Angel of Death

by Ferguson, Alane

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I’m being serious, Cameryn. Say the word and I’ll dump the carcass. But I really want your opinion before I do.”

  For a few moments she was silent, thinking. She bent close, only inches from the dog, breathing from her mouth to help fight the smell. The inside of the eye socket was exposed, and the vitreous humor—the transparent jelly that filled the eyeball—was missing. Ants had found their way into the orbs along with a few small beetles, which darted around the inner lid. A starburst pattern had seeped into the short hairs around the lids, giving it the appearance of painted lashes. The look was almost comical, and that fact alone made her sad.

  “Have you ever seen this dog before?” Justin asked.

  “No. My guess is that he belonged to someone who has a cabin in these mountains. It was a pet, though.”

  When Justin looked at her blankly, she added, “It was wearing a collar. See? The fur’s pressed down around its neck in a ring. It must have worn a collar all its life.”

  “Then where’s the collar now?”

  Cameryn shrugged. “Who knows? There’s no impact wound to speak of, at least on this side,” she said, her gaze searching the ribs and abdomen. “By the way, it’s a male.”

  “I can see that. Do you want to turn him over?”

  “I would if I had my gloves.”

  “I’ve got a pair of work gloves in my Blazer.” A moment later, Justin was back sporting thick leather gloves, as heavy as a falconer’s gauntlet. He wore a green aviator-style jacket with the gold star emblazoned on the chest, which was regulation, although the faded jeans and cowboy boots were not. Grabbing the dog’s back leg, he raised the stiff body. More beetles skittered out and disappeared into the nearby leaves. Although it was November, Cameryn knew insects worked year-round, drawn to the warmth of decomposing flesh.

  Then something caught her eye: on the back side, Cameryn could see a place where the soft tissue had been ripped open by scavenger teeth.

  “That’s odd,” she said. She picked up a stick and inserted it into the cut, separating the tissue from the bone. “See the muscle there? It’s gray.”

  “From decomposition?” he asked.

  “Maybe. I’ve just never seen decomp look like this before. The texture’s off, too.” She shook her head. “Weird.”

  “Do you think we should do an autopsy on it to see what happened?”

  “If it’s on an animal it’s called a necropsy, and no,” she said, rubbing her hands on her jeans as she stood. “I don’t think we need to do one. I mean, the truth is, dogs die. Just like people. Things come, then they go, and then it’s over—that’s all there is.”

  For a beat he stared at her, releasing the dog’s hind leg from his gloved hand. The carcass made a sickening thump on the ground. His eyes locked onto hers, and without flinching she returned his gaze.

  “What?” she finally asked. “What’s wrong?”

  A pause, and then, “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “I . . . I didn’t think you’d turn like this. You’ve changed, Cameryn. You’re not like yourself anymore.”

  She snorted. “You are crazy. I’m totally and completely fine.”

  “No, you’re not.” His green-blue eyes narrowed into crescents as he stood, towering over her. “The truth is, you haven’t been fine ever since I gave you that letter from your mother.”

  The sound of his words was like a knife going through her, but she didn’t move. She stood as stiff as the carcass on the ground.

  Justin put his hand on her arm again, more gently this time. “You can talk to me about Hannah,” he said. “Anytime you want.”

  “Are we done? Because I’d like to go now.”

  “You flinched when I said her name.”

  “Hannah is none of your business.”

  “It is my business. I’m the one who put the two of you together. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even know she’s alive. I feel responsible, that’s all.”

  Her mother Hannah, who had been missing for years, had suddenly reemerged from the shadows like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Now everyone, it seemed, hovered over Cameryn, anxious to find out what was happening inside her head, as though they possessed a set of sharp autopsy instruments all their own, poised and ready to pick her mind and dissect her heart. But she wasn’t willing to share what had happened with Hannah, especially not with Justin. Or with anyone. And so, in order to conceal her feelings, she hid behind the mask she had perfected for public scrutiny: rigidity without, hiding the storm within.

  He took a step closer, near enough that she could smell the wintergreen on his breath. As she looked up, her dark hair fell down her back, almost to her waist, that waterfall of hair that she wished she could disappear inside. But there was no hiding this morning, not from Justin’s sharp gaze.

  “I’m your friend and I care about you, Cammie,” he began. “You may not see what’s happening, but I do.”

  “If you really cared you’d leave me alone.”

  She raised her chin and kept her eyes cold, folding emotion inside her with neat hospital corners, tucked under where no one could see. “You want my professional opinion? ” she asked. “Here it is: The dog is dead. There’s nothing you can do except make a note of it and move on.”

  Overhead, a magpie cawed. When Cameryn looked up, she noticed that light snow had begun to fall. The snowflakes were sparse, dry, crystalline bits easily brushed away. Neither of them moved. One flake landed on Justin’s cheek, another on his lashes. They rested on the dog’s fur, too, creating the thinnest of shrouds. In a way she envied the dog, whose struggles were already done. Hers were only beginning.

  Cold was seeping into her, past her jacket, through her pink sweatshirt and her running shoes, and into her toes.

  “Are we done with the therapy session?” she asked. She attempted a smile, trying to soften things. Justin was only trying to help, after all. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But I’m really okay. Really.”

  Justin seemed to know he was beaten. “Suit yourself,” he finally said. “But if you change your mind, remember I’m here.”

  “Thanks. I’ll remember.”

  Without another word, Justin reached down and picked up both the foreleg and the hind leg of the dog. He dragged the stiff carcass to a spot on the roadside where the trees had thinned. Then, with a mighty heave, he thrust the remains into the sky. The dog’s carcass sailed in an arc, like a discus, before disappearing into the underbrush below.

  It would be hidden now. Just like her secrets.

  Chapter Two

  "WHAT ARE YOU doing home so early—I thought you had work today!” Mammaw cried in surprise as Cameryn entered the Mahoney kitchen.

  Cameryn slid into a chair and grabbed an apple from a green ceramic bowl. Then, thinking better of it, she let it roll back with the others. “Justin asked me to help him on a case, which turned out to be a dead dog, so when I got back to the Grand my boss said I should take the rest of the day off.”

  Her grandmother, as usual on a Saturday, was making bread. Mammaw slapped and punched the ball of dough beneath her flour-encrusted fingers as though she could somehow beat it into submission. Like the rest of Mammaw’s compact body, her fingers were deceptively strong. “You left work for a dead dog?” she grunted.

  Cameryn sighed. “It’s a long story.”

  “Justin Crowley had no business taking you from the Grand. Your father will be home any minute, and one thing’s for certain—he won’t like hearing about this!”

  “Then don’t tell him.”

  Her grandmother didn’t answer. Instead she made a tsking noise between her teeth as she punched the bread with the heel of her hand. The next words out of her mouth were the words Cameryn could always count on her to say, as rote as prayer. “Let me get you something to eat,” Mammaw offered. “I’ve got some boxty in the refrigerator, and you’re as thin as a sparrow.”

  “Maybe late
r.”

  Mammaw’s lips were already compressed in disapproval as she murmured, “Do you see what looking at death does? It kills the appetite.”

  Although it had been nearly sixty years since Mammaw had lived in Dublin, the Old World still clung to her like the blue waves of incense Father John swung from his censer in church. A rosary clicked inside her apron pocket, and a picture of the pope smiled beneath magnets on the refrigerator. The cross that hung from her neck was Celtic, ringed with a halo, the symbol of which Mammaw claimed came from St. Patrick himself.

  But somewhere along the way she’d become Americanized, too. Her snow-white hair had been cropped short, like a man’s, and twice a year she made a trip to play the slots at The Lodge Casino in Black Hawk with other gray-haired ladies from St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. On those occasions, with her thin lips painted in rose-berry hue and a layer of powder on her nose, Mammaw looked just like any other Western woman bent on losing money.

  “I ran into Velma today, and she told me the pictures for the yearbook are already due,” Mammaw said now. “We’d better look into it. Lord above, I can’t believe we’re talking about your graduation already—where does the time go? Oh, and Father John says he needs your help a week from next,” she went on in her soft Irish lilt. “I told him you’d call. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.”

  Cameryn looked at the row of flowers her grandmother had brought in from outside in order to nurse them through the winter, confined in their pots but secure from the elements. Cammie had always felt safe in this kitchen, in this house, in this life. Her grandmother was the only mother she had ever known, a woman as solid and rooted as Ireland’s native alder trees.

  Mammaw hesitated. “I’m not meaning to press, but I want to know if you’re tense because of your mother.”

  “Mammaw! ”

  “No, no, hear me out. To have her burst into your life only to disappear again—well, it’s a lot for anyone to bear. Your father and I are worried. It’s only been a month since you got the letter and—the nerve of the woman, begging you to call her on a telephone number that was no good. I can’t help but think it’s heavy on your mind.”

  “I already told you I’m over it, Mammaw. I called, Hannah’s number was disconnected, and that’s it. End of story.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Her mammaw smiled and shaped the dough. The news that Hannah had slipped away again confirmed everything Mammaw had always suspected about her daughter-in-law, and she’d wasted no time in telling Cameryn exactly what she thought. “I’m sorry for your pain, Cammie,” she’d said. “But hard truths are better when you take them straight. Your mother said she wanted contact with you, but clearly she wasn’t ready. And I have to admit I’m relieved. So’s your father. It’s a romantic thing, thinking about a lost mother rising up like the dead, but Cammie, Hannah’s never been a well woman. It’s better if she stays away. It really is.”

  With unerring instinct, Cameryn had surmised exactly what her father and grandmother wanted from her. They wanted her life—the lives of all three of them—to stay just as they were, to go on in their rhythms. There had been a shock, yes, but Hannah had disappeared once more and life could go on as it always had.

  Yet when the call had come for Cameryn at the Grand Hotel and she had listened to her mother’s breathy voice, she’d made a decision of her own. To give herself the time she needed to sort out everything, she would keep this new contact with Hannah a secret. The roles had been ironically reversed: now it was Cameryn who knew what her father and grandmother did not know. It wasn’t payback, exactly. More like justice.

  “What are you thinking about, girl? What’s spinning inside that head?”

  Cameryn looked up. She blinked, then said, “Nothing.”

  Her mammaw sighed. “All right. I can’t reach in and pull out your thoughts. So while you’re thinking about nothing, there’s some laundry of yours that needs to be folded. I left the basket in your room. I also noticed your bed wasn’t made.”

  Raising her hands in mock surrender, Cameryn cried, “Okay, okay, I’m going. Bed made, clothes folded. I got it.”

  “I’ll make you something to eat when you’re ready,” Mammaw called as Cameryn hurried up the narrow stairway.

  In her bedroom, her bed lay rumpled. It had once held a canopy, but she’d long ago taken off the top so that the bedposts stood bare, rising like steepled spires toward the ceiling. Leaping onto the middle of her bed on top of a mound of blankets, she began to fold her clothes, enjoying the small static sparks as she pulled her things apart. When she had a stack of underwear, she crossed over to her dresser and opened the drawer.

  And there it was. Beneath the lacy bras, she saw the edge of a wooden picture frame, painted deep violet. She shoved the bras aside and lifted the picture.

  The dreamy watercolor painting was evidence that her entire life had been built on a lie. That wasn’t exactly right, but that was how she felt. Both her grandmother and her father had lied to her. Not the deliberate lies she’d learned about in church, those acts of commission, but rather an act of omission. The truth lay in the painting Cameryn held.

  There they were, a pair of small, dark-haired girls in pink smocking, smiling the same shy smile, telling the same immutable truth she’d learned the night she’d read the letter from Hannah: Cameryn had once been a twin. Two halves of the same whole. Only the twin was gone, and Cameryn had been taken, borne away by her father to tiny, safe Silverton, where the San Juan Mountains would become the walls of her cloister.

  Staring at the picture, she studied her sister’s face. “How can I have no memory of you?” she whispered. “Little girl Jayne, lost and buried, gone forever. Why can’t I remember?”

  In her mirror she caught sight of her own reflection and suddenly understood the reason they were all becoming afraid for her. Her dark eyes, large in her face, had a hollowness that hadn’t been there before. Leaning in, she studied them, only inches away. They looked haunted. Would her mother even recognize her now? There was little resemblance between the child in the painting and the mirror’s reflection. Baby fat had melted away, and her face was longer, with high cheekbones and smooth lips. Yet her twin, frozen in time, would never age. “If you were here I wouldn’t be alone,” Cameryn murmured. And, for the millionth time, she wondered what might have been.

  “Hey, beautiful one, whatcha doing? Admiring yourself again?”

  Whirling around, Cameryn saw her best friend Lyric in the doorway.

  “Could you knock or something?” Cameryn cried. “You almost scared me to death!”

  “And why would a knock be less frightening? I say you would have jumped out of your skin either way.”

  Lyric had on a kinetic print of blues and reds, what she called a “3-D look”—the kind of pattern made with a paint wheel in school. Her pencil-leg jeans had been tucked into black boots with fringe along the top. Like shoots rising from a scorched landscape, Lyric’s blonde roots showed along the part in her blue hair. Lyric and Cameryn—they had been best, if unlikely, friends, since grade school.

  “Blame your mammaw—she told me to go right on up,” Lyric said. “I guess you were so busy staring at yourself that you didn’t hear me thumping up the steps. Of course, if I looked like you, I’d be checking me out, too.” Lifting a chubby hand to her forehead, Lyric said, theatrically, “Oh, how I hate mirrors!”

  “Shut up. You know you’re a goddess.”

  “A big goddess.”