Warning Signs

by Stephen White

  As I walked across the street, I retrieved the yellow sticky note that I'd stuffed in my pocket and checked the address. The number matched the house right next door to the Petersons'. I walked up a flagstone path and rang the bell.

  The woman who answered the door was young and harried. She had a toddler perched on one hip and another child, a girl around four, corralled between her legs. "Yes?" she asked. Her tone said, This better had be good.

  "Ms. Wallace? I'm Alan Gregory; I'm a friend of Susan Peterson's. She said she would call you to authorize you to give me a key to her house. She said she left one with you for emergencies."

  "Yeah, right. Hannah! You stay put, you hear me? How is Susan doing?" The little girl tried to squirm away. The woman trapped her with a knee and tried to smile at me. The expression ended up looking more like a grimace. "Such a tragedy what happened to Royal. Have to admit, it's scared the whole neighborhood. Hold on, I'll go get the key." She grabbed Hannah's hand, and mother and children disappeared down the hall.

  I heard some insipid children's music playing in the background and reminded myself that my day listening to insipid children's music would soon come. I wondered whether the offensive sound was coming from a CD or a video and whether it involved a purple dinosaur or animated Japanese monsters.

  I said a silent prayer that Grace would have good taste.

  The woman returned with both children and with the key. She handed the fob out the door, and said, "Here you go. Just slip it back through the mail slot when you're done with it. Nice meeting you."

  The door was closed before I said, "Thank you."

  Sam met me on the road in front of the house. He said, "You never told me, what did you tell Susan Peterson to get her permission to do this?"

  "You may not know this, but your friends at the police department only turned the house back over to her yesterday. Since she got out of the hospital, she's been staying with one of her daughters in Durango. I called down there and made up a story about something Royal and I were working on together, said I knew where the papers were in his study."

  "She went for that?"

  "She trusts me."

  "Fool."

  "Your guy is coming, right?"

  "My guy is a girl and, yes, she's coming." He glanced at his watch. "We're early. She'll be here."

  "She's off duty?"

  "Way off duty. She's on disability after getting hurt on the job. Like I told you, she trains K-9s now, earns a little extra money."

  Just then, a fifteen- or twenty-year-old Mercedes wagon rounded the corner and slowed as it pulled up to the curb. The paint on the car had oxidized to the point where I couldn't even guess at its original color. One front fender was liberally treated with rubbing compound. A young woman hopped out of the driver's side. She waved hello to Sam and walked to the rear hatch of the car. When she opened it, a medium-sized dog with floppy ears and indeterminate heritage jumped out and heeled beside her. She fixed a lead to the dog's collar and together they joined Sam and me on the sidewalk.

  The woman limped noticeably.

  Sam said, "Dorsey, this is Alan Gregory. Alan, Dorsey Hamm. Ex-Westminster Police Department, and this is her K-9 friend, uh…"

  Dorsey was a stocky woman. Her skin showed evidence of a lost battle with adolescent acne. Her hair was cut carelessly. My impression was that she had long ago stopped trying to be attractive and that she was absolutely content with her decision.

  She said, "I'm pleased to meet you," and held out her hand. "This here is Shadow." As I drew close enough to her to shake her hand, I thought I caught a whiff of cannabis. Involuntarily, I glanced at Dorsey's eyes. Red trails arced across the whites like lightning bolts.

  The dog's tail was in nonstop motion. The rest of him was perfectly still.

  "What kind is he?" I asked.

  "Lab-shepherd mix. Both breeds tend to be good with explosives." She told him to sit, and he lowered himself without delay. On their best days, my dogs weren't as well-behaved as Shadow.

  And they didn't have their best days very often.

  Sam said, "I'm not going inside, Dorsey. Wouldn't be appropriate, given Lucy's situation." He handed me a pair of latex gloves and told me to put them on. He said, "Let's not complicate things with your prints, eh?"

  Sometimes, especially during the height of hockey season, Sam developed an unconscious tendency to affect a Canadian accent. I think it came from watching too many Canadian athletes and listening to too many Canadian sportscasters on television. The affectation tended to fade a week or so after the league awarded the Stanley Cup.

  He offered a pair of gloves to Dorsey. She took them and while she snapped them onto her hands, he said, "I appreciate your willingness to screen this place for me; I owe you one."

  Dorsey glanced at the house. "Oh, don't mention it, Sam. Shadow needs the work, and unfamiliar environments are great training tools. We'll be in and out of a place this size in ten minutes, max. Probably not even that long. Don't go out for coffee or anything." She shortened the lead, touched the dog, and leaned down close to his ear. "Come on, boy. Come on. Let's go treasure hunting."

  I proceeded up the walk, unlocked the front door of the Peterson home, and held the door for Dorsey and Shadow.

  Dorsey reached down and whispered an instruction to Shadow that I couldn't quite hear. Her next message to the dog was a simple hand signal.

  The dog charged forward, lowered his head, and started searching the Peterson home for explosives. Dorsey held the lead and stayed within a few feet of him.

  My dogs could do that. Either of them.

  Right.

  Seconds after we were inside, Dorsey led Shadow up the stairs to the second floor. I didn't follow them right away; I was distracted. As soon as we were in the house I'd started looking around, trying to identify the precise place where Royal had been bashed to death. I thought the news reports had mentioned the living room and I was curious whether there would actually be a chalk outline to indicate where the body had been found. By the time I had examined the living room pretty carefully-no chalk-and was ready to start up the stairs, Shadow was already preceding Dorsey back down to the first floor.

  Dorsey said, "Upstairs is negative."

  I said, "Good."

  Shadow moved away from the staircase, lowered his snout to the hardwood, took a few steps, circled a spot just beyond the doorway that led to the dining room, and sat. The dog's head swiveled toward his master and back to the floor. Dorsey looked at the dog, then over to me. "That's an alert-a positive," Dorsey said, her voice suddenly swollen with tension. "Is there a basement below that, or a crawl space? Do you know?"

  All I saw was the dog sitting peacefully. I expected something different, though I don't know what. "Basement," I said in reply to Dorsey's question. "My memory is that the stairs are in the kitchen." I added, "What do you mean, 'positive'?" Though I knew what she meant by "positive."

  She didn't answer. She found the way to the kitchen and led Shadow down the stairs. I fumbled for a light switch, finally illuminating the dark staircase. The basement was nicely finished, but the ceilings were low and the space felt claustrophobic. The large room at the base of the staircase was set up as a home office for Royal. One long wall was lined with shelves filled with an impressive collection of abstract pottery. I counted fifteen large pieces and a few small ones. A prominent space on a shelf that was near the foot of the stairs was empty.

  Royal's collection of ceramics had apparently once included sixteen large pieces.

  After no more than ten seconds, Shadow moved from a quick sniff around Royal's office to focus on an adjacent utility room. There he immediately picked a spot near the center of the room, raised his snout in the air, circled once, and sat.

  Dorsey said, "Wow. That's another alert. He's confirming."

  "Confirming?"

  "Watch this," said Dorsey with obvious pride.

  She moved a six-foot stepladder from the far wall and set it up on the e
xact spot where Shadow had been sitting. She released him from his lead and, without a moment's hesitation, the dog climbed the length of the ladder, balancing his front paws on the top platform, his back paws on the second-to-last rung.

  "Isn't that cool?" Dorsey said. "I didn't even have to teach him that. He does it all on his own."

  "Amazing," I agreed. I could barely breathe. It was as though Shadow were stealing all my air.

  "It's another positive," she said, as she lifted the dog off the ladder and placed him on the concrete floor. "I think it's the same spot he smelled from up above. I bet something's been tucked up there between the floor joists."

  I leaned in and peered up into the dark recess.

  She asked, "What do you think?"

  "The floor plan is kind of hard to follow from down here, but, yeah, I think it may be the same spot where he sat upstairs."

  She pulled a flashlight from an asspack around her waist and aimed the beam up toward the ceiling. "Holy moly, there it is. Wow, wow, wow. I've never found a real one before. I'm just a trainer, you know?"

  I reminded myself to exhale. "Are you going to go up there and look at it?"

  "Are you nuts? The device could be booby-trapped. Shadow locates the things; that's where my involvement stops. I sure as hell don't examine them or disarm them. I've already given enough of my body to law enforcement, thank you, and I've gotten as close as I plan to get to that device, whatever it is."

  "Of course, I wasn't thinking," I said. I was so nervous, I was barely capable of thinking.

  Dorsey said, "What do you say we get the hell out of here as quick as we can? It gives me the willies knowing that there are really explosives here."

  "You're sure that we're talking… explosives?"

  "Me? I don't smell a thing. But Shadow's pretty sure. He's been an A student. Most K-9s work at eighty-five to ninety percent accuracy. Shadow's almost done with his training and he's been near ninety-five percent for the last couple of weeks. The fact that he's sure is plenty good enough for me."

  "If that's the case, getting out of here as fast as we can sounds like a perfect plan," I said. My throat was so dry I had trouble getting the words out of my mouth. I held my breath for a moment so I could listen hard for the sound of a clock ticking.

  Or my heart pounding.

  Nothing.

  Dorsey wasted no time herding Shadow back up the basement stairs toward the front door. Seconds later, Dorsey, Shadow, and I were all back outside on the Petersons' front porch. When I looked up, I saw Sam pacing across the street.

  Dorsey waved to him while she simultaneously slipped Shadow a treat.

  "It's positive, Sam," she called out. "Sorry."

  Sam buried his face in his hands. I was pretty certain that if I were any closer to him I would have heard him curse me in some imaginative way.

  To Dorsey, I said, "I think I'd feel a whole lot more comfortable if we got off of this porch, maybe joined Sam across the street."

  CHAPTER 15

  A t Sam's suggestion I departed the scene, loitering around the corner while Dorsey loaded Shadow into the back of the old Mercedes. Sam wanted Dorsey and the dog long gone before the Boulder Police Department mobilized its assets to deal with the latest crisis at Royal Peterson's home. Sam had already told me that his plan was to tell his superiors that he'd received an anonymous tip, not that he'd finagled a way to get a bomb-sniffing dog to do the initial reconnaissance of the house.

  In the three minutes after Dorsey drove Shadow and the Mercedes away, a half dozen Boulder Police Department black-and-whites arrived, followed moments later by a big rescue squad truck, a pumper from the Boulder Fire Department, and finally, about ten minutes later, a truck and trailer carrying bomb squad members and their equipment. I thought it was an impressive response for a town the size of Boulder.

  The Petersons' block was evacuated in short order; many of the evacuees ended up congregating near my anonymous post around the corner. A lot of people gathered; I assumed that the block behind the house had been evacuated as well. Yellow tape seemed to be stretched everywhere. I kept an eye out for Susan Peterson's neighbor, the one with the two little kids who'd given me the key, but they never came around my corner. I wondered if the police had used Boulder's reverse 911 system to alert the neighbors. The program permitted the authorities to use an automated system to phone residents and inform them of an emergency. I made a mental note to ask Sam.

  When the first TV microwave truck arrived, I used it as my cue to begin walking away. On foot, if I ambled, I figured it would take me about fifteen minutes to get to my office downtown. If I pushed the pace a little bit, I thought I might have time to grab a snack before I got to Walnut Street and still have about twenty minutes to prepare myself for Naomi Bigg's noon appointment.

  Knowing myself, I knew that I'd spend every one of those twenty minutes second-guessing my decision to alert Sam Purdy that there was a possibility that explosives had been planted in Royal and Susan Peterson's home. Although I couldn't quite convince myself that I'd done what was right, the fact that Shadow had discovered a cache of explosive material brought me close to convincing myself that I'd done what I had to do.

  B y twelve o'clock, the scheduled starting time of my appointment with Naomi Bigg, only about an hour had passed since Sam Purdy had called in the threat of explosives at the Peterson home. I decided that the odds were long that Naomi Bigg would have already heard about the arrival of the bomb squad and the fire department. She would have had to be watching TV or listening to the news on the radio. Nonetheless, as I waited for the red light on the wall to flash on, I steeled myself for the possibility.

  What would I do if Naomi confronted me? I'd already decided not to lie to her. Instead, my plan was to maintain that by tipping off the police the way I had, I had not breached her confidentiality at all.

  My argument? As with most rationalizations I'd heard in my life regarding ethics, my reasoning had a structure as complicated as DNA.

  First, I planned to argue that the information that I'd shared with the police was the result of deduction on my part. Naomi had not, in fact, told me that I would find explosives in the Peterson home. Yes, she had obliquely raised the possibility that Ramp and Paul may have been planning to place a bomb, but then she had vociferously argued against it.

  I could hardly be accused of breaching confidentiality around a topic that hadn't even been specifically addressed in therapy.

  The truth was that I could be so accused, but the argument I was twisting into my personal version of a double helix was comforting, nonetheless.

  Second, the information that I'd provided to Sam Purdy could not reasonably lead anyone to discover the identity of my patient. The reality of my profession-for better or for worse-is that psychotherapists share information from psychotherapy sessions all the time. If the information does not provide clues that can be linked back to a specific individual, such leaks are usually treated as harmless indiscretions.

  I told myself this was one of those.

  Third? The third argument was for my ears only, not for Naomi's. It was this: To whom was Naomi going to complain? She could hardly go to the police with her allegations against me. And a formal petition to the State Board of Psychologist Examiners alleging malfeasance didn't seem likely. She'd have a hard time filing the charge without identifying her son. And I'd actually like to watch the ethics board grapple with the information she would provide about him.

  I decided that the worst that could happen is that Naomi would storm out of my office and that I'd never hear from her again.

  The trouble was this: Given the danger I feared Lauren might be in, not hearing from Naomi again was my greatest fear.

  N aomi Bigg was on time for her appointment. Maybe it was because Dorsey and Shadow and the package above the stepladder were still very much on my mind, but my first thought upon seeing Naomi was that, unlike Dorsey, Naomi would never, ever cease trying to be attractive. Nor, I suspe
cted, would she ever achieve Dorsey's level of contentment with her appearance.

  Naomi's black crepe suit was impeccably pressed. Since I was congenitally unable to even bend over without wrinkling my own clothes, I was always amazed when other people could make it through a workday looking as though they had a miniature haberdasher with a steam wand stuffed in their briefcase.

  I acknowledged her curt "Hello," and then I waited to discover if she'd learned of the emergency response that was taking place on Jay Street. I rehearsed my arguments while she settled herself on her chair and found a place for the big Vuitton bag. The thing thudded to the floor as though she were transporting dumbbells.

  "You know," she said finally, "you never asked me what I thought about Royal Peterson's murder. We talked about the boys, and their reaction, but you never asked about me and my reaction. After I left last time, I found that odd, that you hadn't asked me about it."

  No, I thought. Instead of discussing your reaction to Royal Peterson's murder, we discussed peri-menopause, a topic I find so engrossing that it often distracts me from pursuing more important things, like murder.

  "You would like to talk about-"

  "I didn't feel a thing." As she trampled over the end of my sentence, I couldn't tell if my words had been superfluous or if she was just ignoring me. "I didn't feel bad that a man had been killed. I didn't feel particularly good that the man who'd released my daughter's rapist was dead. Hearing that Peterson had been murdered didn't move me at all."

  I said, "What do you make of that?"

  Like "How does that make you feel?" it was one of those questions that made me feel like a caricature of a psychotherapist. Every time I spoke those or similar words, I was secretly embarrassed. But I asked the questions nonetheless, probably more frequently than I would like to admit.

  The reason? Sometimes they worked.

  And they always bought me time to think.

  Naomi's response sounded rehearsed to me. She said, "Vengeance is a funny thing. If you read the final reports about Klebold and Harris-and believe me, I've read everything-and what they did at Columbine High School, their passion for vengeance had deserted them at the end. After fifteen, twenty minutes they'd lost their energy, they'd stopped hunting down kids, they'd even given up trying to explode their ineffective little bombs, and eventually they just turned their guns on themselves. I think when the adrenaline was finally totally depleted they realized that they'd failed to achieve whatever it was they'd spent a year trying to achieve. I wonder sometimes if vengeance is ever satisfying. I discuss it with Leo all the time. Every visit to prison, it seems we talk about it.