The dog was medium size with the face of a pit bull but the body of a lab. She was mostly black with some white spots around her paws and under her chin. She was making a lot of noise but her tail was wagging. It was as if she knew she was supposed to chase intruders away but would really like to make friends with them instead.

Lindsay kept a bit of distance and kneeled, so she and the dog were at eye level. She expected Jacob to be out any minute, scolding the dog gently for making so much noise and being out in the front yard by herself. When Jacob didn’t appear, Lindsay held out her hand and motioned for the canine to come to her.

“Come on, I’m not here to cause any trouble,” she told the beast in her most soothing voice.

The dog stopped barking and seemed to think about it.

“Where’s Jacob?” Lindsay asked the dog.

The dog recognized her master’s name. That seemed to make Lindsay less of a threat. The dog trotted over. Lindsay allowed the dog to sniff her hand, then used her other hand to stroke its back and shoulders after it licked her.

As far as the dog was concerned, they were best friends now.

“What are you doing outside?” Lindsay asked as she looked at the front door. It was closed, which seemed odd, since she doubted the dog would close it behind her. Jacob had a six-foot-tall redwood fence around his backyard that a dog this size would have a hard time jumping. She could see the gate was closed. There were no signs on this side of the house that the dog had dug her way under the fence.

Lindsay stood and went to the door. The dog followed. She wasn’t surprised to find the door locked. She rang the doorbell and waited.

No one came to the door. Lindsay texted Jacob:

Your dog and I are at the front door.

While she waited for a reply, she rang the doorbell again. After a few minutes with no sign of movement in the house, she knocked on the door.

She considered going out to her motel. She doubted Jacob’s advanced age had slowed down his womanizing. It was quite possible this wasn’t a good time to come by. There were no other cars parked nearby, but that didn’t mean no one else was there.

Lindsay wondered if the dog wasn’t Jacob’s. Perhaps for the first time in his adult life, the sheriff was pet-free. She bent back down and found the tag at the end of the dog’s collar.

The tag had “April” etched on it and under the name was Jacob’s address.

Lindsay didn’t want to interrupt Jacob if he was entertaining a woman inside, but she didn’t think it would be right to leave his dog in the front yard either. If April wandered off and got hit by a car, Lindsay would never forgive herself.

She checked along the rest of the fence for a hole April could have used to escape and found nothing. She decided leaving the dog in the backyard would be acceptable.

Lindsay pulled herself up by the gate so she could flip the latch on the other side.

April ran inside as soon as she opened the gate. Lindsay was about to close it and leave but then decided April might have dug under the fence on the other side of the house. She leaned in to look, not sure what she would do if there was a hole. She watched as April ran inside through an open back door.

Immediately, April began barking again.

Just like leaving the dog in the front yard, leaving the back door open was also out of character for Jacob, even if he had some hot divorcee distracting him. Lindsay had a hard time believing he could ignore April’s barking as well.

She looked at her phone to see if he’d responded to her text. He hadn’t.

Lindsay made her way to the back door.

“Jacob?” she called out, raising her voice to be heard over April.

The dog kept barking, but Jacob didn’t reply.

Lindsay found her hand instinctively going to her gun. There was something wrong with all of this. She didn’t draw the gun though, picturing Jacob in his underwear facing down the wrong end of her Glock—or worse, an armed Jacob mistaking her for an armed intruder and shooting her.

Lindsay kept her hand on the gun, however, as she stepped inside.

April kept barking and Lindsay followed the sound into Jacob’s kitchen.

She found Jacob on the floor by the sink. He was still in uniform, but the front was covered in blood. His eyes were wide open, but there was no light behind them. Lindsay drew the gun, thinking the intruder could still be in the house.

She bent down and put her fingers to Jacob’s neck, looking for a pulse she knew she wouldn’t find.

Lindsay spent a second looking at the body of her old friend from the perspective of a professional investigator. She could see four bullet wounds in the front. Something big fired at close range. As bad as his front looked, she was sure the back was worse. He hadn’t been wearing his Kevlar vest, but Lindsay doubted it would have made much of a difference.

She saw his weapon, a chrome Colt .357 revolver by his right hand. He’d drawn his weapon. A quick look around didn’t show any bullet holes in the walls, so it didn’t appear as if he’d gotten off a shot.

Jacob wasn’t the kind of guy who left his doors unlocked. The back door was likely left open by the killer. Which meant whoever did this probably didn’t break in. Odds were Jacob let the killer inside and stood in the kitchen with whoever it was before they shot him four times.

That would make it likely he knew the person who ended his life.

Lindsay called the sheriff’s department, thinking about why she was back in town, and why Jacob called and asked her to come.

She couldn’t help but wonder if the person Jacob let into his house to murder him was her own brother.