Блейз Клемент - Duplicity Dogged Тhe Dachshund

I pawed around in her refrigerator and found eggs and butter. She watched me beat a couple of eggs in a bowl, watched me scramble them in butter in a skillet, and obediently sat down at the bar when I put them on a plate. Neither of us talked. I gave her a fork and a napkin and poured her a glass of wine from a bottle in the refrigerator. While she ate, I ran water in the sink and squirted dishwashing liquid in it to make it bubble. I washed the skillet, bowl, and beater and turned around to look at her. She had polished off the scrambled eggs and was sipping her wine.

She said, “You had something like this happen to you, didn’t you?’

I leaned against the counter and wiped my wet hands with a dish towel. “Three years ago, my husband and our little girl were on their way home, and they stopped to get some things for supper. My husband was a deputy, and he had picked Christy up at day care when he got off duty. She was three years old.”

I stopped and swallowed a lump in my throat. I had never told this before, not to somebody I didn’t know well. I wasn’t sure I could tell it now, but I knew I needed to say it. Not just for Stevie, but for myself too.

“I’m sure Todd was holding her hand when they walked across the parking lot, he was always careful with her. She was probably skipping along and telling him all the things that had happened that day, and he was listening to her like everything she said was the most important thing he’d ever heard. He was like that. With everybody.”

My hands were bone dry but I kept drying them on the towel anyway. “A man driving across the parking lot turned into a parking place. He was ninety years old and almost blind, but he had a current driver’s license. He lifted his foot to hit the brake, but instead he slammed it down on the gas. He hit Todd and Christy and three other people. They told me Todd and Christy died instantly, but I’m not sure if that’s true.”

I looked up to see tears rolling down Stevie’s face. She whispered, “Oh, my dear God.”

I said, “That’s why I won’t try to make you feel better about what’s happened. I won’t tell you to cheer up because Conrad’s with Jesus now. I won’t tell you that one day you’ll stop hurting, because you won’t. But one day you’ll pick up your life and go on, because you’ll have to.”

She and Reggie walked with me to the front door. Before I went out, I said, “Stevie, Reggie wasn’t wearing a collar when I found him this morning. Is that unusual?”

She smiled and shook her head. “He’s so well trained to heel that Conrad always lets him run free.”

“And the necktie?”

She shrugged. “That was just Conrad. He really didn’t like dog collars; he thought they were demeaning. He put bandannas and neckties on Reggie. Every now and then a necklace. A different drummer, you know.”

“I put the tie on the shelf with the dog food.”

She gave me a quick hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As I got in the Bronco, she and Reggie stood in the doorway and gazed after me with identical expressions of stunned sorrow.

5

Before I pulled out of the driveway, I punched the CD button and let Patsy Cline’s voice fill the car. Spend a few minutes with Patsy, and the world gets back in balance, especially after dark. Before noon it takes Roy Orbison to set things straight. They sort of balance out the day, which isn’t surprising. Anybody who’s ever given it any thought knows that Patsy and Roy are riding through eternity on the same soul train, blowing each other away with their heart truths.

It was near eight-thirty when I got home. Michael’s prized grill was glowing, and the plank table on the deck was set. Michael was standing on the beach with his feet spread wide and his hands jammed in his pockets. An enormous orange sun hovered wetly above the horizon, pulsating like a living heart so its edges moved with its own heat. I walked down and stood beside him, both of us silent as sun and sea touched like lovers. The sea pulled the sun inside herself and left the sky smiling cerise and violet and peach. Michael and I let out held breaths. No matter how many times you watch that lovemaking, you never stop being awed by it.

He slung an arm over my shoulder, and we walked up the beach to the deck.

He said, “Are you hungry?”

“Are you kidding? I’m positively hollow.”

He grinned with the pure joy that a master chef gets on hearing that people want to eat. Michael works 24/48 at the firehouse, meaning twenty-four hours on duty, and fortyeight hours off. But always, whether he’s at the firehouse or at home, he cooks. Like firefighting, cooking is Michael’s way of saving people. To him, there’s nothing so awful that a good meal won’t make better.

I said, “Where’s Paco?”

“Asleep. He has to work tonight, and he didn’t get to bed until late this afternoon.”

Vice cops work irregular hours, and for the last several weeks Paco had been leaving every night a little before ten and coming home late in the morning. Since an undercover cop’s life can depend on secrecy, Michael and I never mentioned it, not even between ourselves. But it didn’t take a super sleuth to deduce that he was working at some night job.

As much as he might enjoy having dinner with us, Paco exercises a good cop’s judicious selfishness. Cops have to know what they absolutely require in order to function at their best, and not let anything keep them from getting it. A cop who needs sleep may accidentally kill somebody. A cop who goes too long without food may let his temper flare. A cop who needs to be alone and sort out the horror of something he’s just seen may do something stupid. A cop who puts time with his family over his own needs won’t be a good cop. He may not even be a living cop. Anybody too sentimental to be selfish ought to take up a different line of work than law enforcement.

I said, “I’ll just be a minute. I have to go shower.”

I ran up the stairs to my apartment and was naked by the time I got to the bathroom. I jumped in the shower to wash away the afternoon’s heat and pet spit, slicked my wet hair back into a ponytail, ran lipstick over my mouth, and hopped around the closet pulling on underpants. I stepped into canvas mules and fought on a short dress with spaghetti straps and a built-in bra—surely the best invention ever—and was still damp and pushing everything into place when I clattered down the stairs to join Michael on the wooden deck.

He pulled out my chair with an unself-conscious gallantry that always makes me feel misty-eyed, and headed inside for the food. Paco met him at the door, groggy-eyed and cheek-creased, but alert.

Michael said, “Oh good, you’re awake!” and moved inside with a little extra zip in his step that made me grin.

Paco gave my ponytail a gentle yank and slid into his chair. He was wearing the same outfit he’d been wearing every night since he started working at his mystery job: pleated khaki Dockers and a tucked-in black waffle-knit shirt with a collar and front pocket. The shirt was bulky, and you could see the bulge of its tail under his pants. My mind ran down all the night jobs that would require those clothes and came up with something like a motel night clerk. Not a sleazy motel where the night clerks could wear anything they wanted to, and not a premium motel where they wore suits. Maybe something along Tamiami Trail where families stayed.

Whatever it was, he didn’t seem to be looking forward to it. He and I sat like slugs while Michael brushed olive oil on grouper fillets and slices of plantain and chayote squash. He squeezed lime juice on the grouper and laid everything on the grill along with a rack of corn on the cob. While that cooked, we all ate yummy cold avocado soup with teensy shrimp in it, and I told them how Mame had found Conrad Ferrelli’s body. Except I left out the part about the lipstick smear on Conrad’s face. Even to family, you don’t divulge important secrets like that.