The Hare

by Melanie Finn

  Except for Ginny. Ginny understood. Ginny chose Madame Bovary.

  Quite suddenly, Rose pulled open the stove door and threw in the book.

  She watched the fashion photographer burst into flame, and felt briefly, wildly happy.

  Bob was a chain smoker who would die at 104 or he’d be hit by lightning. But the smoking wouldn’t touch him. Rose wondered if meanness might be healthy, just being an asshole boosted your immune system. Look at Dick Cheney, look at Donald Trump. They didn’t get cancer.

  Bob liked to light up whenever anyone came into his office, it was his special way of putting you in your place. “If the state or whoever wants to come in here and arrest me for smoking in my own damn office, then they can go ahead and try,” he liked to say, opening his desk drawer a few inches. This is where he kept his gun. He played himself out as a hard ass. “Nothin’ that a match and a gallon of gasoline won’t fix,” was another favored line. He wore tight jeans and ironed shirts and probably would have worn cowboy boots if he thought he could get away with it in Vermont, which he couldn’t, no one could, unless you were a teenage girl or in costume for Halloween. He liked to think of himself as a rancher, maybe one of those heroes who’d take a stand against the government, on horseback, in the sagebrush, holding an American flag. But he was an egg farmer in the Northeast Kingdom.

  His wife, Margie, had been responsible for building the business from her ambition, acumen, and 20 laying hens. Margie had formed partnerships with the big supply chains, marketing her eggs as “family-owned” with a photo of herself in a gingham shirt cuddling a perky chicken. Her wholesome image came just as the state of Vermont was marketing itself as a place filled with Margie-like people who made maple syrup in their own woods, cheese from their own cows, socks from their own alpaca wool. She died of a heart attack, and Bob took over the business. It was an indication of her talent that she’d created a solid foundation and all Bob had to do was not fuck with anything. Perhaps she’d banked on his laziness. She must have known exactly who she was married to: a man who wore his muddy boots inside and left the mess for others to clean up.

  “There’s just a couple of questions I have, then we can sign off and get these to the tax man before the 15th.” Rose placed the spreadsheets in front of him. “You’ll see where I’ve highlighted on the pages.”

  Exhaling luxuriously into her face, Bob flipped through the printouts. “Looks fine.”

  “Except if you look here,” she leaned in and felt him retract away from her — recoil as if she smelled bad, and maybe she did, the hot flashes made her sweat like a boxer, mid-match. “These costs here, and here, aren’t tallying. So, either the numbers are wrong or we’re missing receipts or the receipts we have are somehow inaccurate. Or.”

  “Or?”

  “There’s something funny going on.”

  “Funny?” Bob snorted.

  “Well, money’s missing.”

  “It is not.”

  Rose said, “It is. Nearly seven grand.”

  Bob tilted back, blew his smoke so it wafted between them, a way of making her retreat with a small cough. “Look, Rose, if you can’t handle the accounts — I mean you said you could and I want to give you that chance and I get that this is your first year with us and everything — but Andy never had any problems. If you can’t figure it out, maybe Andy can recommend someone else.”

  Rose was very careful to focus her gaze on the wall behind him, on the many photographs Bob had of himself with a variety of dead animals and fish. She felt the sudden blooming of heat. Her head was in an oven, her body in the Sahara. In August. Actual sweat pricked her scalp. Jesus Christ, she was hot. She breathed in, out, in, out. She knew exactly what tone was required, there must not be a trace of sarcasm. “With all due respect, Bob, the numbers simply don’t add up. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing, but that I do.”

  “So? What? Andy didn’t?”

  “I haven’t looked at the accounts from last year. Maybe it wasn’t a problem last year.”

  “Honey, why don’t you do that. See how Andy did it. Copy the master.”

  “Don’t call me ‘honey,’ Bob. I’m 54.”

  “Gee, I thought you were older.”

  Rose retrieved the spreadsheets, turned and walked out. She should quit, of course, of course. But she needed the job and she wasn’t some delicate flower. She wasn’t Christine Blasey Ford wilting because a drunken boy had groped her 40 years ago. The whole Kavanaugh hearing irked Rose because it seemed to tell people they couldn’t change — not Christine, not Kavanaugh, they were epoxied to that moment in time when they hadn’t even been adults. Dumbass teenagers. The women in her book group looked at Blasey Ford and saw a rich, educated woman with a career, a loving family, and really expensive hair. Hardly a victim they could identify with. And Kavanaugh? He was a greasy, spoiled pig who’d get away with whatever he’d done because rich men always did, so why even bother to argue about it? Connie had said, “Rich white men have always run the show and they always will. Enda story.” Kavanaugh maybe didn’t even remember Christine, what he’d done had been so unimportant to him.

  Back at her desk, Rose pulled up Andy’s accounts. Sure enough, the same item columns were out of alignment — “Incineration.” And for the same amount. It was an interesting amount, perhaps carefully chosen; high enough to clearly show up in the accounts, but if the company was ever audited, low enough to explain away as an error and pay without serious penalty. “Incineration” was a clever choice, for the dead birds were taken by shed manager, Silas. There was never any paperwork, and it wasn’t as if the IRS would have any real idea of how much it cost to incinerate chicken carcasses, there wasn’t exactly a blue book value. No paperwork simply meant it was easier to find paperwork.

  Seven grand was a nice chunk. Rose wouldn’t mind seven grand, a holiday, a new used car, a new roof on the house. How did Bob spend it? She turned her attention back to the statement of accounts, she saw exactly how Andy had hidden the loss. Again, it was sly. A cursory audit would expose it, so it didn’t look purposefully hidden and it would be easy to explain. But if there was no audit, the waters folded smoothly over it.

  A knock at the window startled her. It was Nick.

  “Front gate!” he was saying, thrilled. “Cops!”

  Genetics had miraculously created Nick from Bob and Margie. Nick was tall and lean and dark, he was beautiful even in baggy blue overalls and Bogs boots, and Rose felt relieved to be so removed from lust, for she was sure that even a decade ago she would have fallen for this boy. “They want to talk to Dad!”

  Rose glanced out; the cops were standing in front of their cop car, on the other side of the steel mesh gate, a man, a woman. She felt a chill of panic, she always did, like a spooky, cold wind, in proximity to cops. But they were here for Bob. What had Bob been up to?

  “Do they say why?”

  “They do not say.”

  “Let me go tell him.”

  Rose shut the door behind her, stood for a count of ten inside the hallway. She could hear Bob down the hallway on the phone talking about his golf game. She re-opened the door to Nick, “He says, sure, invite them in.”

  She watched Nick stroll toward the gate, slide it open. The cops followed him into the compound. Rose met them at the bottom of the steps. The woman was hefty but she wasn’t bulgy, so Rose figured she lifted weights. A lot. She extended her hand. “Hi. I’m Detective Lieutenant Pamela Fornier. This is Detective Sergeant McRae from the Vermont State Police. We’re here to see Robert Booth.”

  “Sure. Let me take you to him.” Rose led them up and into the trailer, then directed them down the hallway. There was a lot of stuff on a cop, Rose noted as they passed, their belts like cop charm bracelets: flashlight, club, taser, gun, something in a Velcro pouch, cuffs, keys. Their heavy boots thumped on the rickety floor.

  “My wife buys your eggs,” McRae said. One of his boots was squeaking, so every other step there was a mouse-like eeeek
.

  “I can get a couple of dozen to take back to her,” Rose offered.

  “Thanks, but we’re not allowed to accept gifts.”

  As if anyone would try to bribe a cop with eggs. Rose knocked on Bob’s door, he was midway through a narrative about a tricky tee-off.

  “Hey, Bob, Detective Lieutenant Fornier and Detective Sergeant McRae from the state police are here to see you.”

  “What?” He fumbled with the phone. “Gotta call you back.”

  Rose stepped aside, allowing the cops to breach Bob’s doorway.

  “You’re Robert Booth,” Fornier said.

  “Ah, yeah, sure, that’s me. What is this about?” He gave Rose a quick poisoned look, thinking she’d called them in because of the accounting irregularities, then he delivered a rubbery smile to the cops. “Take a seat.”

  As Fornier made for the unstable swivel chair, Bob said, “Just watch that chair, Detective Sergeant —”

  “No,” she corrected. “I’m the Detective Lieutenant.”

  “That’s right. I really approve of affirmative action, it’s so important.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Fornier agreed. “Being a woman is the only reason I got the job. I’m not qualified at all.”

  “Just, yeah, hey, Rose, get another chair, get us coffee.”

  “It’s OK, we’ll stand.” Fornier braced her legs like a sailor, McRae folded his arms. He lifted, too. Maybe he lifted her, maybe she lifted him, while the wife stayed at home with her eggs.

  “Right. Sure. Rose, shut the door on the way out.” Demure, Rose obeyed. But in her office, she opened the heating vent by her desk. Normally, she kept this closed as it fired scorching hot air at her legs. Open, it was an intercom. She could hear everything said in Bob’s office — which, normally, was of no interest to her because she already knew he was a bore. Golf, an appointment with a proctologist for his hemorrhoids, more golf, complaints about Nick, and golf. She could also see, through the glass partition. Total audio-visual.

  Fornier was speaking “…your whereabouts on April 11th, between 6 p.m. and 1 a.m.”

  “That’s, ah, last Friday?”

  “Yes.”

  “I, um, I was, I’d have to check.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Now?”

  “Sure. Now is good for us.”

  “Can you let me know what this is about?”

  “A crime.”

  “What crime?”

  “We’re not at liberty, as this moment, to reveal the details.”

  “Is this those animal rights kooks again? We totally complied with the state. They can come and look for themselves.”

  “We can tell you that it isn’t related to animal welfare. We’re with the Major Crimes Unit.”

  The words Major Crimes seemed to hit him like a wet fish. “Uh,” he said, “So, you just want to know where I was and that either makes me guilty or not-guilty.”

  Now McRae clarified, “This is very preliminary, Mr. Booth. We just need to know where you were. Information.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember? Last Friday was three days ago.”

  “I have a lot going on.”

  Rose could see Fornier making a show of looking around the office as if genuinely trying to appreciate the frantic pace of Bob’s life. She let the silence settle like the dust on Bob’s dead animal pictures. A long moment. Rose wished she could see Bob close up, she imagined tiny beads of sweat forming at his temples.

  Then Fornier: “Would you like to come down to the barracks and speak with us there? Perhaps in a less, er, hectic environment, you’d be able to remember.”

  “Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll call, I swear. Obviously I don’t want to give you the wrong information. Incorrect, I mean. Incorrect information.”

  “Here’s my card, Mr. Booth. We’ll wait for your call. Later today.”

  Detective Sergeant McRae on the way out: “We’re in the process of obtaining a warrant for your computer. Don’t delete anything.”

  Bob was looking directly at Rose through the glass partition as the cops moved down the corridor, clomping and clacking. Rose held his gaze, her unapologetic manner suggesting complete innocence, then she swiveled her chair, lifted the slats of the window blind, and watched the cops walk back out to their car. To Bob, she said with polite concern: “What’s the matter, Bob?”

  Ignoring her, he hurried from his office, stabbing his cell phone. She heard only snatches as he moved toward the front door — “warrant… how long will it take… what if I just delete…” Peeking through the blinds again, she saw him get into his car and speed toward the gate, just as Nick was closing it.

  “Open the fucking gate!” he shouted. Nick complied but gave him the finger.

  When he’d gone, she stepped outside. The smell hit her — it really felt like that, being hit in the face by a solid physical force, not just an odor wafting, but a skillet. Thwack. Chickens. If she had to break it down, she’d distinguish feed, feces, feathers, and fear. She glanced over at the sheds, she never went inside. The chickens could not be heard, the huge ventilation fans drowned out their constant clucking.

  “What’d they want?” Nick leaned on the trailer. He looked like something on the cover of a romance novel.

  “No idea.”

  “Probably his pervy stuff.”

  “What pervy stuff?”

  “Chat rooms.” Nick made a retching expression. “My dad thinks the girls he’s talking with look like their pictures.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “Young.”

  How young, Rose was about to ask. Then Nick’s phone rang, he spun away from her into this new conversation, and she ceased to exist.

  Ginny pulled on her gloves and hat. It was their weekly walk, and they took it regardless of weather and often to be belligerently defiant of the weather. “Larry won’t let me drive to Hanover by myself anymore because of the murders.”

  “What murders?”

  “Didn’t you hear? It’s awful. On 91. This last one was near Bradford. There was a story in the paper over the weekend. I think they found her on the Friday. A young woman.”

  They started up the path behind Rose’s house. It would take them across the road, into thick woods, around, and at last out into sprawling long-fallow fields. From there, to the north they’d see the granite bread-knob of Mt. Pisgah and the Willoughby Gap; to the west lay the Green Mountains, and far, far to the southeast, on the clearest days, they could see the Presidential Range in New Hampshire. It was an unsettled landscape, tilting at all angles, and mostly wild with dense forest cover. The big old farms were cut out from the burry grey of the woods in hard geometric shapes, the hayfields, cornfields, and pastures. Tourists thought it pretty.

  “It’s the second in two months,” Ginny continued. “The first was in the lookout just before Wells River.”

  This was south, maybe 20 minutes on the interstate.

  The climb was steep on this part of the path. Ginny stopped to catch her breath. “They found her in March. It sounded like she’d been there all winter and they found her in a snow bank when it started to melt.”

  As the forgiving cloak of snow drew back, the refuse of winter lay exposed — mostly beer cans, dog shit, old tires. Rose had an image of the dead woman surfacing with the trash; she remembered Billy describing her father as a pile of laundry on the ice.

  “Didn’t anyone miss her?”

  “You hope, right? That people have connected lives. Someone knows you haven’t come home. You’re not at work. But maybe there was no one for her.”

  In the years after Billy’s death, Rose could easily have died, the way people do in banal ways, falling off a ladder, slipping on ice, and no one would have known, Miranda wandering for days until the coyotes found her or she died from exposure.

  “If you ever need me to drive you —”

  “Thanks. But, oh, Larry enjoys being chivalrous. He can’t
come into the treatment room, though. He gets too upset. I told him to replace the word chemotherapy with cocktails.”

  Rose knew she should ask how the treatment was going, and when it would end, and when Ginny was going to be better. But it was like talking about summer in the middle of mud season. And then Ginny said: “I can’t quite get them out of my mind. Those women. They were young. That highway is so dark and lonely and there’s no cell reception for long stretches. I keep wondering how it happened. Did their cars break down? Did they stop to help someone? Did they know him? I have this feeling he chose them and he was following them. He was purposeful.”

  “How does someone get it in their head to go out and kill like that? To decide and plan and follow through? It’s incomprehensible.”

  “I did a residency rotation in a mental hospital years ago, and there was a girl who’d cut off her baby brother’s arms. I just didn’t have the chops for it.”

  “Jesus,” Rose said.

  “That was just one case. The hardest part was walking around in the world after that. Knowing what people could do to each other. That’s why I married Larry.”

  “Because he wasn’t a psycho killer?”