by Clea Simon
I was glad I didn’t have to respond and hit erase. At least Lily had been cleared of Charles’ death. Maybe I could find a rescue group, I thought as I climbed back up the stairs, ready to fall into bed. It was not to be. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the kitten curled up, back toward me, on one pillow. Wallis stretched out on the other, eyes half closed, and smiled up at me.
I managed to get under the blankets and between the two felines before passing out. Sometime during the night, Wallis jumped down for her usual nocturnal rambles, and I reclaimed the pillow, point taken. She ruled, and I was to respect her dignity.
By the time I came down for breakfast, late for me, she was already in the window, supervising the birds in the yard.
“Hey, Wallis.” I measured out coffee beans on automatic pilot and set the water to boil. “I meant to ask you, can you keep an eye on the kitten today?”
She didn’t turn, only lashed her tail.
“It’s just that I should have someone come by and fix that window, and I don’t want her to get out.” Another lash. “I mean, she’s not the brightest bulb.”
That got her. “We’ll manage.” She twitched an ear. “But at some point, Pru, we’re going to have to talk about long-term plans for that child.”
“I know, Wallis.” I stared at the kettle, willing it to boil. I was late. “But don’t worry, I know who she belongs to— with, I mean.” It wouldn’t do to antagonize the tabby now, but she turned back to her window and I was able to pour the steaming water over the ground beans without any more apologies.
“Her ‘mama’?” I carried my mug over to the window in time to catch Wallis’ question.
“Well, I don’t know about that, but that scent you picked up? Delia Cochrane did lose an orange kitten.”
Wallis flicked an ear. “You’re having a territorial dispute with that female, aren’t you?” There was a note of amusement in her voice that I had no patience for.
“That’s not going to happen.” The strong, hot brew was waking me up. “I gave shelter to her kitten, that’s all. And I don’t want her man.”
Not anymore. The thought came so quickly, I didn’t know which one of us it originated with. For now, I was happy to let it go and join Wallis in staring out at the front yard. “So, you didn’t see anything last night?”
“Just because I have excellent night vision, doesn’t mean I’m always watching for intruders.” From the edge in her voice, I wondered if Wallis had been frightened by the attack. “I heard a car. A nice one, not too loud.”
“Thanks, Wallis. That may be useful.” I finished my coffee and went back upstairs to dress. I didn’t know why someone had broken my window or what it meant, but at least I could check out what people drove. First, however, I had dogs to take care of and a living to make.
***
As soon as I saw the smile on Tracy Horlick’s face, I knew I was in for trouble. Twenty minutes late to walk Bitsy, she shouldn’t be smiling so, unless there was hot gossip warming her insides.
“Good morning, Pru.” She greeted me with a syrupy tone at odds with the cold glint in her eye. “And how are you this morning?”
“Fine, thanks. Sorry to be running late.” I tried to walk past her to grab the bichon’s leash but she blocked me. I bit my tongue. This was going too far. I didn’t want to be her source on anything. To top it off, her poor dog was already bouncing up and down, too well trained to take advantage of the door her person held open. “Mrs. Horlick? The leash?”
She stepped aside, but as I reached for the lead she laid a conspiratorial hand on my arm. “I’m not surprised you were running late. I heard you were out last night.”
I looked from the little dog to his owner. Her heavy lipstick was already cracked over her dry lips. The cigarettes didn’t help, but as I watched her tongue darted out to lick those lips I’d be damned if I were breakfast. Mack and I might have been seen drinking together by anyone at Happy’s last night, but only the other couple, the ones who had come crashing out the back door, could say for sure we’d been locking lips. If I’d learned anything from Wallis, it was how to keep a straight face.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs. H.” I leaned over to snap the leash on the poor bichon’s collar. “Maybe you should get out more yourself.”
Her mouth was gaping open like a goldfish’s as I clucked to the dog and we trotted down the steps.
***
“So, Bitsy, I’ve been meaning to ask.” I’d waited until the small dog had relieved himself and we were out of sight of his house. “What do you know about Delia’s pregnancy?”
The small dog sniffed a tree, whizzed and sniffed again, aiming high on the riddled bark. I’d been talking out loud and tried rephrasing my question as a clear thought.
“Sammy. Tiger. Wolf.” It took me a moment to realize the animated pompom was cataloging urine scents. Out of curiosity, I walked him over to a white birch that I knew Lily had favored. He sniffed without comment, then moved onto a hydrant. “Gerald! That kidney trouble again?”
“Bitsy?” I resisted the urge to tug on the leash, even gently. My new insight might help in some ways, but it certainly went against my former training. I tried to think of the small dog as I would Wallis, as ridiculous as that seemed. “Please?”
“You don’t listen, do you?” I got a flash of Tracy Horlick’s sharp voice and stale, ashy smell. He’d warned me about her. Then it was back to that German shepherd and—what?—some kind of hound. The small dog’s wet nose was still busy moving around the tree. “And if you please, it’s Growler.”
***
I had to bite my tongue from saying anything to Tracy Horlick when we returned. From the way she fussed over “Bitsy,” I felt I understood the small dog’s insistence on his masculinity and male associations. At least the fussing kept her from lobbing any more innuendoes my way, and I was able to slip away relatively quickly.
Driving over to the pound, I found myself thinking of gender and identification. Poor Growler. Just because we neuter our animals, doesn’t mean we deprive them of their identity. Just because a dog looks like a plush toy doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel as butch as a bulldog. Then again, we do the same thing to people, don’t we? I couldn’t help thinking about Delia—and about Mack. Both were used to a certain kind of attention. I was guilty of reacting with my hormones, that’s for sure. But where did they really stand in all this?
And how, I pulled my thoughts around as the brick building came into view, would any of this help me place the animals in my care? I still wasn’t sure what to do for the Persian, but as I made my way up to Albert’s desk, I had some very clear ideas for Lily.
“Hey, Albert, I’m here for the pit bull.”
Granted, I’d sort of stormed in. Still, the face that looked up at me was more distracted than usual. I looked over the desk and saw two sharp dark eyes. “Hey, Frank.”
“It’s Bandit. Uh, you got my message?”
“Yeah.” I sat and held out my hand. The ferret jumped up on Albert’s desk and ran to sniff it. I didn’t care about the man, but it seemed only polite to greet the ferret.
“Cat, cats plural. Interesting chow, dry though. Not moving…”
I turned my attention back to the human. “So, if the investigation has moved on, I can take the dog.”
“Well, not exactly.” Albert straightened his jeans, tucking today’s flannel into a loose waistband, and I wondered what exactly he’d been planning for the ferret. “The dog is still in my custody.”
“Yeah, but you don’t want her. And you don’t need to keep her away from the public anymore.” As if he had to before. I was pushing it, but I was impatient. Lily had been victimized by fools like this one long enough.
“Well, there’s still the question of ownership. I mean, I can’t just be giving dogs away.”
I’d thought this one through. “Actually, she belongs to Nora Harris. She’s part of Charles’ estate. I thought I’d bring her over there, ge
t the two of them acquainted.”
“You think she’ll want it?” He grimaced.
“She has a house and a garden. Perfect for a dog. And the dog didn’t do anything.”
“Well, nothing that can be proved.”
I opened my mouth to respond when it hit me once again. Lily hadn’t killed Charles, and the cops knew that now. But someone had worked hard to make it look that way. Charles hadn’t been stabbed or shot. His throat had been torn out. Who could have done that? What would have made such vicious wounds?
“Claws.” I looked over at Frank. His nose was twitching as he answered my silent question. “When I dig, I tear away at the earth, rich sweet dirt. Sometimes, I rip into my dinner before I can swallow it. That’s not good.”
I nodded an acknowledgment. I didn’t think any other animal had clawed Charles to death. I was looking for a human perpetrator, but the small ferret had been trying to be helpful.
“Still, that’s a big dog. What if she doesn’t want it?” Albert reached into his pocket again and pulled out a peanut. Frank stood up, but Albert popped the nut into his own mouth.
I felt Frank’s frustration. “We’ll deal with that if it happens.”
***
Lily still seemed too out of it to register much as I freed her from her cage and attached a leash to her collar. I got a flash of Charles’ hands on her, doing much the same, and a wave of sadness. Home? That was it. I’d been thinking of taking her out the back, but remembered, just in time, the questions I had for Frank.
“What are you doing?” As I followed the muscular white dog into the front room, Albert panicked, shoving his chair back into the wall and jumping up in fear. “Get that thing out of here!”
“We’re on our way.” Frank was standing and sniffing the air with a look of concentration. I tried to focus on his small, intense mind and was rewarded with a wave of images, all dog related. Blood. Dirt. Home? I forced myself to address Albert. “I wanted to say ’bye to your ferret.”
He sputtered, and I knew I’d have to work fast. I turned toward the small animal, trying to fix my eyes on his.
“Where did you get that earring from?” I framed the question silently, staring into the ferret’s black button eyes. “The diamond earring?” Nothing. I changed my tack: “Shiny, sparkly, dangling…” I was running out of associations.
“The cold fish? In the cave.” I got a sudden flash of a denim pocket, a man’s hand, and an enticing flash of sparkle. I’d been right, up to a point.
“The face? The person?” Nothing. Lily had seen a squirrel outside, and I felt her lean against the leash. She was too well trained to pull, a necessity with a bundle of muscle like hers. But she wanted to go out. She’d earned it. I stepped forward, but that only made her pull a little harder. “What about the keychain drive?”
Nothing. Frank had seen the movement outside and sensed the dog’s impatience. He was getting a little nervous, and I struggled to to rephrase my question. “The dangler, metal…” I did my best to picture the small, flat oblong.
“The dog…” Frank was too focused on Lily. I wasn’t going to get an answer.
“Please?” I didn’t know how that would translate. Frank wasn’t Wallis. I visualized the drive, the open metal end that fit so neatly into my computer.
“The dog…but there was a cap. Red. Tasteless.” I got an image of color, some kind of protective covering and, in a flash, a literal interpretation of the last comment as small teeth bit into the bright plastic. And in Frank’s question, I saw how the cap had attached to a metal ring—and from there to a dog’s collar. Lily was panting to go out, her body taut and eager. It had been too long since our last run. Only my training and her innate good nature kept her from dragging me out the glass doors. I looked from the ferret, who now regarded me quizzically, to Albert, who was now cowering, and back to Lily. Against her snow white fur, the dark leather collar stood out like badge. I’d noticed the lack of tags. That had been why I’d had to dig up her rabies certificate. And now I remembered that recurring image. Charles reaching for Lily’s collar, fixing something to it. Hanging a plastic and metal drive the one place where nobody was likely to steal it. The tags, along with the drive, must have broken off in transit—I didn’t like to think of how Albert and his thugs might have handled her—but another question remained. What was it about that drive that made Charles put it on Lily? What about it was he so set on keeping safe?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I wanted to let Lily run the moment we were outside, but I didn’t dare risk being seen. Instead, I trotted with her down to the river and then gave her a length of lead, trying to imprint on her the necessity of staying close to me—and away from any strangers. She’d been cooped up too long to deprive her of this, and the vivid images I got in return—a quail rousted from its bed of leaves, turtles buried in the mud, field mice under the leaves, and a hawk casting its shadow on some trout—hit me like one of those cheesy three-dimensional greeting cards. I’m not sentimental, far from it, but that dog’s sheer joy could have brought me to tears, if I didn’t have so much else on my mind.
“What was Charles thinking?” I was asking myself, as much as Lily, when she came back to me with a birch branch. I threw it and watched her lope off, happy for the moment. “Was he hiding something, or just trying to keep his records safe?”
“Command!” The thought sprang into my mind so quickly, I turned around, expecting to hear someone. Lily was waiting in front me, though, a dry, forked branch in her mouth. “Loud, loud. Now!”
I took it and poised to throw. “So someone was shouting?”
But her attention had shifted.
“Stick, stick. Stick.” I threw the branch. She’d waited long enough. But as she came bounding back, the piece of wood in her mouth, she rewarded me with an image, what I now recognized as an important memory. Charles, seen through the bars of Lily’s cage, his voice loud. “Home.” The thought wasn’t from Charles, and it filled me with sadness. “Home. Home. Home.”
The rest of the words were incomprehensible, but Lily—and I—picked up on the tension, the shouting. Then, once again, the longing, and Charles was leaning over Lily, cooing at her, and fixing something to her collar. It was the keychain drive, it had to be. Who had Charles been fighting with?
Another round of toss and fetch, but Lily wasn’t any closer. Charles shouting. Charles tense. Charles with his hands on her velvet ears, on her neck, on her collar. I’d heard it said that to a dog only one person ever really exists. Right now, I wished that loyalty was a little less literal. Still, I’d found out a lot. Forty-five minutes later, when Lily had finally collapsed on a bed of fallen leaves, I felt I’d put another piece of the puzzle in place. Now to try to find Lily what she really wanted: a home.
***
Lily pressed her nose to the car window until we left town. Then she lay down to sleep on my Toyota’s back seat. I guessed she’d seen enough new sights to last her a lifetime. Me, I enjoyed the ride out to Raynbourne. All those years in the city had inured me to lots of things, but overnight the cold air had worked its magic. The mosaic of color as the trees turned on the hillsides was something else again. In truth, it reminded me of a bad shag carpet we’d had once, when I was a kid. Ragged patches of orange, yellow, and improbable red, next to a few stands of evergreen. On the carpet, it had probably been described as avocado. I don’t know. I was taking a dog to her new owner—to what I hoped would be a new home. I was in a good mood.
Nora Harris must have been, too. Despite the chill in the air, the sun was beating down, and she was out front, on her knees on some kind of kneeling pad.
“Hey, Mrs. Harris.” I motioned for Lily to stay and let myself out, walking up the path to meet the older woman.
“Oh, hi. Prudence, isn’t it?” The gray-haired woman blinked up at me, holding one gloved hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. I smiled back, and she put down her trowel on a neat plastic mat, lining it up with a hoe and a weedin
g fork. “Would you mind? I’m not as steady as I once was.”
She reached up and I took her forearms to help her to her feet. She was wiry, with enough corded muscle to pull herself up easily once I gave her a hand. The gardening, I guessed. But she wasn’t a large woman, and clearly the events of the last two weeks had taken their toll. Bad enough to lose a child. To lose a child to murder…I couldn’t imagine what she was going through.
“Lovely garden.” I had no idea what I was seeing, but the bushes looked healthy. What wasn’t already autumnal red was glossy evergreen, with lots of berries.
Whatever I said, it was the right thing. She nodded as she looked over her handiwork. “It keeps me going. I’ve finally finished up the last of the bulbs for next spring. Hyacinth. Crocus. I’d already put in a bunch of tulips over at—” She caught herself and swayed a bit before straightening up. “Over at my son’s house. He never cared for planting much, and it gave me pleasure.”
“I’m sure it gave him pleasure, too.” I tried to conjure up the landscaping at my former client’s and failed. I guess I was as oblivious as Charles. “He was a good, gentle man.” That much was true.
“Gentle, yes.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment, her mouth set, and I let her be, ready to catch her if necessary. “He— well, it’s all past, isn’t it? He took good care of me.” She looked up at the neat little house and I followed her gaze. Had this been Charles’ family home? The McMansion next door was already casting a shadow toward us, costing the side yard its afternoon sun. But the little house, dwarfed by the newer building, looked more solid than its pricey neighbor. Whatever its age, it had been well cared for. The windows were double glazed, the paint job new, and the shingles on the roof neat and complete. In fact, the whole building had the spic and span look that said no corners were cut in its upkeep. I wondered how Nora Harris would fare with her son gone, how ready she had been to move in with him. She stood to inherit his business, but what did that really mean? Thirtysomething software nerds probably weren’t the best at estate planning.
