New England White (33 page)

CHAPTER 36

HUEBNER

(I)

J
ULIA HAD ALWAYS KNOWN
that Mitch Huebner was out there, as Granny Vee used to say, but until she stepped out of the Escalade in the dooryard of his lonely shack in the East Woods, she had not realized that the word
crazy
was too mild. She stood, looking around in wonder. He had a dog, of course, a filthy black monster named Goetz, who growled and drooled and stank when he was in the cab of the plow, and who huffed at her now, restrained by a choke chain that looked to her untrained eye too thin to hold him if he really got going. Cords of wood stood in haphazard piles, some covered neatly with tarps, some scattered on the ground, perhaps struck by a drunken plowman.

The house itself was one story, of dark wood, with two cracked windows on the side facing her, and holes in the wall dabbed with creosote or tar. An unfinished totem, carved from a heavy log, stood next to the door, a face to frighten the devil himself. A cross lashed together from two large branches and painted gold was bolted upright on the roof, giving the grim house something of the look of a backwoods church in the Bible Belt, only without the raucous joy. Mr. Huebner’s truck was missing, but the body of an old Ford pickup sat on blocks, and Julia could tell at a glance that he cannibalized it for parts for the one he drove. Mr. Huebner was the sort of man who would only ever drive a car that he could fix himself. She had heard him lavish a special seething disdain on the new generation of auto mechanics, who plugged engines into computers to find out what was wrong with them, and downloaded patches from the Internet, while political Lemaster, who prided himself on being able to get along with anybody, nodded severe agreement.

Julia did not want to be here alone, but did not see that she had much choice. The children were in school, except for Aaron, who had another week of vacation. Lemaster was out of town. She would never have a better chance to find out whether she was right, whether Kellen Zant had come here and picked up the diary of Arnold Huebner, long dead, who had been town constable when Gina died.

Mindful of Goetz, who bared his teeth and snarled and spewed frothy strands of saliva but made no other move, Julia inched toward the house.

“Nice doggie,” she murmured, having read somewhere that talking this way actually worked. “Good doggie. Nice doggie. Good boy.”

The dog snapped at her, but from a safe distance. Maybe he was a scaredy-dog.

“Good doggie. Yes. Yes. I’m friendly, see?” Holding up her hands so the beast could see their emptiness. She wondered whether he could smell cat on her, and what difference it might make. “Good boy. Nice doggie.”

Goetz lowered his massive head to his hairy paws. He was shivering, perhaps from the cold, although his pelt was very rich. The doghouse off behind him looked far too small. He peered at her, tongue dangling from his mouth.

“Yes. Good doggie. Good boy.”

She had reached the door. A snow shovel stood beside it, the wooden handle so grimy and old it might have been a museum piece. Mitch Huebner had cleared a path, but a narrow one. She knocked, because there was no bell, and because she had already guessed that he was not home, which was probably what she wanted.

“Mr. Huebner?” she called.

No answer. She peered through the smeary glass, but it was like looking into someone else’s dream, for all was shadow, shot through with hints of whitish motion. She shivered.

“Mr. Huebner? Are you here?”

Nothing.

“Mr. Huebner. It’s Julia Carlyle. I’d like to talk to you.”

A harder knock. Something moved in the woods, and the dog’s head snapped around to look. So did hers. An angry bird had been disturbed, a red-tailed hawk from the look of it, and Julia tried to remember whether hawks went south for winter. She wondered, if they did, why this one had decided to stick around. Julia waited, but the snowy trees were quiet. She peered down the sodden dirt track along which she had driven but saw no sign of life. Snow crunched loudly out among the trees. The Eggameese, she thought irrelevantly.

“What do you think?” she asked the dog. “Is your daddy here?” Which is what they used to call dogs’ owners back in her childhood.

The animal glared, thick tongue pinkly lolling.

“Are you here by yourself?” She knocked again. “Mr. Huebner, I only need a minute.”

No answer.

She hesitated, glanced around. Goetz watched passively, breathing hard. She wondered how old he must be. She wondered whether he was even a he. She wondered what Anthony Tice was doing. She wondered if Bruce Vallely was still working on the case. She wondered why both campaigns had targeted the same dirt, and which of the bad guys did it. She wondered whether Lemaster loved her or was simply doing his duty by her. She wondered just about everything she could think of, in fact, except why her hand was turning the knob, and why her instincts, usually right, had assured her that the door would be unlocked, which of course it was. She called Mr. Huebner’s name, but it was all for show.

The toe of her boot touched the threshold.

Without a warning growl, the dog charged. The only sound was the sudden snapping as the thin chain broke.

(II)

L
EMASTER HAD ONCE SAID
, partly in mockery, partly in awe, that Julia was like an insect, able to think with parts of her body other than her brain. Actually, he had made this observation on a long-ago tender morning in their marriage bed, but Julia, creature of instinct, knew that the same uncanny speed of choice afflicted her in everyday life. So she did not decide that there was no time to rush into the house and shut the door, she knew it already, when Goetz was still resting placidly in the dooryard, knew it the same way she knew which discs were in the changer in the Escalade, and which blouse Jeannie had on at breakfast, information toward which she would never cast her focus unless she turned out to need it. She could not outrun the dog, she could not evade it, she could not hide behind some barrier. She lacked sufficient time to come up with a plan. There was only the shovel, already seized tightly in her gloved hands, for she had swept it up without thinking at the first hint that the dog was in motion.

Julia spun in place, nearly losing her footing as the beast leaped at her.

She swung the shovel hard, like the softball player she had been at Hanover High, and made firm contact with the creature’s head.

It was like hitting solid rock.

The shovel stung her hands, and Goetz was knocked off course, onto the porch, where he shook his snout, scrabbled for purchase on the ice, then turned, dribbling furiously, and came at her a second time, growling now. She suspected that she had wounded only his pride.

In a panic now, Julia swung a second time, missing the head and smacking the upper torso.

The dog howled in pain but kept on coming. Heavy paws pressed her parka, and, with the bulk of its weight leaning into her, the creature tipped her over. Julia screamed. She and Goetz both hit the ice with the same shivering thud and, for an instant, were equally stunned. The blade of the shovel was between her face and the dog’s snapping jaws. The fall left her dizzy, but hot, fetid breath was in her nose and mouth, waking her as sharply as any smelling salt. The wild black eyes hated her as the snout kept pressing at the shovel, the beast too stupid to realize that it could just nose the metal aside. Sooner or later, Goetz would work it out by trial and error. Julia had known panic, but not like this. Her heart seemed ready to attempt an escape without the rest of her body.

She tried to jerk upward, but she was too small, or the angle was too narrow, or, most likely, the dog was just too big. She freed the hand that was pinned beneath the shovel, but this only gave the monster a target, and he lunged for the fingers, teeth sinking into the glove. She yanked instinctively, and the glove came off in the dog’s angry mouth, the thick cold-resistant fabric confusing him, sticking in his teeth. He snapped and snarled and pawed at his own jaw, and Julia pulled a leg out from under him and kicked up, hard. Goetz tried to stay atop her but skidded again, and she rolled out from under. She tried to get to her feet, but the porch was too icy. Then he was on top of her again, this time on her back, and no shovel to protect her, nothing but the parka, and the fabric was too thin and his jaws were too close, and she screamed and slapped at him awkwardly and thought she heard a shout but it was probably her own and anyway Goetz was not slowing down so she just screamed again—

And the gunshot came as a complete surprise.

(III)

T
HE WEIGHT WAS GONE
. Julia lay there, heaving in terror, briefly unable to move.

“Stupid bitch,” somebody said, which got her blood flowing again, and she rolled over, the panic yet shuddering through her though she was still ready for an argument, until she saw Mitch Huebner gazing sorrowfully at his dog.

Goetz wasn’t hit. At least Julia didn’t think so, although with all that thick black fur it was not easy to tell. But he was cowed—no, she,
she
was cowed—crawling back toward the canted doghouse, the shotgun cradled loosely under Mitch Huebner’s arm having done its work of scaring her off.

He was standing on the running board of his pickup, the dented yellow plow pointing toward the shack as though meaning to push it over, and he still had not looked in her direction. He shut off the engine, and she waited for him to slide the gun back into the rack above the seat, but he didn’t. She noticed for the first time that several of the stickers on the glass behind the driver’s headrest bore the names of organizations squeezed so narrowly into the right-hand margin that they made the National Rifle Association look like the National Council of Churches. He climbed down from the truck and made a great show of walking over to the doghouse, where Goetz continued to sulk, until her master crouched above her, murmuring some words meant to soothe, and gave her what Julia first thought was a bone, then realized was a hamburger. The dog sat up fast, offered that near-smile that dogs present when they want to be liked, and proceeded to tear into the meat with all the gusto she no doubt would have preferred to demonstrate by tearing into Julia.

“Sorry about the dog,” said Mr. Huebner, standing a couple of feet from the porch now, still not looking at his visitor, an apology the last thing she expected, for in her mind she had already laid out a cover story or two. “Breaks every chain I put on her. Gonna hurt somebody one day. Never was much on self-control.” A heavy sigh. “Suppose I should have her put down, but I love the old hag.”

“You could do a fence,” Julia suggested, sitting up and rubbing her bottom, sore from her collision with the ice. The adrenaline rush had her breath ragged. He never asked if she was all right.

“I could at that. Costs money, though.”

“You have to do something about her.” Huffing, huffing. “Like you said, she could hurt somebody.”

“Doesn’t have much in the way of teeth no more.”

“They looked pretty sharp to me.”

“Nearly had to shoot the stupid bitch.” A shake of his head. The bill of his checkered hat hid his expression. “Never had to do that before. Guess you musta really spooked her.”

“She’s dangerous.”

“I don’t get many visitors. Wasn’t expecting one today.” Raising his eyes at last, the shotgun still cradled beneath his arm. His face was its usual bristly red, as though he had for the past few mornings preferred drinking to shaving. He wore old jeans and hunting boots that had a lot of miles on them, and a windbreaker, as though to prove that his roots ran too deep in the loamy New England soil for a little chill to scare him.

“I didn’t mean to barge in. I couldn’t get you on the phone. I knocked, and, well, the door just opened, and then she—”

“She wouldn’t do anything unless you tried to go inside.”

“Well, I—”

“Did you walk in my house, Mrs. Carlyle?”

Caught by a white man, the thing she hated most. Mitch Huebner had her dead to rights. He also had a shotgun. Her mouth flapped for an instant before she got the words in the right order.

“Maybe I put a foot in.”

“Maybe you did at that.” He lowered the barrel. “Way I was raised, we used to call it trespassing.”

A beat. She realized that he was waiting for her to return grace for grace. “I’m sorry, Mr. Huebner. I didn’t mean to. Your door was open.”

Maybe the cold Yankee eyes forgave her, but not by much. “Can I do something for you, Mrs. Carlyle?”

“Uh, well, yes. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, if you have a minute.” Julia shivered. Some of it was aftershock, some of it was fresh fear, some of it was cold. Her fingers in particular were chilly. She wondered where Goetz had tossed her bitten glove.

“Not about the lampposts. I’m not the one who knocked them down, Mrs. Carlyle.” Surly but emphatic. “I’ve hit a lamp or two, a mailbox here and there over the years, even a wall that was buried in the snow. I know what it feels like. I didn’t hit your lights.”

She smiled for him, not an easy performance with her teeth chattering with cold and adrenaline. “I told you before, Mr. Huebner, and I’ll tell you again. I don’t blame you for the lights.” She rubbed a bruised elbow. “I know you didn’t knock them down. I’m sorry I ever thought you did.”

A moment, and now it was his turn to think. She had reassured him. What else did he want? Then he shrugged, and clomped onto the porch. “Come on in if you’ve a mind,” he said, once again not looking at her. Mr. Huebner seemed a little too nervous, even with the business of the lighting fixtures out of the way, and Julia sensed that he had few women visitors, other than, perhaps, the kind who hung out in the bars at the seedy end of Route 48.

Following his lead, Julia Carlyle stepped over the threshold, and into his madness.

Everything was wrong. Subtly but certainly wrong.

In the stone hearth she saw not only burnt logs, but long, soot-darkened knives, which Mr. Huebner had evidently been heating. Above the mantel was a grimy mirror, but the grime seemed in some way a matter of intention, as though a child had daubed the surface with a marker. Perhaps he usually kept the mirror covered: a moth-eaten blanket, once blue, lying on the unpolished wood floor looked just the right size. The windows, except for the one in the door, were shuttered, and each one had a sprig of some weed—heather?—stapled across the opening. Crosses were daubed in black paint across the shutters. Enough handguns and rifles and semi-automatics lay around the room to start a small war and probably to finish it. A pair of lawn-sized Madonnas stood on either side of the front entrance like the alarm system in a video shop. Tightly closed doors presumably led to the kitchen, the bathroom, perhaps a bedroom, although it looked to her like Mr. Huebner usually slept on the old red leather sofa, beneath a blanket festooned with more crudely drawn crosses. A banner along a side wall called for white power.