The Dog That Whispered (13 page)

She assumed that the knowing nod and his explanation were indications that all such maneuvers would stay well within the tax code.

Hazel did not like worry and did not want to add a tax liability to her short worry list.

The day after setting up all her new bank accounts and deposits, she spent an unpleasant day shopping for a van or “some sort of used delivery truck.” She had never been a car person, so even knowing what to ask for was a problem.

She discovered that delivery vans are at best a no-frills means of transportation—a box with an engine. A vehicle that drove hard and loud was not what she had envisioned as a comfortable cross-country driving machine.

After realizing that a delivery van was not suitable, she had been steered to conversion vans, either offering multiple seating arrangements with some form of audiovisual entertainment system, or a camper van, with refrigerators and stoves and bathrooms and that cost more than the amount she had kept back from the sale of her stock—sometimes almost twice as much.

She could not imagine spending that much on a car—even a big car. Even a new car.

Instead, she settled for a used Nissan Quest. “A quest for the truth, get it?” she had told herself.

There wasn't really space for a bed, but if she folded down the backseats she could lie down.

And there wasn't really a place for a stove inside the vehicle for making coffee. That bothered her at first, but she then decided it was okay. “When am I going to be so far off the beaten path that I can't find a Starbucks…or a Texaco station selling coffee?”

Her mother may have been a hippie at heart, willing to sleep on the ground and eschew showers and morning coffee, but Hazel was not her mother—not at all.

“I'll stay at hotels. Maybe not expensive hotels, but I don't think I'll ever have to sleep in the car overnight.”

She walked through her condo—it didn't take more than a few dozen steps—taking a mental inventory of what still needed to be boxed, and what would be sent along unboxed, like the couch and bedframe and large lamps. She was close to being done.

She returned to the kitchen, made a cup of instant coffee; her fancier pod coffeemaker had already been scrubbed clean and packed up, ready for donating. She sat at her computer. The computer would go as well, but not until she figured out how to get her email on the new electronic tablet she had purchased.

She typed in her password and checked her email account.

Most were several ads from stores where she shopped.

But one was not.

The email listed as sender a name she did not recognize, but the name was followed by the words “Tropic Thunder Veterans 25th Division.”

She felt her heart thump in response, and she waited a long moment before opening the email—worried, excited, and anxious all at the same time.

“I hear you. I have heard you. You haven't said much else to me for the past two weeks.”

Wilson stood in the front alcove of the house, in the more official telephone-answering spot, ignoring his reflection in the mirror, and ignoring Thurman, who sauntered about the entryway with cheerful energy, looking up at Wilson every few steps and whispering-growling some matter of encouragement. Wilson wondered how the dog could tell it was his mother on the other end of the line. When the call was a telemarketing call, from a window-cleaning business, for example, Thurman hardly opened his eyes or raised his head.

Maybe he has good hearing and can actually hear her voice
.

Wilson stared at the dog, then offered a world-weary scowl. It was obvious that Thurman viewed it as a good-natured, well-intended scowl, because he grinned and growled,
Bunkum
.

Or maybe the mutt is psychic
.

Wilson listened to his mother go on, without really listening.

Or maybe he's tapped into the power of the underworld. A demon dog
.

One of Wilson's students had read several pages of his Stephen King–wannabe novel, which Wilson had disliked thoroughly, but it did get him thinking in odd directions that afternoon.

“Okay, Mother, I said I would call. And I will. But remember, you were the one who promised her I would call. I didn't.”

There was a gap of several moments of silence. Wilson's mother apparently was deciding if she could risk showing offense at the comment, and thus risk having Wilson change his mind, or if she should show some small amount of umbrage over her son's caustic response.

“I can hear you thinking, Mother.”

There was a snort on the other end of the line.

“I will call her. I said I would. And I will. Today. This afternoon. Okay?”

With that, Thurman bounced up, put his front paws on Wilson's chest, and growled out,
Good boy
, all the while grinning like a toddler in a toy store.

Gretna responded loudly, “That's a good boy.”

Again, Wilson was sure she was talking to both of them, but probably more to Thurman than to her own son.

H
AZEL'S
Q
UEST
had been packed with two bags of red licorice, four average-sized suitcases, and three bottles of water she had left in her refrigerator.

None of the suitcases held cold-weather gear.

“If it gets cold, I'll buy a coat,” she told herself, giving herself permission to travel light, or lighter than one would expect for someone going on the road for an indefinite period of time.

If I get tired of traveling, I'll stay at one of those suite hotels for a week. Do laundry. Watch TV all day. Normal things. That's if I get tired of traveling
.

Her first objective, after leaving Portland, was to drive south along the Pacific Coast Highway, a road she had read about and seen pictures of but had never once visited. Once in California, she would head east, into Arizona and on to Phoenix.

The email about the 25th Division had come from a man in Phoenix who was the current head of the division's reunion committee.

“I might have a lead on who this is,” the man wrote. “I have a couple of pictures here that might be him. Any chance you could travel to Phoenix? My traveling days, unfortunately, are over—and I don't want to let any photos out of my possession.”

Hazel wondered why he just didn't scan them and send them electronically, but if he was a Vietnam veteran, he could easily be close to seventy now, and Hazel also knew that some technological solutions might seem insurmountable to that sort of person. He would not have been a digital native.

Scanning might be beyond his pay grade
, she thought, smiling.

The closing on her condo was taking place tomorrow, and while she could have skipped the signing and left it up to the attorney that Charlene had recommended, she thought her being there would be a definitive closing act to her life in Portland.

It meant that she had to stay at a hotel that last night.

Might as well get used to it
.

She'd booked a room at the Embassy Suites. On her way there that afternoon, she'd stopped at St. James Lutheran Church. Inside her coat was a sealed envelope. Wondering if she should have called and made an appointment, she'd opened the massive wooden door and walked inside, the quiet enveloping her like a thick, dark shawl. The offices were off to one side and she'd walked slowly and as quietly as she could, not wanting to shatter the cloaking, intimate silence with the sound of footsteps.

I should have come more often
, she thought to herself at the time.

She stopped and peered in at the sanctuary. The deep red carpet, the ornately carved wooden support beams of the ceiling, the gleam of the pipe organ even in the dim light, the glistering, fractured afternoon sun coming through the stained glass windows…

It is so peaceful. And so…reverential…if that's a real word. Like God lives here, sort of. I mean, I know he doesn't, but he could. It would suit him
.

She stepped into the office and blinked, the bright fluorescent lights a sharp contrast to the sanctuary.

The woman at the first desk looked up, smiling.

“Yes?”

Hazel hesitated for a second. She had never spoken to one of the pastors, other than to offer a “Good morning” if she happened to get stuck in the aisle where he stood shaking hands at the end of a service. She usually tried to guess which section of the pews would be pastorless at the end of the service, but it still happened occasionally.

“Is the…the pastor here?”

The woman did not stop smiling.

“You mean Pastor Coggins?”

Is that his name? I thought it was something else. I should have checked. Or remembered
.

“Uh…sure.”

The woman at the desk waited for just a beat.

“May I tell him who you are? And what this might be in reference to?”

I hadn't considered that. They probably get all sorts of wacky people in here. I should have thought of something that doesn't sound wacky. Or deranged.

Hazel looked as if she was attempting to decide just what to say. She took a deep breath.

“I'm Hazel Jamison. I come here…not often, but I like it. And I'm leaving the area. And I wanted to give the pastor something before I left. Like a donation. It will only take a minute.”

The woman's smile did not change or slip away or shift into a questioning grimace.

“I'm sure he has more than a minute, Mrs. Jamison.”

“It's sort of…Miss. I mean, I'm not married.”

The woman's smile did shift, just a bit, and she nodded.

“I'm sorry. I mean, not that you're a Miss or a Mrs. I guess we're all guilty of making assumptions, aren't we?”

“I guess we are,” Hazel agreed.

“Wait here. I'll let Pastor Coggins know you're here.”

I should have called. Or just mailed this. I knew it.

Wilson stared at the phone.

Thurman ambled into the vestibule of the house and took it upon himself to stare at it as well, but it was very apparent that he had no idea of just what he was looking at, or why. He sniffed loudly, his nose in the air, thinking that perhaps a mouse or a squirrel or some large morsel of food had become lodged behind the thing that Wilson talked into.

But nothing moved and Thurman did not detect a food scent. Yet Wilson continued to stare, so Thurman happily sat down next to him and kept him company as he did so.

He whisper-growled,
Dogs do this
.

Wilson did not pay attention to his remark.

He looked at a slip of paper in his left hand. A number was written on it. He took a deep breath, picked up the receiver, and slowly and carefully tapped the numbers on the keypad.

He did not want to make a dialing mistake, which would then entail trying to build up the courage to redial all over again. He took a deep breath and held it for a long moment, exhaling loudly as the phone made a connection.

Thurman must not have noticed Wilson ever doing that before, and tried to mimic him, but dogs are apparently not skilled at holding their breath unless they're in the water, and Thurman, while a water sort of dog, was skilled at swimming and retrieving; holding his breath on dry land was a novel and untried behavior.

Instead of holding his breath, Thurman sort of gulped and coughed and shook his head, knowing that he had done it wrong, then looked up at Wilson to see if he might get more instructions on this. None were forthcoming. Wilson was not paying attention to him, at least not at this moment.

“Hello?”

Wilson shut his eyes tightly, for just a moment, and Thurman responded by trying to do the same thing.

“Hi, Emily?”

There was no pause on the other end.

“Yes. Is this Wilson?”

Wilson let out another long breath, one of relief, and hoped it was not audible over the phone.

“It is. I guess my mother has covered all her bases, hasn't she?”

Emily did not laugh loudly, but the lilt of her voice told Wilson that she must have been smiling.

“She has. Your mother can be…”

“Tenacious?” Wilson suggested.

“Well, yes, but I was looking for a kinder word.”

Wilson was smiling, which he had not expected to do.

“Pleasantly persistent, perhaps.”

At this, Emily did offer a small laugh.

“Yes. That fits better. She means well, right?”

Wilson was nodding, then realized that Emily could not see a nod over the phone.

“Indeed,” he said. “Which is one of the refuges, or a moral high ground as it were, of an obstinate old woman who likes to meddle.”

“But…after all, she does mean well.”

Wilson offered a small laugh in reply.

“And we'll leave it at that,” he said.

Then he took another deep breath, which Thurman tried to imitate as well, unsuccessfully, much to his consternation.

“Emily,” he said, trying not to sound as if he had rehearsed this, which he had, but did not want it to sound that way, “since my mother has put us both on notice, would it be okay with you if we actually met…and went out?”

“Like a date,” she replied, both restating his request and turning it, just a little, into a question.

“Like a date. I guess it would be a date. Not like a date.”

He sighed loudly.

“Semantics. It drives everyone other than rhetoric professors crazy.”

Emily paused.

“I thought you taught rhetoric.”

Wilson snorted.

“I did. For two semesters when I first started at the university. I hated it. Since then, just creative writing. And the occasional survey of American literature, old and new.”

Emily waited and Wilson waited.

Wilson thought the pause went on for a very long time, but time and the duration of this phone call had already been distorted by his high level of anxiety.

“Sure. That would be nice. The date thing, I mean. Not the rhetoric thing. And from what your mother tells me, and from what I know about myself, this will mark the end of a long period of ‘not dating' for both of us.”

Wilson nodded again, then quickly agreed.

“Yes. It will.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

There was a pause, then Emily added in a small voice, “I guess I should ask when and where.”

Wilson actually smacked his forehead with his palm.

Then he said, “That was me smacking my forehead with my palm. It has been a long time.”

Emily laughed.

“I understand. They do say all of this is like riding a bicycle.”

“I was never good at that either. I crashed a lot as a kid.”

He waited for her to laugh again, and she might have, quietly, but perhaps she was simply trying to be sensitive to the memory of an oddly coordinated child who was prone to running off curbs and into trees.

“I have tickets to a play at the university this Friday night. It's a Shakespeare play.
The Tempest
. It is supposed to be good—for a student production, that is.”

“Wilson, that sounds wonderful.”

“I have your address already—thanks to my mother. The play starts at seven. I guess I will pick you up at six-fifteen or so. Parking can be a problem.”

“Six-fifteen on Friday. Got it. I'm looking forward to it.”

When Wilson put the phone down, his hands were trembling, he was sweating profusely, his heart was pounding, and his breath came in shorter and shorter gulps.

He looked over at Thurman, who had watched the entire conversation, and who looked a little alarmed, if Wilson was reading his expression correctly.

“If I die from a heart attack right here, tell my mother it was all her fault. Okay, Thurman?”

And Thurman grinned and bounced and growled-whispered,
Okay. Okay. Okay
.

“Ms. Jamison?”

Pastor Coggins appeared to be shorter, older, and kinder than he did when he was on the platform on Sunday mornings.

Even when Hazel had been forced to shake hands and say hello, she did so in a hurry, not wanting to bother him, not wanting to be yet another congregant with some deep-seated emotional problem that required solving in the thirty seconds spent together in the narthex of the church.

“I recognize you. When you stand up front week after week, you get good with faces. And you can tell who's there and who isn't—within a couple of faces. You don't stick with one pew. You play pew roulette—avoiding handshakes at the end, right?”

Hazel hoped she wasn't blushing at being caught, but she knew she probably was.

“Don't worry, Ms. Jamison. A lot of people don't like me standing back there either. A third of them think they need to say, ‘Nice sermon.' Another third want to fight with me about some scriptural interpretation that I missed. And the other third don't want to talk to me at all.”

Hazel tried not to laugh, but she did as she agreed. “You're right.”