The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott

by Jonathan Lowe

  “I'd like you to face the reality we're talking about here, if you would, Ms. Lott.”

  “I am. But what exactly is that reality, detective? For instance, have you ever seen a photograph in a magazine that asks you to add a caption to it? Because there are a hundred interpretations for any snapshot of so-called reality. And even if you're the one who takes the photo, you have to imagine someday looking at it. Right? That means you're not really seeing what you think you see through the viewfinder. You're looking at some future moment. And when that future moment arrives, and you look at the photo, you'll be trying to remember the past. Where's the present, in all this, is my question.”

  “That's my question too.”

  “Truth is, detective, it's ignored. Meaning nothing is ever what it seems. Which is why nothing ever turns out the way we expect, either.”

  Trent smiled thinly. “Maybe I should rest my case, here.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Of course, if he did kidnap a Hispanic kid, he wouldn't hurt her physically, just maybe, like, talk her to death?”

  “That's not funny, detective.”

  “I'm sorry, Ms. Lott. It's just, I don't have time for games. Think about what you told me for a second, will you? You'd just broken up with your boyfriend, something sure to produce an emotional state in anyone. Then you meet a man who talks philosophy to you. A handsome guy, I'm told, who you think is just the opposite of your ex. Maybe you want to believe him. Need to believe him. Am I wrong?”

  “Yes, you are. You think too much. Like Greg. Like everyone.”

  “What about little Melissa Melendez? Doesn't she deserve a second thought?”

  “Of course she does. But this man is not the one who kidnapped her.”

  “Although no one can prove it by you, because you haven't a clue about where he is or who he is.”

  “I know who he is. He's not a felon or user of people. He's not a celebrity, either, or else you'd be giving him the benefit of the doubt too, even without having talked to him and listened to him! Am I wrong, detective? I don't think so. I've seen enough in this business to know that we only listen to people who share our politics, or support our delusions, or pay us a wage. . . people we envy or want to impress. Everyone else can go to hell.”

  Trent sighed. “Okay, Ms. Lott. Let's pretend there's a good man out there who falls on hard times. Shall we? Maybe this man loses his job, his family. I dunno. . . maybe medical bills bankrupt him. Anyway, he ends up at the park when he's not at some shelter, laying his head on a bench in one of those ramadas that companies use for picnics. That's his home for a while, his ‘ramada inn,’ if you like. Checkout time is whenever some soccer mom shows up to evict him from the table she's rented for her spoiled kid's birthday party. He's got no one who cares, and people think he's just drifted into homelessness due to alcohol or laziness or apathy. Now ask yourself, here. Wouldn't this man become desperate and lonely, and then maybe even opportunistic, over time? If he has so little hope, and so little money, wouldn't he try to con his way out of his misery? Maybe pretend to be someone he's not? Can you give me that, at least?”

  11

  In defiance and frustration Val left her cell phone off as she drove through the neighborhoods surrounding Reid Park. Glancing repeatedly down at the phone, which lay dormant on the seat beside her, she pondered Trent’s theory of guilt. Was it even remotely possible? Although the police would love to grill David as their prime suspect, it seemed absurd at best.

  No, she decided. A kidnapper was out there somewhere, that much was certain. Perhaps a faceless killer, too. Maybe even a homeless man like the one she'd seen, but hadn't really observed. Yet neither of these could be the gentle man she'd talked to. Curiously, though, she did wonder how likely it was that a criminal owned one of David's dogs. Because no dog had been seen with the kidnapper, either. No one had even noticed him, much less made eye contact. And then someone had only seen him from a distance.

  In any event, if she didn't find David soon, she had to report what she'd neglected to mention about the van, the trailer, and the airport connection. Because Trent definitely needed help to track whoever it was, for the little girl's sake. It felt like a mistake to protect someone who didn’t need protection, too, although this reflex was probably because she wanted to feel sorry for him, which would subconsciously make it easier to dismiss what he'd suggested about her own career path. If only she could imagine him vulnerable and homeless, similar to someone living in an empty castle, with a wide moat of silence around it. If only he fit the profile of some lonely retiree whose dog took up its owner's hostility by barking at everything that moved. Yet this description didn't fit David either, she knew.

  And where was he now, anyway? Already she'd begun to circle through the same area, seeing the same familiar streets she'd driven before. She thought about calling Cliff White for advice on her dilemma, but rejected the idea, knowing it would be more futile than calling her mother. Cliff might even mistake it for an invitation to make a pass at her, as he had after the last company picnic, two years prior. Plus Cliff, like anyone at the station, couldn't be expected to keep a confidence if revealing it earned them brownie points with Claire. Considering her other friends, Val wondered if she could even call them friends anymore, considering she'd spent so little time with them while in pursuit of her career. As married women, Denise and Joyce and Diane now lived in cookie-cutter subdivisions beyond the city limits, where they drove hybrid mini-vans, and had kids in school. What little free time they had was cherished with their busy husbands, who were manufacturing consultants or teachers or electrical engineers. So they probably couldn't relate to her any better than Faye had. If they thought of her at all after burping their babies, it was probably with a wistful approbation, culminating with a sigh and a whispered, “Have fun dating, Val. You go, girl!” Little did they know how dating was hell at her age, with time running out on her own dream of settling down.

  ~ * ~

  After 6 PM, Val pulled her aging Taurus over. From the west edge of the twilit park, she looked past a tall row of motionless palm trees toward a particular expanse of grass tinged an unearthly gold by a sliver of dying sunlight. There was no wind at sunset, only the distant, intermittent howl of a siren. Like the anguish of a homesick coyote in despair of finding its way, the howl disturbed a pigeon, high up in one of the palms. The bird struggled half heartedly to regain the balance of its perch, and even flapped its wings once in a gameful effort, yet it remained unwilling to expend the energy needed to let go and find another tree.

  Val closed her eyes briefly, feeling similarly tired and overwhelmed. Her brooding mood, fueled earlier by frustration, had already begun to lose its edge. Soon she might feel nothing at all except emptiness and loss. Unless she could somehow take David's advice to focus on the moment, old thought patterns would snare her once more, looping through her head like an old movie reel. Augmenting her problems, then, would flash regrets over the subtle ways she'd been taught to go after bold, rich men who ultimately possessed little depth or interest in art or philosophy or religion, and so acted their own part in the absurd mating dance of life, following a ritual choreography that foretold the inevitable death of fidelity, honesty, charity, even sanity.

  The wasted effort of it all seemed so ludicrous to her, now. If only she could just sleep. And then, if she never woke up, so much the better. Or if she did awaken, if only David could be there. So she could ask him one burning question. One about starting over. With a clean slate.

  How do I become blank again, like a child?

  If it was possible to achieve that, then maybe, after this worrisome drama was done with, she might discover the courage to pursue a truer calling than seeking out celebrities to interview, as Mrs. Robinson had evidently decreed for her. And maybe this new career would partly involve helping organize David's dog placement service. Call it Dogs Without Borders, or something. A more meaningful endeavor, for sure, than covering trivial society eve
nts, or reporting on petty crimes that enabled bored viewers rubber-necking time before their favorite game show.

  With time running out, and more questions than answers, Val opened her car door, and stepped out with determination. She would search the area on foot. Of course the police were probably still searching too, but they didn't have what she had. All they possessed, besides biased profiling methods, was a sketch made with the help of the witness who'd been in the park. They didn't have her intuition, or anything like a clue.

  She walked purposefully toward the ball field with the same bench where she'd first encountered David. Almost like a force field, though, the fetid odor of stale garbage blocked her path, permeating the space surrounding a large green plastic trash container with a missing lid. Repulsed, she backed away. But then plastic spray nozzles suddenly popped up out of hiding, and on cue high arcs of water pulsed at her in ambush. One nozzle soaked her neck before she could turn her back to the programmed watering, and step the opposite way.

  She looked around in embarrassment, to see if anyone had seen it happen, and in the distance she spied a lone man, who sat in his ‘ramada inn,’ watching. The man grinned with rotten teeth. He was a thin, harmless-looking soul, emaciated and pale. He wore an old sweater, despite the warmth. Patches at the elbows. As she neared, intending to move past him, his smile seemed friendlier than she first supposed. It was a complicit smile. As though he'd encountered the same rude awakening earlier.

  “Surprise, surprise,” she said, smiling bravely.

  “Oh yeah,” the man replied in memory, the hoarse evenness of his plaintive voice a peek at his apparent gentleness.

  She paused. "What's your. . . name?" she asked.

  "Al," he replied.

  “Al?”

  “Yeah, Albert. What's yers?”

  “Val.”

  She stepped close enough to hold out her hand to the frail man. They shook, but she immediately regretted it. His hand was damp. Then she saw that his eyes were damp too. And she noticed the brown bag at his foot--the top of a bottle.

  “Al,” she said, “do you know a guy who gets dogs for homeless people?”

  “Why, ya wanna dog? Ya don't look homeless.”

  “No, I'm looking for the man who acquires dogs. Late thirties, dark glasses, with a cane?”

  Al studied her shoes. “Nope, dunno him. You a cop?”

  Val smiled at the sense of déjà vu. “You been questioned?”

  Al nodded. “Frisked too.”

  Another rotten toothed smile, of a sort. A sad smile. Val opened her purse and withdrew a business card and a ten dollar bill. Handing these to him, she asked, “Would you call me, if you see the man I'm looking for?”

  The man nodded. “Okay.”

  She mimicked the nod. “You don't sleep here, do you, Al?”

  “Here? No. Won't let ya.”

  “Then why---” she began, but quickly stopped herself.

  “Why am I here?” he finished.

  “Yeah. Why here?”

  “Years back, used ta be an orange tree here. Right here.” He pointed at the ground. “Big, beautiful oranges, not the woody kind don't get enough water. My girlfriend Genie and me? We used ta come here and eat'em. Last place I saw her. See?” He pointed, now, at nothing. Or rather at the ghost girl standing there, as real to him as the ghost tree that had long been cut down and hauled away.

  “I'm sorry," Val said. "She died?”

  Al looked at her curiously, then shook his head vigorously. “No, no, she still alive. Live in Florida now.”

  “Oh.” Val didn't know what to say to that. How to continue such a conversation? Genie had left him with a bottle. Genie had moved on with her life, leaving her boyfriend trapped in the past, returning to the same place where she'd left him. It was another story that might be told, if anyone could be made to care. Like Greg. Or Claire Robinson. Knowing the impossibility of that, Val smiled sadly back at the feeble man, instead, and then gave him a little wave as she left him, too. Back, toward the vacant ball field. Walking steadily, self consciously, not once looking back. Just as Genie had.

  When she reached the fence, the lights had already begun to sputter to life high above the freshly mown grass in front of her. Perhaps it was in anticipation of a night game, or maybe to make the area less attractive to criminals. There were certainly no kids in the park, anymore. They were safe at home, watching television. Like everyone else.

  Val put one hand against the fence, entwining her fingers into the mesh. She looked up at the halogens atop their high aluminum poles, and realized that time had run out, just as time had always seemed to run out before.

  Time. An illusion?

  She flipped open her cell phone to check her messages. There were nine. Five from her boss, two from police, and two from reporters. The final message from Greg suggested that if she didn't answer within fifteen minutes she'd be out of a job. Looking at her watch, she realized that this interval of time had already expired. Fifteen minutes prior.

  Her finger hovered over the return call button. Then, in the distance, she caught a glimpse of movement. Turning, she saw a dog running free. A mixed German Shepherd, the dog trailed a long leash behind it, and ran to chase ducks and geese off the walk surrounding the lake.

  Val squinted toward the other side, but couldn't see anyone over there. So she walked quickly toward the dog, her steps turning into a run as she whistled after it, and glanced warily around for sight of its master.

  When she arrived at the lake, the daft animal stopped on the other side and just stared at her, quizzically. Having just herded all the ducks toward the center of the pond, the dog now panted in satisfaction. Focused on her, it seemed to be waiting to see what she'd do next.

  “Picasso!” she called, as a test.

  12

  The dog's ears perked up. Then it crouched slightly down onto its front legs as if about to bound in one direction or the other, depending on which way a stick is thrown.

  Quirky mutt, she thought.

  “Picasso!” Val hissed again. “Here, boy!”

  She pretended to take a treat from her purse--her cell phone concealed in her palm. No use. The dog straightened, bored. Game over.

  Too late, she found a stick and hurled it toward her right. But the mongrel wasn't even watching her anymore. It now eyed a duck that had bravely flapped back up onto the sidewalk surrounding the water thirty feet away.

  It ran. Val did too, circling to intercept. But just before she got there, the dog reversed directions and took off once more.

  "Come here!” she commanded. But her words felt powerless, even in her own throat. She tried to catch up with the trailing leash, but that was no better. The beast wouldn't let her get that close.

  Exhausted after two complete circles of the oval lake, Val finally slumped onto a concrete bench and just watched the animal, talking to it as she did.

  “Probably says 'finders keepers' on those dog tags of yours," she muttered, wearily. "Like to play games, do ya, Picasso?”

  She said the name again, a little louder. Then again, louder still. The dog definitely seemed to react to the name, ears lifting at each repetition as though hearing a dog whistle. She could see some unusual markings on the beast's fur, too. Patterns.

  Connect the dots, and you have. . .what?

  She looked around her in the gathering gloom. It wasn't safe here anymore. Maybe it had never been safe here, not even for David. And where was he? Maybe the dog knew that. Maybe, if she didn't try for the leash, but just watched from a distance, this man's-best-friend might hear his master's voice. The only other option was to stuff a letter to David into a bottle and float it in the Reid Park Lake. Yet what might such a letter say?

  Dear David--

  I'm sorry I walked away from you. It was an impulsive thing. After our conversation, I realized my mistake. Since then I've felt kinda numb and disconnected, trying to get somewhere, but not really knowing where "there" is. Maybe I want to be like you
, free of the past, but I just don't know how, or what I can give you in return, other than friendship and fear. I guess I'm like everybody else, willfully blind to what's good for me, or for the world. So maybe I don't deserve to know the truth.

  Valerie

  She could insert her business card in the bottle too. Or maybe not. Maybe she didn't have a job or business anymore, either.

  When the few lampposts nearby flickered to life, her new canine adversary got bored with ducks, and suddenly left the pond, trotting off in a new direction. Val jumped to her feet and rushed to follow, only to trip on a slick of bird dung on the sidewalk. Losing her balance, she pitched forward, and only blocked her fall by extending her arms.

  Her purse flew in front of her. The cell phone inside rolled out. Tumbling end or end, it flipped over the edge and plopped right into the water.

  “No!” she cried. She crawled to retrieve it from the shallows.

  The phone dripped water as she lifted it to see a tiny stream of liquid in place of the more familiar glowing of numerals on the screen.

  “Great,” she breathed, then shoved the dead device into her purse.

  What happens now?

  ~ * ~

  Picasso, if it really was Picasso, obviously had a mind of his own. According to David, it lived in the present, as dogs do. Each scent, each sound new. Impulsively, its decision this time was to veer out of the park to the north, right into the mesquite trees and cactus over there.

  Great.

  Purposefully or otherwise, the creature's motivation was impossible to gauge. So in the deepening twilight, with little time before total darkness, Val followed. It was crazy, of course, she realized. She was on a wild goose chase, although there wasn't even a goose anymore.