Distemper

by Beth Saulnier

  “What are you doing here?” The voice, male and authoritarian, made me snap to attention and look around. But there was no one there; the question had come from around the bend, though the voice was forceful enough to sound closer.

  “Nothing, Officer,” I heard Mad say at the top of his lungs, presumably to warn me. “I was just going for a walk.”

  “The preserve has been closed for the day. You’ll have to leave immediately.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “There’s been an accident. Please turn around and go back the way you came. If you take a right at the first fork it will bring you back to the main entrance.”

  “But what’s…”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t… Wait a second. You’re that jerk from the newspaper.” Mad didn’t say anything. I cringed behind a tree, but bravely. “Nice try, you little prick. Now get the hell out of here before I bust you for fucking with a crime scene.” Ouch. So much for the civil servant routine.

  They came around the corner, and I continued my very successful cringing. I peeked when they passed by and saw that the cop who had called Mad a “little prick” was about half a foot shorter than him, but twice as wide. Apparently the guy was determined to bring Mad right to the car; I hoped he’d have the presence of mind to come back and get me.

  Mad and his escort disappeared down the path, and I sat there trying to figure out what to do. I still couldn’t hear anything from the direction the cop had come from, so I figured he must have been one of a legion of uniforms searching the woods for evidence or just evicting stragglers. I stood up and nobody leaped out to slap the cuffs on me, so I kept going. The path straightened out for about a hundred yards, then curved to the left. I was almost to the bend when I heard voices behind me, just around the previous corner, and guessed it was probably cops. I broke into a trot, hoping to get around my corner before they got around theirs. Screw this, I thought. I’m going back to the car, and whenever the cops figure out…

  I’d rounded the corner by then, and a second later I wished I hadn’t. Because when I looked up, I saw the body of Cathy Ann Keillor. She was lying across the path, laid so straight and precisely it might have been a geometry lesson. Her eyes were closed, and from the chin up she looked as though she’d died in her sleep. But the fiction ended there, because her neck had the same diamond-shaped marks as the others.

  And it got worse. Even from fifteen feet away, I could see that there was something wrong with her stomach. It had been sliced open and sewn shut again, and lying in a triangle on her abdomen were three grayish-pink blobs that I didn’t recognize. I still wish I’d never found out what they were.

  I’m not sure how long I stood there gaping. It was just about the most horrible thing I’d ever seen, second only to the memory of my lover’s body on a bridge, broken and faceless…

  “Alex.” I looked beyond what used to be C.A. to see Brian Cody, standing in a crowd of uniformed police and crime-scene workers. There was Chief Hill, a woman taking pictures of the body, a man I recognized as the Walden County coroner, two cops unrolling yellow tape, and a cadre of other people wearing latex gloves and looking grim.

  Cody came stalking toward me, slowing down only to cut through the woods to avoid walking over the corpse. He was furious. “What the hell are you doing here?” He grabbed me by the arm so hard he nearly dislocated my shoulder. He asked the question again, even harsher than before. But I couldn’t answer, just gaped at him and then back at the body. My silence made him grab the other arm, which at least made the pain symmetrical. “You’re not supposed to see this. Do you understand me? You’re not supposed to see this.”

  The whole crowd of cops and civilians was staring at us. Cody must have realized it, because he didn’t say another word to me. He just pushed me away, got a handle on his temper, and told one of the uniforms to take me home. I was in the back of the squad car and halfway down the hill when I realized that I was going to have to tell Marci and Emma and Steve what had happened to C.A., and that’s when I finally started crying. The cruiser dropped me in front of my house and, obviously on orders, parked itself there.

  I’d barely gotten in the front door when the phone rang, and I hoped to hell it wasn’t one of my roommates. It wasn’t. The voice was oddly distorted, almost fake, and it asked just one question. “Well, Alex,” it said, “what do you think of my handiwork?”

  13

  IT’S CALLED AN OVARIOHYSTERECTOMY. THAT’S THE TECHnical term for what was done to C.A., the removal of the ovaries and the uterus. I know it sounds horrible, and it is, but it’s also one of the most common operations performed today—by veterinarians, at least. I had it done to Shakespeare when she was six months old. You might know it better as “spaying.”

  Mad got the details through a source in the medical examiner’s office. He had to call in a lot of chips in exchange for the information, even off the record, but he did it as a favor to me. I’ve been told more than once that I’m obsessed with finding things out, even if knowing only hurts me in the long run, and I guess this was a pretty good example. Like I said before, from where I’m sitting now I’d just as soon not know what happened to C.A., because it’s so damned awful. It speaks of a person who must hate women with a passion—no, with a vengeance. But at the time, I just had to know.

  The only thing that made it any easier to deal with was the fact that she hadn’t been alive by then. C.A. had died just like the other two, strangulation; the mutilation had been postmortem. But why? The symbolism seemed obvious—taking not only life but the potential for life. But it hadn’t happened to the other two women, so why C.A.? Did it have something to do with her personally, something she’d said or done after the bastard abducted her? Or was it just the killer’s next logical act (as though logic had anything to do with it)? And what would he do next time?

  Those were the questions I asked myself as I stood at Marci’s bedroom window, staring down at the police car parked outside our house. It had been there for forty-eight hours, that one or one just like it. They changed in eight-hour shifts, regular as the guards outside Buckingham Palace. I wondered what the neighbors must be thinking.

  “Are you certain about this?” Emma said to Marci, who was filling her fifth suitcase with sweaters and pastel dresses. “Perhaps you’d best give it a bit more thought. Don’t you think you’ll feel calmer in a day or so?”

  “No,” Marci said. “I can’t stand it. Every time I think about C.A. I just…” She reached for her umpteenth Kleenex and sobbed into it. “It’s so awful… what happened to her. My mom told me to try to stop thinking about it, but I just can’t.”

  Marci didn’t know the half of it. I’d told my roommates that C.A. had died like the others, but that was it. They didn’t need to know the details of what had been done to her, and I was sure the police weren’t going to release them. The story Mad wrote for the previous day’s paper just said “mutilated.”

  “But you’ll be back next semester, right?” I crossed from the window to the bed, which was covered with what was left of Marci’s wardrobe. “You’re just taking a leave of absence, right?”

  “I think so,” she said. “I hope so. I just feel like I need to get someplace… safe. Besides, my folks said if I didn’t go home they were going to come and get me. They just can’t believe something like this could happen in Gabriel…”

  Marci’s parents had met at Benson vet school and were the most loyal, duck-pant-wearing alums you could imagine. Now they were forming a parents’ committee to pressure the university for more security. They didn’t have a clear idea of what their demands would be, but they were talking about withholding tuition payments to get them, and I was going to have to do a story about it when I finally went back to work on Monday.

  “Is that policeman still out there?” Emma asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I don’t suppose he’d like to help us carry suitcases.”

  “Probably not in his job de
scription.”

  “It is where I come from.”

  We gathered as much stuff as we could handle and went downstairs to Marci’s Honda. The cop rolled down his window as we passed the cruiser. “Somebody leaving?”

  “My roommate Marci. She’s going home to her parents in Pennsylvania.” He nodded and rolled it back up, all business. Through the tinted window, I saw him reach for the radio.

  “I do wish she’d reconsider,” Emma said as we loaded up the trunk.

  “I don’t. I mean, I don’t know Marci that well, but she doesn’t strike me as somebody who can roll with the punches. And even though she and C.A. drove each other nuts, they lived together a long time.” Marci and C.A. had shared an apartment as first-years after being matched by the university, presumably because they both checked “neat” and “pet owner” on their housing applications. Their similarities ended there, but they must have enjoyed the friction on some level, because they’d been rooming together ever since. “You know more about this than I do, but it seems like vet school is a lot of work, and there’s no way Marci can concentrate right now.”

  “Better to take leave than to come a cropper.”

  “Yeah, whatever the hell that means.”

  “You didn’t tell her about the dreadful phone call?”

  “She was leaving anyway. She didn’t need to know. It’ll only freak her out worse.”

  “What did the police say?”

  “Last thing I heard they were going to check the LUDs on our phone, try to figure out where it came from.”

  “The whats?”

  “The LUDs. It’s some damn cop-show thing. They have the phone company figure out who called who. Don’t ask me what it stands for. Meanwhile, the caller ID guy is coming today.”

  “And if we don’t recognize the number, we shan’t answer?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  We finished loading Marci’s car and sent her off with a promise to let her know when the killer had been caught. “I know I’m a coward, but please don’t tell me if anybody else dies,” she’d said as I put a spare box of Kleenex on top of the cat carrier that was strapped into the passenger seat. “I can’t take the stress, I really can’t. I just want to know when they catch the guy, okay?”

  With Marci safely on the road, Emma and I collapsed in the living room with our dogs. It was three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. The rest of the day stretched ahead, ugly and long.

  “Where the hell has Steve gone to?” I asked. “I thought he was going to be here to see Marci off.”

  “Still up at Blue Heron. The police haven’t allowed them to reopen the preserve as yet, and I gather he’s been conscripted to give talks to amuse the tourists.”

  “The house seems so…”

  “Empty. Yes, I know.”

  “Marci’s gone for now. C.A.’s gone for good. We don’t know if her dog is dead or alive. Last one left at 357 Roscoe Street, turn out the lights.”

  Emma looked grim. “Do you fancy a drink?”

  “It’s getting to be a bad habit.”

  “Nonsense.” Emma got out her martini pitcher and started mixing.

  “Are you going to rat on me if I smoke in here?”

  “Rat on you to whom exactly?”

  “Good point.”

  “But put away those disgusting Marlboros and let me find my Dunhills. I must have a pack around here somewhere.”

  “They’re all the same to me.”

  She gave me a long, assessing look. Apparently, Emma sees bad taste as the first sign of insanity. “Poor Alex. It must have been horrible for you. I don’t think I’ve said that to you, how sorry I am that you had to go through such a thing.”

  “Seeing what happened to C.A.? I pretty much asked for it, running around in the woods like an asshole.”

  “I’m sure you had your reasons. But that doesn’t make it any easier for you.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m starting to consider a second career as a coroner, or maybe a bloodhound. The way I attract corpses, it seems like fate.”

  “Don’t joke. I know you’re just doing it to cope, but you shouldn’t. At some point, you’re going to have to admit to yourself how you’re really feeling, and it may as well be now.”

  “Jesus, Ems, are you a veterinarian or a shrink?”

  “You know that I’m right.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t feel like dealing right now. Can’t we watch one of your Monty Python videos or something?”

  She thought about it. “As therapy goes, that might not be too shabby.”

  “Thanks. Can we do the one where they sing that lumberjack song?”

  “Whatever you’d like.”

  She got up and was about to go to her room for the tape when the doorbell rang. She answered it, and two minutes later Detective Cody was in my living room. I hadn’t laid eyes on him since our run-in at the crime scene, and it looked as though he had hardly slept in the intervening two days.

  “Where did Emma go?” I asked.

  “Her room. I asked to speak to you alone.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Can I sit down?”

  “I guess,” I said warily. “Do you want a drink?”

  I motioned at the pitcher of martinis on the coffee table. Cody made a sick face and shook his head. “I haven’t eaten much lately.”

  “Me neither.”

  He sat at the far end of the couch and pointed at the pitcher. “You been hitting those hard?”

  “No. Emma just mixed it. Martinis and Monty Python. Guaranteed to cure what ails you.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Shitty.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “What do you expect?”

  “Honestly, Alex, after what happened the other day I don’t know what to expect. What the hell were you trying to prove? Did you think you could just march out there in the middle of a crime scene?”

  “I…” I could feel myself tearing up, but I was damned if he was going to see it. “I was just trying to cover the story.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. There were lots of people there covering the story, and they were all outside the front gate where they belonged.” He stood up quickly enough to wake up Shakespeare, who’d been asleep on my lap. The dog surveyed the situation and promptly went back to sleep. “A press pass doesn’t give you permission to trample a crime scene. You could have destroyed evidence without even realizing it. Christ, Alex. You could even have put yourself in danger. Who knows whether this guy was still out there?”

  “Did you come here to yell at me? Because you can just get the hell out of my house.” My voice was starting to crack. “It’s been a real bitch of a week, and I don’t need you coming over here…”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his anger blowing over as fast as it started. “Oh, hell. This is exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do.”

  He sat back down on the couch and started petting Shakespeare. The silence stretched into weirdness, and finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. “So why did you come?”

  “Believe it or not, I came to say I was sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For shouting at you like that at the crime scene. For blowing my stack and embarrassing you in front of the whole Gabriel PD. For not even thinking for half a second that the sight of your roommate’s dead body might call for a little… sensitivity. Take your pick.” I didn’t know what to say. “I’m not real good at apologies.” He smiled a little. “My mom says I have to learn how to say I’m sorry. I guess this is good practice.”

  “Well… thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Can we start over here? Can I rewind and ask you how you are, without all the hollering this time?”

  “Sure.”

  “So how are you?”

  I cracked a grin to match his. “Still shitty.”

  “I guess that’s to be expected.”

  “Good an
swer.”

  “I’m sorry about your roommate.”

  “I’m sorry I trampled your crime scene.”

  “Okay, we’re even.” He took a deep breath. “How are the rest of your roommates doing?”

  “Marci left for home, but you probably already heard that from the cop watching the house.” He nodded. “She was pretty crazed. Kept talking about how it was supposed to be her, that maybe the guy took C.A. by accident.”

  “I doubt this guy does anything by accident.”

  “That’s what I told her, but she still felt like it was all her fault.”

  “Sometimes guilt is as good a way to cope as any.”

  “Wise man.”

  “You see a lot of it in my line of work. Guilt, I mean.”

  “Listen, can I get you something to eat? It’s strange, but I’m actually hungry all of a sudden.”

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  “I’d kind of enjoy it. Cooking’s the only thing that keeps me out of the shrink’s office.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Maybe an omelet. Nothing fancy.”

  “Sounds fine.”

  “Don’t you have to go back to the cop shop?”

  “I’ve been there for two days straight. I’m off until tomorrow morning.”

  “What about Zeke?”

  “He’s been at my mom’s. But it’s nice of you to ask.”

  We went into the kitchen, and he sat on a stool at the counter while I pulled eggs, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and a block of cheddar cheese out of the refrigerator. I put the teakettle on the stove, diced the onion and saut? it in olive oil while I sliced the mushrooms and shredded the cheese.