Dead Dogs and Englishmen (12 page)

The question made my stomach lurch. I couldn't imagine Dolly giving away family.

“That would never happen.”

Cate blinked and smiled brightly. “Then what do you want her to do? I mean now that the deed is done?”

I shook my head, forcing myself to simmer down. “I don't want Dolly to do anything but look after herself and the baby. Later—I'll stand by whatever she wants to do. For right now, she's got to see a doctor …”

“Oh, but she did. I should have told you. This morning. There's a doctor affiliated with the hospital in Kalkaska. They got her right in.”

“Is she okay?”

“The spotting was nothing. Normal, for some women. Baby's doing fine.”

“Does she know … what it is?”

“The baby?”

I nodded, getting a little frustrated chasing answers around the block and back.

“No, not yet. Too early, I think.”

“How far along is she?

“About three months.”

“Due?”

“Sometime in January.”

I sat back, breath let out of me. So she did the responsible thing after all and here I was, busily discussing her business behind her back. I felt as if I was growing smaller, like Alice. Maybe it was because Alice stuck her nose into other people's business
too—like following the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole, or
demanding answers of queens and cats. A lesson I'd obviously missed in childhood.

I left after asking Cate not to mention I'd been by the house. She clucked and promised that not a single word would pass her lips, which didn't reassure me.

At home I was met with an angry puddle of pee right outside the door to the screened-in side porch. Of course I stepped in it with my bare foot, having kicked my sandals off as I'd entered the house. Sorrow sat in the far corner, behind a white wicker arm chair, and tried to look mad at me for being gone so long, right at the time of day when we usually went for our walk. All he could work up to was looking unhappy, and sad, now that he'd chosen to punish me by peeing on our floor, a method even dogs found degrading.

“Thanks a lot.” Using sarcasm on a dog was a healthy way to purge anger.

His eyebrows went up and down, independently. He sneezed twice, obviously trying to garner sympathy for his faux malady. I hopped, on one foot, into the bathroom, then back out with a bucket and rag. Pee sopped up and forgotten, Sorrow came leaping at me for the joyous reunion we'd missed.

Our walk was short—because the day was hot and my shady woods didn't exist. I set the hoses in my flower beds and looked over the glorious, pink Queen Elizabeth bloom on one bush; propped up the last of the pink and white peonies; and checked for blossoms on the clematis I'd planted at the base of a tall stump where a maple had been bowled over by a wild, summer wind.

When I put on my gardening gloves I found a cocoon inside. I threw the gloves but had to go get them and pry the cocoon out with a stick. Instead of gardening I spent the next few hours pulling cocoons from my log pile, from the boards of my house, from my gardening bench … just about everything inanimate that had a cocoon attached. Creepy. Like being trapped in a nightmare, the vampire creatures moving in on me, everywhere I looked—no getting away from them. I was afraid, if I stood still too long, I'd find one in my armpit, or behind my knee, in my ear …

When the phone rang I had to put down my stick of death. Inside, I answered before checking the caller ID and got exactly what I deserved.

“Have a busy day, Emily?” Talk about angry, dripping, pointed sarcasm.

“Must be Dolly Wakowski.”

“Been talking to Lucky?”

“Someone had to.”

“And my grandmother?”

Ah, that woman was a true secret keeper. “I needed to, Dolly. You were scaring me. You weren't thinking straight.”

“Yeah. Like it's your problem.”

“It's everybody's problem.”

She was quiet.

“Well, I'm sorry …” I began, knowing I didn't sound sorry at all. To sound sorry around Dolly was like offering your throat up for the knife.

“Nah, you're not sorry about anything.” She was quiet. “I guess, if I was in your shoes I'd have done the same thing. I haven't been thinking right. Came as a big surprise. Still, it's not that I'm not happy about it. I am. And I don't care what anybody else thinks. My life, Emily. Nobody got me through anything before now. Not one single person. Anything I did, I did it myself. This too. So don't go on thinking you have to be my friend or anything. If you don't approve of me, see if I care.”

“Dolly. I am your friend. I'm not judging you. I just got scared. It didn't seem as if you were taking care of yourself …” I hesitated. “Catherine told me you'd been to a doctor. That's all I wanted. I hear it's next January. Quiet time of year. Might as well have a baby and …”

She cut me off, in no mood to put up with my teasing. “Anyway, I called to tell you we could be close to ID-ing the dead woman.”

My head wasn't up to the leap from Dolly being mad to Dolly being professional.

“… eh … fingerprints?”

“No. Got a phone call. Can't say anything else yet 'cause you'll write it up for the paper and we're not there yet.”

I was back into professional mode too, wanting the story.

“Then when?”

“Somebody's coming to see me in the mornin'.”

“You'll let me know?”

“Sure, me or Officer Winston.”

“You mean that Omar? What a stick. I'm not working with that …”

“Don't jump to so many conclusions, Emily. Omar's a good man. Does his job.”

“Can't stand him. I'll call Brent if you don't let me in on what's happening.”

“I said I'd call you.”

“Well … you better. I'm not talking to Omar Winston.”

“You're just dumb.”

“Yeah, well … and you're just …” I couldn't think of anything appropriate so I hung up and went out to tell Sorrow what a frustrating, pig-headed bully Deputy Dolly Wakowski was.

The hot spell was
going to hang around for a few days, according to our stalwart weathermen, who took particular glee in announcing bad weather:
big storm coming; eighteen inches of snow or more by morning; conditions ripe for a tornado so stay tuned; thunder storm coming out of the west; sleet tonight; icy roads by morning.

In the north country it wasn't like Florida where the weather, except in hurricane season, was bland. Our guys got to use their weather maps and projections and plots of fronts coming down from the north since Canada seemed to be at fault for almost all the bad weather we got.

The temperature didn't fall below seventy-five that night. My sheets felt like wet winding rags. I couldn't get them off my legs when I turned. Kicking and peeling them from my skin brought me wide awake. Sorrow was in bed with me, his large, warm, furry body laid out alongside mine. I gave him a push and he rolled to the floor with a huge complaint. So like Jackson in the latter days of our marriage, it made me wonder again why I'd ever thought a mangled-fur, ugly dog was the answer to all my problems.

I got out of bed at four a.m., got a cold diet Coke from the refrigerator, took a shower, and went to sit on the deck with my feet propped on the railing, praying I wasn't sitting atop a tent worm cocoon. Since I was naked, I was truly happy I didn't have any near neighbors. I figured any bear, or coyote, or fox who might be watching had nothing to compare me to and I wouldn't be judged. Skunks didn't care what we looked like. Raccoons had better things to think about. And chipmunks—well—they were probably still sleeping.

The sun wasn't up yet so the stars were a long, still curtain against the deep black night. Millions and millions of stars in shapes and forms I didn't have names for. One shot from east to west over the lake. Were you supposed to make a wish on a shooting star? I didn't know so figured I'd do it anyway—just in case. No sense missing a chance to have all my dreams come true. I threw my arms back, welcoming the earth dampness coming up between the floor boards. I yawned and thought again what a lucky woman I was. Maybe not forever. Maybe not even tomorrow. But right now, in this place where I so wanted to stay—I was the most fortunate of humans.

On the next shooting star I wished that Madeleine Clark would sell my book. Then I wished people would like it. Then I wished I would make tons of money. Then I wished that maybe, someday in the future, I'd find a wonderful, and funny, interesting and devoted, self-contained and humble guy who was into me,
and Sorrow, and tent worms, and gardens, and finding dead
bodies …

I had to go back and erase the last wishes. I was beyond my allotted one wish so I sat for the next hour hunting for shooting stars to carry all my dreams. No more shooting stars, and then the sun came up. I sat until I had deep ridges in my butt from the chair and my cheeks were almost numb. I sat until the eastern sky and the lake turned red, until the bare tree trunks were on fire. I sat until the cool damp disappeared and wet heat came from the lake; until the slightly moving ferns dripped a heavy dew.

No more shooting stars.

No more wishes.

I was tired. I went back into the house, drank another diet Coke, and lay down on my sofa with a fan trained directly on my body.

It was even hotter after the sun rose up. No sleeping. I took another shower, then faced the work I had waiting. Which manuscript should I start with? Cecil Hawke's in one hand, Jackson's in the other. Crass soul that I'd become, I weighed them both:
Canterbury Tales
? Noel Coward?
Tales
? Coward? Hmmm …
Tale
s? Coward?

Who was paying best for my attention?

I picked up Cecil Hawke's large manila envelope, went back out to the shady side of the deck—this time with clothes on—and sat in a half-reclined lounge chair. I unsealed the envelope, and prepared to be entertained with sparkling wit and light repartee.

I read:

The little boy crawled along the walls of the basement room where he was confined in the dark, small hands feeling their way across the rough cinder blocks, then over the wall where the peeling paint came off like dried skin. He moved his hands up the wall, hunting for the shelf where he'd seen her put a biscuit. In the dark he was disoriented, unsure of where he was in the room, he'd been around the walls so many times. If only the light beyond the door would come on. He sat on the rough cement floor and made a plan, the way he always did, eventually. What he would do was keep crawling and stand every few feet. He would search the walls with his hands until he found the shelf, and the biscuit. He was hungry. It was the only way he had of figuring how long he'd been locked in here and how much longer he'd have to wait until she let him out. If he was hungry it was past his lunch time. Once she'd left him until dinner time was over. He'd been very hungry then and cried. That was why she left him the biscuit on the shelf now. “Occupy yourself,” she'd said. “Play find the biscuit. And I'll be back before you notice.”

But he always noticed, because it was so dark. No light, she said, because he wasn't supposed to be there. Her new friend didn't know she was old enough to have a growing boy. And so—here she would laugh and put a finger to her dark lips—you must not ‘be' for just a little while.

The boy was used to the dark. He would think about the biscuit and time would pass. When the man was gone, she would come and open the door. First he would see the light under the door and then hear the key in the lock and she would hug him and beg him to forgive her and cover his face with kisses as he pulled away from her and the smell of animals she would have on her. Not the smell of the man's dog. He'd heard the click, click of the dog's nails on the floor above his head. He'd heard the man calling to his dog. “Freddy. Freddy, ya little bastard, ya peed on Freda's rug.” The animal smell went deeper than that, all the way into her clothes, and on her skin so that when she pulled him close, he had to turn away from her or gag, and be smacked for gagging.

I set the pages aside and picked up the envelope they'd come in to see if there was any identification, title, something, there. Nothing. I looked at the manuscript. No title page. No title on each sheet, as there should have been. Nothing to indicate that this was what it was supposed to be.

Obviously Lila gave me the wrong manuscript. But what was this? Something else he was working on? Certainly fiction. And very dark fiction. A completely different side of Cecil Hawke. Or maybe it wasn't his at all. Something he'd agree to look at for a friend. Or written years ago. It could even be one of Lila's little jokes. From a book of short stories. Stolen from the Internet. Certainly not light and funny. Certainly not Noel Coward.

I set the manuscript aside and went into the house to make a tuna sandwich and open a diet Coke. It was clear I'd have to call Cecil, tell him I'd been given the wrong work, and get it back to him. A lot of hassle when I least felt like facing chaos.

I went out to my dock to eat because the sun had disappeared behind a high bank of clouds and the water gave off little eddies of coolness. I set the sandwich and plate and Coke beside me and put my feet into the cool water.

I couldn't shake what I'd read. The ring of truth was there, almost of biography. I could feel what that boy was feeling, but even more, sensed something terrible to come.

Too much imagination, I chided myself, finished my sandwich, called to Sorrow who was busy chasing loons out in the lake, and went back to the house, glancing down at the manuscript as I passed the chair where I'd been sitting.

It was a thing calling to me. I should alert Cecil, but not until I found out if the boy got out of the locked room, and what happened to him after that. I was drawn back to my deck chair and the manuscript.

Eating the biscuit took as long as he could nibble, taking only tiny bites, then licking crumbs from his other hand, and chewing so slowly he fell asleep with the biscuit in his mouth and woke up, startled, with bits falling from his hand and on to the floor.

After the biscuit and the nap, he occupied himself by rocking back and forth and humming lullabies. He slept again and woke to noises overhead. There were heavy footfalls, and the scratching of the dog's nails against the bare floor. Words were spoken but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He lay back against the wall, rested his head, forgot the dirty floor and bugs and things and played word games in his mind. The first was thinking up as many words as he could to fill blanks he left in sentences:

‘The little boy
…
going to see his
…
and receive a very nice
…
He came up with ‘was' ‘grandmother' and ‘present.'

Constructing sentences in his head impressed him. He could make pictures that way, make up nice things to do and nice places to go. If he kept his eyes shut against the dark and his ears closed against creaks and whispers he could be happy all by himself.

He fell asleep again, after making sentences that took him out into a green field where there were giraffes and rhinoceroses and they all came to him and though he really didn't want to, he yelled and ran at them with the big knife he held in his hand.

When he woke he didn't like that he'd dreamed of those dead giraffes and rhinoceroses and that he'd been stabbing them again and again and feeling happy about seeing them dead.

It was a very long time before a thin crack of light came on beneath the door. He crawled to it and lay flat on his stomach to fit his eye to the crack so he could see her shoes on the other side. Her shoes weren't there. He saw large paws instead; the big wide feet of a dog. Before he could remember a dog couldn't turn on lights, he stuck his fingers under the door, at least as far as his chubby hand could go. He wiggled his fingers to touch the dog, cooing nicely to it even as the dog stepped back and growled.

“Don't be afraid, Freddy,” he soothed as the frightened animal licked the last of the biscuit crumbs from his fingers. “I won't hurt you.”

There was another growl, and then pain that lasted as his hand was pulled and pulled and someone beyond the door laughed, and his mother's voice chided, “That's a mean joke, Murray. Ya didn't have to do that to the boy.”

“What boy, Emily? Thought ya had no kids. Serves ya right for telling me lies.”

The boy knew there was blood when he pulled his hand back from beneath the door. He tasted the blood when he stuck his fingers into his mouth. His middle finger was shorter than it should have been. He began to cry when he realized he'd never get that last knuckle back, that the dog on the other side of the door had bitten it off and was probably eating his finger right then because the dog was hungry, too.

What was I reading? I hoped not autobiography. Cecil Hawke had lost the knuckle of one finger—I couldn't remember which—the hand he'd put on my knee again and again. He hadn't hidden the fact that his hand was maimed. But what was this? And the dog … Freddy? I thought hard back to meeting Cecil and his dog. Wasn't that dog's name Freddy too?

Writers had every right to use their own lives for material, I kept telling myself. But this wasn't supposed to be fiction and not supposed to be horror. I'd expected Noel Coward. Been led to believe I would be reading a life story of a very different sort.

There had to be a mistake. I had to call. We'd laugh and clear things up.

I'd have been more sure of a mistake if it hadn't been for that missing knuckle and ‘Freddy.'

_____

A woman answered the phone.

“Hawke residence.” Not Lila but maybe that mysterious maid Cecil'd referred to.

I identified myself and asked to speak to Mr. Hawke.

The maid came back to tell me Mr. Hawke would be with me momentarily. As she said “momentarily” I got a hint of something, in the lift of that one word, that made me think I was talking to Lila, after all. Lila, the actress, playing so many roles in that house. There couldn't be a shortage of money—I'd seen the farm and the house and the furnishings. Though all that badly chosen art made me wonder. Probably a game she liked to play, like the other games they played: loving each other, making guests uncomfortable for their own amusement, using people.

“Hello.” It was Cecil, hale and happy and not suspecting I'd been reading the wrong material, maybe very secret material. “Ah, yes, Emily. And have you made any headway with my book yet?”

I took a deep breath. It was like knowing something about somebody you shouldn't know and then having to face them. Maybe it was by phone, but still I felt that I'd been prying into his life.

“In a way.”