Shepherd's Crook

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  “I’ll help you to my car and take you to the emergency room.”

  “No, I’ll just ice it. The wedding … the dinner tonight.” I unconsciously started to run my fingers through my hair, but they went in as far as the first knuckles and hit concrete. I yanked my hand out and said, “And anyway, I can’t be seen in public like this!” I wanted to bawl.

  “Phooey.” She moved in under my arm to support me again and said, “It might be broken, and who cares about your hair.”

  When Goldie got back to her car with her purse, keys, and two plastic bags full of ice chips for my ankle and knee, I said, “I called my doctor. The nurse told me to go to the emergency room, not the office.” I pulled the visor down and stared at the mirror, trying to pull some of the ridiculousness from my hair. If anything, I made it worse. That was confirmed by the emergency room volunteer’s expression when he brought a wheelchair to the car. I wondered what he thought had happened to me.

  Goldie parked the car and found me just as the check-in clerk called me to her counter. I’d met her before, but she didn’t seem to remember. She was focused on her computer screen. “Are you in our system?”

  When my name and social security number brought up my record, the corners of her shiny red lips twitched and then blossomed into a big smile. “I remember you,” she said.

  “Hello, LaFawn.”

  “How’s your butt?” She giggled. She had checked me in after an unfortunate incident the previous fall. Now she looked at me and said, “Girl, that does look like an emergency, but we don’t do hair here.”

  “I’d forgotten how funny you are, LaFawn.” But she had me laughing by then, and I wondered whether they could just shave my head after they checked my ankle.

  seventy-two

  My ankle wasn’t broken, and Goldie’s ice had brought the swelling down to a manageable puffiness by the time we left for dinner. She had also managed to wash the “product” out of my hair and the cut itself turned out to be a little shorter than I’d wanted, but shapely. I assured Goldie that I was fine to drive and we took my car.

  Norm hugged me and then studied my hair and said, “Now see! I told you Chas would shape your hair up!” Goldie made a zipping motion across her lips and I bit my tongue. I couldn’t completely hide my limp, though, and Norm sat me down in Bill’s recliner with pillows on the footrest to raise my feet. Tom arranged ice packs on my ankle and knee and asked, “How in the world did this happen?”

  I glanced at Norm and back to Tom. “Tell you later.”

  “You boys have done so much to the house.” Mom had lived in that house since we were kids, but she hadn’t been back since we moved her to Shadetree and Bill and Norm moved in. I couldn’t tell whether she was impressed or appalled by the changes they had made—a wall gone between the dining and living rooms, flooring changed, kitchen cabinets reconfigured. “I can’t wait to see what you do with the gardens.”

  Bill didn’t seem to get it, but Norm did. Her garden was my mother’s masterpiece, nurtured over the years with love and back-break and sweat. Norm took her hand and squeezed. “Why would we change the gardens, Mom? They’re perfect! We’ll be bringing you over for frequent consults once the weather warms up.”

  Mom was radiant and her beau, Tony Marconi, looked proud as a peacock despite his cane. Tony’s daughter, Louise, reflected her father’s happiness, and I was glad to see that she seemed fully recovered from the sudden death of her husband a few months earlier. Jade Templeton, the manager at Shadetree, had become a good friend and had championed this romance between Tony and my mother, and she was beaming. It was a lovely group, and I was glad the dinner was not in an impersonal restaurant. It was also a relief to have a few hours of conversation with no mention of murder or larceny, stalkers or fraud.

  We were almost home when Goldie finally asked, “What’s up with you and Tom?” I didn’t answer and she dropped it, but I knew she would circle back eventually. She changed subjects when we turned onto our street. “Well, someone’s having a party here, too.”

  There must have been forty vehicles parked along both sides of the street, and some of the drivers hadn’t been too fussy about who else they inconvenienced, especially whoever owned the Lincoln that was blocking half of my driveway. I did a mental scan of my refrigerator contents and asked, “You have any eggs?”

  Goldie laughed and said, “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I like thinking about it.”

  “Let me move my car over and you can park in my driveway.”

  “It’s okay, there’s a place there.” I drove to the end of the block, made a U-turn, and pulled into the one available space smack in front of Councilman Phil Martin’s living room window. His house was dark, but it was only eight o’clock on a Friday night. As if she were reading my thoughts, Goldie said, “Maybe he has a date,” and we both started to laugh.

  “Yeah, maybe. I wonder how things are going between Chelsea and ‘Daddy’ since her run-in with the law. And the press.”

  Goldie offered to help me in, but my ankle was feeling pretty good, and my knee was tender only to the touch, so I declined. “Why don’t you bring Bonnie over? The dogs can have a romp and we can have a nightcap.”

  I changed into sweats and Crocs and took Jay out back. Goldie and Bonnie joined us, and the two dogs played chase around the yard for a few minutes. It was a clear, crisp evening with barely a trace of wind. A scatter of stars danced across a moonless sky and the first hint of honeysuckle hovered over the backyard. Finally, though, the cool air turned cold and we called the dogs and went inside.

  “Bonnie seems to have settled in nicely.”

  “She’s such a dear,” Goldie said, the love in her voice palpable.

  We talked a bit about the police investigation, but neither of us knew anything new. Around nine-thirty, Jay raised his head to listen and Bonnie jumped to her feet, raced to the front window, and started to bark. We heard voices and car doors and engines starting, and I knew the party must be over.

  “Bonnie, quiet! Be quiet!”

  Bark bark bark.

  My first reaction was good luck with that—she’s a Sheltie, but then I remembered watching Ray handle her. I said in a normal voice, “Bonnie, that’ll do.” She let out one more woof, then trotted back to the kitchen, stopped at Goldie’s knee for an ear-scratch, and lay down beside Jay.

  “That was magical.”

  “I saw Ray work with her.”

  Quiet returned outside, and our conversation turned to the trouble between Tom and me. Goldie listened silently as I spilled my fear and desires, doubts and dreams, all over the table. We sat in more silence for a few minutes, and finally she said, “A solution will appear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just feel that a solution, a compromise, will present itself.” She smiled at me. “I know that’s a bit too airy-fairy hippie-dippie for you, Janet, but you’ll see. All will be we—”

  Bonnie cut her off with an explosion of barking, and this time Jay joined her. They raced to the living room, jumped onto the couch and barked out the window, both heads cranked toward Phil Martin’s house.

  “Bonnie, that’ll do!” Goldie said. Bonnie turned to look at her, but jumped off the couch and ran to the back door, barking like there was no tomorrow.

  Jay was very agitated, his paws on the back of the couch, his voice varying from low and booming to high-pitched and frantic. I moved to the window and looked out. Martin’s car had materialized in his driveway, but the street seemed to be deserted. Bonnie scurried back to the couch and the two of them barked and looked at us and barked and looked out the window and barked some more.

  “Maybe there’s a dog out there, or something?” Goldie asked, leaning against me to see out.

  “Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t think so. “I’m going to look from the backyard
.”

  I could barely get the door open for the dogs trying to shove past me. They shot off the patio and straight to the fence, the very definition of raising hell. I started to run after them, but the step off the patio set my ankle on fire and I had to slow down. The dogs were running back and forth along a twenty-foot section of fence, barking and stopping to jump against the chain-link as if frantic to get past it. Martin’s yard and the rooms at the back of his house were dark, and at first I couldn’t see anything. Goldie’s voice made me jump, it was so close, but she didn’t seem to notice. “The sliding door isn’t closed.”

  “How can you tell?”

  She pointed and said “Look.”

  A dark curtain floated out the door, fluttered in the rising wind, and disappeared. And then we heard, just barely over the frantic barking, a crash, and a scream.

  seventy-three

  The scream from Phil Martin’s house was followed by yelling, but I couldn’t make out the words. Jay and Bonnie raced up and down the fence between Martin’s yard and mine, and how they managed not to crash into one another was a mystery. Goldie and I turned toward the gate, and I was deciding whether to take the dogs with us when Bonnie made the decision for herself, clearing the four-foot fence with room to spare.

  “Oh!” Goldie’s eyes went wide at the sight of her dog flying over that fence. She turned and ran for the gate. I gimped along behind her.

  Bonnie raced across Martin’s backyard and disappeared through the open door. Jay was lining up to follow her over the fence when I called him. He ran along the side of my house toward the gate and shoved it out of his way as soon as I released the latch. Goldie’s long hair had come unpinned and was like a silver banner as she whirled past the gatepost and began to run. I ignored the pain in my ankle as well as I could, but it still slowed me down and Jay and Goldie were out of sight around the back of Phil Martin’s house by the time I rounded the corner.

  A popping sound came from inside the house and I yelled, “Goldie! Gun! Don’t go in there! Jay!”

  Too late. The dogs had disappeared past the flapping curtain and into the house.

  “Bonnie!” Goldie was almost to the open slider and still running.

  “Wait! Look!”

  She stopped and turned toward me as I picked up the garden rake Martin had left leaning against the back of his house. “Good idea,” she said, looking around for a weapon of her own.

  The house was dark but alive with sound. Bonnie alternated between high-pitched yips and the sorts of snarls you hear in a tug-o-war game. Deeper, more business-like growls told me Jay had joined the fray. I found a switch and light flooded the kitchen and guided me toward the front of the house. My ankle was on fire, threatening to quit, and I used the kitchen table as a crutch as I crossed the room.

  Human voices mingled with the barking and snarling. Something hit the floor and slid, and I hoped it was the gun. A man yelled, “Get off maauugghhh!” followed by an impressive series of expletives and then, “My arm” and a howl of pain. I thought I knew the voice. Despite the desperation and change in pitch, I was pretty sure it was the goon, Albert Zola. But what had he to do with Councilman Martin?

  The living room was aswirl with dogs, men, and long shadows. One of the men stood a little to the side and appeared to be swaying as he reached for something. He let out a long moan, spun a quarter turn, and fell to the floor. That had to be Martin, and I wondered whether he was injured or just overwhelmed.

  The dogs had targeted the other man, and his curses and howls increased in volume. I was sure now that the voice belonged to Mick Fallon’s partner, Albert Zola. Bonnie continued to bark, with sporadic breaks to dive at the man’s legs.

  “Hit him!” It was Goldie. “Don’t let him hurt the dogs!”

  The goon was whirling one way, then the other. In the dim light, he and Jay appeared to be engaged in some bizarre tug game, but Jay’s snarling didn’t sound remotely like play.

  “Goldie, do you see a light switch?”

  I heard a wall switch click, but nothing happened. I stepped in closer to the fracas, hoping to see well enough to conk Zola. Jay’s body slammed into my leg and when I landed on my left foot, I thought the pain that rocketed through my ankle and up my leg might knock me flat.

  Light flooded the room. Goldie had found the chain for a floor lamp.

  “Get them off me!” Desperation twisted Zola’s voice and pitched it so high it was almost unintelligible. Jay had a firm grip on the man’s wrist and seemed to be trying to dislocate his arm. Bonnie snapped at his calf, his butt, his ankle, raising a bark-storm between strikes.

  I held the rake up, tine-end toward the man’s chest, handle gripped like a javelin. “Stop fighting and I’ll call them off.” One side of the man’s face seemed to be a mass of scabs, as if he’d exfoliated with a vegetable grater, but it was so contorted with pain and fear that I wasn’t sure what else was wrong.

  “Okay! Okay!”

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” said Goldie. “Martin is hurt.”

  Zola flailed at Jay’s head with his free hand.

  “I said stand still,” I aimed the end of the rake at his face. “If you try to hit my dog again, I’ll shove this rake into your face.”

  “Okay, just get it off me!” He held his free hand up in surrender. There was nothing funny about the moment, with my neighbor lying injured on the floor, but when I remembered the scene later, I wished someone had videotaped the last few seconds. Jay had lost his grip on the man’s wrist but was still yanking on his shirt and jacket sleeves and had pulled the shoulder seams halfway to Zola’s elbow. Bonnie had him by the front of his pants, and judging by the look on his face, she had more than fabric between her teeth.

  “Are you going to stand still?”

  “Yeah! Yeah!”

  “Jay, drop it.”

  Goldie was on the floor beside Martin. She called, “Bonnie, that’ll do.”

  Bonnie released Zola’s fly and ran to Goldie. Jay rolled his eyes at me, still holding the sleeves. I forced my voice to be low and calm. “It’s okay now. Drop it.” He let go but kept his eyes on the man.

  Sirens broke through the sudden silence, distant but getting louder. I glanced at Goldie, but she was busy pressing a chair-arm cover against Martin’s shoulder. “Did you call for help?” I asked.

  “No, but we need to. He’s been shot.”

  I turned my attention back to the man in front of me and took my hand off the back end of the rake handle to get my cell phone. The attacker saw his chance. He raised his arms, fingers spread, and lunged toward me.

  seventy-four

  Once again, my years of observing animals paid off. I sensed more than saw the beginning of movement when the thug from Cleveland made his move. I regained my grip on the rake handle just as he started to lunge toward me and thrust the flat edge of the tines into his face. The metal bar hit his nose with a stomach-turning crunch and snapped his head back. Blood spilled past his howling mouth and onto his shirt. When he spoke, the words were hard to make out. All I got was, “… you later,” and fear traced a path down my spine.

  The sirens were loud now, and flashing red lights filled the room. Zola staggered backward a few steps before he turned and ran out the way we had come in. Jay started to chase him, but stopped when I told him to lie down. Two police cruisers parked in front of the house and I moved to the front door to let the officers in. Bill Washington, Martin’s neighbor on the other side, met them on the lawn and had a few words. I didn’t know any of the police officers, and once they were inside and partly up to speed, I retreated to the kitchen and called Hutchinson.

  After I gave him the basics, I said, “He’s hurt, Hutch. I don’t know how badly, but I probably broke his nose, and I think he has some dog bites on his arm and legs and possibly his privates.”

  “What?”

  “Bon
nie had him by the fly.”

  When Hutch stopped laughing, he said, “You shouldn’t have gone in there, Janet,” but then he relented and said, “but I have to admit, I feel a bit sorry for any bad guy who takes on you and your friends, furry or otherwise.” He said he was on his way and would alert law enforcement and area medical facilities to be on the lookout for a heavy-set guy with a scabby face, a broken nose, and dog bites.

  An ambulance arrived a few minutes later for Martin. He was conscious, but barely, from what I could tell. They were pulling away when I sat down beside Goldie to ask if she knew which hospital they would take him to. Jay sat beside me and leaned into me, and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

  “Parkview.” She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, hugging Bonnie to her chest and rocking back and forth.

  “I think you might want to wash up,” I said, and she followed my gaze to her blood-smeared hands.

  “Yes, I guess I should,” she said. “It was Martin’s own gun, the fool. He said he pulled it from that drawer to ‘defend himself.’” She gestured toward an end table and shook her head. “The guy took it away from him and shot him.”

  “How bad?”

  She shrugged. “I’m no nurse. I know enough, though, to know he was lucky it wasn’t six inches lower.” She placed her hand over her heart.

  One of the police officers squatted in front of Goldie and said, “Ma’am, do you need medical attention?” When Goldie said no, she wasn’t hurt, the officer turned to me. “I noticed you were limping. Are you injured?”

  “No. Well, yes, but not from this fiasco. I sprained my ankle earlier. It just hurts a bit.”

  Officer Judith Mason nodded, and then earned a huge gold star in my book when she asked whether either dog needed veterinary attention. She told Goldie she could clean up if she wanted, but asked us not to leave until they sorted things out.