Dog On It
an excerpt

Prison calls are the worst. The phone rings and some weary state clerical worker or, worse yet, an automated voice asks if you’ll accept a call from Joe Smith at XYZ Correctional Center. You want to just say no but out of every thousandth or so calls that golden ring may came within your grasp. It could be the call that becomes your ticket to the big time.

Since I’m answering my own phones, you’ve probably already guessed that I’m not the leading P.I. firm in the city. The big time has been within sniffing distance on a couple of occasions but never become a reality. On the other hand, hey, it is a big city.

So, when the phone call came from the prison last Friday, I took the call. At first it seemed like just another loser. Heck, Lester seemed worse than your average loser.

He’d had a run-in with a police dog and was clutching the phone to his left ear. The right ear, he claimed, had been mauled, mutilated and virtually detached by Rosie. Visions of an enraged Rottweiler danced through my mind but that scenario was quickly debunked.

“That was the damndest beagle I’ve ever seen,” Lester fumed. “I think he swallowed a piece of my ear.”