by Ray Garton
“Can you call someone, Fran?” Hurley had said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
She’d nodded as she turned to him again. “I’ll call my parents. My whole family will be here within half an hour. Don’t worry, Hurley. Really. And thanks.”
“Okay. Look, if there’s anything Ella or I can do, anything at all, you just let me know, day or night. Okay?”
“I will. Thuh-thanks again, Hurley.”
Along with that, Hurley kept remembering Garrett himself. A jagged, blood-blackened hole where his throat had been that revealed his torn trachea. His gut ripped open wide and his insides hanging out—what was left, anyway, what hadn’t been—
Eaten, he kept thinking. He was eaten, for God’s sake.
Hurley was unable to finish his breakfast. He sat there and poked at his waffle.
“Not hungry?” Ella said. “The waffles are as good as ever.”
Hurley took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he shook his head. “I was hungry, but my appetite ... it left earlier this morning.”
He kissed Ella goodbye, and he let his lips linger a little while on hers. With a spark of surprise, Ella responded and put a hand to his face. He pulled away and smiled at her, then went out and got into his Explorer and drove to work, getting to the station a few minutes after ten, his usual time. First thing he did when he sat down at his desk was to call the Department of Fish and Game over in the courthouse. He identified himself to the secretary and said he needed to talk to Lenny—that was Leonard Hill.
“Sheriff?” Lenny said. “How are ya?”
“Well, not too good, Lenny, not too good. I lost a deputy last night.”
“Damn, Sheriff, I’m real sorry about that. I heard it on the news this morning. What happened?”
Hurley gave him a quick account, slowing down and getting more detailed when he discussed his deputy’s remains.
“My God, are you serious?” Lenny said. “An animal?”
“That’s what the deputy coroner says. He says we’ve got a big, powerful animal in the area, something like a bear.”
“A bear?”
“That’s what he said. Is that possible?”
Lenny was silent a moment, then, “Well, it’s not impossible, I suppose. But there hasn’t been a bear seen around here since the early ‘seventies. And never have any actually come into town. Not ever.”
“Can you get your people on this right away?”
“Sure. I’ll go over there myself right now and see if I can find any sign of a bear, or maybe a mountain lion.”
“I’d sure appreciate it. The idea of finding anyone else like that ... well, it just makes me sick. Are you planning to do this right away?”
“I’ll drive up there as soon as I hang up the phone.”
“Ah, that would be great, Lenny. I can’t get away to meet you, but I’ll send a deputy over there to show you the exact spot. And as soon as you’re done up there—don’t even wait to get back to your office—just call me on your cell right away and let me know what you find, could you do that?”
“Sure, Sheriff. No problem.”
After hanging up, Hurley looked at the messages on his desk, things he had to do. But the office felt very small that morning, and Hurley felt cramped, closed in. All he wanted to do was go out in the steel-grey day, get in the SUV, and drive.
So that was what he did.
8
Doris’s Window
Doris Whitacker had been at her front window crocheting a little blanket for her seventeen-month-old great-grandson Noah, since a little while before the sun—what there was to see of it beyond the fog and clouds—had come up. On a TV tray in front of her plush, rotating rocking-chair, its red-wine color blending with nothing else in the room, stood a steaming cup of coffee, a paper plate with two raspberry Pop Tarts on it, and a pair of Swarovski binoculars. On the wall across the room was a large flat-screen television. She’d paid a fortune for it—the chair hadn’t been cheap, either—because her most recent late husband, a successful retired attorney, had left her a healthy chunk of money when he’d died. It upset her children to see her buy such expensive items. That was why she enjoyed buying them so much. When she’d bought the binoculars, Victoria, her oldest daughter by her first husband, had become apoplectic. Doris had honestly thought she was going to have to perform some kind of CPR on Vicki, because she sat on the couch and stared at the wall with her mouth hanging open, the receipt for the binoculars clutched in her right hand, as Doris called her name again and again. Then, so suddenly that it made Doris flinch, Victoria had blurted angrily, “And you’re using those to spy on your neighbors? That’s what you do when you sit around here all day? Spy on your neighbors? With your ridiculously overpriced binoculars? That’s what you spend your money on?”
“They’re glad I’m here, my neighbors,” Doris had said, “ask any one of ‘em. I watch this neighborhood like a hawk while they’re away at work, or school, or daycare. They know that I’ll call the police if anything suspicious happens.”
“Mother, listen to me,” Victoria had said. “The Sheriff himself took out a restraining order on you, just to keep you from coming down to the station every day.”
“I have every right in the world to call them,” Doris said. “I pay my taxes.”
“You can’t call them every time you see a black person. Black people are around, Mother, they’re out there. There are black families living in this very neighborhood, and they have every right to be here. And just because you see a few Asian teenagers does not mean the Tongs have come to Big Rock, okay? There are Asians around, too, Mom, you’ve gotta get used to it.”
Doris saw everything that happened on Weeping Willow Drive—at least, the part of Weeping Willow Drive that she could see from her front window. She knew almost all her neighbors, knew their schedules, their habits. She spent most of her time watching them through her binoculars, for which she’d paid nine hundred and sixty dollars over the Internet (which her grandson had shown her how to surf after the family had presented her with a computer a couple of Christmases ago—Doris had taken to it surprisingly well, and for that reason, her grandson thought she was pretty cool). They were better than television, her neighbors, although she usually had the television on all day, as well. She managed to divide her attention between her window and her morning game shows and her afternoon stories. And Oprah, of course. Doris had nothing but admiration for Oprah Winfrey.
Sometimes, weather permitting, Doris would take a stroll along Weeping Willow Drive, and as she walked, she would peer into windows and garages. She knew when her neighbors were home, when they were away—she knew the best times to take a peek. Sometimes, she even lifted the lids on their garbage cans to see what they’d been discarding. One could tell a lot about people’s lives by taking a look at their garbage.
Doris was a slight woman—short, reed-thin, with a face covered by an intricate cobweb of wrinkles. Her once-blue eyes were now grey, her once full lips now paper-thin. Her white hair was pulled back in a bun. The patch of shriveled skin that dangled beneath her chin jiggled when she spoke or moved her head. She wore a simple blue housedress and a beige sweater she kept halfway buttoned up. The sweater’s right pocket bulged with tissues. Her mouth was always dry, so she usually sucked on a peppermint as she sat at her window.
Doris knew the Nortons had marriage problems. She heard shouting from over there a lot. Always from him, never from the wife. She strongly suspected he beat her, because the poor young woman frequently showed up with black eyes and swollen lips. Once, she’d limped for days.
Doris had heard the shouting from over there this very morning. From him, of course. And one sound that had come from her—a high, sharp yelp, like a dog being kicked. They frightened Doris, those sounds. She was frightened again when she saw Jimmy Norton come out the front door less than a minute later, putting on his coat. He was whistling something. He was whistling—it both frightened and infuriated Doris. She’d phoned the
Sheriff’s Department immediately.
Doris suspected they didn’t take her too seriously down at the Sheriff’s Department. She had a tendency to call too often, she realized that. But this was something real, something solid—that girl could be badly hurt, no telling what that bastard had done to her. And there was a baby and a little girl to think about, as well.
She waited for a car to show up. Plenty of cars went by in both directions—people going to work, or taking their children to school. But none of them were the white cars with the green-and-gold decals on the side doors—a gold star with a green pine tree standing in the center of it, the whole thing outlined by a bold green triangle. Beneath that were three lines written in green:
To Protect,
To Serve,
To Unite.
But no one came.
While she waited, she tried to distract her thoughts by taking a look at the other house across the street. The Sutherlands.
The fat Sutherland boy had a job, but it wasn’t one he enjoyed—she could tell by his sad, drawn demeanor on his way to and from work. She thought it was rather pathetic that, at his age, he was still living at home, even though he lived in the apartment over the garage. He should be out on his own, making a life for himself.
His parents were alcoholics, no doubt in Doris’s mind about that. She saw how much liquor Mrs. Sutherland toted home in those bags with the Liquor Barn emblem on the side. She’d seen the discarded bottles in their garbage. Doris had their number.
Of all her neighbors, Jimmy was the most insufferable. It made Doris furious every time she saw the man. Of course, her sympathy for Andrea Norton could only go so far, because as far as Doris was concerned, women who stuck around for it secretly liked it—sometimes it was even a secret to themselves, she suspected. They didn’t even know they liked it, because they were too terrified to admit it to themselves.
She was sure Andrea Norton was terrified, scared of every evening when he came home from work, dreading every morning when he woke up. She felt trapped, no doubt. Maybe one day she would kill her husband—but she would never go for help for herself. And for that reason, if she killed him, she would go to prison for the rest of her life. Might even get the death penalty. Because who knew? He was such a nice guy, a real generous, stand-up guy, and everybody had liked him, right? If he’d been beating her, why hadn’t she told someone—before blowing up and stabbing him to death, or shooting him in the head, or poisoning his food? Nobody would believe her then. Off to prison she would go. Or maybe she’d get really fat and hope he stopped finding her attractive and would stop touching her. Because Doris knew one thing Andrea Norton probably did not know yet—her husband was fooling around behind her back. A coworker, or a secretary, or someone. Or maybe it was a different woman each time—maybe he was a prolific adulterer. Doris could not be sure of which, but she knew his type—he’d been wettin’ his willie ever since they got married, from before they were married, Doris was sure. Andrea would find out sooner or later, and it would hurt, but maybe that pain would be enough to convince her to finally leave. She might know already. You could never tell with such women.
But Doris knew. She always nodded to herself when she thought about it. Doris believed herself to be a stellar judge of character. She could size people up quickly and accurately. Jimmy was easy. The man walked like a predatory womanizer, and he had the face of a wife-beater, a face that looked secretly mean, even when it smiled. She worried about Andrea Norton. There was always a chance, of course, that Jimmy would go the O.J. route and end up killing her before she could kill him.
Doris wasn’t sure which was worse. All she knew was that, no matter what happened, those poor little girls would get the worst of it all the way around. They were probably already damaged by all the shouting and screaming their father did.
Oprah had done a number of shows on it over the years, because, of course, Oprah had been abused as a child, and she knew what it was like. She’d risen above it to become one of the richest, most powerful women in the whole world. Doris was as proud of her as she would be if Oprah were her own sister, or her daughter.
Regis Philbin bantered on the television.
Is it after nine already? Doris thought.
And still no one from the Sheriff’s Department had shown up.
Doris reached over and picked up the phone to call them again.
9
Hurley and Doris
Hurley had heard the call on the radio.
The dispatcher, had said with such reticence, “A call from Doris Whitacker about a possible 273.5, across the street.” A possible domestic abuse situation. She gave Doris’s Weeping Willow Drive address, then said, “Anyone nearby there?”
“I’ll take it,” Hurley had said into the microphone.
Hurley had been dealing with Doris so long that he knew how to talk to her, how to cut through all her nonsense.
“It’s about time you came,” Doris said as she let him into her house. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?”
“I’m very sorry about that, Doris,” Hurley said.
“You’ve got to do something about the shouting across the street at the Norton house.”
“What kind of shouting, Doris?”
“He shouts at her. I can tell he’s being very abusive to her with his words. And then she shows up with black eyes and fat lips. I heard shouting over there early this morning—he was shouting—and then she yelped. Just an abrupt yelp. Then he left the house whistling. I’ve been worried about her ever since. She could be bleeding to death over there,” Doris said, gesturing at her window, “or already dead.”
“Does this happen often, Doris?”
“Often? It happens almost every day. Usually in the evening, after he comes home from work. I’ve called your department about it before, but deputies just come out and go across the street and tell them to hold it down, like I’m complaining about the noise, for God’s sake. I’m not complaining about the noise, I’m worried that poor girl over there is going to be killed one of these days, that’s what I’m worried about.”
“Now, you know, Doris, that I’ve come out here before about this, and I’ve heard the shouting myself. Remember? I had a talk with Jimmy Norton and told him to get into an anger management class, or something, because his temper was liable to land him in jail. Remember?”
“I might remember that time.”
“Well, it wasn’t just one time, Doris. You’ve had us out here a few times about the Nortons. But I’ve seen nothing I can do anything about. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then go over there right now,” Doris said, pointing with an arthritic index finger out her window. “She’s there now, and her face is all messed up, go and see.”
“Is he home now?”
“No, he’s at work. But she’s home.”
Hurley nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it right now.”
“Hey, Sheriff, tell me—do you still have a restraining order against me?”
“Now, Doris, I told you why I had to do that.”
“I was never that bad.”
Hurley laughed and shook his head. “Doris, you were coming into the station three and four times a day and interrupting my deputies and my staff while they were working, and interrupting me while I was working. You wouldn’t stop when you were told, so I got the restraining order. And no, it’s no longer in effect. But if you show up down at that station so much as once, Doris, I’ll get another one. There’s absolutely no reason for you to go down there. All you have to do is call us.”
“Oh, all right, all right.”
“Now. I’m going across the street to have a word with your neighbor,” he said, starting for the door. “I’ll come back and let you know what happened when I’m done.”
“Thank you, Sheriff. I really appreciate it.”
Hurley released a long sigh as he left Doris’s house and walked across her front lawn. He went across the street to the Norton house, a small white ranch-st
yle house with pale blue trim. The yard was a mess. Flowers shared their beds with weeds and the shrubs grew wildly up past the top of the white picket fence that bordered the yard.
Rain fell in an unenthusiastic drizzle, and a cold, biting breeze was coming up.
He went up the walk, which had a few cracks in it. Up the front steps, across the small covered porch, and he rang the bell. Then he waited.
The door opened and the once-pretty, blonde young woman who stood on the other side of the screen door looked harried.
“Yes?” she said with a smile, but the smile did not last long.
“Mrs. Norton? Andrea Norton?”
“Yes.”
He took off his cap. “I’m Sheriff Hurley and I’d like to have a word with you. May I come in?”
“Uh ... well, I’m doing housework at the moment. I was, um, mopping the kitchen floor and then I was gonna—uh, look.” She pushed the screen door open and stepped outside, leaving the front door half-open. “Why don’t I just step out here, okay?”
“Sure, that’s fine. Boy, that’s quite a shiner you’ve got there, Mrs. Norton.”
There was a darkened half-circle under her puffy right eye, and the bruise seemed to dribble part-way down her cheek. A small cut was visible on her lower lip.
Staring at the black eye, Hurley thought he’d love to catch the son of a bitch doing that himself sometime, show him what it’s like to get beaten on for awhile. Men like Jimmy Norton—who weren’t really men at all—brought out the worst in Hurley. They were just one notch above child molesters, and barely that.
Andrea shrugged. “Well, I tripped over the vacuum-cleaner cord and slammed my face right into the, uh, front of the entertainment center.” She released a breathy chuckle. “The thing almost fell over on me. It hurt pretty bad, I’ll tell you.”
Hurley frowned, reached around and slowly rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, Mrs. Norton, your neighbors have been complaining about the shouting.”