Here to Stay (5 page)

“Sissy, the man’s obviously busy,” said Clark, in the sort of voice a father might use with a teenage daughter.

Sissy seemed not to hear her fiancé. “Please,” she said appealingly, her violet eyes searching Elijah’s face, reaching into him. “It would be so great to have you.”

“I’ll…try.”

Clark’s club

“I
STILL CAN’T BELIEVE
you let a stranger watch Teddy,” Mrs. Atherton said to Kennedy. “What were you thinking?”

“It was a
dog show
. There aren’t bad people at dog shows,” Kennedy exclaimed.

Elijah, eavesdropping from his spot by the punch bowl and table piled with shrimp and salads and any number of small delicacies, kept his eyes focused on Sissy’s intended across the room. The small band playing the engagement party was taking a break, and Elijah was glad, not being in the mood for love songs of another era, an era that had ended just before the world was divided by the Vietnam War, by the suddenly clear reality of racism, by drugs and everything so different from what he’d known growing up. People protested actions he knew were wrong but also rejected those he believed were good.

Sissy seemed to be clinging hard to that older world, and Elijah was surprised—and not completely pleased—to see it.

Clark was an orthodontist—“But they met at a show!” Mrs. Atherton had exclaimed enthusiastically. “So we knew right away he was wonderful!”

Clark raised Norfolk Terriers.

“Of course they’ll have shepherds, too!” Sissy’s mother had continued to gush.

Clark certainly had straight, white teeth, Elijah reflected. At the party, Elijah had enjoyed talking with Mr. Atherton, but now he craved solitude. He longed to somehow free his mind of the horrors crawling through it: knowledge of the dogs stolen by the thief they’d apprehended that day, knowledge of what had happened to those dogs.

Not to mention the women who had been murdered. Sissy had been frightened for Teddy. Elijah—like Clark, he now acknowledged—had been frightened for her.
But for Elijah, it had been fear with the knowledge of what the perpetrator could do.

Now he was glad he’d chosen the work he had rather than become a homicide detective or even remain a sheriff’s deputy, glad his job didn’t involve telling someone what ghastly act had befallen a beloved child or spouse.

To love animals and see them hurt was torture, yet he was good at this work. He saved animals, and the animals needed a voice. But how long could he keep doing it?

His whole life he’d wanted to be an animal behaviorist, even before he knew what one was. The Humane Society certainly gave him hands-on experience with animals; it was how he spent virtually all his free time. Watching animals. Trying to figure them out.

“He’s a good man,” said a voice beside him.

Elijah glanced over at Sissy, now dressed in an ivory suit. She was gazing in the same direction Elijah had been—at Clark Treffinger-Hart, who was talking with two of his former fraternity brothers.

“He seems very nice,” Elijah agreed mildly. “And you have so much in common.” He meant this sincerely, but even to his ears it sounded like a dig.

“In a way.”

These didn’t sound like the words of a woman avidly anticipating marriage. Elijah was reluctant to draw her out. The new Sissy was different from the old Sissy.

Primarily the new Sissy was unavailable. Soon she would be someone else’s wife.

The
old
Sissy had been a little wild. Perhaps a shade of that woman was wondering if she wanted to be married at all, to anyone.

She wore her hair up in some kind of elaborate, elegant hairdo. It made her look very expensive. Her coltish adolescence had matured into beauty-queen poise. Even in heels she wasn’t as tall as Elijah, but she came close.

“I don’t like Norfolk Terriers,” she finally admitted. “I’m not sure I can live with the yapping things.”

Elijah threw back his head and gave a quiet laugh.

“It’s not funny. I love dogs, but I don’t love them all equally. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with all of them.”

Elijah could not resist. “But you’re in love with Clark. That won’t be a problem.”

Her silence lasted a little too long, and he thought she blushed. Then, abruptly she changed the subject. “Tell me what you’re doing. You live here?”

“Right now I’m based here.”

“And you’re working for the Humane Society, investigating animal abuse cases. And you get paid for it.”

“Very little,” he admitted.

“It’s probably because of me you’re in that line of work,” Sissy said.

Her ability to congratulate herself certainly hadn’t lessened with the years. Sure, she’d introduced him to this kind of work, but she wasn’t the reason he’d chosen to pursue it.

He supposed Ella was. And Lucky. Lucky had passed away three years before, and now Elijah only had one cat, Five, a polydactyl. He was going to look into adopting Whiteout, though. As he’d dressed for this party, he’d been able to smile because of the memory of the malamute’s hot-dog-eating escapade. Whiteout would make him laugh, and he needed laughter.

Of course, he had to admit, even more often than his thoughts had turned to the malamute, they’d lingered in bemused admiration on Sissy Atherton, giving a murderer what-for.
You’re a terrible person.
It still made him smile. She’d nailed that one, all right.

Yes, she was the same Sissy he’d known.

He didn’t want to think about it, about any of it.
I let her go.

He’d let her go because he’d been sure that he didn’t have what was required to hold her. For the first time he wondered if any man really did. She’d always been a bit willing to do the slightly dangerous, slightly unconventional thing.

He said, “So you’re worried that your dislike of terriers is greater than your love for your fiancé?”

She sighed, apparently unwilling to admit that much. “My parents want me married, I’m a problem to them, you know. I studied theater at Sarah Lawrence, and they think I came home with funny ideas. Clark is their idea of the perfect son-in-law. I mean, we met at a show. What more could you ask for?”

“To meet in the German shepherd breeding ring?” Elijah suggested.

“Ha ha,” she said mirthlessly, then shifted topics again. “So, are you married, Elijah?”

She must know he wasn’t. No ring, for one thing. He shook his head.

“Girlfriend?”

Another shake of the head. His nerves were thrumming faintly like guitar strings. “I’m thinking of getting a dog.”

“Lucky’s gone?”

He was touched she remembered the name of his pet.
But it was because of Sissy that Lucky had survived. He told Sissy about Five, whom he believed to be an unusually intelligent feline. Then he confessed he was thinking of adopting the dog they’d used that day.

“What is it?”

“It’s a malamute.”

“Not that dog that got away and ran into the Yorkie ring? The one with airplane ears?”

“Yes,” Elijah admitted. “What’s wrong with him?”

Sissy made a slight face. “Well, I think
malamute
is a loose description. He looked like a mutt to me. I mean, I guess he’s all right. You’re not really into purebred dogs.”

Elijah had to admit that he wasn’t. “Not like Clark,” he couldn’t help murmuring.

She stared at him, and he thought she was going to make a snotty rebuttal. Instead, she again shifted the conversation away from her fiancé. “I’ve been writing plays. They’ve put on two of them in Echo Springs.”

“Really?” Elijah tried to remember if he’d heard anything about this. His mother and the rest of his family still lived in Echo Springs, all but his brother Frank, who was in the army.

Sissy said, “That was a very bad man they caught today, wasn’t it?”

“And a bad woman,” Elijah agreed, because the dog thief’s partner, the groomer, had also been apprehended.

“What did he do?” She sounded curious, but seemed to know what she might hear would be awful.

Elijah shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe you can’t,” she said. “I mean, if it’s confidential.”

“It wasn’t a nice case, Sissy.”

“I didn’t want to come here tonight,” she admitted. “I just wanted to be with Teddy—he’s at Clark’s house with our other dogs. But Teddy doesn’t know he almost got stolen.”

“How did he get that name?”

“The whole litter was named for kinds of bears. Polar, Kodiak, Black, Panda, you know. Teddy was Theodore, and we thought we were going to sell him as a pet, but he’s the best dog I’ve ever had.” A moment later, she said, “It seems like your life’s kind of lonely, Elijah.”

He didn’t know how to answer; she was right. He dated, but undercover work of any kind was stressful. He had become reclusive, and he never wanted to talk about the work.

He just wanted to save animals. As many as he could.

“I’m not sure I should get married,” she whispered beside him.

He wasn’t going to touch that one.

She clearly didn’t expect him to. It was almost as though she’d been talking to herself, and she moved off a short time later.

Would she really marry Clark? Elijah had the strange feeling that if the orthodontist and Sissy actually married, Sissy’s husband might find he’d gotten something more—something
else
—than what he’d bargained for.

As she walked away, an impish idea rose inside of him. The band leader was heading toward the stage, and Elijah crossed the floor to waylay him.

“Would you like to dedicate it to the couple?” the leader asked politely. He wore his black hair slicked back, a short, clipped mustache, and his singing reminded Elijah of a Latin Elvis Presley.

Elijah briefly considered this possibility. “Just say for the true romantics.”

And as the man nodded with satisfaction and continued on his way, Elijah looked about for the Athertons to say good night.

June 4, 1969
Echo Springs

S
ISSY SAT
on the upstairs balcony of her parents’ house, just outside their bedroom, addressing a wedding invitation. Most of them had been sent out weeks before, but if she happened to run into an old friend…well, she couldn’t
not
invite him.

She consulted an address on a cocktail napkin.

Elijah Workman.

As she addressed Elijah’s invitation, she reminded herself of all the reasons Clark was the right man for her. Not to mention the vaguely humiliating moment when she’d asked the band leader, “Did someone ask for that song?”

The Brylcreemed creep had looked a little too knowing when he said, “The tall, handsome gentleman…Ah, he is gone.”

Yes, Clark was right for her, and she shouldn’t wonder about Elijah’s requesting “Let It Be Me,” then leaving.

Sissy believed herself to be a passionate woman. While a student at Sarah Lawrence, she’d fallen for one of her professors and had begun a brief, tempestuous affair before learning from another student that he had a wife in Boston.

After that, she’d become careful. Around her, everybody in the country seemed to be going mad. Protesting
the war, rioting, civil rights—it was so chaotic. She supposed that if it hadn’t been for that one bad experience, she would be throwing herself into all of the insanity. Instead, she’d returned to the world of dogs, the security of the family kennel, life in Echo Springs and right into the sphere of someone like Clark Treffinger-Hart.

Why do I think of it that way?
she wondered.
Why “someone like Clark”?

Because some suddenly sick part of her wondered if there were many men who would suffice, if he was simply a type who would fit the bill.

She remembered the days she had danced with Elijah to “Let It Be Me,” the days she’d sung that song alone in her room like a prayer. He was the only one she’d really wanted. And she had never loved like that since.

The balcony overlooked the kennels. She watched Teddy and his brother Polar rush to the fence to bark at some birds.

This is crazy, Sissy. You don’t want to marry Clark. You don’t even want to be lovers with Clark.

Was that true? It couldn’t be. She was attracted to Clark. He was handsome. Everyone said so. He believed her to be a virgin, and she’d never disabused him of the idea. She hadn’t lied, of course, just never volunteered the mistake of her past. She knew if she’d told him, he’d have wanted to enjoy her charms; he’d have been unwilling to wait for the wedding.

So why was she making him wait?

Sissy stared at the name she’d scrawled on the envelope. If she were marrying Elijah Workman, would she make him wait?

But you’re not marrying Elijah, Sissy dear.

Instead, Clark was driving down from Kansas City the coming weekend.

If you’re going to marry him, Sissy…

Yes. Of course, she was willing to make love with him. Why had she ever hesitated? It was what they needed, what
she
needed to reassure herself, to go into this marriage full tilt, absolutely certain, the way she wanted to.

June 19, 1969
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Kansas City

S
ISSY STOOD
in a tiny room off the vestibule, ready.

Dressed, at least.

Kennedy had perfected every last detail from seamed stockings and garter belt and tissue-delicate bra and panties to a dress nearly fit for the goddess Athena, a wreath of flowers for a veil over her long, straight hair. Yes, Sissy knew she looked spectacular.

But she was not ready.

She clung to Kennedy’s hand on which sat a wedding band and engagement ring from the extremely suitable obstetrician, Gerry Fischer, with whom Kennedy was deliriously happy.

Her older sister’s eyes focused on Sissy’s as the mother of the bride entered the room. “Everyone’s waiting, dear. Are you ready?”