I handled the paper carefully, by the edges. “STICK TO YOUR GOATS,” was all it said. It was made with cut-out newspaper letters pasted onto a piece of lilac-motif notepaper, slick with squirrel bits. Becker, I hoped, would be able to find fingerprints and maybe even find a pack of lilac notepaper in someone’s desk.
I went back inside, poured coffee and was on my third consecutive cigarette before I noticed that my hands were shaking. It’s all right for some people, I suppose, finding a gruesome body on a Monday, meeting a bear on a Tuesday and getting a maimed squirrel tacked to your door on a Wednesday, but it was way too much for me. I went sort of crazy. First thing I did, even before breakfast, was to roll a really big joint and smoke the whole thing.
According to my herbal remedies guide, dope is an analgesic, anti-asthmatic, antibiotic, anti-epileptic, anti-spasmodic and anti-depressant. It’s a tranquillizer, an appetite stimulant, oxytocic, preventative and anodyne for neuralgia (including migraine), aid to psychotherapy and agent to ease withdrawal from alcohol and opiates. It’s also great stuff in a crisis.
When I smoke dope, the clarity is wonderful. I see the veins in the leaves, the roughness of tree bark, I smell the earth and ideas flow like blood. The negative side of dope is that whatever is uppermost in your mind assumes a paramount importance. So, when Lug-nut and I went down to the barn a little later to do the chores, I carried the image of a dead squirrel on my back like a throbbing emotional hump.
I’d removed the corpse from the door. It had been jammed onto the nail which lives there holding up a scrap of paper and a pencil on a string. When I go out, I usually scrawl a note telling where I’ve gone and when I’ll be back, just in case someone drops by. In the boonies, this is not interpreted as an invitation to burglary, but rather as a pleasant and neighbourly practice. It had been, in this case, abused.
After I pulled the squirrel off the nail, (it made a faint sucking noise which almost made me throw up again), I dumped it into a big plastic baggie and put it into the top compartment of the icebox, next to the block of ice. I put the note into another baggie and slipped it into my desk. Exhibits A and B.
In the barn I did the chores quickly, feeding the kids a bottle of warm milk stripped from Erma Bombeck's teat, in case they weren’t getting enough the regular way. I doled out hay and grain with more than half my mind on who the hell had sent me the squirrel. I was so distracted I forgot to sing while I was milking, and production was down by several ounces, which made me feel guilty.
After the barn chores, I went up to George’s place and slipped in to use the phone. George was up, bustling around the kitchen.
“Are you all right, Polly?” he said. “You look terrible.”
I told him about my night-visitor and the squirrel, then asked him if I could borrow his gun.
“You are joking, yes?” he said.
“Nope. I don’t want it loaded or anything, George. I just, you know, thought it would be a good thing to have. To wave around if I needed to. Sort of a talisman.”
“Huh. A talisman for trouble, maybe,” he said. “You don’t have a firearms certificate, for one thing. It is registered to me, and if you were caught with it, I’d get the blame. Considering that you are spending all your time with that policeman, I think you are better off without it.”
“Okay, okay, I was just asking.” It was a stupid idea anyway.
“Maybe you had better stay here for a few days,” George said, “until this mess is all settled.” It was daylight now. I wasn’t scared any more. I was angry.
“The cabin is my home, George. I’m not going to be harassed out of my home by some nutbar who likes to dismember squirrels. Besides, I’ve got Lug-nut and he did a pretty good job of scaring the guy away.”
“Well, just keep him with you all the time, then.”
“I was planning to.”
I called the police station and after I sat on hold for five minutes, Becker picked it up.
“What is it, Polly? I’m in the middle of a meeting.”
“Someone came up to the cabin last night.”
“Who?”
“They weren’t invited, Mark. I don’t know. It was the middle of the night.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. The dog went nuts and whoever it was went away, but he left a message behind that I think you should see.”
“He left a note?”
“In a way. It said stick to your goats’.”
“It said what?”
“And the piece of paper it was written on was shoved into the mouth of a dismembered squirrel nailed to my front door.”
“Jeez. We’ll be over. Don’t go anywhere.”
I said I wasn’t planning to, and Becker hung up.
I accepted a cup of strong, black coffee from George, who had looked hard at my face as I was dialling, concluded that I was stoned and turned on the coffee-maker. George knew I smoked, disapproved, but considered it my business. He didn’t lecture me, just asked me to acknowledge that this was no time to be on a different planet.
While we were waiting for the cops, Francy called.
“I’m back at home now,” she said. “The place is—Polly, they left it all like it was. The cop who brought me back last night just took down the tape and said it was okay to go inside. The kitchen is—oh, God. I went to sleep on the couch, just curled up in a little ball.”
I remembered the state of things when I’d been in to get the dog food. Not a pleasant welcome. “That sucks, Francy. They should have warned you. Could you use a hand cleaning up?”
“Oh, yeah. Would you? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I can’t stay here without some sort of, you know, exorcism. Maybe we could burn some sage or something. If I don’t stay here, I’ll have to go stay with my in-laws in North Bay, and we kinda don’t get along. I’d rather stay at home, but right now it’s like I’m living in a haunted house, you know?”
I told her I would try to get over there in a couple of hours, that I had an appointment first, though I didn’t explain what it was about. I figured she had a big enough case of the creeps as it was, and there was no reason to add to it. The cops had told her that Lug-nut was with me and she thanked me for taking him.
“That dog’s never liked me, and the feeling is mutual,” she said. “And now I’m scared he’d hurt Beth. You can keep him if you want.” I told her that I’d be glad to, and that I would see her soon.
I went out to the porch with my coffee, where George was sitting on the steps with Lug-nut. The dog was sort of leaning against him while George scratched him behind the ears. Lugnut turned his head as I came out and looked at me. Somehow, he knew he was mine, now. Or I was his. Whatever.
“How come Francy hated you so much?” I said.
“Huh?” George spun around.
“Lug-nut, not you.”
“Oh. Well, he was John’s dog,” George said.
When Becker and Morrison arrived, I told the whole story again, and then the three of us hiked up to the cabin to collect the evidence. I was surprised that Morrison wanted to go—maybe he was curious about where I lived, or maybe he was aware of something starting up between me and Becker, and just wanted to be in the way, like a little brother. Anyway, the hike cost him and he was wheezing by the time we got to my front door.
I was sure that there was still the faint smell of grass in the air, but the cops didn’t seem to notice it, or, if they did, they didn’t comment. I opened the icebox and brought out the baggie with its grisly contents. Becker peered at it