Distemper

by Beth Saulnier

  “Excellent.”

  “Did you want to try and grab some dinner? I could probably take half an hour.”

  “Actually, I’m on an official mission. But I guess we could just as well talk about it eating.”

  We walked the twenty steps to the Green, which abuts the back door of the police station, and went into what’s far and away the best sandwich place in town. Schultz’s is a German deli owned by a genuine ex-Nazi who, as the legend goes, figured out forty years ago that it was a good idea to decorate his store with a large number of American flags. However, the truth is that (according to local carnivores) the bratwurst is so good, even the PC set would be willing to eat it under a portrait of the F? When I’m not in the mood for falafel or tabouli and I want a solid dose of cholesterol (or I’m just feeling sorry for myself), I go to Schultz’s and indulge in a mighty Swiss cheese sandwich.

  That’s what I had when I went there with Cody, and since I pretty much go in there once a week, Herr Schultz’s grandson started making it when I walked in the door. The great thing about Schultz’s is they pile the cheese an inch thick; I have it on rye with lettuce, tomato, onions, and brown mustard. Cody went for roast beef on rye with lettuce, onions, cheddar, and Russian, which I was beginning to learn was his favorite sandwich in the whole world.

  Behold yet another stage of intimacy; I made a mental note not to remember how he likes his coffee.

  We sat at one of the heavy butcher-block tables, and the sandwiches came out a few minutes later, served in little baskets with chips and a whole pickle sliced down the middle. Cody took a bite, and a look I can only describe as orgasmic slipped across his face.

  “Man, this is great.”

  “Haven’t you been here yet?” His mouth was full, so he just shook his head. “I’m surprised. Cops love this place.”

  He swallowed. “Jesus, I can see why.”

  “Here, try this.” I held up my sandwich for him. He was in mid-bite when I realized it probably wasn’t such a great idea to be acting this cozy in public.

  “Mmm… You want to try mine? Oh, right, sorry. Hey, Alex, does it bother you to have me eat meat in front of you?”

  “Nah. To tell you the truth, I always thought vegetarian men were kinda wimpy. See? I’m a mass of contradictions.”

  “It’s awful charming. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you about the vegetarian thing.”

  “You mean why?” He nodded. “Nothing too interesting. I just never could eat it since I really realized that to get it you had to kill a perfectly nice animal. You gonna eat that pickle?”

  “You’d eat a pickle that touched my roast beef?”

  “Sure. I’m kind of a hypocrite.”

  “Also charming.”

  “You know, since you asked, I’ll tell you something else. The thing that bothers me isn’t even the killing—okay, it is the killing. But it’s also that people eat meat without dealing with the morality. Hunting doesn’t really bug me that much. But the meat industry hides the ugly part and gives you a nice shrink-wrapped package. It’s like putting a contract out on somebody.”

  “I’ll have to bring that up over at the station house. ‘Conspiracy to commit hamburger.’ “

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go on a tirade.”

  “Well, since you’re on one, what about that business you were covering up at Benson?”

  “You mean the animal testing?”

  “Right. Where do you stand on that one?”

  “I’m not sure. I mean, the thought of a bunch of dogs and cats in cages makes me totally sick. But if it’s going to save people in the long run? I don’t know. It’s a tough question.”

  “So you’re not an extremist?”

  “Did you think I was?”

  “No. An extremist wouldn’t sit here while I eat the best roast beef sandwich of my life.”

  “To each his own. There’s a lot of kids on campus who’d throw blood at me for wearing leather shoes.”

  “And the protesters thought the issue was black and white.”

  “Well, most of them have graduated by now, but you’re right. They were demanding an awful lot.”

  “So is it all over?”

  “They’ll probably regroup in the fall, but it always takes some time to get going, and the next thing you know it’s Christmas break. I think the university will throw them a bone, maybe unload some stock. Anyway, that’s how the newsroom pool was leaning when the story dried up.”

  “You bet on this sort of thing?”

  “And cops don’t?”

  “Well… they’ve been known to.”

  “So what’s the action on your big case?”

  “I’m the last guy they’d tell.”

  “Yeah, but you must have heard something.”

  He cracked a naughty little smile. “Well, there are two opposing camps. The smart money says the city boy’s in over his head, and the chief’ll cry uncle and turn the case over to the feds before my guys can crack it.”

  “And the other?”

  “The other’s a bit more charitable. They think I’ll solve it, but not until there’s a few more corpses.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “They don’t mean anything by it.”

  “Does it bug you?”

  “Nah. Comes with the rank.”

  “Lonely at the top?”

  “Something like that.” We finished our sandwiches, and I got us a big bowl of Frau Schultz’s rice pudding, which is made with so much cream there’s no use trying to convince yourself of the nutritional value of the rice. “So what did you want to tell me, anyway?” Cody said, licking cinnamon-coated whipped cream off his spoon. “Didn’t you say you were here on official business?”

  “I was just about to get to that. Oh, and before I tell you, I’m supposed to make it clear that we’re being a bunch of stand-up guys, and the chief better not forget it.”

  “So why don’t you tell him yourself?”

  “Because you’re better in bed.”

  “Ah.”

  “Did you see today’s Times?”

  “The story about the so-called ‘Canine Killer’? Yeah, I saw the goddamn thing. Who is this Gordon Band anyway? How can he just make things up like that?”

  “Knowing Gordon, he didn’t. Somebody probably said it as a bad joke, and he took it out of context. ‘Some people are saying it,’ that kind of crap. It’s a sloppy way to do business. And believe it or not, it’s not his usual modus operandi. When he worked for the Monitor, he was rather fanatically ethical.”

  “I’d expect better from the Times.”

  “You’re cute when you’re naive.”

  “So what were you going to say about the story?”

  “Well, if you saw it, you know he broke the thing about how Lynn Smith had a dog.”

  “Yeah, a blind old mutt named Harley. We knew that already.”

  “Don’t you think it’s important?”

  “If both of them really were abducted while they were walking their dogs? Yeah, probably. It doesn’t quite make a pattern, but if the others…”

  “That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. Mad and I went up to Syracuse today to talk to Patricia Marx’s roommate. Kim Williams.”

  “And?”

  “And she did have a dog after all.”

  “But our guys already looked into that. They interviewed the roommate three times, and she said…”

  “Yeah, but she didn’t really know. I ran down all the Doberman breeders around there, and it turned out Marx had gotten a puppy from a couple in Cortland.”

  Cody crumpled his soda can. “Son of a bitch…”

  “Are you mad? Because I was just doing my…”

  “Jesus, no, Alex, I’m not angry with you. Truth is, I’d like to hire you. You’d do a hell of a lot better than the bunch of Gomer Pyles I’ve got working for me.”

  “It’s a small-town force. They’re not used to this kind of thing.”

  “Bel
ieve me, I tell myself that a hundred times a day just to keep from punching holes in the wall. So what else did you find out?”

  “Marx bought a puppy, but she hadn’t paid her pet deposit yet, so she couldn’t bring it home. The breeder in Cortland let her leave it with them.”

  “Do they still have it?”

  “No, the girl took it to the Benson vet clinic to have its ears cropped. That’s the last they saw of either one of them.”

  “So is it still at the clinic?”

  “I don’t know. I have a call into my roommate Emma who works there, but I haven’t heard back from her yet. You could find out, though.”

  “Is that why your editor let you tell me? An exchange of information?”

  “Not exactly. I think she just wanted to run up some credit with the chief.”

  “Particularly since it doesn’t cost you anything.”

  “Right. Too late to leak it to the local news. Hopefully none of your guys will go blabbing to Gordon.”

  “I’ll make sure they don’t.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It was your idea to tell us, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to catch this bastard.”

  “I thought you might be going soft on us brave men in blue.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Or maybe,” he said, “you’re just crazy about me.”

  24

  WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE PAPER, MAD WAS JOGGING LAPS around the newsroom in his new khakis. Nobody seemed to notice.

  “Christ, Bernier, what took you so long?”

  “I was talking to Cody.”

  He leaned against the wall and stretched his hamstrings.

  “You were gone for an hour.”

  “Forty minutes.”

  “What’d you do, squeeze in a quickie?”

  “Give me a break. We just had a sandwich.”

  “A sandwich?” he said, grabbing his feet to stretch his quads. “I’ve been waiting for you all night and you’re having a fucking sandwich?”

  “Jeeze, are you all wound up. What gives?”

  “Emma called half an hour ago. She’s waiting for us.”

  “Where?”

  “Your house.”

  “What for?”

  “She thought she found something up at the clinic, but she didn’t want to tell me over the phone. Said there’s not a lot of privacy up there.”

  “Did she even give you a hint?”

  “Nah, but I got the feeling it was something big.”

  “Because… ?”

  “Because she wanted to know how fast you could track down your boyfriend the cop.”

  That was enough to get me to sprint down the back stairs to the parking lot and hightail it over to my house.

  But from the minute we got there, it was obvious something was wrong. The front door was wide open, and the living room looked like a war zone. Pillows and couch cushions were scattered all over the place. The TV stand was sitting cockeyed in the middle of the room, its plug pulled out of the wall and the cable wire stretched to the limit. An end table had been knocked over and two of Emma’s orchids lay broken on the ground, with dirt and ceramic pot shards everywhere you looked.

  Mad and I stared at each other, and I had a bad feeling the expression on my face was just as crazed as his. He started shouting first, calling Emma’s name and running from room to room. Since it seemed a fine idea, I followed his example. It took less than two minutes to figure out there was no one in the house.

  “He took her,” Mad said. “The bastard fucking got to her. Alex, what are we going to do?”

  He was more upset than I’d ever seen him. Then something else hit me, and I joined him in the wonderful world of hysteria.

  “Mad, where are the dogs? Oh, my God, Shakespeare…”

  I started calling her name, running around the house and out into the rapidly darkening yard. It’s probably not nice to admit that I was about a hundred times more upset about my missing dog than my missing roommate. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

  I was in the midst of full-scale screaming and sobbing when Mad came barreling out of the house. “Call your boyfriend. Tell him to get his ass over here now.”

  “I can’t find Shakespeare,” I said, well on my way to hyperventilation. “Oh, Mad, where’s my baby…”

  He shook me, hard. “Calm the fuck down and listen to me. We don’t have time to screw around. I’m going to start canvassing the neighborhood. You have to call the cops.”

  “But I can’t find Shakespeare…”

  Mad kept shouting orders at me, but I just stood there sobbing like a maniac. In retrospect, I realize he was sorely tempted to smack me. But instead, he left me there and went back in the house to call Cody himself. I followed him in a minute later and sank down on the couch, my brain awash with images of my dog—and, yes, Emma—in the clutches of whoever had mutilated C.A.

  “Cody’s on his way over here,” Mad said, stalking around the room like a tiger. “He wants us to stay put.”

  “Did you tell him about Shakespeare?” I know I was acting like an imbecile, but there are plenty of people on the planet who don’t love their mothers as much as I love that dog.

  Mad took a deep breath. “No, Alex, I did not tell him about Shakespeare. You can tell him when he gets over here.”

  “Okay…” I said, and settled into the fetal position on the couch for some more sobbing.

  Cody found us like that a few minutes later, taking in me and Mad and the trashed room in one long glance.

  “What time did you speak to her last?”

  “Around six-thirty,” Mad said. “We were supposed to meet her here at seven, but Alex didn’t get back, so we were half an hour late. When we walked in, the door was wide open and the place was… well, you see.”

  Cody surveyed the wreckage. “What was happening at seven?”

  “She was going to tell us something she’d found out at the clinic. Son of a bitch, we should never have dragged her into…”

  Cody cut him off. “Emma didn’t say what it was?”

  “She didn’t want to talk at the hospital. But I got the feeling it was something more than just what we asked her about the Marx girl’s dog.”

  “Cody,” I said in a voice weak from all the crying. “It’s not just Emma. Both the dogs are gone too. It’s just like what happened to the others…”

  “Shh…” he murmured, stopping on his tour around the room to pat me on the head. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them. Let me make some calls.”

  Just as he got up to get the phone, we heard someone struggling at the front door.

  I froze. Mad stood up. Cody pulled out his gun.

  A second later Emma walked in, dragging Shakespeare and Tipsy behind her. She looked up at her reception—which included two hysterical people and a firearm—and promptly burst out laughing.

  “What the bloody hell is going on? Don’t shoot. We surrender.”

  I jumped up and ran for Shakespeare. Mad grabbed Emma, swung her around, and kissed her on the lips. Cody put his gun away.

  “Good God,” she said when Mad finally unhanded her. “To what do I owe this greeting?”

  By that time, Mad had calmed down enough to get embarrassed about his unmanly display. I was still on the floor showering kisses on Shakespeare’s snout. That left it up to Cody to answer.

  “Ahem, they… Well, they had the impression you’d been abducted.”

  Emma was utterly confused for a second, then suddenly not. “Oh, Lord, you poor things. You saw the house and you thought I’d been… Oh, for heaven’s sake, what an absurd notion…”

  “You don’t have to laugh,” Mad said.

  Now it was Cody’s turn to look confused. “What happened in here, anyway? It doesn’t look like a break-in…”

  “Break-in? No, it was my sodding dog.” She indicated the canine in question, now sound asleep on the bare couch frame. />
  “Tipsy did this?” I said.

  “Well, your little angel helped a bit. Quite a lot, actually.”

  “But what the hell happened?”

  She gave a surprisingly ladylike grunt. “Good God, but I could use a drink.”

  “Coming right up,” Mad said, and started mixing martinis at the corner bar—which, mercifully enough, was still standing.

  Emma put a cushion back on the couch and collapsed on it. “Our little adventure began when I let Tipsy out back. He ran around the yard like a bloody mental patient, and then when he finally came in he had some sort of rodent in his mouth. I got him to drop it, but the nasty thing got away from me and the next thing I knew both dogs were falling all over themselves chasing it, knocking furniture about. Oh, my orchids,” she said, noticing that particular mess for the first time. She made as if to get up and try to salvage them, then changed her mind and flopped back onto the couch, stretching her legs on the edge of the up-ended coffee table. “Jake, my pet, is that drink forthcoming?”

  “Dinner is served,” he said, and handed her a glass filled to the brim with liquor and three olives. Mad looked inquiringly at me and Cody, but we both shook our heads, so he went to fix his own drink.

  “Mmm…” Emma said after a long sip. “That’ll cure what ails you. Now where was I? Oh, yes… Well, when Tipsy’d come in bearing gifts, I hadn’t closed the door all the way, so naturally the little beastie went running for it, and both dogs followed, so I fetched their leashes and gave chase. I trod a good six blocks before I finally found them. They’d treed the poor thing in that park by the library. It was a miracle they didn’t get their sorry selves run down in the road.” She gave another delicate grunt. “Look at this place. Tipsy, my darling, I could wring your pretty neck.”

  “Should’ve gotten a cat, huh?” Mad said as he perched on the couch arm beside her.

  “Are you joking? Steve’s cat helped them. It was a bloody Walt Disney movie in here. I am so knackered…”

  Cody, who’d been making a halfhearted effort to straighten things up, flipped the coffee table back into position and sat on it. “I know you’re beat, but I really need to know what you found out.”