The Dog Thief

by Marta Acosta

  I pulled the file drawer out and slammed it shut. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “If fracking’s approved and we haven’t already sold our rights, they could be taken when the neighbors sell and we’d only be given whatever PacPetro drops our way. You know how it works. If we sell our rights and fracking doesn’t come through, we still get the signing bonus. The best time to negotiate is now.”

  I looked out the small window to the exercise yard and the fields and trees beyond. “If we take the offer now, others will follow. Once everyone takes the bait, the approval process might be rushed without proper environmental studies.”

  “If the drought continues, people won’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  Kenzie rubbed her forehead, sliding her thumb and forefinger wide and drawing them back together. “Another alternative is to sell the whole place to PacPetro and start over somewhere new. It isn’t like there’s anything or anyone to keep us here. I’ve been thinking about Austin.”

  “Austin, Texas?” My skin tightened. “It’s not affordable anymore. Bertie wouldn’t like the heat and Jaison might not want to go.”

  “Jaison can make up his own mind and we’d give him enough to start somewhere new, too. Austin’s no hotter than where Bertie’s been.”

  “So you’d be all right leaving Christopher?”

  “No, but we never seem to get any further along. It’s not his fault. I need to make decisions about...my career.”

  We both sat quietly for a minute before she said, “Maddie, we can move anywhere. We can live in a city.”

  “A city with noise and traffic and cement and buildings that block out the sky? You’ve lost your mind.”

  “A suburb then. Somewhere where the height of culture isn’t kids catching greased piglets at Bonanza Days.”

  “Kenzie, there is nothing more fun than watching kids try to catch greased piglets.”

  “I’m going to forget that you’re the same person who complains incessantly about the inhumane treatment of those animals. Try and keep an open mind at the meeting tonight.”

  “What meeting?”

  She pointed to the feed store calendar. “It’s right here. Hydraulic Fracturing Meeting, Grange Hall, seven p.m.”

  “The calendar is decoration. I don’t even look at it.”

  “Which is why I also put a note on your phone, stuck a post-it to the fridge, texted you, and reminded you at breakfast yesterday,” she said. “Someone from the sheriff’s office is going to talk about the murder.”

  “I forgot about the meeting. I hate meetings both in theory and in practice, and I’m extremely busy.”

  She squinted her eyes, the way she did before she had a screaming fit. I snuck my hand to the file drawer and eeked it open very slowly, before pushing it closed. “I mean, of course I’ll go with you.”

  IF OLIVER DESJARDINS was going to give a presentation, Claire would show up. She’d want to give me solace after my recent ordeal. Ordeal wasn’t quite the right word. She would regret that she steered me into the grim discovery by refusing to give me a ride.

  But who had been killed and how? The grave was shallow so the killer or killers didn’t have time or tools to bury her deeper or didn’t care. Was the location symbolic or one of convenience? I looked at the crappy Coyote Run Recorder website, and closed the page when I saw a photo of the pine grove.

  I washed off the day’s grime and covered my blisters with new Band-Aids. I was about to swipe off the remaining blue nail polish from my toes, but it might remind Claire of the rainy afternoon we’d spent in her bed, drinking red wine, talking and laughing, and making love. I’d been so comfortable and I’d wondered if that’s how other people felt all of the time: as if there was a place for them.

  I wore sandals and a short t-shirt dress Claire had given me. I slicked on mascara and lipgloss. The gloss was sticky so I wiped it off and rubbed Blistex on my dry lips. I ran my wet fingers through my hair to smooth it and then went to the kitchen. “I’m ready.”

  Kenzie took one look at me and pointed to my leg. “What happened?”

  “Ghost bit me yesterday as a direct result of Beryl Jensen’s lack of responsibility.”

  “It looks hideous. Cover it up and don’t wear your beat-up jeans. Oh, never mind. Let me choose.” She stomped to my room and opened my closet, yanking out gray cotton slacks, a white shirt, and a black jacket. “Wear these. Your feet are hopeless. I’m going to have to sedate you and give you an extreme pedicure.”

  “It’s a town meeting. Half the people there will be wearing their pajama pants.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You represent our business, Maddie, so you need to look like a reliable adult. Why are my shoes always in your closet?” She tossed a pair of flat Maryjanes to me. “I know you don’t like shopping, but you could at least return mine instead of stretching them out with your big feet.”

  “It’s all relative. I think your feet and your shoes are inconveniently small.”

  While I changed, she fussed with my hair, scrunching gel in it. She poked the wires of dangling earrings through my lobes.

  I moved my head and the earrings swung. “These bug the hell out of me.”

  “You bug the hell out of me. Let’s go and not in your truck. It smells like fermented dogs.”

  We went in her Subaru Forester, and I had to listen to her sing along with Kelly Clarkson. She punched my arm until I joined in on the last chorus of “A Moment Like This.” When she was busy turning to the highway into town, I took off the earrings and slid them into my pocket.

  “Also, Maddie, keep to the script and try not to cuss.”

  “Why the fuck not, because no one’s going to be here,” I said, and then I saw the crowd clustered by the door of the old brick building.

  As soon as I stepped out of the car, hulking Abel Myklebust came to me. He was in his late fifties and swarthy with black hair, strong features, and aggressive eyebrows. He’d clipped on a PRESS - COYOTE RUN RECORDER Editor/Publisher badge, even though everyone knew the richest man in town. He wore his usual outfit: a white dress shirt with a malachite bolo tie, Wranglers, and a wide tooled leather belt with a big silver buckle. If you were drunk enough, he looked handsome. “Maddie, why haven’t you returned my calls?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  Kenzie held my arm even as she flashed a smile to him and said, “Hi, Abel. Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. Maddie’s been through a very traumatic experience and she doesn’t have anything to add to what I’ve already told you.”

  “I only have a few questions.” He turned to me, his eyes narrowed. “Maddie, did you have a vision—” and he made air quotes with his thick fingers.

  Kenzie cut him off, saying, “I’ll call you soon!” She hooked her arm with mine and led me into the stale, fusty hall. An acrid smell came from the refreshments table in an alcove.

  Rows of grey metal folding chairs faced long tables on either side of a podium. Each table was set with five bottles of water, meaning ten people were expected to talk. Even if each only spoke for six minutes, I’d be stuck here for at least an hour. “I despise the way Abel always looms. It’s a cheap intimidation tactic.”

  Kenzie tugged me toward a row at the center of the hall and whispered, “Do not get started because I don’t want Abel bringing up old sheriff reports in his paper or...other things. Put your earrings back on.”

  Although I hadn’t been at the Grange Hall since I was a kid, I remembered a short stairwell leading to a side exit. I’d excuse myself to the restroom and walk across the street to the bookstore until the meeting was over.

  “Maddie, do you want coffee?”

  “No. It smells burnt. Coffee changes chemically after fifteen minutes of heating. I’m sure they don’t have real milk for it. What’s Dirk the Dick doing here?” I waved to F. Dirkson Bell, proprietor of both the Ring-A-Bell Cocktail Lounge and the Lakeview Cabins Motel. His white-blon
d hair was slicked back and his fake tan gave him an irradiated look. “My bet is he’s pro-fracking unless he’s got an idea of making the Lakeview more upscale, a la-di-da tourist destination.”

  Kenzie flicked a finger sharply on my arm to shush me, turning to see if anyone overheard. “I’ll get water for you. Keep your butt in that chair, and if anyone wants to talk, say you’re only here to listen.”

  She edged sideways down the row, and in a few seconds, Zoe Gaskell skipped over, her hippy dippy mother following behind. “Hi, Maddie.”

  “Hi, sweetie. What are you doing at a boring meeting?”

  Chloe Gaskell, wearing a tiered multicolored skirt decorated with tiny mirrors, said, “How do you know it’s going to be boring? Do you sense something?”

  “Mom, even I know it’s going to be boring and I’m not psychotic like Maddie,” Zoe winked at me. “Maddie, you found the body right after talking to me, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “I was cutting across the fields to get to my truck, which was at Beryl Jensen’s. Do you want a puppy?”

  “Mom says we have too many dogs. How did you find it?” she said, and her mother took in a breath and watched me avidly.

  “Accidentally.”

  “Are you sure?” Chloe asked. “Maybe it was destiny.”

  “It was a traumatic experience,” I said. “I came here just to listen.”

  “I understand,” she said, disappointed. “We can talk about your account when you’re feeling better. Come on, Zoe. Let’s get a seat up front.”

  I was wondering how long I could put off the feed store bills when I noticed Oliver Desjardins in the back talking to his ex-wife, Heather. They’d been married for a hot minute after high school and she still looked like the prom queen she’d been, long hair and long legs, full-makeup and heels. Then Dawg joined them, the misfit of the trio, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and baby pack with Gizmo peeking out.

  I waved at Dawg, but he didn’t see me as his wife led him toward empty seats. Oliver glanced at me on his way to the podium and lowered his brows.

  It was almost time for the meeting to start and the hall was packed, but I hadn’t seen Claire in the crowd. Chattering filled the air, voices raised, words tumbling atop each other incomprehensively. People slid into seats all around me, closing in on me. Someone wore heavy perfume and a pain started behind my eyes. I pulled my elbows in tight and hunched over a little, trying to make myself smaller in the space I had.

  My sister returned and handed me a bottle of water. “Here. They’ll quiet down in a minute, okay?”

  I nodded, because I didn’t want to add to the racket. Kenzie pressed her thigh against mine to stop me from jittering my legs and said, “Tessa and Phineas are at the last row. I was sure they’d be on the panel, spearheading the anti-fracking faction.”

  I turned and saw the Carozzos slouched in their seats, ignoring all the stares in their direction, and wearing sunglasses and hats. “They didn’t need disguises,” I said. “They’re barely recognizable without picket signs.”

  Then a woman went to the podium and tapped on the microphone. “Welcome. Everyone please take a seat. Turn off your phones and we can get started once you’re quiet.” She introduced our congressional district’s Chief-of-Staff, miscellaneous bureaucrats, and a PacPetro rep.

  I occupied my time by imagining Claire in her favorite old flannel and boxers, painting in her garden with her morning mug of coffee, watching the shifting colors of the day, listening to a lonesome song and singing along off-key and earnest. I imagined her coming to me after the meeting, golden and mournful, and I tried to think of an appropriate way to respond when she apologized for her role in my trauma.

  Every now and then I’d tune in to hear one of the speakers blathering. Nobody said anything new because there wasn’t anything new to say. Each side brought out arguments the other side would dispute. They’d veer off onto tedious anecdotes and inane speculation interspersed with more interesting personal attacks. I returned to my own thoughts of Claire as I watched for her.

  Then my sister kicked my foot.

  “What?”

  I became aware of everyone staring at me. Oliver Desjardins stood at the podium, glaring at me. “As I said, a special thank you to Madeleine Whitney for reporting the incident immediately and giving us precise details and a location.”

  I half-smiled at the half-hearted applause and I heard murmurs in the room before Oliver said, “We don’t as yet have the victim’s identity, so I’m urging everyone to be especially careful and watchful of any unusual activity. If you see something, say something. This is our first homicide of the year, and I want it to be the only one.”

  A few people snickered, probably because Oliver had used “homicide” to distinguish this death from Coyote Run’s routine manslaughters, suicides, and deaths-by-idiocy. Someone raised his hand and said, “No offense, but what is the real sheriff doing about this? Is the county doing anything?”

  Oliver’s face was so fair it was easy to see him color up the way Claire did when she was fuming, a sunrise on his cheeks, his forehead, the tips of his ears. “Sheriff-Coroner Eastman has given me authority to lead the investigation, Frank, and I thought I apologized for breaking your collarbone in that pick-up game,” he said, and the crowd laughed.

  I whispered, “What a macho dick,” to Kenzie and she whispered, “Hot macho dick” in my ear and I jerked away because of the tickle of her breath.

  Oliver said, “We have all county resources moving forward, and you know as well as I do that nine times out of ten, a woman is killed by her spouse or partner, so it may be as simple as identifying the body and we identify the perpetrator. Now, if you have any more questions, I’ll take them at the Brewhouse, because I could use a cold one.”

  The meeting concluded, Kenzie escorted me out with the watchfulness of a bodyguard escorting a mob snitch from the courthouse. People who’d never spoken to me before called out greetings and questions.

  “Maddie, how did you know to where the body was?”

  “Did you get any visions about the murder?”

  I stopped in front of the Abel and jolted forward to cause him to lean back in reaction. “So you wanted the inside story.” I waited until I had everyone’s attention before I said, “A flock of blackbirds told me where she was.”

  The collective intake of air was audible, and people asked, “What did she say? What did she say?”

  “Time for us to go!” Kenzie hooked her arm through mine and practically yanked me out of the room, and right past Hardwire, who grinned and said, “Hey, Maddie! Want to meet up at the Brewhouse?”

  Dawg’s mouth gaped as he stood beside wife and I waved at him and shouted, “Hey, Dawg, Heather, Gizmo!”

  I smiled at Ben Meadows as I was frog-marched down the front steps.

  Kenzie folded me into the passenger seat of her Forester. She drove out of the parking lot so fast she had to swerve around a car entering. I took off the annoying earrings and set them on the dashboard. They slid off on the first lane change and I kicked them under my seat.

  Kenzie slapped the steering wheel. “What the hell, Maddie?”

  “Didn’t you notice that I didn’t cuss once, although I think it’s unreasonable for you to censor me, but I try to accommodate your conformity. Honestly, there’s no pleasing you.”

  “What!”

  “Well, it doesn’t take a mind reader to know people want a mind reader. You said you wanted more business and Jaison wants to wear a gold lamé turban. Win-win-win.”

  She didn’t speak again until she parked at our house and got out of the car. “Come with me to bring the horses in.”

  I skipped to catch up with her. “What did I do wrong now?”

  “You lied to Abel and everyone else about being a psychic.”

  “No, I didn’t. I implied that animals telepathically communicate with me. Major difference and if Abel was a real reporter, he’d know that. I don’t know how he got it in his mind that runn
ing a six-page coupon giveaway impresses people more than his bank account.”

  “It makes absolutely no sense to resent him simply because other people are impressed by him.”

  “That’s not why I resent him. He’s always treated me like what I have is contagious.”

  “Stop before I scream.”

  “Sorry. Did you see Dawg’s face? He worries that Gizmo’s telling me his marriage problems.”

  “And that’s why they call it dope. You know I like Dawg, but how did he expect to keep Heather happy when he’s spends his nights getting stoned and playing poker? We would have handled winning the lottery better.”

  “That’s an impossibility because I don’t buy lottery tickets. I’d just as soon bet on getting hit by lightning, although I could up the odds if I ran around in a thunderstorm with a metal rod. Which I’d only do if that son-of-a-bitch Abel dared me and wagered his upstream water rights. You can survive lightning, you know, if you wear a coat of armor. It sounds counterintuitive but electricity travels along the path of—”

  “Maddie!”

  “What?”

  “Back to your claim of being an animal psychic. I suppose it can’t hurt business, but don’t get carried away with this nonsense.”

  “I never get carried away. I wish Ben Meadows hadn’t showed up since I’d made a point of telling him I wasn’t an animal psychic.”

  “I’m surprised you noticed him when you were so fixated on the side exit door.”

  “I paid attention to the entire discussion. You can quiz me about the Marcellus shale, or the fact the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act doesn’t regulate waste water from fracking, which is both corrupt and irresponsible. Go ahead—ask anything.”

  “No need. I’m sure you’ve either memorized facts or will manufacture them to fake me out,” she said. “I talked to Ben at the refreshments table. He asked how you were, and I said fine. I asked about his family, because, you know, he’s gorgeous, and he said his wife was home with the kids. So there goes that. Anyway, they have two, a little girl and a boy.”