A Slepyng Hound to Wake

by Vincent McCaffrey

  Henry could see little in the car itself because of the reflection of light and leaves in the broad windshield. He was almost beside the car before he saw that there was a man inside apparently reading a newspaper, but looking away toward the house. The side window was open for air and Henry leaned down.

  “Frank?”

  The man was startled. He had clearly been focused on the other direction. He was middle-aged, overweight, clean-shaven. He did not seem to match any mental picture Henry had of Frank, the master photographer, and stalker. He seemed familiar, but Henry did not think he knew him. The man’s reaction was sudden.

  “I’m not Frank. So who the hell are you?”

  Henry said, “Bugs Bunny.” He was not sure why he said it. It just seemed appropriate.

  “Don’t get funny, asshole.”

  Henry made the obvious guess.

  “Why are you watching that house?”

  “None of your fuckin’ business.”

  “It’s my house. It’s my business.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Do you think the police would have any interest in your hanging around watching people’s houses?”

  “Run it up your ass, junkie.”

  The man had turned the key in the ignition and now he pulled away in one motion. Ford Crown Victorias were a favorite with the police. Henry wrote the license plate number down.

  When he reported the incident to Sasha, she was confused. She described Frank as only slightly taller than herself, thirty years old, bearded, and soft-spoken. She turned suddenly and went to the phone, punching numbers angrily, leaving Henry to stand at her door.

  She did not say hello when someone answered.

  “A man is watching my house. Do you know why a man is watching my house?”

  In the silence, as she listened to the answer, Henry noticed that the spot on the wall which had once been occupied by the picture that was now in his apartment had been filled by another—almost exactly the same, but in this one, Sasha was dressed in a dancer’s black leotard. He figured that the two pictures had been taken at the same time.

  She was speaking into the receiver but holding it away from her head as if afraid to allow the phone to touch her ear. “Why should I believe you? … It’s not true… . You don’t care.” The replacement picture was nearly as beautiful as the other. Henry studied the picture as she continued to speak. “This scares me. … My neighbor Henry caught him watching. I think he’s a stalker.”

  Henry’s eyes scanned the room for books. A stack of magazines sat against one wall. There were no books. Sasha was not a reader. Her violin and bow lay across the pillow at the center of the room.

  She spoke again. “He’s gone now. But I think he’s been here before.”

  From below, Henry could hear Mrs. Murray open her door, and then the front door. He went out on the landing and leaned over the rail.

  “Sarah …”

  Her face filled the narrow space between the banisters below. “Hi.”

  “Hi. Sarah … there was a man sitting in a big dark blue Ford Crown Vic across the street there just beyond the corner. Middle-aged guy. Clean-shaven, hair thinning and dyed an orangy-brown. He’s evidently been watching the house. You wouldn’t have any idea why, would you?”

  She looked away and then up again. She looked more than just surprised. She looked disturbed.“No … But it sounds like a cop.”

  “It does, doesn’t it… .”

  Henry wondered if Mr. Boyle might be involved.

  Sasha stood at the door again.

  “Thank you, Henry … I don’t think the stalker is Frank. Frank was very surprised. I think Frank is worried about me now.”

  She smiled. Her smiles always disconcerted him.

  Henry went back to his apartment and called the number on the letter from Boyle.

  A secretary said she would take a message. He left his name. Twenty minutes later, as Henry finished brewing tea to put it in the refrigerator, the phone rang.

  “Boyle. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m not sure. I heard that you come from a family of cops.”

  “Three generations.”

  Henry described the situation. Boyle listened.

  “So what does this have to do with me?”

  “Just me. I’m wondering if you can do something I can’t. I have no connections at the police department. I’ve never even been arrested. Is there any way you can find out why this guy is watching my house?”

  Silence. Then a grunt. Henry thought of Albert. Then Boyle let a long breath out. “You want me to do you a favor?”

  “Yeah, as a friend of George Duggan … and Albert Hamilton.”

  Another breath passed the receiver, this one blown a bit harder.

  “I’ll get back to ya.”

  After Boyle hung up, Henry wondered where he had learned how to press people like that. It wasn’t his usual style. The only example that came to mind was Barbara, back in the old days, talking book publishers into giving her credit when times were slow.

  The phone rang again. It was Della. She sounded cheerful. He asked her about going over to Coolidge Corner.

  “I like the part about Michael’s. But let’s not go to the movies. Why don’t we visit your dad instead?”

  Henry countered, “I saw him a couple weeks ago.”

  “I’d like to meet him. We could take him out for a little pastrami.”

  Henry felt like he had been ensnared by something he could not see.

  “Why? He’s just an old grumpy guy. He fixes old radios and then sits and listens to them for hours.”

  “Maybe its because he doesn’t have anybody else to talk to.”

  “He’s got his buddies. He still works.”

  “Have you shown your father the truck yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does he think?”

  “He thinks it’s silly. It’s a toy, he says. I said yeah, it’s a toy. He said I was getting too old for toys. I said that I was not looking forward to being too old for toys. He said I did n’t spend enough time looking forward at all. You know how those conversations go. You lose, lose.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would. I’m curious what you’ll be like in twenty years. Come on.”

  “I’ll be sixty. He’ll be seventy in November. But I’ll still be old and wrinkled. You won’t like the picture.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Junior sat in the middle. He had grown by several inches since the previous Tuesday, when Henry had last seen him. But then, he had been growing that way for years. He was going to be bigger than his father, and was not far from it now. The bench seat was thigh to thigh across, with Junior twisting his left leg over to avoid the stick shift. Henry avoided shifting gears as often as possible.

  “Did you remember the coffee?” Albert said.

  Junior let out a little air between his teeth before he answered.

  “Yes sir.”

  The sun had tilted off behind them now and the clean trough of road took them forward as if it were all downhill, even on the upgrades. Henry tried to keep his mind on the driving, as much as his thoughts wanted to slip off onto a dozen side roads of problems he was not making good sense of.

  “If you take the truck we’re going to miss the Sox game tonight. Junior’s radio hisses as bad as he does.”

  “I don’t want to be up here all week, Albert. I’ll get the bus from Rangeley as soon as I’m done. Maybe tonight. There’s a seven o’clock bus to Boston.”

  “You won’t make it tonight. You don’t understand distances up here. Miles are longer. You are going to end up sleeping in the truck, so you want to bring a blanket. I’ll pack a couple of things when we unload. I’ll put ’em in a blanket, and you can carry ’em with you just in case you have to leave the truck.”

  “The road goes all the way.”


  “Those are dotted lines. That DeLorme map is a fine piece of work. This is a fine truck with a nice low gear, but you may not be able to take this all the way in there. This truck wasn’t made for rougher trails.”

  It made no sense for Henry to argue. He had no idea. He had never been a boy scout, but it was better to be prepared. That made sense.

  Junior nodded forward, his eyes closed by the monotony of the passing trees.

  “Kids,” Albert said, nudging his son awake with his shoulder. “All your brother Danny does anymore is sleep. I won’t take him fishing anymore.”

  Junior hissed.

  Henry rethought his plans. It really was just one plan. He had no back up.

  He was going to drive up to Duggan’s camp—he liked the sound of that, Red Hill Camp, like something from olden times—and apologize for being such an uncivilized bit of human crud for barging in, and beg his pardon and tell him within the first couple of sentences that it was a matter of life and death or he wouldn’t be there, and hope that George Duggan was really the same guy he drank beers with a couple of weeks ago.

  John Boyle was doing his job. That was clear. But that did not mean that Henry could not go around him.

  “Turn at that patch of grass.”

  Ahead, the grass strip beside the road widened and the gravel spread from the shoulder into a parting of the trees.

  “I don’t see any lake.” Henry wondered.

  “It’s over there. A mile.”

  Albert had offered to go with him to Duggan’s camp. Henry had rejected the idea of three big men driving up on Duggan in the middle of the woods.

  Henry slowed, his fist on the knob of the stick shifting against Junior’s leg as his boot worked the clutch.

  Junior said, “Just be careful, Mr. Sullivan, that you don’t grab the wrong one.”

  Albert pushed his son with his shoulder. “Shut up, Junior. We don’t need any high-school humor right now. Take the way to the right, Henry … I know it doesn’t look like a road, but it is.”

  A shelf of rock protruded from beneath the roots of stunted pine, offering a ramp to the wheel ruts that separated the grass and disappeared into the grey fingers of dead undergrowth. The truck took the shelf in stride and passed over the tall center grass with the sound of a continuous brush on the underside.

  Albert said, “This is marvelous.” A grin fixed his face.

  “Dad’s big ol’ truck got stuck there last year. The trees have grown in on the trail and he won’t cut ’em back”

  Albert shouldered his son again. “You don’t have to tell the whole world .… They don’t make trucks that ride high like this anymore. My truck is so long it catches the rock right at the middle. That’s all.”

  Junior pushed back at his father.

  “I had to carry most of the supplies from here to the camp last year. Dad said his ankle was bothering him.”

  Grasshoppers flew before them. The sun swatted at them through the shadows. The road dipped, climbed, and at last the trees parted onto the slate blue surface of a lake that must have been miles across, pushed by a steady wind that wrinkled the surface of the water like old skin.

  Junior let out a whoop. He was on the heels of his father out the door, and as quickly into the back of the truck and unloading the inflatable boat.

  “Camp supplies first, Junior. Mind your business.”

  Albert pulled a blanket from a duffel and tossed an assortment of small supplies into the middle, rolled it and tied it at both ends with a short rope so that Henry could sling it over his shoulder.

  “You want to take my cell phone?” Albert offered.

  “You know I don’t like cell phones.”

  “Just this once. You’re going to be out in the woods, by yourself.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Henry said.

  Within fifteen minutes, Henry had waved goodbye to the closing curtain of undergrowth beneath the pines as he made his way back out. The map was open on the seat beside him.

  Using his thumb against the scale, he calculated again the distance to Red Hill, north through Rangeley and southeast through Madrid, then northeast. Perhaps sixty miles at most. Keeping an average speed of forty-five miles an hour, he should be there in an hour and a half—by two o’clock in any case.

  He was pleased with himself. With Albert and Junior gone he felt more like he was off on an adventure. He whistled “Appalachian Spring” over the hum of the truck engine and stopped for a quick cup of coffee in Rangeley when it looked like he was ahead of time. The road through Madrid and north again lengthened in an elastic snake of curves and halts for summer traffic.

  He reached the small building beside the road that called itself the Red Hill General Store and Post Office just after three o’clock. Four SUVs filled the graveled space at the front.

  A heavy man in a soiled fisherman’s vest leaned behind the counter, keeping an eye on half a dozen teenagers, both boys and girls, who pored over the cassettes of adult videos at the back of the small room.

  “Can I do for ya?” The man spoke without actually looking away from the kids.

  “I’m looking for Red Hill Camp.” Henry said.

  The man snuck a look at him now, and then refocused on the teenagers.

  The man asked, “Where is that?”

  Henry thought twice. “Mr. Duggan told me that if I got lost, I should ask the man at the general store. Is there someone else around here that might know?”

  The man raised an eyebrow.

  “When did he tell you that?”

  “When he was in Boston two weeks ago.”

  The man considered this a few seconds while snatching looks toward the kids.

  “Mr. Duggan yelled at me the last time I sent somebody up to his place.”

  Henry pulled the notepaper with the Red Hill Camp name printed on the top from his shirt pocket and unfolded it, reading it so that the heading might be recognized from a short distance, but no more.

  “It’s okay. I think I just turned at the wrong place. I’ll figure it out.” Henry started to leave.

  The heavy man held up his hand. “Just a minute … ” then moved toward the crowd at the back.

  “All right, Fran, Tom, out of here. You’re just sixteen. The rest of you, I want to see your driver’s licenses before you get another idea.”

  There were moans and other sounds and the group filed out en masse. The girls giggled. One rolled her eyes as she passed Henry.

  The heavy man returned to his post and pulled an old bill from a pile of paper, turned it over to the blank side, and started to draw with a stubby pencil.

  “Looky here. This is the way …”

  As the man spoke, Henry could hear the roar of the SUVs and the spit of gravel from beneath the tires hitting the side of his own truck.

  He was on a small gravel and grass road within a few minutes, rising onto the side of a ridge, presented with a view of a few small lakes below and three scattered mountains. After dropping, crossing a creek, and rising again, the road divided at the top of the next ridge. The trees were thick at both sides. There was no fork on the penciled map drawn by the storekeeper. Perhaps he thought it would be obvious at this point.

  Henry studied the road itself. Isn’t that how they did it in Western movies? The road to the left was the better traveled. What did that mean? Would there be a lot of traffic to Duggan’s camp? But that way seemed to turn back away from the general direction of the camp. Henry took the road to the right. Within ten minutes, his left rear wheel spun in a void left by the run of water against the gravel.

  He jockeyed the truck, making matters worse, and filling the quiet air beneath the pines with the grey smoke of burned rubber.

  According to the map, he had to be close. He got out of the truck and began to kick rocks free from the soil and pile them into the void. This had little effect as they spun out with the turn of the wheel.

  He found a dead branch and used it to work a larger rock free from the moss which
fastened the slabs like mortar. Mosquitoes buzzed at his ears and he raised his collar and swatted with whatever hand was free.

  The tire grabbed his carefully constructed platform and tossed it away.

  He rebuilt the support with a broader base of fallen branches and braced it across the gully that he figured had been made by the snow melt. When the woods lost their depth and most of their color to shadow, and the sky above him was no longer framed by the sunlight on the uppermost leaves, he turned on the Red Sox game and listened as he worked.

  In the fifth inning he kicked at his construction and it did not move. He shifted into low gear and the truck crawled forward. As the wheel left his platform, the earth at the edge of the road gave way. The truck tilted and settled. The wheel spun. Jason Varitek hit a home run.

  He thought briefly of sleeping in the open back, then opted for closing the windows tight against the mosquitoes and propping his feet against the door on the down side.

  The smell of the truck was a perfume of motor oil and rubber and the materials once used to trim old cars. He wondered why such smells could not be bottled and used to replace the synthetic odor of recent models. He fell asleep shortly after the Red Sox bullpen had lost the game and he switched the radio off. The radio light had been comforting. Now, through the windshield, stars swayed in the river of sky above the road—if a road was what it was.

  He awoke with his neck stiff where it had rested against the metal of the doorframe. A cloud had settled down in the woods around him. The yellow of sun infused the mist just above the treetops and cast an amber glow onto the forest floor.

  Stepping out into the air was like entering a pool of water. He pulled a moment against the stiffness in his back, and then surveyed his work. If anything, he calculated, he was worse off than before. And he was very thirsty. His stomach growled.

  Standing in the quiet of the road, he listened. … Somewhere there was the sound of a voice. Perhaps voices. Someone was talking. The road ahead fell downward through ferns into a small valley nearly dark with thick growth.