AHMM, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  After enjoying many long, smooth gulps, Travis looked up at the huge back window. This house, if without the fancy churchlike window, reminded him of that other one, two years ago, back when he was primed for college. It happened just three weeks after he took Mary to their prom. And after it happened, her parents said she couldn't see him again, and his whole life took a dive straight down to nowhere.

  He frowned at the second story. It wasn't a huge house; but still, why would a single woman buy a two story in a subdivision like this? That other woman had done the same. This was a family type neighborhood, a relatively new, planned community. A few older folks, maybe, but mostly the neighborhood was made up of young couples with children.

  The other woman's name had been Marilyn. She'd owned a Pomeranian. Not Travis's favorite breed, but it turned out to be a sweet little dog, if high strung.

  He remembered the day Marilyn Finley interviewed him. Same time of year, early June. Marilyn's best friend was there. Both were excited, about to go off together on what they stressed was one of those expensive cruises to Hawaii.

  Travis's sister had sent him out on that call, to get the feeding and walking schedule for the Pomeranian straight. It was his first sitting job that summer.

  Marilyn Finley had moved to Winston-Salem only a month earlier, she told him during the interview. She was looking forward to the fall, seeing the leaves change, since she was from South Louisiana where fall colors never showed. The best friend sat in on the meeting, a sappy, vacant look on her face while she talked baby talk to the Pomeranian who balanced on all fours in her lap.

  Just then, Zeus let out a single bark, a rich low note, full of authority. Travis's body jolted in the redwood lounger as if he'd received a thousand volts. Great Danes were not barkers. Travis didn't know where the bark had come from or what it meant, but he suddenly recalled something he hadn't remembered until this very moment—that during his interview with Marilyn Finley, while the girlfriend was goo-gooing the Pomeranian, the phone rang, its piercing ringer jolting Travis much like Zeus's bark had just done. It was a pink portable, set beside Marilyn on a table, and she'd immediately picked it up. “Can't talk now,” Marilyn Finley had said to the caller. She'd nodded and pointed at the receiver while rolling her eyes at her friend.

  "Not that satyr guy again,” the friend said. Marilyn answered, “Not satyr, but satyr.” Made no sense to Travis, since she'd simply repeated the same word. Marilyn laughed and added, “Maybe you got it right the first time, hon."

  Funny, he was only now remembering that call. Zeus's bark had brought it back. Would it have meant anything to the police? Didn't matter now. If the caller were important, Marilyn's friend would have told them.

  Marilyn Finley was, Travis had to admit, kind of sexy. Late forties, maybe even fifty, but sexy all the same, with swishy hips, fluttery hands, heart-shaped face fringed with short, grayish blond hair—platinum, he believed they called that shade. She wore white cropped pants with a wide, shiny black belt, jungle-patterned blouse, big fat pink and turquoise beads around her neck. Her feet were tiny, with pink toenails to match the beads. She'd met him at the door barefoot, then slipped into a pair of silver sandals.

  Nice enough, but he'd felt turned off. Her brand of sexiness did not attract him. She was loud, too familiar. The friend as well. Both of them drinking Bloody Marys, they joked about how young he was, how cool looking in his distressed jeans. “I would have gone for you in a big way,” Marilyn said in the middle of dictating feeding instructions. The two women giggled like schoolgirls. He was aware of clamping his lips tight, forcing a smile.

  "Oh, if you were a blond, you'd be blushing,” said the friend. “But you haven't got the color for it. Your hair's black as old dad's shoe polish, isn't it?"

  "Shoe polish,” he'd repeated, feeling pressured to answer, as the last comment had ended with the upward lilt of a question mark. They giggled at that response too.

  "You're just perfect,” Marilyn said. “Tweedy will be in good hands. I couldn't enjoy the cruise if I thought she was pining in a cage in some urine-soaked kennel."

  Marilyn was due back in fifteen days. “If anyone calls, particularly if my real estate agent calls, tell them I've left for parts unknown.” She giggled. “I plan on spending an extra night in Frisco. Not sure, but pretty sure. Count on coming here for fifteen days, starting this Friday."

  As it turned out, Marilyn Finley hadn't spent an extra night in San Francisco. On the morning of Travis's last scheduled day for sitting the Pomeranian, he found Marilyn on a twin bed in an upstairs bedroom, nude, a length of gold-striped sheet spiraled around her body, her throat. The small champagne-colored dog, Tweedy—yipping, plainly traumatized—led him up there. Tweedy shunned breakfast in order to make an impression on him, to encourage him to follow her so that she could show him all that she had lost.

  Remembering that scene now, beside Jill Barth's pool, Travis shut his eyes and put the beer bottle to his lips. Whenever he thought of one little bit of that event, the whole story unreeled in his head—that is, the aftermath, which for him was the worst, most long-lasting part.

  He'd called his sister first. Couldn't believe what he'd seen and needed to talk to someone he knew, as a way of coming back down to earth. He'd grasped at once that Marilyn Finley was dead, immediately averted his eyes. Standing in the doorway, he called her name. “Miss Finley?” Tweedy pushed her wet nose against his leg and emitted a squeaky bark as if asking for his prognosis. He'd purposefully blurred his eyes, backing out of the room. Didn't want to see more, or believe what he'd seen.

  As he skipped down the stairs, he experienced a sensation that stuck with him for a long time afterward—a feeling of being watched. By whomever had done this to Miss Finley? Or by someone making a movie of his reaction? Big eye in the sky? He was chased downstairs by that silent observer. Out of breath, he called his sister.

  "You're putting me on,” Libby had answered, and then, once his voice left no doubt, she bellowed with some vehemence: “Call the police. Call them!"

  Of course. You called the police when something like this was discovered. He hadn't thought of it. He'd first wanted to verify his own sanity by talking this over with someone real. After hanging up with his sister, he thought of calling his girlfriend, Mary, and then considered his football coach, who'd been the nearest person to a father to him in the last three years, even though Travis had spent most of the last season on the bench. But he did as Libby directed and called the police.

  Those friendly public servants “detained” him for eight hours. Seemed like eight days. So many questions, same ones over and over with slight variations. “Did you touch the body? Did you ever go upstairs before today? Did you at any time disturb anything upstairs? Did you move the body? Where exactly were you standing when you first viewed the body? How close did you come to the body?"

  Marilyn Finley, in their vocabulary, was now “the body."

  Had he frequented other rooms? The master bedroom, bath, the room she used as an office?

  No, he'd only spent time in the kitchen and living room and had used the guest bathroom off the kitchen a few times.

  Had he rummaged through desk drawers, bureau drawers?

  No. He'd never set foot in her office or bedroom.

  They questioned him about the alarm system. Travis explained that the code he used was the same one their sitters used at every house—2002-Off. “We call it the slave code,” Travis said. “We never know the master code.” Before leaving on her trip, Marilyn had to plug in Canine Expert's slave code instead of her usual master code. If she hadn't done that, Travis couldn't enter the house without setting off the alarm. Once Marilyn returned, she could go back to using the master code. No one from Canine Experts could get into her house without setting off the alarm then, since they wouldn't know that combination of numbers.

  "What about the key?” the detective asked.

  Sure, Travis had Marilyn's house key. He'd used the key and Canine Ex
perts's slave code to get in.

  From the newspaper, Travis learned that there had been no forced entry. Marilyn Finley had returned from her trip in the evening, one day early. It was doubtful that she'd let her killer in, since she'd come home late at night. The most likely scenario was that the killer was already inside, waiting. He had both the key and the code.

  Travis filled the bill. That's what the skinny detective's face said when he asserted, “Whoever killed her had key and code, and he knew she'd changed her plans."

  "But I didn't know—I didn't know she'd come back a day early,” Travis said. “She told me she'd stay another day."

  His questioner gave him a sneer that let Travis know he was as inconsequential and disgusting as a bug.

  For hours he was grilled on the alarm code and other matters of fact. Easy questions, if tedious. Then the questioning shifted from facts to feelings. How did he feel about Marilyn Finley? Was he attracted? Did he think of her while she was away? Could he describe her?

  "I only met her once,” he answered. “Didn't think of her one way or another."

  When they started asking those “feeling” questions, he tensed. “Are you saying I'm a suspect?"

  "We want to understand your relationship to the victim.” That was the skinny detective's line, the one with the bobbing Adam's apple and thinning hair. What saved him from being like that Barney Fife character Travis had seen on TV reruns was his deliberate method of collecting information. He wasn't going off halfcocked like Barney, but with his layered questions seemed to be building a carefully composed work of art. He scared Travis more than Marilyn's lifeless body had.

  "Can you describe your relationship to the deceased?"

  Travis's mouth hinged open. “I babysat her dog, for Christ's sake. Met her all of one time."

  "Odd kind of job for a young fella like you. How you feel about babysitting little toy doggies?"

  "I just graduated. I'm going to State in the fall, with a scholarship, working part time for expenses. My sister owns the business. She does pretty well."

  "How you feel about working for Big Sis? What exactly is your relationship?"

  Travis squinted. “Our relationship is she's my sister."

  After eight hours he was allowed to go. “Make yourself available in the next few days,” the skinny detective warned.

  That night Libby drove him home. He felt grateful that his mother was away, visiting his grandmother in Durham. Travis guessed that his own car, a secondhand Jeep, must still be parked in Finley's driveway. He later learned the police had searched it without a warrant.

  "What about Tweedy?” Travis asked Libby. He'd worried about the Pomeranian even during questioning. When the police first stampeded into the house, Tweedy cowered under the sofa, emitting frightened squeaks.

  Tweedy was fine. Libby had retrieved her, brought her home to join her own menagerie. “Take a shower. Get some rest,” she said, hugging her brother before she left.

  He took a bath, not his usual shower. He was too weak and dizzy to stand up in a shower.

  Next morning, the murder was in the paper. Marilyn Finley had been raped and strangled after returning from a Hawaiian cruise. Until reading the article, Travis hadn't known how she'd died. His questioners never told him. From the paper he also learned that Marilyn was divorced. No children. Her ex-husband was not a suspect. He worked for Aramco in Saudi Arabia. Good alibi, Travis thought. If only he were on the other side of the planet too.

  His name wasn't mentioned—only that a dog-sitter who'd been caring for Finley's Pomeranian had found her body and been detained for questioning. Near the end of the item came a quote from Finley's friend, with whom she'd vacationed. “That boy, the dog-sitter, he gave me the creeps. Marilyn should never have invited a stranger into her home. The ad says they're all bonded, but is that true? What does bonded mean anyway? What's it worth?"

  At least the name of his sister's company hadn't been mentioned. Libby was thankful for that, but also said she wouldn't have blamed Travis if it had been hawked in neon lights. Not for a moment did she believe him guilty; his misfortune was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Mary, Travis's girlfriend, showed a different attitude. Only weeks before, she'd cried on his shoulder at the thought of their impending separation at summer's end when he would attend State while she was going farther afield, accepted as a music major at Rice University.

  "Mother saw that story in the paper!” Mary said when he phoned next morning. She couldn't have sounded more horrified if she were a 1950s’ horror-movie scream queen. “You mean that was you? You found the dead lady?"

  When he confirmed that fact, instead of saying how awful for you, or how can I help, she asked, “You mean, you're the one? That woman's friend ... she was talking about you? She said the dog-sitter boy gave her the creeps."

  Travis had no answer for that, or for a second nugget of information Mary volunteered. “After reading it, Mom said, ‘I'll bet that boy did it.’ She had no idea they were talking about you!"

  He was about to blurt, “The old bag didn't say I gave her the creeps at the time. They said I was cool, the type they'd want to date if they were young.” But he held back. The remark, though true, sounded smarmy and suspicious.

  That afternoon, feeling he didn't know his own name anymore, Travis was called in for a second interview. He endured a new battery of questions about his upbringing, how his dad had bugged out, his interests, which television shows he watched. As before, he was allowed to go home afterward.

  The second round of questioning sealed his fate with Mary. “Dad won't let me see you.” She sounded not at all distressed by her father's tyranny. “He says the police don't bring anybody in for questioning a second time unless they have serious cause."

  "I am not a killer rapist,” Travis rasped over the phone, amazed that he was even using those words. “I can't believe you think I did this. Are you insane?"

  "I don't like your tone, Travis.” Mary paused. “I am not insane. I'm cautious, and I don't want to be mixed up in—like Mother calls it—this sordid mess."

  "Well rid of her,” Libby said, when she heard about that conversation. “Now you know. She believes a newspaper over her own experience. If she'd been Juliet to your Romeo—well—there wouldn't have been a play."

  Travis didn't know what upset him more, his disillusionment with Mary, or with himself for believing he loved someone who trusted him so little and who showed no compassion. He'd loved Mary, but now felt nothing. What was love, anyway, if it could evaporate overnight?

  The investigators initiated a third round. Travis's mother was home by then and advised that he not go without a lawyer. He ignored her advice, unwilling to taint the fact of his own innocence by taking such a step.

  It was during the third interview that he'd acknowledged glancing at Marilyn Finley's mail, at the return addresses. The skinny, methodical detective, Mr. Quick was his name, acted as if he'd struck the mother lode, the confession of the century. Based on that small admission, a search warrant for his mother's house was secured. A mortifying experience for her, for them both. The most incriminating evidence they turned up were three copies of Playboy Travis had left in his bookcase. They confiscated his computer. Weeks later, after finding no porn sites or snuff movies accessed, no predatory e-mails transmitted, they returned the machine; the main drive and all of his files were totally screwed up.

  By August, two weeks before Travis was to start college, the harassment ceased. No matter, he was in no shape to enroll. He spent most days in his room reading science fiction novels that transported him to better universes. Two months later he began seeing a therapist; gradually, he got back to work, helping his sister with sitting jobs again. Hard at first. An eerie sense of being watched by accusing eyes stuck with him for a long time.

  Libby sometimes gave him a nudge, claiming he was painting himself into a corner. She wanted him to go out more and to prepare to enroll at State that spring. H
e was too depressed to imagine doing that. He could only relate to animals. You could trust animals, not people. He certainly couldn't trust his own judgment, his own heart.

  The DNA report was finally released. The murderer had been meticulous. Nothing matching Travis's DNA was found; but then again, nothing was found, period. Travis wasn't cleared. He was reminded then of the last thing Mr. Quick said to him the day of his third interview: “I know you did it. Just can't prove it. Yet."

  But then something happened that did clear him, in Mary's mind, at least. The following May, nearly a year after Marilyn Finley's death, another woman was found. She, too, had hired a sitter for her Persian cat. Like Marilyn, she was a new arrival in the area and had been expected back from a trip—this one to Cancun. The pet-sitting company was run by a competitor, the employee also a kid just out of high school. Travis wondered if his girlfriend had dumped him and if all his hopes and dreams had been destroyed.

  Soon after that story came out, Mary called. “I know it wasn't you now,” she said. “It couldn't have been.” She rushed to explain, practically giving a précis of the recent article. When she had a free moment, she wanted to team up with Travis to do some sleuthing, figure out who this serial killer was.

  It seemed Mary had assumed the persona of Nancy Drew and decided to let her old boyfriend tag along on this adventure, to help her solve the mystery that caused their break-up.

  At the memory of her absurd monologue, Travis let out a groan that echoed in the beer bottle as he put it to his lips. Zeus ambled over and pushed his blue muzzle against Travis's neck.

  "I'm boring you. Sorry, boy.” Lucky dog, he thought—lucky not to be human and have to deal with the tardily contrite Nancy Drews of the world. Travis sat up and checked his watch. “How about it? Time for a walk."

  * * * *