by Cy Wyss
She decided to try to get a better view for the camera around her neck. She crept into the dimly lit room and kept near to the wall. She braced herself, judged the distance, and jumped to the top of the refrigerator. From there, she got a cat’s-eye view of the scene. When she was satisfied she had enough footage of the work these people were doing, she jumped down again. Both of the women were too involved in their work to hear the soft thump PJ made when she hit the ground.
PJ peeked around the kitchen door into the hallway. It was clear. Her whiskers tingled, however. Someone had left the basement door open about ten inches. Dare PJ go down into that potential cess pool and have a look? Her need to document the scene overtook her caution, and she crept toward the open door. She didn’t hear or see anyone down the wooden steps, but it was dark. Carefully, she stepped onto the stairs and made her way down, her eyes adjusting to the blackness as she went. She knew the camera, with its infrared setting, would have an even better view than she did with her cat vision.
At the base of the stairs, PJ looked up. She screamed. Hanging from the ceiling was a man in shades of blood.
PJ backed away toward the stairs. Her involuntary screech would have everyone running to her, she was afraid. And it would all be for nothing. It wasn’t a man hanging from the ceiling; it was only a man’s union suit. It must have been a shade of red that looked like blood. Next to it hung T-shirts and jeans, and on other ropes suspended from the ceiling hung sheets and towels. It was only laundry. PJ sniffed the air. The chemical stench that permeated the rest of the house was fainter down here. Instead, she smelled fabric softener and detergent. She had been spooked by the laundry room. She almost laughed at her own stupidity.
Suddenly, the basement was flooded with light.
“Aha! There you are,” the old man with the gruff voice said from the top of the stairs.
PJ’s eyes were still adjusting to the light. She could hardly see him coming down the stairs toward her.
“See? I told you,” the man said to someone over his shoulder. “Only it ain’t a ’coon, it’s a cat.”
PJ backed away as the man came down the stairs.
“Nice kitty,” he was crooning. “Let Papa pick you up now.”
Of course PJ wasn’t about to let this man get ahold of her. He lunged for her and she ran behind the dryer. The man swore a blue streak, then started moving the heavy appliance out so he could reach behind it. PJ jumped out and ran up the stairs. Halfway up she realized the door in front of her was closed. The man was hot on her heels. She was trapped!
She kept running, as if she would smash headlong into the door. At the last second, a miracle happened—the door opened a fraction. She burst through the few inches to freedom and skidded on the tile floor as she turned to race down the hallway. She had a brief image of the short boy, Sheldon Pike, as the one who had opened the door.
“Damn!” Trent’s father yelled behind her. “Stop that cat!”
Sheldon pulled out a handgun and shot toward PJ. Fortunately, he missed. The bang was so loud that PJ’s ears rang for several moments. She hardly heard all the yelling behind her as she raced down the hall and threw herself at the screen door. It opened easily, and she was outside in the blessed night air, flying over the porch and across the driveway where she burrowed into the tall grasses on the other side. She stopped then, fully covered, and peeped between the blades at the scene behind her.
The short boy, Trent’s father, and the man with the shotgun had all rallied near the front door. PJ wasn’t close enough to hear what they said, but they didn’t seem to be chasing her anymore. She felt like the old man was blaming Sheldon for something; whether it was for opening the basement door at the wrong time or shooting his gun in the house, PJ wasn’t sure.
After a few moments, the men split up. Trent’s father headed back inside. Sheldon lit a cigarette and sat down on a swinging love seat on the front porch. The man with the shotgun went back around the house, presumably to watch the rear entrance.
PJ breathed many sighs of relief. She had gotten in, gotten decent footage of wrongdoing, and gotten out in one piece. She smiled to herself. It was only then she realized that Trent’s red pickup was gone. Her ride home had disappeared.
— 14 —
Interrogated
It took PJ all night to return home, partly because she kept getting distracted by fox holes and field mice. By the time she came to Main Street, streaks of pink lit the eastern sky. She transformed in the alley behind Bones Pizzeria and quickly dressed in her emergency black shorts and shirt. She stretched the small cat-pack across her shoulders, left the collar around her neck, and headed for Lunar Lane.
When PJ rounded her driveway, she saw Jake’s marked SUV. She didn’t see Jake. Henry was in the back, though, watching her as she approached. She waggled her ears when she passed the vehicle, and Henry barked at her. At the sound, Jake came out from behind her trailer.
“Oh, there you are, PJ,” he said.
“What’s up, Jake?”
He frowned. “I need you to come talk to me.”
“Well, you can come inside. Just let me change and start a pot of coffee.”
“No, I really think we need to talk at the station.”
Panic flooded PJ. “Are you arresting me?”
“Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
PJ looked around. No one else seemed to be up this early. But where was Robert? His secretary sat next to a police scanner and usually got all the juice. PJ would have expected if Jake was officially here to arrest her, Robert would have heard.
“Can I at least change? I’m a little chilly.”
He looked her up and down. She shifted her weight between her bare feet and rubbed her arms. Her throat was suddenly so dry she could hardly swallow.
“You’re fine. Please step over to the vehicle.”
He held an arm out and indicated the SUV. Something in PJ cracked at his commanding voice. Cold adrenaline flooded her, and she saw only the gun at Jake’s waist and the silver buttons on his navy uniform.
“Ms. Taylor? Now, please.”
Reason failed PJ and she bolted. She ran behind her trailer and thrashed through the woods. Her breath was hot in the morning air, and she was sweating like crazy. She felt dizzy and more than a little confused. Behind her, she heard yelling, then barking. Deep from her addled mind a thought came—she wouldn’t get away. She was making this all worse. She had to stop.
All of that had gotten her about thirty yards from the trailer. Reason prevailed at last and she stopped. She turned. Henry ran at her, teeth bared, barking and growling.
She screamed.
A second before Henry jumped on her, a huge black mass flew in from the side and knocked him from his path. Mutt. PJ’s first thought was intense gratitude, but as the dogs wrestled, she quickly became freaked out instead.
“No! Jake, heel him! Stop, Mutt!”
Jake ran down the ravine toward the struggling dogs, hand on his weapon. Mutt was significantly larger than Henry and mad as hell. But Henry was lither and faster, extremely well trained, and dressed in a bullet-proof vest, making him nearly impregnable. What happened next seemed to be in slow motion.
Henry threw Mutt off of him.
Jake had his gun out and took aim.
“No!”
Without thinking, PJ jumped between Jake and Mutt.
Jake’s eyes widened. His trigger finger jerked. The gun flashed. PJ screamed.
PJ was right there, nearly point-blank, but Jake’s aim was off. It took PJ a moment to figure out why.
A furry black animal had Jake’s pant leg in its teeth and was wildly pulling on it, unbalancing the hapless detective. From out of nowhere, two squirrels had jumped on Jake’s arm. One was on his shoulder, claws out, while the other dangled by its teeth from Jake’s elbow.
“Shit!” Jake yelled. “Get them off me!”
PJ couldn’t believe it. Kitten and his two squirrel friends had nearly
felled Detective Tipton. She stared, open-mouthed, for several seconds as Jake stumbled around, animals flying. Henry had returned to his master and was barking and barking. Mutt was making a kind of wheezing whine, which PJ recognized as laughter.
Jake waved his arm and leg. His gun hand flailed. Henry barked. The squirrels and Kitten held fast.
“PJ, get them off me! Help!”
PJ made a low growl in her throat to activate her camera. This was the craziest sight she had ever seen.
“Don’t just stand there,” Jake yelled. “Help me!”
PJ shrugged and held her hands out. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t care! Something! And do it quick!”
PJ ran back to her trailer and grabbed her garden hose. She unraveled it as far as it would go and ran back to where Jake was still struggling with the animals. She sprayed Jake, soaking him. It worked—the squirrels scampered away, and Kitten let go and ran. PJ kinked the hose to stop the flow and eyed Jake, who stood dripping before her, his gun held limply at his side. The look on his face was indescribable, a mix of pure rage and horrified chagrin. And PJ knew she had it all on video.
* * *
Half an hour later, PJ sat in a small, nondescript room in the municipal building. Its only contents were a wooden table and a small stack of chairs, two of which were out for use. The blinds were drawn, and the light overhead was anemic and fluorescent. The only sound was the faint buzzing of that light, save for every few minutes when someone might walk by the door and a murmured conversation would interrupt the hypnotic buzzing. There was a window in the door with blinds on the outside, so whoever wanted to could see in should they desire. Other than that, the room was four green walls and a yellow linoleum floor. PJ shivered. She had a warm cup of coffee in front of her, but her bare feet on the linoleum made her particularly aware of her skimpy apparel. She wished she had on boots and a fluffy sweater. She passed the time filling her mind with thoughts of warm things, such as fire pits and space heaters. She kept crossing and recrossing her legs in an effort to keep moving and keep warm. Her arms were firmly crossed over her chest. She sighed.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before Jake finally showed up, having changed into jeans and a lumberjack’s shirt. She envied him his boots and warm clothing. He came into the room carrying a fat file, carefully closed the door, and sat down at the table opposite her. She stared at him silently, waiting for the inevitable.
“You should know everything in here is taped,” Jake said. He indicated a black semi-sphere stuck to the ceiling. A red light glowed in its depth.
PJ said nothing.
Jake cleared his throat. He smiled at PJ. “We didn’t get off to a very good start this morning.”
She couldn’t help it—she smiled back. “Sorry about that. I don’t know what got into me, or into those animals. Are you all right?”
He nodded. “I’ll live. But I do have some questions for you, PJ. Are you ready to answer them?”
“More than ready. I just want to get this over with and get home. I’m freezing.”
“Oh, do you want me to get you a blanket or something?”
“Gosh, Jake, that would be great. Could you please?”
He got up and retreated from the room, taking his file folder with him. PJ froze for several more minutes before he returned with a uniformed female officer carrying a blanket. She handed it to PJ and then left the room without saying anything. Jake sat opposite PJ again while PJ wrapped the stiff emergency blanket around herself. She immediately started to feel a little better.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Of course,” Jake said. “Sorry it took me so long. I had to get changed, as you know. My uniform was soaking wet.”
PJ blushed. “Sorry about that.”
He chuckled. “I suppose I can see the humor in it, now that it’s over.”
“You did look pretty funny with two squirrels hanging off your arm.”
“Don’t forget about the cat biting my leg.”
PJ snorted. “Yeah.”
“All right, PJ. Well I’ll ask you a few questions, and you answer them to the best of your ability, okay?”
PJ took a sip of her tepid coffee. “Sure. Fire away.”
“Where were you the nights of February 12 and 16?”
PJ stared at Jake. “Uh, I have no idea. Was there anything special about them?”
“Two days before Valentine’s Day and two days after.”
Valentine’s Day hadn’t been special for PJ. Since she was single, it was just another day.
“Sorry, I have no idea. Probably at home in my trailer?”
“Is there anyone who can vouch for your whereabouts?”
“Mutt?”
“PJ, you’re not making this easy.”
She stared into the coffee mug. “I’m trying. I honestly don’t know where I was. Most nights I am simply at home, watching TV or on my computer. That’s probably where I was.”
He wrote something down on a pad of paper he’d pulled from the file folder.
“All right, PJ. How about the night of March 21?”
PJ had to think for several seconds. “You mean, Saturday two weeks ago?”
Jake nodded. It was the night of Chip Greene’s unfortunate trip down the swollen waters of the ravine.
“A dam broke that night, apparently. The ravine behind my home was filled with raging water.”
Jake nodded again. “Where were you? At home?”
PJ took a deep breath. Now she had to remember everything she’d told Robert and recount it for Jake. She hoped she could keep her story straight.
“Well,” she began, “I had been going out at night for a little while, trying to acclimate to it.”
“Okay, stop there,” Jake said. “Why would you need to acclimate to the night?”
PJ sighed. “I have an extreme phobia of night. It’s not just darkness, it’s the actual night. Usually I stay in my trailer with all the lights on. I can only sleep in the light.”
“All right. Continue please.”
PJ swallowed. “Well, that night at around midnight, I was out for a little bit wearing my light goggles.”
“Explain what those are.”
“They’re goggles, but with lights around the rims. I’m thinking some of my phobia might be physiological, so if my eye area is filled with light, perhaps I can be outside at night and it won’t be as bad.”
“So even though you know it is night and you’re outside, if you have a lot of light around your eye area, you’re okay?”
“Well, not really okay. But I can at least be outside for a bit. I’m working on it.”
“All right. Did you see anything when you were outside?”
“Well…” PJ shifted her weight around inside the blanket. Jake looked at her expectantly. “I think I saw Chip Green and Alex Tate down by Chip’s trailer.”
Jake wrote on his pad. “So you saw Chip Green and Alex Tate. What were they doing?”
“Nothing. Standing by the side of the water and talking. I couldn’t see that well, but I heard Alex bleating.”
“Bleating?”
“Well, you know. He’s autistic. Sometimes he makes a sound like a goat. I call it bleating.”
Jake nodded, still writing on his paper.
“Anyway, I turned away for a second, and then I think I saw Chip fall in the water.”
Jake stopped writing and stared at her. “You saw Chip fall in? By himself? What was Alex doing?”
“Well, when I looked up again, Alex was trying to rescue Chip.”
“You saw that? I thought you could hardly see anything.”
PJ rubbed her eyes. “I shifted the goggles to my forehead so I could see a little better. And I saw Alex trying to pull Chip from the water. But then Alex fell in too.”
Jake frowned. “Okay, so now both of them are in the water. Then what happened.”
“Well, uh, Alex was floundering around trying to swim. And I didn
’t see what happened to Chip. He had disappeared.”
“You didn’t go over to try to help them?”
“I was quite a ways away.”
“Still. I would have thought you would want to help them, or at least go call the authorities to help them.”
PJ sighed. “I was terrified. By the night, and by what I saw. I started to go over to them but I stumbled and fell in the river myself.”
Jake’s eyebrows rose. “You fell in the water too?”
“Yes. And I hit my head when I did.”
“You could have been killed.”
PJ wondered if she should tell Jake about seeing Chip lying on the side of the water near old Mrs. Norton’s house. She decided to focus on answering Jake’s questions and not offer any additional commentary. She realized she was probably walking a thin line with him.
Jake checked his notes and flipped through his file for several moments. Then he raised his head and looked at PJ.
“So you hit your head right after you fell in the water?”
“Uh, well, no.”
“No?”
“I slid to the south, down the river for a little while first. It was deep. I couldn’t get my footing. The water carried me along fast.”
“That must have been terrifying.”
“You have no idea. I was sure I was going to die. And I lost my goggles and my robe. So I was naked in the freezing cold water.”
Jake shook his head. “I’m sorry about that. But, please continue. You were carried downstream for a ways?”
“Yes. And, well, I thought I saw Chip lying on the side of the water.”
“What?”
“By old Mrs. Norton’s house. I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of him there, lying on the bank.”
Jake didn’t say anything. Instead, he wrote furiously on his pad of paper.
“But then I hit my head on a rock, and that’s it, that’s all I remember. Just a glimpse, then boom—out.”
Jake was still writing with most of his attention. “Um-hm,” he said absently.
“Can I go now?” PJ asked.
Jake looked up at her, his pen paused over the page. “What?”
“That’s all I remember. When can I go home?”