“Jesus!”
She fell back in surprise, fully soaking her clothes in ditch water. Her heart was racing, but she slapped her flashlight back to life and crawled toward the pipe edge again. The eyes inside gave another phantasmal glare in the light, but the bared teeth disappeared as the husky licked blood off its front paws.
“Ajax?”
Francine covered her hand with her mouth. She’d been worried about finding an injured raccoon or groundhog. The sight of Roland’s harmless dog, bleeding in a pipe, broke her heart.
She staggered out of the ditch and sprinted to a nearby front door.
Chief Durham answered her furious knocking, dressed in plaid pajama bottoms and an undershirt.
“Ms. Haddix?”
“Ajax is hurt. He’s stuck in a pipe!”
“Gerber’s dog?”
“He’s bleeding under the Asperskis’ driveway. I don’t know how to get him out.”
“Okay. Wait here.”
Chief Durham hustled up the stairs, past Magdalena, who didn’t seem overwhelmed with joy that Francine had shown up at her house in the middle of the night. Hearing of the Chief’s flirting with Bruno had certainly softened Francine’s animosity toward the woman, but she didn’t have time for a heart to heart right now.
Chief Durham returned mercifully quick with his duty belt slung around his pajama pants. “Hon, lock the door behind me. Love ya.”
Moments later, the Chief’s infinitely superior flashlight clearly illuminated Ajax, shivering and baring his teeth in periodic growls from the middle of the pipe.
“He’s really in there,” the Chief said. “Can you go get Roland for me?”
Francine nodded and took off.
“And bring back some meat if you can!” he called after her.
She sprinted all the way to Roland’s welcome mat, then rang the doorbell and knocked as loudly as she could.
“Roland? Roland!”
Nothing. The house was dark and silent.
Then she saw a light on over at Del Merlin’s.
She sprinted again and found the Roland, chatting with Del on the couch. She wrenched the back door open without knocking, startling both men.
“Roland, Ajax is hurt.”
“What? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Ajax is stuck in a pipe. He’s bleeding.”
Panic flooded Roland’s face.
“Chief Durham’s already there,” she said. “He told me to bring back meat.”
Del disappeared into the kitchen and reemerged a few seconds later with a Styrofoam dish of raw hamburger. “Let’s go.”
The three of them ran across the block and found Chief Durham’s broad shoulders huddled by the pipe, a steady, vibrating growl coming from the animal inside. Del poked his fingers through the plastic covering the hamburger and handed over some meat. The Chief held it patiently in front of the pipe for a few seconds, then shined his light down the hole. Ajax hadn’t budged.
“Move.” Francine took the hamburger from Chief Durham and pushed close to the pipe opening, until her entire arm was inside. Against all instinct, she reached out and waited, trying not to imagine a frightened animal with sharp teeth crawling toward her hand.
Just as she was about to pull back, a cold dog nose gently nudged her fingers. Ajax sniffed, then began to lick the hamburger.
Francine edged slowly back, drawing Ajax forward until his snout gingerly emerged into the circle of Chief Durham’s flashlight.
“C’mon, boy. That’s it,” she cooed.
His tail had just cleared the pipe when Del dropped down from the driveway above and clamped his hands around the dog’s muzzle. Ajax wriggled furiously, but was no match for the Marine’s toned arms.
“What are you doing?” Francine said.
“Wrap him, Roland!” Del commanded.
Roland wound his belt around Ajax’s snout and cinched it tight.
“He’ll bleed out before we can get him to a vet,” Del said. “I should have what we need at home.”
With Ajax writhing in his arms, Del led the way back to his house and into his kitchen, where he laid the thrashing dog on the table.
“He’s going to hurt himself even worse,” Chief Durham said. “We need to calm him down.”
“I might have sleeping pills.” Del said.
He hurried down the hall, leaving Chief Durham and Roland to restrain Ajax while Francine threw open one cabinet door after another until she found a jar of peanut butter. She spread a spoonful on a plate just as Del returned with pills and an electric razor.
“I only have Benadryl, but it might do the trick.” He crushed up some of the pills and Francine mixed the pink powder into her peanut butter.
“He’s getting loose,” Chief Durham warned.
Francine slid the plate under Ajax’s belt-muzzled snout. The second the dog got a whiff of the peanut butter, his thrashing slowed.
“Loosen the belt,” Francine said.
Roland did, and Ajax took to the peanut butter with reliable dog gusto, licking himself into a languid stupor that eventually ended in sleep.
Using the clippers Del had brought, Francine took off the top layer of blood-matted fur on the dog’s chest, just below the neck. She let out a gasp of horror as a second, more delicate pass revealed a long gash in the skin.
“My God,” Roland mumbled.
The wound was erratic and uneven, nothing like the one they’d found on Brownie. Fortunately, there was no geometric carving in the white fur of the dog’s stomach.
Del pinched on a pair of reader glasses and sterilized a sewing needle with a lighter. Then he began to methodically stitch the wound while Francine used a dish rag to wipe away trickles of blood.
Once the work was finished, a pile of bath towels were nested into a makeshift dog bed under the table and Ajax was left to rest, his breathing shallow but even.
Del took off his glasses and looked at the rest of them. “Now we wait.”
Chapter 35
In walking, I am very careful to step over sidewalk cracks.
[ ] TRUE [ x ] FALSE
They sat in the living room, wiping dried blood from their hands and clothes as the first bits of sunrise colored the front window.
“What happened to the hand, Del?” Chief Durham asked as the Marine passed around cups of instant coffee.
Del caressed his metal-splinted fingers and gave a sheepish glance in Francine’s direction. “Hood came down on me. Never too old to make stupid mistakes.”
Francine wasn’t concerned with Del Merlin’s feelings at the moment. “Could an animal have done that to Ajax?” she asked him.
“Definitely a knife wound,” he said. “Lucky it didn’t nick an artery, or he’d be done for. The angle moves upward. I think someone was standing over him. Kind of looks like they were trying to cut his throat, but he moved at the last second.”
“Can you tell the size of the knife?”
Del shook his head.
“Where does the dog sleep, Roland?” the Chief asked.
“Out on the porch, where the air is cooler. There are no locks on the doors, but they’re latched, so he can’t push them open. Someone came into my porch. It had to be that Banderwalt boy. I had words with him when he nearly ran Ajax over. Francine was there.”
She nodded.
Chief Durham put a hand on Roland’s shoulder. “Just stay calm for me, okay? Del, is it all right if the dog rests here a bit?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll look into it, Roland,” Chief Durham promised, and left.
Roland walked back into the kitchen and slowly got down onto the floor next to the still-asleep Ajax to stroke his fur.
Francine moved to follow Chief Durham.
“Francine, wait.”
She turned to face a bashful Del.
“I‘ve been trying to leave you alone. I thought that would be the best thing I could do after I acted like…”
“A shithead?” she finishe
d helpfully.
“Yes. There’s no excuse for what I did. I don’t regret getting called on it, I regret having done it in the first place.”
“Del, I’ve known lots of men like you. Most women have.”
“No,” he said firmly. “That isn’t who I am. You don’t have to forgive me. But I want you to know that’s not who I am.”
Given the chaos of everything else in her life, Francine had mostly forgotten about the grabbing incident. But Del clearly hadn’t, and she couldn’t help but feel a smidge of sympathy for the lonely widower. If Eric’s little green knife ever went after something other than a defenseless dog, it might be nice to have a Marine and his rifle on her side.
“You ever pinch my butt, I’ll put you in traction. Understand?”
Del nodded. “You sound like that guy, Bruno.”
“Bruno?”
“He came over the other day. Said if I gave you any more trouble, he’d relieve me of a few teeth.”
“I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“I deserved it. The guy’s a toothpick, but I could tell he meant it. You’ve chosen well.”
“Yeah, okay.” She moved for the door, but Del spoke up again.
“I think you should stay out of this, Francine. Just go home, then go all the way home to California. Whatever’s happening here isn’t worth getting hurt over.”
“Who says I’m going to get hurt?”
“I’ve seen you snooping around at night. I don’t know if you’re still trying to figure out the goat thing or what, but you should leave it be. Whatever is happening with the Banderwalt kid—”
“I stood up for him. I defended him last night and look where we are now.” Francine opened the front door. “Thanks for stitching up Ajax. You and me are good.”
And off she went, walking in the direction of a punk kid who liked to brandish his knife and BB gun, and antagonize the neighborhood with his nuisance of a dirt bike.
Eric Banderwalt seemed to hate just about everyone in Hawthorn Woods, and Francine was starting to hate him right back.
✶ ✶ ✶ ✶
Francine found Chief Durham talking to Mrs. Banderwalt on her front stoop. Eric stood in the doorway behind her, doing a great job of looking sleepy and confused.
“Why do you think my boy did it?” Mrs. Banderwalt asked.
The Chief shook his head. “I didn’t say he did. The dog was found in a culvert next door and there’s blood in your yard. I’m just trying to get a picture of where everyone was a few hours ago.”
“I was asleep,” Eric said.
The little liar.
Francine stormed up the lawn in a rage. “First he killed the goat, and now he’s moved on to dogs!”
“Francine, please,” Chief Durham said. “Go home and—”
“He’s got bones in the shed!” she shouted.
Eric’s drowsy façade fell away. For a moment, no one spoke.
The Chief looked at Eric. “Is that true?”
“Of course not,” Mrs. Banderwalt said.
But Eric, staring down at the dirty carpet between his toes, said nothing.
“Will you open the shed for me?” Chief Durham asked.
“Do I have to?”
“No. But I’m asking if you will.”
Eric pushed roughly through them and stomped down the ramp. Using the key he wore around his neck, he opened the bike lock on the shed and stepped back, giving Francine a look of pure loathing as the lock fell away.
Chief Durham eased the door open.
They first saw a workbench, covered in a spectrum of red stains. A meat cleaver with bits of fur stuck its blade hung on the wall. Chief Durham pulled the door all the way open, spilling light into the back of the shed. That’s when they saw them.
Skeletons from dozens, maybe hundreds, of animals. Skulls with hollow eye cavities and rows of sharp teeth in a nightmare pile of ribcages and broken limbs stacked from floor to ceiling.
It was over. Charlie had told the truth. Eric had killed Brownie and now he’d tried to kill Ajax. But he hadn’t counted on Francine. She waited for the cuffs to come out, but Chief Durham hadn’t moved.
“What am I looking at, Eric?” he asked.
Eric’s chin was glued to his chest, his face flushed red. “Sometimes I hunt squirrels. Pick up roadkill. We don’t always have enough. I didn’t know how to get rid of the bones…”
“It’s all right,” Chief Durham said softly. “You can lock this back up.”
Mrs. Banderwalt stared in disbelief at the bones. “Eric. What have you been doing?”
Eric fumbled with the bike lock, then gave up and fled back into the house.
“I don’t understand.” Mrs. Banderwalt sounded dazed. “I…I didn’t realize where he’d gotten all the meat from.”
Chief Durham shut the shed door and secured the u-bar. “Mrs. Banderwalt, I think you should go inside and be with your children.”
She looked at him blankly, then nodded and slowly rolled her way back up the ramp.
“Everything all right, Hollis?” a voice called from the street. Lori and the Hens walked in place, craning their necks to try and glean more information. “Need our help?”
“Everything’s fine, Lori.” Chief Durham waved. He waited for the group to reluctantly resume their speedwalk, then took Francine gently by the arm. “I’m escorting you home. Again.”
She shook him off. “You’re mad at me? There’s a fucking catacomb in that kid’s shed!”
“Ms. Haddix, you need to stop this. It’s my job to figure out what’s happening here. Not yours.”
“Then you need to do your job better.”
“Thank you for your input.”
“How in the hell do you explain what we just saw?”
The Chief looked at the windows of the Banderwalts’ house and lowered his voice. “For some folks, a dead animal on the side of the road is an opportunity to eat a little better that night. The Banderwalts barely get by. Do you understand? Do you think Eric is proud of what he has to do? You just humiliated him.”
“Okay. I’m not going to freak out over a few squirrels or some roadkill, but the neighbor’s dog?”
“I don’t know if Eric had anything to do with Ajax, and neither do you. I don’t think he’d feed the neighbor’s dog to his mother and sister. I also don’t know if he had anything to do with Brownie, and again, neither do you. I want you to leave the Banderwalts alone. I want you to leave Magdalena alone. Your time here is almost over. Please.” He sounded deeply exhausted.
Well, Francine felt just as exhausted. And pissed off that the sweetest dog on the planet had been attacked and nobody was doing a damn thing about it.
“My ex-husband cheated on me, Hollis. And the thing that hurt most was that he felt he couldn’t be honest with me. I knew something was wrong, and he denied it. Again and again and again.”
Chief Durham looked unnerved. “What’s your point?”
“My point is, maybe Magdalena’s not bent out of shape because of me. Maybe someone’s gaslighting her, doing one thing and saying another. Chalking it up to her wild imagination. Maybe most of all, she resents being brought halfway around the world for a lie.”
She left the Chief standing in the driveway and headed home, already feeling bad about what she’d said, or at least how she’d said it.
Chapter 36
I like adventure stories better than romantic stories.
[ x ] TRUE [ ] FALSE
After a shower to get the rest of Ajax’s blood off, Francine fell onto her butterfly sheets in a forest of clocks.
The fight with Bruno. Ajax getting hurt. The Chief’s unwillingness to hold Eric responsible. So many awful things had happened in the last few hours that they congealed into a general mood of despair too wide-reaching to process.
The pillow under Francine’s head was heaven, begging her to cozy up and rest her eyes, but someone deserved her attention more. She somehow found the energy to get up again, and head in
to the master bedroom where she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Morning, Bubba.”
Charlie slowly stirred. “Morning, Aunt Francine. What happened last night?”
“Somebody hurt Ajax, but he’s okay now. You helped keep him safe.”
“Was it Eric?”
“I don’t know who did it. And we’re gonna have another talk about you sneaking out at night,” she pinched one of his toes, “but that’s not what matters most to me right now. It’s been so crazy around here, I feel like I haven’t even seen you much lately. What do you say we spend a special day together, just you and me? We’ll do whatever you want.”
Charlie thought hard. “Can we have cookies for breakfast?”
If the last few days had been intense for Francine, and they definitely had, she could only imagine how Charlie felt. She hated to think about how many horrible things he’d been introduced to for the first time during her stay. She owed him some pleasant memories too, and that’s exactly what he was going to get.
From her helm at the mixing bowl, she called for ingredients and watched as Charlie darted from the fridge to the cabinet and back to get them. When he dropped an egg on one of his trips, she let him squish the yolk between his toes, eliciting a scream of grossed-out laughter from both of them. They covered the kitchen table in a snow of flour and dumped out the chocolate-chip batter, using a rolling pin and some cookie cutters to make as many constellations as they could dream up. Then they sat on the oven-warmed linoleum and pointed through the glass at their rising creations, choosing which ones they were going to eat first. When the timer dinged, Francine set the hot tray of cookies on some potholders while Charlie poured two big glasses of milk. They sat beneath the Tiffany lamp and counted to one hundred Mississippi, only making it to twenty before they started to eat.
She asked him why kids hated baths. “’Cause they aren’t fun.” He asked her why grownups ate so much broccoli. “Beats me.” They both picked the superpower of flight over invisibility and agreed that smooth peanut butter had nothing on chunky.
Then it was time for a Godzilla movie with the sound so loud it rattled the Precious Moments figurines on top of the big screen. To battle the monster, the Japanese military used a futuristic flying ship called the Super-X, so Francine and Charlie quickly covered a laundry basket and bike helmet in tin foil. Then she dragged him around the carpet, shaking the basket as it took damage from an invisible, atomic lizard.
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