by Bryan Gilmer
He just shook his head and smiled. Another likely explanation for her referring to him as an attorney in her story.
He held the restaurant’s front door for her, and they got a table right away. As soon as Jeff swallowed the first big bite of his Grillemaster’s Blueburger, Caroline Kramden fixed him with a mischievous smile. “So, this is what Mickey Reuss gets when he buys a country trailer park and tells the old ladies and rednecks to get out by the first of the month so he can put up fifteen dozen McMansions.”
It was a great reporter trick to hit someone with a shocking statement and gauge your reaction. The trick, if you weren’t the reporter, was not to look surprised by anything.
And not to have a clueless look like this on your face if it was all news to you.
He took another bite and tried to look cagey, but they both knew that Caroline Kramden was a step ahead of him.
She stuck out her tongue at him like one of his girl cousins had always done when they were kids. But the way Caroline did it, he wondered if it made him blush.
Nine
Britney climbed out of her booster seat in the back of Mama’s car. She made sure to watch her feet as they hit the hard garage floor. Her tennis shoes lit up red when she did that. Cool. She jumped a couple of times so they’d do it again.
“Britney, move, sweetie, so I can unbuckle your brother,” Mama said.
Britney walked over to Daddy. He had out his jingly ball of keys. He put one in the door. As soon as it opened, she ducked under his elbow and ran into the house. Somebody had left the door to the deck open. Daddy might be real mad when he saw.
“Porcupine, I missed you!” Her kitty always ran to meet her when she came home. Mama said it was because she fed him. But nuh-uh.
Britney didn’t see Porcupine yet. Sometimes Porcupine played hide-and-seek under Mama and Daddy’s bed. Britney ran down the hall. It was dark. Her shoes lit up the white boards by the floor.
She had to go pee pee, but not until after she hugged Porcupine. She lifted the blanket and looked under the bed. Her nose tickled. She didn’t see yellow eyes. She looked in her room, but Porcupine wasn’t in his hiding places in there, either.
Britney stood in the doorway to her room with her hands on her hips. She bet that silly cat was hiding behind Daddy’s recliner in the square of sun on the carpet! In the living room … Britney’s feet went dwonk dwonk dwonk on the wooden hall. She breathed through her mouth. She ran into the living room, jumped one big time onto the hearth – flash! – jumped onto the floor – and then peeked behind Daddy’s black chair. Porcupine!
“Hi kitty!”
Porcupine was asleep. Britney got on her knees and crawled toward him. She would wake him up with a sneaky hug.
Britney sniffed. Porcupine needed a bath. Britney hugged her kitty, but Porcupine didn’t squirm. He didn’t feel cozy-warm. Sleepyhead wouldn’t wake up.
Britney petted his brown fur. He felt funny. Icky. Britney felt like crying. Maybe Porcupine was sick. Maybe he had the flew, which didn’t really make people fly. It made them take naps.
“Daddy!” she hollered. She felt kind of dizzy walking down the hall to Daddy’s den, the first place he always went when they had been out of town. Daddy was looking into his big metal closets, the ones she was never, ever supposed to touch. Daddy did look real mad.
“Don’t come in here, baby,” Daddy said. He was at the door so fast. His face looked scared now. “What’s the matter, darlin’?”
“Daddy, Porcupine’s real still and he won’t hug me back.”
Daddy grabbed Britney’s hand in a nice way, not real hard like when she had to go to time out. Mama came out of Daddy’s den now, too. She was sniffly and her face was wrinkly like she was crying.
Britney led Daddy and Mama to the sun square behind the chair and showed them Porcupine.
Daddy bent down and crinkled up his nose because of the funny smell. He poked Porcupine with one finger.
“Lord, Britney. Your cat died.”
Mama made funny noises and started crying, hollering, almost. Britney started to cry hard too. Couldn’t Daddy give Porcupine some Triaminic or take his temperature? She pressed her nose against Daddy’s blue jeans, and his scratchy fingers rubbed on top of her hair. Daddy was hugging Mama at the same time.
Ten
Leonard thought it might be good to have a spare vehicle, so he decided not to give the Pathfinder back to the body shop. He drove through shopping center parking lots until he found another Pathfinder that looked to be the same year. It had a youth soccer sticker on the back window. He parked beside it and, with a little cordless screwdriver, swapped the vehicles’ license plates in less than a minute. Unless that driver had her license plate number memorized and stared at her own rear bumper a lot, she’d probably never notice.
Then he drove his Pathfinder to another shopping center near his farmhouse, parked it, locked it and walked the mile home along the shoulder of Rocky Falls Boulevard to his long, gravel driveway.
From there, he drove his own Chevy station wagon to Pet HealthPlex. He loved being back in performance mode. It was a hell of a lot better than tuning pianos. Tuning pianos was one of those things he was naturally good at but hated, because he just did it for money. Like most of the shit wrong with his life, that was The Soulless Bitch’s fault. Well, Soulless Bitch No. 2’s.
Leonard realized with a rush of joy that the little Kimball might be the last piano he would ever tune. He’d found his muse. He hadn’t had this kind of energy in a long time. This album would finally make him known as a jazz artist, not just a technician or a musician.
Maybe he had kept the one tuning appointment just to relish that transition in his life. He’d turned down everyone else who’d called last week, telling them he was too busy. Who knew why he’d kept it? He’d gotten nervous when she’d brought up the veterinarian, but he knew he was just being paranoid.
He flipped the cap of a new 15-ounce bottle of Waterless Hand Sanitizer and squeezed a puff of citrus air into his nostrils that made him salivate. Had to go slow on this bottle; probably enough isopropyl alcohol mixed in with the ethyl in this volume of gel to stop his heart if he sucked the whole thing down at once. Hell, probably enough ethyl to give him alcohol poisoning, too – the stuff was 121 proof, one and a half times as strong as vodka. He’d just have a little bit.
He tilted back his head and filled his mouth until the gel spilled down his cheeks, then took it down in one gigantic, blazing gulp. He wiped the drips into his mouth
Then he forced his fingers to flip the cap shut and toss the bottle into the back seat, out of reach. This was enough to kill the germs. About three ounces. Should be okay; he’d had plenty of 4-ounce bottles with no problem. Same thing as six martinis.
* * *
Leonard held the mixed-breed dog and stroked its fur, feeling the bulbous tumor on the animal’s head. When the dog finally stood still under the hot-white exam lights, Dr. Nagra injected the phenobarb. The animal’s muscles contracted, and then it was still.
It wouldn’t be a bad way to go at all, Leonard thought, head fuzzy from the gel.
A volunteer carried the carcass out on the metal tray as another part-time employee of PetHealthPlex carried in a chow with an infected broken leg. Leonard positioned a fresh tray, took the chow in his arms and petted her until she lay still for her own injection.
By 9 a.m., they had also put down four cats with feline immunodeficiency virus. All of it was pro-bono work Dr. Nagra did for a north-county animal rescue non-profit.
Dr. Nagra shook her head as the helper carried out the tray with the last cat. “Thankfully, those are the last ones today. They’ve been finding homes for all the healthy ones, somehow. Thank you, Corey, for your help. I know this is hard for you, too, but it helps me so much to know someone’s comforting the animals so they’re not frightened.”
Leonard squinched up his face, but the tears came anyway. It was very hard to see the animals die, but ending their
suffering was the right thing. He looked at the floor and nodded modestly.
“I know,” the doctor said. “I need to get out of here. That last cat reminded me of mine.”
“Do you mind if I just stay in here a minute … You know, calm down?”
“Of course.” She took off her white lab coat as she shouldered through the swinging door.
Leonard gave her 30 seconds, then pulled the drawer the rest of the way open. He wiped his eyes and took six more disposable syringes and two vials of phenobarbital and slipped them into his pocket. He shut the drawer silently, then pushed through the door.
He walked between the rows of caged dogs toward the office, which set off a wave of frantic yipping. In the reception area, he set his volunteer badge on the front desk – “Corey Hart.”
Marinna the receptionist was standing beside her round desk. He told her he was leaving. She was early twenties, blonde. A super nice girl. She knew what they had been doing, and now she was staring at his irritated eyes.
She stuck out her bottom lip, stood and walked to him. “I know it hurts. But we know it’s what’s best for them.” She stretched her arms around his neck and pressed her body against him in a generous hug.
More warm tears spilled onto his cheeks. He squeezed back, letting the fingertips of his right hand come to rest on her warm, velvet neck.
He could feel her pulse.
Eleven
Jeff reclined in his desk chair, sucking on two powerful miniature peppermints and reading about Mickey Reuss and the trailer park controversy in the Progress-Leader online archive. It was interesting that Reuss hadn’t mentioned the deal that morning when talking about potential motives for the burglary. He called him to ask about it but had to leave a voice mail.
One of his digital photos showed a clear image of the minivan at the subdivision entrance, and the resolution was good enough to make out the tag number – a different number than the one from the van with the redheaded kid. He cropped it on his computer and e-mailed a copy to Cooperton, hoping it was something.
Then he called Caroline to try to buy an extra day before that angle made it into the paper.
“You’re going to try to talk me out of my exclusive angle for tomorrow’s story?”
“Let’s go off the record a minute.”
She let out a long breath. “Okay.”
“Look, off the record, I don’t want you to get off track on this story. Right now my quote to you would be that we have absolutely no reason to believe this is connected with the trailer park deal. Why not just wait a day and see if I do find some connection. Nobody else is asking about it. You still have the get, and you get our cooperation for a better story.”
“And if not, you’ll try to persuade me not to do a story at all, when I can do the story right now, with the no-comment from you, for tomorrow’s paper, then write the one with your comment the next day.”
“That works only if our comment isn’t, ‘It has absolutely nothing to do with the trailer park deal.’”
She was smiling. “Nah, based on your advice at lunch, that’s ‘Builder denies attack is retaliation for land deal.’ ”
“Let’s go back on the record.”
“Okay.”
“We have absolutely no reason to believe this has anything to do with the trailer park deal.”
“That’s your quote?”
“Yep. Let’s go back off the record.” Jeff took a breath, made sure it felt right to change his tack with her, and decided to go ahead. “If you publish that story, I’ll be calling your bureau chief tomorrow morning to demand a printed correction.”
“What makes you think my story will have an error?”
“Not that story. Your story today. I’m a legal investigator, not an attorney, like you said.”
It would seem a small mistake to most people, but Jeff knew the Progress-Leader took accuracy seriously. Editors counted printed corrections against reporters in their annual reviews, even an error as minor and understandable as saying a law firm’s investigator was an attorney. Enough corrections could get a reporter fired.
“Damn you,” Caroline said, in a tone that was peevish, though not entirely so. “You’d have better luck playing nice with me instead of rough.”
Jeff raised his eyebrows. “Look, just wait a day; I’ll look into it. If you might be right, my quote tomorrow will be something like, ‘That’s an excellent observation, and you’re the only news outlet to connect those dots. That’s our main theory of the case.’”
“Trade me something I can use today.”
Being a good reporter was all about being an effective negotiator, and Jeff was gaining respect for Caroline Kramden, Progress-Leader staff writer, who also struck him as somebody he didn’t want to get into a pissing match with. “Okay. Here’s what you want: Beatrice the golden retriever had won a battle against cancer just before the ruthless burglar burst into her owner’s home and stole her life. None of the TV guys has it. Nobody outside the investigation does.”
“You’re giving me that on the record?”
Jeff grinned. “No, trading you for it.”
“Deal. Give me details. And get me an interview with Mrs. Reuss.”
* * *
Around 4 o’clock, Cooperton called. “We got ourselves another dead pet. This ‘un’s a kitty cat. I just e-mailed you the news release we’re fixin’ to send out.”
“Hold on. Let me look.”
Jeff hit the “get mail” button, and the message ding-donged into his inbox. An expensive gun collection was missing, but all the televisions were still there. There was more graffiti in black spray paint: “Guns kill poor, helpless animals” in the den where the gun cabinets had been cleaned out. In black marker on the great-room wall, the intruder had printed: “The thief cometh not to steal and to kill and to destroy – I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
“Sounds like our boy from the other night,” Jeff said. “The text of the messages is a little stranger, though.”
“Uh-huh,” Cooperton said. “Right down the street, too. It’s the guy that owns the framing contractor Mickey Reuss likes to use for throwin’ up houses.”
“No shit.”
“That Bible shit is weird,” Cooperton said. “I would let you come take a look, but the place is covered up with press now, and it wouldn’t look too good. But I’ll keep you posted on what-all we know, maybe get you in there tomorrow or sometime.”
“Get any physical evidence? What do you know that isn’t in the release?”
“Naw. Just that the whole neighborhood is in a damn tizzy, and it’s gonna be the whole county, soon as all this comes out.”
“What about that plate number I sent you?”
“Beige Chrysler Town and Country registered to a single mom who cleans people’s houses. Says her van isn’t missing.”
“Damn.” Jeff felt foolish for having chased it, then had a thought. “Was she in Mill Run Estates yesterday afternoon?”
“Don’t know. Not sure if we asked her. I’ll make sure we check.”
Sarah Rosen was standing in Jeff’s doorway now, her arm hooked through the handle of one of those bucket-like infant seats, from which a tiny foot poked upward. “Thanks for the heads-up, lieutenant,” Jeff said. “I have to run. I’ll call you back.”
“Hey, boss,” Jeff said. He walked over and tickled Jacob’s little foot and got a delighted squeal in return. “And how’s my little buddy?”
His boss cooed into the bucket. “Mother had to bring Jacob to work today because of your stuffy nose, didn’t she? But you’re going to be nice and quiet and sleep a lot.” She rolled her eyes dubiously, turned back to Jeff. “They don’t want them at day care if they have the slightest fever.”
Jeff hoped his adult immune system would protect him.
Sarah shivered a little, morphing, Jeff realized, from mother back to boss. “I’ve just learned there was another dead pet after a burglary in
Rocky Falls yesterday we don’t know about,” she said. “It’s looking like it’s going to make the evening news.”
Sarah lived in a new house in Rocky Falls herself. Now the firm’s name had been connected with it in the newspaper.
“I was just talking to one of our favorite deputies about that,” Jeff said. She moderated her stern look by a degree or two. “Probably happened the same time as Mickey’s dog. It’s the house three doors down, a subcontractor he works with a lot. It wasn’t discovered until just now. The homeowners came back from a trip out of town early this afternoon. How’d you hear about it?”
“A guy I know through Rotary Club lives across the street,” Sarah said. “His nanny started seeing the cops and TV trucks at the other house after lunchtime. Sounds like all the stations are setting up to lead the 5 o’clock news with a live shot and talk about both cases.”
Without warning, Jacob started bawling full-tilt. Sarah twisted a pacifier into his mouth.
“I’ll head up there,” Jeff said. “Cooperton can’t get me inside right away, but I’ll talk to the neighbors and homeowners if I can. I’ll let you know what I find.”
* * *
Sarah Rosen sat at her desk and unwrapped a Chick-fil-A sandwich – which had regrettably become her standard lunch. Jacob had fallen into a restless sleep.
She tried the sitter again and finally got her this time, arranged to drop Jacob off at 5:30. She fretted that the boy could melt down screaming any second now, and that just didn’t add to your aura as managing partner.
She thought about Davis Swaine heading out to get the skinny and smiled there in her office. He was an odd age. He was a handsome one, though of course he worked for her, so nothing would ever come of that. If she were seven years younger and a peer…