In the holding area, all the cells which had been occupied were now standing open and empty.
The door opened. One foot swung out, then another. The figure in the Sam Browne belt stood up, slammed the door shut. It held its new hat under its arm for the time being. In its other hand it held the shotgun the woman, Mary, had grabbed off the desk. It walked around to the front door. Here, flanking the steps, were two coyotes. They whined uneasily and shrank down on their haunches, grinning sycophantic doggy grins at the approaching figure, which passed them with no acknowledgment at all.
It reached for the door, and then its hand froze. The door was ajar. A vagary of the wind had sucked it most of the way shut . . . but not completely.
“What the fuck?” it muttered, and opened the door. It went upstairs fast, first putting the hat on (jamming it down hard; it didn’t fit so well now) and then shifting the shotgun to both hands.
A coyote lay dead at the top of the stairs. The door which led into the holding area was also standing open. The thing with the shotgun in its hands stepped in, knowing already what it would see, but the knowing did not stop the angry roar which came out of its chest. Outside, at the foot of the steps, the coyotes whined and cringed and squirted urine. On the police-cruiser, the buzzards also heard the cry of the thing upstairs and fluttered their wings uneasily, almost lifting off and then settling back, darting their heads restlessly at each other, as if to peck.
In the holding area, all the cells which had been occupied were now standing open and empty.
“That boy,” the figure in the doorway whispered. Its hands were white on the stock of the shotgun. “That nasty little drug user.”
