The Highly Effective Detective Goes to the Dogs

by Richard Yancey

  I noticed her white wig was slightly askew. She raised her head so I could see her face, the nose a startlingly bright red, the rheumy eyes squinting, although most of the light had already bled from the day.

  “You,” she muttered, as if I was the last person she expected to see on the front stoop of his own apartment building.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ll brew you a nice hot cup of tea.”

  I slid my hand beneath her elbow and pulled her up. She was heavier than I expected; maybe it was all the layers of clothing, the gray coat, the matching gray muffler, the man’s red flannel shirt, the athletic sweats with the elastic bands at the ankles. She grabbed the ubiquitous tote and slung it over her shoulder as we eased our way across the frozen concrete to the front doors.

  Upstairs, she collapsed on the sofa, cradling the canvas tote in her lap, the tan blotches on her hands sharply contrasted against the paleness of her skin. I set a pot of water on the stove to boil and positioned only half my butt on the bar stool at the counter: You never know when you might have to make a break for it.

  “I talked to Vernon this morning,” I told her.

  “I don’t know anything about that conversation,” she said.

  “He doesn’t believe I’m real.”

  She waved her left hand in a gesture of dismissal. The right maintained its death grip on the tote.

  “Why should he, after all?” She wasn’t looking at me. She had that “third space” stare of a prophet—or a mystic, I guess, since we don’t live in an age of prophets.

  “I guess there’s nothing that says he has to,” I said. “Though it would be nice.”

  “I am very angry with you, Theodore,” she said.

  “Well,” I said.

  “And disappointed. You have deeply disappointed me.”

  “Eunice, I never asked you to write a book about me.”

  “About you,” she snapped. “About you. Oh, I am sick to death of you, Theodore Ruzak!”

  She hurled the tote at my head. I ducked. It skittered across the bar and landed on the kitchen floor, disgorging a stack of paper that spread out, fanlike, across the linoleum.

  I picked up the top sheet and read the first sentence: “I’d had this dopey idea to be a detective ever since my mother gave me an illustrated Sherlock Holmes book for my tenth birthday.” It wasn’t the sort of sentence that compelled me to read on, but I’m no literary critic.

  Behind me, Eunice Shriver continued to rant.

  “It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous! No detective in history has been so woefully underqualified, distracted, lazy, and incompetent. What person in their right mind is going to believe you set up shop as a private eye without even realizing you needed a license?”

  “Fools rush in?”

  “I can always change your looks. Make you thinner, chiseled, steely-eyed. I toyed with making your eyes steel-gray, as a matter of fact. But I cannot change these basic character flaws that in themselves make you completely unbelievable as a character!”

  “Look at it this way,” I offered, shoving the stack of paper back into the tote. “You’re plowing new ground.”

  “Here is the thing,” she barked, still not looking in my direction. “Your story … if you want to call it that, has less substance than a takeout menu.”

  “Then let it go.”

  She swung her gaze in my direction, but still wouldn’t look directly at my face. Her eyes were focused on some point just over my head.

  “Eunice,” I said. I went to the sofa and lowered myself into the cushions beside her. I pulled her cold, withered hand into mine. “Eunice. I’m going to pose a simple hypothetical.”

  “Fat chance!”

  “What if you just went to bed and when you got up it was gone? Would you be sad or relieved?”

  “Both. I cannot abandon you in midstream, Theodore. It would be like God stopping with the fishes.”

  “I’m sensing a disconnect here. Between you and God and me and the … the fishes. Do you feel my hand, Eunice?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  I rubbed her hand hard between both of mine, feeling her arthritic knuckles slide beneath my palms.

  “I’m real, Eunice. I have an existence outside your imagination.”

  “That is a terrifying thought,” she said.

  I was about to ask her why when my buzzer sounded. It broke the existential spell. I swung through the kitchen on the way to the intercom to turn off the burner; the water was boiling over the lip of the pot.

  “Ruzak?”

  “Amanda?”

  “Amanda?” Eunice called from the sofa. “I know of no Amanda!”

  “Can I come up?” Amanda asked.

  “Right now?”

  “No, not now. I thought I’d just ask now and come back in a couple of hours.”

  “Come on up,” I said, and hit the green button. I returned to the kitchen to drop the teabag in Eunice’s cup.

  When the knock came on the door, Eunice said, a bit panicky, “Who could that be?”

  Amanda stood in the hallway holding a white plastic bag with THANK YOU! written in red on the outside.

  “I’m hoping you haven’t eaten,” she said.

  “I haven’t,” I said, and stepped to one side so she could pass. I caught a whiff of fried rice. Amanda stopped when she saw Eunice on my sofa.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Amanda, this is Eunice Shriver, no relation to the famous Shrivers.”

  “That Maria is an anorexic so help me God!” Eunice cried.

  “Maybe this isn’t a good time,” Amanda said.

  “I can’t think of a more perfect one,” I said, taking the bag from her and setting it on the coffee table, about a foot from Eunice’s broad knees. “You like hot tea? I’m guessing this is Chinese.”

  Amanda nodded. She eased herself onto the edge of a bar stool, staring at Eunice. I refilled the pot and turned on the burner. I kept meaning to invest in a teakettle.

  “I detest Chinese food,” Eunice told Amanda.

  “I didn’t know,” Amanda said.

  “Gives me the runs.”

  “Maybe you got hold of some bad noodles,” I said. “I have some Campbell’s in the pantry.”

  “Chicken noodle?”

  “I think it’s cream of potato.”

  “Dear God!” She made a sour face. Amanda gave me a look.

  “It’s a very long story,” I told her. “Eunice, how about a grilled cheese sandwich?”

  So that’s how we supped: Amanda and I on noodles and rice, sitting crossed-legged at the coffee table, Eunice on grilled cheese and baby dills, the dish in her lap.

  “Where’s Archie?” Amanda asked.

  “Sleepover,” I said.

  “Who is Archie?” Eunice demanded. “Who are all these people I don’t know, Theodore?”

  “Is this your grandmother or something?” Amanda asked.

  “I am his creator!” Eunice said, not without a touch of pride.

  “Eunice is writing a book about me,” I said.

  “She is? Why?”

  “I’m still not sure. This is really good,” I said, meaning the food. “You didn’t have to.”

  “I took a chance you’d be here. I wanted to apologize for last time.”

  “What happened last time?” Eunice asked.

  “You should know,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Eunice. If this was all in your head, how could there be things that you don’t know?”

  “I’ll tell you, if you’ll give me a complete inventory of the contents of your hall closet.”

  “I’m not following this,” Amanda said.

  “It’s a philosophical dilemma,” I said. “Right up your alley.”

  “It seems more psychological.”

  “But physiology is muscling that out,” I said. “Everything’s getting traced back to whacked-out brain chemistry.”

  “I don’t want you to hate me, Ruzak,” Amanda s
aid.

  “I don’t.”

  “I want to be your friend.”

  “You are.”

  Eunice was watching us, pivoting her head, a tennis match.

  “We could slow it down a little. I can move fast sometimes, I know that,” Amanda said.

  “Right.”

  “It’s just you’re not like other guys I’ve dated. I’ve been conditioned, you know? A burger, a movie, and right to the mattress.”

  I cleared my throat. I would have been uncomfortable with this without Eunice Shriver sitting two feet away.

  “I just don’t want to give you the wrong impression,” I said. “It’s like I said before: It goes against my general principles to get wrapped up while I’m untangling some issues.”

  “Sometimes it helps, though, having someone there to help you untangle them.”

  “I can’t deny that.”

  “Teddy Ruzak does not have a love life!” Eunice interjected.

  “That’s what we’re working on,” Amanda said with a smile. Smiling wasn’t something she did often but, when she did, it was a good smile.

  “He is as celibate as a monk!”

  “Tell me about it,” Amanda said.

  “Theodore Ruzak has not had sexual relations since 1998!”

  “Whoa,” Amanda said. “Really?”

  I didn’t say anything. Any answer would be humiliating.

  “Did Miss Marple have a lover? Hercule Poirot? Did the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes, have a sweetie?” Eunice’s chin rose indignantly.

  “Well, I always wondered about him and Watson,” Amanda said.

  “Watson got married,” I pointed out.

  “And your point?” Amanda asked.

  Eunice said, “Theodore, I have not formed a good impression of this girl.”

  “Oh, no,” Amanda said.

  “She should be discarded.”

  “But you don’t even know me,” Amanda said, reasonably.

  “Oh, I know you,” Eunice said. “I know you.”

  “I get it,” Amanda whispered to me. “It has its own interior logic. Since you’re her creation, anything connected to you is part of it, too.”

  I shrugged. It had come to that. Shrugging.

  “Well,” I said. “You’re the philosophy major. I’ve been hugging Descartes like a long-lost brother lately. How do I know she isn’t right? How do I ultimately confirm my own existence?”

  Amanda stared at me for a second, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. Then she leaned toward me, grabbed my face in both her hands, and pressed her lips against mine. I tasted pork-fried rice. From the sofa, I heard Eunice gasp. Amanda pulled away, no more than a couple of inches, so her loamy eyes filled my vision.

  “Now what, Ruzak?” she murmured.

  It struck me how uninhibited she was, even at the feet of crazy ol’ Eunice Shriver, who, for all Amanda knew, was perfectly capable of grabbing a carving knife from my kitchen and plunging it into her recalcitrant back.

  “That is better,” I said.

  At that moment, my cell phone rang. I fumbled for it. Amanda leaned back and sipped the dregs of her tea. Eunice watched me, open-mouthed.

  “Ruzak, where are you?” Felicia asked.

  “Home,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I did. I left you a voice mail.”

  “Well, I haven’t been home; what did you expect?”

  “I wasn’t expecting much of anything, really.”

  “Look, Tommy and I and this damn dog are four blocks away.”

  “Four blocks away from what?”

  “From you, dummy. I’m picking up Bob from work.” Bob worked at the fire station downtown, about six blocks from the Sterchi.

  “Who is that?” Eunice asked from the sofa.

  “Who is that?” Felicia asked on the phone.

  “Felicia,” I said to Eunice.

  “What?” Felicia asked.

  “Felicia?” Eunice asked.

  “Who’s Felicia?” Amanda asked.

  “Who’s that?”Felicia asked.

  “Eunice,” I said to Felicia.

  “Ruzak, that didn’t sound like an eighty-six-year-old woman to me,” Felicia said.

  “Oh. Amanda,” I said.

  “What?” Amanda asked.

  “I’m telling Felicia your name,” I said.

  “The dog philosopher?” Felicia asked. “And Eunice? How many strays are you going to take in, Ruzak?”

  “Hmmm,” I said. All eyes were upon me. “Nothing’s been planned, really.”

  “Is that the girlfriend?” Amanda asked.

  “There is no girlfriend, per se,” I managed to get out.

  “Damn right!” Eunice ejaculated.

  “Ruzak, did you tell her I was your girlfriend?” Felicia asked.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Maybe you should swing by tomorrow.”

  “This isn’t good for Tommy,” she said, meaning the situation with Archie. “The sooner he’s back with you, the better.”

  She hung up. I set the phone on the kitchen counter.

  “Felicia, my secretary,” I said. “She’s bringing Archie back.”

  “Who is Archie?” Eunice asked.

  “Ruzak’s dog,” Amanda said.

  “Theodore doesn’t own a dog,” Eunice said. “It would be completely contradictory to his character.”

  That did it. I picked up the phone and dialed Vernon’s number.

  “Vernon,” I said after he had barked that East Tennessean version of a greeting: Hell-uh! “This is Teddy Ruzak and I have your mother.”

  I heard him take a deep breath. “You are one sick—”

  I cut him off. “Here, she wants to talk to you.”

  I held the phone toward her and she commenced to frantically waving her hands, like a football referee signaling the end of a play. She mouthed the word no.

  “Well,” I said into the phone. “I guess she doesn’t. But you need to come over. You got something to write with? I’ll give you my address.”

  “I’m callin’ the FBI,” he promised.

  “I’m thinking the psychiatric ward at Saint Mary’s might be more appropriate.”

  “You think this is funny, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think it’s funny at all, Vernon. It’s downright disturbing … on so many levels.”

  I gave him my address.

  “If this ain’t on the up-and-up, I’m prosecuting you, mister,” he promised before hanging up.

  “I won’t go,” Eunice told me.

  “You have to,” I said. “He’s your flesh and blood, Eunice. I’m neither, in either possible universe. He can get you some help.”

  My buzzer sounded. Felicia and the dog. I buzzed her up. Amanda pulled me aside and said, “Tell me the truth. She’s the one you told me about, isn’t she?”

  “She’s my secretary,” I said. “She has a boyfriend.”

  “You have a thing for her. You can hear it in your voice.”

  “Really? No, I just like her, that’s all. She has pleasant knees.”

  “Pleasant knees?”

  “You know, well formed.”

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “You should understand the year 1998 was just a supposition.”

  The door burst open and Tommy barreled into the room shouting my name, “Roo-zack! Roo-zack!” and, behind him, Archie the beagle mix, trying hard to keep up, putting its front feet on Tommy’s rear while the kid pawed at me. Felicia hovered in the doorway, taking in the scene.

  “Hi,” Amanda said to Felicia. “You must be Ruzak’s crush.”

  Felicia gave me a look. Amanda smiled and said, “Your pleasant knees gave you away.”

  Eunice glared at Felicia. “Hello, and how are you, little Miss Felicia?”

  “Well, Ruzak,” Felicia said. “I guess one of those cosmic strings is unraveling, isn’t it?”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It was an awkward situ
ation, more of a tangling of the various strands than an unraveling. Amanda’s was the first to peel away: she crooked her finger at me and I followed her into the hallway.

  “Be honest with me, Ruzak,” she said. “Is there anything here worth pursuing?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Don’t answer my question with a question.”

  “Socratic method,” I said, hoping to make a philosophical connection. That’s life’s rub, connection. Between the dog and Eunice and even Jack with the staring eyes beneath God’s name was Teddy Ruzak clutching the tugging butt-ends of the balloon strings as they urged him upward toward … what? You wondered sometimes if life was just a slow rush toward gibberish.

  “What? Ruzak, do you ever get at what you really mean?”

  “It’s been a lifelong struggle,” I admitted.

  I offered to escort her to her car; downtown Knoxville can be scary at night, but she acted offended at my offer. As she walked to the stairs, I watched, admittedly, her rear end.

  Back in my apartment, I discovered Archie in Eunice’s lap, Tommy squatting at her feet, and Felicia sitting on one of the bar stools, her expression bemused.

  “Vernon’s on his way to pick her up,” I told Felicia, with a nod toward the old lady.

  “You told that girl you had a crush on me?” she asked.

  “She’s extrapolating.”

  “From what?”

  “From a lie.”

  “What lie?”

  “I told her I had a girlfriend.”

  “Don’t get a crush on me, Ruzak. Where’s the street person you took in?”

  “They arrested him.”

  “Why?” Felicia asked. “He confessed.”

  “Good,” Felicia said. “Case closed.”

  “I think he’s lying,” I said.

  “Why would someone lie about that?”

  “I’m working on the answer, but I think it has something to do with fear.”

  Vernon Shriver arrived thirty-five minutes later. He was pushing forty, with a wide, flat face and smallish eyes, short like his mother, but I didn’t see much of a resemblance, so maybe his looks came from the Shriver side.

  “You Ruzak?” he asked at the door, as if he still wasn’t quite buying this whole setup. I told him I was, in the flesh, and the tripartite talks began in earnest. Vernon seemed more interested in getting her to accept my autonomy than getting her out the door, which was my ultimate goal. He kept slapping me on the forearm, saying things like, “I feel him, Momma; he’s right here; how could I feel him if he wasn’t here?” But it was like four-foot swells crashing against a seawall. Eunice refused to budge, from either her convictions or my sofa.