Breach of Duty (9780061739637) Read Online Free PDF

Lincoln had once been when the front door of the house across the street opened. An elderly man I recognized as Malcolm Lawrence appeared on the porch along with two amazingly fat dachshunds. Barking like mad, the dogs reminded me of a pair of powerful but noisy tugboats. So short that their swollen bellies seemed to drag on the ground, they nonetheless moved fast enough and with enough force that Lewis was swept along in their wake, across the porch, down the steps, and then up the walkway. Ineffectually hauling back on the leashes and ordering the dogs to heel, Lawrence came dragging along behind them like some kind of hapless human dogsled. By then the two ugly mutts and their pointy, sharp little teeth were almost within striking distance of my ankles.
    I suppose the idea of an armed homicide cop being worried about a pair of yappy little dogs sounds like some kind of joke, but of all the dogs known to man, dachshunds are my least favorite—with good reason.
    In all my life, I’ve been bitten only once—by an obnoxious little wiener dog named Snooks. The dog nailed me square on the ankle. He sliced right through a new pair of dress socks hard enough to draw blood. Unfortunately, throttling Snooks on the spot wasn’t an option since he happened to belong to a cute girl I’d just met at school—a girl named Karen Moffitt. Snooks’ unprovoked attack came on the occasion of my stopping by the Moffitt house to take Karen out on our first date.
    From that evening on, for the next five years, including the first two years Karen and I were married, Snooks and I were the bane of each other’s existence. Eventually he was old and frail, farting and incontinent, but he never stopped barking at me whenever I came into the house. As far as Snooks was concerned, I was the eternal interloper. And I must confess that the animosity was absolutely mutual. I despised him every bit as much as he did me.
    All of this flashed through my mind as Malcolm Lawrence came tottering toward us. I don’t know if it showed on my face, but I was wondering what the departmental position would be if one of Seattle’s finest drop-kicked somebody’s beloved pet into the next county. Or maybe even plugged the shin-chewing little rat dog with my regulation 9mm. Not good, I decided. Not good at all.
    About the time I was considering beating a hasty retreat back to the car, both dogs veered off in that direction themselves. They made a beeline for the Caprice’s rear left tire where they almost tipped themselves ass-over-teakettle in their eagerness to raise their legs high enough to take aim at the city’s steel-belted radials.
    â€œTuffy! Major!” the old man exclaimed, jerking again on the leashes. “You cut that out. Right now. Sit!” he added. “Sit and behave yourselves.” Surprisingly enough, both dogs sat. Thankfully, they even shut up.
    â€œYou’re the two detectives, aren’t you,” Malcolm Lawrence said, peering up at us through a pair of thick glasses covered with cloudy fingerprints and dotted with flakes of dandruff. The heavy prescription made his rheumy eyes seem enormous. “Aren’t you the same ones I talked to the other day?”
    I had been so preoccupied with the dogs that I hadn’t looked at the man on the other end of the leash. During the intervening days since I had last seen him, I had forgotten how much Malcolm Lawrence resembled George Burns. If he ever entered an Oh, God! look-alike contest, Lawrence would undoubtably walk away with first prize. The stooped, wiry octogenarian came complete with a sharp, pointed chin, pursed lips, and the half-smoked stub of an ever-present cigar.
    â€œRight,” I said, pulling out my ID. “We did talk to you before. My name’s Detective Beaumont. This is my partner, Detective Danielson.”
    Lawrence barely glanced in Sue’s direction. “I forget. Which one are you with?” he