Fear on Four Paws

by Clea Simon

  “Albert?” I unlocked the door and peered around. Nothing. So Creighton still had him. “Frank?” If Albert hadn’t been released yet, then it was a good bet the ferret was here someplace. Frank might be more perceptive than his human, but I doubted Jim would take him in for questioning.

  Grumbling, I poked at a dirty sweatshirt in the corner. Albert seemed to be living hand-to-mouth, using the office as a crash pad as often as the dinky studio he paid rent on a few blocks away, and I could feel my temper rising, irritation adding to the hangover that had only just started to recede. I wasn’t overly concerned that Frank would starve. Ferrets are resourceful creatures, and between our leaky tap and the summer’s crop of Japanese beetles, I figured he’d do okay. But that wasn’t what an animal signs on for, when he—or she—agrees to be a pet. Besides, I wanted to speak to the sleek creature. Strategize, even, before the humans involved messed things up.

  “You there?”

  The triangular head popped up over Albert’s desk, the dark eyes blinking in their distinctive mask. Frank had either slept through the night on the desk chair or retreated there after a night of exploration.

  “You!” I seemed to have surprised the little beast. “Find it? Find?” As the ferret mounted to the desk, his nose twitched, giving him information faster than I could answer any of his questions. Still, I extended my hand for him to sniff. It was only polite. “Cat! Know her. Not the dog? Not yet?”

  “No, I came here first thing.” I felt the whiskers tickle my palm. “I’m afraid Creighton has detained Albert. I’m not sure, but he may be holding him for interrogation by the state police, at least for now.” I didn’t know how much would translate. Frank was intelligent, but his experience with human society was limited—more so than might be usual for a pet, considering that his human was Albert.

  “The uniform?” The query was voiced with a level of anxiety that startled me, and I looked down into those wide black eyes. “The cage?” Animals like ferrets don’t have the facial muscles that help humans show their emotions with smiles or grimaces and the like, but the droop of his whiskers echoed the concern I’d heard in his voice. I only wished I had better news.

  “Kind of.” I didn’t say what I’d been thinking: that for Creighton to hold Albert overnight, it had to be serious. Men like Paul Lanouette are accident-prone—between the drinking and the generally ass— …well, let’s just say arrogant behavior, it was a surprise he’d survived as long as he had. Creighton might not have run with the likes of Paul when he was younger, as I did. But he knew him as a cop would. And he wouldn’t be holding one of Paul’s buddies unless his death appeared to be more than a drunken accident. Albert was the farthest thing from a flight risk I could imagine. So, no, this was bad.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said to the defeated-looking creature before me. He sank down onto all four paws and hung his head.

  “Didn’t do anything,” he replied.

  Poor beast. I had to restrain myself from reaching out to pet him. Another human—or Wallis, even—might respond well to my attempts at comfort. But although Frank and I had a better relationship than I had with most people, I needed to respect his animal nature. Plus, I didn’t want him reading more of my thoughts than he already had. Instead, I watched as he poked his nose among the papers on Albert’s desk, hopefully finding some comfort in his human companion’s familiar smell. While his rooting didn’t turn up a grub, it did spark my memory. Pulling the guest chair up once more—it only seemed fair to leave Albert’s chair for Frank—I dug out the memo I’d retrieved only the day before.

  “Mr. Walz?” I realized belatedly how early it was. Well, he’d wanted me to get on it. “I’m sorry if I woke you, but you had called about your fishing license?”

  “What? Yes, yes, I had.” The voice on the other end sounded a little peeved. Well, yeah, in my city days, I wouldn’t have been awake at this hour either.

  “I’m afraid I can’t find any record of your application,” I continued on. After all, he had answered the phone. “But if you’ve got a moment, I can take your information and fill out your application now.”

  “What? What do you want?” Gruff, almost like a bark.

  “Your information.” I don’t like being in a subordinate position, but this man was a client—of the office, if not mine, personally. “Let’s start with your permanent address.” I retrieved my pen—which I’d pocketed, for safekeeping—and pulled a flier toward me. Frank, caught off guard, glanced up.

  “No, no, it won’t be necessary.” I could feel the warmth of the ferret’s breath on my hand as I wrote. “Treat?” Maybe he was the reason so many pens went missing. “Good day.” Walz was ready to hang up.

  “It’s no bother, really.” I worked to keep my voice even. Nobody was going to say I’d alienated one of our all-important summer people. Especially not one who had already had an unpleasant run-in with this office. “I can take your info and enter it online. The license will be ready for you to pick up.”

  “No, really.” He paused and I waited, wondering just how to broach the thought that was forming in my mind.

  “You know, we take our licensing laws very seriously out here in Beauville.” I put it as gently as I knew how. “Even if you’re only planning to do some fishing for fun—”

  “I said, I’d take care of it.” That was definitely a bark, though I found myself thinking more of a noisy little toy Growler’s size than of anything that had any weight behind it. “I’ll do it myself, I mean.” His tone moderated somewhat. “I’ve already started the application process. Online, I mean.”

  “Okay, then.” I put the pen down, a dozen questions jostling to be asked. “If I can help in any way—”

  “No, no.” The bark had calmed down. “It’s fine now. Everything’s under control.”

  He hung up before I could say farewell, and I held the phone for a moment longer, wondering what had just happened. Granted, I didn’t like being woken too early. Neither did Wallis. But once he was up, I was trying to do him a favor. And if he was serious about applying online, why hadn’t he done that in the first place, rather than bite my ear off about his lost application?

  Maybe he hadn’t known about that option when he’d first called, I told myself, as I took a deep, calming breath. Maybe he felt stupid that he hadn’t thought of it. Maybe he just wanted to gripe at someone then—or to bark at me now. Summer people. Who knew what they wanted? I mulled this over as I walked over to the tiny kitchenette. Truth was, the ferret probably could have fared well enough on his own here. Albert’s housekeeping encouraged just the kind of grubs that the little beast would love. But I’d grabbed two cans from Wallis’ store—she considered commercial cat food a last resort—thinking I’d be responsible for this other carnivore, as well.

  I managed to find a clean enough plate to suit my aesthetic sense. But before I could place it on the floor, I felt the brush of fur by my arm. Frank was on the dish rack, and so I simply left his breakfast there. He was cleaner than his person anyway.

  Watching him chew the chunks of something called Turkey D-Lite, I was struck by how hungry he seemed to be. “Doesn’t Albert feed you? I mean, real food?”

  I hadn’t meant to voice the question out loud, but the lithe little beast paused in his meal to glimpse up at me.

  “Busy!” He blinked and turned back to the sticky stew. I did my best to squelch my anger. Busy, indeed. When a person takes on the responsibility of a pet, the most basic priority is keeping him or her fed. “Busy!”

  The echo came through, and although I didn’t know if Frank had picked up on my simmering resentment or was simply repeating himself, I knew I had to let the subject go. To distract myself, I turned and walked back across the office. I was supposedly covering for Albert, and the least I could do was check out the mail. A small bundle had come through the slot, and I took it over to Albert’s desk to sort through. Jun
k, mostly, though how a city office address got on the mailing list for an adult novelties shop in Boston, I didn’t want to know. Something about the upgrading of property values that touted brokerage services. “The time is right!,” the firm logo—a smiling lion—appeared to be saying.

  “Roar,” I responded, leafing through the rest. Two—a notice about hunting and fishing licenses, and another on trapping—were from the state. By law, they were supposed to be posted, this being the Beauville Animal Control office, after all. I left them on the desktop as I rummaged through Albert’s desk, searching for thumbtacks.

  I wasn’t optimistic, and finding the last few iterations of these notices on the desk, ringed with coffee stains, didn’t bode well. The central drawer did turn up another pen I’d long missed as well as a book of Sudoko, which, if not Frank’s, must have been left by some errant tourist, and a silver spoon of my mother’s that I’d brought into the office one day for my lunch. Pocketing my pilfered possessions, I opened the right-hand drawer to find fast-food wrappers. I closed that one quickly, before anything could crawl out. Frank could deal with that. The drawer below was, I knew, where Frank preferred to nest, on the days when he stayed with Albert here, and so I turned instead to the other side. A pile of bills addressed to Albert’s apartment made me wonder if he still had power or phone service there, while some B-grade girlie mags made me swear off wearing tight sweaters ever again.

  The dented and rust-spotted tackle box in the bottom drawer was my last hope. If Albert didn’t have any tacks in there, maybe I could repurpose an old lure. Its lid was stuck, half open, and a smack with the flat of my hand did the rest. But when I lifted out the top tray, crusty with what I hoped was old bait, I realized that Frank had been using it as his own cache. A chewed bit of cloth, the remnant of a cat toy, and a chicken bone looked to be the best of it. Some of the feathered flies had definitely been gnawed. I poked around and was surprised to find a lure of a much different sort. A gold disc—gold-colored, anyway—a little larger than a dime, with a sparkler set into its center that caught the light like a diamond.

  I picked up the little circle and turned it over, curious to know more. Sure enough, it was marked 14k, which made me wonder about the quality of that glittering inset. But the only other marking on the disc’s back was a circular stub, as if some kind of setting had been broken off. A pretty thing; if I’d found it in a woman’s jewelry box, I’d have thought it was a broken earring, waiting to be repaired. Only I didn’t see its like, among the flighty lures. Nor could I imagine Albert owning—much less wearing—anything quite so fine.

  I stared at the shiny piece in my hand, cool and surprisingly heavy for such a small object. Could Albert have a rich girlfriend—maybe one of the newcomers in Pine Hills? De gustibus… But no, I couldn’t see the bearded buffoon as a boy toy. More likely, it belonged to one of his friends, though whether a gift or payment or a bit of petty thievery was beyond me.

  Another thought intruded, unwelcome though it might be. This piece might be broken, its mate missing. But the metal alone was worth something, and that could make it important among my little town’s more hard-up population. Could this thumbnail-sized disc have been the cause of a fight between two old friends? Was such a tiny sliver of possible profit what got Paul Lanouette killed?

  Turning the pretty piece over once more in my palm, I decided to pocket it. Creighton would want to know about it, and that meant I could use it as leverage with him as well.

  Besides, Frank had scurried over and now sat, clawing at the edge of the notice.

  “Box!” Now that he had my attention, his voice boomed loud in my head.

  The urgency I heard didn’t seem to pertain to the missing Albert, no matter how concerned the ferret might be. That clawing at the paper, though…I looked around. “You mean, like, litter box?”

  “No! No!” He grabbed at the paper and began to gnaw at it. The state notice about trapping, I saw. The top one on the pile. “Box!” His voice insistent and demanding.

  He couldn’t read. No animal could, but he might be able to pick up the meaning of the notice from me. “You mean, trap?”

  I tried to visualize something appropriate, and my mind sped back to the bear.

  “Yes! Yes! Box!” The ferret was jumping around with excitement.

  “Don’t worry, Frank.” I slipped the notice out from under him and walked over to the board. Last summer’s boating rules could go, and once that was down, I had what I needed to hold up the new notice. “Nobody’s going to trap you or any of your friends.” I pushed the rusty old tack in place.

  “Trap.” That seemed to hit a note with the sleek creature. But even as he settled back on all fours, he reached down, as if to nose his way into that bottom left drawer.

  Chapter Twelve

  “You’re lucky you caught me.” Tracy Horlick squinted through the smoke of her unfiltered Marlboro. “I can’t wait around all day, you know.”

  “I understand.” I was late, and I knew it. I also knew I didn’t want to waste any time sparring with this harridan. “Bitsy is probably eager to go out.”

  “Come on! Come on!” I could hear his sharp barks from the stoop. If I were kept locked in a basement overnight, I’d have a short temper, too. “Out! Out! Out!”

  “Had me wondering” she drew deeply on the smoke, “what you were mixed up in. That nastiness out by the state road.”

  She was fishing, I could tell. Holding the dog—and my livelihood—hostage for some of the gossip that was as vital to her as those cigarettes. “The wildlife rescue, you mean?” Two can play at that game. Even as she exhaled toxic fumes in my direction, I did my best to stand there, wide-eyed with innocence. “We rescued a black bear, you know.”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Animals,” she muttered, but when I didn’t respond she turned to free the poor bichon from his basement exile.

  “Animals…” Growler could have been echoing the woman who’d held him hostage, but as I watched him sniff and then water a tree, I caught the difference in his tone. Unlike Tracy Horlick, he was cataloguing the traffic out here by the edge of the development. In fact, as he raised his short snout, I realized I was mishearing him—or, as Wallis would tell me, misinterpreting what I’d heard. Not “animals,” per se, but something more like “wildlife.” We were standing on the edge of the scruff wood that led down to the river, and Growler was taking stock of the wider world beyond.

  “You want to go down there?” I felt for the dog. Not only did his person saddle him with the degrading name of Bitsy, she didn’t seem to recognize his essential nature. Except for letting him out back, to her fenced yard, to relieve himself at night, he only ever got outside with me. Dogs are social animals, and Growler lived in the equivalent of solitary confinement.

  “Huh.” With an equivocal grunt, he began sniffing the ground. I waited. It wasn’t like the petite dog to hesitate.

  “It’s not like you to be so dense.” His response came loud and clear, even as he continued to snuffle through the leaves. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be able to hear what’s going on.”

  That stopped me cold. “What do you mean, Growler?”

  “Stupid walker lady,” he muttered, as the rich warmth of leaf rot filled my sinuses. “Trusting walker lady.” In his mind, that wasn’t a compliment. “No sense of danger, of the wild.”

  I had no answer to that and simply stepped back, letting him take his time with the leaves and trees by the edge of the road. Usually, this was an interim stop—most days, no more than a brief check-in—before the little dog would leap galumphing down the slope to the water. But after his comment, I wasn’t going to question his sense of the woods—or of the other creatures who lived there. I’d seen that black bear, and I knew that many other animals made these hills their home. Most of them would be dissuaded by my presence, but clearly Growler had picked up on something I had missed. If he fel
t more comfortable staying within shouting distance of human habitation, I wasn’t going to force him out further.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t have suspicions, and as I followed a reluctant but silent Growler back to the house he shared with that woman, I made my plans to act.

  “Greg? It’s Pru.” I know the laws about phones and cars. But my GTO pre-dated cell phones, never mind Bluetooth, and unlike most of my fellow Beauvillians, I was capable of doing more than one thing at a time. Besides, talking to voice mail is easy. “Mind if I join you?”

  I was already on my way by the time he called me back, answering in the affirmative, as I was pretty sure he would. Greg’s a nice guy. He might not have my affinity, shall we call it, with animals, but he gets that they have as much right here as we do—and he knows that I work to smooth things between our various species. What I was more concerned about was getting out to him before he had taken the black bear to somewhere deep in the preservation land and let him go.

  He’d called me from the road, a few turnoffs from the county highway that my GTO was now eating up. As I’d thought, he was heading toward where the animal had been found, although I suspected he’d free him somewhat farther from the road than Albert’s camp.

  Greg—and his passenger—faced a quandary. Bears, like most mammals, are territorial. Release one in an area that it doesn’t know and it’s going to have a hard time. Just as you or I would fare badly if we were dumped in an unknown city, so too would Ursus find himself lost and alone, and possibly up against an affronted population that had already claimed the area as its own. Then again, as a young male, the bear we’d found was probably already wandering—on the prowl for a territory he could call home. Putting him right back there after his ordeal might throw him almost as much. If he’d been interested in the area, it probably had the resources—food and water—that would draw other bears. Disoriented as he was bound to be, the young male would be at a disadvantage battling for the area against all the other healthy animals out there.