by Jan Burke
The big living room had little furniture — a sofa and chair, a television and VCR, and a bookcase. This latter held a number of videotapes, books about dogs and anthropology, and titles by Twain, Thurber, and Wodehouse.
Bingle distracted me from taking in much more of the decor. He was hurrying from room to room at an anxious trot, whimpering. Several times he came back, looked up at me, and whined. I began following him.
“What’s he up to?” Frank asked.
I felt my throat tighten. “I think he’s looking for David.”
In one bedroom, Bingle jumped up on the unmade bed, and rubbed his face against the sheets and pillows; in the closet, he put his nose into each of the shoes and then rolled in a pile of laundry; in the bathroom, he sniffed at hairbrushes, a toothbrush, drains, and the toilet seat.
I tried talking to him, but he just hurried out into another bedroom, one with a single dresser and a neatly made bed. He took a quick look around, nuzzled the pillow and whined, then went out into the kitchen, where Frank had started gathering his food, feeding instructions, and dog toys. Bingle ignored him.
Bingle moved to a door off the kitchen and scratched at it. I opened it; it led to the garage. There were stacks of cardboard boxes here; he gave them a cursory sniff and made his way to a back door, frantically pawing at it. He started barking.
I opened it, and followed him out into a large fenced yard, with two dog runs. Bingle looked into one of these and barked again. The one marked “Boolean.”
There was no lock on it. I unlatched its gate, which creaked as I opened it. Bingle went inside, sniffed around, and again looked back at me. It was as if he were willing me to answer some question. I knelt down, and answered the one I thought he might be asking.
“They’re gone, Bingle,” I said, wishing I had never brought him here.
He sat down, studied me silently for a moment, then raised his head back and howled — not the high, crooning note he had playfully sung for David, but a low, primal and plaintive lament, a sound to beckon ghosts.
Three nights later, I sneaked Bingle into the hospital. I know an ornery nun on the staff at St. Anne’s, and with her help and the cooperation of a couple of guards, we arrived on Ben’s floor not long before the end of that evening’s visiting hours. I had given the dog the command to be silent, but he already seemed to sense that he was part of a clandestine operation. He was at his most charming with Sister Theresa and the guards. He padded along quietly at my side. While I could see that his nose was working overtime, he didn’t insist on checking out any of what must have been a multitude of intriguing scents.
Ben was expecting us; the visit was his suggestion, although I don’t think he thought I’d be able to pull it off. Bingle wasn’t eating. “I regret bringing him to David’s now,” I told Ben, “but I think part of what’s depressing him is that everyone who is familiar to him is gone from his life now — David, Bool, and as far as he knows, you.”
Ben’s doubts that Bingle missed him were put to rest by the dog’s reaction to seeing him. Bingle’s ears came up, and his tail wagged furiously. He approached the bed quickly, but carefully, and after giving a little “rowl” of excitement, gently nuzzled and kissed Ben.
Bingle’s presence wasn’t such bad medicine for Ben, either. They both looked the happiest I had seen them in days.
It was during this reunion that the door to Ben’s room opened and a nearly illegally gorgeous blonde walked in. She was tall and thin, had large, long-lashed, sea green eyes, high cheekbones, a lovely nose, and any number of other features that made me wonder how many women had to take an extra ration of ugly so that God could make this one turn out so beautiful. She was wearing a conservatively cut beige business suit and carried flowers — a cheery bouquet in an elegant ceramic vase — a personal touch, I thought, not your standard issue green glass from the florist.
“I seem to have come at a bad time,” she said.
“How did you manage to get past the guards?” Ben snapped.
Was the man crazy? I knew how she got past them.
“A really bad time,” she said, and started to back out.
“No, wait,” Ben said, but I noticed he was holding fast to Bingle. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. Come in, Camille.”
So this was the ex-girlfriend.
She glanced at the end of the bed and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Can you spot the fake?” he asked.
She blushed but said, “I didn’t think they’d fit you with a prosthesis so quickly.”
“It’s just temporary,” he said. “Let me introduce you to my friends. You’ve met Bingle.”
The dog wagged his tail; she nodded nervously.
“Irene Kelly, Sister Theresa, this is Camille Graham.”
“Hello,” she said. We said hello back.
Nobody said anything else for a moment.
“You can put the flowers on that dresser if you like,” Ben said, then unbending a little, added, “if they’re for me.”
She smiled. “Yes, I thought—”
“Thanks,” he said.
She set them down, then stayed near the dresser. She glanced at me and Sister Theresa.
“Maybe we should be going,” I said.
“No, stay,” Ben said quickly. “Please. I’ve missed Bingle.”
Camille folded her arms. There was a brief silence, then he said, “So how have you been?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Still seeing—”
“No. But I think you know that.”
“Yes. David told me. Sorry things didn’t work out.”
She shrugged. “How long will you be here?”
“In the hospital? About two more weeks.”
“Only two more weeks? Two weeks after . . .”
“Yes. I’ll probably be in a wheelchair at first, but I’m already getting up on my feet — or should I say foot?”
“Ben—”
“By the middle of summer,” he went on, determinedly ignoring her pitying look, “I’ll have my prosthesis. Then it will be feet.”
“If you need a place to stay—”
“I won’t.”
“Where will you live?”
He hesitated, then said, “David’s lawyer came by yesterday. It seems I’ve inherited a house.”
“But who will take care of you?”
He petted Bingle. “I’ll be fine.”
She glanced at Sister Theresa, turned red, but said to him, “If you want to move back in—”
“Absolutely not.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t,” he said.
A silence stretched. I wanted out of there, and thought Sister Theresa might be feeling uncomfortable, too. But a quick look at her made me realize that she was enjoying the hell out of herself.
“Your work,” Camille said. “You obviously can’t continue—”
“And why not?”
“Be realistic, Ben. What are your plans?”
“Realistically? To go back to the work I’ve always done.”
“But—”
“You think I won’t be capable of doing it?”
“No,” she said with resignation. “You can do whatever you set your mind to, Ben.”
“You just don’t approve of my choices.”
“True, I’ve never liked your work, but after what’s happened, I would think you’d consider changing your career.”
“If anything,” he said fiercely, “I’m more determined to do whatever I can to stop people like Nick Parrish. Irene — other than those of our own group, how many bodies have the searchers found up there now?”
“Ben!” Camille said angrily.
“Irene?”
“Ten women — last count,” I answered. “They think there are more.”
“They’ll be working up there for months, Camille. Because of one man. And every family who has a missing daughter will want to know if she’s one of them.”
> “We’ve been over all of this before,” Camille said. “I don’t know why I came by.” She moved toward the door. “Silly to think you might need my help.”
“I’m not a charity case,” he said, his anger returning in force. “And I’d have to lose more than a leg to—”
“Don’t,” she said quickly. “I get the message.”
She opened the door, stopped, and said, “I was sorry to hear about David.”
He was silent.
“Take care, Ben,” she said.
“You too, Camille. Thanks for coming by. I mean that.”
She turned back toward him.
He smiled. “Really. I know your intentions were good. You’ve just forgotten what a” — he glanced at Sister Theresa — “what an old bear I am.”
“No, I haven’t,” she said. “It’s one of the things I like about you.”
He laughed.
As if she couldn’t resist saying it one more time, she added, “Please think about finding some other kind of work.”
His smile faded. “Maybe you should do the same.”
She left.
There was a collective release of breath as the door closed behind her.
Bingle imitated it with a loud sigh of his own.
“Sorry,” Ben said to the dog, “that probably ruined your visit.”
“I have the feeling he thinks he’s spending the night,” I said.
“Much as I’d like it, Bingle, I think we’ll have to take a rain check.”
Just before we left, I asked, “Ben, how will you manage after you’re released?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. Probably hire someone to help out.”
On an associate professor’s salary? I thought. He must have seen my doubts, because he said, “I’ve got to take it one step at a time.” He grinned and added, “Having only one foot—”
“Oh, for God’s sake—”
He laughed.
“I’m serious.”
“Too serious. Take care of Bingle — that’s plenty for the time being.”
We slipped Bingle back out and I said good night to Sister Theresa and our co-conspirator guards. As I walked across the darkened parking lot, I saw other visitors leaving. I was unlocking the door to the Volvo, trying to manage leash and keys and purse when I saw Nick Parrish. He was sitting in the next car over, watching me. I dropped the keys and opened my mouth to scream, stumbling backward and tangling myself in Bingle’s leash. Parrish would catch me!
That’s when I saw that I was wrong. It was not Parrish. Just a man, waiting in a car.
I got into the Volvo with Bingle. I rolled the windows down and petted the dog while I waited to stop shaking. Bingle sat patiently, not fussing or barking. Twenty minutes later, I had calmed down enough to start the car.
“You need to stop thinking about Parrish,” I told myself. “You need to find some distractions.”
I pursued that idea with a vengeance.
34
THURSDAY NIGHT, MAY 25
Las Piernas
It was late when I came home that evening, but I found that Frank, Jack, Stinger, and Travis had waited for me.
“You didn’t eat dinner?” I asked.
But there was only one dinner anyone was concerned with, and I wondered if Bingle had ever before received applause for chowing down.
“It worked!” Travis said. “Was Ben happy to see him?”
“Oh, yes.” As we sat down to our own dinner, I told them what had happened at the hospital, with the exception of my scare in the parking lot. Stinger asked me if I thought Camille Graham might go for a more mature type of gentleman, prompting Jack to ask him where he was going to find one.
“She sounds nice,” Travis said, and blushed when that made the other men laugh.
“I think she is,” I said. “But Ben seems to be a long way from accepting any offers of friendship from her — which is too bad. I think it might have been good for him to let her help him out. Without David, I don’t know how he’ll manage.”
“Maybe he should stay with me,” Jack said.
“You aren’t really set up for houseguests,” Stinger said. “I speak from personal experience. A few more nights on that couch of yours, and I’ll need surgery myself.”
“That can be remedied,” Jack said.
“Damn straight,” Stinger said. “I’m going back home.”
Travis cleared his throat and said, “I’m going with him.”
“What?” Frank and I said in unison.
“Travis here has a notion he’d like to learn how to fly a helicopter,” Stinger said. “And I said that seeing as he has already made out his will, I’ll teach him.”
“I won’t let another twenty-odd years go by before I come back,” Travis said quickly, knowing my first concern. Until recently, family misunderstandings had separated me from my cousin, and I wasn’t willing to lose track of him again. “I’m just going to spend a little time trying something new,” he said. “I think I’ll probably set up a place of my own when I do come back, though.”
The men were looking at me, waiting for a response. “If it’s what you want to do,” I said, “that’s great. Just don’t become a stranger.”
He became animated, telling me about how much he had enjoyed riding up in the cockpit of the helicopter with Stinger, about Stinger’s desert retreat, about the work Stinger did with the helicopters.
“Any word on Parrish’s whereabouts?” Jack asked Frank.
Frank shook his head. “We’re getting reports from all over the place, some in town, some as far away as Australia. Not too uncommon to have this kind of stuff going on when there’s a serial killer on the loose. People feel afraid, they start seeing him everywhere.”
And how, I thought.
As soon as dinner was over, I told them I was going to bed early, that it had been a long day, and I was tired. It was the truth — perhaps not the whole truth, but the truth.
But when I lay down, I couldn’t sleep. I was tense, and felt an unhappiness, the cause of which I couldn’t name.
On the contrary, I had nothing to be unhappy about, I told myself. I was home safe and whole, unlike everyone else who had traveled to the mountains with me a week ago. I could not rid myself of visions of their faces, and found myself thinking especially of Bob Thompson, whom I didn’t even like, which for some reason made it seem worse to me, trying to remember him kindly when I felt so little kindness toward him.
Bingle came in, and put his head on the bed next to me. I petted him until I heard him flop to the floor in a heap and sigh. Cody came in and pointedly ignored him, but curled up in the crook of my knees and purred.
I don’t remember dozing off, but that night I dreamed I was standing in a field of pieces of men — not the mess of reality, but nice neat whole body parts: heads and torsos and feet and hands and arms and legs — all bloodless and clean, more like disassembled mannequins than men. It was up to me to reassemble them, and I felt that it was urgent that I should do so, but the mixture of parts wasn’t right, and I kept making mistakes. I’d put the wrong foot on a leg and couldn’t get it off again, the wrong neck on a head. And then I began to smell the stench of the real meadow, the death smell, growing stronger and stronger — the parts were going bad, because I wasn’t assembling them fast enough. Some of the heads were angry with me; they were dying because of me, they said, and started yelling my name, making an angry, protesting chant of it.
After a time, I realized that it was Frank, not yelling, just gently saying my name, holding me, stroking my back. I was shaking, and for the longest damned time, I couldn’t stop.
“Do you smell it?” I asked.
“What?”
When I didn’t answer, his hands went still for a moment, and then he said, “The field?”
“Yes. You do? I think maybe it’s on my clothes or something I brought back — or maybe Bingle—”
“Irene . . . no, I don’t smell it.”
&nbs
p; I looked into his eyes, saw that he was serious, and said, “I have to get out of the house.”
“Okay,” he said, having plenty of experience with my claustrophobia.
We got dressed, gathered all three dogs, and went down to the end of the street. It was after midnight, and the cops who had been assigned to keep watch at the top of the stairs leading to the beach weren’t too crazy about our plans, but let us go past them.
The moon was up, and although it wasn’t full, it was bright enough to light our way. I took in great breaths of the salt air, and other scents receded. The sight of the endless silver stretch of moonlit water, the sounds of the advance and retreat of the waves, the soft give of the sand beneath my feet, all were so different from the mountain meadow of my dream. The terrifying images gave way, and I began to relax.
More aware, then, of Frank’s big warm hand holding mine, I said, “Sorry, you probably need some sleep, and here I am dragging you down to the beach.”
“I’ve had my share of bad nights, too. You can’t go through this stuff and expect that now that you’re home, you’ll just pick up where you left off.”
“No.” After a moment, I said, “This time — I don’t know how to come back from there, Frank. It’s with me. It frightens me.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Maybe you should talk to somebody.”
I didn’t answer. Two nights ago, I had told him everything that had happened in the mountains. He had listened patiently, and although he had been upset by how Parrish had terrorized me, and probably didn’t approve of my trying to draw Parrish away from Ben, he didn’t criticize me or blame me for what happened. The perfect listener, as far as I was concerned. So I knew that when he now said “talk to somebody,” he meant a therapist.
“Just a thought,” he said after a while. “I’m not trying to push you.”
“I know you aren’t,” I said, but felt relieved.
“And you can always talk to me.”
I pulled him closer to me. “Yes, I know. Thanks.” We walked a little farther, and I said, “I guess that’s why I don’t worry about needing a therapist. I’ve got a great husband, I’m surrounded by family and friends — I have a support group. Ben — I get the distinct impression that he’s not so lucky.”