The Tooth of Time

by Sue Henry

  “You know,” he said slowly, pushing his empty plate to one side and nodding to the waiter, who asked if he wanted coffee before he took it away, “the one thing I’ve missed in living down here for most of a year is all the people I know back on the coast. It’s hard to start all over in a new place, when you spent most of your life somewhere else and don’t know anyone. Don’t you miss the old friends you have in Homer?”

  It was a trade-off that I had anticipated and made peace with before I took off to play gypsy in my motor home, but still, once in a while, I do feel the lack of enduring friendships with people who know me well and vice versa, and told him so.

  “I felt very lonesome after Sarah died last fall in Grand Junction, but in that case I would have felt the same if I’d gone home to Alaska.

  “I do go back at least once a year for two or three months, and that helps me keep in touch. Once in a while a friend, or my son, Joe, shows up and travels with me for a week or two.”

  “Well,” Butch said, smiling again, “you’re here now and I don’t intend to lose track of you again, or let you get away with just one evening of catching up. I’m here for the weekend, so let’s spend some time in the next couple of days and enjoy each other’s company without chasing bad guys up a highway. Okay?”

  “More than okay.”

  The idea certainly appealed to me, so I agreed readily. How could I have guessed that the part about the bad guys might turn out the other way around?

  But the evening was still young, so I invited him to come back with me to the Winnebago and say hello to Stretch.

  “It’s a lot less crowded and quieter there. Besides, I have a bottle of Jameson that, for all I know, could be going bad for lack of interest.”

  “Great! My pickup’s parked out back. How about if I drive you to your car, then follow you to this RV park?”

  FOURTEEN

  EARLIER ANOTHER GORGEOUS SUNSET HAD SPREAD itself out across the western sky as I drove into downtown Taos to meet Pat, so it was full dark when Butch and I arrived at the Winnebago at nine thirty. The rig was dark, though I thought I had left a light on as usual for Stretch. But, with my attention on the brilliant colors, it was possible that I had forgotten it.

  When I put my key in the coach door it wouldn’t turn to unlock the door, and it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t locked. That made me hesitate, for I might overlook a light, but never to lock up tight when I’m leaving, even for a few minutes’ walk and coming quickly back.

  “Something wrong?” Butch asked, noticing my uncertainty.

  “The door’s open. I must have neglected to lock it when I left—but I never do that, especially when I leave Stretch alone.”

  “Hey,” he said, as I started to open the door. “Let me go first—just in case, okay? Where’s the light switch?”

  “On the wall just inside the door.”

  He found the switch, flipped it, and we were met with total chaos.

  One thing I quickly learned on my first trip in the motor home is that clutter seems to accumulate much faster than it does in the larger area of a house. I am very visual, so much so that I have to admit that in terms of a possession, if I can’t see it I might as well not own it. But I can’t leave things lying around everywhere in the Winnebago, so I have trained myself to establish specific places for things and put them there when I’m not using them. As we stepped in and looked around I realized that I might as well not have taken the trouble, for the interior that I had left neatly in order was a total shambles and what appeared to be everything I owned was now scattered in plain sight.

  Cupboards stood open and partially empty, much of their contents now littering the countertops or the floor—dishes, pots, and pans mixed with boxes and cans of food items. The refrigerator door was propped open by a gaping crisper drawer, what it had held dumped onto the floor—vegetables, fruit, a package of cheese, a jar of pickles, and other food containers. The freezer had been similarly emptied, including a container of ice cream that was melting in an ever-widening circle. The cushions for the benches of the dinette had been thrown onto the sofa and the bedding stored inside each bench pulled out and cast aside—luckily far from the ice cream.

  The storage compartment over the cab was open and empty of books and videos, which lay scattered as if hastily tossed over a shoulder, though the television and video player were still there.

  I turned to look down the passageway to the bedroom and could see that the closet doors stood open and items which had been stored within both them and the adjoining drawers had been dumped onto the floor or bed, from which the sheets, blankets, and pillows had been pulled as well.

  The more I looked, the angrier I became.

  “Good God!” Butch said. “I’d say you’ve had a burglar, Maxie—someone who worked hard to thoroughly search this rig for something valuable.”

  Then for a moment I panicked, realizing I did not see Stretch anywhere in the confusion—or his footprints, for that matter. Then I realized that I could hear, and had been hearing, his familiar barks and whines from somewhere close at hand—behind the closed door of the lavatory.

  Taking a wide step over the mess in front of the refrigerator, I opened the lavatory door to find him covered with laundry detergent from a box that had been spilled onto the floor, along with other cleaning items that I keep in the under-sink storage cupboard. Mixed among these were my toothbrush, toothpaste tube, a container of Tylenol, and other medical items from the over-sink cabinet. It wasn’t surprising that he greeted me with a sneeze.

  “Had a bad time, lovie?” I asked him, relieved, and carried him back to where Butch stood waiting with a smile.

  “Hey there, buddy. You okay?” he said, and reached to give him a pat.

  Stretch showed his teeth and growled, a thing he almost never does. But it had been a long time since he had briefly met Butch on the road to Alaska, and it clearly had been a tempestuous and confusing evening, full of at least one, probably unfriendly, stranger. This, as far as he was concerned, was another. I couldn’t blame him. Neither did Butch.

  “I think you should call the police,” he said.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  I made use of my cell phone and, while we waited for law enforcement to show up, attempted to figure out if anything had been stolen, first checking my camera equipment and laptop computer, the two most obvious things in which a thief would be interested. Neither was missing, though everything in the camera bag had been dumped out onto the floor beside the closet and the computer lay where it had been tossed onto the bare mattress. I couldn’t see that anything was gone. It was more as if whoever had made a wreck of my living quarters had been searching for something specific and cast aside anything that didn’t fit the description of whatever it was.

  Drawers of clothing had been searched, as had the drawer where I keep my costume jewelry and the odds and ends I have collected.

  A glance had told me my secret compartment had remained secret, so there would be no need to reveal its presence, add a missing shotgun to a police report, or the small amount of cash—two hundred dollars at most—that lay hidden with it.

  “You know,” Butch said, as we waited outside, “driving in, I noticed another motor home or two, one with lights on. I think I’ll go ask if they heard or saw anything suspicious.”

  “Good idea,” I agreed. “I’ll get Stretch cleaned up and wait here. I shouldn’t think the police will be long.”

  They weren’t.

  Two uniformed officers pulled up in a squad car ten minutes later, as I had just finished rinsing Stretch clean of laundry soap with the outside sprayer and wrapped him in a towel to dry off.

  The taller, younger, Anglo officer—introduced as Taylor—clearly of lesser rank, occupied himself in filling out a form on the specifics of the Winnebago, its registration, and my driver’s license and seemed willing to let his partner do most of the talking while he took notes.

  “Well,” said Officer
Herrera, older, and shorter, with eyes so dark brown I thought at first they were black. From the wrinkles around them I assumed his most usual expression was a smile, but now he was frowning at the turmoil that was evident inside. “This is a first. As far as I know we’ve never had a break-in that involved a motor home. Looks like a pretty thorough job of going through everything you own. When did you find it?”

  I told him that and where I had been earlier.

  “And you say you found the door unlocked?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are no broken windows and the door wasn’t jimmied, so your burglar either had the tools to open a cab door—they’re both unlocked—or had a key. Have you given a key to anyone?”

  I had not. But I immediately thought of Shirley. I had meant to give her the extra one, if she had stayed. Going to the cupboard where I keep it, I found the hook empty, though I knew the key had been there when I arrived in Taos, for I had seen it. Would she have taken it when she disappeared? I had no way of knowing when it had gone missing, so I let the suspicion slide, hesitant to accuse her. She had left the door unlocked when she took off, hadn’t she? Wouldn’t she have locked it if she’d had the means to do so?

  We had stepped back outside, and both men swung around at the sound of Butch’s approach on the gravel of the drive, but relaxed when I explained his presence as a friend and where he had been.

  “Those people notice anything?” the officer asked.

  “They heard a vehicle, but assumed it was a resident so they didn’t bother to look. They said that from the sound of the engine it might have been a pickup rather than a car.”

  “We’ll talk to them before we leave.”

  The two of them spent close to half an hour examining the inside of the Winnebago, dusting for fingerprints, taking Butch’s and mine for comparison, talking to my neighbors, and then were gone, with my signature on the report.

  “With nothing stolen, there’s not much we can do,” the first officer told me before they left. “We’ll run the prints we lifted through AFIS, but, from the look of the smudges, I think whoever it was wore gloves. We’ll let you know, Ms. McNabb. You said you’d be here for a couple of weeks, right?”

  Left alone with the mess, Butch and I spent the better part of an hour clearing and cleaning it. I wiped away fingerprint powder from everywhere I could find it and reorganized the galley while he sorted out the bathroom, then helped me remake the bed—a much easier task with two people, one to each side. The whole job actually didn’t take long. There simply isn’t that much in a motor home, though it had first appeared to be a lot. A certain amount of the refrigerator’s contents had to be discarded, including that puddle of ice cream, but the place was soon acceptably neat again, so we rewarded ourselves with some of the Jameson I had promised as we left the Taos Inn.

  Stretch had stopped growling and accepted Butch’s presence. When he sat down on the couch, glass in hand, Stretch followed, wagging his tail in seeming apology for the earlier display of bad temper, and sat down at Butch’s feet in typical friendly fashion.

  Like most everyone to whom Stretch appeals, Butch could not resist reaching down to rub those floppy velvet ears and give his back a pat. Without an invitation, he jumped up beside the man and lay down against his leg, correctly assuming a welcome.

  The dog is no dummy, but neither is Butch.

  “You’re a good boy,” he told Stretch, continuing his ministrations, “but you think you’ve got the whole world fooled, don’t you?”

  “I’m just glad he wasn’t hurt,” I told him. “Rather than shutting him in the bathroom, whoever was in here could just as easily have hit him with something, or kicked him outside. He thinks he’s a Rottweiler, you know. He must have been pretty scared and angry at the intrusion, or he’d never have growled at you when you came in with me.”

  I thought about that later, when Butch had gone, after making sure I had securely locked every door and closed every window, curtain, and blind in precaution. Though I couldn’t help thinking it was like closing the door on an empty barn, but if it made him feel better, it was all right with me. I opened the ceiling vents as soon as I was alone, however, not able to stand being all but hermetically sealed into the space.

  Left to myself, I had to admit I felt a little shaky about someone breaking into my residence, even if it was on wheels. What could he or they—I realized it could have been more than one, though for some reason I doubted it—have been looking for? If he’d wanted something salable, why hadn’t he grabbed my computer and cameras?

  I made myself a cup of tea, got ready for bed, and climbed in with a book that I soon laid aside, realizing I was totally unable to concentrate on fiction when I had an actual mystery of my own too near at hand and mind for comfort.

  Stretch was keeping very close, and once or twice had stopped to listen attentively to ordinary sounds from outside that he normally would have ignored. So I took pity and lifted him up and let him curl up next to me, where he soon settled and was napping. It would be a good idea, I told myself, to let him stay there for the night to regain his self-assurance, though he usually sleeps in his own basket on the floor next to the bed. I was feeling more than a little vulnerable myself and his presence was welcome.

  It is remarkable how threatened an intrusion into your private space makes you feel. We go along, day to day, assuming we are safe and ignoring how easy it would be for someone to just walk right in, invited or not, with good or bad intentions. When someone does, it shakes all your confidence in being safe behind locked doors. I couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if I had been at home and was glad I had not been.

  I was also glad to have had Butch with me when I tried to open the door. Now that he was gone I found myself feeling very much alone, and had an odd compulsion to pick up the phone and call someone, which is what I would have done if I had been at home. But I couldn’t think of anyone in particular I wanted to talk to except perhaps my son, Joe. I decided against it, though. Why call someone just to tell them you’ve been burglarized, when there’s nothing they can do long distance but worry? I knew what my daughter’s response would be, considering that Carol and her husband, Philip, both heartily objected to my traveling lifestyle already. A break-in would just add another string to their bow of disapproval—another reason to once again suggest that I should move into an old-folks’ home and let them manage my life—and finances.

  “Not bloody likely,” I said out loud, and Stretch opened his eyes to give me a questioning look. “I’m just fine on my own, like it or not. Aren’t I, you darlin’ dog?”

  Like the Indian in The Last of the Mohicans, I am the last, not of my tribe but of my family. I was the youngest. My parents are long gone and both my brother and my sister have passed, like my two husbands. After being raised in a family of five, who were close, exuberant, and anything but silent or shy about making their opinions heard, I always find that my first instinct is to share, good news or bad. I miss my siblings, especially the brother who was closest to me in age, but also my older sister, Phyllis.

  I forced my thoughts elsewhere—how glad I was to have run into Butch Stringer again and to know he had come out of the accident on the way to Alaska in better shape than might have been the case. He was such a fine and honest person, with a good sense of humor and a positive appreciation of life, the kind of person you instinctively know you can trust in anything he says or does. Meeting him was like falling back into step with a familiar and cherished acquaintance. Each of you automatically and without conscious effort adjusts your stride to the other’s and your conversation as well.

  I was glad that before he left he had suggested that we go for a drive the next day.

  “I’d like to take a look at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge,” he had told me.

  I had agreed, if I could take Stretch along. It would be good to get out of town, even just a few miles out, and we would both enjoy his company.

  Feeling better, I shut
off the light, rolled over, gave Stretch a pat to let him know he could stay, and went to sleep refusing to allow myself to rethink the events of the evening again.

  I don’t often dream of my Daniel, so I treasure it when I do.

  Sometime in the early hours of that Friday morning I found myself in familiar resistance to waking, somehow knowing it would be bittersweet when I did—which, of course, confirmed that it already was. Keeping my eyes shut, struggling to retain the reality of my dream, as always I felt its precious detail slip away, much as the brilliant colors of a sunset fade into pastels before they disappear. The longer you try to hold on to a dream the less you can recall.

  I knew we had been walking together along a road in Homer, for I remembered a view of the bay and the mountains of the Kenai Range rising majestically beyond it to the south. It was a thing we had done often and I had valued those walks for their peace and what it said about our relationship. Couples who have long been close walk together differently than those who have not—steadily and in step, a sort of unspoken affirmation. We had been walking like that, holding hands, and whatever small speech we had made had been pleasant and positive.

  Then, as usual, the images were gone with Daniel, but I had no trouble retaining the emotion—a gift as dear as it had been when he was alive and we really had walked that road. Eyes still closed, I clung to that feeling as I gave up, let the rest go, and, grateful for small treasures, resettled myself in the bed.

  Stretch shifted his weight near my feet and we both went back to sleep.

  FIFTEEN

  OFFICER HERRERA ARRIVED ALONE THE NEXT MORNING about nine, an hour before Butch was scheduled to appear.

  “G’morning, Ms. McNabb,” he greeted me through the screen door, which I had locked, though I had left the solid door open. “Are you okay after last night?”

  I assured him I was and invited him in for coffee, which he accepted with a smile, laying a handful of paperwork on the table beside his cup.