Clean Sweep

by E. B. Lee

  Carli looked through the windshield and spotted Lucy’s blue-domed tent just as it should be: snuggled in the doorway of the gray stone church. Contrasting trim highlighted its sides, making arching patterns that mimicked the church’s. A lantern above the door spread a yellow glow across it, just like a manger, when there was no room at the inn. Pastor Miller eased the van toward the curb until a front tire bumped the edge. Methodically, he switched off wipers, heater, and lights and finally shut down the engine.

  “There’re three sandwiches under your seat,” he said, looking straight at Carli. She fished them out while Jim and the rest climbed out the back.

  “Lucy,” said Pastor Miller as he approached the tent at St. Mary’s. “Church Run here.”

  Lucy’s door was open. She lay face down with the heels of her shoes sticking out of the tent. Two black noses poked out and quickly retreated from the splattering ice.

  “Lucy? We have three sandwiches,” he said. The two small dogs poked their noses toward the smell of the sandwiches. Pastor Miller leaned toward the tent’s opening. “Lucy?” He squinted. “Hey, Lucy.”

  As Pastor Miller knelt, it sounded like Lucy made a slight sound. He called again, but another voice interrupted. Carli recognized it immediately and turned to see Grant cautiously jogging on the ice, shielding his face from the wind with one arm. He shouted again from a few yards off.

  “Lucy, Lady Lucy. You trying to scare off the church folks again?” Grant strode in front of Carli and reached into Lucy’s tent. His soup was gone, his hands empty. “I got it,” he said. “I got the dog food.” While the Church Run had made its previous stop, Grant had, apparently, gone shopping. An odd activity, Carli thought. Grant pulled a can from his pocket and crawled further into the tent. A moment later, the can rattled to the ground. “Lucy! Oh my God … Lucy!” Grant turned to Pastor Miller. “Anyone have a phone? How long’s she been like this?”

  “Like what? We just got here,” Pastor Miller said.

  “Call 9-1-1! Tell them we have an overdose. No, a possible poisoning. Or, maybe a heart problem. Call now!” shouted Grant. “Please. I’m with Outreach. Mobile Outreach. My phone is dead.”

  Pastor Miller dialed.

  “Dear God, Lucy,” said Grant.

  “Check her pulse!” Carli shouted. “Is she breathing?” Carli knelt next to Grant, and together they turned Lucy onto her back. Carli quickly removed a hat, untied a scarf, and loosened the tightly-drawn hood of Lucy’s sweatshirt to reveal Lucy’s neck. It was warm. She felt for a pulse. Nothing. She repositioned her fingers. Nothing.

  Grant reached through layers of coats to locate Lucy’s midsection. Carli tilted Lucy’s head to listen and feel for air. Everyone else’s breath puffed visibly into the night. The only thing coming from Lucy was an odor of bad breath.

  “Well?” asked Grant.

  “Nothing,” said Carli.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “You push. I’ll breathe.” Grant’s tone was direct.

  Carli looked straight at Grant. She hesitated, knowing the perils of unprotected mouth-to-mouth.

  “Do it!” said Grant.

  She moved two inches up from Lucy’s ribcage and pushed. One thrust. Two thrusts. Three thrusts. Up to thirty. Grant administered air. Carli repeated. Grant breathed again. Carli pushed. Grant gave breaths. The duet continued. Finally, sirens screamed as a rescue vehicle neared. Lila and Terrance wailed. Lucy remained silent.

  The ambulance sloshed to a stop and hurled an icy wave of slush across Carli.

  “We’re looking for a call … possible overdose.”

  “Quick!” said Pastor Miller. “Over here.”

  The two technicians ordered everyone aside. Grant offered details. “I saw her less than an hour ago. She looked fine. But she wanted dog food, so I left to get it.”

  “Then what?” asked the technician.

  “They found her. Like this,” said Grant.

  The EMTs moved in. They checked for vitals and administered naloxone for a possible overdose. Lucy remained still. They repeatedly tried CPR and set up for shocks. “Clear!” one yelled. A shock went through Lucy. No response. “Clear!” he yelled again. Lucy still didn’t respond.

  “Lucy, please ... Lucy,” said Grant. Lucy’s eyes remained open, along with her mouth. Another round of actions brought no change. The medics finally stopped their efforts. They conferred with each other for a moment, and then they began repacking their equipment. Lucy was gone. Pastor Miller gave a blessing, and Carli stepped away. She had never seen a person die. Technically, she still hadn’t, but Lucy was warm, for God’s sake! Carli glimpsed the tan and white dog. Both it and the little gray one looked paralyzed with fear.

  “Who called in an overdose?” asked an approaching police officer.

  Grant gave a slight wave, walked over, and shook hands before touching the officer’s elbow. Carli listened in.

  “Something you should know,” said Grant. “She told me a man came by the last two nights. Told her she belonged in a graveyard. She thought her dogs scared him away. I asked her what he looked like, but she couldn’t describe him. She was in her tent, and he was out here.” The officer listened carefully. “We need an autopsy,” said Grant, “to rule out poisoning. You know, like what happened to the other three. We both know she would have been cold by morning; would have looked like a casualty of the weather, nothing more.”

  The officer nodded. “I’ll have the Medical Examiner check for chemicals.”

  Carli no longer heard the ice or wind.

  “I was going to stay near tonight,” said Grant. “Wish I hadn’t left. Wonder if someone was watching.”

  The officer radioed others. “Tell Animal Control we have canines. I’m checking for tags and vaccines.”

  Carli watched. It seemed a longshot.

  The man took ahold of the tan and white dog’s collar. “Let’s see, little one. Lila, eh? Yup, your tag’s good.” The little gray dog, too, passed the initial inspection. The officer continued with his call. “They’re good. Send the truck.”

  Carli jumped in with a question. “Where will they go?”

  “We have a place,” said the man, “for all lost dogs.”

  “You’re not going to … I mean … they won’t …” She couldn’t say it.

  “Personal effects go to the station. They get vouchered,” said the officer. “Animals go with Animal Control. They get checked. Sent to the pound. Maybe adopted. They’ll be all right.”

  One of Carli’s biggest clients in her advertising life was Flippin’ Dog, a “clean earth” dog clothing and supply company. Doing their campaigns, Carli had met dozens of rescue dogs turned advertising professionals. Still, the phrase “maybe adopted” unsettled her. Lucy’s death had been loss enough. Carli looked at the pair of street dogs and was fairly certain no one would adopt them.

  “I’ll tell the people at St. Mary’s about Lucy in the morning,” said Grant, facing Pastor Miller. Then he slid so close to Carli their coats touched. “I see you’re worried about L and T,” he said. “Probably headed to the uptown pound all the way up the East Side. I’ll try to confirm and send word to Lucy’s church. Maybe you can check on them.”

  Grant stared at Lucy’s body. Before Carli could ask about the pound, he took her elbow and said, “Take these. In case you decide to get them or something.” He slid four cans of dog food into her hands. Then he moved away, leaving Carli propped against the stones of the church, mulling over her illogical urge to save a couple of street dogs. Surely, none of the other volunteers was giving thought to rescuing them. But she bet none of them knew the pain of having life upended when someone special was taken away. Carli had a soft spot for those who were left behind, even if they were dogs, and she didn’t want Lila and Terrance to die like Lucy. Besides, Carli had her own dog once. She knew what it meant.

  Moments later, the volunteers shuffled silently to the vans, now seeming more like a funeral cortege. Lucy’s per
sonal choir of angels – two street dogs – whimpered funereal tones, as Lucy was readied for departure. Then two white vans rolled along Third Avenue in single file, three lanes of empty pavement stretching before them in both directions. Stoplights on strict timers forced a solemn pace. Throughout the city, imaginary houselights silently switched off as men and women settled into cardboard-covered beds. Carli wondered how many there were.

  As Pastor Miller hunched forward over the steering wheel, Carli leaned her head against the cold glass of the passenger seat window. No one said a word as the vans travelled past the numbered cross streets, from the Sixties to the silent Seventies, and on up through the One-Twenties for the bridge out of the city and trip to First Neighbor’s Church. The city floated by the windows, which fogged up quickly from their warm, wet bodies. Carli took a moment to make a window within her window with a few hasty wipes of her coat sleeve on the glass. She watched the last of the city slip away. She never expected to see so many of them. Real people. Living here. And dying on the street in an ice storm.

  Two

  It had been at least twenty years since Carli pulled an all-nighter. She navigated the icy roads from First Neighbor’s Church in her SUV and arrived at her midtown-Manhattan apartment with dawn still in the offing. She felt oddly alert, thanks, no doubt, to adrenaline. Carli sank into a club chair, hot mug of tea in hand, and felt the residual sensation of ice and wind whipping against her face.

  Lucy’s body gave no glimpse of an excruciating end, but dying by poison sounded gruesome. She wondered who would threaten a tent person, let alone kill one, and felt unsettled by Grant’s mention of three others. Carli’s fingers clicked swiftly on the keyboard. Her search revealed no other poisonings. She started looking into dog pounds in the northern end of the borough. The image of two dogs being destroyed simply because Lucy had died continued to weigh heavily on her.

  Carli pushed her keyboard aside as her thoughts took her back nearly forty years. She was a senior in high school when her brother Henry vanished. Instead of being a soon-to-be college graduate, Henry became a Missing Person. Together with her parents, she searched for Henry for almost a decade. They worked with police, detectives, and special units and even re-mortgaged the house to hire private investigators.

  It was never spoken aloud, but Carli knew she became the only thing her parents had left. She felt helpless watching them grieve. Throwing herself unfettered into work, and becoming a success, helped steer their thoughts away from Henry, and it took her mind off of him as well.

  Retirement was still very new to her. She had seen others struggle with it, but for Carli it was the perfect choice. She had gained the enviable opportunity to work on her own paintings again and take on small, yet meaningful, volunteer stints to help others. Lucy and the fresh memories of Henry were unexpected obstacles, throwing her off balance and suddenly making loss threatening again. No doubt, it was the crux of her concern for Lucy’s dogs.

  Carli stared down at her tea and watched the dark brew swirl as her steady breathing lifted and lowered the mug resting on her midsection. The reflection of an overhead light gleamed back at her. It looked like a miniature moon in a strangely off-colored sky.

  Carli wondered if it was time to see a shrink, something people from middle-class neighborhoods didn’t do thirty years ago, or, if they did, it was with the secrecy of a covert CIA operation. Back then, there was no such thing as mental health. There was only mental illness, and insurance didn’t cover it. Who from her neighborhood could pay for help? That’s what neighbors and church were for.

  At nine a.m. sharp, Carli dialed police headquarters. Saving two strange dogs from possible death seemed crazy, but maybe a little crazy was just what she needed. At best, it might serve as ever-so-slight vindication for having lost Henry. At the least, she wanted to ask questions and receive reassurances. Within minutes, Carli learned over sixty thousand animals entered the pound a year. She couldn’t fathom it. Many went through police channels to do it and shared a similar story: former pets of the elderly who either died at home or in a hospital. The city used several pounds. She would start with the one Grant had suggested.

  Carli made more calls to ask about Lucy. The EMTs, the Medical Examiner, and the police helped her piece things together. The toughest part of the calls was explaining why she was inquiring and how she knew Lucy. As best she could tell, Lucy was moved to the NYC Medical Examiner’s office. An autopsy was likely planned, as Grant suggested. In the next days, she would be tagged and examined, cut and closed, and then placed on hold for two weeks in the freezer while Missing Persons searched for next-of-kin. If none were found, Lucy’s body would be driven to City Island, then ferried to Hart Island for burial. The ferry would carry Rikers’ inmates to dig and lower Lucy to her grave. Potter’s Field on Hart had no headstones or markings. Just plots. It was strictly dust to dust in a mass gravesite. Carli pulled her hand to the center of her chest and closed her eyes. Where would Henry be buried? And had it already happened?

  With eyes still shut, she reached for her phone.

  “What do they look like?” asked the woman at one of the pounds.

  “Small. Less than knee height. One tan and white, and the other dark gray. Both shaggy and they’re tagged – Lila and Terrance.”

  “Would you know them if you saw them?”

  Carli lied. “Sure.”

  Having eased her mind with the calls, Carli finally slid under covers to sleep.

  Carli’s dream of police sirens morphed into the ringing of her phone.

  “Decompressed yet?” It was Pastor Miller’s calm voice. He had already shared word of Lucy’s passing with the Church Run Director and a woman at St. Mary’s Church. “That man, Grant, stopped by St. Mary’s earlier,” he said. “Left word about Lila and Terrance. Call Sister Anna at the church. She knows their whereabouts.”

  Carli took the number. Then she asked, “How long have you been doing these Church Runs?”

  “Twenty years. Give or take.”

  “Has anyone ever died before? During a Run?” she asked.

  “First time for everything, as they say. Rough, wasn’t it?”

  “Indeed. I wonder if someone might be looking for Lucy; might never find her.”

  “The people at Missing Persons will do their best,” said Pastor Miller. “We have to trust in them.”

  “It’s not always that easy,” she said. “I lost my brother ... he just vanished ... when I was in high school. His college roommates said he had been hanging out with cult members. They had set up on the sidewalk near his dorm. One day, the cult left, and Henry was gone. We don’t know if he joined voluntarily. There’s a good chance he was kidnapped.”

  “Oh my. I am sorry,” said Pastor Miller. “How horrible.”

  “We searched for him,” said Carli. “For over ten years. About eight years into the search, the FBI investigated that same cult. But they were zeroing in on human trafficking, not missing persons. Finally, we had to accept Henry was gone and that he might be in any country in the world. Or he might be dead. I can’t help but worry that Lucy has family looking for her, and they will feel the pain and uncertainty ... of never finding her.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” said Pastor Miller, “but maybe this will work out differently. We can hope someone is looking for her. And we can hope Missing Persons will connect with them.”

  “It’s devastating,” said Carli, “for a person to be lost. Of course, living on a sidewalk isn’t great either.”

  “Many things are difficult to explain,” said Pastor Miller. “Tough to accept, too. But please keep hope alive. And love. They are very powerful.”

  “Yes, I’ll try.”

  “And, please, call or visit anytime,” said Pastor Miller. “You might not be a member of the First Neighbor’s congregation, but you are always welcome here. I hope you know that.”

  As she hung up the phone, Carli moved into the makeshift art studio in her spare bedroom. It was anothe
r perk of retirement. She knew she could walk into any drugstore or consumer retail - high end, low end, didn’t matter - and be face-to-face with her branding, her professional work. Toothpaste? Glisten and her Glisten Up campaigns. Cosmetics? The Cool Touch of Workables jumped off the shelves and covered the print pages of glossy publications and newsprint alike. Living Easy? It was hers as well. But every day she moved up the corporate ladder, she moved farther from the fine arts that had put her in the field in the first place. Her studio would become her sanctuary, her special space to refine the skills she had set aside. Moving back to where she started was her way to move forward, and she couldn’t wait. But today, in the aftermath of the Church Run, with Lucy and Henry weighing heavily, she stared at a partially colored canvas and felt uninspired by the brushes at hand. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she had wanted to help the men and women on the streets. Now, she knew she had to. But how?

  The next day, Lucy’s church shone in the daylight, with its soft gray lines washing into the sun and its spires gliding upward with flights of pigeons. A single white rose lay on a step in Lucy’s archway. Once inside, Carli noticed everything echoed – the door rattling shut, soft-soled shoes crossing the floor, and keys dropped by mistake.

  “Welcome,” said a woman, popping into the hall. “I’ve been expecting you. I’m Sister Anna.” The woman’s hair was pulled back and held by a simple elastic band. She handed Carli a note. “Grant’s pretty sure the dogs are in the pound way up the East Side. Here’s the address. He wanted to tell you in person, but he couldn’t stay.” The note was signed simply with the letter “G.” What caught Carli’s eye was it was made with soft graphite, an artist’s pencil.

  “I’m heading there next,” said Carli, thankful the pound was the same one she had found. Then she had to ask, “Why was Lucy here, at the church?”