by Clea Simon
She turned and began to walk away, Stewie staying perfectly at heel. I didn’t know whether to grab her or follow, like her little dog.
“Cheryl?” She wobbled a little. Those shoes. Fatigue. “What does this mean?”
She muttered something, her voice lost in the growing distance.
“Cheryl?” I called.
And then she turned, her face supremely sad. “Ask your boyfriend,” she said.
***
I let her go. I wasn’t sure what other option I had. I stood and watched as she walked down to her car and beeped it open. Stewie jumped right in as if this was the most natural outing in the world, and as Cheryl did a slow k-turn and started down the drive, I tried to make sense of what had happened.
“Jim?” I’m not stupid. I called Creighton as soon as she’d driven off. “I’ve got to talk to you as soon as possible. Call me back, please?”
I’d gone back to my own car by then and, after a moment’s hesitation, slipped the garish collar into my glove compartment. There was no way I was putting it back in the woods, but I didn’t think I wanted to be found with it on me. Gregor Benazi had an uncanny way of showing up without warning, but I thought that he’d consider breaking into my car impolite, for lack of a better word.
I started back to my house. There was no point in following Cheryl. Unless I missed my guess, she’d accomplished her one errand. She’d take the spaniel back to her fancy hotel and hole up there, until Benazi or the Feds or some unknown third party to be named later came for her. I wasn’t sure if I cared.
As I drove, I mulled over what I’d tell my guy. Driving relaxes me, especially now that I’ve got my ride in top condition. It’s not that I zone out, although the roads around Beauville at this season were empty and any black ice had melted. No, as I shifted gears and felt the reassuring roar, it was that driving required more than thought. To master a car like mine, especially as I liked to drive it, meant concentration and physical coordination. My baby blue baby took what I could give, with neither of us holding back. In that way, it was a better relationship than I could ever have with Creighton.
My phone buzzed, jumping from its vibration. “Speak of the devil.” I reached for it, only easing my foot off the gas slightly. “Jim?”
“No.” A woman. For a moment I didn’t recognize her. “It’s Marnie,” she said, sensing my hesitation. “Marnie Lundquist. Can you come over?” It was her voice that had confused me: tighter and higher than I had ever heard it. “Please, Ms. Marlowe. Henry is…he’s gone.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Marnie Lundquist hung up too quickly for me to ask what had happened. But she had sounded so distraught, I feared the worst. I turned off at the next intersection and headed toward her house. I’m not naturally empathetic—not with humans, anyway—and my years in the city had trained me to question any urge to sympathize with the average sob story. But I liked the old lady, and I heard the pain in her voice.
I also felt culpable. My first instinct had been right: wild animals aren’t pets, and Henry was probably doomed from the start. If we’d gotten him to a wildlife rehab center, he might have had a chance. At least Marnie Lundquist would have thought he did, rather than being burdened with a small carcass going cold and stiff. If I couldn’t convince her to relinquish the bunny—he was her granddaughter’s pet, after all—I should have pushed for a visit to the vet. Should have insisted. Old Doc Sharpe might have been persuaded to see the little leporid without reporting her.
There was another reason I blamed myself—one that I was loath to admit—and that was that I personally had failed, somehow. As I sped toward the poor woman’s house, I went over what I had gotten from the rabbit. What I had missed. Wild animals are good at hiding the symptoms of injury or illness; their survival can depend on their seeming strong. But with my sensitivity, I should have gotten some clue. What had I heard? Stray thoughts about family, about safety.
“Watch out!” A voice shrieked in my ear, and I slammed on the brakes. Bad idea. The snow might be gone, but the road was wet from the day’s shower and I felt myself spinning out, my car spinning sideways—a nearly two-ton pinball whipped between inertia and friction. I eased off the brakes and felt the skid begin to even out, my tires catching the road.
I was shaking as I drove off. The smell of burning rubber and the prone body of the opossum leaving me trembling. Not that the sight of that shaggy body meant anything, I reminded myself. The ugly little animal had yelled a warning, but I had felt no impact, neither through the car nor mentally. The opossum and I had both had a good scare, and his response was to keel over temporarily. We were both lucky he had made it to the side of the road before the odd reaction had kicked in, and I found myself taking deep breaths to steady my hands and heartbeat as I went on my way.
The interaction did give me a glimmer of hope. “Henry is gone,” his caretaker had said. Only, maybe he wasn’t. And maybe there was something I could do to help.
Driving with more care—and more optimism—I rounded the corner of Marnie Lundquist’s block. She was there to greet me, running down from the front door even before I had pocketed my keys.
“Ms. Marlowe!” She clasped her own hands tight to her breast, as if evoking the bunny. “Please help me.”
“Of course.” I followed her into the house, wondering what I’d find. “You said Henry was gone?”
“Yes, yes.” She turned back and saw the confusion on my face. “Oh, no! I Not that, I hope. I only meant, well, Henry has gone missing.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “Well, that’s better.”
I regretted those words as soon as they were out of my mouth, Marnie Lundquist looked so distressed. “It’s my fault,” she said. “We have to find him.”
“Of course.” I led her into the living room, where we had begun our last visit, and sat. She didn’t, the look of distress knitting her face. “Please,” I motioned to the sofa beside me. “I need to hear what happened.”
“All right.” She perched on the edge of the seat, as if afraid the bunny might hop by at any moment. Or, I realized, that he might be—might have been—under the cushions. I shifted to the edge, too.
“What are Henry’s usual hiding places?” I asked, not wanting to suggest a possible tragedy if I could help it. “I assume you’ve checked those?”
“Yes, yes.” That verbal tic was getting annoying. She had lost her granddaughter’s pet, I reminded myself. “Under the stereo, next to the refrigerator, and in the cat bed—excuse me, bunny bed—that he always sleeps in.”
I nodded. The first two made sense—electronics are warm—and the bed probably smelled familiar. “Why don’t we check them again?” I suggested.
The old lady looked up at me, eyes wide.
“Animals have a way of disappearing and then reappearing,” I said, with what I intended as a hopeful inflection. It was true, but I also needed a moment to consider. Domestic animals aren’t that hard to track down. House cats who get lost, for example, almost always hide someplace close by. Their people see them hightail it out the door and they go blocks, calling and putting up notices. Most of the time, Fluffy stopped running right around the garbage bin, and a close inspection of the immediate environs—the basement window wells, the trash area—will result in relief, both for the freaked-out house pet and for the frightened owner. I didn’t know rabbit behavior that well, though. I didn’t know a behaviorist who did. Then again, I had skills that most lacked.
I followed her quick nervous steps into the kitchen, getting down on hands and knees to peer into the crevice by her fridge. Nothing, not even dust bunnies—Marnie Lundquist kept her house as neat as her hair. Same when I looked under the stereo. When she took me to see his bed—a quilted, covered basket in the corner of her small sitting room—I could feel her begin to panic.
“Please, wait.” I left her at the door and got down on my knees. Wat
ching her fret, kneading those long, white fingers, was distracting, as well as distressing, and I wanted to focus. “Henry?” I tried to reach out, calling the only name I had for the little brown bunny. “Are you there?”
I reached into the bed. Despite Marnie Lundquist’s housecleaning habits, there was bunny fur on the pillow. Although the rabbit was nowhere in sight, the fur felt warm under my hand. Silky, and as soft as the lining of a nest. A strange idea began to form in the back of my mind.
“Mrs. Lundquist?” I didn’t want to accuse the kind old lady of lying to me, but I was beginning to think she had not exactly shared the whole truth. “Has Henry gotten out before?”
Her face crumpled, and for a moment I feared she would start to cry. “Yes,” she said, just once. “He did.” I waited, my silence and her guilt over obscuring the truth having the same effect as the forces that had nearly wrecked my car on the way over.
“That’s why I was so worried the first time I called you,” she said, after another moment of handwringing. “It was a few weeks ago, now. My granddaughter had told me I should give him some time on the grass, if possible. And it’s been such a horrible winter. I thought, with the first thaw…”
More hand-wringing. She was blinking back tears. “I’m not as young as I once was, and he’s rather fast,” she said. “I must have looked away for a moment, and he was gone. I was in a panic. It was all my fault. But then I found him, under the rhododendron, nibbling at something as if everything was perfectly normal. He was only gone a few minutes but, my stars, I thought I was going to faint after that.”
She wiped at her eyes, but I thought her color looked better, now that she’d confessed. “When he started acting strange, I thought he may have picked up some disease or, perhaps, been bitten…” She paused, looking at me, the unspoken question in her eyes.
“You’re wondering about rabies,” I said.
She swallowed and blinked several times in rapid succession.
“It’s very unlikely.” I reviewed everything I knew before proceeding. The last thing I wanted to do was give this kind woman false hope. “Like any warm-blooded animal, rabbits can get rabies. But the disease is transmitted by bites from an infected animal.” I’d had my own run-in with rabies, and I couldn’t make light of the threat. “And we do have reports of infected animals in the county. Have you seen an infected animal—a raccoon acting strangely, or anything like that?”
She shook her head.
“I think he’s fine then,” I said. “That’s the only way Henry could get a disease like rabies. And, to be honest, I think you’d have noticed if he’d been bitten. He hadn’t, right?”
“No, no,” she was beginning to sound relieved. “I’m sure I would have been aware if he had.”
I was, too. Rabies is not common in rabbits because rabbits don’t usually survive the initial attack. “Then I think you’re good. And Henry is probably just making himself scarce somewhere in the house.”
She nodded, more in relief than agreement. Now that I’d identified her real concern, Marnie Lundquist would be fine. There was something else, though. Something I’d almost gotten from Henry’s bed.
“I’m wondering,” I said. “Could I see where you feed Henry?”
“Of course.” She led me back to the kitchen, which had an old-fashioned pantry. There, under the lowest shelf, I saw an improvised hay rack: a wire magazine rack, it looked like, half full of the sweet grasses I had seen the rabbit nibbling the other day. I knelt again and leaned in. The hay smelled fresh and sweet. Tender, almost, like something one could burrow into, although of course the rack was much too thin to hide a bunny Henry’s size, the stalks too sparse…I reached to touch it.
“How strange.” The voice behind me startled me.
“Excuse me?” I sat back and looked up at her, my train of thought broken.
“It’s just…” Her brow knit in confusion. “I filled that this morning.”
“Well, that’s a good sign.” I sat back on the floor. “I can’t imagine anyone else eating Henry’s hay.”
“No, but it’s a bit confusing.” Whatever she had been intending to say next was interrupted by a loud ringing sound, like of an old-fashioned phone.
“I’m sorry.” I reached for my pocket. “I may have to take this.”
Sure enough, it was Creighton. I looked up at the white-haired woman. “I am sorry,” I repeated.
“Please.” She backed off into the kitchen to give me privacy.
“Jim.” I felt a bit silly, crouched in the pantry, but this was not a conversation I wanted overheard. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“What’s up?” He cut right to the chase. “You said it was urgent.”
“It is.” I looked around. Marnie Lundquist had turned the sink on. She was making a great show of washing a dish that I could have sworn was clean. “Look, I’m with a client right now, but I need to talk to you.” I dropped my voice even lower. “About Cheryl Ginger.”
“Ah, so it’s not life or limb.” I could almost hear him exhale. Creighton does worry about me at times. What I didn’t hear was any surprise. “It’s you poking your nose into things again.”
“No, Jim.” I paused. “Not—look, she hired me to take care of her dog, all right? But something came up, and I have to talk to you. Give me five minutes, and I’ll call you back.” I started getting to my feet. “Even better, I’ll come down to the station.”
“No, I don’t think you should do that.” His quick reply surprised me. “How about an early lunch? Maybe Hardware again?”
I wasn’t sure what was going on. I did know that I’d kept Marnie Lundquist waiting long enough. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lundquist,” I said as I emerged from her pantry. “That was an urgent matter. Usually I turn my phone off—”
“No, please.” She was smiling. “You came over on a moment’s notice when I called. I can’t expect you to drop everything for one old lady.”
“You’re a client.” I smiled back. It was hard not to. She was a nice woman, and her obvious relief was infectious. “And besides, I want the best for Henry.”
“That’s just it.” She turned back toward the fodder and nodded, that white bun bobbing up and down like a cottontail. “Don’t you see? Henry must be somewhere right around here. All that lovely hay didn’t eat itself!”
Chapter Thirty-five
It didn’t feel right leaving then. I hadn’t helped solve Marnie Lundquist’s problem. Henry was still missing. And he didn’t have to be. I had a strong feeling that I’d picked up clues to his whereabouts. Hints from his bed, from his hay rack. Even from the kind old lady who so clearly doted on her granddaughter’s pet. Clues I couldn’t quite decipher.
What I hadn’t done was hear from the brown bunny directly. It was almost as if the little beast was hiding his thoughts. But when I’d visited before, he’d seemed quite comfortable with domesticity. Had I somehow put the creature off?
This hadn’t been a day for confidences. But I was going to have to tell Creighton something, that I knew. As I drove to the center of town, I thought about what Cheryl Ginger had said. “Ask your boyfriend.” Right.
The dead man’s girlfriend couldn’t help being beautiful. She’d gone out of her way to be provocative, though, bringing up Creighton like that. She’d been tired. Scared, I figured, and I’d been so close to breaking her down. So she’d shot back, and I’d let her go. Partly because the spaniel Stewie was being so quiet. He’d seemed quite fine with the redhead, once she and I were alone. Once Benazi was gone. Though, come to think of it, the long-haired spaniel had calmed down as soon as the man in the woods had taken off. Could that dark-haired man have been the cause of the spaniel’s anxiety? Was it the collar? This was not how I had wanted to spend my day.
***
“Ma’am?” The skinny man in the tight suit addressing me couldn’t have been more than fiv
e years my junior. Still, I bit my tongue, only nodding in response. The lunch crowd at Hardware was a sight more downscale than for dinner, but even by Beauville standards, my work clothes—denim, not too clean—were pushing it. There was no question I was going to be seated. I could see Creighton already raiding the breadbasket. Besides, this was the same youthful maitre d’ who had been on duty during my previous visit, so he knew I could do better. I’d let him have his little victory, this little man with his stylish little suit. “Follow me, please.”
As the host made a grand gesture of pulling out my chair, I realized that Creighton was at the same table we’d had the other night. I could tell from his smile that he’d gotten the gist of what had just happened, probably from the way I was walking, head high enough for a queen.
“That’s right, you were working,” he said, as I sat. The maitre d’ handed me a menu and left.
“You knew that.” I eyed him. “You wanted to meet me someplace public, where I’d be off guard.” Where I’d be reminded of Cheryl Ginger and Teddy Rhinecrest, I thought. Why, I didn’t know.
“You’re right about the first part of that.” He handed me a breadstick. “But you should order.”
“In a minute.” I leaned across the table. “Jim, this is serious. Cheryl Ginger is hiding something. I mean, specifically. I was walking her dog, and I saw her hiding his old collar in the woods.”
“Hang on.” He put his hands up, as if I were a speeding car. “Just a moment, Pru.”
“No.” I pulled his hand down, beside the breadbasket. I didn’t need more people staring at us. “There’s more, Jim. She was meeting with this guy—”
“Pru!” Creighton has a command voice, too—not loud, but forceful—and he used it now. Between that one word and the way he took my hands in his, I shut up.
For a moment, anyway. “Yes, Jim?” He had to give me something.
He saw that. He sighed. He wasn’t getting away. “You know I’m off the case, Pru.”
