Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

We’d gone to the park. Sully had all he could do to make Tartan sit quietly with him while we heard the story. Sig had insisted, though; he said the vet said Tartan had to be kept off his feet as much as possible for the next six weeks for the bone to mend. To keep a Jack Russell off his feet seemed impossible.

“You know he stays in my car while I’m at work,” Sig said. “I came out tonight, and he was howling, crying.” Sig stopped, tears in his eyes again. He rubbed his eyes, clutched his forehead. “His leg was broken, the bone was snapped in two. And this note was pinned to his collar. I don’t know who did it — another cop could have done this!” He was sick with worry, and fear. “Bad enough they do this to my dog. But I think: what might they do to my kids? Or my wife?”

Torstein was sitting beside him, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll look after Tartan for you until he’s better if you like,” Torstein said. “No one would know where he was.”

“We can keep him,” Maggie said. “Sully, would you take care of him?”

“Yes,” Sully said eagerly. “I’ll feed him and walk him and make sure he has water and make sure he doesn’t get on his feet.” I don’t know how he figured to walk him without letting him get on his feet.

“Thanks,” Sig said. “I can leave him home. My daughter gets home from school about three, and she could look in on him.”

He put his elbows on his knees and hunched forward, speaking to the ground rather than to any of us. “I busted the one cop I’d been working on. He put me on to two others. One of them, he’s in deep. I think he’s in too deep. This message has to be from him. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never backed down, my whole career ...”

“Give it up,” Torstein said. “Let somebody else take the heat. You’ve done your part already. Look here, Sig, justice is good. We all like justice. But you’ve done justice all your life, and now seems like a good time to get out of the justice business and get into the mercy business, the grace business, the business of love and compassion.”

Sig looked up at Torstein with his red-rimmed eyes, eyes that were old and exhausted. He said, “That’s good for you, Torstein. But gentle souls like you can afford to be loving and compassionate because soldiers like me are keeping the wolves at bay.”

“I don’t deny it,” Torstein said. “But you’ve done your part. You can come out and pasture with us now. Let someone else guard the borders. I don’t want to see you and Tartan get hurt, Sig. Let this go.”

“If I step back, it just puts someone else in harm’s way. Someone else would have to take up the investigation. Someone else would have to choose whether to face the danger or just give in.”

“And do you know what I would tell him? Give up! Justice is a good idea, Sig, but it doesn’t work and it’s imperfect. You bring down Nikolai, another Nikolai will rise up in his place.”

Sig shook his head. “Didn’t you ever hear that saying, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing?”

“I’ve heard it,” Torstein said.

“Then I’m surprised you tell me to quit, to do nothing.”

“Oh, no, I’m not saying do nothing,” Torstein said. “I’m telling you to do something much more effective than what you’re doing now.”

Sig cocked his head, asking, “What? Do what?”

“I’m advocating you quit studying justice and start studying love.”

“And that’s more effective than what I’m doing now?” Sig said, looking at his dog with his blue cast, sitting in Sully’s lap.

“More effective, and more dangerous. Maybe even deadly. But it’s the only thing worth doing and the only thing that can bring a lasting change.”

“I gotta have a drink,” Sig said. “I don’t wanna leave Tartan outside the bar. You’ll look after him for a bit?”

Torstein assured him that we would.