But then again, Jack thinks, these are the observations of an old man in bad light.

He carries Leo back to the car. Opens up the trunk and digs around until he finds an old Frisbee he left in there. Gets a bottle of water from out of the front seat and pours some into the Frisbee. Sets Leo down and the little dog goes right for the water.

Jack finds an old Killer Dana sweatshirt in the trunk and lays it on the passenger seat. Rolls the windows halfway down, figuring that it's early enough in the morning that the car won't get too hot, and then sits Leo down on the sweatshirt.

"Stay," Jack says, feeling kind of stupid. "Uhh, lie down."

Dog looks at Jack like he's relieved to be getting some kind of order and settles down into the sweatshirt.

"And don't, you know, do anything, okay?" Jack asks. Classic '66 Mustang, and Jack's spent hours refurbishing the interior.

Leo's tail whacks against the seat.

"What happened in there, Leo?" Jack says to the dog. "You know, don't you? So why don't you tell me?"

Leo looks up at him and wags his tail some more.

But doesn't say a word.

"That's okay," Jack says.

Jack deals with a lot of snitches. Seven years in the Sheriff's Department and twelve in insurance claims and you deal with a lot of snitches. One of the ironies of the game: you rely on snitches and at the same time you despise them.

Another plus for the dog column.

Dogs are stand-up guys.

They never snitch.

So Leo says nothing except for the fact that he's alive. Which sets off this sick little alarm in Jack's brain.

What Jack knows is that people will never burn the pooch.

They'll burn their houses, their clothing, their business, their papers – they'll even burn each other – but they'll never torch Fido. Every house fire Jack's ever worked that turned out to be arson, the dog was somewhere else.