Lost & Found (11 page)

The throb had started prematurely, because grieving was supposed to take a year, at the very least a year, and she wanted to believe that. Where had she first read that it was a year? She had read it so long ago that it had become accepted and unquestioned.

What about Queen Victoria? She made the entire country mourn with her, wear black, slide their feet along the floor noiselessly, and speak in whispers. She let almost all of Ireland starve and die, horses go unfed, colonies rise up, and all because she held on to her grief like it was sewn into her skin.

Rocky was not prepared for the flutter that she felt when Hill brushed her forearm at their last archery lesson. Her body had arced and sputtered, her battery started up as if AAA had sent out the big-deal charger. Bob hadn’t been dead but eight months and she still searched for him in her dreams.

Hill had said, “Pull your hand back even with your jaw, make it one line,” and he lightly grazed her skin. They had started holding their lessons twice a week in the old Grange
building. He had set up two targets on hay bales. It had been just the two of them in the large cavern of a room. And ever since he had touched her the last time, she felt her inner circuitry begin to power up.

This can’t be right, she argued with herself. She endured all the signs, the quickened pulse, the sudden fit of energy, and the three
A.M
. wide-awake restlessness that felt remarkably unlike despair. She even walked the dog at that hour, although she discovered that it is hard to keep track of a black dog at that blackest of hours. He kept disappearing every time the moon dipped behind a cloud. One night they walked until dawn, came back and went to bed and when she finally did sleep, she dreamt of Bob. She had found him quite by accident; he was dressed in a crisp white uniform, selling ice cream bars along an ocean boardwalk in a wood shack.

“Eat it before it melts,” he said, handing Rocky a Cream-sicle that had already begun to ooze over her fingers. That was all she remembered.

She sat up in bed and said to Lloyd, “He’s selling ice cream, big guy. I think he’s going to be okay.”

She had found him, and it had not been as she had imagined. She did not try to pull him from the land of death and he did not yearn to come back with her. And she had not pleaded to stay with him.

Rocky and Hill had agreed to skip a few weeks of archery lessons over the Christmas weeks. He had family to go see. Rocky was going to tough it out on the island no matter how much her brother threatened to haul her butt out of there.

She fed Lloyd and waited until a respectable time to go
to Tess’s house where she could practice archery. Lloyd had never seen her with the bow and arrow in hand; she thought that might be too much for him to bear. She left him at home to sleep undisturbed.

She practiced with the twenty-five-pound bow for two hours until she started getting negative returns, as Hill would call them. She started hitting only the outer ring. Her muscles were fatigued and needed recovery time. She wanted to strengthen her arm muscles so that when Hill got back, she would no longer have quivering arm muscles or a spasmodic trapezius.

Tess was a retired physical therapist and only took a few patients privately for the oddest ailments. When Rocky tumbled into Tess house, Tess put her hands on her hips and said, “At least let me do a little acupressure to keep you from seizing up like an engine without oil.”

Rocky gratefully climbed on her treatment table with her nose and mouth peering through the open slot at the top of the table. Tess talked as she pressed her thumbs and knuckles into key places on Rocky’s back.

“It was a sheer waste of time for me not to come clean with my synesthesia when I was working full-time. I would have had a different shingle like, ‘Synesthesia assisted techniques.’ People are more accepting now; ten years ago it was harder. Do you want to know how I see your body?”

“Sure, what do you see?” said Rocky.

Rocky was relieved to hear Tess talk. It kept her from thinking about the next archery lesson and Hill.

“Most bodyworkers see through their hands. There are the mechanical ones who see the body in an architectural
way, bones attached by joints and ligaments and tendons and nerves. Their hands see which muscle is pulled tight, which tendon has sprung. And their hands send them a picture of what’s out of place and they figure out how to get it back in place.”

Tess’s hands paused over the area between Rocky’s shoulder blades, then jumped to a place at the back of her neck, and with surprising gentleness, she placed a knuckle above her tailbone. Rocky felt a clear buzz run up her spine.

“Now others see or feel a certain tick, a rhythm that each person has. It’s not a pulse from blood pumping, they say it’s something else, and by tuning into it, they can tell if it’s too erratic, too fast. The PT sort of joins with it and changes the beat. I don’t know how to do that. Not my style. When I close my eyes, I see a picture of your body, color and texture.”

She placed one hand on the front of Rocky’s left shoulder and one on the backside and guided the shoulder in a small circular motion.

“I see some burnt umber here. Not screaming orange, but tiny muscles that have been overtaxed and need time to repair. The body is amazing; you let these muscles rest for two days and they’ll be ready to go again. You might consider using some moderation.”

“I’ve never been good with moderation,” said Rocky through the hole in the table.

Tess placed a shockingly hot palm on the small of Rocky’s back.

“Oh. Now this is interesting. I feel a swarm of pollen-filled bumblebees. Not really, but that’s the sort of buzz I get. This area is about sex and creativity. Generativity.”

Rocky abruptly pushed her body up with both hands.
“Thanks, Tess. That’s all the healthy intervention my body can stand.” She swung her legs around and leapt off the table. She grabbed her parka and left. When she got into the yellow truck, she felt the gushing drone of honeybees, drunk with nectar, between her hipbones.

It was deep into December when Isaiah called Rocky and told her to meet him for coffee. “I think I’ve got some news about the dog.”

Rocky was well into her second cup when Isaiah came to the diner. At this time of year, the counter seats were filled with carpenters and men who had retired but still headed out of the house every morning. Isaiah gave them all a nod and ordered a cup of decaf.

“Charlotte says I’m too old for anything but decaf. Fortunately, I can’t tell the difference. It’s not often when you have to give something up and it goes down so painlessly.” He slid an Orono newspaper, several days old, toward Rocky. It was folded to a second page article. “Take a look,” he said, tapping the specific article with his pointer finger.

Rocky read the article. A woman’s body had been found in a house in Orono. Although the body was badly decomposed, and thought to have been there for a month or more, the police did not suspect foul play. The body had been identified as Elizabeth Townsend, age twenty-eight. An autopsy was being conducted. The mother, who lived in Providence, said that
her daughter had a history of mental instability and she had not been in contact with Elizabeth for over a year.

Rocky pushed the newspaper away. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t get it. You think this woman was the dog’s owner? That’s quite a leap.”

“She had just bought a house here. The old Hamilton place. It was a rental for years; fifteen years easy. The original owners were island people, came here every summer. But when they died, the kids couldn’t be bothered with it and rented it through a management company in Portland. The sale was done by a realtor off island, which is not all that unusual these days. We never even saw a for-sale sign on the island. This Elizabeth purchased the house in October, just about the time you got here.”

“Did you ever see her?”

“No. She probably only owned the place for a few weeks before she died. Unofficially the cops are saying it’s a suicide. They said she left a note, most of which was incomprehensible, but clearly the intent was suicide. She had owned the house in Orono, sold it, and was just renting from the new owners until the end of the year.”

Rocky switched back to diagnostic thinking. Her first stopping place was manic depression; a blast of manic purchasing induced Elizabeth to buy a house on an island, followed by a bottomless depression. It sounded like she had burned bridges with her family, which meant that she might have had severe episodes without medication, severe enough for her mother, or Elizabeth, to rupture their relationship. First diagnostic impression.

“I can’t say I recall seeing her. The only person who can say for sure is one of the kids working the ferry in October. He says he remembers her because of the dog.”

Rocky had seen people bring dogs on the ferry. If they had their cars, they usually kept the dog in the car. But if they were out, she noticed a variety of dogs, some overindulged, overfed, some surprisingly calm in the presence of all the unyielding metal on the ferry. But almost all the dogs balked at the grated walkway from ferry to dock. More than a few dogs held up the line when they feared putting their paws on what must have looked like a plummet into the sea.

“So what did he recall about the dog?” asked Rocky.

“The kid was waiting for the dog to dig in his heels. You almost always have some kind of hitch with dogs. But this dog never looked down. He just walked across. He thought at first he might be a guide dog. That’s when he noticed the woman, expecting her to be blind. Fits the description of her. Young, dark hair, short with lots of blond streaks. Nose stud. He said she looked like a tourist, not the kind who really wants to live here. And he said the dog was a big black Lab.”

The Portland police, who came once a day to the island, told Isaiah more of the details that the newspapers didn’t have. The woman had been found dead on the mainland after a mail carrier contacted the police, after the unmistakable odor found a crack in the house and reached the nose of the only person who came close enough to notice. The cops said that it had all the earmarks of a suicide, even without the note. The doors were both dead-bolted from the inside. This had been a very determined, don’t-try-to-save-me suicide. Empty prescription bottles were found near the body. Autopsy results were pending, but the police unofficially called the death an overdose.

The police had taken a look in the old Hamilton place and
found only a sleeping bag, plastic bowls on the floor with dog food remains, and some canned soda. They speculated that she had only been there a day or two at the most.

“The place was going to need a lot of work before someone could move in. She might have just come over for a day or so to look it over, see what needed fixing. Nothing has been done to that place for years, and you know what a place can look like after fifteen years of renters,” said Isaiah, still smarting from his previous renters.

Both of their cups were empty. “Rocky, it could be that your dog, I mean Lloyd, might be her dog.”

Rocky felt an ill wind blow past her. She had images of the people in the Midwest who, in good faith, adopt a baby and suddenly the birth mother, or father, come on the scene two years later and want the baby back.

“There’s one more thing. Charlotte looked up the obituary on the Web from a Providence newspaper. They said Elizabeth was an accomplished archer. A competitive archer.”

“She shot her own dog? Is that what you’re thinking? Most people with mental illness hurt themselves, not others. And surely she wouldn’t kill a creature that provided her with the relentless adoration that only a dog can generate.” But Rocky knew it could happen, if delusions were severe enough, demanding enough.

“It won’t be hard to figure out if the dog belonged to her. Contact the vet clinics in Orono for starters. You could contact the mother.”

Rocky recoiled. She didn’t want to call a mother who was wrestling with the death of a daughter after they had been estranged for over a year. And she particularly didn’t want to call about a dog, as if the death of her daughter wasn’t the
most horrible thing that had ever happened to this woman.

“You’d be better at it than I would. You must have been called on hundreds of times to talk with people after a death. We count on you guys for this. We want you at hospitals and funerals. This is what you used to do, right?”

“If the dog did belong to Elizabeth, then the mother needs to know. By rights the dog was property and should be handed over to the family of the deceased.”

Was Lloyd property? He seemed more like a co-pilot, at least while she was driving. Or a companion.

“Let me check into the Orono clinics. I’ll ask Sam if he can do this. He must have some swift way to e-mail particular areas. There’s no reason to bother this woman’s mother yet, not until we find out.”

Rocky rushed home, driving the yellow truck as fast as she dared. If Isaiah was right, his owner, Elizabeth Townsend, had shot him. Labs are a loyal dog, loyal beyond all reason and they are the sort who attach primarily to one person. They might be fond of other people, even have a host of friends, like the most popular kid in class, even look forward to some people visiting, but they have one main human who is theirs and they would lay down their life for that one. She fought down an image of Lloyd looking unflinchingly at a woman as she raised her bow. What kind of woman would shoot her own dog?

She pulled up to her rental house and Tess was there, just opening her car door. Tess waved. She had on a knit cap and her white hair stuck our beneath it.

“I wanted to give Lloyd a walk. He needs to keep that shoulder moving….” She stopped in midsentence when she saw Rocky’s face. “What’s wrong with you?”

Rocky didn’t pause; she jumped on the deck and pushed open the green front door. Lloyd was waiting, had heard the truck and was ready to greet her. She dropped to one knee and wrapped both arms around him and then she started to cry with one hand over her face. Lloyd squirmed, backed up and sat down.

Rocky eased back into a squat. “Isaiah told me he thinks he found Lloyd’s owner. A woman who killed herself. Probably killed herself,” Rocky said in a thin voice. “She was an archer. I think she shot Lloyd.”

“Oh, no. Now you don’t know that. Tell me what you really do know,” said Tess as she reached an arm down to pull Rocky up. She brushed the hair out of Rocky’s face. “You either need a hair clip or a good haircut.”

Rocky repeated what Isaiah told her at the diner. Tess had her repeat the part about the house on the island. “I wondered what had happened to the Hamilton place. It had a different look to it this fall. Sort of broken, cracked, and it smelled like metal, like aluminum. Should have known the place was sold. But I think you’re wrong about this woman shooting Lloyd, and I can’t even tell you why.”

As soon as Tess said that, Rocky remembered the man at the convenience store in Portland and the way Lloyd nearly blew the top off her car when he saw this guy. And how right after that she had called Hill and set up archery lessons and hadn’t thought of it again.

“There was this guy in Portland who Lloyd recognized, and the dog went nuts in the truck. At least I think Lloyd recognized him; he definitely didn’t like him. And the guy looked startled to see Lloyd.”

“What was the guy doing?”

“He had just gotten out of his truck, and he was walking toward the front door of the convenience store. I was at the door going in.”

“So Lloyd saw him coming toward you, and Lloyd was stuck in your truck.” Tess looked down at the dog, who actively lapped his testicles, no longer interested in the two women. “Sounds like he was trying to protect you. Has he done this again?”

“No. The most aggressive thing Lloyd has done was to nose me awake a couple of times when he had to go out. This guy is like a big koala bear. Hang on a minute, Tess. I’m calling Sam’s office to see if he can get me a list of all the vets over in Orono. I’m going to start calling them to see if they know the dog. At least we can find out what his real name is and stop calling him Lloyd.”

“His name should be Lloyd. It suits him,” said Tess.

After Tess left, Rocky went down the list that Sam’s assistant had faxed to the island library. Each time she called, she said the same thing. “This is the Animal Control Warden on Peak’s Island. I think I have a dog that may have been one of your patients. Was Elizabeth Townsend the owner of a black lab?”

She called six offices before she got the direct hit. She knew it right away when the receptionist said, “Hold on please, I’m going to have you speak with Dr. Harris.” Two minutes of local radio music followed. Rocky stood next to the kitchen counter and drew jagged lightning bolts on an envelope addressed to Resident.

“This is Ann Harris. You called about a black Lab.”

“Yeah, I have an injured Lab that I’ve been fostering for about a month while he’s been healing. I’m trying to locate
the owner. We just learned that Elizabeth Townsend was found dead in Orono. She bought a summerhouse here in October. Did she use your services?”

“I read the obituary. Liz had a dog that we took care of since he was a puppy. She’d been coming here for about five years. We were hoping that nothing bad had happened to the dog. Didn’t he have his tags on?”

“No, just a reflector tag, nothing else. He’s a big guy, probably around ninety pounds, although he was thin and dehydrated when I found him. Easy temperament. A few white hairs on his chest.”

“That could be him but it could also be a lot of black Labs. I offered to install a locator chip in Cooper, but Liz didn’t like that idea.”

“Cooper? The dog’s name is Cooper? Lloyd will be very pleased to know that we’ve finally figured out his name.”

The dog had been lying on his side in the afternoon sunshine on the kitchen linoleum. At the sound of his name, his head came up and his legs contracted, bringing his body to standing, as if he had heard a bugle call.

The vet continued. “We had heard nothing about the dog being found in her house. She would have been found a lot quicker if the dog had been there. He would have alerted someone. I’ve seen that happen before.”

“If this is Lloyd…Cooper, there’s something I need to know. He was injured when I found him. Shot with an arrow.”

Rocky heard the controlled silence on the other end of the line. “During bow season, I see about one dog every other week that’s been shot. It’s not uncommon,” said the vet.

“But the dog was shot on the island. We don’t have a bow
season here. I know Elizabeth was an archer. I can’t help but put some of this together. Her death was probably a suicide; there is no reason to think otherwise, according to a police report. I’m asking you to speculate about something. Did you ever see anything that would make you wonder if the dog was mistreated?”

“This is Maine. We have people who still think that taking care of a dog means chaining it up in the backyard and throwing food to it once a day. Cooper is a great dog because he’s got great genes and because he had an owner who trained him and took good care of him. Are you asking if I think Liz tried to kill her dog? Absolutely not. Not unless she completely lost her mind.”

Rocky didn’t say it, but she thought, don’t you have to do just that to be twenty-eight years old and kill yourself?

“The other thing about bow hunters is that if they mean to kill a dog, they will. A dog won’t bolt and run like a wild animal. They’re an easy target. Any dog that I’ve ever seen that was shot by arrow had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was always an accident.”

Rocky thanked the vet and hung up. She pulled on a jacket and the dog skittered to his feet and headed for the door. She wanted to clear her head with sharp air; an accommodating blast from the northwest welcomed her into icy arms. She pulled up the hood and walked with Cooper, crisscrossing every trail along the beach, through the dried beachgrass. They sat together in the twilight; Rocky uncomfortable on a damp log, the dog peacefully gnawing a stick, until the chill in her bones forced her up.

In the middle of the night, Rocky continued to feel the steady caffeine-driven thump of her heart. She had not been
asleep since she turned out her light three hours earlier. With each turn from her back to her side, to her stomach, to the other side, the dog rustled on the floor, his sharp leg joints rearranging, claws clattering, sighing impatiently as if he wished he slept with a less rambunctious human.