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It took four days for it all to happen. During that time, Madame Roma (who had us call her Katarina when we were in private) took some time, twice a day, to send our message to Wally. Lillian had graciously allowed her to keep the rose quartz pendant to focus with, which she called "a terrible sacrifice, but one I'm willing to make." Both ladies shared a chortle over that one. Katarina did hint that she might have something both better looking and more successful, if Lillian wanted it. I noticed that Lillian didn't say no.

My work being what it was, and the world out there being too much of what it seemed to be at its worst times, I had an official case and two separate consultations during that time. The coyote wasn't far from my thoughts, but I tried not to interfere, corporeally or psychically. Both were tall orders.

When I got to the precinct offices that morning, only several hours after the sting had taken place, there was a buzz about the place that I couldn't quite pin down. Apparently, things had gone well, despite some "strange occurrences" during the operation. Like other forms of gossip and story-telling at a cop shop, sifting wheat from chaff could take all day. As Lillian had taught me, when the truth won't come to you, do an end run around it and tackle it from behind.

Naturally, it was Andy who became our spy, his status as a detective giving him entrée to just about anywhere in the shop (prejudices against therians notwithstanding). When he came to find me and Lillian, his first question was whether or not we should visit Madame Roma at her shop. I explained that it was her day off, and he suggested that we invite Katarina to lunch in order for him to give us as much of the story as he'd been able to gather.

"You might want to talk to Wally to get the rest," he said. "I can't be sure that he was involved, but the interesting part of what I've heard fits in with what I saw at the shop that day."

"Did you tell anyone about that?"

"Like they'd listen to this old ringtail?" Andy chuckled. "Some secrets are best kept between friends."

* * * * * * * * * *

Three old friends and a new one sat comfortably in a back booth of a bistro that Katarina introduced us to. She had praised its "old world trappings," and all agreed that it was a congenial ambience of dark wood, modest lighting, and quiet familiarity even for its newest guests. The circular table allowed for as many as six, if they were friendly, and the high-backed walls provided just enough privacy to prevent prying eyes and ears from discovering too much. Although I disliked thinking it, I was glad to find that no one batted an eye about having therians as customers, and our entrée was made even smoother by Katarina's having been a long-time regular of the establishment.

We ordered quickly, as we were all anxious to hear the story that Andy had for us. We also hoped to get all of it before the meal arrived so that we wouldn't have to worry about mashing mandibles interrupting everything.

"Unaccustomed as I am..." he quipped. I was nearest, so I tapped his muzzle with a breadstick. Laughing, he waved his forepaws in surrender, but I kept the breadstick in view in case it was needed again.

"Okay," he began again. "The basics are simple enough. Porter had been suspected of drug trafficking for months, but he was cagy enough to avoid most of the common traps. He wasn't part of any big-time mob chain, nothing that would give him access to things like background checks or other information about buyers; he was a talented amateur who knew how to cover up, protect himself, and apparently could get tough, or would hire some muscle when he thought he needed it. Baldwin's narco team knew this going in, and they worked up a good plan to take him down, get one more bad guy off the street, maybe get a lead on where he was receiving distributing, all that stuff. Just like on the cop shows."

Katarina grinned at him. "I have a few favorites of such shows. They work this way in real life too?"

"Mostly, although not always that exciting." Andy shifted his ears a bit more forward than before. "This morning, about 4:00am, James Porter was arrested for possession and attempt to sell; a clean collar, as the jargon has it, with the bonus of nabbing a few more 'connected,' shall we say, members of the lower orders. That was the part no one was prepared for, and that's where the story gets interesting."

None of us really begrudged him a sip of his iced tea, but he clearly knew how to milk a story for suspense. I waved the breadstick at him menacingly, and he got the idea quickly enough.

"Any sting of this type has planning, backup, enough personnel to make it happen properly. Big operations get the big numbers; this was essentially a small-time bust, so the players were three of ours to make the deal undercover, two on-duty uniforms, and two more guys who volunteered. Those last four were hidden but stationed close enough to move in when necessary. It was Porter on his own, and maybe one along for the muscle, but not a whole gang."

"Did a whole gang show up?" Lillian wondered slyly.

"Close. Turns out that our undercover guys weren't the only ones scouting out Porter as a supplier. Being cagey, Porter didn't let on, and being even more cagey, the other buyers were looking to secure our money, his drugs, and expand territory, all in one shot. Four guys in backup wasn't quite enough to handle three heavily-armed party-crashers that we didn't know about in advance."

"Ce puii mei!" Katarina exclaimed. "What happened?"

"This is where it gets interesting." Andy leaned forward, smiling. "It all took place in the alley behind the store, as any self-respecting nefarious endeavor would. Our undercover team was wired, as they had no reason to imagine they'd be searched for it. Like I said, small-time stuff. That was how the backup knew the other guys were there -- the undercover team kept the conversation appropriate while passing along necessary information. The backup crew was calling up for more help when gunfire was heard, just a short burst, then scuffling, a lot of confusion. You've seen how the cry of 'Shots fired' brings everyone onto the scene? Absolutely accurate. The backups were out of their cars and moving into position at break neck speed, when they heard the undercover crew giving an all-clear. They came running up to find Porter up against a wall getting cuffed while the two other undercover guys were holding two of the rival crew members at gunpoint, with the third member of the rival crew on the ground holding his bloody leg with both hands. All their weapons lay on the ground, and they were rounded up along with everything else."

"Who fired at whom?" I asked, unintentionally showing off my grammar skills.

"Bad Guy One shot Bad Guy Two in the leg, which distracted Bad Guy Three enough that Good Guys One, Two, and Three got the drop on them and Porter, who was too freaked out to do much of anything but stare."

"What am I missing?" Lillian asked, her eyes narrowing.

"A little poltergeist, yes?" Katarina grinned.

"Wally to the rescue," Andy nodded, also grinning. "No one else in the squad room knew about that, of course. They assumed that Bad Guy Two was having some kind of drug-related hallucination or spasm or whatever. One of the operatives said that he saw Bad Guy Two's arm suddenly pull down and to the side, toward Bad Guy One."

"He didn't know how right he was," Lillian observed.

"That's my guess, yes. I think Wally actually managed to pull the hand and arm down, and the guy pulled the trigger out of reflex. The pattern of the wounds and in the wall of the building indicated a track consistent with the shooter's hand in motion, catching his cohort's leg by accident. The distraction would have been enough to give our guys the chance to draw down; the wounding was, if you'll forgive my phrasing it this way, a bonus.

"There's one more reason that makes me think it was Wally. The undercover guys telling the tale were laughing about the 'crazy talk' from the bad guys. Leaving out the various vulgarities and expletives in the language, Bad Guy One was screaming out questions to Bad Guy Two, who kept screaming, 'Something yanked my hand! Something yanked my hand!', over and over."

Andy looked over at me, still grinning. "I expect you to take a statement from the one remaining witness."

* * * * * * * * * *

It took a little finagling to get the credentials needed for me to visit Spotted Pony Gifts and Crafts. The whole shop had been searched, just a cursory job before locking it up to await whatever would be done with the inventory. With Lillian and Andy's help, I managed to convince Spencer Baldwin that my duties as a Charonite were needed at the Spotted Pony, even though there hadn't been a death on the premises. I took the chance of explaining to him what I thought had happened with his men during that collar; he wasn't entirely sure that he believed it, even with my associates backing up my story, but he was curious enough to authorize my entry. Like Andy, Baldwin hoped that I could take a proper witness statement.

When I arrived at the shop, two mornings after it had all gone down, I found an oddly familiar muzzle at the door to the place. The doe was in full uniform, officially on duty. Smiling at me, she said, "Ms. McLeory, I believe?"

"I'll break out the ID, if you want to make it official," I said returning her smile.

"I remember you from the case involving the death of a weasel. Murdered in his home." She offered me a forepaw, which I clasped gently in the manner of most therians. "No one asked me about your presence that day, but thank you for giving me Capt. Messenger's name for a backup."

"He knew that I was going to be there, so it seemed sensible." I remembered the doe now; her nametag read GREENWOOD, and I made sure to remember it. She turned to unlock the door and open it for me. "Did you want to come in?"

"I'll stay out here. I can keep folks from thinking the store is open, in case they haven't read the papers. And besides," she said, her muzzle lowering several centimeters, "I have the feeling that what you do might need some privacy."

"It's not exactly like hearing confession in church," I said softly. "You're very sensitive to have thought of it, though. Thank you. I probably won't be long. If you have time, we'll get a coffee afterward. That café has a lovely dark roast."

"Coffee: Every cop's best friend." She chuckled softly. "It certainly does smell good. Take all the time you need in there."

I thanked her and entered the shop. Although the lights were off, plenty of light came through the front windows to see by, especially for a fox. I saw disarray but not devastation; only the most cursory check of the store itself had been performed, and Baldwin had told me that they'd uncovered nothing particularly important. No one expected contraband or cash in the public part of the store, but it pays to check. The overall contents of the store still inspired a sense of the giggles. I suppressed that emotion, as I had something more important to accomplish.

"Jumping Mouse?" I called softly.

"Over here."

The coyote's spirit manifested further back in the store, appearing to be standing near the rack of cheap necklaces that he had helped to manipulate for me and Lillian. He smiled at me, his form seeming almost solid rather than opaque, his stance relaxed and comfortable. I padded slowly over to him, and his smile became a grin.

"I won't bite, I promise."

"Good to know," I smiled back. "Thank you for waiting for me."

"Least I could do. Thanks for the heads-up. She's a good sender."

"We gave her that rose quartz crystal."

"Probably helped." He canted his head a little. "Invoking Eagle. Good message. You read the story of Jumping Mouse."

"Yes," I nodded. "The young mouse who dreamed of seeing the far-off land. How Magic Frog gave him a name, and in so naming him Jumping Mouse, gave him powerful legs to travel far. His first encounter was with a fat mouse who had given up his dream. Jumping Mouse almost stayed there, but he remembered his dream and kept going. On his journey, Jumping Mouse gave his sight to a blinded bison, and the bison took him to the edge of the prairie. He gave his nose -- his ability to smell -- to a wolf who had abused his sense and lost it, and the wolf guided him through the mountains. Even without sight or scent, the mouse still never lost his hope, his dream, and Magic Frog found him again. He commanded Jumping Mouse to jump high, and the mouse did not come down again. He had been transformed into Eagle, to live in the far-off lands forever."

I felt myself blush a little. "That's a terrible retelling."

"You have the essence of it. To see the far-off land, Jumping Mouse kept hope alive in himself." Wally smiled at me. "The fat mouse that Jumping Mouse found first... that was me. Complacent, no hope, no dream. Jumping Mouse took himself away just in time; Snake found the fat mouse and ate him."

"Snake was your addiction."

"For me, yes. I had to escape Snake, find my way back. After that, I needed to help others come back. That was my Dream."

I could feel the capital letter in the word. "You lived your dream for 22 years, Jack told me. And when you found James Porter was dealing drugs, you made yourself find a way to stop it."

He nodded. "I didn't know how, exactly. Just knew I had to try." The coyote tilted his head again, his ears forward. "You were warning me about the bust."

"Andy -- he's the raccoon who all but dragged me and Lillian out of here, several days ago -- read the story first and thought it would be the simplest, most direct message we could get to you."

"Worked." Wally grinned at me. "Wanna know what happened?"

"I have my guesses, but I'd like to know how you did it."

"Took a lot out of me." I could hear the heavy sigh just as if he had breath to produce it. "Not sure why it occurred to me. Hadn't tried to lift or push a living being before. Never had much chance to practice. Had the idea that the goon wouldn't know what had hit him, so he might not resist much. The rest was a guess. I got right up next to him and waited for what felt like a good moment. Gathered up all of me I had and pushed. I think I was hoping he'd shoot himself in the foot."

That made me laugh, and the coyote joined me. "It must have cost you plenty. Were you able to see the rest of it?"

"Yeah. Not sure I could have helped more, but I got to see your guys make some quick moves. Glad I wasn't in their way."

I filled him in, briefly, on the reasoning behind our contacting him, as well as the surprise generated by the appearance of the other group of buyers.

"That part, I figured from the conversation. It's how I knew who the good guys and the bad guys were."

"Wally," I asked gently, "how did you get here?"

"Far cry from southern Arizona, enit?" He smiled at me, looking around the shop with something that always came across, to my nose, as a faintly cinnamon scent. It was a warm sense, usually associated with fondness, affection. "Gimme an hour or two, and I could sort out exactly what came from my old shop and what was added by that fake Injun. Those cheap serapes on the walls? All his. Didn't have many in my shop, but they were good quality."

"Were you that attached to everything?"

He shook his head. "Not really. Only one thing here I was really attached to. Stinkin' wasichu probably knew how valuable it was. Kept it in his office."

Wally made his way through the aisles of the store, leading my corporeal self, just like the gentlefur he no doubt was in life. He was well aware that he was a spirit; he could simply materialize there, or pass through physical barriers. This action was to accommodate my physical self, as a gesture of respect, and I took it as such.

Padding into the office proper, I physically recoiled. "They did a number on this place."

"Actually," the coyote smiled, "it looked a lot like this before your guys went through it. Part of why I was so pissed off; he all but buried it." He jutted a chin toward a far corner of the desk. "If you can stomach pawing through that garbage..."

There were no issues with fingerprints, even if I'd had conventional human fingers that would leave identifiable prints. The shop, including the office, was a "crime scene" only by a technicality, at this point. The drugs that Porter was going to sell to the undercover group were recovered in the alley, and the first comb-through of the premises had revealed nothing further. The case itself was enough of a slam-dunk that no one cared too much about finding more product; without a specific reason to look, the place would be let go soon enough. My wish for gloves was for purely personal reasons. I don't consider myself picky, but there are some things I'd rather not dirty my paws with.

Much of the mess was paperwork, stained with anything from coffee to grease from many variations of fast food. It was clear that "the fake Injun" wasn't much for pemmican and maize. I pushed aside the detritus as gently as I could, for fear of starting an avalanche. I did find the remains of a donut (now hardened into something that could be used for hockey practice) and a picture magazine for "Russian mail-order brides" (uh huh), along with a few metal items that belonged to a socket wrench set and what looked like wristcuffs that had been lined with fake fur. I decided not to imagine why these items were in such close proximity. I'll just blame entropy.

Finally breaking through of the strata of junk to the level of the desk itself, I found what Wally had been talking about. I'd seen geodes before, or I should say half-geodes, but this one was remarkable at every level. Easily a dozen centimeters in diameter and as nearly a perfect hemisphere as I could tell, it was somewhat larger than the palm of one forepaw, and the interior housed a magnificent forest of the deepest amethyst hue I'd ever seen.

"Take a look at the sidewall," Wally said. "Thinner than most, and so perfect. Looks like rings in a tree trunk."

For its size, the geode weighed less than I thought it would, but I still used both forepaws to pick it up, to take a closer look at it. "It's so wonderfully symmetrical. Even the crystals inside look to be of the same length, beautifully formed. I'm no judge of these things, but..."

The coyote nodded. "Probably worth thousands, if I'd wanted to sell it. Never did, never would."

"Tell me the story."

"There's always a story." He smiled softly. "Someone I helped. Probably some irony in his tribal name being Yellow Eagle, me preferring Jumping Mouse, y'see. Anyway, he got himself clean, kept himself that way by doing a lot of physical work when he could. There's a place not so far into the desert that's a dig site for geodes. Owner of the place'll pay you in a few rocks you dug up, if you wanted it that way. Yellow Eagle -- Conny, short for Conrad, wherever his folks got that one from -- he had a feeling about this one he'd dug up. Big, but not so heavy. He bet that the bubble that formed in it was bigger than most, which was why it was light for its size. Owner offered him half a thousand, uncracked, just as it was. Conny, he stuck with his gut. He brought it to me, this cannonball of a rock, and he said that he just had a feeling about it, and he said he'd get someone to cut it open proper and give me half, as a thank-you. I thanked him and waited 'til he'd got the work done.

"He came back a few weeks later, with both halves of the geode to show me, to pick one. They're twins, and either one would be a treasure. He'd got it appraised, best he could, explained what made it valuable. I told him what made it valuable was, it was his gift to me."

I smiled at the coyote. "That's a beautiful story. Jumping Mouse and Yellow Eagle, both with a vision."

His expression mellowed into a sweet sincerity. "You'd be welcome among our People."

"Thank you." I sketched a slight bow toward him. "Does this hold you back?"

"No," he said softly. "It somehow got packed into the crates of stuff from the store, when that was sold off."

Thinking for a moment, I finally felt the penny drop. "Obligation."

Again, he nodded. "Yellow Eagle stayed clean. Never sold his half of the geode, no matter how tough things got. It was stolen from him by a tribal nephew, not a blood relation. Yes, for drugs. I offered to give him back my half; he just said to keep doing what I was doing. It was my promise to him. I kept going. Made a difference, I'd guess. This was my last good deed. I can let go now."

"Something tells me you don't need my help with that."

"I'll take your help with something else, if you can." He jutted his chin toward the geode in my forepaws. "That needs a good home. Your Gypsy woman is worthy. Can you take it to her? I can't seem to lift it that far. Might worry the pedestrians, too."

I had to laugh, then sobered. "It's not really mine to give. It's not removing evidence, but it's also part of the items in the shop."

"Who gets it?"

Considering, I shook my head. "Not sure if it's still Porter's. If it is, he can probably use the money for his defense counsel."

"Kinda goes against my purpose."

"Mine, too." I looked at him, already beginning to fade from my sight, his scent fading from my nostrils. "Here's hoping I don't need Jack Waterston to bail me out." Putting the geode into my purse, I bound myself to his good intentions, hoping that they weren't pavestones. "I will give this to her today, and I'll tell her about her benefactor. I'll tell her the story."

"Thank you, Naomi." He glanced to one side, grinning. "Where's that light everyone talks about?"

I smiled at him. "You're the light. Jump high, Jumping Mouse. You are Eagle now."

His gentle, sweet laughter was the last sensation that I had from him. It was good.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I tapped on the glass of the door to alert Officer Greenwood. She stepped to the side to let me out, then turned back to lock the door. "How did it go?"

"All is well," I said, trying to ignore the heft in my purse. "Coffee?"

She looked a bit sad. "May I ask for another time? I got a call for me to get back when I was done here."

"Anytime. If not here, join me at the Has Bean; some good brew there too." I clasped her forepaw gently in my own. "Call in at the precinct soon. We'll go get a cup and swap stories. And thank you for your help today."

"Anytime." She took herself back to a squad car in the nearby lot. I waited for a few moments until she was out of sight before padding slowly toward the corner. I crossed Timothy Street, then Mariposa, to get to the correct corner. Feeling that I had a more important errand to do first, I made myself forgo the coffee for a bit longer. I entered Madame Roma's shop, finding her just coming out of the back room, perhaps her office. I grinned at her warmly and spoke before she had a chance.

"You've got a lucky face, my dear."