No Bad Deed

by Heather Chavez

  The door swung open, and Sam walked in. He grabbed a small chunk of yellowed plastic from his dresser then sat beside me on the bed. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “You seemed distracted last night.”

  “You had just been attacked.”

  “You sure that’s it?”

  Someone who hadn’t been married to Sam wouldn’t have noticed the pause, brief as it was before the familiar smirk shifted into place. “Of course,” he said. I wondered if he had read my lie a few seconds earlier as easily as I read his now.

  Sam slipped into his mouth the piece of plastic he had been holding. “I wanted to give Audrey a preview of what I’ll be wearing tonight.”

  “Wait. I thought Leo was taking her trick-or-treating?”

  He fake-leered at me, exposing zombie teeth. When he went to kiss me, I pulled away.

  “I thought the undead were sexy,” he said. I suspected he was playing up the lisp, but I found my smile anyway.

  “Vampires are sexy,” I clarified. “Zombies are . . . zombies. So why isn’t Leo taking Audrey trick-or-treating?”

  “He made plans with Tyler.”

  “When did he make these plans? Did he tell Audrey? Please say you made him tell her himself.”

  “Yesss,” Sam lisped. “He told Audrey. Now about this vampire favoritism . . . It’s easy to be sexy with dress clothes and the ability to hypnotize the lasses—”

  “Lasses?”

  “—but think about the poor, dentally challenged zombie in his stained rags. How much harder he has to work to lure a woman to his bed.”

  I had to admit it: Sam, with his two-day stubble and his nose still red from the flu, was a damned sexy zombie.

  “I never thought about that,” I admitted. “I mean, I didn’t even know zombies had beds.”

  “Zombies might not sleep, but they have needs,” Sam said.

  “Uh . . . gross.”

  “See. Exactly my point.”

  Before the demands of the clinic and Sam’s job and the kids, it had often been like this. A small part of me resented that the old Sam had resurfaced on a morning I didn’t have time for it.

  “Another thing they have to overcome—the language barrier. You know—you want to tell a woman how bewitching she looks, but all that comes out is a grunt.”

  I found myself yielding to the insistency of his hands despite my distractions, and this time, I returned his kiss, flu be damned. “I’d say that’s also true of some human males.” I traced his mouth with my index finger. “But I see what you’re saying. A vampire can tell a ‘lass’ he wants to drink her blood, and it sounds hot because of the accent.”

  “Exactly! Women love exotic men. Plus, some women find the smell of rotting flesh a turnoff.”

  “That does seem unfair. But I don’t think you’re making much of a case for the sexiness of zombies.”

  “Well—” Sam wrapped his arms around my waist and bent to kiss my neck. After seventeen years, he still got to me. “To overcome all these obstacles, a zombie has to be persuasive.”

  He kissed the other side of my neck. Plastic teeth scraped the skin.

  “Attentive.” His hands shifted to my lower back. “When a woman can so easily outrun you, you have to put so much more effort in the chase.”

  “Mmmm. I thought zombies were more the ‘take by force’ type?”

  Sam pulled me closer, away from my distractions. I wished I hadn’t promised Leo I would take him to school early.

  Sam whispered in my ear, “Not the smart ones.”

  “I didn’t know there were smart ones.” It had been a while. A week? Ten days?

  “See the prejudices they have to overcome.”

  “Mo-om.” Leo added an extra syllable as he yelled through the door. “Can we go?”

  I yelled back, “Pretty impatient for someone who canceled trick-or-treating plans on his six-year-old sister.”

  On the other side of the door, Leo grunted.

  “I think Leo might be part zombie,” I said.

  Sam’s phone trilled. His attention snapped from me to his screen, whatever had been happening between us suddenly as dead as any zombie.

  “You have to go?” he asked, his tone pushing me toward the door.

  I met his eyes—tried to read them—and crossed my arms. “I’ve got a few minutes.”

  The call rolled into voicemail, but the phone immediately started ringing again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have to take this.”

  Sam opened the door for me, waiting for me to walk through it before he answered the call.

  5

  One of the oldest schools in the state, Santa Rosa High’s brick exterior proclaimed its history. In an hour, the parking lots would be clogged, but I was able to drop Leo at the front steps.

  After I left my son, I had my vet tech, Zoe, also my closest friend, reschedule my morning appointments so I could call the bank and stop by the pharmacy. Then there was the longest part of the morning: the DMV. A couple of times while waiting on those cheap plastic seats, I signed on to the local newspaper’s website from my phone to check if there was anything about the attack, or the victim’s condition. The incident likely happened too late to make that morning’s print edition, but I thought there might be something online. Nothing. Probably still too early.

  When I finally pulled into my clinic’s parking lot toward the end of the lunch hour, my first thought was of Sam. I had met him here a month into my internship, when tragedy struck: Princess Jellybean had gotten sick. Sam, working as a substitute teacher in Mrs. Hawking’s kindergarten class, had been frantic to get the guinea pig back on his pellets and greens before the kids noticed. (Yes, Princess Jellybean was a male guinea pig who had been named by a group of five-year-old girls.)

  The vet I had been working with at the time had prescribed antibiotics and a special diet that required Sam to hand-feed Princess Jellybean. Even now, I smiled at the memory of him hunched over the rodent with a syringe.

  A few weeks later, Sam and the guinea pig had returned. Princess Jellybean had seemed fine, a little chubby even, but Sam had claimed the rodent could benefit from some acupuncture. It took him another month, and several appointments, before he got up the nerve to ask me out.

  I thought of Sam now because of the phone call. After seventeen years of marriage, we didn’t have secrets. Or so I had believed, until he had rushed me out that morning to take that call.

  When I entered the clinic, Zoe was stationed behind the front desk with Smooch, an orange tabby with one eye, nestled in the basket beside her. Smooch blinked in greeting before returning to her nap. Cats.

  Zoe jumped up, and I braced myself. My lavender-haired friend was six feet of muscled curves and bleached-smile exuberance. She was also a hugger. That morning, though, her embrace was tentative, as if she were afraid anything stronger would break me.

  “You okay?” she asked. No smile for me today.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Zoe vibrated with curiosity but switched into business mode. “Daryl’s on his way in with Lester.”

  Before I could ask why, the front door jerked open. Usually, Lester careened into a room, all crossed paws, blocky head, and thrashing tail. But that day, he stumbled in, dropping in a pile onto the floor. When I approached, the Labrador whimpered and peered at me from beneath the rim of his surgical collar, but, except for his eyebrows, he didn’t move. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen slack in Lester’s leash.

  I knelt to scratch the Lab behind one floppy ear. “What’s going on with our boy here?” I asked.

  Though Daryl shared his dog’s coloring and easy temperament, in motion they were normally opposites. With Lester splayed at his feet, though, Daryl seemed to absorb Lester’s unspent energy. His shoulders jerked, unaccustomed to the lack of resistance on the tether.

  “He’s gotten worse since last nigh
t’s surgery,” Daryl said.

  Concerned, I ushered Daryl and Lester into the exam room. We lifted the Labrador onto the stainless-steel table, and I checked the dressing on the wound. There were no signs of swelling or discharge.

  “When was the last time he ate?” I asked.

  “Breakfast. He was fine last night, then this morning, he started acting like he’d scarfed down a whole plate of pot brownies.”

  “There’s no chance he did?” I asked. “Eat any pot brownies?” This was Lester. I had to ask.

  “Nah,” Daryl said. “At first, I thought it might be the drugs.”

  “The anesthesia?” Again, it was Lester. Better to verify.

  “Yeah.”

  “So he was groggy, but he ate. Was his appetite normal?” When Daryl nodded, I asked, “He’s been drinking water?”

  It was cool in the exam room, but Lester began panting, drool dripping from his tongue onto the exam table. “Yeah, he’s had water. What’s wrong with him, Doc?”

  Two sets of forlorn eyes pinned me. I wanted to tell Daryl it was normal post-surgery behavior, or, barring that, reassure him that the problem could be easily fixed. I could do neither.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. I pulled back Lester’s lips, checking his gums and the inside of his cheek. Both were pale. Since he’d just had surgery, I worried his pale gums indicated a hemorrhage. He needed blood work immediately, and I silently ran through the tests I should order.

  Then there was the ophthalmic exam to check for pupil reactivity, which could also be useful in determining a toxicosis diagnosis.

  “You kept him in his crate last night?” I asked.

  “You know how he is, Doc. It’s hard to keep him out of trouble,” he said. “But I’ve done my best. Crated him last night. Took him into the bathroom when I showered. The only time he was out of my sight was when some guy selling salvation knocked on my door, but even then, it was less than a minute. Thirty seconds.”

  “Not in the market for salvation, huh?” I placed my stethoscope to the dog’s chest. One hundred and sixty beats per minute.

  “Always. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  I got that familiar shiver in my gut, equal parts intuition and experience.

  “His heart’s beating faster than normal, and his respiration’s labored too.” Daryl stroked Lester’s fur, attempting to calm them both, but the dog’s whimpering grew louder. “Has he vomited, or had diarrhea?”

  “No.”

  “Excessive urination?”

  “No.”

  I wondered at Lester’s stumbling entrance earlier. “Tremors?”

  “Nothing like that.” But then Daryl’s face clouded. “He has been a little shaky.”

  Lester cooperated when I took his temperature. Usually, he wiggled with enough vigor to require a second set of hands. When I palpated his stomach, he whined. Some pain there.

  “His temperature’s on the high end of normal,” I said. “In that unsupervised minute, or at any other time, did Lester have access to any toxins?”

  “You think Lester ate something he shouldn’t have.” It wasn’t a question. We both knew the Lab’s proclivity for eating unusual items, like the coins I had surgically removed less than twenty-four hours before.

  “It could be anything—moldy food from the garbage, antifreeze, medication, some plants, chocolate. Snail or gopher bait. Nicotine. Anything like that?”

  I hadn’t noticed any burns in Lester’s mouth that would suggest the ingestion of chemicals, but such effects might not show for hours.

  “I watched him,” Daryl said, his voice tight, as he rubbed his dog’s ears. Lester remained still, head resting between outstretched paws. “I would’ve noticed.”

  The Lab shifted on the table, suddenly restless, his quiet whimper becoming an insistent keening.

  “I know you take great care of him, Daryl.” As I continued the exam, I weighed my options. Should I induce vomiting? That would only be useful if he had ingested the poison within the past hour. I worried it might be too late for that, that whatever had poisoned Lester might have already started to irreparably damage his organs, and I feared the Lab’s recent surgery would leave him ill-equipped to fight the toxin’s effects.

  Just then Lester heaved, the vomit thick and a brown that was nearly black. In my practice, I had treated several dogs for chocolate toxicity, and all had survived. But something about this case disturbed me. Some detail was different. I stared at the discharge, but saw nothing.

  “Looks like chocolate,” Daryl said. I detected relief and understood why. With the many things Lester had swallowed over the years, and the scary-sounding toxins I had named a few minutes earlier, chocolate must have seemed the least of the potential dangers.

  But I knew what Daryl didn’t: there was no antidote to theobromine, the chemical sickening Lester now. I could only treat the Lab’s symptoms. I could give him diazepam for his tremors, or propranolol for any arrhythmia. I could, and would, administer activated charcoal for the chocolate that lingered in his stomach and intravenous liquids to prevent dehydration. I could make him comfortable.

  There was a lot I could do—except guarantee I could save him. And, of course, that was the only promise Daryl wanted.

  As if reading my mind, Daryl asked, “Is he going to be okay?”

  I started to give the only possible answer, that I would do everything I could, but then Lester vomited again, and I realized what had disturbed me a minute earlier. In the pan was a thick, dark liquid. Only that. No scraps of silver or plastic. In the other cases of chocolate toxicity I had treated, there had always been bits of wrapper.

  It could have been a fluke. The evidence could still be in Lester’s stomach, awaiting later discovery. Still, I suspected I would never find a wrapper, and even someone who hadn’t gone to veterinary school knew enough about canine anatomy to know this: dogs don’t unwrap their food.

  6

  I stabilized Lester, then transferred him to a facility with twenty-four-hour care. I tried not to dwell on the missing wrapper. Daryl baked his special brownies at least a couple of times a week, and it was conceivable the Labrador had stolen unwrapped chocolate from Daryl’s pantry.

  Though the explanation didn’t fully satisfy me, I was distracted by a more immediate concern: Why wasn’t my key unlocking the front door to my house? The key slid in, but there it stuck. No amount of twisting freed the bolt.

  Foggy-headed as I was, for a second, I wondered if this was how my marriage to Sam ended: with a key stuck in a lock, preventing entry to the home we had shared for sixteen years. Exhaustion opened the way to doubt. No matter how strong our marriage was, Sam had always been a better person than me. For the first few years, I had expected him to realize this, to pull away after getting a full look at who I truly was: a wild teenager who had morphed into a reckless and adrift young woman.

  But somehow the opposite happened. With him, I found mooring. I know—you aren’t supposed to try to change the person you love, but we got married young, so we weren’t fully formed. Change was inevitable, and because of Sam, I changed for the better. At least that’s what I told myself. My father might have had a different opinion.

  Still, there I was, standing on my front porch and doubting Sam because he had been too preoccupied to make love for a couple of weeks and had that morning preferred to take a phone call in private. In my place, Sam wouldn’t have doubted me. Like I said, a better person.

  I tried the key again. Still stuck. Then I remembered the envelope Sam had dropped off to Zoe while I had been treating Lester, at the same time he had swapped his car for the rental I’d just driven home. The envelope contained my new house key, to fit the new locks. It should have made me feel safe.

  I retrieved the new key, opening the door to darkness and a tiny dog bouncing at my feet. Other than Boo, the house was empty. Leo had texted to ask if he could spend the night at Tyler’s, but where were Sam and Audrey?

  Sam’s blue Toyota
Camry was still in the driveway, parked next to my rental sedan. He must have taken Audrey trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Without me.

  I had no reason to blame him. We had agreed to leave at six, and it was now after seven. I was late getting home, again, and I knew how impatient six-year-olds could be. It was my fault, entirely my fault, but it nevertheless bothered me that I had missed another family ritual.

  I leaned down to scratch Boo behind his ears, locked the door behind me, and went into the kitchen. A pot of spaghetti sat on the stove, two jars of pasta sauce on the counter beside it. I touched the side of the pot. Warm, so they hadn’t been gone long. I struggled to remember the last time I had cooked dinner.

  I called Sam. It took a few rings for him to answer.

  “Cassie.” He said my name in that way only he did, his voice made huskier with the flu.

  “I’m home.”

  I waited for an invitation, but got none. “We shouldn’t be out much longer. Audrey’s already starting to drag.”

  “I can meet up with you guys. I wouldn’t want to disappoint Audrey.”

  To his credit, Sam didn’t point out I already had by being more than an hour late. “Like I said, we’ll be home soon. We made spaghetti.”

  “I found it.”

  “Audrey insisted on making the sauce.”

  “I’m surprised she could open the jars.”

  “I helped with that and pouring it into the pan. But she’s a heck of a stirrer.”

  In the background, I heard a chorus of “trick or treat.” I closed my eyes and pictured Audrey’s face in a throng of children. With my eyes shut, I could more clearly hear Sam’s breathing, quick but even. Probably a result of his mouth being pressed against his cell phone. His voice was low when he next spoke, though his words were unmistakable. “We need to talk.”