Close to Home

by K. J. Emrick

  With a sigh, I turned around, and started back up the street the other way.

  Don’t get me wrong. I like bacon as much as the next Aussie, especially the real stuff we get at the Inn. Not those stringy, fatty strips people from other parts of the world insist on eating. Even so, I’d had more than enough for one day by the time I made it down to the other end of Danskin.

  One piece left in the bag, and the smell of bacon heavy in the air, and not one single bark or sniff or wagging tail to be found.

  I turned around in a circle, watching each house carefully. Nobody was out and about on this fine morning in late April. I heard a few birds chirping but I doubted that they were after my bacon. They certainly weren’t dogs, either.

  So when I got tackled from behind by a furry little monster with four feet, it took me totally by surprise.

  “Whuff! Whuff!”

  The dog snuffed me all over once he’d succeeded in bringing me down to my knees and his nose settled over the piece of cured meat in my hand. He breathed all over it and opened his mouth like he was going to suck it away from me, but then he backed up a step, lowering his head to look up at me with big brown eyes. A little whine asked me if he might, please, please, please, have a bite of what was in my hand.

  “Go ahead,” I told him, reaching out with the treat. “No one else is going to want it now, anyway.”

  With another quiet sort of bark he nipped the bacon from me and then laid it down on the ground to start chomping away at it.

  He was a nice looking dog, although obviously a mix. Black and white fur, barrel chest and strong legs obviously marked the Koolie breed in him, but his hair was longer and his ears a bit too floppy to ever be mistaken for a purebred. He eyed me as he ate, as if he was worried I was going to snatch away his treat at the last moment.

  “Arthur Phillip, I presume?” I asked him, venturing a hand out to scratch between his ears. He snuffled louder in response, but didn’t stop licking at the ground where the bacon had been only just a second ago.

  “Hey!” yelled a girl, from two houses down. “Get away from my dog!”

  Arthur Phillip cringed at the sound of that voice and rubbed a shoulder up against me. I’d never owned a dog of my own before, but the message here seemed perfectly clear.

  Protect me from the screaming girl.

  She was a teenager, all legs and smooth skin and long blonde hair done in a tight braid. Her shorts weren’t new, or even designer label, and her shirt looked like a hand-me-down from a brother, but she made the most of what she was wearing. She might’ve been pretty, too, if not for the scowl on her lips and the way her eyes were glaring daggers at me.

  I stood up, keeping one hand on the top of the dog’s head, and met the charging teen with a smile. “Hello. My name is Dell Powers. Was it you that found my friend’s dog?”

  That brought her up short, a string of curse words dying off with a hot breath. “What d’ya mean, your friend’s dog? This is my dog, thank you very much. I got him for my birthday a few days back from—”

  She snapped her lips closed, crossing her arms over her midsection, preferring to glare at me some more instead of telling me where she got the dog from.

  Which was fine with me. I knew what she’d been about to say.

  “From your boyfriend, you mean?” I nodded with my head in the direction of the pine trees that separated this street from Revelation Way. “Barnaby Thorne brought him to you?”

  Her pout deepened, and she shifted her feet, but she didn’t say anything.

  Arthur Phillip pressed closer to my legs.

  “Don’t worry, boy,” I said to him. That was what you called a dog, wasn’t it? Boy? Either way, he seemed to take a little reassurance from my words. “This young lady didn’t know where you belonged.”

  “My name is not young lady! My name is Rita, and that dog belongs to me,” she insisted. “He slipped his collar this morning, he did, and came running down here like a bullet from a gun. That don’t make him not mine!”

  “Er, no.” All that made him was hungry, I thought. “What makes him not yours is the fact that your boyfriend stole him from Pastor Albright. This is Arthur Phillip, the pastor’s dog.”

  Rita’s face nearly turned crimson from the neck up. “He is not! He was my birthday present, and he’s mine!”

  “Oh?” I asked, pouring saccharin into my smile. “Then what’s his name?”

  It had been a pure bluff, but I realized she hadn’t once called the dog by name. Every dog has a name. At least, they do if their owner cares anything at all for them.

  Rita spluttered and tried to think of something to tell me, but she couldn’t. Finally she threw her arms in the air and turned her back on me, stalking away back up the street. “Fine! I told Barnaby the next time he stole something we were done. Well, this is it! I’m done! You hear me over there, Barnaby Thorne?” She was shouting loud enough for the dead to hear her over in Birdsfoot Cemetery on the far side of town. I was pretty confident that Barnaby heard her one street over. “We’re through!”

  After she had stomped up her porch steps and slammed the door to her house behind her, Arthur Phillip stuck his nose out from behind my legs, and looked up at me with those expressive eyes.

  “Yes, Arthur Phillip. The mean girl is gone. Although,” I said, thinking about the things Rita had said, “I’m not sure if she’s all that mean. I think she was more scared than anything. Some people just don’t know how to show it.”

  Arthur Phillip whuffed at me and looked away.

  “Right, right. That isn’t an excuse for keeping you locked up so you couldn’t get back home.”

  Was I really carrying on a conversation… with a dog? I swear to you, it was like I could hear every word he wasn’t saying, sense every emotion and thought that rolled off him. Anxiety. Fear. Relief that someone had finally found him again.

  Hope, that he might get to go home.

  Maybe it was something to do with me talking to ghosts. Maybe I was sensitive to animals, too.

  Or maybe I was just imagining the whole thing.

  Laughing at myself, I patted his head again and then started for Main Street the long way round, so I wouldn’t have to cut up Revelation Way and past Barnaby Thorne’s troubled house. “Come on,” I said to my doggie companion. “I know someone who’s been waiting to see you.”

  Up on all four paws with a little bounce in his step, Arthur Phillip panted happily and danced circles around me, urging me to go faster.

  Pastor Albright was raking pine needles from the front lawn of the church when me and Arthur Phillip came around the corner. When the mutt saw him he barked triumphantly and raced over to him as fast as anything with four legs could manage.

  A joyful shout of laughter was cut short as dog met master and they both tumbled to the ground. Apparently, knocking people off their feet was a favorite move of Arthur Phillip’s.

  “Where’d ya find him?” Jonas asked me, still ruffing the dog’s neck and ears. “I can’t believe it. Oh, thank the Lord God!”

  “He’s been hiding out in someone’s house in town,” I explained, not sure how much I wanted to tell. I wasn’t looking to get anyone in trouble. “Actually, your friend Heeral helped me figure it out. I was here last night to talk to him. Didn’t he tell you?”

  “You… talked to him?” The pastor’s voice became very tight and his face went very pale. For a moment, I was sure he was going to throw up again.

  “Um. Sure. I spoke with him for a little bit. Nice man. A little on the scary side, I guess. He said you and he go back a long time. Since before you were a pastor.”

  He swallowed as his dog nuzzled up into his hand.

  Arthur Phillip was confused about why Jonas had stopped scratching that great spot behind his jaw. He licked at the pastor’s fingers, asking for more attention, and that was enough to bring his master out of the daze he’d sunk into.

  “Oh, sorry about that, boy. Here. Come on in. Welcome home. I’ve got so
me treats for you.” He stood up, and then he looked over at me, keeping his big owlish eyes behind their thick glasses from meeting mine. “You should come in too, Dell. I think we’ve a bit to discuss.”

  Arthur Phillip tagged along with us, his tail banging off the end of each pew as he passed, as if he had the timing of each step down perfectly. I was expecting Heeral to be sitting in one of the pews when we went inside, but he wasn’t there. Except for us, the church was empty.

  Jonas called his dog with him into the little apartment and produced a tin can from a shelf. Whining and jumping up on his hind legs, Arthur Phillip waited impatiently as Jonas got the plastic lid off, and then produced two little dog biscuits in the shape of bones.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he took out a third.

  He fed them to his furry friend one at a time, and then spent a few moments rubbing Arthur Phillip’s belly as I watched the little reunion with a smile. With everything that had happened to me yesterday, I was glad to have this moment. It made me feel good to see the two of them so happy to be reunited.

  After a time, Jonas told the dog he’d be right back, laid out two more dog biscuits, and then shut the door to his room.

  “Come out here to one of the pews,” Jonas said to me. “I… I think I’ve a story to tell ya.”

  We chose a pew up front, directly across from the altar. Somehow it seemed to give Jonas comfort to be that close to where he brought God to the hearts and mind of the town. He focused on a spot above the altar, up in the air, and his lenses reflected the lights in a way that hid what he was thinking.

  “I wasn’t always a pastor,” he said, and then chuckled. “I guess ya knew that already, though. I used to be a banker. Up in Adelaide on the mainland, at the Bank of South Australia branch. Oh, I was happy there. I’ve never been much for physical labor, although the Lord’s work does tend to run that way sometimes. But there, in Adelaide, I got to stay at my desk and shuffle my papers and add my figures. It was all I needed.”

  He took a deep breath and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “They liked me there. I was good at my job. Never gave out too many loans, always made sure the interest rates were applied and paid per the bank’s rules. They loved me at that bank.”

  Again he spent some long moments just breathing, and staring off into his memories. I didn’t push him. This wasn’t an easy story for him to tell. I could see that easily enough.

  “Ahem. Well. There were plenty of folks in the city of Adelaide that didn’t hold me in such fond regard. I turned a lot of people away. Bad credit, no credit, bad risks. That sort of thing.”

  “Isn’t that what a loan officer is supposed to do?” I asked.

  “Sure, sure. It’s just… some of us were a bit more cutthroat about it than others were. I was more concerned about the bank’s interests than I was in helping the people in our community. I figured every dollar I saved the bank was a feather in my cap. A rung up the ladder. Something good I had done.” He covered his face with his hands, his voice trembling. “I never saw the damage I was doing to people’s lives.”

  When he finally took his hands away, I saw the tears in his eyes.

  “There were a few I felt sorry for, maybe. I remember this one old woman who was about to lose her house if the bank didn’t advance her a sum. I turned her down, and she left my office cursing my name and my mother and… well. There was a fair bit of cursing. Lost some sleep over that one, I did. Then there was others who made an impression. Including one Heeral Stone.”

  Ah. Here was the real story.

  “See,” he said to me, “Heeral was a decent enough man. For a time he had lived his life on a pensioner’s salary. Never did know what he did for work. Doesn’t matter, I suppose. It sure didn’t matter to me back then. When he came to the bank… to me… he was about to lose everything. Didn't even have enough to move into social housing in Plympton Park. Heeral was about to become homeless. Destitute. He was scared, and looking back I couldn’t blame him. All he had was that hat of his.”

  “Heh,” I remarked. “I’ve seen it. The black one with the flat top?”

  Jonas stared at me. I realized why after a moment. That was a detail he hadn’t told me. I could only know about that if I’d seen it firsthand. Which I did, although I couldn’t figure why that troubled him so.

  He stood up, but then shook his head and sat down again. “At the time, Heeral was just one more grubby hand looking for charity from the bank I was supposed to protect. I turned him away. He begged. I turned him away again. He cried at my desk. I got a security guard to throw him out. That was supposed to be the last I heard of him. I’d done my job and protected the bank’s money. That should have been the end of it. Only, it wasn’t.”

  His voice broke. I reached out to take his hand, but he waved me away. “No, I’m fine. Thanks, but I’m, um. I’m fine. So, Heeral leaves my office. He didn’t have the cane, then. Old as he was, he threw off my security guard’s hand and walked out the front door with his head held high. I went back to work. Didn’t give him another thought. End of the day I got in my very expensive sedan and went home.”

  That couldn’t be the end of the story, I thought to myself. “So what happened to Heeral?”

  “He walked out in front of a car.”

  “Oh,” I said. Such a little word. It sounded so inadequate. “I guess that explains the limp. And the cane. Did they ever find the man who hit him?”

  “Yes. They know whose car it was.”

  “Whose?”

  “My own.”

  The silence in the church became a deafening sound in my ears that I couldn’t shake. “You… you ran Heeral down?”

  “I did,” he admitted. On the exhale of his next breath, he added, “I ran him down. He stepped in front of my car, and I killed him.”

  I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped. No, I know it dropped. So did my blood pressure. Killed him… killed a man that I had spoken to yesterday… which meant…

  A ghost. I’d been talking to a ghost.

  “Jonas,” I breathed. “You understand what you’re saying?”

  He nodded, once, and then looked around behind us, as if expecting a ghostly figure to appear at any moment. “I’ve seen him since then. Everywhere I go. I thought if I threw myself into service for God that he might finally go away. No such luck for me, I’m afraid. He’s followed me all the way here to Lakeshore. That fine gentleman who now walks with a limp and a cane to remind me how I broke his body, just like I’d crushed his spirit.”

  A few shaky breaths later, he finally met my eyes. “When you first told me you had spoken to Heeral I couldn’t believe it. All these memories that I’m telling to ya now came flooding up again. Didn’t handle it well, I’m afraid. I’m still not. There’s no way anyone could know about this, Dell. No way for ya to see a man who committed suicide years back because of the way I treated him. So how do ya know about Heeral?”

  “Jonas, I’m telling you the truth. I sat there, right back there in that pew, and spoke to Heeral. He told me… well, he gave me some ideas of where to look for Arthur Phillip. He honestly cares about you. He was worried about you. If you killed him…”

  Oh, snap. I was as much as admitting, to the church pastor, that I could see ghosts.

  But… none of my ghosts in the Inn can talk to me. Outside of my dreams, of course, and the odd phone call. So maybe Jonas was wrong. “Are you sure you killed him? Maybe you only thought you did.”

  Jonas was already shaking his head no. “When I… ran over Heeral, my whole world came crumbling down. The idea that I had ruined a man so completely, so carelessly, that he would commit suicide? And worse, that he would use me to make it happen… it brought my whole life into focus. I didn’t like what I saw in myself. I vowed to do better. I attended Heeral’s funeral. I’ve been to his grave. His death is what turned me to a life of serving God and man. In a sense, Heeral is why I’m here. I wanted to be somewhere that I could throw myself into the life of a pastor.�
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  “Lakeshore,” I said.

  “Exactly. Drugs. Organized crime. Decent folks just trying to get by who only need guidance. That’s what I have here. A town in need of a pastor who wants to make up for his past sins.”

  I didn’t point out to him that very few people here in town had ever taken advantage of Jonas’s need to help others. Attendance at his Sunday services had increased recently but even then, most of these pews were empty when Jonas gave his sermons. Still, the point he made was valid. In the past two years this town’s hidden underbelly had begun to show. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  And here was Jonas, a man trying to make up for his past, standing with his finger plugging up the crack in the dam.

  Not for the first time, I promised myself that I was going to start coming to Jonas’s Sunday services.

  “Heeral is definitely dead,” Jonas repeated. “So please, Dell. I need to know. How’d ya know so much about him?”

  “Go on, Miss Powers,” said a strong voice from a few rows back. “Tell him. He’s stronger than he looks, is our Jonas Albright.”

  Heeral Stone sat three pews back from us. He smiled at me and then pointed to Jonas with the hand folded over his cane. “He’s a good man. What I did to him wasn’t his fault. I had choices. I choose poorly. But, I’m afraid he’s carried that guilt with him all these years. Poor man.”

  Jonas was watching me. “He’s here, isn’t he? Heeral’s here?”

  From his pew, Heeral nodded at Jonas. “Tell him. Please. He needs to know it’s time to be forgiven.”

  My turn to clear my throat. “Jonas. Do you have some tea we can make? I’ve got another story to tell you.”

  Heeral wandered around the church as we talked, smiling and nodding along with the things I was saying. Jonas didn’t see him but I made sure he heard Heeral’s words. Both men had a lot to say. As time passed, I saw Jonas heave a heavy sigh, like he’d just given up some weight that had been strung over his shoulders for years.