Drop Dead on Recall (9 page)

24

When I got home
from breakfast with Connie, the little red light on my answering machine was flashing. I sent the dogs out the back door and pushed the playback button. The first message was from an editor at
Dog Fancy
who wanted me to call back about some photos for an article on rally obedience. Then a message from Greg Dorn. He was sorry he missed me the day before, and he’d be home the rest of the day. He’d like to get Pip, so could I call him?

I brought the dogs in, checked their water, and sat down at the kitchen table with my cell phone. I punched in the number on Detective Stevens’ card, then waited while the dispatcher connected us.

“Stevens!” The line crackled, then cleared.

“This is Janet MacPhail.”

“Ah, Ms. MacPhail. Janet.”

“Greg Dorn called and said he’d like his dog back. You told me to check with you first.” She said that would be fine, then asked, “Do you have time to talk this afternoon? Say four o’clock?”

Oh no, not again,
I thought, wondering vaguely whether I’d be arrested after the “removing evidence” incident.
“
I teach a class tonight at six. That would cut it a little close, depending on how long you need me.”

“Where’s your class?” I gave her the name of the junior high school. “You teach a junior high class at night?”

“Heavens no! I wouldn’t want to teach a junior high class in broad daylight.” I heard her chuckle, which was something of a relief. “It’s a Neighborhood Connection class.” She wasn’t familiar with the Adult Education program of the Fort Wayne Community Schools, so I explained about the variety of non-credit classes they offer on everything from Windows to watercolors. We agreed to meet at the Firefly Coffee House on North Anthony at four o’clock.

Next I called Greg’s number. On the fourth ring, a woman answered. The voice was soft, sultry, vaguely familiar. “Dorn residence.” I asked for Greg.

“He’s unavailable. Perhaps I can help you?”

“My name is Janet MacPhail. I’m taking care of Greg’s dog. Who’s this, please?”

“A friend.”

I was starting to get peeved when I heard a scuffle on the other end of the line, and whispering I couldn’t make out.

“Janet! It’s Greg.” He sounded even more annoyed than I was. “Thanks for calling back.”

“Greg, how are you?”

“Not great. Getting by.” His voice cracked for a second, then he went on. “I’d like to bring Pip home.” Something scratched through the line and Greg said, “Hang on a second,” and I heard more muffled discussion. All I could make out was Greg snapping, “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary.” Then to me, “Janet, I hate to ask, but is there any way you could bring Pip to me? I, uh, don’t want to leave here right now.”

I was more than a little curious about what was going on over there, and had a leash in my hand before he finished the sentence. “We’re on our way!”

Twenty minutes later I pulled up in front of Greg’s house, behind the decrepit Yugo that had tried to eat my fender on my last visit. Its right front tire rested halfway up the curb and its tail end was not quite out of the street. A peeling bumper sticker claimed, “My other car is a broom,” and another boasted, “It’s hard to be humble when you own a Maltese.” No question whose car it was. I
glanced in the open passenger-side window as I walked by. A book lay on the front seat, the top edge bristling with multi-hued slips of paper.
Spells for Lovers.
Another,
Magick Love Spells
, lay beside it.
Ho boy.

Pip was all wriggle and whine from the van to the front door, and could hardly contain himself as we waited for Greg to answer the bell.

But it wasn’t Greg who opened the door. It was Giselle Swann. She was wearing black over-stretched pants and the biggest black lace teddy I’d ever seen with a black cable-knit cardigan hanging, unbuttoned, over it. Her eyes were rimmed with black liner that narrowed them more than was natural, and she had a silver ring I didn’t remember in her left nostril. It contrasted nicely with the brilliant raspberry gloss on her lips. Although my mouth may still have been agape, I was beginning to recover when Giselle reached for Pip’s leash.

“Thanks so much, Janet. We so appreciate your bringing Pip home and caring for him.” A blast of cheap powdery scent assaulted my nostrils and I reflexively lifted my hand to catch a sneeze, preventing Giselle from taking hold of the leash.
We?
The little demon was back at my left ear.
What does she mean, “we”?

25

“Giselle! What a surprise!”
I sneezed once, twice, three times, fished a semi-used tissue from my pocket, and blew the rest of her powdery perfume out of my nose.

She ignored me and tried once more for the leash. “I can take Pip. Greg’s tied up right now.” I hoped she was speaking figuratively. Pip ducked backward, away from her hand, and let out a loud squeal as he rocketed through the door, bumped Giselle sideways, and pulled the leash from my hand.

“Pipper! How ya doin’, guy?” Greg’s voice mingled with Pip’s whiney talk, and Percy the Poodle yipped in harmony. “Nice to see you, Pipper! Come on, want to go out and check your yard?” Greg fended off the bouncing Border Collie and invited me in. I squeezed past Giselle and followed Greg through an entrance foyer as big as my living room, emerging into a family room that easily accommodated the expansive leather sectional and chairs arrayed in front of a TV screen big enough for an IMAX. To the right a wall of rough-hewn pale gray Indiana limestone extended from floor to ceiling, with a fireplace nestled beneath an arched opening. An enormous watercolor painting of a Border Collie working a flock of sheep graced the wall over the mantle. Behind the seating arrangements was a billiard table, and there was more than enough room to ensure that no one sitting in front of the television would get clobbered by a cue in play.

Two sets of French doors and the biggest window I’ve ever seen in a house made up the wall facing the fireplace. The doors opened onto a flagstone patio beyond which a lush lawn sloped to a pond that separated the Dorns’ property from their neighbors. Most of the yard was open, but a picket fence surrounded the deck off the family room and enclosed a square of grass maybe forty by forty feet. Lawn covered the inside of the fenced area, too, except for a large maple in the center. A wide border of irises and peonies softened the outer perimeter. A gate opened from that yard into another, larger area where obedience jumps were set up.

Greg opened the French door and we all stepped out onto the deck and watched Pip and Percy race around their grassy yard.

“Thanks so much, Janet. It was a relief knowing Pip was safe and well cared for.” Greg smiled, but there was a weight to his eyelids and a weary roundness to his shoulders.

“Yes,” piped up Giselle, “it’s good to have him home.”

Greg’s mouth tightened and he seemed to study his toes for a moment. Then he took Giselle by the elbow and steered her through the house and out the front door. I tagged along, unable to stop watching what looked like a bad accident in the making. Greg grabbed a suitcase-sized purse of brown and black plastic patchwork from atop an antique chest in the foyer, shoved it into Giselle’s hands, and guided her onto the front porch.

Giselle turned back toward the house and shrugged her sleeve back into place. “I thought I might stay and make you some dinner,
hon.” Giselle took a baby step toward Greg and tilted her head
coquettishly.

“No thanks.” He closed the door, flipped the deadbolt, and turned toward me. “Sorry.”

I sneezed into my elbow. “Nothing to be sorry about.” I sneezed again. Apparently I was allergic to Giselle.

Greg pulled a box of tissues from a drawer in the antique chest and held it toward me. “Come on in and have some iced tea.”

“I really can’t stay,” I protested, but I followed him to the kitchen.

He let the dogs in. Pip slurped up an enormous drink from a stainless steel bowl in one corner of the room, then settled himself, dripping happily, onto the gleaming white ceramic floor. Percy put his left front paw on my knee and pulled the right one up under his heart. What could I do but scratched his curly white chest? Greg put two glasses of iced tea on the table and settled into the chair across from me. “I do appreciate you taking care of Pip. Thanks.”

“Are you doing okay, Greg?

“Yeah, I guess. Trying. It just doesn’t seem possible that Abby’s gone, you know?”

“I know.” Though I’d never been widowed, I did know about loss
and disappointment.

Greg put his hands on the table, turning his wedding band around and around with the thumb and finger of his right hand. “I miss her.”

That took me by surprise. How could he miss her if he was leaving her—had already left, in fact? But then, the human heart walks a winding path. It occurred to me that it could be all for show, although I didn’t get that vibe from him. But anything was possible.

“Give yourself some time.”

“Yes. Time. There’s always too much of the kind we don’t want, isn’t there? And not enough with the people we love.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I couldn’t think of anything useful to say, and knew in any case that words don’t hold the lonely terrors of loss at bay as well as simple human presence. After a few moments I asked, “So, are you staying here now?”

“Where else would I stay?”

Well, this is embarrassing,
whispered Janet Demon
. Let’s see you get out of this one
. I couldn’t help wondering, not for the first time, where that little voice was
before
I stuck my foot in things.

26

I was trying to
backpedal after implying to Greg that he shouldn’t be living in his own home. “I, uh, someone told me you and Abigail were separated.”

“Who said that?”

Ho boy
. “I must have misunderstood. I’m so embarrassed!”

Greg followed my gaze to the two new brass door locks on the counter. “My project for the afternoon.”

“Lose your key?” My mouth was set on “blurt.”

“No.” He made it almost a question. “Oh, I see. You thought we were separated and figured she locked me out.” My cheeks warmed up a tad. “No, that’s fine. I can see where you’d think that. I actually did move out for a couple of weeks in March. We were having the floors refinished.” I glanced at the mirror-like finish beneath our feet. “I’m deathly sensitive to the solvents. I got a room and Abby and the dogs joined me there every night once the workmen left and she finished training.” I thought back to what Connie had told me and began to grapple with the obvious fact that someone was a big fat fibber.

Silence hung between us for a moment, the next obvious question unasked. If Greg was in fact having an affair, could it possibly have been—or still be—with Giselle? Greg turned weary eyes toward mine. “You’re wondering what Giselle was doing here, answering my phone and my door.”

“Well, I, uh …”

“Yeah, I know. Good question. I’ve been asking it myself. She was in here when I got home. Abigail gave her a key last fall.” The hand of sorrow squeezed his face, but he fought it off and won back control. “We went to the Border Collie nationals and Giselle came in to water plants and feed the fish.” His delivery gained speed. “So I came home from walking Percy this afternoon and here she was. Says she just wants to help. She and Abby were friends so maybe she really feels she needs to step in for her sake or something, see that I’m eating and wearing clean clothes, I don’t know. But I tell you,” he sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his brown hair, “that woman drives me nuts.”

“So you’re changing the locks?”
Excellent plan,
I thought.

“I can’t have her showing up here whenever she wants. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but it’s my house.” I wouldn’t argue with that. “I guess I’ll tell her I don’t know who all has keys, so I need to make the house more secure since I’m gone a lot. Does that sound reasonable?”

“Perfectly.” If Giselle were stalking me, I’d consider an armed guard and a brace of guard dogs reasonable. I thought about the witchcraft books on the seat of her car and wondered whether they included recipes for toxic brews. “The police wouldn’t let me take Abigail’s things home from the fairgrounds, you know. Her chair and crate and a few other things. Did you get them back?” I was gazing at Percy, who was lying in his open crate on a little synthetic wool pad, curly feet twitching in dreams.

“Not yet.” He smiled toward his contented little dog. “Pip never uses a crate at home, so that doesn’t matter. Poor Percy would be lost without his, though.” The Poodle opened his eyes at the sound of his name, and Greg’s comment gave me an opening.

“Good you didn’t take him to the show.”

He nodded, still gazing at his dog. “Yeah, that was a fluke really. I went to work that morning to cover for one of the other pharmacists, but we got our dates mixed up. So when she showed up at work, I went straight to the fairgrounds to watch Abi …” He gagged on the final syllable, and we sat in silence for a few moments until he’d collected himself. Then Greg walked me to the front porch.

“Thanks again, Janet.” He gave me a hug, and when we broke apart his eyes were glittery.

“Call if you need anything. Even just a friendly ear.” He promised he would.

I turned the key in the ignition and glanced into the rearview mirror. The ubiquitous Yugo crouched in the street four lots down with the engine running. It looked like a giant reptile, unblinking in the sun, lying in wait. I couldn’t see the driver’s face for the glare on the windshield, but a heavy black-clad arm rested on the frame of the open driver’s-side window, and a malevolent energy stirred the air.

27

I decided to swing
by Mom’s place before I went home. I tried to see her about once a week, but I’d let my filial duties slide a few extra days. She spent most of my last visit scolding me yet again for marrying Chet a quarter century ago. Not only did he not go to medical school like Neil Young, but he abandoned me. The fact that he did that when I gave him the boot for being a lazy, lying cheat seemed to elude her.

Mom came out the back door wearing blue and yellow striped capris and a white silk blouse with an imposing lace jabot. The buttons were one off, and the right tail of the blouse hung lower than the left.

“May I help you?”

“Mom! It’s me, Janet!”

“Janet? Oh dear, I didn’t know you without my specs.” She giggled and slapped her thighs with both hands.

“Mom, you’re wearing them.”

She reached up and wriggled her glasses, leaving them slightly askew. She giggled some more. “So I am!”

I followed her into the kitchen, where my head nearly exploded as a miasma of pine-scented cleaner enveloped me.

“So, Mom, you been cleaning?” I flipped on the exhaust fan, propped the back door open, and raised the double-hung window as high as it would go.

“Cleaning? You think I need to clean up?”

“No, Mom, I wondered if you’ve been cleaning this morning.” What I wondered was how she could breathe in there.

“No, I don’t think so.” I searched her eyes, but the woman I’d known all my life was nowhere to be found.

Nor were the accouterments I’d come to expect as part of her home, the home of my childhood. The kitchen counters were stripped bare and sparkly clean. The blue ceramic canisters were gone. Mr. Coffee was gone. The Little Red Riding Hood cookie jar that we’d picked out together when I was eight? Gone. Toaster? Gone. The tea kettle that always sat on the back burner of the stove wasn’t there. The kitchen table, too, was clean and bare. The wooden napkin holder, the ceramic salt-and-pepper fawns, the restaurant-style sugar dispenser, even the red-checkered vinyl cloth. All gone.

“Mom, where is everything?”

“What?”

“Where is everything? All your things? From the counter and table?”

“Looks better, don’t you think, Marsha?” Marsha was Mom’s sister. She died a decade ago with her faculties intact, but her heart, not so much.

“Mom, I’m Janet.”

She focused hard on my face. “Oh, Janet! It’s so nice to see you.”

I didn’t know whether to cry or run away. Pending a decision, I opened the refrigerator. The milk was fine. All five gallons. The napkin holder was wedged in beside a quart of cottage cheese with an intact plastic seal around the lid and a use-by date a week gone. There was a bag of carrots on the bottom shelf. Next to the salt-and-pepper fawns. I grabbed some fuzzy green cheddar and Swiss from the butter bin. Mom sat at the table, humming and playing with the lace of her jabot. I dropped the cheeses into the garbage can under the sink and said, “Mom, I need to use the bathroom.”

Chemical warfare had been declared on the bathroom as well. The weapon of choice here was chlorine bleach. I turned on the exhaust fan and cranked the small window open a few inches. She’d stripped this room to its bones, too. No towels on the racks. No soap in sight. Even the shower curtain was missing.

I opened the linen closet and was face-to-face with Little Red Riding Hood. I lifted her head and cape with not a little trepidation, and peered into the jar. Several cookie bits in the bottom, plus two bars of Ivory soap, a half-squished tube of toothpaste, three disposable razors, several packets of sugar, and a bottle of aspirin. I took two of those and swallowed them with a handful of tap water.

I went to the bedroom, picked the phone up off the floor (the night table was stripped), and dialed my brother’s number. Bill works from home when he isn’t flying around the world doing whatever it is he does. I’ve never been quite clear about Bill’s “consulting” business.

“Mom?” Bill’s caller I.D. was working.

“It’s Janet.”

“Oh, hi.”

“Have you been in here lately?” I described the scene. Bill said he was in the house on Sunday and everything was normal. Even Mom, if I could believe Bill. “Well, it’s not normal now. She can’t stay here alone. She’s going to gas herself.”

He didn’t reply.

“Look, I can’t take her home with me. I teach tonight.”

He grumbled, but said he’d be right over.