Northern Light

by Deb Davies

  Claire looked crestfallen.

  “I thought you were saying I ought to get a dog. But I don’t want to get a dog poisoned. As far as that goes, should I worry about Pearl?”

  All of them looked stricken.

  “Yeah,” Arnie said. “Keep him in.”

  “Pearl is going to hate this,” Claire said.

  “Change of topic,” Laurel suggested. “Any of Claire’s neighbors have a record? Is someone vicious lurking in the neighborhood?”

  Zoe Weathers has one conviction for a felony,” Arnie told them. “She used a riding crop to beat a man who was drowning a sack of puppies right in Grayling’s Au Sable Park. The puppies were the ugliest mutts I’ve ever seen, but once Sanjay treated them, they went to good homes; in fact, two went to the judge who presided over the case. He gave Zoe probation and told the lug who got beat, ‘We don’t do that here. You may not have noticed, but Grayling is getting civilized. You give Ms. Weathers any trouble, in court or out of it, and I’ll have you arrested for spitting on the sidewalk.’”

  “Did he spit on the sidewalk? I mean, habitually?” Laurel asked.

  “He would have been known to if I testified,” Arnie said.

  Laurel looked more cheerful. “That was a good story,” she said. “Was it true?”

  “Actually,” Arnie said, “I don’t lie.”

  “But you would have lied about the man spitting on the sidewalk,” Laurel pointed out.

  “I don’t lie to, or about, people who deserve the truth. And that’s almost everyone. Even most people who’ve committed crimes.”

  Laurel pushed back her chair and got Arnie fresh coffee. “What about Sanjay?” she asked. “Maybe he secretly hates Zoe Weathers and wanted to see her horse die.”

  Jen looked supremely skeptical. “He helped us save Whit,” she said. “Honestly, Mother. You can’t cast aspersions around.”

  “I like him,” Laurel defended herself. “But lovers—married or not—are always suspect, right? Maybe he wanted to get into Zoe’s good graces. Maybe he has gambling debts he needed to pay off. The money Zoe owed him for Whit’s care after those drones spooked him must have been astronomical. Besides, he has a hairy back. I distrust men with hairy backs.”

  Arnie turned sideways to give Laurel a quizzical look.

  “Mother!” Jen exploded. “That’s just prejudice.”

  “I know. But I can’t help it. Something about him spooks me. He kowtows to Zoe.”

  Arnie intervened. “I think Sanjay’s an OK guy,” he said. “I’ve seen Zoe help him out.”

  “Got an example?” Claire asked, curious.

  “This spring, I got a call from the woman who manages the Dairy Swirl Delite in Mio, saying there were coyotes hanging about the Shrine, which is pretty close to the Dairy Swirl.”

  Laurel and Jen both looked blank.

  “Our Lady of the Woods Catholic Shrine Grotto,” Arnie explained, an ambivalent look on his face. “The Shrine is this mountain of cut limestone. All grottos and niches are filled with statues and, ah, relics of saints. There’s no fence around it, but you can’t, in theory, get into the grottos at night.”

  Laurel made a wrist-rotating get-on-with-it gesture. “What does that have to do with Sanjay and Zoe?” she asked.

  “So, it takes me twenty minutes to get to the Shrine,” Arnie continued. “I’m guessing Zoe has a police scanner, because by the time I pull up in the parking lot, her Mercedes is already there. She’s rummaging in the back seat of her car and completely ignores me. Sanjay is pounding up the slope, and I can now see a black lamb tethered to a statue of whozit—Joseph, I mean. I can see the lamb, squirming and kicking, and I can see three young, I think male, coyotes doing the coyote slink, closer and closer to what to them looks like dinner.”

  “Oh no!” Jen said. “I hope you shot those coyotes!”

  “I don’t,” Arnie said, “have anything against coyotes, per se. We make it easy for them to hang out with us, leaving food out for them: garbage, pet feces—”

  “Gross!” Jen responded.

  “Coyotes can eat things that would gag a seagull,” Arnie said. “And these particular half-grown coyotes are too close to town, too close to schools, and too close to the Dairy Swirl Delite. I get out of the car, slam the door, and take out my sidearm. The coyote nearest me turns, raises its ruff to look more like a big old wolf, and growls, because unlike wolves, coyotes aren’t all that impressed with us. I take a firing stance, and the next thing I know, there are packages—parcels—sailing in all around me. The coyote looks horrified, and I fire into the air, and there I am, standing in a rain of braunschweiger.”

  “Oh, Arnie, what the hell,” Claire protested.

  “Zoe is throwing food. Sanjay is still charging toward the shrine, heading for the lamb, but he’s strafing the hillside with liver sausage. I’m yelling, ‘Get down!’ so I can get a shot off, but neither of them pays any attention to me. The coyote closest to me has what must be a pound of braunschweiger in its jaws. Its lips are curled back over salivating teeth, and the two other coyotes have bloody butcher packages in their mouths. Zoe throws down a flashbang, which are, of course, illegal. When my vision clears, the coyotes are half a mile away, Zoe’s got the lamb tucked into her camel hair coat, and Sanjay’s reached behind a rock where the lamb was tethered, and collared a gangly teenager who obviously planned to film The Silence of the Lamb.”

  “Is the lamb all right?” Claire asked.

  “The lamb is fine,” Arnie reassured her.

  “You arrested the little fuckhead?” Laurel looked nauseated.

  “No charge would have held up,” Arnie said. “He hadn’t done anything. He could have used a dozen excuses.”

  Jen looked green around the mouth. “Arnie, that was an awful story.”

  Arnie shrugged. “But around here, how many people are going to worry about one lamb? Or the coyotes he was setting up?”

  “Sanjay did.” Laurel nodded slowly. “Zoe did.”

  “The kid got off scot-free?” Claire asked, sounding incredulous.

  Arnie said, “It’s possible that Sanjay kicked him in the nuts hard enough to put his gonads where adenoids belong. Then he took the shit-caked, trembling lamb from Zoe and got in her Mercedes, holding it on his lap.”

  “Wait a minute,” Claire said. “There’s a black sheep at the Marshes’. It hangs out with Bill the donkey.”

  Arnie shrugged. “I did talk to the boy’s father, who said he’d get the boy into counseling. He said his son had been dared by older kids.”

  “All right,” Laurel said, throwing up her hands. “Sanjay is an OK guy.”

  “That brings us to the Marshes,” Arnie continued. “They have no records of any kind between them. They’re a problem because everyone swears they’re angels, and we don’t believe in angels. However, we haven’t been able to disprove that theory yet.”

  “I’m glad the lamb was all right,” Claire said.

  “You eat lamb,” Laurel pointed out.

  “Only at Easter.” Claire was defensive. “Ann finds me a butcher that she says is humane.”

  “On to Ann Campbell, then,” Arnie directed. “Maybe you know, when she was young and a real looker, she married a rich old fart named Montgomery Montgomery. Montgomery Montgomery drank himself to death. Maybe she helped him drink himself to death. They could go through bottles of booze at a local tavern faster than a blue racer cuts your path. But he loved her, and she made him happy. Far as I know, you can’t force anyone to develop liver cancer.

  “He left her the money she used for the store, and she’s done well with it. She’s got that half-log house uphill from the store—probably cost $400,000—and a view over pine woods to the east, and maple forests to the west. Everyone thought Tansy would move in with her someday. Patsy lives there, cleans for her, house-sits if Ann takes a trip. Patsy’s not the brightest star in the sky, but she wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not deliberately, that is. Claire, you’ve still got bruises?”
>
  “Who’d you hear that story from?”

  “Ann. Who else? As for Tansy, she was a wild kid when she was younger. But since she went away to school and got that job as an administrator at Best to Be, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. What kind of a name is that for an assisted living place? Best to Be. What does it even mean?”

  “‘Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be,’” Laurel quoted. “Look forward to old age, Arnie.”

  “Balls,” Arnie said. “Who wrote that? Tennyson? I think I read that in high school.”

  “Browning,” Laurel told him.

  “Browning, Tennyson. Balls,” Arnie repeated. “Whoever wrote that must have had money. We can do more now than we used to, but my father ended up in a wheelchair with my mom taking care of him. Please, shoot me if that happens.”

  Claire, out of habit, crossed herself.

  “What about Murphy?” Laurel asked.

  Jen looked troubled. “He helped with Zoe’s horse when Elaine got hurt,” she said. “But that’s when I saw he has a knife in his boot.”

  “He’s got a Purple Heart from the Afghan war. He drove a tank that hit a mine. Survived by a freak chance. Dragged out half of a friend who’d caught some major shrapnel. I don’t think he is looking for trouble,” Arnie said.

  “Jesus, Arnie, don’t sugarcoat it,” Laurel said.

  Claire stared out the window. “I don’t know, Laurel. Maybe if you die like that—really dead, really fast—you don’t feel it. Pow. Shock sets in. Doesn’t that happen, Arnie?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It happens. Your nervous system goes out before your brain knows you’re dead.”

  Laurel got up and hiked up her pajamas. “Bathroom,” she said. “Are we winding this up?”

  “Yeah,” Arnie said again. “When I get philosophic, it is definitely time to wind it up. Don’t forget, when you get up, Bertram Allarbee will be here. Maybe earlier. You’ll know him when you see him. He’s like a tall, brick-shaped Boy Scout.” He yawned.

  Claire yawned and finished her bourbon. “G’night, Arn. I’m glad you’re staying. I’m going to bed. Or to recliner.”

  When the house had settled for the night, Arnie sat awake, his Glock out on the table, waiting for Bertram Allarbee to show up, which he did in about an hour.

  Allarbee looked exhausted.

  “Carousing?” Arnie said.

  “No, sir. I don’t sleep much. Never have,” Bertram said.

  “I knew there was a reason I asked for you.”

  The two went over Arnie’s notes, including Claire’s laminated missive and a quick sketch of the house—bathrooms, bedrooms, windows, and exits.

  “Take a flashlight with you. Look around. Don’t trip on the recliner. I’ll wait up until you’re back from casing the place. There’s food. Eat what you find.”

  Allarbee made it around the house quietly for a man who was, except for a penlight, moving in the dark. He spent extra time on the second floor.

  When he got back to the kitchen, he said, “Sir, there’s a skinny sugar maple growing up against the house. Reaches a second story window.”

  “Good point. Cut it down tomorrow, Bertram,” Arnie said. He stretched his arms out on the table and laid his head on one arm.

  “Homeowner may bitch, sir. Sir?”

  Allarbee waited a minute. At first, there was no answer, then a wavering snore.

  “Consider it cut down,” Allarbee said. He pulled his service weapon out of his pocket, surveyed the tray of leftovers, and sat down to wait.

  Charles, who had gotten Claire’s e-mail, arrived not long after Arnie had fallen asleep and immediately fell afoul of Bertram Allarbee. “I’m Charles,” he said, as though that explained everything.

  Allarbee did what he did best. He remained silent and stolid.

  “Claire must have told you. It took me some time to get the truck and ask Ed to stay with Oscar.”

  Bertram Allarbee handcuffed Charles to the steering wheel of his truck.

  “Wake Claire up,” Arnie said groggily. “Don’t, for God’s sake, tell her Charles is here. See if she’s expecting him.”

  Allarbee found Claire in the process of getting dressed, which should have been more embarrassing than it was.

  “Terrible sounding truck,” she said, pulling a sweater over her head. “I might as well get up. I think Charles is here.”

  Arnie uncuffed Charles. “Let her go back to sleep,” he said, his voice curt.

  “I’m not going to jump her in a reclining chair.”

  If Arnie had any doubts about Claire and Charles’s situation, that statement cleared them up.

  Charles, realizing he’d committed the biggest faux pas of his life, skulked into the room lined with books and fell asleep on the floor.

  The next day, while working in the basement with Claire, Charles knew he should confess his blunder, but she wanted to catch him up on the detecting. Her description of the laminated warning destroyed any conversational plans he’d had. He tried giving her a reassuring hug, but she didn’t seem reassured, so he just listened. He grimaced at her descriptions of Whit’s misadventure, and at the story of Sanjay and the coyotes. Predators, he thought. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them, which brought him to a question.

  “Claire, do you have any idea how Pearl gets out? I saw him out on the patio this morning. Allarbee risk-proofed this house so tight a red ant couldn’t get in, and I know he boarded up the cat door.” After a minute, he added, “Thank Arnie for sharing the notes he collected. Who attacks an old horse? Who knew Murphy had a cutlass in his boot?”

  “It wasn’t a cutlass,” Claire corrected him, as he had intended. “And I don’t know how Pearl is getting out. I think he hates kitty litter.”

  “It’s smelly, that’s for sure. I think Oscar is about ready to vacate the coop, which will mean less crawling around the loft cleaning up.”

  “Ed can take care of him?”

  “Well, yeah. Ed can’t crawl around cleaning the loft up, but he’s looked after hurt birds and small mammals for me before. I check on his chickens, remember?”

  Claire didn’t answer Charles. Long ago, there had been a washing machine there—maybe a wringer washer, she guessed. She thought traces of George’s family’s life had disappeared, but the faint smell of Lux soap flakes kept company with the smell of cigars George had smoked there. When the weather was inclement, he’d hunched down in one of two old, cracked brown leather armchairs. An empty can of Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner and a pile of damp sponges and paper towels testified that Patsy had scrubbed the old splay-legged Ping-Pong table. Cartons of wine, scotch, and bourbon had been pushed back under the stairs.

  Even an old handcrafted oak cabinet had not escaped cleaning. It sat against the opposite wall, the door slightly open, revealing a fly rod. The front of the cupboard looked bleached, scrubbed lighter than the sides. The box of hand-tied flies lay tipped over on the floor, the feathers that had adorned some lures eaten by mice.

  “Oscar good. Kitty litter bad,” Charles tried.

  He set another beer case filled with comic books onto the table for Claire to go through. The table quaked but stabilized. His job—sorting out George’s meager coin collection—was something he could do, owing to a brief infatuation with odd forms of currency. He sat on the floor, back against an armchair, piling up small stacks of nickels and dimes. The task was boring, but useful, and he wanted to be useful.

  George’s comic book collection, left over from his teens and stored in plastic bags, left Claire feeling emotionally off balance. Grisly faces from Tales from the Crypt stared at her. The Crypt Keeper had a neat center part and shoulder-length white hair. Wizened, nearly fleshless skeletons lurching from graves made her thankful George had been cremated. Who knew her urbane husband had been a teenager once? Had that teenager pictured a wife who would cheat on him after his death? She would not—would not—allow any of these stumblebum bone piles into her dreams.

 
She and Charles were equally dusty and tired. At least the basement was cooler than the rest of the house. Previous comic books examined included frayed issues of Archie, Captain America, and Superman, but had not yielded an Action Comics Number One. George’s collection of coins—mostly Indian Head pennies and V nickels—had not yielded a 1909 S VDB.

  Pearl had slept in Claire’s lap the night before, purring and stretching, then kneading her with front paws and the tips of his claws. Charles had slept on the floor in the room with George’s books, and at one point, Pearl had inspected him, sniffing him carefully. He had given Charles a measuring look when Charles put cream down in the morning, as though to say, “I trust you got rid of that bird.”

  Claire had an uneasy feeling that Arnie had conscripted Laurel so she and Charles would spend time together. As a result, they had headed for the basement feeling coals of fire on their heads. Claire had known it was inevitable that she would hurt Arnie, but that didn’t make the process of hurting him easier.

  Pearl rubbed against her ankles. Claire glanced down and saw he had a dead shrew in his mouth.

  “Back, are you? Charles is right,” she said. “We should know how you get in and out.” She forestalled conjecture by using a Kleenex to accept Pearl’s offering and then handing it to Charles. “Ick,” she said. “Teensy weensy intestines are still intestines. And please, Charles, don’t tell me about shrews or shrew guts.”

  He fell into his role of court jester. “The Romans thought you could tell the future from animal intestines. Haruspication.”

  “Don’t tell me about haruspication, either.”

  LAUREL, WHO DID not believe in haruspication, had no way to predict her future. She stood in Arnie’s living room, which consisted of practical, dark brown upholstered furniture, a black-and-brown carpet, drawn black drapes, and a surprisingly large television screen. He was already heading for the kitchen to get his laptop computer. Although he’d reviewed the case notes with everyone in the morning, department discipline, not to mention his own good sense, dictated information and theories be typed up and saved. Besides, he’d promised Elaine he’d e-mail her a copy.