“We’ve got Mrs. Travers,” he said.
“I know.”
“I know you know. You could be charged with obstruction, Polly. You and your aunt.”
“I didn’t know where she was for sure until a few moments ago, Becker.”
“Who told you?”
Oops. “Uh… you just did.”
“No, I didn’t. I just told you we had her.”
“Never mind that. Anyway, you don’t ‘have’ her—she came in of her own accord, right? That should weigh in her favour.”
Becker sighed. “What do you want, Polly? Is there something else you only just found out’ that you want to tell me?”
“As a matter of fact, there is, Mark. I found the truck.”
“What? Where?”
“It’s sitting under a tarp in John Travers’s garage. There’s a bloodstain on the seat and I think there’s a gun in there, too.”
“Holy Toledo.”
“Holy Toledo?”
“I’m trying not to swear around you.”
“Oh. Thanks. So, how come you didn’t search the garage when you were detecting the scene of the crime?”
“Oversight,” he said.
“I’ll say.”
“When did you discover it? What were you doing over there?”
“I went to pick up Lug-nut, remember?”
“Who?”
“The dog. The one you were afraid might starve.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, after a pause.
I exhaled loudly into the phone. “When Morrison pulled me over this afternoon on the highway he said you said I should go pick up John’s dog because there was nobody to look after him.”
“This is all news to me, Polly. You sure you’re not just making this up?”
“You have a wonderfully retentive memory for a cop, don’t your?”
“No need to get nasty. So you went to save the dog and did a little snooping around, did you? What did I say not long ago about getting involved? Don’t you listen?”
“The dog went into the garage and wouldn’t come out, so I went to get him and I found the truck. No snooping. A baby could have found it if he’d thought to look.”
He ignored the dig. “Thanks for the tip,” he said. “We’ll go check it out and I’ll have to come out to get a statement after we’re done. Don’t go anywhere.”
“You know where to find me,” I said.
After I hung up I thanked George for the tea, but didn’t stick around. I was still mad at him for holding out on me and mad at myself because I understood why he had done it. I borrowed a wheelbarrow to haul the dog food up to the cabin, called to Lug-nut and headed home.
Sixteen
Old Rebecca’s telling me
leave them bugs be,
let them bugs mate and live and die
their day or two,
part of the plant that’s healing you.
—Shepherd’s Pie
There are a lot of things to be said for living alone, not the least of which is that you only have to do the dishes when they start moving around in the sink by themselves. I hadn’t had lunch yet and I was starving. I wanted to fix myself a big tuna and lettuce sandwich, but I had to clean up first because a bunch of ants was trying to make off with the bread knife.
I am not a bug-killer. When I see an ant, I do not shriek and whack it with a magazine. The only bugs I kill are the ones who are biting me, which limits my insect murder to a few hundred thousand every spring and summer, during blackfly and mosquito season.
I really like the concept that the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in Fiji affects the air-flow of the world just a tiny bit, which affects something else, etc. So, generally speaking, I don’t kill things. Especially not ants.
I put my nose down to the counter, coming face-to-face with a burly worker-ant who was carting off a breadcrumb the size of a Mack truck, in Ant. He stopped, waving his antennae in distress.
“It’s okay, buddy. No fear,” I said. “I just wanted to ask you to tell your work-crew that I’m about to do the dishes, so you’d better clear out or somebody’s going to get drowned by mistake.” He scuttled away, escaping from my monstrous breath, which to him was probably the equivalent of standing downwind of a week-old massacre.
It worked, like it always does. By the time the water was boiling, there wasn’t an ant to be seen.
Lug-nut had been reluctant to come indoors, but had finally agreed after I put his food and water bowls inside. I knew that the local squirrel population would treat his kibble the same way they treated the seed I put out for the birds, and though I tolerated squirrels, I wasn’t willing to contribute to their winter larders any more than I could help. Let them get their own stuff. There were plenty of pine cones around.
The dog spent his first half hour at my place just sniffing at things. I hoped he was sensible enough to know that crapping or peeing indoors would not endear him to the management, but apart from that, he was welcome to make himself comfortable anywhere he liked. Anywhere, that is, except the futon. I showed him the bed.
“Lug-nut,” I said, pointing, “this is a NO. Got that? Anywhere else, you can sprawl and sleep, but NO on the bed.” The word NO he certainly seemed to get. His ears flattened against his skull and his eyes rolled in his head like two pingpong balls.
I had a big, ugly cushion which I had inherited from an old room-mate in Toronto, and I dragged it from the closet and arranged it in the corner beside his food.
“This is yours,” I said, patting it. He came forward and sniffed it, then pounced on it, kneaded it with his forepaws, turned around three times (why do they do that?) and flumped down, taking one corner of the cushion into his mouth like a pacifier.
“Okay,” I said, “just don’t rip it apart.” I felt suddenly smug and protective, at the same time. My dog. My god. I had acquired a dog. How prosaic.
I washed the dishes quickly, vaguely aware of an unusual compulsion to clean. Then I attacked the work table, straightening the scattered tools, dusting and putting things away. I swept the floor, pausing only for tea and my sandwich, then getting right back at it. I went outside to chop wood, discovering in the process that Lug-nut had never played fetch before, which I found heart-breaking. It was like meeting a child who has never had a birthday party.
He gambolled about like a puppy, trying to help, until I was forced to place him off to one side and tell him to sit. Chopping off his paw at this point would have been a great pity, seeing as we were getting along so well.
When I tossed him a piece of bark, the perfect size for fetch, he just looked at it, dumbfounded.
“It’s okay, Luggy,” I said. “Okay.” He whined and nosed the bark, perhaps wondering if I expected him to eat it.
I put the axe down and picked up the bark.
“Fetch!” I cried and threw it. He stood there, his tail waving just a little.
“Okay. Wait a sec.” I retrieved the bark myself, wondering if he knew perfectly well how to play the game, but was making