A man who was no more than words on newsprint.
That man never existed, and he continues not to.
Where’s the harm in that?
What’s a Woman to Do?
It was against the rules, eating when you were on duty at the front desk, but Will was starving, and who would know, anyway? Nobody else on the force would be back for an hour, and this wasn’t the kind of town where citizens burst in, needing to see the police.
Easy enough for the Chief to say it didn’t look good to eat out here. Meanwhile, he was stuffing creamed chicken in his face at the Rotary meeting. Besides, nobody was around for it to look bad to.
Will Pritchett extracted his salami and cheese from the bottom drawer of his desk. Delicious. Extra mayo, too. He took a satisfying bite and read the paper. Guy down in Texas had blown away a dozen people. Will gobbled the news story even more eagerly than the sandwich.
Being a cop in a place like Texas where people get pissed and take out an entire luncheonette would be something, all right. It would be like being a cop, not like this job had turned out to be.
He was supposed to be filing, but he looked at the bank of metal cabinets with contempt. He hadn’t gone to clerk academy. He’d wanted to be a real cop, to curl himself around a doorway, gun at the ready, to handcuff people and read them their rights. Instead, he got stuck with the scut work. Sure, somebody had to do it, like the Chief said, but why him? The only sounds in the stuffy room were Will’s sighs, the wheezing, ancient air conditioner, and the tick of the clock, pushing out one more minute. He shuddered. More like a morgue than a police station. Nothing ever happened here.
*
Hilda Maple clamped her purse under her right arm and walked resolutely, humming “Feelings,” head high despite the wilting heat. Years ago, on a day like today, somebody had actually fried an egg on the sidewalk outside her office. The newspaper came and photographed it. Of course, later on, she’d had to go out and clean up the mess herself. Nobody had any consideration, even back then.
She felt like that sidewalk egg, edges curling and crisping in the sweltering midday heat. The weather pushed at her nowadays with twice the force it had when she was young. Everything did. She was tired. Of coping. Of trying. Of an entire lifetime of taking care of everything by herself. Had to. Nobody helped anybody. Not even when you were young and reasonably attractive and certainly not when you were a gray-haired old lady.
What was done was done. She could live with what she’d had to do, had been doing, in fact, for a lifetime, but what she couldn’t live with was having it all be useless. If people would only leave her in peace. She clutched the navy patent handbag closer, pulled at the flower-sprigged dress where it clung damply to her midriff and directed her canvas shoes toward the police station.
*
The front door squealed, admitting—of all people—Old Doc Maple, the ogre of Will’s adolescence. A lady dentist was a double humiliation, a combination mother and Nazi torturer, tsking if you hadn’t brushed enough for her, poking your mouth with crochet hooks, exhaling the hospital smell of cloves with every breath.
If there was one person in the entire town who would definitely rat to the Chief that he’d been eating a salami sandwich while on duty, it was prissy Doctor Hilda Maple. Will shoved meat, cheese, bread, lettuce and wax paper into the bottom desk drawer, and turned to face his caller.
She stood behind the mahogany banister separating the citizens from the force, lumpy in the kind of dress nobody wore, eyes glinting behind tiny glasses perched on her nose. Standard issue Little Old Lady.
He didn’t like her. Who would? Such a prig that at Halloween, she gave out toothbrushes and lectures on dental hygiene. He didn’t know if she thought she was giving tricks or treats.
“Help you, Dr. Maple?” Pritchett glanced at the clock. Had to get the filing done, but he wasn’t going to let her think he was some kind of clerk. He settled behind his desk.
Hilda Maple pulled a handkerchief with embroidered daisies out of her purse. Her hands looked large and strong, the better to yank the teeth out of your skull. He wondered what Old Lady terror had freaked her. Fear of night prowlers? A request for better street lights? A lost pet?
“I’ve come to confess, Willie,” she said.
Sergeant, he wanted to snap. Will. William. Never Willie anymore. What did she think, that he was still her helpless victim? Confess, she’d said. The old biddy was making a joke for probably the first time in her life. He should ease up. He pulled out a chair for her. “What awful thing’d you do, ma’am? Jaywalk? Or—I know—you’re really the Texas Terror and you shot all those people at the luncheonette! Hold on while I get those handcuffs.”
She frowned and sat down, eyeing him like he was a giant tooth and she was going to find a soft spot she could drill into. He wiped all expression off his face and returned her stare until she looked down at her hands. The balance of power had shifted. Doc was old and little Willie Pritchett was a grown-up cop now and this was his turf and his call.
“This is not a joke,” she said. “I am here to confess.”
“Right.” He folded his hands over his middle and waited. He felt a smile tug at his lips.
“The problem is,” she said, “my crime was perfect.”
Impossible to keep a straight face. She had little pink cheeks, marshmallow fluff hair, a voice like sugar sparkles and tiny feet in white canvas shoes. Not quite a hardened mastermind of the perfect crime. He hid his grin with his hand and stroked his moustache, to look concerned.
“To whom do I confess?” she asked.
“What you see is what you get. Unless you want to wait until Captain and the rest get back. But for now, I am the law.” Portis was out sick, the Chief was out lunching and the rest were gone. There’d been a burglary near the shopping center and kids turning on hydrants on Hollyhock Circle, plus, a child on Twentieth was missing—or more likely misplaced, because in this town, there were more hysterical mothers than there were criminals. God, what he wouldn’t give for one good solid kidnaping.
“How are you, Willie?” she asked. “As I recall, you had problems with caries and plaque. I hope you’re flossing and practicing good maintenance. You don’t want gum disease.”
She certainly hadn’t changed. He glared. His mouth was no longer her damned business. “What really brings you here, ma’am?” he asked.
She stood up again, ramrod straight. He saw moisture marks under her arm, and it pleased him, made up for her posture.
“I do not believe it is improper or excessive for a respectable homeowner to expect a decent night’s sleep.” She pulled her head back and into her wrinkled neck, like a turtle. She was waiting for him to say something back.
It was like being in school again, breath held, every eye on him as he silently prayed the question, the teacher and the whole classroom would disappear.
“Don’t you agree?” She talked like somebody tasting every word before letting go of it.
“Sure.” Whatever she wanted. The old hen was bonkers.
He’d answered right. She smiled, showing good teeth, like a commercial for herself. “You’re only given one set,” she used to say, clove breath suffocating little Willie, prisoner on her torture chair. “Cherish it.”
“With too little sleep, I get shaky,” she now said. “A dentist can’t have trembling hands. Could drill right through somebody’s cheek if you get the shakes.”
“You still practicing, then?” Let her know that not only had he stopped being her patient, but he didn’t keep track of her. Old biddy should have retired by now, anyway. Age, not insomnia, had given her the shakes.
“I’m trying to practice, but how can I if I can’t sleep? My home’s impossible now, which is why I want to move to one of your cells. I assume it’s quiet here at night, that you enforce the rules, do you not?”
“Whoa. Let me get this straight. You want me to lock you up?” Why did he get all the cranks? Last time it was the guy whose we
ather stripping talked to him. Now her. “Listen,” he said, “is this some kind of— Is Candid Camera out there or something?”
“I believe that constitutionally, as an admitted criminal, I am entitled to a bed here.”
Too little sleep and you crack up. He’d seen it in a torture movie. Or was it just age, that old-timer’s disease. “Miz Maple, if you’re not sleeping good, the doctor could prescribe pills.”
“No pill drowns out rock and roll. Nor do earplugs.” She bit hard on the edge of every syllable. “They rehearse all night long. The Johnson Five.”
She said it like it was some world-famous group and like she didn’t have a clue how funny a name it was.
He couldn’t wait to tell the guys. The Johnson Five, they’d told her. Too much. Wonder if one of the Johnsons was named Michael and another Janet, and both their hobbies were having their faces redone. The old lady closed her eyes for so long, he thought maybe she was catching some of those missed Z’s.
He remembered her street. Nice houses. A little past their prime, maybe, but big, on comfortable old-fashioned lots. Much better than he had. “So you’re here about this…Johnson Five?”
She studied her hands.
“Ma’am?” He half didn’t know what to call her. “Doc” had always sounded wrong for a teensy little lady. Kids called her “The Dockess,” but that wouldn’t do for a professional encounter.
“Hmmm?”
Not only senile, but deaf. The noises she heard started in her head. “You’re here because…”
“They rehearse in their garage. Back of the property. Every night.”
“Then you’re here to make a complaint? Disturbing the peace?”
She shook her head. “What’s the point? It’s Lacey’s dog all over again.”
She was whacko and he was hungry and the air conditioner made the place stink and still be hot and even more than that, damn but he was sick of being a baby-sitter instead of a cop.
“Big, mean, skinny thing, Lacey’s’s dog was.” She sounded as if she’d told herself the story exactly the same way, lots of times. It made him queasy, like he was a Peeping Tom or something. “Some mix of breeds that never should have happened,” she continued, stiff-lipped. “Mind you, I like dogs. But not that big-headed, long-legged, mud-colored thing.”
“Lucky thing it’s long gone, then,” he said. “You were a good judge of that dog’s character, considering what he wound up doing.”
“Never shut up. A car, a bird, dandelion fluff went by, it went crazy. I’m not a rich woman and I’m not young anymore. My practice isn’t what it was. I couldn’t pull up stakes and start over again.”
“Lacey’s dog is dead,” he reminded her. His words had no effect. She moved ahead with her story dully, noticing nothing else, like a sleep-walker he’d seen on a movie of the week. He checked the clock. Captain would be back soon and royally pissed if none of the filing was done.
“I tried to befriend it. I like animals. But it growled, and squinched its yellow eyes. Couldn’t go out and enjoy my garden without it barking and yowling and jumping at the chain link, making it rattle and bang until my head pounded and my hands shook.”
“Yes, ma’am, well, now, that sounds real bad, but it’s over. A dead dog can’t bother you. Besides, you came here about something else, am I right?”
“The Johnson Five. Just as bad as that dog ever was. Not sleeping again and afraid just like then that I’ll drill right through somebody’s cheek, or pull the wrong tooth. Lacey’s dog all over again!”
The phone rang, and Will grabbed for it, grateful for a reprieve. Weren’t allowed to be rude to them. Didn’t dare. Even in a nowhere town like this, people were savvy about police harassment charges. Chief gave pep talks about what he called Gross Insensitivity. “Remember that we are civil servants,” he always said.
“Sergeant Pritchett speaking,” Will said smartly. Old Lady Maple looked impressed. She wasn’t the only one with a title, after all. But the caller was only Chuck’s wife, asking Will to remind her husband to pick up a cabbage on the way home. Will wrote out the message, hoping Doc couldn’t read well upside down. Even the idea of cabbage, a vegetable he didn’t like, made his mouth water for the salami and cheese in the bottom drawer. Then suddenly, his heart lurched. God help him—what if the mayo had leaked onto something important! Forms were stacked in that drawer, weren’t they? Damn!
“You look startled. Emergency?” she asked after he’d hung up the phone.
“It’ll wait.” He used his favorite tough, seen-it-all voice. “But not too long,” he added as warning. Because his ass would be in a sling if Captain found him wasting his time with the crone.
“Did you ever notice her dentures?” Doc asked.
“The dog had false teeth?”
“Lacey did! Terrible clackers. Maybe they gave her a grudge against dentists, or against life. If you can’t chew good, you can’t live good, is what I always say.”
“Ma’am?” He wished he could grab her, shake her a little, get her marbles in place.
“Oh, yes. There’d be a lot less need for head doctors if more people saw tooth doctors, is what I always say.”
“About this problem of yours.”
“‘He’s my watchdog!’ Lacey’d screech if I complained, and with every word, her upper plate practically fell out of her mouth. I said her dog could watch plenty good from inside her house. She told me to buy earplugs. Her plates wobbled and clacked. I offered to make a new set for free. Bad teeth, bad chewing, bad digestion, bad temper, is what I say.”
“Dr. Maple, Miss Lacey isn’t around anymore, and neither is her dog. In all truth, I don’t see the point of—”
“That is the point. I’m a nice person. Nothing worked. Then I called you.”
“Me? I’ve only been on the force a year, ma’am, and Miss Lacey—”
“I mean I filed a complaint with the police. I can prove that part at least. You people keep records, don’t you?”
Here it was, then, years later, some kind of lawsuit, like Captain always warned about. Old hen had marched over in her tennis shoes to sue the bejesus out of the department while he was all alone here.
She pulled her little body up even straighter. “You people said there was nothing you could do. Law requires more than one complaint, you said, and I was the only one. Only remove dogs who’ve attacked somebody, you said.”
“Look, the laws are there so people don’t make wild accu—”
“The lady who lived on the other side of Lacey was deaf. Still is. Speaks with her hands, you know. The whole row of houses backs onto the big stone retaining wall, so who else is there to hear?” Her voice was less sugar and spice and more like twigs crackling in a fire. “Lacey said that if anything happened to that dog, she’d see that I went to jail. I believed her. You people knew I hated him. Even the deaf woman knew. Isn’t that enough proof?”
Proof of what? That she had a complaint against the department? That she was batty? “You know, ma’am Doctor, you said you came about a problem you had now.” Wanted to be locked up because she couldn’t sleep, wasn’t that it? He was a trained listener, but this was too much. Her mind wandered all over hell and back. Old Toni Lacey and her dog had been dead and not much missed for a couple years now. “How can we help you?” She was normal enough looking on the outside, but inside, all loose wires. Women went rotten dangerously fast, much quicker than men. This one shouldn’t be allowed to handle sharp instruments anymore.
“I don’t expect you to help me. Nobody has before. Not once. Always leave me to take care of it on my own. That’s why I’m saying this time, give me a quiet cell and a good mattress. I’m too old to do it again.”
“Do what? File a complaint?”
She shook her fluff of hair and pursed her mouth. “Take matters in my own hands, you know. Like the other times.”
“And which times were they, ma’am?” She looked planted into the floor and likely to stay for days. He smiled to wa
rm her up, then clamped his mouth shut because he wasn’t sure the condition of his teeth would pass her inspection. “Ma’am,” he said, more loudly than intended, “don’t mean to be rude, but hope you don’t mind if I work while you talk. Have to take care of some papers.” There, that sounded important enough. He walked to the bank of files and half turned from her as he pulled a stapled set of forms out of the wire basket on top of one cabinet. “Continue,” he said. “I’m listening.” All ears. Right.
“What happened is this. One day when Lacey went to the market, I put steak next to the fence. Her stupid animal came right over.”
Oh, how he’d dreamed about chasing robbers, finding clues. Being a hero. Not about sweating and filing and enduring a growling stomach while listening to whackos with nobody but him to talk to. Because he was a civil servant.
“Soon as his neck was near the chain link, I gave him a shot.”
“Wait a minute.” He looked over at her. Her purse was under her right arm and her hands were folded in front like a schoolgirl reciting a well-practiced piece. “Who’d you shoot again?”
“The dog.”
But Lacey’s dog hadn’t been shot. Best to simply ignore the woman and get the filing done or the Chief would blame him, like always, even though it wasn’t his fault. He looked at the file in his hand. McHooley. Never had gotten it straight if the “Mc” names went before or after the regular “M’s.”
“When he was out cold,” the dentist continued, “I skittled over there into her yard. I must confess, I was rather excited. This was pretty much the professional challenge of my career, you see. I’d prepared a really good mold. Had to work fast, of course, because that stuff hardens like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Otherwise, people gag too much. Don’t know if you need it that fast for a dog, actually. Don’t know if a dog’s gag reflex is the same.”
He shoved McHooley at the back of the M’s while he wondered if he’d really heard the Dockess say she’d put mold on the dog and it hardened and gagged.
Murder, She Did Page 4
