Carving Knife

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  “If you miss me, or your preserved calf, you know where to find me.” She gave him a saucy look and left the bedroom. A few minutes later, Clara appeared in the doorway.

  “You’re right, Clara,” Seth said to the dog. “Let’s go for a run.”

  EIGHT

  Clara barked in agreement. He got dressed in his running clothes. He’d started running as a way to keep his sobriety on track. He kept running because he loved it. Two weeks ago, when his doctor declared that he was healthy enough to run, he’d run all the way home. They’d been out every day since then.

  He wrote a note for Dale and left it in the kitchen. He and Clara ran a three-mile circuit hitting the parkways in the neighborhood. Home again, he started a pot of coffee, took a fast shower, and headed to the basement. On his way through, he found Maresol standing in the middle of the kitchen. She poured him a cup of coffee and waved him on his way.

  He and Clara jogged the stairs to the basement storage room where his mother’s granduncle’s upright piano lived. He’d found the piano when he was three years old, was playing by the time he was four, and wrote his first full symphony when he was eight. When he opened the door, Clara ran in and jumped onto the old leather couch. Seth took in the still peace of his sanctuary.

  He sat down to play.

  Maresol came in at some point to bring him a breakfast burrito and a refill on his coffee. He made polite conversation with her because he’d catch hell if he didn’t. She started a fire in the fireplace and tidied the room, because she knew it drove him crazy. After a while, she disappeared.

  He went back to playing the piano.

  “What the hell is this?” Dale’s voice was loud and angry. Seth looked up from the piano.

  “What the hell is what?” Seth asked.

  “This!” Dale held up the note Seth had left for him. “I’m barely getting out of bed, and what does the master of the household do?”

  Seth raised his eyebrows in response to Dale’s sarcasm and anger.

  “Well, you’ve got another think coming, asswipe,” Dale said. “I quit.”

  Like watching a building collapse, Dale’s entire being began to shut down. The day after Dale had found Beth’s body, Seth had found him weeping on a parking stop in the lot behind Dale, Beth, and Ava’s home. Seth had brought the young man home. Dale acted as Seth’s handyman as his way of paying for his living expenses. He had no other place to go.

  “I won’t do this or anything else for you.” Dale spit out. He tried to catch his breath from the strong emotion that coursed through his veins. “Not one more thing and . . . Who do you think you are anyway? And . . .”

  The young man started to weave. Seth caught him before he hit the floor. Seth negotiated him to a seat on the couch next to Clara. Dale leaned against the armrest and covered his head. His shoulders moved as if he were sobbing.

  Seth sat down at the piano and played for a while. He played soothing music—some of which he’d written and some of which belonged to the masters—Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and even a little Mahler. When he looked up, Dale was staring at the fire.

  “Why did you ask me to do this?” Dale asked in a tone loud enough for Seth to hear over the piano.

  “To give you something else to think about,” Seth said. “Ava says her work is helping her. I thought that xeriscaping the front yard would help you move through the next few months.”

  Dale didn’t say anything, so Seth went back to playing.

  “What are you thinking of?” Dale asked after a while.

  Seth stopped playing and turned to look at him.

  “For the front yard?” Seth asked.

  Dale nodded.

  “No idea,” Seth said. “But I bet Maresol does.”

  “Why xeriscape?” Dale asked.

  “Seems like the smart thing to do,” Seth said. “Plus, almost all of our neighbors have converted their front yards to xeriscape.”

  “All of our neighbors . . . No they haven’t,” Dale squinted. “Where did you . . . and anyway, since when did you notice anyone’s front yard?”

  “Since never,” Seth said.

  “Maresol,” Dale nodded.

  “Fall is supposed to be a great time to make the conversion,” Seth said.

  “This was her idea?” Dale asked. “The whole distract-Dale-with-the-xeriscape thing?”

  “She would like it done,” Seth said. “I thought the timing might be right.”

  Dale’s head went up and down in a slow nod. Seth reviewed the young man’s face. His hair was long and dirty. His green eyes were raw. His lips were red and swollen. He looked like he hadn’t eaten or slept in a very long time.

  “When was the last time you slept?” Seth asked. “Ate?”

  Dale shook his head. Seth waited for an answer. When none came, he returned to playing soothing music on the ancient piano.

  “You mind if I go see Blane?” Dale asked.

  “For acupuncture?” Seth asked. “I don’t mind at all. It’s a good idea.”

  Dale gave a slow nod.

  “You know you don’t have to ask me,” Seth said.

  “You pay for everything,” Dale said.

  “I have a lot of money and not a lot to do with it,” Seth said. “When you’re my age and you have a lot of money, you’ll understand.”

  Dale smirked. Seth nodded to acknowledge the irony of talking about the future when Dale was barely surviving the present.

  “How do you think I’m going to make all that money?” Dale grinned. “I’m no prodigy pianist.”

  “Xeriscape.”

  Dale burst out laughing. Seth smiled.

  “Sorry about . . . you know,” Dale said.

  “Been there,” Seth said. “Except I did it fully loaded on booze and whatever else I could find to numb the pain. I happen to admire your courage.”

  Dale gave Seth a long look.

  “If you don’t need this thing done today, I’m going back to bed,” Dale said.

  “Good idea,” Seth said. “I’ll ask Maresol to call Blane.”

  Dale gave Seth a weary nod and left the room. Seth turned back to the piano. He looked up when he felt Maresol’s eyes. She was leaning against the doorjamb.

  “I already called Blane for an appointment for him,” she said.

  Seth nodded.

  “That was nice of you,” she said.

  “What was?”

  “The whole thing,” Maresol said. “What do you want done with the front yard?”

  “No idea,” Seth said. “You?”

  “I’ll come up with something,” Maresol said. “I’ll take him to the Botanic Gardens for inspiration.”

  “Good idea,” Seth said.

  “You don’t like grass?” Maresol asked.

  Seth shrugged.

  “You made this whole thing up to give him something to do?” Maresol asked.

  Seth nodded.

  “You’re nicer than you look,” she said. She picked up his plate and coffee cup. With one last nod, she closed the door.

  Seth played the piano.

  He felt the house and its occupants move around him. At some point, Maresol convinced Dale to go to the Botanic Gardens with her. The cleaning service blew through the house, taking the dust, debris, and dog hair with them. Sometime later, Maresol and Dale returned—she went to the kitchen, and he went back to bed. The gardeners mowed the grass one last time before fall’s ice and snow set in.

  The door opened, and Seth looked up.

  “Hey,” Ava said.

  He squinted at her.

  “It’s seven,” Ava grinned. “Would you like some dinner? Maresol left us the fixings for tacos, or we could go out. I think I’d rather stay in, if that’s okay with you.

  Seth blinked at her.

  “I really need your attention tonight.” As if to punctuate her statement, she gave a curt nod.

  He got up from the piano and followed her out of the room.

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  NINE

  Yesterday, Seth had played the piano all day to see if some glimmer of an idea would shake loose from the knot of the livestock-mutilation puzzle in his brain. Today, he tried getting into his home office early to review the evidence again.

  Nothing had changed.

  Livestock had been brutally mutilated, maybe for centuries. There were obvious cases of animal predation, obvious cases of human depravity, and obvious “other” mutilations that were probably a mixture of human intervention and predators or . . . military or alien or Bigfoot or . . .

  He had no idea.

  He spent an hour talking to Mitch’s chair in case the Mitch-in-his-head had some new ideas. Mitch didn’t have a clue, which wasn’t that surprising, since Seth didn’t have a clue.

  Why was he working this case? What was he supposed to be solving?

  The ranchers wanted to know what had happened, but they hadn’t contacted the State Attorney. They’d taken their insurance payments and moved on. Cattle mutilation was a part of ranching in the San Luis Valley and every country around the world. The Sheriffs shook their heads and shrugged. The only people who were really working this case were UFO nuts, and they had too much riding on the mystery of cattle mutilation to contact the State Attorney for help.

  Seth hated this case. It had been a long time since he’d worked a case which was this uninteresting and so incredibly revolting. He leaned back in his office seat and stared at the white ceiling.

  Maresol said something loud, and Dale laughed. Seth smiled. He’d gone down to refill his coffee cup and found them in the dining room. The table was covered with plant catalogues, and Dale had some garden-planning software up on his laptop. They were too lost in their plans to notice him. He had filled his cup and headed back upstairs.

  The ceiling provided no inspiration for him. He sat up straight.

  Maybe he should go play for a while.

  “Knock, knock,” a man’s voice came from behind him.

  Seth turned around to see Bob Parrish, or, as he was known at the FBI labs, Blood Splatter Bob. He had been Ava’s mentor in the FBI forensics program. When Bob and his wife had retired in Denver to be closer to their grandchildren, Ava had hired him in her lab. He returned the favor by rehiring her after her father’s scandal died down.

  Like Seth, Blood Splatter Bob was often called to help out with impossible cases due to his depth of knowledge and ability to find meaning in minute detail. Bob was accomplished enough to do only the cases he was interested in. He preferred to spend his time with Ava and their team. When he wasn’t working, he was remodeling his hundred-year-old home or playing with his grandchildren. The only reason Bob would be standing in Seth’s doorway was that he thought something was important about the case.

  “Am I interrupting the great mind at work?” Bob asked.

  Seth laughed. He got up and shook Bob’s hand.

  “Coffee?” Seth asked.

  “Maresol offered,” Bob said. “I asked for some of her world-famous rellenos.”

  “And?”

  “She relented after much browbeating,” Bob said. Seth smiled. “Seems she’s in the middle of designing a new front yard for the ‘grumpy old man.’”

  Seth raised his eyebrows, and Bob grinned.

  “Good to see you,” Seth said. “I was hoping you came with ideas . . .”

  He gestured to the images on his whiteboard.

  “They are horrible,” Bob said. “Any theories about why this nugget was dumped in your lap?”

  “None,” Seth said. “You?”

  “This State Attorney is an asshole,” Bob said. “Have you looked into him?”

  Seth squinted.

  “Don’t want to admit it?” Bob asked. “Good thinking. What did you find?”

  “Ferg’s doing it,” Seth said. “He has better access to the system.”

  “What has he found?”

  “Nothing more than his bio states,” Seth said. “Brent Davies grew up in Arizona. Went to ASU. Graduated from Columbia Law. Went to JFK public policy school at Harvard. Moved back to Tucson, where he was a deputy DA until he was tapped to work for Aaron Alvin.”

  “Any idea why Alvin wanted him here?” Bob asked.

  “According to Alvin’s ex-secretary, Alvin met him at a conference and liked him,” Seth said. “She said that Aaron Alvin saw himself in Davies. He wanted to mentor Davies to become a great public servant like himself.”

  “That bar’s pretty low,” Bob said.

  Seth nodded.

  “That really is nothing,” Bob said. Seth nodded.

  “I think he’s pissed that Switch threw him off the homestead,” Seth said. “But don’t quote me.”

  “That’s what Ava thinks,” Bob said.

  “You have any experience with . . .” Seth gestured to the images on the wall.

  “Oddly, yes,” Bob said. “I was a young forensic scientist for the FBI when we were tasked by Congress to look into cattle mutilations in Colorado.”

  “Snippy? 1967?”

  “I was young,” Bob smiled.

  “I was at Eastman,” Seth said with a nod. “Thirteen.”

  “Yes, I was thirteen once,” Bob smiled. “I remember college, girls, alcohol . . . No wait a minute. I think I was in junior high.”

  Seth grinned.

  “It was my first or second case,” Bob said. “Fascinating, too. I was involved in the official investigation in 1979. Since then, I’ve kept an interested eye on the whole phenomenon. I keep thinking someone is going to solve it to everyone’s satisfaction once and for all, but so far . . . nothing.”

  “I could use your knowledge,” Seth said. “Experience.”

  “Happy to help,” Bob said. “I took a look at your preserved calf. Did you?”

  “I was too busy smuggling it into Maresol’s car,” Seth said.

  “Dangerous work,” Bob nodded. Seth smiled. “Why don’t you walk me through what you’ve come up with? We can talk about the calf when you’re done.”

  Seth went through what he knew. He showed Bob the photos he’d taken of the various configurations of the images from the state of Colorado’s files. Currently, he thought the type of mutilation was more important than chronological order or any other configuration. He waited while Bob flipped back and forth through the photos of the different configurations of the mutilations on his phone. When Bob looked up, Seth told him about visiting Luis and the Millers in the San Luis Valley. Seth talked for what felt like a long time and passed along very little actual information. Bob was attentive and patient enough to listen to it all.

  “That’s it,” Seth shrugged.

  Bob gave him an empathetic nod.

  “What do you know?” Seth asked.

  Bob looked around the room for a chair.

  “That’s for Mitch Delgado?” Bob nodded to the empty chair.

  “One second.” Seth left the room and came back with a chair. He set it on his side of the table. “How’d you know about . . .?”

  “Ava,” Bob said. “She wants a chair of her own but thinks you should get one for her.”

  “Duly noted,” Seth said. “What do you have?”

  “Did you ever know O’Shaughnessy?” Bob asked.

  Seth gave a little shrug.

  “Right, about half of the eastern seaboard is related to one O’Shaughnessy or another,” Bob said.

  “I knew . . . well, more knew about, a police detective . . .” Seth scowled. “Maybe twenty years older than Mitch and I, famous, good, no, really good, ate his gun . . . He was kind of a hero of ours. I don’t remember his first name.”

  “Seamus,” Bob said.

  “Detective Seamus O’Shaughnessy,” Seth said. “Police detective out of the northeast.”

  “Providence, RI,” Bob said. Seth nodded in agreement. “And he didn’t eat his gun.”

  “Oh?” Seth asked.

  Bob gestured to the chairs. Seth sat down. Bob took one last look at the whit
eboard and sat down in the other chair.

  “What I’m going to tell you is classified,” Bob said.

  “NSA?”

  “FBI,” Bob said. “I was pulled into the case after O’Shaughnessy died.”

  “I solemnly promise to tell no one,” Seth said. Bob gave him a sincere nod. “Other than Ava.”

  Bob smiled.

  “She’d kill me if I held out,” Seth said.

  “Duly noted,” Bob repeated Seth’s phrase, and Seth smiled.

  Seth leaned back in his chair to let Bob talk.

  “I’ll tell you what I know in what we determined to be chronological order. There’s no way to know if it’s correct.” Bob looked up to see if Seth was tracking. Seth nodded. “My team got a call when O’Shaughnessy didn’t show up for work. No one knew where he was, but everyone knew what he was working on.”

  “Which was?”

  “Mutilations,” Bob said. “It started with cats.”

  TEN

  “Cat mutilations?”

  “That’s what I said,” Bob said. “He had noticed a growing number of reports of feline mutilations, which usually means . . .”

  “Satanists are at it again,” Seth said.

  “Takes a cop to know that,” Bob said. “I didn’t know that feline mutilation was so common when we started.”

  “There are a lot of cats in the world,” Seth said. “Easy access.”

  “O’Shaughnessy started looking into it out of a favor to his next-door neighbor,” Bob said. “She’d lost a couple cats and thought he could do something about it. He was a homicide cop.”

  Seth nodded.

  “He did a little research, not much, and O’Shaughnessy found there were hundreds of cats mutilated the same way,” Bob said.

  “Throats slit? Eyes gone?” Seth asked.

  “No. Like those,” Bob gestured to the images hanging on the wall. Seth scowled. “Anyway, O’Shaughnessy figured it was a kid or . . . whatever. He called animal control and got the details. He talked to social services to see if they were tracking any sociopaths. They weren’t, so he pretty much forgot about it.”

  “I’d have done the same,” Seth said.

  “Sure, so would any law-enforcement professional,” Bob said. “We have too many real cases to go around chasing shadows.”