Part 3
Dean looked at the blanket in Derek’s hands. It might comfort June when the meeting ended. It did nothing to alter the bandage around her neck.
“What time did you leave her?” Dean asked.
Derek did not pretend to misunderstand. “A little after seven Thursday morning.”
Dean’s hands closed at his sides.
He had found June more than two days later, already too weak to stand.
Beth remained beside the door with the case folder closed against her hip. She did not prompt Derek or reach for a pen.
Derek rubbed his thumb along the folded edge of the fleece. Lydia had died a little over two weeks earlier after six months of heart failure. He had driven her to appointments, carried groceries up the back steps, and spent nights on her couch when she could no longer be alone. After the funeral, relatives took jewelry, photographs, and dishes. Nobody took the dog.
For nine days, he carried June down the rear stairs before dawn and after midnight so the landlord would not see her. She slept on the green fleece beside his couch and paced whenever he left for work.
“I said I’d keep her two weeks,” he said. “Aunt Lydia had already called rescues. I called them again, plus the county shelter and two places in Akron. Everybody was full.”
His second-floor rental allowed no pets. The landlord discovered June on day nine and gave Derek until Thursday to remove her or move out. He supervised nights at Varnell Distribution and had already missed shifts while dealing with Lydia’s house.
His account had the worn order of something repeated in his head until each choice appeared to push the next. He had taken June to the mill site because a county truck had been there Wednesday. He thought a mowing crew would return. He tied her near the service lane with a bucket of water, drove the last load from Lydia’s house to storage, and intended to come back before his shift.
“I put the bucket inside the circle,” Derek said. “I know it was outside her reach when you found her. She must have dragged it, and the line was too short for her to reach it once it tipped.”
Derek’s thumb stopped against the fleece. He did not offer that as an excuse.
The warehouse called before noon after a forklift operator was injured, and Derek went in early to cover through the night. At five, he told himself the county crew had found June. At seven, he considered calling animal control and imagined explaining the line around her neck. He worked into Friday morning, slept through noon, and kept choosing the same assumption. On Saturday he drove past the mill, saw that the line had been cut, and decided somebody had taken her.
“I didn’t call a clinic or shelter,” Derek said. “I didn’t report her found or missing. I was scared. By then I knew how it looked.”
Dean stared at him. “It looked like what you did.”
Derek’s face tightened, but he did not deny it. “I left her where I believed somebody would see her. It was a terrible decision. I didn’t leave thinking she’d die.”
“The facts and the site evidence are already in your recorded statement,” Beth said. “We’re not reopening them here.”
At the county office, Beth had verified Derek’s probate appointment and given him a surrender packet. It lay on the table beside the fleece. The protective impoundment remained in force; he could contest it at the scheduled court review or surrender the estate’s claim before Friday. Any action concerning his own conduct would be handled separately. Beth had already made clear that signing the packet would decide ownership, not admit a charge.
Derek looked at the closed blind. The fleece had belonged on Lydia’s bed, he said. June had slept with her nose tucked into one corner after Lydia died. He had brought it because he thought it might help her settle. Beth told him the clinic could accept the blanket, but June’s reaction to it would not decide custody.
For the first time, Derek looked directly at Dean. “You saw the ditch. You didn’t see the two weeks before it. I asked Lydia’s neighbors. I asked the relatives who said they loved her. They all had reasons.”
“So did you,” Dean said.
“Yes. By Thursday morning I was done asking people to tell me no.”
For half a second, Dean could see the sequence as Derek saw it: the landlord, the missed shifts, the unanswered calls.
Derek looked down at the surrender packet and pressed a crease into one corner. Beyond the solid door, a cart wheel squeaked once across the treatment-room tile.
Beth opened the door. “We’re done.”
Derek agreed to take surrender papers home and return them by Friday. Beth made no bargain and promised no particular consequence. She told him only that June would remain in county custody and that contacting Dean or attempting to approach the dog would complicate matters.
Derek left the fleece on the consultation-room table. After he was gone, Beth raised the blind, and Dr. Ortiz carried it into the treatment room. Through the glass, June nosed it once, then rested her chin on the worn green fold.
Dean found Owen beside the truck with his gym bag at his feet. Derek was crossing the far end of the parking lot with the surrender packet beneath one arm, and Rachel’s car had just turned in after Owen texted her.
“That was Derek?” Owen asked.
“Yes.”
“Beth said I couldn’t be in the room. You could’ve told me it was him.”
“I didn’t want you hearing it.”
“I already saw what he did.”
Dean glanced toward the clinic door. “I was trying to keep you out of it.” Owen picked up his bag. “You didn’t ask. You just decided.” Rachel stopped at the curb. Owen opened the passenger door but did not get in immediately. “Call me when you want me here,” he said, “not when you need somebody to hold the dog…”
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