Iris Avenue (13 page)

She knew he would return full of apologies made out of the words he had to use to get back in her good graces, back in their home, back in their marriage. His promises always turned out to be as hollow and brittle as bird eggs in an abandoned nest; they were pretty to look at but crumbled under the slightest pressure.

The dogs had still not returned, and Hannah feared they were tracking a deer, which meant they might be gone awhile. They would come to their senses eventually, and then Jax’s sense of direction and Wally’s keen intelligence would help them find their way home.

‘If no one shoots them first,’ Hannah thought. She put on her coat and grabbed a flashlight before sticking her feet down in the snow boots that stood next to the side door. It was cold outside, but not bitterly cold. Mercifully the snow was falling straight down in big fat flakes, not blowing sideways like piercing needles.

She called for the dogs and whistled, but only heard the kennel dogs bark in response. She followed her dogs’ tracks to the outbuildings and saw they had circled the shed where Sam kept his four-wheeler and tools. The door was ajar, and Hannah felt a little frisson of fear as she realized her only means of protection had just run off into the woods. There were no human footprints in the newly fallen snow outside the shed, only paw prints, but the dogs were definitely on the trail of something or someone. Hannah slowly opened the door the rest of the way and pointed the flashlight inside. The four-wheeler and wagon Sam used to do chores on the farm were inside, along with all his tools, but nothing seemed disturbed.

Hannah shut and bolted the door behind her as she left the shed. She followed the dog tracks on out to the barn, which Hannah was relieved to see was bolted and locked with the pad lock. She pulled her keys out of her coat pocket, unlocked the door, and went in to check on the inmates. They were restless, so she decided to let them out for a breath of fresh air.

The four pit bulls currently on death row had been raised to fight and thus far had resisted all her efforts at socialization. Because they were so vicious, she had to let them out one at a time into an outdoor pen connected to each kennel by a sliding door. She was about to let the first one out when she heard footsteps crunching in the snow outside the barn. All four of the dogs started growling, a deep menacing sound.

Hannah made a quick decision. She climbed on top of the kennel that held the pit bull she was about to let outside, and instead of unlocking the door to the outside pen, she unlocked the door that opened into the barn. She lifted the pen door a few inches and the dog sniffed and scratched at the opening. She hadn’t turned on the lights in the barn, so other than a night light and her flashlight, all was in darkness. When the footsteps reached the entrance to the barn Hannah shone her flashlight in the face of the person standing in the doorway. The dogs erupted in a frenzy of barking.

“Take one more step and I’ll let this dog loose!” she yelled. “He’ll tear you to pieces!”

The pit bull in the kennel below her started lunging against the kennel door, foam flying from a mouth full of wicked looking teeth. Hannah shone her flashlight down on the frothing, scarred muzzle of the dog below her, and when she tipped the light back up at the door the man had disappeared. Hannah thought she could hear running steps in the snow, but the dogs were barking so loud she thought she may have imagined it. She dropped the kennel door back down, secured it, and then climbed down.

“That was an awful thing to do to you and I apologize,” she told the dog, and then let him out the back of his kennel into the penned area outside.

She heard the dog rush to the far end of the enclosure and lunge against it, the chain link fence ringing under his onslaught. His snarling made him sound like a beast straight out of hell.

‘That ought to make an impression,’ Hannah thought.

Hannah cursed herself for coming outside without a gun or a cell phone. She hadn’t even locked the door of the house behind her. Her housedogs were who knows where on the trail of some deer, or lured into a trap by the intruder, and she was stuck in the barn with only four vicious dogs for protection. There was no way to lock the barn door from the inside.

After she exercised each dog, Hannah closed the barn door and locked herself in her barn office. She searched the room for some sort of weapon, and almost cried in relief when she found an old tazer in the bottom drawer. It had an unreliable safety setting which made it dangerous to leave in the glove box of her animal control truck, and she’d intended to get it repaired.

She turned it on and found it still had a charge. She thanked her lucky stars for her own procrastination. There was no phone connection in the barn and her cell phone was in the kitchen, recharging. She needed to get from the barn to the house in order to call for help, but had no way of knowing where the intruder was.

Hannah was torn between staying right where she was or trying to get to the house. She cleaned the frosted glass of the office window on the back wall, which faced the long driveway down to the farm, and cupped her hands in order to see outside. In the light from the motion detection lamps on the side of the barn she could see the footprints of the intruder going from around the back of the barn to the front, and then retreating in the same direction. But then to where? They didn’t seem to lead to the house, but what if he was waiting around the corner of the barn for Hannah to make a run for it?

The dogs had calmed down. She knew they would alert her if anyone entered the barn. She wished one of the inmates was friendly enough to put on a leash, but there wasn’t one she could trust not to turn on her.

Hannah turned on the milk house heater and sat down in the old horsehair-filled armchair that sat across from its twin. She and Maggie often retreated to this club house to discuss problems and gossip, and it was where she kept the county animal control files.

It was also where Hannah came to smoke back when she still smoked. She desperately wanted a cigarette right now and knew if she looked hard enough she could find one; but if she was pregnant, she wasn’t taking any chances with the baby. This thought helped her make up her mind. She would stay put until daylight came or until her dogs came home.

She looked up at the ceiling of the office and spoke out loud.

“You gotta help me out here, man,” she said. “I need your help.”

At four o’clock in the morning Maggie woke up worrying about Hannah. She grabbed the phone and punched in her cousin’s number before she was fully awake, and when no one answered after the tenth ring, she jumped out of bed and pulled on some jeans.

Ordinarily she would call Scott and ask to borrow his SUV, but that no longer seemed like a viable option. Instead she threw on her coat and snow boots and quickly walked several blocks through the newly fallen snow, down to the trailer park where her brother Patrick was living.

All the while she called Hannah over and over on her cell phone. Her brother was cross at being awakened, having only gone to bed a couple hours previously, but he didn’t hesitate to get dressed and drive Maggie out to Hannah’s, only insisting they take his beagle with them.

“Otherwise he’ll wake up the neighborhood with his howling.”

Banjo was one of the foster placements Hannah had made from the pack of dogs included in Theo Eldridge’s breeding scam. The dog was so attached to Patrick that he howled pitifully whenever the man left his sight for longer than five minutes. Banjo spent all day in the service station, all evening in the Rose and Thorn, and slept at the foot of Patrick’s bed at night. Patrick didn’t seem to mind him, and it had become customary to see the dog following him everywhere he went.

Banjo sat between Patrick and Maggie in the cab of the truck and seemed to enjoy getting to go somewhere. Maggie had only told Patrick she couldn’t find Hannah, and now they speculated on where she could be or why she wasn’t answering her home phone or cell phone.

“Maybe Sam came home,” Patrick suggested.

Maggie was calling again.

“If someone called as many times as I’ve called she would answer. It’s the middle of the night. She’s got parents, brothers, nieces and nephews. She would answer.”

“She shouldn’t be staying out there all by herself.”

“Well, if her stupid husband would quit running off she wouldn’t be.”

“He’s been to hell and back,” Patrick said. “He’s got post traumatic stress disorder. She knew that when she married him.”

“She was in love with him. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like long-term.”

“I think I know Sam,” Patrick said. “But I don’t, not really. I’d do anything for him, and he for me, but I wouldn’t say we’re close like we were in high school. He keeps himself to himself.”

“Maybe he’s gone off the deep end. Speaking of which, have you talked to Anne Marie since she got back? I had to throw her out of my bookstore.”

“Anne Marie came into the Thorn and tried to convince Ian to quit selling alcohol. He had to call Knox to come get her.”

“I’m beginning to think everyone in this town is crazy, not just our family. Who could ever have believed Brian would do what he did?”

“I’m just glad he didn’t go to Mom and Dad’s house.”

“He won’t get far in my car,” Maggie said. “The voltage regulator is about to go, and if you run it faster than fifty miles per hour the whole car shakes so hard you think it’s going to fly apart.”

“It’s time you retired that thing and let me get you something more reliable. I found a car for Ed that…”

“You don’t think Brian would go to Hannah’s,” Maggie interrupted, and they looked at each other in horror at the thought.

“Hold on, Banjo,” Patrick said.

Maggie gripped the dog’s collar as Patrick put his foot down hard on the gas pedal.

Bonnie Fitzpatrick arrived at the family bakery at four o’clock. She turned on the ovens and tied on her apron before taking the chilled croissant dough out of the walk-in fridge. She assembled all the ingredients necessary to make the croissants, cinnamon rolls, and doughnuts that were the staple of her early morning offerings.

She thought she could probably do the work in her sleep, and did in fact feel half asleep as she went through the motions. She’d loaded the trays of cinnamon rolls into the proofing box when she heard a knock at the front door. It was Ed and Tommy.

“My coffee maker finally bit the dust,” Ed said. “Could I prevail upon you to make some coffee for us?”

“Come in, come in,” Bonnie said. “I could use a cup myself. But Tommy shouldn’t be drinking coffee. I’ll make him some nice hot tea.”

Ed didn’t point out that tea had as much caffeine in it as coffee. In Bonnie’s mind children did not drink coffee; they drank hot sweet tea with a splash of milk in it.

Bonnie put a filter into one of the two commercial coffee makers behind the counter and then spooned ground coffee into it. She asked Tommy if he would grind some more beans for her, and he did as he was told. His mother worked there each day, and Tommy helped out almost every day after school, so there were few tasks he hadn’t done before. Ed sat down on one of the stools at the counter that ran around the perimeter of the bakery.

“I was sorry to hear about Brian,” Ed said.

“I appreciate you not putting that shameful business in the paper,” Bonnie said.

“It didn’t happen in Rose Hill,” Ed said, “and it hasn’t officially been reported to the public yet. I don’t print rumors and I don’t like to hamper the police.”

“I don’t know what I’ll say when it’s known,” Bonnie said. “With a son who’s broken out of prison and turns out to have a second wife and a child no one knew about.”

“I don’t know why Brian did what he did, but he’s still innocent until proven guilty.”

“Thank you for that,” Bonnie said. “I know the people in this town, and there’s bound to be many a tongue wagging already, although no one’s been brazen enough to ask me about it.”

Ed didn’t think anyone was brave enough to ask Bonnie about her son Brian, lest they suffer the wrath of her legendary temper. So fearful were people of Bonnie’s temper that she didn’t have to actually do anything except raise an eyebrow and look as if she might fly off the handle. The fact that she was known to have done so in the past was enough to put the fear into anyone.

“Brian gave you another fine grandchild,” Ed said.

“He did,” Bonnie said. “He’s the spitting image of Timothy at the same age. Just as feisty, too. Wants to hold his bottle all by himself and sits up already.”

Bonnie gave Ed a paper cup of coffee with a lid, and the same but tea for Tommy. Bonnie then surprised Tommy by giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek before he left.

“I consider you a fine grandchild of mine as well, even though we aren’t kin,” she told him. “Don’t you ever forget that. We may be a family of horse thieves and graverobbers, but we’ll always take you in when you’re cold and hungry. Did you eat this morning?”

“I did,” Tommy said. “Ed fixed me oatmeal.”

“That Ed’s a good fella,” Bonnie told him. “Mind you do what he tells you.”

Tommy smiled and waved goodbye to her and Ed followed him out, thanking Bonnie for the coffee.

As Bonnie watched them go she felt tears well up and a lump form in her throat.