The Sense of Reckoning (33 page)

“That may be difficult now.”

“Yes. Difficult. But not impossible. Maybe she’ll find someone at Riverside. Maybe she’ll get out someday.” Loring ran his hands through his tangled brown hair. “Maybe it is too late for her. But maybe not. I hope not.”

They sat again in silence, Garrick turned toward the window, Loring glancing around the room. Finally Garrick broke the silence.

“What will you do now?”

“I’ll be here until they tear down the hotel.”

“And then?”

“And then I’m done. I thought by checking out I’d leave all this behind—Ellen, the hotel, the painting. But it held me here—I guess I had to wait to see how it all ended. But now they’re all gone, or soon will be. Once the hotel goes, then I can too.” Loring turned to Garrick and his gray eyes lit up with a smile. “Then I’ll be free.”

Chapter 51

Ann stood in the kitchen of her cabin, folding newspaper pages—which had proved surprisingly hard to obtain—around kitchenware that had been staged on the counters. She had decided to keep the nearby painting studio but to rent out the cabin; that would keep her options open. But for the coming winter, at least, she was going to stay with Mike and Scott in West Chester. They had even talked about looking for a bigger place so that she could have more than just a room to herself.

She tucked a snugly wrapped Fiestaware gravy boat into a cardboard box and was reaching for one of the last pieces on the counter—Beau’s old water bowl—when she heard from outside the whistle that had meant “come along” to Beau. She sighed and swallowed a lump in her throat. It was good she was getting away from here—this was too hard.

She went to the screen door and looked out onto the unseasonably warm November Adirondack morning. Beau was crossing the cleared area around the cabin, accompanied by the telltale shimmer that signaled the presence of the old woman. But today they were accompanied by ... what was it? A squirrel? Ann smiled at the thought of Beau escorting a squirrel across the clearing in any other way than right behind it at top speed.
 

She expected them to cross the yard and disappear into the woods as they usually did, but instead they were coming right toward the cabin. She twisted a page of newsprint in her hands. As they got closer, she recognized the other creature as her neighbor’s dachshund who, she had heard, had been killed by a hawk. Beau seemed to be collecting a pack of spirit companions.

Her hand went to the door latch and then hesitated, uncertain. She watched with her breath shallow until they stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, the old woman’s eyes piercing, both dogs very clear. She heard the “sit” whistle and Beau sat. The dachshund remained standing, its stubby legs braced.

Ann unlatched the door and slowly pushed it open, expecting her visitors to disappear, but they just looked attentively at her. She stepped onto the porch. For a minute or more nothing happened, and then she heard the “stand” whistle and Beau stood. The dachshund sat. The old woman’s eyes disappeared as she turned and gave the “come along” whistle. Beau wagged cheerfully and turned as well, trotting after the diaphanous form of the old woman as she headed back toward the woods. In a few moments they had disappeared into the trees.

The dachshund—a black shorthair with the distinguishing tan markings over its eyes and across its muzzle—had watched their departure and now turned its eyes back to Ann.

“Well, you certainly are ... solid-looking,” said Ann. She had always thought that Beau was as present-seeming as he was to her because of their relationship, but perhaps all dogs’ ghosts had this characteristic. But then why wasn’t she seeing ghostly dogs everywhere? Maybe it was something about the Adirondack gestalt.

She stepped onto the first step, expecting the dog to disappear—either to trot off after its spirit friends or possibly just dematerialize.

The dachshund rose into a beg, a little column of winsomeness.

She descended another step.

The dachshund’s tail wiggled hopefully.

She stepped onto the ground in front of the dog with a growing realization and extended her hand slowly. “Good dog.”

The dachshund dropped down from its beg and sniffed hopefully at her hand and she felt the tiny breeze of its breath.

Then she did what she knew she never could with Beau—she laid a hand on top of its head.

The dachshund seemed unimpressed, but deigned to let her keep her hand there.

Ann sank onto the bottom step and the dog, obviously considering this an invitation, marched over and propped itself up with its paws on one of her knees. It was very small. She scratched its ears and suddenly felt a knot in her stomach—one that had been there for so long she had ceased to notice its existence—begin to loosen.

“Good dog. Just out for a stroll with my Beau? Do you belong to someone?”

The dachshund was wearing a delicate black collar studded with fake diamonds—rarely had she seen a dog so ill-suited to a walk through the Adirondack woods. She turned the tag so she could read it in the bright morning light. It showed the address of her neighbor and the dog’s name: Ursula.

“So, you do belong to someone,” she said cheerfully, but suddenly she felt like crying.

She reached out tentatively and lifted the dog up, which it seemed to consider only its due.

“Why don’t we give you a snack,” the dachshund’s ears pricked, “and a drink of water and then we’ll get you home.”

She stood up with the dog in her arms. She had never held a really small dog. It was a sturdy little thing—probably only about seven pounds, but very muscular. She stroked its sleek black fur, which seemed not to have suffered from its trek through the woods.

She entered the kitchen and put the dog down, then began searching through the jumble on the counter for the tin where she had stored Beau’s treats—she had planned to give them to the Federmans for Fizz, their Jack Russell terrier. She located the tin and removed a bone that was about as long as the dachshund’s head. “You hit pay dirt today, little guy,” she said, turning.

The dog was standing facing the hallway to the sitting room, the fur along its backbone raised in a tiny ridge, its tail held rigid. She followed its gaze.

There, in the dimness of the hallway, stood Biden Firth.

*****

In an almost comic replay of the horrible scene that had played out with a much larger dog and a living man many months ago, the dachshund shot across the kitchen toward Biden.

“No!” screamed Ann. She lunged to grab the dog, but only caught a clump of fur from the end of its tail as the dachshund continued its dash, accompanied by a bark Beau would have been proud of.

She scrambled up. Biden had moved out of the dim hallway and into the relative brightness of the sitting room, where he had become more difficult to see—except for those hovering
hands. But Ann could tell he was backing away from the tiny, noisy force at his feet. The glimpses she could get of his face suggested a panic all out of proportion to the threat any dog that size could pose, even to a living being. He kicked at the dog but it jumped nimbly away, keeping up its furious barking all the while.

Ann moved cautiously toward the sitting room. If she could just grab the dog she could run outside, get to her car, drive to the Federmans. Then she heard Biden.

“Get it away!”

This was unexpected. “What?”

“Get that abomination away from me!” he yelled over the barking.

She stopped in the doorway to the sitting room, the shimmering shape of Biden Firth now having been backed into the far corner by the dog. She stepped into the room.

“Are you telling me you’re scared of the dog?”

“Just get it away!”

A small, cruel smile began to play around Ann’s lips. She stepped closer. “You’ve been making me hurt myself.”

“You
killed
me, for Christ’s sake!”

“And now you’re asking me to rescue you from a dachshund?”

“Little piece of shit!” yelled Biden, taking another swipe at the dog with his foot.

Ann reached the dog and bent to pick it up, keeping her eyes on Biden. The dachshund stopped barking but kept its lips peeled back from its tiny teeth. She advanced on Biden.

“I’ve been suffering your ... pranks for all this time, and all I needed was a seven-pound dog?”

“You’re a bitch just like my wife! She got what she deserved and if you hadn’t interfered, it would have ended there!” A querulous note was making its way into Biden’s voice. The dog’s body vibrated with a low growl.

“You’ve been making me burn myself, stab myself—”

“I didn’t do that, you did that to yourself, you dumb bitch.”

“You mean me stabbing myself with the knife wasn’t you?”

Biden clearly regretted having shared this information. He waved one of those sea creature-like hands. “It wasn’t—but it could have been.”

“No,” said Ann slowly. “I don’t think it could have. I think you only have one way of
bothering
me.”

“You’ve cried over what you did to me—I’ve seen you!” hissed Biden.

“I never gave a damn what I did to you, you bastard! I only cared what I let you do to my dog!”

For a moment even the sound of the dog’s growl was silenced. Then Biden said, “You can’t protect yourself forever. And even if you do, I’ll find a way to make you suffer like you made me suffer.”

Ann tucked the dog more securely under her left arm and extended her right out toward Biden.

“What do you think you’re doing?” said Biden, his voice rising a notch.

“I’m seeing what the worst is you can do.”

She reached her hand out toward one of Biden’s and he drew them back, fists clenched.

“You’ll be sorry!”

“I don’t think so,” said Ann calmly, and grabbed his hand.

There wasn’t anything to grab, but she saw her hand move through his and felt that stabbing pain of her clamping muscle. This time, she was ready for it. She pressed her lips into a thin line, resisting the urge to pull her hand back, but then the pain was gone—as was Biden himself. She turned and scanned the room and saw him standing in the hallway to the kitchen, his hands held behind his translucent back, like a boy afraid of having his knuckles rapped with a ruler.

Ann shook her hand to loosen the cramp. “It hurts, but not that much. It wasn’t the pain so much as the shock of it. And not knowing what was causing it. But now I know what’s causing it—nothing but a schoolyard bully.”

“I don’t care. I got my revenge on you.”

“You’re dead.
Dead
, for Christ’s sake! Is the best you can do for revenge to hang around and make people spill hot coffee on themselves? Every time you come back, I’m going to make it a point to tell whoever will listen to me—and that includes Elizabeth’s parents and your mother and father,
especially
your father—that this is the best you can do, this is the grand revenge you are exacting.”

As she spoke, Biden seemed to shrink from her the way he had shrunk from the dog—folding in on himself, becoming dimmer with each word.

“If you can’t surprise me, you can’t scare me. And,” she said, gesturing to the dog still tucked under her arm, “I have an early warning system. And you don’t have any weapon that you can use against it.”

She began to laugh at the absurdity of it all and, as she did, Biden Firth melted into the sunlight streaming in through the window, leaving her and her canine defender alone in the cabin.

*****

Ann went to look for the dog bone she had dropped, but the dachshund found it first, dragging it under the dining room table and working on it for quite some time. The dog’s stomach was noticeably plumper when it emerged from under the table.
 

“Good heavens, what a little pig you are,” said Ann fondly. “You must need something to wash that down with.”

She reached for Beau’s water bowl, but then changed her mind—it seemed disloyal to use his bowl for another dog. She reached for a Pyrex measuring cup that was staged behind the water bowl on the counter and, just as she was lifting it free, the dachshund gave a sharp, imperious bark. Ann’s hand jerked and the measuring cup caught the edge of Beau’s water bowl.

The water bowl slid to the edge of the counter and had started its tip toward the floor when Ann’s hand shot out and grabbed it. In the process she fumbled the measuring cup which dropped to the counter on its side and was rolling toward the edge when she grabbed it with her other hand. The dachshund gave a happy bark.

She placed the measuring cup carefully back on the counter and filled the water bowl with trembling hands. She put the bowl on the floor and the dachshund crossed to it and lapped delicately at the water. Ann glanced down at her hands, expecting an injury of some kind—a cut from a break in the Pyrex she hadn’t noticed, a jammed finger—but there was nothing. She bent down and stroked the dog’s sleek fur, then crossed to the screen door and looked out to where Beau had disappeared into the woods with his new master.

“Good boy,” she whispered.

Chapter 52

The old man took a sip of caffè doppio from a fine china cup. A pressed linen napkin muffled any rattles as he replaced it on the saucer. A copy of
Corriere della Sera
, featuring a story about the discovery of a lost masterwork in the state of Maine in the United States, was spread before him, lit in the dark room by a huge chandelier. The chandelier had been a challenge to recover, the buyer difficult to track down and, when located, determined to drive a hard bargain. It had been one of the last pieces the old man had had to recover to return the villa to its former glory. To have had his family home survive the bombings and the invasion, only to be lost when his father had to start selling its contents to save the villa itself—it had been a bitter pill to swallow.