Unfortunately, the freshly trimmed yard revealed another problem—rats. With the steady supply of food in the form of bird droppings and water that swamped her yard from a garden hose Madeleine ran twenty-four hours a day for her raccoons, her yard was a haven for vermin. With their grass cover now gone, they fled into the surrounding neighborhood. Burrows appeared beneath the fence separating Ben’s and Madeleine’s yards. Rat droppings accumulated in piles. Half-eaten rats themselves were found in his yard, gifts from Madeleine’s wild cats, which Ben could never keep an accurate count on.
Ben attended the next neighborhood meeting at the Barcroft Community House. The neighborhood was in an uproar. The local councilwoman, dressed in a power suit and a brittle smile, attempted to calm the riled crowd. “I hear all of your concerns, but if everyone does their part—”
A tall man with a southern accent stood up. “Ma’am, all due respect, this is bullshit. Let’s call a spade a spade here. We all know the problem is stemming from one individual. The only question is: What are you going to do about it?”
“Again, I empathize with you, but the county can only cite an individual when complaints are made. The individual has thirty days to comply or a fine will be levied.”
It was maddening. After the meeting, Ben introduced himself to the seething tall man by telling him his address. His neighbor’s face went from seething to incredulous. “Wait a minute, you’re the next-door neighbor?”
Ben nodded.
“Brother, why am I just meeting you now?”
It was a legitimate question, Ben thought. It was his first meeting. He had spent the spring traveling back and forth to New Jersey, tending to his ailing father. When his father finally succumbed to the cancer, he suddenly found himself with time to fill and plenty of anger to burn. Since there was no breezy way to tell the man all of that, he said nothing. It was a rhetorical question anyway.
The man put his arm around Ben and yelled, “Lisa, get over here! This is the idiot who moved next door to her!”
That was how Ben met Jim, his best friend in Barcroft.
Jim introduced Ben to the rest of the neighbors on 3rd Street South, who were thrilled to have another join their ranks against Madeleine. They pumped him for information, and Ben was frustrated enough to share everything he knew. They were also eager to gossip about their own horror stories with her. The knot of neighbors pieced together her history for Ben. She had come from Seattle about ten years before, and at first, she was lovely. She was a practicing psychiatrist, until she began self-medicating. Then came harder drugs, eventually leading to her license being revoked. “After that,” said Jim, “she became a licensed raccoon rehabilitator.”
“Is that even a thing?” asked Ben.
“Whenever a raccoon gets run over or something and leaves behind babies, she takes them in. How you get a permit for this in Arlington, three miles from the damn Fourteenth Street Bridge…” He threw up his hands.
Jim’s wife, Lisa, a nurse, leaned in. “I’m not supposed to say this, but she comes into my emergency room every couple of months to be treated for animal bites. Raccoons are not friendly.”
A white-haired man named Stuart, tall and stooped, raised his hand to continue where Jim had left off. He had piercing blue eyes, and as he extended his finger to continue, there was just enough of a flourish to capture Ben’s attention and he suddenly remembered seeing the man at the summer block party, performing a magic show for the neighborhood children. He liked him instantly. “With the alcohol and street drugs, she started sideswiping cars. And she fed the birds beyond all common sense. She’d just dump a bag of seed on her front lawn and every chipmunk, rat, and rabbit in the D.C. metro area came to 3rd Street. Foxes too! One turned out to be rabid and the county had to come out and put it down. We all banded together and knocked on her door, begging her to see the light, but she kicked us off her property and put up a fence instead.”
“So that’s why she dumps the seed in her backyard now.”
Stuart nodded.
An older woman who stood just outside the ring of neighbors made a clucking noise. “Fence doesn’t do me a damn bit of good. She runs her garden hose ’round the clock so her critters can have running water. My yard is swamped more often than not.”
“Shit runs downhill,” said Jim.
“And Hazel is definitely in downhill territory,” said Stuart.
“What do you two know? You’re at the top of the block. You don’t have to contend with the rats or the runoff,” she said, then leveled a gaze at Ben, adding, “or the barking dogs.”
Ben looked at his feet. “All the animals stir him up…”
“Don’t worry about it, man,” said Jim. “Hazel could hit the lottery and she’d bitch about the taxes.”
Hazel continued, unfazed. “I was having a toilet installed once, and out of the pipes sprang five long, skinny rats. One right after the other. Five long, skinny rats, I tell you…” She glared at Ben, relishing her moment in the spotlight.
“Eye on the prize, Hazel,” said Stuart. “What are we going to do?”
“We organize,” said Jim. “We file complaints, one right after another, forever and ever amen. We rotate. At the end of thirty days, one of us files another. Tall grass, rats, bird droppings, whatever. We get our Big Bad Wolf on and we huff and we puff until we blow that goddamn house down. You in, next-door neighbor?”
Ben thought of his house and car, perpetually caked in pigeon shit, and the rat burrows multiplying beneath his fence, eroding the barrier between him and chaos.
“Hell, yeah, I’m in.”
—
That was four months ago. A month later, Rachel left. Or was it two months? He did not remember anymore, and the antidepressants made it so that he did not care. All he remembered was that it was hot the day she moved out, which made loading her car even more brutal.
Ben stood in the center of the yard, looking at the top of Madeleine’s bizarre clubhouse, just visible over the fence, while Bucky sniffed the ground and squatted at intervals. Even at her age, just a couple of years older than Ben, Madeleine had been taken by the drugs and the filth. It was not the solution Ben wanted. It was, in fact, not even a solution. The animals remained.
Bucky finished his business and began running figure eights around the yard. He was never more exuberant than right after relieving himself. It would take a minute to calm him down. Ben looked around, saw no lights on in Hazel’s or the other neighboring houses, then unzipped his fly. The landed Virginia gentry, he thought to himself.
He blew a cool jet of air in front of him, then looked at the moon, now dotting Madeleine’s crumbling chimney. He saw movement in the window on her back porch. Too big for a rat. A cat? When she fell ill, Animal Control came and liberated her menagerie of pets. Had they left a straggler?
The dog whined behind him.
“Just a second, Buck. You had your turn.”
He finished, then turned toward the dark corner of his yard, opposite Madeleine’s. Bucky was lounging in the bushes like he was back on the couch. He was mostly hidden, but his paws were splayed out, not a care in the world.
“You’re killing me, Buck. Now I have to clean you. Let’s go.”
Ben was halfway to the bush when Bucky’s legs slid from view.
He was trying to process how the dog could move like that, his four paws kicked out as they were, when he went cold. He felt the growl before he heard it, a vibration in the air between him and the greenery, twenty feet from where he stood. The hairs on his arms and neck stood up. The skin around his testicles tightened.
Something else was in the bushes, something that sounded not unlike the predator sounds of the Serengeti he had been watching from the safety of his couch no more than ten minutes before.
The growl abated. There were no other sounds. No barking, whining, or panting.
“Buck?” His voice cracked. “Here, boy.”
He heard a wet sound, then a loud crack, like branches sn
apping. Somehow, Ben knew it wasn’t branches.
He took a tentative step forward.
Before his foot landed on the ground, Bucky exploded out of the bushes. Ben pinwheeled backward and his feet went out from under him. He landed flat on his back with a hard jolt on the wet leaves where he had just urinated. When he looked up, he saw Bucky, in profile, sailing over the fence, neck askew. Bucky was a full-grown greyhound, ninety pounds, but whatever had him in its maw was much larger. The dog’s body trailed to the side of the beast, blocking a full view, but in the moonlight, Ben saw that it was the same tawny color of his dog, but with a round head and a low, broad muzzle with ears pinned back. Feline. It cleared the waist-high fence to Hazel’s yard with ease and was across her lawn before Ben could even get to his feet.
Ben clambered over the fence after them. By the time he hit the ground, the beast was already across Hazel’s property and crossing the street. Ben sprinted after them, but for every foot he covered, the beast outpaced him by four, even burdened with Bucky. By the time Ben emerged onto the street, the big cat had bounded through two more yards and was on the next street over. Ben’s chest felt like his heart was going to explode. As his chest burned, despair crept in.
He’s gone. Stop running.
On the next street, he relented. He put his head between his knees in defeat. When the dizziness stopped, he looked up and saw the big cat had dropped Bucky in the middle of the street and was padding back toward Ben.
Bucky was large by greyhound standards. With his tawny coat and his meaty haunches, he resembled a deer buck. That was Ben’s first impression of him when he adopted him from the rescue agency, and the nickname stuck. He had been kicked out of the greyhound racing circuit for being too big and muscular and other greyhounds always looked malnourished and spindly by comparison. Now, lying in a heap at the cat’s feet, he was the one who looked spindly. The cat’s forequarters and hind legs were twice as thick, maybe as thick as a man’s limbs. It had cleared the fence carrying ninety pounds of dead weight with ease. And with no warning, it charged Ben.
There was no time to run, no time even to yell. It cut the distance between them from the width of a block to twenty feet before Ben could even draw a breath. It leapt over the chain-link fence, the last obstacle between them, and was bounding toward him when Ben threw his arms up in front of him by instinct. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the teeth.
None came.
When the time passed for him to have felt fangs in his neck and claws on his chest, he opened one eye. Ten feet in front of him was the cat. It was twice the size of Bucky, larger even than Ben. It sat on its haunches, its chest displayed. Powerful, prideful. All sleek muscle. Its ears were up, curious. Almost playful. No, disdainful. Clearly, he thought, I’m not a threat.
Still, Ben felt naked. It could resume its charge at any moment and he would not have time to blink, much less defend himself. All those stupid survival shows, he thought. Think of something. Back away? Will that trigger it to chase? The thing would be on top of him before he could pivot. He remembered something about making yourself appear larger when you stumble upon a predator—standing on tiptoe, waving your arms, and shouting. But was that for a bear? Ben decided against any sudden moves, but tried to subtly puff up his chest.
The cat cocked its head.
They continued to regard each other. Ben wondered if he was supposed to make direct eye contact. He doubted it, but he could not help himself, the creature was so mesmerizing. When it moved its head, its eyes shone the color of Madeleine’s porch light, an autumnal glow. Despite himself, Ben conceded the creature was magnificent. He was nearly hypnotized by those eyes and its sleek form, when, in one fluid motion, the beast halved the distance between them again. Ben could smell the cat then, a heavy musk, oppressive and sweet with rot. Without thinking, Ben took a step back. The cat allowed this, then sniffed the air between them.
It pinned its ears back and bared its teeth. It emitted a high-pitched growl from deep inside, like the whine of an engine burning up. Its graceful, liquid form quivered. Ben’s flesh followed and erupted in gooseflesh. He waited for the pounce.
The cat broke off its stare and trotted back to the fence. It leapt over it and, just as effortlessly, collected its prey before disappearing into the woods.
Chapter 2
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Ben’s adrenaline had flushed by the time the officer arrived. Her name tag read CUSHING in block letters. She looked to be a few years younger than Ben, in a uniform that was all black and resembled a flight suit, complemented by a bulletproof vest and a thick belt of deadly accoutrements. She had nice features, but they appeared stretched by a ponytail pulled back so severely it looked to Ben as if she had tried to yank her femininity out through the back of her head. In another situation, he thought he might find her attractive, but it required more imagination and energy than he could spare at the moment.
“Thirty minutes,” he said. “I lit Chinese poppers on the Fourth of July and you guys were here by the time one string stopped popping.”
She lifted her gaze from her notepad to him. Her expression was strained, all but her mouth. It was an even line that betrayed nothing. Even the ponytail was not enough to pull it one way or the other.
“I’m here now, sir.”
Ben suddenly pictured how he must look—disheveled, agitated. Tweaked. Then he pictured Bucky in a heap in the street, broken, neck lolled back. Bucky, who deserved better.
“Just read me what you have.”
“Lost dog…tan greyhound…answers to Bucky…last seen on 3rd Street…”
“Jesus H. Christ.”
“Sir?”
“Can you pay attention for one goddamn second? Do I need to request someone older?” He knew it was a cheap shot. He didn’t care.
She closed the notepad and fit it into a pouch, then smiled. “Sir, I’m trying to be patient, but this really isn’t a police matter. But I’ve collected the pertinent information, and now I’ll be on my way. I hope you find your dog.”
She turned to her cruiser.
“The dog is dead. I watched it die.”
“A cougar, right?”
“Yes. Or a mountain lion. I think they’re the same thing, but whatever it was snapped my dog’s neck right in my backyard! Right in front of me!”
“Okay. Anything else?”
He wanted to scream. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a breath. “Look, Officer Cushing, my father was career law enforcement and I wouldn’t waste your time with a bullshit call. I know that when dispatch made the call for a lost pet, you probably rolled your eyes, but you were closest. So now you’re here, taking my information, but really you’re dying to get back in your cruiser and to the next call, which you hope will be bigger. You’re alone, so I know you have to be both ‘good cop’ and ‘bad cop,’ but if I could speak to ‘good cop’ for just a moment, I would like her to know that some fox didn’t snatch my malty-poo. A wild animal bigger than you just caught and killed ninety pounds of lean muscle and the fastest breed of dog in the world. And it almost got me too.”
“But you stopped it with an awesome speech?”
“I’m serious.”
“I know, and since now I know we’re on the same team and all”—gesturing between the two of them—“let me ask you an honest question. On a scale of one to ten, how important do you think this call is to the Arlington County Police Department?”
“Five?”
“Two. It’s a two, sir. I suggest you call Animal Control.” She turned for her car once more.
Ben called after her. “It’s Public Health Division, actually, and Manny’s not picking up his cell.”
The officer stopped. “Manny?”
“No one is answering the after-hours number. That’s why I called you.”
“Manny Benavides?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you know about him?”
Her tone went from brittle p
oliteness to steel in an instant. He heard himself answering without protest.
“I don’t know. He works for the county, in Public Health, like I said. He’s basically Animal Control. He does what he can for the neighborhood, but his hands are pretty tied.”
“Hands are tied?” Out came the notebook.
“If you couldn’t tell, I live next to the biggest shit show in the county. A crazy woman lived there, destroyed the place, and fed the animals like she was Snow White.”
“I think you mean Sleeping Beauty.”
“I mean whatever crazy-ass princess kept raccoons as pets. Long story short, the neighborhood is full of rats. Manny tried to help, but there was only so much he could do by law. Why do you care about Manny?”
“His wife reported him missing. He was last seen on Thursday by a resident on 7th Street. She reported his county vehicle the next day. He hasn’t been seen since. How well did you know him?”
“Not well. I mean, he was a good guy, cared about the neighborhood. He came out every month or so to keep the heat on Madeleine.”
“Madeleine?”
Ben jerked his thumb. “Sleeping Beauty.” He studied the officer studying the house. “She’s dead,” he added.
She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t get her kiss in time?”
Ben smiled despite himself. “A month ago. Drugs. Burned the candle at both ends. Next thing you know, heart attack.”
“If Mr. Benavides reaches out to you, please call me. To help calibrate your scale, this is what the department would consider an eight or a nine.”
“You said 7th Street. That’s right by Four Mile Run. Did you sweep the woods?”
“Yes, sir, we did. Nothing. We’re hoping he had a girlfriend or something.”
“Or the same thing that got my dog got Manny. It headed toward Four Mile Run.”
“I will take that into consideration, CSI Arlington.” She walked around to the driver’s side of her cruiser. Over the roof, she said, “Have a good evening, Mr. McKelvie.”
“I’m telling you, it was fully grown, more than a match for a middle-aged county worker.”
The Beast of Barcroft Page 2