Oslo, Maine

by Marcia Butler

  “She’s gone!” Sandra cried, pointing.

  Jim ran around the truck and joined her. “Get back in the truck, Sandra. Now.”

  “Why?”

  “Something’s not right here.”

  “But I want to—Oh my God. Jim … no.”

  There was nothing more either could say or do but succumb to what lay in front of them. As they walked down the slope hand in hand, their boots sank slightly into moist soil. Which seemed wrong, because Oslo had experienced something of a drought over the past weeks. Then the sun broke through to expose an unexpected color spewed across the needled ground cover. Deep red. Undeniably moose blood. Sandra crouched down and placed her glove on the color, which was at turns damp and dry. She looked up at Jim.

  “Who would do this?” she said, almost crying as she wiped the blood on some leaves.

  Jim only shook his head. They continued to turn around and around, bewildered and shocked by the destruction before them. Nearby lay odd body parts. Hoofs, hacked about a foot up on each leg, stacked like pipes against a tree. Two ears with a tail in between, arranged in a neat row. And at random, the dewlap, and what looked like the heart and other unidentifiable organs. This was a brutal butchering, but organized, slightly ritualistic. And, somehow worse, with no regard for any sane hunter’s ethical transaction with nature.

  “This is a crime,” Sandra said with quiet rage.

  “Yes, it is. But have you noticed what’s not here? The actual body. And the head,” Jim said.

  Her stomach roiled. Sandra began to collapse but Jim caught her by the arm, preventing her from falling on the gore all around their feet. As they held each other, she closed her eyes, not wanting to look. How had she missed registering what was missing? Then again, to look into the animal’s eyes would have forced her to acknowledge that, yes, this is what people do. The moose’s only consistent and unchecked danger, other than a pack of wolves, was a human toting a gun or driving a car. Sandra couldn’t begin to unravel her feelings of sadness, confusion, anger. And complicity.

  Back in the truck, having wiped their boots of blood, they took a few minutes to calm down. Sandra pulled a plastic container of water up from the floorboard and they took turns drinking, trying to organize their emotions into some sort of reasonable plan of action.

  “The thing is, no one could have seen the moose just by driving by,” Jim said finally. “Someone had to know.”

  “The cops. Edna. That’s all,” she said.

  “Pierre?”

  “I told him it was a deer.”

  “What about Luc?”

  Sandra sighed. “It’s possible Pierre told him when Edna and I were talking in the living room.”

  “That’s it, then. I never bought that Forrest Gump act. Even if he thought he was picking up a deer, that guy not only committed a crime, he’s a fucking sadist.”

  “You don’t know that, Jim. It’s completely out of character for Luc. He’s really quite passive. I’d rather think it was the cops. Remember when Lucinda and Bob hit a big buck a couple years ago?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, they called it in, and it went missing too. Turns out the person at the police station who took their call told a relative a couple of towns over. Bob made a huge fuss. They finally told him who stole it. When he picked it up a few hours later the thing had already been skinned and completely butchered. Bob said it was really creepy.”

  “Who was on the phone last night at the station?”

  “Andrea.”

  “She doesn’t seem the type,” Jim said. “A straight arrow. Kind of prissy.”

  “I’ve heard she’s a weird control freak who tells her husband when to piss,” Sandra said. “In any case, let’s take it slow. I don’t want to go anywhere near Luc as a possibility before we know more. And Edna’s been so off lately. I don’t think she could take it, Jim. Anyway, does it really matter? Whoever took it, that scene down there pretty much guarantees that we’ve already lost the meat.”

  “True enough,” Jim agreed.

  Sitting in the truck and from the higher vantage point, Sandra looked down the slope and was able to make out the gruesome remains of someone’s idea of theft. She held on to the belief that Luc had not done this; he’d only ever presented as benign and gentle, which made the very thought unfathomable. But over the years there’d been so many odd events in Oslo that at first seemed impossible and then got folded into quaint town folklore. Now, she simply wanted to assume the cops were to blame and forget the whole episode. But Sandra knew better—some sort of disappointment was surely to come.

  THE SUM OF ONE ANIMAL

  MUCH OF THE PROFIT FOR THE ROBINET coincided with shift changes at the March. Having just completed his, Claude had sequestered himself in a corner booth. Across the dimly lit room, a frantic solo bartender threw drinks down for three-deep bar patrons. Most heated a bar stool with devotion and knocked back shots with beer chasers, trying to come down from the stress of factory work. Hopefuls scanned for hookups, while a few couples tried the dance floor. Claude’s foot jittered to the confusing jukebox selection, a song with no melody by some rapper with one letter and four numbers for a name. He could have done with a few belts of whiskey to render the atmosphere more appealing. But Claude meant to stay sober. He nursed his third ginger ale, running numbers on the recent monies brought in through his soon-to-be-shuttered meat business.

  It was mildly risky, exposing his ledger and calculator to the three a.m. crowd. But because Claude was famous for being less than civil at the end of a double shift, he could pretty well count on a wide berth. In truth, his current mood had nothing to do with having clocked twelve hours. Or the fact that his son had been abducted by Saint Sandra to attend one of her flimflam concerts in Portland. Or that Celine hadn’t answered when he’d called earlier that evening and if she was out, where in hell had she gone to? No, none of that. It was all about the damned numbers, and they weren’t behaving.

  After adding the column three times, two totals had jibed, which normally would have satisfied him as accurate. But the third was considerably higher. So he decided to run it once more to see if a fourth calculation would match the greater sum. If this worked out, and he almost hoped it would, Claude meant to earmark the money for a new violin for Pierre. The Saint, through Celine as proxy, had been hinting for weeks. He placed a bar napkin over the “total” screen so he couldn’t see the numbers as they increased, and then slowly punched in each number with what he imagined was real accuracy. Merde. Not only had the calculator produced an altogether different total, but it was lower than the previous three. Disgusted, Claude propped his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. He wasn’t good at math. That was Celine’s thing; she could add endless columns in her head, even on pills.

  Claude blindly swatted the calculator to the side. At the same time, someone clomped up and stopped at his table. The so-and-so seemed to be breathing through its mouth and nose simultaneously, if that was even possible. Lordy. He was in his booth not bothering a living soul, smoking like a lifer and unhappily sober. Obviously not open for pleasure or business. He gave the snuffer five more seconds to back off and when he/she/it didn’t get the message, Claude looked up to see something he really didn’t need right now. Luc Sibley. Claude snapped the ledger shut with a bang, which blew his pencil off the table.

  “I thought this was Feud night,” Claude said with a sigh, scraping the pencil off the floor.

  “It is.”

  “What’re you doing here?” he asked.

  “Feud ends at ten.”

  “How’s your boyfriend, Dawson?”

  “Really good. But I don’t think Gram likes him.”

  “Well, she’s a bright lady. She knows. He’s a Brit. A snob.”

  “Snob? Like how?”

  “A know-it-all. Like Saint Kimbrough.”

  “Oh. Can I have a Cherry Coke?”

  “You’re over twenty-one, for merde sake. Get it yourself!” Cl
aude barked.

  “I’m twenty-nine,” Luc corrected.

  “I know how old you are. It’s an expression.”

  Luc snuffed—out, in, out.

  “Oh, forget it,” Claude said, shooing him away. Luc waded through bodies for a minute or two and returned with his Coke. Three maraschino cherries floated on top of ice cubes.

  “Mrs. Kimbrough says I shouldn’t eat the cherries,” Luc announced, sliding into the corner much too close to Claude.

  “This isn’t a sleepover. Move over,” Claude said, shoving him a few feet away.

  “She says they stay at the bottom of your stomach for a week,” Luc continued.

  “You gonna listen to her? She’s got more rules to live by than Moses on the mount. Anyway, I happen to know that’s a lie.”

  “Mrs. Kimbrough lies?”

  “’Course she does. Go ahead and eat your dinner.” Claude winked, pointing at the cherries.

  Luc tongued all three cherries into his mouth, ripping the stems off with his front teeth. He chewed about four times then washed the clump down with one giant swallow. Claude swept the stems from the tabletop onto the floor with his forearm. He stared at the calculator and considered a fifth and absolute final stab, while Luc fingernailed red flecks out of his back molars.

  “Listen to me. Kimbrough? You can’t trust her. Or him,” Claude warned. “Just remember that.”

  “What about Gram?” Luc asked tentatively.

  “Your gram’s a good woman. She asked me to be your friend, didn’t she? How’s that turned out?”

  “Pretty good, I guess.”

  While Luc gawked at a flock of females herding by the bar, Claude went back to imagining collateral fallout from his calculator drama. If he did add the column a fifth time and it actually matched the higher number, then he’d be forced to consult with the Saint. She’d advise him on what instrument to buy and he’d have no choice but to take her word for it, because she was the expert. And Claude hated the thought that the Saint just might be an expert at anything, other than as a leech lording over his son. Pierre was brilliant, the Saint declared. Her most talented student ever, she claimed. No limit to how far he could go, she predicted. A career in music was a given, she insisted. Nope. Nope. Nope. And nope. He’d go with the original total. Be done with the new violin idea. Break the news to Celine. Maybe make up for it with that pair of Jimmy Choos she’d been whining about. And merciful Jesus, that so-called song had finally finished.

  Claude stubbed out his third-to-last cigarette. “So. What’s this meeting about?” he asked Luc.

  “Deer.”

  “What about ’em?”

  “One got killed.”

  “How? The trap?”

  “A car. I found it on the road.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, let’s go get it!”

  “I did it.”

  “You hit the deer?” Claude asked, skeptical.

  “I got the deer.”

  “You got the deer,” Claude said, exasperated that he was parroting Luc’s words.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What the fuck do you mean? Where is it?”

  “At the meat shed. I picked it up after Feud. That’s why I’m here.” Luc managed a smidgen of a smile.

  “Mother of Dieu. Why didn’t you tell me this twelve and a half minutes ago?”

  They took Luc’s truck. Claude insisted on driving, because Luc strictly obeyed red lights per Edna, and at this late hour Claude didn’t have patience for any color. He floored the gas pedal, thinking green all the way. They reached the other side of the Hump in record time, then headed around the perimeter of the March and parked near the meat shed.

  Windows punctured three sides of the building, and lights shining from the inside pooled everywhere, broadcasting that the abandoned structure had been in use. Claude watched Luc kneel down to retie his bootlaces, naïve to how he’d just jeopardized the operation. He should have gone crazy on him, as this was a major breach of protocol. Instead, he felt himself ease into uncharacteristic forgiveness. After all, the windows were just under the roofline and too high for anyone to see inside without a ladder, so no real harm was done. As they walked closer, he saw that Luc had remembered to padlock the metal door, which was much more important than the lights. And yes, he was pleased with Luc’s first-ever contribution to the business—not some squirrel or chipmunk as he’d expect from the man, but an actual dead deer. And already delivered for butchering, no less. It showed initiative, which was exactly what he’d been asked by Edna to teach him. He patted Luc’s back, encouraging him to unlock the door, and like buddies in crime they stepped into the meat shed.

  Once inside, Luc immediately backed away from Claude. He leaned against a cement wall and slid to the floor—a strange habit Claude had witnessed more than a few times. Edna explained it away, calling the motion a “preemptive concession to defeat.” To Claude, this was pure psychobabble and just another example of a spoiled brat’s manipulation. He believed that Luc could be brought around like a dog via the tried-and-true treat/punishment method. But the problem with any dog was, there was always that one time when the urge to go after a squirrel outweighed the command of the master. Luc was now rocking back and forth with his arms wrapped around his knees, whining a sustained whimper like a puppy locked in a crate.

  “Quiet,” Claude commanded. The noise stopped.

  The first thing that hit Claude was the odor: meat on the edge and in need of immediate icing or it would succumb to rot. Then he noticed blood splattered everywhere on the cement—still wet and puddling into dips in the floor. On the butchering platform the animal’s back was to him, but nothing about this deer made any sense. He began a slow walk to the right of the animal and saw that the tail had been severed, its rectum visible, which caused the thing to present as vulnerable. Claude briefly averted his eyes with bashfulness. Then the legs, unnaturally short, without hoofs. Sinew and tendons and bones had been hacked in a sloppy and cruel way, and Claude couldn’t help but cover his mouth. As he moved to the front of the animal, he saw the belly had been slashed open, stem to stern, and the organs gutted out. Ribs could not adequately prevent the flank from caving, so there was an unnatural hollow to its midsection. The torso itself had been cut into large sections and then reassembled on the platform. An earless head looked to be tagged on at the end, almost as an afterthought—like some crazy mortician’s joke.

  Then all the horror seemed to come together in one single feature. The nose. Claude staggered backward. This was a moose. He re-examined the midsection. Scars. Mon Dieu. That moose.

  Luc lifted his head and began to stutter an explanation. “Claude … see … I …”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “But—”

  In three giant steps, Claude was there. He grabbed Luc under the armpits and pulled him up from the floor, pinning his back to the wall. “If there was ever a time in your sorry, useless life you needed to follow my instructions, it’s now. Shut. Up.” He let go and backed up several paces. Luc folded back down and covered his head with his arms.

  “Where did this thing come from?” Claude asked, trying to control himself.

  “Pierre.”

  Claude felt his leg haul back and watched his boot land hard, directly into Luc’s midsection. The sheer force of the torque pushed Claude off the floor several inches, a sensation that gratified, because for one split second he was flying and free from the rage that tore through his body.

  “Don’t make me drag it out of you. Where’d you get this animal?”

  “Pierre,” Luc whispered, aiming the name into his knees, which he’d now clamped to his chest.

  “That’s not possible,” Claude said, but knew it was probably true. If nothing else, Luc was incapable of lying.

  “I swear it. He said they hit a deer—”

  “It’s a goddamned moose! Can’t you even see that? Wait. Was Pierre with Celine?” The Frankenstein moo
se now bled away, the least of his problems. His family had been in an accident. They were frightened. Maybe hurt. And though he hadn’t been with them, the sense of his own culpability felt real and intolerable.

  “No. Mrs. Kimbrough,” Luc said, rubbing his eyes.

  Somehow, Claude didn’t feel relieved in the least. The woman who’d brainwashed his son in broad daylight using that stinking violin as her tool was, it seemed, driving Pierre all over creation in the dead of night, getting into accidents and killing animals along the way. Claude wondered, for what seemed like the millionth time, how on God’s green earth she’d gotten control over his family.

  “Tell me Pierre’s okay.”

  “He’s okay.”

  Claude sat on the floor next to Luc and pulled the man’s cap off, lobbing it over the moose. It landed on the other side of the shed in a pool of blood. “You’re gonna tell me exactly what happened if we have to sit here till the last priest is arrested for buggering boys.”

  Luc looked in the opposite direction.

  “C’mon. Get on with it.”

  “Mrs. Kimbrough and Pierre came over tonight.”

  “Why is this woman messing with my family?” Claude bellowed rhetorically at the ceiling.

  “I was in the kitchen with Pierre, eating ice cream. That’s when he told me they hit a deer on the county road. That’s when Gram told me to drive them home ’cause the car got banged up in the crash. That’s when I decided to look for the deer.”

  “Christ on a swing.”

  “I wanted to show you. I can get meat, too.”

  “Cut the Fredo act. How in hell did you get an entire moose here?” he asked.

  “It was gonna get cut up anyway, so I did it there.”

  “Oh, please no. On the road?”

  “It was more in the woods. I had tools in the truck.”

  “Did anybody see you?”

  “I worked quick.”

  “Obviously,” Claude said, briefly glancing at the hatchet job. “Okay, Luc. I’m going to get you out of this mess.”

  Within an hour they had the moose chopped up and thrown, piece by piece, into the incinerator. Claude hosed down the shed, making sure every last splatter of blood was rinsed completely from the floor and walls. The place hadn’t been this clean since the business began. When dawn broke, they pulled everything out of Luc’s truck and doused it with water and antiseptic cleaner. After they changed their clothes into spare shirts and jeans stored at the shed, Claude reminded Luc about turning off the lights, pointing out that he’d made a mistake. With schooled deliberation, Luc pushed down on the bank of switches and they walked out the door.