Lost & Found (22 page)

The scent of Cooper hit her first, the musk, his oily skin, and now another smell mixed in, urine, and a new scent carried to her by a tendril of moist air. Peter, he was close.

A voice from her right side said, “Drop what you’re carrying or I’ll give him a blast of this. And I don’t think the combination of this Taser gun will mix well with the tranquilizer dart.”

Rocky spun around and to her horror saw the dark outline of Cooper on the ground and Peter holding a Taser inches from the dog.

“I told you this dog was mine,” he said.

Rocky considered her options, with Cooper’s ability to withstand an assault from the Taser being her primary concern. She lowered the bow.

“Drop your little bow and arrow on the ground,” he said and Rocky heard a hint of pleasure in his voice, a sort of satisfaction. The bow dropped to the ground and she measured its distance from her. She reached for the satisfaction that he got from bagging his prey. He would want to be noticed.

“How did you know I had him?” she started. She didn’t care what the answer was; she only wanted him to talk.

“Are you kidding? I knew the day I talked with you. You were just like Liz. You thought I was stupid, didn’t you? I saw it in your eyes. You were going to say anything to get rid of me. Didn’t turn out so well for Liz either.”

He stepped closer to her and kicked the bow to the edge of the trail. Rocky chanced a look at the dog. He was still. She prayed that Peter had not overdosed Cooper.

“He’s alive. I want him alive. You and Liz aren’t the only ones with silent weapons; a Taser gun is such a nice weapon. Do you know how it works? It shoots two little darts that
deliver a wonderful bolt of electricity. I think it will work nicely on Cooper. This is one dog that needs to be trained. Liz wouldn’t let me train him. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be with Liz.”

Rocky had not moved, but she willed her body to relax; she and Cooper could not afford for her to freeze into fear. “She loved you. What happened?” she asked.

Come on, she thought, I know you can’t think of anything else but Liz, talk to me.

“She was never going to find someone better than me, I told her that. And I had gotten her completely off that medicine she was taking. I was taking care of her. She was off all that junk for six months.”

Rocky pictured Liz without her medication for six months: moods skyrocketing and plummeting, hallucinating if she had spiraled out far enough. An angry bile rose in her throat. She saw Cooper’s front feet begin to twitch. She didn’t have as much time as she had hoped.

“But she died from an overdose of meds. I thought you took all her medications away,” she said.

Peter grabbed her arm securely and pulled her to the far edge of the small clearing. She judged his strength from the sharp points of pain where his fingers pressed flesh against bone. He tossed her a roll of duck tape.

“Here, take this and bind up his feet. Tight. I don’t want anymore trouble from him.”

“Where are you taking him?” Rocky knew if she kept him talking long enough, the island fire truck would arrive and Hill would tell them that she was in trouble. Then what? What would a crew of volunteer medics do?

“You think I’m leaving here on the ferry? I told you, I’m way ahead of you. Start wrapping his legs.”

Rocky took the roll of tape and pulled out a two foot long strip. She held it up for Peter to cut it with the pocket knife that he took out of his jacket. She prayed for Cooper to stay dazed a bit longer. She wrapped his front legs together just above his feet.

“But how did she overdose?” Rocky asked again.

Peter snapped open what looked like a boat bag, the kind that kayakers use to keep their gear dry. He held the stun gun beneath one arm. “I had saved all of her medicine, kept it locked up in my truck. After she went nuts on me, after I brought her back from this island…that’s when I said, ‘Here, take all this shit. You want it, then take it!’ And I dumped all her medicine at her house. We all make choices and Liz made hers.”

Rocky wrapped Cooper’s legs with as much care as she dared. Peter had not noticed the quiver that she carried. She let it fall quietly beside her. With one hand, she slipped out one of the arrows.

“She was in a manic phase and you gave her six months’ worth of meds and then left her? Did you give up on her? No, wait, did she give up on you?” she asked.

Peter stood over her. “I’m telling you, if she had done everything I told her to do, she’d be here right now. ‘Get rid of the damn dog,’ I told her. No, she keeps the dog, treats him better than she treats me. When I found her on this island, she was fucking crazy, she thought I was the devil. She ran from me. Me! I ran after her and she had her archery stuff, pointing at me. I told her, ‘Liz, it’s me for Christ’s sake!’ Then
I hear the dog coming at me. The dog leaps at me. She shoots and hits the dog instead of me. Suppose I should be grateful to the dog.”

Rocky slid the arrow part way up her jacket sleeve. She knew Peter hadn’t told this saga to anyone, and it had been fermenting with acidic vapors since the fall and now he let his aggressive posture fall momentarily away as he talked.

“Here’s what you’re going to help me do. We’re going to drag this dog down to the beach where I’ve got a boat,” he said. “I’ve been slipping in and out of this island for weeks.”

No, thought Rocky. This is all wrong; I needed someone to see us trying to leave on the ferry. I needed someone to help me. I can’t do this alone; he’s too strong. That’s when she remembered Bob, when they first met, Bob sitting serenely at the bottom of the pool, waiting to be saved by her, trusting her with his life. He had smiled at her and blew out the remaining air in his lungs.

She felt her feet push off from the slick bottom of the pool, carrying the full weight of a man.

“And what about me?” she asked Peter. “I’m not coming with you.”

He pulled the tranquilizer dart out of the dog’s back leg and slipped the bag under Cooper’s hindquarters. “Here, grab one side of this bag. We don’t want our doggie to get wet on the crossing, do we? And you’re coming with me, at least part way. Look like a good night for a swim?”

He crouched down and set the Taser beside him to stuff the dog into the bag. Rocky suddenly lay back on the ground and punched hard with both legs, hitting him in the chest. He fell sideways with a shout. “Fucking bitch!”

She fumbled with the arrow and pulled it out of her sleeve,
rolling onto her side. Peter reached for the stun gun; it was so close to him. Rocky rose up on her knees and drew her arm back, holding the arrow inches from the point and brought the arrow down on Peter’s hand with the full weight of her body.

He screamed in shock. Rocky grabbed the stun gun and stood up. She pointed what she hoped was the front end of the gun at him.

“I will shoot you. I’ve already had a very bad day, and you are not the first person I’ve shot today. So don’t move. Don’t fooking move!” She had no idea if the gun had a lock, how it worked, but she had her fingers at what felt like a trigger.

Peter grabbed the protruding arrow with his free hand, and with a curdled howl he broke it in half. He rose up on one knee and stood up like a wrestler ready to lunge. Rocky knew that he was coming at her and this was her last chance. And Cooper, it was Cooper’s last chance.

The man roared like a bear, opening his mouth, throwing both arms wide. Rocky squeezed the trigger, and the force of the charge from the two wires dropped him, convulsing to the ground. Keeping the Taser in one hand, she grabbed the bag that half-contained Cooper, dragging him onto the trail, far away from Peter.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Cooper whimpered. Rocky saw a light bounce around the corner of the trail, a huge flashlight, bouncing at an oddly familiar tempo. Then the light filled her eyes and she put her hands up to cover her face.

Melissa shouted, “I’ve found them! Isaiah, I’ve found them! Over here!”

The sudden presence of the girl both heartened and dis
mayed Rocky. She did not want Peter to harm Melissa if he recovered too quickly. “Lissa, toss me that roll of tape. Now help Cooper. Get that stuff off his legs.”

Rocky saw Peter try to get up and she pulled the trigger again and prayed that the gun still held a charge. It did. Peter’s body jerked into spasm. She ripped an arm’s length of duct tape, placed one foot on his back, grabbed one arm, then the other, and circled his wrists with steel gray tape. Rocky stood up, panting and shaking.

Melissa’s flashlight lay on the ground, offering an arc of light on the girl who crouched on the ground next to Cooper. Melissa’s eyes were huge. She looked from Rocky to the man.

“You kick ass, therefore you are,” said the girl slowly. Before Rocky could respond, the sound of Isaiah’s voice boomed along the trail, calling her name.

The ride to the mainland on the water ambulance was harrowing but brief. Tess and Hill were wrapped in thermal blankets and strapped to stretchers. Two volunteer firefighters sat on Peter, while Isaiah kept his arm around Rocky, who could not stop shivering. She was keenly aware of how small the boat was compared to the rumbling ferry. Every time it hit the top of a wave, she felt a jolt from her tailbone to her head. There was at least some comfort in the fact that Melissa and her mother were back at Rocky’s house with Cooper, and they had promised to call Dr. Reynolds to see if the dog needed any medical attention after his ordeal. As they pulled into the dock in Portland, two police cars stayed to take Peter away and an ambulance waited with the rear doors open to take Hill and Tess to the hospital. Rocky impatiently answered the police officer’s questions as she watched the ambulance pull away. Isaiah urged her to report every detail about Peter.

“We’ll get to the hospital, but let’s make sure Peter’s stalking days are over first,” he said.

By the time they arrived at the hospital, Tess was being
prepped and sedated for emergency surgery. Pre-op medications appeared to relieve Tess from the intensity of her pain. She grabbed Rocky’s sleeve as the younger woman leaned over in concern.

“I might as well tell you, I’ve got cancer. I’ve known for months. It’s been setting up shop in my abdomen. You better call Len; he understands hospitals and their language. His phone number is in my purse, in the address book. He’ll call the children. I’m sorry, Rocky,” said Tess, her eyes dreamy with medication.

“What! What do you mean, cancer? You’re not dying, are you?” said Rocky as she collapsed in tears. Tess disappeared behind the automatic doors leading to the surgery unit.

Len did not live far from the hospital and was there in fifteen minutes. Isaiah had checked in on Hill, who was asking for Rocky. “He can wait,” she insisted. “He’s not dying, and I can only attend to one disaster at a time.”

Rocky had never met Len before, and had only heard about him from Tess, who had regaled Rocky with stories about their weekly competition with darts. She did not expect the tall, handsome man with the searing blue eyes. Len moved easily in the hospital and was able to get a report from an obliging nurse. Tess had a ruptured appendix. Len shook his head. “The doctor said that she must have suffered with an inflamed appendix for weeks, even months. If she had just come in to be examined, they could have figured this out in fifteen minutes. Instead, her appendix ruptured. And on top of that, she had an obstructed bowel, and I can’t honestly tell you where that came from, and neither can the docs.”

Rocky said, “So she doesn’t have cancer? She’s going to live?”

“Cancer? Where did she get that idea? Did she think she was dying? And she wasn’t going to tell me?” Len’s eyes registered anger, but Rocky knew that the emotion was layered thick with years and that anger was just the surface.

Rocky reached for his hand. “Maybe it was one of those synesthesia things; maybe she thought she saw something. Maybe it was green or shaped funny or made a sound that the rest of us couldn’t hear. But is she going to be OK?”

He squeezed her hand in return and sighed, relief pouring off him. “Yes. There’s the infection to deal with, and the surgery, but yes, she’ll recover.”

“I’ve got one more emergency to handle. Will you excuse me?” asked Rocky. She located Hill’s room as he waited for surgery. Someone had clipped the arrow so only several inches protruded from his upper thigh. An IV bag hung by his side, and just as Rocky walked in, a man in blue scrubs injected something into the line. “This should relax you. We’ll come get you as soon as the last surgery is cleared out. See you in fifteen minutes.”

Hill looked up at her and said, “You’re not going to shoot me again, are you?” He held out his hand as she came closer to the gurney. “This is going to score so many points with my students in B Period English. We’re studying Beowulf, and I brought a few bows to school for them to try. They’re going to love this. Hey, that stuff he injected makes me feel like I just drank about four beers.”

“What in the world were you doing on the island?” asked Rocky. She sat next to the wheeled stretcher.

“You had a very bad guy out there. I was hunting the bad guy.” He smiled his crooked smile. “But the bad guy didn’t know who he was up against. I’m not sure you needed me.”

Rocky lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed her lips to his palm. “Not true, not true at all,” she whispered.

Tess did not return to the island until March, after spending weeks recuperating at her daughter’s home.

“Len hovered relentlessly. He also got more peeks at my poor belly than he’d had in decades. He said his interest was purely clinical, but I don’t believe him,” said Tess.

Rocky was thrilled to have Tess back again, as if everyone was finally back in the right place. It was an unseasonably warm day and Rocky followed Tess’s instructions about uncovering her crocus from the winter debris so they could emerge unfettered. Tess watched her from a chair placed next to the garden. Cooper assisted by digging his own spot in the garden, until Rocky made him stop by throwing a stick for him.

“Len will be here again tomorrow. He said this is my penance for not telling him I was sick. He brought a dartboard and darts. He’s beating me terribly while I’m compromised. Not fair.”

Rocky knew that Len also came to walk with Tess. She had seen the two of them on the beach, the tall, white-haired Len, with Tess resting her hand lightly on his arm.

“Come inside. I’m done with your garden work. I’ve got some of Melissa’s photos to show you,” said Rocky.

Melissa had joined the photography club and Cooper was her number-one subject. Whenever Rocky noticed Melissa these days, a girl named Chris was with her. The two girls carried their cameras everywhere.

Rocky spread the photos of Cooper on the coffee table for Tess to see, but no sooner had Tess curled in her overstuffed
chair, than she dozed off, napping in the full tonic of sunshine like a cat. Cooper also decided to nap. Rocky picked up one of the photos of Cooper.

In this one he was looking noble, his great chest expanded without effort, offering the camera his best senatorial profile. And here, in this one, Cooper and Tess were sitting on the deck and he had one mighty paw on her foot. And in this one, Melissa caught him in midflight, back legs extended, head driving forward, all for the glory of catching a tennis ball. There was not a hint of sadness in any of the photos. When did he leave behind all the grief of losing his true love? Where had it gone?

Rocky had gone over the scene again and again, knowing only snippets from the police report, filling in the rest with conjectures: Liz’s sleep-deprived psychosis, her full-out non-medicated mania, fleeing an obsessive boyfriend. Liz must have bought the old Hamilton place as a refuge, and for a brief moment in time it was, until the unexpected appearance of Peter.

Shouldn’t Liz have known Cooper would try to protect her? That the fur on this back would rise, a deep rumble would erupt from this throat, that he would issue a last warning to Peter to stay away? Liz would have faltered for a second, as she stood with her weapon, her resolve crumbling just enough, doubting her own perceptions, doubting the danger. The dog leapt, following Peter’s scent, leapt as high as he dared, to pull him down, and Liz, at that very moment, pulled back on her bow and took her shot. Liz had plucked her own dog from the air.

Peter would not tell the police exactly how he dragged Liz from the island. He did say that he told her over and over
again that she had killed her dog. And Cooper had been left behind. Rocky pictured the last days in Liz’s life in Orono: the fragile structure of her mind unraveling, chewing away at itself as Peter drove her back to Orono and left her at her house, trying to teach her a lesson by tossing her bottles of stored medication at her, abandoning her. It would not take Liz long to saw her arrows and bows into tiny bits, stacking them on her table. It would not have taken her long to die by her own hand.

Rocky nudged Cooper with her foot. “Come on, you. Let’s go home.” She slipped quietly out of Tess’s house. Her job still called and she had an important delivery to make today. But Cooper needed to go home first and she needed lunch.

As soon as Rocky and Cooper entered the house, Peterson began her new game of pouncing at the dog’s tail and then dashing off. Cooper eyed her with the same level of interest as one might have for a fly, as if a dog of his standing could not possibly be interested in this type of inferior play. Yet just last night, Rocky noticed that Peterson had wedged herself behind Cooper as he lay gnawing on a stick. Cooper had peered over his backside as the once skittish cat curled against him and eyed her with surprise, then with an odd sigh, he returned to his slobbery stick.

Rocky made a ham and cheese sandwich and considered two letters that sat on her counter. One was from her boss at the university, asking her to verify her return date in the fall. The other was from Jan Townsend, who said they were coming out to the island soon to look at the house that was part of Liz’s estate. And did Rocky know anyone on the island who might have an interest in buying the place before they contacted a real estate agent? The letters jostled for her
attention. Rocky turned them facedown on the counter and placed her used plate on top of them. Not yet; she didn’t have to decide anything yet. Right now she was still an animal control warden.

Ten days ago, a tomcat was discovered on the east side of the island, called in by a neighbor who said, “He’s not exactly feral, but he’s darn close. Guess you better come get him and bring him to the mainland before he starves to death.”

Rocky had easily trapped the cat and kept him for a day at Isaiah’s public works garage. The cat was black with three white paws and a white diamond on his face. His ears had been bitten and nicked from years of fighting with other toms and he had an abscess on his jaw. The cat hissed at her each time she came near. She waited twenty-four hours in case anyone called about a lost cat, then took him to the animal shelter in Portland. A sick and battered-up tom was the last cat anyone would adopt. She dropped him off at the shelter, knowing if the shelter was crowded, as they frequently were, he would be put down.

Yesterday, Rocky got a call. “This is Mrs. Hancock. My cat has been missing. He usually comes back after three days, but I’m afraid something has happened to him. He’s black with white paws. Three of them, and a sweet white face.”

Rocky rang up the shelter, fearing the worse. “Don’t kill the tom I brought in! He’s got an owner.”

The receptionist said, “We’ve just finished all the procedures for the day. You’re probably too late. I’ll check and call you back.”

Rocky dreaded telling Mrs. Hancock that she had delivered her cat to his doom. The shelter called back.

“You’re not going to believe this. We made a mistake and
put him on the schedule for neutering. He’s here. Do you hear that sound? He’s not a happy boy. Come and get him tomorrow; I’ll send someone down to the pier with him.”

Rocky took the ferry over and was met at the pier by one of the shelter volunteers with a cat carrier.

“He’s not happy about his missing testicles,” she said.

Rocky got back on the ferry for the return trip. She delivered the cat to Mrs. Hancock, who opened the carrier and took out a suddenly sweet cat that pushed his tattered head into her hands. Rocky explained his shaved abdomen, with apologies. The women stroked him and the cat purred like an outboard motor.

“I know he’s really as ugly as sin; I’m not blind. And he’s a terror to other cats, but I don’t know what I would do without him. There’s no explanation for love. But love is all that matters, isn’t it?”

Rocky felt her body rearrange itself; her bones slid into their sockets in a slightly different way, and a chunk of asphalt lifted off her heart. In its place, a space opened up that had been reserved for only Bob.

She left the reunited cat owner and drove home to get Cooper. They were going to visit Hill.