Twenty-Two
She’s waiting for me, fathoms down,
where light’s a rumour
death and pain the only game in town.
—Shepherd’s Pie
I have an old-fashioned alarm clock. It winds up. It’s brass. It made a lot of noise when it hit the wall, and the glass front made a satisfying shattering sound just before the ringing stopped.
Lug Nut barked at it for two minutes as it lay dying on the carpet.
“Leave it, Lug-nut. It’s toast.” My head pounded. Too much brandy. I’d killed the bottle after Becker left. At least I think I did. It was empty, anyway.
I heated up some coffee and sat carefully, trying not to move too much. Perversely, my mind told me that if only I had left some hooch in the bottle, I’d be able to have some in my morning coffee. The thought made me retch. Lug-nut, sensing my discomfort, shut up and started tiptoeing around, which was wise. I was not in the best of moods.
The goats were yelling their hairy heads off as I approached the barn. I banged around a bit, muttering. If I was in a lousy frame of mind, there was no need for anybody else to be cheery.
I was carrying the milk up to the dairy room off George’s house when he pulled up in the truck. He positively scampered out of the cab. Scampered. I growled.
“So,” he said, stretching as if he’d just got out of bed. He probably had. “Lovely day, yes?”
I glowered. He stopped in mid-stretch and stared at me.
“Oh. Oh, dear.” He didn’t say anything else for a while, just fell into step beside me and followed me into the dairy.
I strained the milk while George set up the pasteurizer for me.
“Thanks,” I said. “Had a good time last night, did you?”
“It was fair to middling,” he said, backtracking. “The beer was flat.”
“The entertainment was pretty good, though. Local cop in bust-up with Cedar Falls thugs. Story at eleven.”
“I thought he did very well, Polly.”
“Yup. He did. Regular boy scout. Pure as the driven snow.”
George’s face went through a series of wrinkly gymnastics as he tried to figure it out. It can’t have been very difficult.
“It didn’t work out?”
“Bingo.”
“Too bad, Polly.”
“Thanks, George.”
“I won’t say that I told you so.” People in love can be so annoying. He was glowing.
“Have you and Susan set a date, yet?” I said.
“A date? For what?”
“Don’t tell me your intentions toward her aren’t honourable.”
“You mean marry her? Polly, we are having a wonderful time. You want us to ruin it by getting married?”
“Just a thought, George. Forget I mentioned it. Can I borrow the truck? I’ve got to go into town.” I didn’t have any reason to go anywhere, but I had to go somewhere.
“Certainly. Yes. Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“About your policeman.”
“He’s not my anything.” I finished pouring the milk into the pasteurizer, banged the buckets into the sink and started washing them out with a full stream of noisy, you-can’t-talk-above-it water.
“Ah,” said George and left me to my misery.
Back up at the cabin, I changed out of my overalls and into a clean pair of jeans. I’d go to the mall and shop. Not that I had much extra cash, but sometimes spending twenty bucks at Zellers and the Dollar Store on stupid plastic junk and cheap Chinese candy can cheer me up.
I found myself singing the blues as I freshened up Lug-nut’s water bowl. Well, at least I was singing, even if it was all about my baby having left me and my dog having been busted for possession.
I went to the closet where I kept the bag of dog food I’d lifted from Francy’s place. I scooped a bunch of the kibble into the bowl and watched with fascination as a fat roll of twenties rolled out of the bag and bounced across the floor. Lug-nut grabbed it before I did.
“DROP IT!” The dog almost dropped his teeth as well. I apologized to him and picked up the money.
There were twenty twenties, rolled up and secured with a rubber band, greasy from dwelling in the bag with the Kibbles and Bits. John’s four hundred bucks. No question. A perfect hiding place. If he hadn’t been killed, not a soul would have touched the dog food.
After I counted it, I just stared at it. Four hundred bucks may be peanuts to some people, but it sure wasn’t to me. And it wouldn’t be to Francy. What was I supposed to do with it now?
There was no way the police could get any information from it at this point. I’d handled it. The dog had slobbered on it. It was just currency, covered in kibble crumbs. Francy needed it now, not six months down the road, after the cops got through with it and gave it back, which was not necessarily a sure thing. Not that Becker wouldn’t be scrupulous. If he was the kind of guy to contemplate busting his date, then he’d deal with the cash by the book, but there are no guarantees in this world, and this money was real and unmarked.
I pushed the wad of bills into my pocket and went to see Francy.
I knew there was something wrong as soon as I pulled up in George’s truck, a little after ten. I could hear Beth wailing with the kind of full-lunged desperation of the baby who has been left too long on her own. I opened the cab door and ran, Lug-nut at my heels, barking.
I opened the front door and found Francy in the kitchen, hanging from one of the big beams over the table. There was a chair knocked over and she turned, very slowly. Her face was black and absolutely horrible. The room stank of shit and piss. There were no beer bottles on the table this time. Just a teapot and a cup. I dived for the phone.
Becker and Morrison arrived after twenty-five hellish minutes. I stood on the porch, holding Beth in my arms, rocking her back and forth, back and forth. She was still crying, but the panic in the sound had changed to one of exhausted distress. She was probably hungry, definitely wet, but my experience with babies was nonexistent, I was in no shape to change a diaper and I had no milk in my breasts.
It was Morrison who held me. He came up the porch steps two at a time and took me in his arms, and it was like being swallowed by a big soft pillow. He produced a hanky the size of a young flag, and I buried my face in it. It smelled of lavender.
Becker plunged stone-faced into the house and emerged a moment later, hurrying to the cruiser to radio for help. Soon Beth was quiet and so was I. Morrison’s arms were padded and comfortable, and I felt like I could sleep for year and a half.
Becker came back from the cruiser, and Morrison let go of me gently, easing away with his arms kind of spread, as if he were afraid I might fall over.
“You okay?” Becker said.
“No,” I said and tried to smile. My face cracked.
“We’ll get you out of here soon. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I came to see Francy. I heard Beth screaming, and I knew something was wrong. I ran inside and found her—like that. I called 911. Grabbed Beth. She was in her carrier right where Francy, right where her mother… right there. I took her outside. Oh, God, Becker. I can’t take the baby, too. The dog, yes, but not the