Lost & Found (13 page)

Tess’s first inkling of danger came in the rich moments before waking when she was filled with light and dark, warm under the comforter and cool on her face. The dark green rectangle was a bad shape to have in the abdomen, and the shade of green was not forest green, decorator green, or chlorophyll, but necrotic. Lower right pelvic bowl. She pulled herself up and wondered if it was a dream. But a part of her brain, the glorious multiwired part that she now so loved, registered the rectangle and she couldn’t stop seeing it.

Tess’s exacting memory for anatomy could not be called a photographic memory, since they were not based on photos of the interior world of the body. What she learned about the body was not just to be found in textbooks. Her vision of the body looked more like Michelangelo’s sketches, someone she long suspected of being a synesthete. That would account for a lot.

In her world, the kidneys and liver were orange brick factories with reliable workers who continually brought in boxes and bags of goods to be sorted. Some were used for fuel, some were trouble, and some were stored. A big recycling effort.
Brick, two story, with a continually turning waterwheel.

Or take the heart. It was ruby red and midnight blue, a creature from the sea, a sightless fish that heard everything, vibrated to sad movies and disappointed lovers, and sent its messages in flowing movement, undulating from its core. And the whole uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries were one continent with a long string of islands on either side book-ended by volcanoes that erupted with a glistening egg each month in an unerringly egalitarian manner, one volcano never taking two turns in a row, a perfect Ping-Pong game across the continent.

Tess knew the inside of her body, or anyone’s body, but hers in particular. The green rectangle had set up shop, had slipped in under cover of darkness. Had a switch been flipped somewhere else in the thin dolphin glands or the round star-shaped glands? She was sixty-eight. Was this going to be all she had?

She would wait before going to see a doctor, before the long series of tests that would no doubt be run to tell them what she already knew. She wondered how long it had been lodged in her body and what damage it had already done. She gave herself permission to not let it intrude yet on this full and happy part of her life. Tess fit perfectly inside her body. If she glanced at her reflection in a shop window, she was momentarily startled at her white hair, but not judgmental. She was done with the criticism of her harsh youth; was she pretty enough, smart enough, good enough. Now she walked a full life of yes, yes, and yes. Even her ex-husband had emerged, yellowed and gasping from half of a life soaked in vodka, blinking at the bright relentless sunlight of clear-headedness.

Every Thursday they met for dinner and a game of darts in Portland. If they had stayed married, it would have been forty-six years in February, but they had not. His drunkenness culminated in a desperate divorce decades ago, so long ago that Tess realized that they had been friends through nearly four lifetimes. The first lifetime was college and romance, marriage and babies. The next was the terrifying part, watching Len slip further and faster into catastrophic binges followed by a steady diet of more alcohol than she thought one human could ingest. The next lifetime was the divorce, Tess and the two kids without Len, going back to school and loving it, and then the kids grew up. Somewhere in there Len got sober after two bouts at a treatment center. He couldn’t practice medicine anymore, and hadn’t for thirty years, but he worked three days a week at the Chamber of Commerce in Portland, telling tourists what time the ferries left and where to park their cars. The fourth part was sober darts once a week.

She felt the pain again in her lower abdomen, saw the hard edges. She was driving to Orono with Rocky and she could smell the panic coming off the younger woman’s skin, a scent like cider vinegar and mangoes that had gone too far past ripe. Tess shifted in the driver’s seat and put her left hand on the wheel and placed her right hand on the crease between torso and thigh. With her thumb, she pressed with curiosity to see if the dark angular shape could be felt from the outside. Rocky was absorbed in her own cold fear and wouldn’t notice a little tummy prodding. Tess felt sure of this. No, of course she couldn’t feel the outline of anything, but somewhere deep inside responded with a honeycomb of orange pain.

Tess put her right hand back on the steering wheel but part of her brain fell through her body, tumbled down into her lungs, slid past a kidney and liver, made its way around a maze of intestines large and small, and settled in the neighborhood of the unwelcome intruder.

No you don’t, not now, I’m not ready.

Then she left the intruder as she listened to Rocky tell her who she was and how death had robbed her. The irritation she felt at Rocky for not trusting her felt good, felt like life compared to the destruction going on in her body. She reveled in the chance to spar with this new friend and she gave her a suitable lashing.

“I feel tricked and I don’t deserve it,” said Tess. Was this for Rocky or her own body?

They drove to the edge of Orono, to the town where Liz Townsend had lived. Tess pulled up to the clinic and Rocky leashed the dog. Once they were inside, a receptionist called him by name. The young woman behind the desk looked stunned. Tess could see a healthy skeptic, a scientist ensconced as an office manager. She moved away from the counter, walked slowly to the dog. She looked like part of her still had the brakes on. She slid a hand into her pocket. “Cooper, I have a biscuit for you.” As soon as she said this, the dog walked up to her, sat down, and then lay down. This must have been her test and with the success of her experiment, she crumbled.

“Oh, Cooper. I was so worried that we wouldn’t see you again.”

Dr. Harris clinched the dog’s identity.

“I had forgotten this when you called yesterday. Liz’s dog had a dewclaw missing on his right front leg. He had snagged it badly when they were hiking through some pretty tough underbrush. I had to remove it.”

The doctor knelt by the dog. He was too big for the steel table. She ran her hand along the back of his leg.

“Yup, no dewclaw, but I would have known him anyway. I know my patients. This is Cooper. Liz didn’t want him to have a chip installed, no matter how much I tried to convince her. He was pretty popular here. Some dogs just are. Other dogs get traumatized by a medical procedure and for the rest of their days coming to the vet is an ordeal for everyone. Cooper always acted like he knew we were doing the best that we could. The dewclaw was the worst we had to do to him, and it wasn’t that difficult.”

The doctor checked the shoulder area where he had been injured over a month ago.

“This is what you were talking about, right? Dogs heal so quickly. Once they begin to mend, you might never be able to
tell they had surgery. But I can see he lost some muscle and he might keep the limp.” She explored the area with fingers that read his body like Braille. She stood up.

“So now what? You’ve identified the dog. What are you going to do with him?”

Rocky had hoped that bringing him here would clear something up, and it hadn’t. She had dragged Tess and the dog all the way to Orono for nothing.

“Liz’s parents are coming to the island tomorrow to get him. Right now he’s under my custody,” said Rocky. She was startled by her use of the word custody, as if this was a divorce case involving children, or as if Cooper was in prison. “Do you have any idea what Liz’s wishes would have been?” asked Rocky.

“She was a good pet owner, one of the best. She seemed like she might be sort of impulsive in other parts of her life. But not about taking care of Cooper. They were devoted to each other. Sometimes you see that with a dog like this; they become companions. So I guess she would want him to have a home where people cared about him. What about the boyfriend? The last time I saw her, which was back in May, she had a boyfriend living with her. I only know this because she said he tried to make Cooper sleep outside the bedroom, but the dog made such a fuss that even the boyfriend gave in.”

Rocky looked at Tess at the mention of a boyfriend and they both factored in one more person.

“Did he get along with the dog? I mean was he jealous?” asked Tess.

The doctor took the moment to check the dog’s ears. “No, Liz said he wanted the dog to like him more, but Cooper po
litely ignored him. Wouldn’t do one thing he asked him to do. Are we done here?”

Rocky remembered what she’d brought, what she had thrown in her pack at the last moment.

“I brought the arrow,” she said.

Both Tess and Dr. Harris looked at her.

“The arrow that was surgically removed, the one someone used to shoot him.” Rocky took her small black daypack off her shoulder. She put it on the examining table and unzipped it. She pulled out a manila envelope, straightened the two arms of the clasp and held it up so that the arrow slid out with a sharp clack from the point and a more stunted sound from the shaft. Only about four inches remained of the shaft. The doctor picked it up.

“Traditional bow hunter. I have to say that I admire this more than the other type. If you can be accurate with a traditional bow, you are part of an elite group. But you don’t have the power of a compound bow, which is what may have saved our friend here.” She nodded her head at Cooper, who had decided to sit on Rocky’s feet. “If you’re wondering if I knew anything about Liz’s archery, I don’t. When people come here, they only talk about their animals, or that part of their life that relates to their animals. She was a good, responsible pet owner.” Dr. Harris looked down at the dog. “He’s taken you on, hasn’t he?”

Rocky noticed the weight of his rump on her feet and how he kept her from floating away.

“Yeah, we seem to be operating hip to hip these days. But that’s one reason why I really want to find out if Liz would want him to go to her parents. Wasn’t she out of touch with her family?”

Dr. Harris put her hands in the pockets of her vest. “You’re an animal control officer? You’ve got a couple who want this dog and you drove three hours to make sure it was truly Liz’s dog. You are either the most dedicated dog warden I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the best, or something else is bothering you. What are you worried about?”

Tess and Dr. Harris faced Rocky. The dog, sensing a change in the atmosphere, tilted his head up and also looked at Rocky.

“I needed to hear you say that Liz wouldn’t have hurt him. I thought that would have been enough. But something is wrong here and we’re all missing what it is. You’re a scientist,” said Rocky, pointing her head at the vet. “There’s a certain order to things, A leads to B, causality of certain events, but something is out of order here.”

Ann Harris looked puzzled by Rocky.

Tess said, “She’s a dog warden now, recently vacated from her life as a psychologist. Some sort of career move.”

“Liz didn’t say anything about that to me. I wasn’t her confidante. Ask me anything about this dog’s health, and I can tell you that,” said Dr. Harris.

“Can you tell me where she lived?”

The vet paused for a minute. “Well, there’s no standard of confidentiality about to be breached. I guess there’s no reason not to,” she said. She opened up Cooper’s file on the counter. “Liz lived over in Old Town, near the college. It’s really still Orono, but they like to have their own name.”

Rocky wrote down the address and suddenly something shifted. She realized that she was in a veterinarian clinic, really in it, and her first thought, and second, and third had not been about Bob. But her reprieve was over. The smells
thundered in on her, the oily scent of water dogs, the familiar disinfectant to cover up cat and dog accidents, even the lingering scent of a poodle’s anal glands that had been recently emptied out, all joined forces to drag her back to the empty well of Bob’s death.

Her heart began to pound and drum blood through her ears. Her breath turned shallow, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her, and she could no longer hear the words that Dr. Harris was saying.

“I need some air…must have been the drive,” she said as she headed with determination for the door of the examining room. She heard Cooper’s claws scuttle to standing as she touched the doorknob.

“I’ll be outside,” she said in a small, dry voice. She walked past the receptionist and pushed open the front door. Cooper followed with his leash dragging on the floor. Outside, she leaned on Tess’s car and gulped in fistfuls of cold, biting air, filling herself back up. She knew how to handle this; she had taught countless people how to counteract anxiety attacks. Take even, steady breaths, and slow your breathing. Inhale for four, hold for four, breath out for eight. Slow and steady.

Tess joined her. “You don’t look so good. You are exactly the color of wet ash. I said our goodbyes in there. And here’s the arrow.” She handed the envelope back to Rocky.

“It’s just being in a vet clinic again. It took me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Smells. Happens to me all the time. The olfactory sense goes to a part of our brain that lights up memory. Being in a vet clinic must be like standing in your husband’s pajamas. Take a few deep breaths of fresh air,” said Tess.

Tess pulled a blue Polartec hat out of her coat pocket and
pulled it on; her white hair jutted out beneath it. She extracted gloves and pulled them on. It was early afternoon and a storm front from the northwest was steadily approaching. “This would be a good time for us to head home. I don’t want to drive in a blizzard,” said Tess.

Rocky straightened up. “Not yet. We’ve got her address. I want to drive past her house. Look, I don’t exactly know why…”

The clinic door opened and the receptionist waved an arm at them. “Hey, wait up a second.” The young woman did a little jog to the car, and wrapped her arms tightly around her torso. She had on a T-shirt and a green lab coat over that. “Whatever you do, don’t let Peter talk you into giving the dog to him. Liz was done with him.”

Tess and Rocky exchanged glances. “I didn’t catch your name,” said Rocky.

“Sorry. I’m Shelly. I was a friend of Liz’s. Or we were just starting to be friends again. Nobody could be friends with her when Peter was around.”

“Was that her boyfriend?” asked Tess.

“He had been, unfortunately, for about six months. And then she spent the next three months trying to get rid of him. She never really understood the effect that she had on men. It was like a chemical reaction. They got addicted to her,” said Shelly.

“Was he an archer too?” asked Rocky.

“No. And he tried to get Liz to quit spending so much time with archery. He didn’t like that she competed with men. He didn’t even like that Cooper was so close to Liz. I told her that he was pure trouble. She told me later that she wished she had listened to me.” Shelly’s chin quivered and blood ves
sels swelled in her eyes as she tried not to cry. “I went to the memorial service. I can’t believe she’s gone. That asshole was there, he had the nerve to come to her memorial. He slithered in like the snake that he was. Didn’t speak to anyone.”

“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” Rocky said. She waited until Shelly could talk again. “Did Dr. Harris tell you how I found Cooper? Someone used a traditional bow and arrow to shoot him. Is that what Liz used?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. Liz would never, no matter how whacked out she could get with her bipolar disorder, hurt Cooper. Did you know she was bipolar?”

“I wondered,” said Rocky.

“Until she met Peter, she had her meds figured out and it was like she finally got it, how to manage meds with sleep and diet. She hadn’t had a manic episode for ages until he convinced her to go off her meds and let him take care of her. He was against all medication. And yeah, she was way into the traditional bow and arrow stuff. She got her equipment from some guy out in Nebraska who made everything by hand.”

Two cars pulled into the parking lot to the side of the clinic. An agitated Doberman wearing a plastic cone collar jumped out of one car accompanied by a woman with a wool plaid jacket. From the second car, a silver-haired man lifted an animal carrier from which the howls of one cat, possibly two, could be heard.

“Look, I’ve got to go. Just don’t let Peter have Cooper,” said Shelly. She turned to go back inside.

“Wait. What about Liz’s parents? They’re coming to Peak’s Island tomorrow to get him,” said Rocky.

Shelly stopped. “I don’t know them. Only heard her talk
about them. But let me ask you. Would you want your dog to go to someone who hadn’t talked to you in almost two years? It wasn’t Liz who cut off the relationship. It was her mother. I’ve got to go.”

Tess, Rocky, and the dog got into the car. Rocky unfolded the map of Maine.

“We’re in the neighborhood. How long could it take?” asked Rocky.