A Carnivore's Inquiry

by Sabina Murray

  I suppose I could have just let Kevin out and waited for him to scratch on the door when he was done. He didn’t seem like the kind of dog who was crazy about the rain, but something made me want the fresh air—cold wet air soothing the inner walls of my cranium, getting sucked into my lungs, the burn of tobacco and its sweet, sticky resin, a cold wind blowing through my hair and chilling my scalp. I watched Kevin sprint up a low hillock, then rise up on his hind legs, then disappear into the grass. I whistled for him—strangely familiar, since I’d never had a dog—and headed down to the water’s edge. On the third try, I managed to light my cigarette. A thin crust of ice had formed on the surface of the water, but the rain was quickly melting it away. The wind picked up and somewhere to my left, a branch snapped and cracked, followed by the whoosh of foliage falling to the ground. Something was wrong.

  Just as this thought entered my mind, Kevin began barking and whining, whining then barking. He sounded trapped or confused. I turned around. Kevin was up by the house and he was barking at something—a tree limb? a bag of trash?—lying fallen by the basement door, directly below the back deck. I turned back to the bay and finished my cigarette. Then I lit another one. And another. The rain was falling heavier now and the jacket was getting heavy. My face was numbed with cold. I began walking slowly back to the house.

  Johnny was lying facedown in a puddle. The soles of his feet were pointed upward, the sure sign of someone who isn’t going anywhere. He was naked and on his left buttock I could the see the deep purple spiral of his tattoo, something he’d explained to me about a Bornean hag who waited at the entry to the afterlife, checking your body for spirals. If she found one, she would let you enter unscathed. But if she didn’t, the hag would pluck out your eyes and you would be forced to go through eternity blind. Maybe blind was better. Kevin looked at me, then back at Johnny, whose wild hair was matted in clumps around his neck. I looked up at the deck. There was some kind of scrape—maybe blood, but hard to tell because the rain was washing everything away—on the railing. With the snow and freezing rain, it was possible that Johnny had slipped.

  The sky was dropping rain on my face, splat after splat. I wondered when it was going to stop. I looked back down at Johnny. Kevin was licking his neck.

  “No!” I said. “Bad dog!” I pushed Kevin away with my foot. Then I saw the wound on Johnny’s neck, a ragged tear. It started in the front and wound around his neck, not a neat incision, but a ripped section of skin and flesh—a pillow losing its feathers. I stood back up and was soon getting sick into a clump of wild sage that grew around the pillars of the deck.

  “Katherine. Katherine, what’s wrong?”

  Arthur was standing on the deck wrapped in the blanket. He was wearing Johnny’s shoes.

  “Call an ambulance,” I said. “Johnny’s dead.”

  The ambulance came and with the ambulance, the police. The sun made an appearance shortly after that. The day had turned beautiful but I found it hard to appreciate with all the police crawling over the property. Some had dogs. I’m not sure why. They had found a couple of things that day—the remains of fire lit in the woods and some empty baked-bean cans. Someone had been camping out there. Bad Billy, maybe? Who knew?

  Then there was the possibility, which seemed the most likely, that Johnny had fallen off the deck, knocked himself out on the way down (there was a monstrous contusion on his forehead to back this theory up), drowned facedown in a puddle, then provided an easy meal for some coyotes or skunks.

  “Would skunks do that?” I asked the police officer, an Officer Browning, who was young and seemed more interested in me than Johnny.

  “Skunks eat anything, Miss. I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “Oh, God.” I shook my head. I had been crying all morning and I wasn’t sure why. There was fear in with the grief. I looked at Johnny’s back. A photographer was snapping away.

  Arthur was talking to another police officer, an older woman who had her arm around him. Arthur seemed to be taking it worse than I was, which wasn’t that surprising, because Johnny and Arthur had spent a lot of time together over the past week.

  Another young cop was rooting around under the deck. “I think I found something,” he said. The photographer went over and snapped a few shots. It was the snow shovel, which had been up on the deck at one point, but for some reason was now under the deck, about six feet from where Johnny was lying.

  “Is that blood?” asked the young cop.

  Detective Yancy, who’d been on the phone for the last half hour, came striding over. “Don’t touch anything. Get that bagged.”

  “Don’t worry about anything,” said Officer Browning.

  “Don’t worry? What do you think that shovel’s all about?”

  “We’ll figure this out,” said Officer Browning.

  “Miss,” called Detective Yancy, “a few words.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Officer Browning. I don’t know what I meant to imply by this, but he stepped back and let me pass.

  “You were drinking?” said Detective Yancy.

  “Just a little.”

  “Is that sarcasm?”

  “It’s understatement.”

  “Say things plainly, Miss. I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

  “We were drunk. When I came home from the airport at eleven A.M., Johnny was already drunk. I think it was close to nine o’clock at night when I remember him going out on the deck.”

  “Was Mr. Verhoven drinking?”

  “Mr.—? Oh, Arthur, yes, a lot. We were all pathetically drunk, and now we’re all pathetically remorseful, except for Johnny. The only one who remembers anything is the dog, and he’s not very forthcoming.”

  “Miss, I must remind you that this is not a time for jokes.”

  “This is not funny to me, not in the slightest, and I resent your constant patronizing. I am answering your questions . . .”

  Then I stopped because I saw someone walking around the side of the house, down the lawn toward me. He was wearing a cowboy hat that was strangely lacking in irony. He was bow-legged. He had a suitcase in his hand, a suitcase that seemed impossibly light, the suitcase that women carried in movies from the thirties and forties as they headed to New York, L.A., and Paris, from Minneapolis, Cherryville, and Farmington—suitcases filled with nothing but dreams. When he saw me he set down his suitcase, took his hat off in a gesture of politeness, and stood, holding his hat in both hands, as if waiting to be invited to the investigation.

  Arthur came over and put his hands on my shoulders. “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “That,” I said, “is Travis.”

  Travis came walking over. He nodded when he saw me. “Katherine,” he said.

  “Howdy,” I replied.

  “I would have called, but I didn’t have your number.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Travis looked around at the police then down at Johnny’s body. “Is this a bad time?”

  “I’m going to make some coffee,” I said. I went inside and Travis followed with his suitcase. I was surprised to see a typewriter by the counter, an old Olympia that looked to weigh a hundred pounds.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” said Travis.

  I shook my head. “You can stay in the room at the end of the hall.” Travis was about to ask me something, but my expression made him change his mind. I could tell. I could almost hear his reasoning, “What are the chances of something like that happening to me?”

  That night I slept badly. Kevin was having nightmares, whining in his sleep, his paws twitching. Arthur had fallen asleep after sharing a bottle of Maker’s Mark with Travis. All of us had checked the doors at least twice before retiring. I’d seen a flashlight in the back and it was a tense couple of seconds before we made out Officer Browning with some other guy prowling around. I heard tires crunching down the gravel drive more than once. The police were keeping a close watch over the house, which made me feel both paranoid and safe. I finally passed out at around f
our in the morning. Next thing I knew, Arthur was shaking my arm.

  “Katherine. I’m sorry. I think you should get up.”

  “What time is it?” I asked, still asleep. The room was bright.

  “It’s two. Boris has called about fifteen times.”

  “You didn’t answer the phone, did you?”

  “Of course not. He’s been leaving these weird messages. I think you should listen to them.”

  I sat up in bed and Arthur handed me a mug of steaming coffee. I leaned against him while I drank it and he stroked my hair.

  “What’s Travis up to?”

  “He took the dog for a walk.” There was some commotion in the kitchen. I heard a chair being pushed across the floor and strange voices. “And the police are here,” said Arthur. “I don’t know why.”

  I pulled on some clothes and went into the kitchen. I recognized Officer Browning but the other guy wasn’t familiar.

  “Your phone’s been ringing all morning. Maybe you should answer it,” he said.

  “And maybe you should finish that coffee and go find out who killed my friend.”

  The officers looked at each other then both got up. Officer Browning raked his hand through his hair and put on his hat. “We didn’t mean to inconvenience you,” he said.

  “Good.” The phone started ringing again. “Then you won’t mind if I want some privacy while I’m talking on the phone. I don’t think there’s anything, other than coffee cake, of interest in the kitchen.”

  I picked up the phone. “Katherine?” It was Boris. I waited until Arthur had shut the door behind the policeman before I spoke.

  “Boris, what on earth is wrong?” I asked.

  “I thought it was because of you that he would not answer the phone. I thought you told him not to speak to me . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Because you didn’t want me involved in your divorce. That is why I thought he hadn’t returned my calls.”

  “Are you talking about Silvano?”

  There was a pause on the phone. I could hear Boris’s breath whistling through his nose.

  “What is it?”

  “Katherine, Silvano is dead.”

  Boris didn’t like it when people didn’t answer the phone. He took it very personally, even though he had one of those blocking things that didn’t let caller ID announce who you were. And in Boris’s case, this was probably a good idea. Boris hadn’t really taken my anger seriously. Clearly, he was the correct person to oversee the divorce proceedings. As I drove off in the cab feeling at least the power of having made a scene as I left, Boris had already moved on to phase two of his plan. He probably didn’t notice that our conversation had ended abruptly. He was wondering if he’d lost face because of Silvano, if people thought I was playing him. He never thought, “Is she using me?” Only, “Do other people think she’s using me?”

  And Ann had been trying to get him to understand that for some time. She had encouraged Boris to go confront Silvano. I don’t think she meant me any harm. I believe that there was something of an admirable morality to Ann where she really did believe in the truth, even if it was ugly and didn’t improve her life. I didn’t understand it, but it helped me understand her.

  So after Boris’s eighth unanswered phone call to Silvano, Ann was on the phone with her friend who owned the Cygnet boutique, trying to get his home address. And succeeding. And Ann was at the door with Boris’s coat and scarf and hat telling him that he was absolutely right, that no one had the right to treat him like that. Ann loved Boris. She probably was outraged. I’m surprised she didn’t go with him.

  The doorman was actually happy that Boris was looking for Silvano. The neighbors who lived beneath Silvano’s apartment had complained that morning of an odd smell as they’d hurried off to work. The doorman put a call into the super and was still waiting to hear back. Boris merely looked at the doorman and cleared his throat.

  “And what is the number of his apartment?” he said.

  Boris took the elevator, which was nicer than the elevator in his building and this bothered him, up to the fifth floor. The door slid open and he stepped out, surprised to find the same wild rose/trellis pattern on the floor leading to Silvano’s apartment as his own. He walked down the hallway at a quick step, managing to rekindle his anger. He paused at Silvano’s door. There was an odd smell and Boris— to his surprise” felt the sudden desire to leave. But Boris had suffered the insult, so he raised his fist and struck the door confidently. There was no answer. He pounded again and the door, on greased hinges, swung open.

  “Falconi!” shouted Boris. “Falconi! Now we will talk.”

  But it was not to be. Boris looked into the room. On the dining table, a vase of daffodils had been knocked over and the flowers were wilted. Boris could see a shattered wine glass on the floor to the right of the table, beneath the window, where a thin red stain colored the glass. Boris entered the room.

  “Falconi?” he said. “What is the meaning of this?”

  But Silvano didn’t answer. As Boris was drawing nearer to the stain on the window (someone threw the glass at the window? Why? Maybe they were aiming at someone’s head, about the right height) when his foot bumped something lying on the ground. It was Silvano lying eyes wide, staring upward.

  “My God,” said Boris, which was strange, because Boris didn’t have a god.

  Silvano’s neck was peeled open, flaps of skin flung to right and left like a loose leather ascot. There was a deep red stain around the carpeting and on his forehead, just where his perfect silver hair met the skin in a widow’s peak, a deep bruised hole. Beside Silvano was his walking stick with the falcon head, the beak now dipped in blood. He heard a low growl coming from the kitchen and saw Cosimo, hackles raised, lips pulled, at a frightening stand-off.

  “An intruder,” said Boris.

  “And what about the neck wound?” I asked. Arthur looked up from his coffee.

  “His dog,” said Boris.

  “Cosimo? They think Cosimo ate him?”

  “There was no food for the animal. And the dog was left like that for three days.”

  “Three days?”

  “You were lucky, Katherine. You and the intruder just missed each other. Maybe you even saw him.”

  “No,” I said. “I’d remember that.”

  Silvano was an old man who did not have long to live, but I still felt saddened by his death. I went to stand by the window. I could hear the hiss of water coming from the bathroom—Arthur taking a shower—and the accompanying groan and creak of pipes. Down the hall, Travis was arranging his things in his room. I heard the distant jangle of hangers and the slamming of a dresser drawer. The police were probing each corner of the property, searching for a killer, and despite the brightness of the sun I felt cold. There was a cold chill in the coils of my stomach. A breeze was blowing across the bay, creating line upon line of creases on the water, and I began to wish that I could just leave everything, take a ship to some forgotten place where I could disappear. But would it be better there? Or would all this darkness follow me, track me over the surface of the water, assert itself wherever I went? Was I destined to pollute each virgin land I found with the same despair that seemed to arise and then arise again with ever faster frequency? Or was each land already corrupted, each Garden of Eden just a stage for man’s betrayals?

  23

  Arthur woke me up because I was having a nightmare. I don’t know what I was saying, but I felt his hands on my arms and when I woke up and saw him crouching over me, I thought he was holding me down. I threw him off and he fell off the bed.

  “Katherine,” he said, “it’s me.”

  I caught my breath. “What the fuck were you doing?”

  “You were having a bad dream. Who’s Nancy?”

  “I don’t know who Nancy is,” I said.

  Arthur got up and sat beside me on the bed. “You were yelling at Nancy to let you go.”

  I heard foots
teps down the hall and then a soft voice at the door, “Is everything all right?” It was Travis.

  “Katherine had a bad dream,” said Arthur.

  “That’s understandable,” said Travis. “Night, y’all.” His footsteps retreated back up to his room.

  I took a deep breath and got up. “What the fuck is going on?” I said. I went to the window and looked down at the point, at the water beyond, which sparkled in the moonlight.

  “We’re going to be all right,” said Arthur.

  “Get me a cigarette, will you?”

  The cigarettes were in the living room and Arthur went to get them. I was watching the water, half-watching it really, the perceptive parts of my vision pointed inward, when I saw the figure on the point. At first I thought it must be a deer, or maybe a policeman prowling around, but the figure was a woman. She was wearing a skirt—that much I could see—and she was looking up at the house. I heard Arthur coming up the hall.

  “Come here,” I whispered.

  Arthur came beside me and looked out the window, but the figure had retreated back into the line of shadow thrown down by the trees.

  “Wait,” but nothing happened.

  “What am I looking for?” Arthur said.

  “I saw someone out there.”

  “Really?” Arthur stepped closer to the window and cupped his hands around his face, just like he had the first time we’d met at the bookstore. “I don’t see anything,” he said, “Should I call the police?”