Mercy Dogs

by Tyler Dilts

  “I told her that wasn’t true. That I’d never do something like that. She said, ‘You really believe that, don’t you?’ I did believe it. More than I believed anything. Somehow I think that hurt her even more.”

  Grace can see where you’re headed, and you’re glad that you don’t have to explain it. “Who was it?”

  “A patrol sergeant from North Division. It was a one-time thing. We both drank too much at a retirement party. She seemed almost as hurt as Kate that I couldn’t remember. I interviewed her like a witness. Wrote everything down in my little notebook like it happened to someone else. Even now, it still feels like that.”

  “And you have no memory of any of it?”

  You shake your head. “I still can’t believe I did it, that I was even capable of that.”

  Grace’s face is clouded. Is she disappointed in you? How could she not be? You loved Kate more than anything. You can’t remember a time when you ever even thought about betraying her, when you’d ever even consider it. Yet you did. You’re not just disappointed, you’re ashamed.

  “Sometimes,” Grace says, putting her hand on top of yours, “I don’t think we really know any more about who we were than about who we’re going to be.”

  She squeezes your hand, stands up, and walks across the lawn toward her door without looking back.

  After his father was in bed, Ben let Bernie in. “Where’s Sriracha?”

  “Left her home. She’d just make noise and keep your dad up.”

  “Thanks for doing this. We should be back in two hours or so.”

  “No worries,” Bernie said, sitting down on the couch and flipping the channels around until he found the DIY Network.

  Ben went out the front door and walked the street from one end of the block to the other, looking for cars he didn’t recognize or anything else out of place, then turned the corner and did the same in the alley.

  When he was satisfied that no one was watching, he went through the gate and checked the keyhole on the knob of the back door of the garage. The tiny dab of toothpaste was still there. The one on the padlock in front was still there, too, until he picked it off with his fingernail and opened the door. No one else had been in the garage. Still, to be cautious, he checked the Volvo with the RF-signal detector one more time. It was clean.

  With the garage locked and a fresh dot of toothpaste on the padlock, Ben turned right out of the alley and, following protocol, did a series of stair-step right and left turns through California Heights, then complete laps around two separate blocks. When he was absolutely certain no one was following him, he got on the freeway. After exiting in Harbor City, he repeated the process. He knew it was overkill, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

  “When is Kyle coming back?” Ben asked.

  “Two weeks or so, he said.” Grace had packed everything into her suitcase and backpack. She hadn’t brought much with her.

  “We’re going to need to borrow his car for a while. Yours can stay in his garage.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it gets back here before he does. Taking your car isn’t a good idea.”

  “Because they might spot it.”

  “Right,” he said. “You want to take one more look around to make sure you have everything?”

  Grace shook her head. “I had everything ten minutes after you called.”

  “What’s the plan?” Ben asked.

  “You follow me back to the house. I park in the alley by the garage and wait for you to do a lap around the block to check things out, then we park both cars inside.”

  “That’s it. You ready?”

  She sighed. “I haven’t been ready for anything since they found Steph’s shit in my trunk.”

  It was raining again by the time they loaded her things into the back of Kyle’s Kia Soul, but otherwise everything went according to plan.

  “Hi, Bernie,” Grace said, entering the living room.

  He stood up and gave her a hug she wasn’t expecting.

  “Ben told me everything you’ve done to help. Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Is Julian as nice as Ben says?”

  “You like apple pie?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “How about snow?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “There’s snow?”

  “Yeah, with all the storms, they just got a bunch.”

  “I haven’t seen snow in a long time.”

  “Looks like it’s going to be a white Groundhog Day.”

  Ben had an odd sense of déjà vu but couldn’t figure out why. He held the manila envelope Bernie had given him earlier, with the keys to the cabin and two pages of instructions on how to manage everything from the kitchen appliances to the furnace to the toilets.

  “Did you see the weather for tomorrow?” Bernie asked.

  Ben had been checking regularly, but the day had gotten away from him. “Not for the last day or two,” he said.

  “Supposed to be coming down hard tomorrow. Like real hard.”

  Shit. Ben had been so on top of everything. Why hadn’t he thought to check that? “I’ll take a look. Unless it’s crazy bad, I think we’ll still probably head out.”

  “Okay, you let me know if you need anything.”

  “We will.”

  Bernie looked at Grace. “You got my number, right?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’ll make sure she has it before we take off. And remember, I won’t have my regular phone.”

  “Yeah, I have the other number.” He grinned. “That’s a burner, right, like they talk about on TV?”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah.”

  Bernie seemed to love that. On the front porch he said, “It’s already starting to come down. I should have brought my umbrella.”

  “You want to borrow one?” Ben asked.

  “Nah. You’ll need it in the morning.” He flipped his hood up over his head and jogged up the street to his house.

  Ben shut the door and locked the deadbolt. When he turned around he saw Grace standing by the patio door and looking out into the darkness.

  The plan had been to pack up the rest of her things before bed so they could be ready to go first thing in the morning. He and Peter were both already set with food and meds and a few changes of clothes. But as he watched her, he reconsidered. She hadn’t left much in the studio, and he’d already moved a few empty boxes in from the garage for her to use. They’d only need an extra half hour or so to do it after they woke up.

  He took a few steps toward her and she turned to him. She was trying to be calm and nonchalant, but he could see the tension in her neck and shoulders.

  “Do you think maybe—”

  Ben cut her off. “You’re going to take my bed tonight. I’m okay on the couch. Been sleeping there as often as not the last few weeks anyway.”

  “You sure?” she said. “I really don’t mind.”

  “I’m sure.” He didn’t tell her he wasn’t expecting to sleep much, and if he did manage to nod off for a while he wanted to be in the living room, closer to the center of the house, just in case, to maintain better situational awareness.

  While she took a shower, he changed the sheets on the bed and got the revolver out of the nightstand. He stashed it under one of the pillows on the sofa. It occurred to him to ask her about the Glock, but he didn’t want her trying to go to sleep thinking about the gun. One person in the house worrying about that would be plenty.

  She came out of the bathroom wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that said Pussy Grabs Back.

  “Sorry you missed the Women’s March today,” he said.

  “I watched it on TV,” she said.

  “It’s going to get better.”

  She smiled at him, but he didn’t believe her.

  1/21 11:15 pm

  Evening Meds

  Anxious about tomorrow (ONE lorazepam only—Need to be able to wake up, j
ust in case)

  Weather says a lot of rain, worried too much to go

  Is it safe?

  It was almost midnight when Amy called to tell him a cop had come to the restaurant asking about Grace.

  “Did you get his name?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He described Lopez to her. “That sounds like him,” she said. “Talked to a few different people. It didn’t seem like he knew that Grace and I were friends.”

  “That’s good. What did he ask you?”

  “Just basic stuff, like how well I knew her. I lied. Said I only knew her at work. Was that the right thing to do?”

  “Yes, it was. Did he ask anything else?”

  “Just if she had ever said anything about where she came from, and if I knew her boyfriend.”

  “Did he say that? Boyfriend? Did he say Kyle’s name?”

  “He didn’t. It didn’t sound like he knew anything about him for sure.”

  “That’s good, Amy. Thank you for calling. This helps a lot.”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to find her before he does?”

  He wanted to tell her that he already had, but he knew they would all be safer if he didn’t. “I do, yeah.”

  After she hung up, Ben sat at the computer for almost an hour, logged in to Weather.com and watching the overnight Doppler radar projections for Long Beach. The yellow-and-orange blob indicating heavy precipitation twisted and whirled across the map for the foreseeable future. He didn’t know how Lopez had found his way to the Attic. Maybe he had followed the same trail of breadcrumbs from Rob’s notes that Ben himself had. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Lopez was getting closer. Ben thought they would be all right holed up here during the rain. There were no hidden transmitters of any kind, and up until that point, no one was watching, of that he was confident. Lopez would still have no way of knowing she was here. Even if he did, Ben couldn’t imagine him thinking there was a solid tactical approach without a full team backing him up. Could that be within his capabilities? It didn’t seem likely. Not in another jurisdiction where he was already a suspect in a murder investigation.

  The more he thought about it, though, the more he worried. They would leave in the morning, no matter how hard the rain was falling.

  With nothing else to do other than wait, Ben put the revolver on the coffee table, covering it with a kitchen towel in case anyone came into the living room, stretched out on the sofa under a fleece blanket, and watched the talking heads on cable news mutter under the endless footage of millions of women who had turned out to march, all over the country, because of their hopeful belief that no matter how frightening things had become, they didn’t have to stay that way.

  Ben slept more than he had expected to. Maybe three and a half hours when all the tossing, turning, and bathroom time was subtracted. But by a quarter after four, he knew he was done and no more rest was in the cards.

  He made himself toast and coffee and sat back down on the couch. The local news was beginning its early-morning broadcast in full Stormwatch! mode and saying it looked like some new Southern California rainfall records would be set in the coming hours.

  With his hopes dimmed and nothing else to do, he checked his Fitbit. Six hundred eighty-seven steps since midnight. It would be a few hours before anyone else got up, so he started in on the living-room-dining-table-kitchen circuit. If he paced himself and didn’t get distracted, he might be able to hit ten thousand before sunrise.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Grace was the first one up, less than half an hour after Ben had written 11,227 in his notebook.

  “How’d you sleep?” Ben asked.

  “Better than I expected to,” she said. “It was nice not to be the only one in the house for a change.”

  “Breakfast? I’m sorry, I didn’t think to go shopping, so we don’t have much.”

  “You’ve got yogurt and oatmeal, right?”

  “That we do.” He filled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil. While he waited, he poured her a cup of coffee.

  “It’s really coming down out there, isn’t it?” she said.

  It was. Ben was surprised the sound of the rain hitting the roof and splashing down onto the patio hadn’t awakened his father. “Yeah. I’ve been watching on TV and the computer. It’s not as bad down south, but we should probably see what happens for a while before we leave.”

  “Okay.” She took a sip of her coffee. If she was concerned about the delay, Ben couldn’t see it.

  The kettle whistled and he poured a quarter cup of hot water into the bowl with the instant oatmeal and stirred it up. He put it and the sugar bowl on the counter in front of Grace.

  “Do you have any cinnamon?” she asked.

  He opened the cupboard and, after moving a few dozen unused spice containers out of the way, found a red-and-white can in the back. He looked at it closely, trying to find an expiration date.

  “It’s okay, I don’t think it goes bad,” she said.

  “You sure?”

  “I’ll risk it. I’m feeling pretty daring these days.” There was a smile on her face of a kind he hadn’t seen in a long time.

  He was happy to see her in a good mood, but couldn’t help worrying that it might be premature.

  After a long shower, he came out in fresh clothes and found her in the living room sitting on the couch, with a cup of coffee in one hand and the remote in the other. She looked at him and said, “Boy, you’ve got a lot of cop shows in your Netflix queue.”

  Ben chuckled. “I like to watch them and complain about how they get all the police stuff wrong.”

  “Who do you complain to?”

  “Just myself, mostly.”

  “Are you trying to make me sad?”

  Ben gestured for her to hand him the remote. She did and he thumbed through his list until he found what he was looking for. He hit “Play” and handed the controller back to her. That was when he realized he’d left the towel-covered revolver on the coffee table. Trying to be nonchalant, he grabbed the gun through the fabric one-handed and picked up the whole bundle.

  “What’s that?” Grace asked.

  With his other hand, he unwrapped just enough of it so she could see the walnut grip.

  In his bedroom, he put the gun in the nightstand, and he slid the drawer shut just as the theme song to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt began playing in the other room.

  “Is it time to go?” Peter asked, shuffling into the kitchen.

  “Not yet, Dad,” Ben said. “It’s raining too hard. We’re going to wait a while, until it lets up a bit.”

  He looked out the window. “It’s a lot,” he said, sitting down at the counter to his oatmeal and Boost/coffee.

  The storm was showing no signs of slowing. It was actually coming down even harder. He didn’t even need to check outside. The muffled thrum of the rainfall on the roof told him everything he needed to know.

  Not long after Peter finished eating, Grace had changed into jeans and a green hooded jacket that looked like it had its work cut out for it with the deluge outside. “I’m going to go out to the studio and get my stuff packed up.”

  “Let me just change my shoes and grab an umbrella,” Ben said.

  “That’s okay. I’ve got my key.”

  “Wait just a second,” he said, unsure whether he was being patronizing or condescending. Maybe it was both? “Let me check it out. I’ll feel better.”

  “Sure,” she said, seeming unconcerned by Ben’s caution. He went into his bedroom and slipped on a pair of waterproof Rockports. In the coat closet he found the big umbrella and met Grace by the patio door.

  Outside it was much louder. The water rushed off the edge of the patio roof like a waterfall. The lawn was saturated, and the small concrete walkway between the grass and the planter along the wall of the house looked like a floating bridge on a swamp. If the storm didn’t ease up, it would soon be submerged. With Grace huddled close, he opened the umbrella and they started back
.

  Ben had expected cold, but ten steps off the patio, he was already beginning to shiver. The covered porch outside the studio door was much smaller, but there was enough room for both of them to get out of the rain. Grace unlocked the door and stepped inside while Ben closed the umbrella and propped it up against the frame. He shook as much water as he could off of his shoes and followed her.

  He gestured to the five packing boxes he’d brought in from the garage. “I thought you could use these.”

  “I missed this place,” she said, not looking at him.

  “Well, hopefully you’ll be able to come back soon.”

  When she turned to him, her eyes looked faraway and he waited for her to say something. She didn’t.

  Ben adjusted the thermostat, surprised that he could hear the furnace click on with the noise of the rain outside. “Do you want some help?”

  “No,” she said.

  “All right. I’ll let you get to it, then.” He stood there. “I, uh, turned the heat way up, so if it gets too—”

  “Thanks.” She smiled at him for the first time since they’d come inside. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  Outside, Ben went around the corner to check the lock on the gate. It was still secured. With the storm raging, he didn’t expect to find the toothpaste on the keyhole. He was right. The rain had washed it away.

  Halfway back on the walkway, he saw Peter standing at the edge of the patio in his bare feet, watching him.

  “Dad, your feet! What are you doing?”

  “I didn’t want to get my slippers wet.”

  After Ben got his father’s feet dried off, warmed up, and reslippered, he checked his phone and realized Jennifer had called while he was out in the studio with Grace. He called her back.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Sowers is dead. He killed himself.”

  Ben was silent.

  Jennifer went on. “GSW to the right temple. He drove his red Camaro off to the side of the road in Twentynine Palms and pulled the trigger.”

  “You sure it was suicide? He didn’t have any help?”