he's paying fair value, I'm sure what he estimated back in November isn't--"

"Or he's a liar. They are, son. You know it, I know it--we gotta clean up. You gotta clean up, I mean; I do what I can, but... well, no surprise, we're always cleaning up, aren't we? Now here you are, trying to screw me over. I deserve better than that--my generation--"

All inclination for political correctness gone, he simply cut the wolf off. "I don't care. I'm not wasting time with this."

"You're supposed to be on our side, you know. That's why we pay you."

Dan wished dearly that there was some way to refund the wolf's share of the taxes that paid his salary, since it obviously meant so fucking much to him. "So you filed a false report and figured I'd just roll with it?"

"Now, you listen here! It wasn't a false report. I'm owed that damned money, kid. Yeah, so maybe I... exaggerated the details a bit--"

"Lied, you mean. About not knowing these people, about the van..."

"Sometimes you have to do that, okay? Didn't get where I am by letting people just come in and take shit. Especially not those types, and I know how damn friendly y'are with 'em. Think I don't know how much time you spend with--is that why? That Mexican you hang around with? Protecting him? Sure, I had to find some angle to make you guys care about this."

Dan got up. "We're done. Keep pushing and I'll tell Chief Pacheco every last damned thing. Otherwise, I'm closing this."

Jim stood, too. "The hell you are." He grabbed the stoat's arm. "I'm not letting you--"

Danny snarled before he could even help himself. "Get your paw off me."

The wolf jerked back. Then he got that weird look they got sometimes, when they realized they'd showed some momentary weakness and needed to double down. "Things have changed. Do you understand that, kid? Do you even care whose side you're on? This is not how America works."

"No, sir. I'm not on your side. And thank fuck for that one; Jesus Christ, ain't often I get a compliment like that."

"Wasn't a compliment. Can you do anything? Cowards like you are why we almost lost this damn country in the first place. You don't care, you don't have any--you have some cushy union job, and real men like me have to be the ones carrying you!"

Danny flipped his notebook shut. "Are you done?"

The wolf curled his muzzle. "Either do something or say something. You... I just... you don't understand how the world works. You have everything on a damned platter these days. Those... those people just up and take something and you--nobody ever taught you anything about consequences or--well, you didn't learn that in Eugene, did you? Did you?"

The stoat was neither even-keeled nor diplomatic enough to argue one point at a time. That Jim had inherited the marine supply was, where the wolf's apoplexy was concerned, about as relevant as where Dan had gone to school, and why. "Are. You. Done?"

"If he said we don't have a case--"

"It's none of your business anymore, Billie. I'm trying to get something into this kid's head. If he pays attention. Do you pay attention?"

"Jim, calm down, you're making a--"

"What did I say? Stay out of it," he spat, ignoring her rolling eyes to turn back to Dan. "What's your degree in? Creative writing? Communism? Theater?"

"Close. Performance art."

"Are you mocking me?"

"No. Performance art, really. Did a whole thing on black humor and irony in improv."

"You are mocking me," Jim sputtered.

"Not yet. Billie, come here."

The shepherdess padded over. Danny knew she was expecting something--that much was clear from the little white lie she'd used to get him into the house. He didn't know what she was expecting, and promptly decided he didn't really care, either.

"Good. You can listen. Let's give you a new name, just to keep it simple. Let's go with 'slut.' Can you answer to that?"

"Uh..."

"Hey, you just did. Good job. Alright, slut. Get on your knees."

"Billie--"

She started to turn towards her husband, so Danny tapped her sharply on the nose. "Not your name, is it? Down now." She froze. Her eyes tried to track over to Jim and his expression as it slowly gave way from confusion to anger. She understood there was some power play in progress...

Like any good dog, she also understood her part in it. She dropped down to her knees, and her husband's lip curled. "I don't know what you think this is about, son, but you're done now."

Dan didn't even bother ignoring the snarl. He rolled his eyes. "Think I remember telling you that myself."

"This isn't even..." Seeing that his bared teeth hadn't fazed the stoat, he switched to an easier target. "Billie, get up. You look ridiculous. Go... go call the station. I'm filing a complaint."

"You know that's not her name," Danny said. He patted the shep bitch between the ears, lightly ruffling her hair. "Got a point though, don't he? Ain't put ya there just to see if you knew how to heel, slut. Get to work."

"To... work?" She lifted her head, pushing his paw down her face to the bridge of her muzzle. "What kind of work?" When he didn't answer, her head tilted, all maybe-this-is-a-bit-far. "I don't, um... do that. I don't do that."

"The fuck you think this is, Dungeons and Dragons? You remember rollin' for initiative? Ain't asked shit."

He said it so firmly that, although the hesitant expression was still in her eyes, she reached for his fly nonetheless. Jim bristled further. "You heard her, asshole. Billie, get up already. Don't listen to this son of a bitch. Listen to me. I told you, Billie--"

Danny held up the paw that wasn't on the shepherd's head. "You slow, too, pops? Need to hear it from Hannity before it sinks in? Her name's slut. It's nice and descriptive." He patted her again for effect. "See?"

"Billie..." he growled, neither learning nor realizing the order wasn't likely to be followed. His wife swallowed, and tugged the stoat's zipper open. "Billie, damn it..."

Dan didn't see the point in standing on principle any more than he saw the point of principles, generally. Also, he was tired of waiting. He unfastened his belt to help the girl along, and she popped the button of his slacks to finish the job. She also pulled his briefs down, trading the cornflower blue for the short, soft copper of his bare fur. That was all, for the moment, and now the shepherdess was staring at him a bit like she didn't know what to do.

"For real?" Dan asked the wolf, condescension dripping into his drawl. "You never had her do this? The fuck kinda guy are ya?"

"Billie isn't like that!"

Oh. We'll see. He tapped the shepherdess on the nose. "Show him, slut."

"I really... I don't do this, Danny," she said softly. "I never have."

"Ain't feel like I gotta insult your intelligence too, slut. Right? Do I need to use small words?"

"You need to... to... Billie?" Jim trailed off just as Danny felt why: the warmth of a canine tongue on the fur of his sheath. Jim kept going, something about stopping and backing off and maybe some swearing mixed in. But the tongue kept going, too.

Hedging her bets, the shepherd settled for gentle, hesitant licks. Soft as it was, he still let himself get into it. His body started to respond, sheath filling out and the flesh within growing firmer. "There you go, slut," he encouraged her. "Knew ya had it in ya."

Jim stormed off. Danny heard a door slam. The shepherdess stopped nuzzling and sat back on her heels. Her eyes kept flicking away. "Are we done? This is... kinda far..."

"And?"

"I... I know he can be difficult, but... you've done enough. Right?"

Oh, sure, he had. "But you haven't."

"I--"

He tweaked her ear, cutting the bitch off with a startled whine. "Small words it is. You: you're gonna suck me off, and you're gonna like it. We both know it."

"We--"

Another tweak, harder because he wasn't in the mood to spare her dignity. "You can keep makin' excuses if that turns ya on, but it's awful hard to talk with a cock in your muzzle and ya might as well get used to it. Was that clear enough?"

She swallowed heavily. Her eyes stopped wandering back to where her husband had gone, and came to rest on the stoat's thick, veined shaft. Her ears wavered. It was some kinda oh-no-I-ain't-like-that bitch thought process, like the stages of grief.

That would be depraved and scandalous and wrong!

I'm not that kind of girl!

What would anyone think if they found out?

Maybe... maybe just a taste?

Billie licked up the side of his shaft for an inch or so. Like she coulda told herself it hadn't really counted. It had, though. It had, and she went further. Her ears came slowly up and forward as she got closer to the tip. Precum beaded there, glistening, catching the light. Her ears went back. At last she rallied, licked him clean, and froze up. Her tongue flicked against her lips.

"Wasn't so bad, eh?" Danny's cock throbbed, and he smeared the next jolt of preseed right into her lips. "Aw. Was it? Only did it 'cause i told ya?" She didn't answer. "Alright," he growled, nudging her muzzle with his prick. "You're just a good, obedient bitch who does what she's told. Works for me. Do it again, slut."

Having an order to follow did the trick. She licked gently, again and again. All the same, he figured she'd been telling the truth when she said it was out of her normal range. Jim hadn't been able to persuade her--go figure--and... well...

Well, she was used to not really having any consequences to the flirty act. He'd have to show her or have her going at him like she was trying to get him clean for the rest of the day. Subtle hints were unlikely to do the trick. "Stop," he told her curtly. "Open your mouth."

'Stop' didn't seem to be a problem, but the second command had her licking her muzzle nervously. "So that you can..." She saw him glaring and looked away.

"So don't matter. Open, slut." She did, warily, and Danny pressed his cock between her open lips, mindful of those sharp teeth. "Better not bite. Be a good girl, now."

Her ears had gone back, but as she sucked on him and he slid further into her long muzzle they started to perk up again. Hell, with some work she might even get good at this. Now that her little secret was out, he figured there'd be plenty more 'work' where that came from.

His phone started buzzing, providing a momentary distraction from the shepherd quietly trying to swallow his cock. He fished it from his pocket, glancing at the number. Local. Danny took a deep breath and answered the call.

"I've got a complaint. I need you to send somebody over." He was greeted by an angry voice: first from down the hall, and then, a second later, right in his ear.

Jim Horvath was having bad luck. Dan snickered. "Kinda--mm... suck harder, slut, ain't made of fuckin' cotton candy--uh, kinda busy, sir, but if you wait a minute..." Instead, the call ended. Danny tossed the phone to the side. "Oh well."

He heard the door slamming, and then footsteps. And then, just as Jim reentered his field of view, the sound of a pump-action shotgun being cycled. "That's enough," Jim snarled.

Dumb as fuck thing to say, that, given how Danny hadn't gotten off and wasn't about to miss the opportunity. The wolf's face was pure rage, and Dan faced him with open contempt. Having your cock shoved down the throat of a guy's wife was good for that.

He could picture just how the wolf must've figured the scene would go down. The dramatic entry, the bared fangs, the sharp eyes--the dramatic cock to the shotgun. That's enough.

Billie stopped sucking at the sound of the gun. He ruffled her between the ears softly. "Still here, slut. You ain't done," he reminded her, and bucked his hips gently in case she needed a more physical lesson. "See whatcha been missin', Jim?"

Jim gripped the Mossberg tighter. "I--I said that's enough. Stop."

Danny thrust sharply, letting his first answer be a startled gasp from the shepherdess. "'Cause... why? You need me to fuck her, too?"

"What?"

"Need to get her fucked? Yer Alex Jones dick pills ain't workin' out for ya?"

"I don't--I--get out of my house. You--you think I won't--you think I won't use this?"

Yes, as a matter of fact, the stoat was pretty certain he was too spineless to do anything of the sort. "What, shoot a cop on account of you bein' a dumb fuck who don't know when to give up?"

Jim wavered, then cycled the shotgun again, sending an unused round tumbling to the carpet. "On account of you forcing yourself on my wife and--and I--I..."

"What, you think you're standin' up for her? God, ain't either of you quick learners. Slut, you're done. Heel."

"Stop calling her that!" Jim raised the gun; the barrel was pointed more or less at Dan's chest, though it wavered. It wavered more when Billie pulled her muzzle off the stoat's cock, licked her muzzle clean, and settled down at his left side. "Billie, you don't have to do what he says."

Danny let the scene remain frozen like that for a few seconds, so it could sink in for the wolf, and then looked down at the shepherd, lifting her muzzle up so she was staring at him. "What do you say, slut? You want to get fucked?"

For what he figured would be just about the last time, she tried to let her eyes drift over to her husband, although the angle of her muzzle made that difficult. "Um..."

Dan flashed his teeth in a dark smile. "Ask for it like a good girl. Go on."

"Billie! God damn it--son, you back the fuck off!" He worked the shotgun again, apparently on the grounds that if he kept doing it he might wind up in an action movie.

"Well, you... I mean... if you..."

For a moment, hoping to train her, he gripped her muzzle harder. "Nope. Ask. Ain't gonna give you an excuse this time. You want this, don't ya?"

"K-kinda. 'Cause... 'cause I... well you're... you're so big and it..." Billie swallowed and lowered her voice rather than actual comin' out and saying show me how it's done right, although Jim didn't seem the type to appreciate subtle concern for his feelings like that. "You could do me."

"Not good enough. You want to get fucked for real, bitch? Last--" He heard the shotgun's action--and this time, he didn't hear anything hit the ground. Time to twist the knife. "Last chance. See, hubby's gettin' impatient, too."

"I'm not--"

"How about it, slut?" Danny cut Jim off by squeezing her muzzle again.

"--getting impa--"

"Fuck me," Billie whined. "Please?"

Jim gasped and growled and took a step forward, muttering vague and impotent oaths. Dan ignored him, and let the shepherd's muzzle go. "Geddup then." He helped her to her feet, and made such quick work of her pants that they were about her ankles while Jim was still trying to figure out how much of an idiot to be. "On the sofa. Give him a good show."

The shep bitch stepped from her jeans. Pretty good body, Dan decided. Sure, not quite homecoming queen standards anymore. Carrying a few extra pounds, and not in any place nice and curvy, but Billie did have a nice, girl-next-door appeal to her. It lasted even after she bent over for him.

Jim was six feet away, on the far side of the coffee table, and didn't look like he knew what to do with himself. Danny gave him a smirk. "What? It's fine, old man. You can watch."

"I..." His snarl had started to weaken, and his ears lowered.

Dan got behind the shepherdess, who raised her tail obediently when he tugged on the thick appendage. He guided his cock between her dark-furred legs, pressing the tip up and against her tellingly slick pussylips. "He can watch, right, slut?"

Her hips quivered as he teased her, and she nodded shakily. "He can."

One final time, Jim raised the shotgun up. "S... stop it. Stop it, for god's sake, I swear I--"

"Oh, put the fuckin' gun away, Dirty Harry." Dan rolled his eyes, and made any quip about feeling lucky immediately obsolete--thrusting forward and into the shepherd sharply.

The gun lowered.

Probably it wasn't from genuine acquiescence. Maybe it was the realization that the Mossie was empty. More likely it was the short, barking cry Billie gave as the stoat slammed into her. She almost buckled with the shock of it. Leaning forward, ears back, muzzle parted and eyes shut, she resisted a moan for three gulping, gasping breaths.

When Dan bucked again, hilting himself all the way inside the bitch, the moan ripped free and Jim's abrupt deflation did a good job suggesting it wasn't a sound he was too familiar with. Well, maybe he'd finally learn something?

Billie definitely had. A few full, deep, powerful strokes later and she wasn't even trying to restrain herself. Her hips pushed back in pretty decent time to his tempo, adding a bit of emphasis. Like she was making up for all the time she'd spent unfucked, realizing what she'd been missing.

"See, now?" Dan jerked his head sideways to direct the question at Jim, who didn't look like he was having quite as much fun. "Just takes a bitta--mmf--work." The last word was a hoarse grunt, barked with the exertion of a solid, rough thrust that briefly muffled his wife's ecstatic yelp in the sofa.

Unfortunately neither the advice nor the yelp reassured the wolf, so Dan went back to demonstrating directly. Despite some last-minute enthusiasm, the shep bitch hadn't exactly gotten him close with the blowjob--needed some teaching--and he'd thought maybe he could draw things out a bit. At first.

But with every new thrust, ramming his prick hard into the slippery warmth of the shepherd's dripping cunt, that seemed less likely. More than that, it seemed dumb. She agreed: her thighs trembled and her hips shook against him, quivering tensely every time he stuffed her snatch. Danny plowed into her roughly, digging his claws into her flanks. "You like that, slut?" he growled.

Her muzzle opened, sure, but all that came out of the fuck-drunk shep's mouth was a slurred groan. He repeated the question, gripping her harder. She nodded quickly, so enthusiastic about it that her muzzle thumped into the cushions and her teeth clicked. "Uh-huh-it's-good-it's-really-god-damned-good!"

"What--about--your husband?" He didn't have much breath free for the rising tone of a question, and settled for punctuating it with a series of full, heavy thrusts to force her into confronting every last goddamn inch she'd gotten from him.

It worked. "My who?"

"Your audience," he reminded her. Another thrust, and a half-wild bark from the shepherd. She might not've been playing dumb after all, with the state she was in.

"Hrnfh!"

No points for eloquence, but then you couldn't always trust a bitch for that anyway. He slowed down just a bit, waited for her muzzle to come back up, and then bucked into her hard--sharp and quick and powerful, knocking her forward. He saw her paw come up to steady herself on the arm of the couch

Even as it did her fingers suddenly splayed. Tightened. Her muzzle opened and he thought she might howl. Instead she yelped, twice, between desperate gasps for breath, and couldn't get anything else out as she lost control. She shook all over, bucking and squirming on him--Danny had to hold her hips firmly and stop moving to keep her from doing anything dumb like pulling away from him.

Dan kind of wanted to finish up on the slut's pretty little I-don't-do-that face, but he figured there'd be opportunities for that later. Really the only question was whether he let Jim hear her beg for the stoat's cum. Yes, he did--but Billie was a twitching, gurgling mess, her head flat on the sofa and a happy grin on her face.

She was looking in her husband's direction, but not really seeing him. Jim seemed quite aware of that. Dan shrugged apologetically to the wolf before thrusting hilt-deep in his wife again, driving a sloppy grunt from her muzzle. Dan's cock was starting to twitch, the urge to fill the dog up had become irresistible, and...

"Might as well finish, right?" Dan asked. Jim's ears briefly flicked, and the stoat shook his head. "Not askin' you." He slapped Billie's rump to bring her back into enough consciousness to understand what was going on. "Right, slut?"

Her eyes shut and, still grinning, she nodded, dragging her muzzle over the cushion. "Cum in me!" Jim's ears flicked again, not that it would change much and not that anybody cared.

Dan bucked firmly, deliberately; she bit her lip in anticipation, inhaling in short gasps every time like she could sense it coming. He sure as fuck could; the last few thrusts were borderline uncontrolled, just instinct, just a bit of shared need.

He forced himself all the way inside, grinding their bodies hip-to-hip firmly enough to lift her up a little as his peak hit. Kept her husband from seeing exactly what was going on, true, but Danny no longer cared. The wolf could guess, anyway, from Dan's hoarse growl. And from his wife's pleased gasps, soft and unmistakably rhythmic, timed to the throbbing twitch of the stoat's cock as he pumped her full of cum.

By the time he finished emptying himself in the shepherd's cheating pussy, Dan was also aware that Jim had dropped onto the seat opposite them; the shotgun clattered against the table and fell to the floor. Billie was still kind of useless.

That left Danny having to speak. "Wasn't bad, yanno? Get what ya saw in the bitch, man. Just gotta treat her better." Little aftershocks, throbbing through the shepherd's frame, teased his cock and kept him from pulling out quite as quickly as he might've.

Jim said nothing, watching with his ears pinned as the stoat ran his fingers through the well-used dog's fur. She took better care of herself than he'd thought at first. He wouldn't mind fucking her again, at some point.

"Cause, ain't me who really counts, right?" He gave Billie's rear an indicating pat. "Did kinda make a mess of things, though." Between the load he'd fucked into her, which was starting to drip around his softening prick, and the drool soaking into the cushion.

The wolf exercised his right to remain silent. A few seconds later, Dan's cock slid free of the shepherd, and she toppled over to lean against the back of the sofa. Lines of sticky seed ran down her soft brown fur and spilled in lewd, glistening puddles.

Dan got up, and pulled his pants back on. Jim was staring at his wife, or possibly at the soiled furniture. Either way, the stoat gave his shoulder a pat. "Tell you what. Why don't you clean her up, huh? You're good at cleaning up. Then, yanno. Have at her for round two. I'll stick around; give ya some pointers."

"Go to hell." It was the first thing he'd said, and just like with the shotgun he probably thought it sounded threatening.

Danny snorted. "Well, Christ. I don't know what you're bitchin' about." He leaned in close, and clicked his teeth next to the wolf's ear. "After all: you won. Get over it."