6. The Name on the Apron

On Monday morning, Mara discovered a brown envelope pushed beneath her front door. Inside lay a photograph taken through the sunroom window. All seven dogs were visible. Across the back, someone had written in heavy pencil: THEY WILL BE SAFER WHERE THEY BELONG.

Mara placed it in a clean plastic sleeve and called Keene. The officer asked whether anyone had touched the envelope. Owen had nearly picked it up before Mara stopped him. As they waited, Mara turned every blind toward the wall and checked that the garage door remained barred.

At nine, a young woman in a dark apron knocked at the front entrance. She carried no bag. Her hands were empty, and she kept them at her sides as if afraid even a harmless gesture might be mistaken for a threat. She said her name was Leda Finch.

“I work at the Pavilion,” Leda said. “Or I did, until last night. I heard somebody went to your house. I came to apologize.”

Mara did not invite her inside. “Were you involved?”

“I packed the demonstration equipment. I didn’t know they were trying to take the dogs from someone’s home. I thought they’d been transferred to a licensed boarding place.”

Leda looked toward the sunroom windows and swallowed. “Victor told everyone the rescue group was holding them for money. Then he showed us a photograph of a dog that was sick and said your people were hiding it. The men who went after them called it an emergency pickup.”

“Who was the older woman?”

“I don’t know her name. One of Victor’s assistants said they needed someone visible at the property so the homeowner would come out. There was an argument about paying her. I was in the room when it happened.”

“What kind of argument?”

“She said no. They played a recording of a man’s voice. He sounded upset. Afterward she said she’d do whatever they wanted.”

Mara thought of Edith’s groceries on the porch, the silver sedan, the hurried closing of the door. “Who was the man?”

Leda pressed her lips together. “I never saw him. The assistant said it was her brother. But I don’t trust anything they say.”

Officer Keene arrived while Leda was still standing on the porch. Mara watched the young woman stiffen as the patrol car stopped. Keene listened to her story and requested a formal statement. Leda agreed on one condition: she wanted her address withheld from Victor until someone could explain how to protect her. Keene could not promise everything she asked, but she explained the options without trying to frighten her.

When Leda left with the officer, Mara walked into the sunroom and found Nisha checking a collar with a magnifying lens. A tiny strip of blue cloth had been sewn beneath Iris’s buckle. Nisha said Rena had contacted former trainers and learned that each animal wore a specific color on stage. An assistant would stand beyond the audience’s view, make a nearly inaudible sound, and gesture toward the chosen door. The dog would appear to decide after listening to a participant’s question. Sometimes the assistant substituted a different dog partway through the show, creating the illusion that multiple animals independently gave the same answer.