by Jan Burke
“The other day at the hospital, that’s what Jo Robinson said. She was going to try to contact Ben’s sister and some of his friends, but in the meantime, she thought Ben could use whatever emotional support we could offer — although she’s concerned that you won’t take care of yourself.”
“Where does his sister live?” I asked, choosing to steer the conversation away from Jo Robinson and her concerns.
“In Iowa.”
The dogs came by and shook water on us, making us swear and laugh all at once. For a time, we simply walked and watched them.
Bingle was enjoying himself immensely; today he had definitely been the happiest I had seen him since we brought him home. It occurred to me that with his level of training, David must have spent many more hours working with him than we did with our dogs. How often each day was this dog used to being walked? Would he lose skills if we didn’t work with him?
The three dogs were getting along well together, engaging in harmless but rowdy play — dodging one another’s charges, tumbling dramatically in the sand, chasing one another into the water, then running up onto the beach.
Frank said, “I’ve been thinking about the front steps.”
I stopped walking. “The front steps?”
“I think I can get Pete and Jack to help me build a ramp. We’ll need to make some changes in the bathroom, too, maybe get one of those handheld shower goodies, and a seat. Dr. Riley can probably give us a list of things that we wouldn’t even think about on our own.”
“Frank—” I swallowed hard. “You’ve had to live with my twenty-five-year-old cousin . . .”
“Like most guys his age, Travis has had better things to do than hang around the house. You know I haven’t minded having him stay with us. I like him.”
“But Ben — he’s going to have problems, Frank. In fact, he had problems before all of this happened. This is not a great time in Ben Sheridan’s life.”
“Do you dislike him?”
“Last week, the answer would have been ‘yes.’ ”
“Now?”
“I guess I see things differently. The situation forced me to spend some time with him when he should have been at his worst. Instead it seemed to bring out the best in him.”
We turned around and headed back. Frank said, “I found you up there before Parrish did because Ben — even though he was obviously half out of his mind with pain — came up with the idea of sending Bingle with me to look for you.”
“You would have found me anyway.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But who knows? With Parrish on the loose, it’s not a chance I would have wanted to take. The other thing is — you know the old bit about saving someone’s life?”
“And then becoming responsible for it? You aren’t going to convince me that you’re suggesting Ben should stay with us because of that.”
“No, but there’s some link between the two of you now, just because you survived this together.”
“A link? Frank, maybe I should make something clear—”
“No need to,” he said firmly. “I don’t suspect that at all.”
“Why not?” I asked, and he laughed.
“Don’t worry — I have no doubt that you’re attractive to other men.”
“So you think Ben is gay?”
“No, I think Miss Ellen Raice would have blurted that out to us right off the bat.”
“True.”
He smiled. “And you didn’t just invent Camille Graham to be cruel to Stinger, did you?”
“No. So what is it?”
“I trust you,” he said. Then with a mischievous look, he added, “Besides, there are certain advantages to marrying girls like you, who never quite get over being Catholic — I would have seen the guilt from a mile away.”
I opened my mouth to protest, shut it, then muttered, “You’re right,” which made him laugh again.
So we decided that it would be good for Ben to stay with us. It was not so easy to convince Ben.
Frank proceeded to make the changes to the house anyway, saying that it would make it easier for Ben to visit. We both kept hoping that Ben would change his mind.
The sister in Iowa called Ben once, said she was sorry to hear about his trouble, but there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t afford a trip out to California, and since she was seeing a man who might pop the question at any moment, strategically, this was not a good time for her to leave Iowa. He told me the phone call was more than he had expected from her.
He was moved to another section of the hospital, and began grueling physical therapy sessions. During those two weeks, he got many calls from friends across the country, but he always told them not to bother coming out to see him.
Those were busy weeks for me, just as I had hoped they’d be. Other members of the news staff, sick of hearing from John about my productivity, started hinting to me that I could slow down anytime.
No, I couldn’t.
I was on the run, after all — as surely as I had been in the mountains. Parrish seemed to be everywhere. Seated at other tables in restaurants, walking past me on a crowded sidewalk, going down the stadium stairs at a ball game. He came out of a bookstore as I walked in, stood in the shadows at a bar when I had a drink after work with friends, stood on the pier, staring at me, when I ran on the beach. He was at the back of the bus when I rode it, he drove past me when I walked. I once saw him get into an elevator ahead of me — I took the stairs, four flights up.
I don’t do well with elevators anyway.
Although each time was as terrifying as the first, I learned not to screech or run or point — and eventually, not to tell anyone what had made me suddenly turn pale, not to tell anyone anything about it at all. This, even though I knew that Frank wouldn’t belittle me if I told him of every incident. What did that matter? I was too ashamed not to belittle myself.
When I wasn’t working, I was visiting Ben or making preparations for his release from the hospital. I went back to David’s house without Bingle, cleaning it up just in case we lost our argument with Ben. I asked Ben if he wanted me to do anything with David’s belongings; he said no. “Except — could you bring some of those training tapes in? I think Sister Theresa is going to get a VCR in here for me.”
“Bribing nuns?”
“You should talk, dog smuggler.”
“What training tapes?”
“The ones of Bingle and the SAR group. The group videotapes some of the training exercises so that they can study the way the dogs work, the way the handlers work with them. David used to watch the tapes all the time. They’ll be on the bookcase.”
“So you’re going to take up SAR and cadaver dog work?”
He glanced down at his left leg, then with a determined look, said, “Yes. If Bingle decides he doesn’t want to work with me, fine. But David put a lot of time into training him, and the least I can do for David and Bingle is to give it a try. And no one can better teach me how to work with Bingle than David.”
At first, watching the tapes upset Ben, as they did me. This was David at his best, his happiest, and the tapes served as a reminder of who it was we had lost. Seeing Bingle work with him, it was clear that they communicated superbly, that he made the best of the dog’s intelligence and abilities.
Since David’s death, I thought, Bingle must have believed himself to be in the company of dullards.
At one point, Ben paused the tape. I heard him choke back a sob.
“Do you want to wait and watch these when you’re feeling better?” I asked.
He shook his head. “There’s no feeling better about David’s death; only getting used to it.”
He hit the play button again. He was watching a tape made in the summer. At the end of it, there was some footage of a hilarious swimming party that had included the dogs. I was laughing with Ben at Bingle’s antics in the pool when I saw something that made me draw in a sharp breath.
Ben heard it and paused the tape again. “What’
s wrong?”
“I’m sorry — I didn’t know.”
He looked at the screen, and saw what had startled me. “His back, you mean? The scars?”
“Yes.”
“The worst were from a radiator.”
“An accident?” I asked hopefully, knowing it wasn’t so.
“No. David was abused.”
I couldn’t speak.
“He must have been very comfortable with the people in this group,” Ben went on. “He didn’t usually take his shirt off around others, and unless he came across someone else who was abused, he certainly didn’t speak of his childhood.” He paused. “Please don’t mention this to anyone else.”
I promised I wouldn’t. “I begin to understand why he didn’t think Parrish’s childhood excused him.”
“Yes,” Ben said. “We used to argue about that. David was an obvious example of the fact that not all abused children go on to become twisted souls, that many overcome the horrors of their childhood. But I used to tell him that not everyone was made up of the same stuff he was, not everyone was as strong. Not everyone could overcome what he did.”
I thought of Nicholas Parrish. “Perhaps there are a few who don’t want to overcome it.”
“Maybe.”
He hit the play button again, and went back to watching David.
35
TUESDAY, EARLY AFTERNOON, MAY 30
Las Piernas
The Moth stood still, watching, listening.
The door at the back of the garage was well concealed. There was a high fence, and a row of trees to shade the dog runs. The dog runs were empty, but clean.
A neighbor’s dog was barking, but no one seemed to pay any attention to it. On a weekday, at this time of day, most of the residents were at work, and their children in school.
There was an old woman across the street who might have chanced to look out her window at the dead man’s home, but if she had, she would be hard put to describe the person she had seen going into the backyard. A repairman, she probably would have guessed, judging by the large toolbox (mostly empty), the dark coveralls and boots, the leather work gloves, the billed cap pulled low over the Moth’s face. She might have noticed a limp.
The Moth stooped to open the toolbox, then paused for a moment to handle a set of trophies there — drain plugs.
Not everyone would have thought of these fuel-coated bits of metal as treasures, and Nicky would probably be angry to know the Moth kept them. But Nicky wasn’t here, was he?
In their intended place, these little darlings belonged beneath helicopters. By taking them, the Moth had ensured that the Forest Service Helitack units nearest to the meadow stayed on the ground.
The newspaper had even included a separate article about the cleverness of the ploy — an article the Moth had read every morning, almost as if it were a morning prayer — it was not a prayer, of course, but a wonderful tribute, even if Nicky had been given the credit.
Nicky had taught the Moth this method of disabling a helicopter, after all, and other methods as well. Still, the Moth had made choices. The Moth had succeeded.
The Moth was proud of this accomplishment not only because it had worked perfectly, but also because it was really a very considerate sort of sabotage, which gave it a subtlety the Moth liked. The removal of a drain plug could keep a helicopter on the ground without destroying it.
The renewed barking of the neighbor’s dog reminded the Moth of the business at hand. The drain plugs were returned to the toolbox. The Moth removed a pry bar and, within seconds, entered the garage.
The Moth propped the toolbox against the door from the inside, to hold it closed, then flipped the light switch and listened to the soft “chink-chink-chink” and then hum of the chain of fluorescent lights overhead.
The garage was clean and orderly. A group of cardboard boxes was stacked along one wall, labeled with the names of rooms — KITCHEN, BEDROOM, BATHROOM, GARAGE and — the largest number of boxes, STUDY. Curious, the Moth inspected them more closely. The top of each box had a small address label on it, of the type that is sometimes mailed with a request for a donation. These had American flags on them. There were two names on the labels: Ben Sheridan and Camille Graham. The address wasn’t this one.
Ben Sheridan. The Moth knew that Nicky was angry about Ben Sheridan. He thought he had killed Ben Sheridan, but he had only wounded him.
Only wounded for now, thought the Moth. Sooner or later he would have to leave that hospital. And poor Nicky, who couldn’t go to a hospital! The Moth had wanted to comfort him, but wisely refrained. Nicky had been too angry to accept any coddling. Actually, the Moth thought, you really couldn’t coddle Nicky. He didn’t need anyone. Not even his Moth.
Frowning, the Moth picked at the address label on one of the boxes marked STUDY. It came off easily. The Moth carefully pocketed it. Using a utility knife to cut the tape which sealed it, the Moth opened the box and studied its contents. Books. Not even the books the Moth had hoped for — ones about forensic anthropology, which might have photos of dead bodies in them — but stupid, stupid books, by Jane Austen and James Baldwin and Charles Dickens and Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor. Poetry by Auden, Dickinson, Eliot, Housman, Hughes, Neruda, Poe.
Tired old books that any kid in high school might be made to read! Why, any public library had these books in it — why buy them? And what did any of them really have to say about life in these times? Nothing! Had the writers ever met the likes of Nicky and the Moth? No, never!
Disgusted, the Moth folded the box closed and proceeded into the house.
The door between the house and the garage was not locked. The Moth stepped into the kitchen, then stood motionless.
Someone had already been here. The Moth could tell that the house had been opened, aired out. The Moth drew in a deep breath, tried to allow the scent of the house to tell the story, as Nicky might have done.
There was still the smell of dogs. If you allowed dogs to live indoors, even house-trained dogs, there would be their doggy scent. Trying not to allow that to interfere, the Moth continued through the house. In the kitchen there was the scent of cleaning products — chlorine and something with lemon in it. The Moth opened the refrigerator. The shelves were pristine; there was no milk or meat or any other thing that might rot. There were only a few jars and an open yellow box of baking soda.
The trash had been taken out; there was a new white plastic bag in the kitchen trash can — the only object in it was a crumpled paper towel, smelling of window cleaner.
As the Moth walked slowly through the house, it became clear that someone had been here in the time since the owner died. Who? Did the dead man have a maid? No — no, he only taught at the college. He had no money to hire someone to clean his house.
The Moth knew this, and all sorts of other things about the dead man, things most people didn’t know. The dead man’s mother had died when he was two; his alcoholic father had abused him terribly throughout his childhood — if there had been larger pieces of him left behind in the Meadow, investigators might have seen the scars.
The dead man’s father had always marked him in places that could be covered by his clothes. These facts might have shocked another person, but they had quite a different effect on the Moth. The Moth knew all about hidden scars.
Like many abused children, David Niles was a good student, a child who tried to please. His father died when he was a teenager. He had been sent to live with his mother’s sister, an old maid who raised dogs in New Mexico. He loved dogs. He loved his aunt. She put him through college, where he met Ben Sheridan, who was a year or two ahead of him.
The Moth knew that it was Ben Sheridan’s enthusiasm for physical anthropology that led David Niles to change his major. Niles’s graduate studies were interrupted when he took care of his aunt before her death. She had already found homes for her dogs when she became too ill to care for them. No one would take care of her except her nephew. After her death, he went back
and finished his doctorate, then — with Ben Sheridan’s help — obtained a part-time teaching position at Las Piernas College. Just before he died, he had been promoted to a full-time position.
The Moth also knew that David Niles — no, the Moth decided, call him the dead man — had inherited a little money from his aunt, and had used that to buy this house, build the dog runs, and cover the expenses of buying, training, outfitting, feeding, and otherwise caring for two large search dogs.
The Moth knew a great deal about every member of the group that went up to the mountains with Nicky, but knew more about this dead man than the others. This one had been the Moth’s special project, which was how it came about that this search of the dead man’s home was necessary.
In the living room, the Moth detected an odor of lemon furniture polish and, in the carpet, the scent of the dogs.
Not nearly as well as Nicky would have done. Nicky could distinguish scent better than any human alive. The Moth firmly believed this to be true.
Nicky would have been angry to know that the Moth had overlooked one small, small detail. But the Moth was about to take care of it, and Nicky need never know.
The Moth thought about the drain plugs in the toolbox and wondered why keeping secrets from Nicky was so exciting.
Before long, though, the Moth was feeling not excitement, but panic. What the Moth sought should have been in the living room, but it wasn’t. And suddenly, what seemed like a very small detail loomed very large.
Why, of all things, should this be missing?
Did the police know? Had they already made the connection?
There was a knock at the door. The Moth froze, then moved as quietly as possible to one of the bedrooms, and hid in the closet. Would the Moth have to kill the person at the door? Nicky would be furious — the Moth wasn’t here at Nicky’s bidding. Nicky would have planned for this, would have foreseen this! What if the person at the door went around to the garage and found the toolbox?