“My daughter can’t keep a cord to save her life. She leaves and an hour later I get a call, ‘Daddy, is my charger there?’” He shakes his head, a fond smile on his mouth.
Once plugged in, my phone gives a buzz. The light in the corner blinks, but the screen remains black. There’s nowhere for the helpless frustration in my chest to go. I knew it was going to crap out eventually, but rightnow? It’s too awful of a coincidence to be real.
The sliding glass doors are very clean and provide a perfect view of the yard and the trees beyond. A thin sapling sways while everything else around it remains still.
“What?” Clarence asks.
“That house at the end of the road. The one that’s burnt? My boss sent me down there to get pictures of it for an appraisal. There was a coyote down there. It chased us. I’m pretty sure it’s rabid. I haven’t seen it since, but I don’t know. I keep feeling like it’s gonna pop out of the woods like Cujo or something.”
He motions his chin toward the trees. “Couple days ago, I was walking the creek. Cuts through the McLaren property down the road. Got rushed by a skunk. Sucker didn’t even try to spray me. Just wanted to bite. Lucky, I had this.” He reaches for an umbrella stand full of walking sticks.He pulls one out that’s chunky and hand-carved. “Took the body to the county sheriff’s office. Told them it needed testing. They swore they’d get down there to check it out.”
He peers outside. The sapling that was swaying is now still.
Everythingis still in the stagnant, windless heat.
Wind chimes hung throughout the yard have been providing sweet trilling background music since the moment I arrived. Their silence only magnifies the feeling that something’s gearing up to come charging out of the trees to shatter the quiet.
Clarence frowns at me. “I’m calling Cory again. Got a woman being terrorized in my house, and he can’t hurry his ass up.”
He goes to the living room with the phone held up to his ear. I stare out the door until Ripley pushes her head under my hand.
I flinch when my phone vibrates, then powers on. I tap in my password and try to bring up my recently called list.
There’s a delay that makes me want to smash the screen on the kitchen counter. Finally, Emma’s name pops up just below Ellis’s. I tap on her name and… nothing. The screen has stopped registering any input. I try Ellis and that won’t work either. I stare hard at the numbers below Emma’s name. I run them through my brain three times before the phone goes black again.
“Good news and bad news,” Clarence says when he returns to the kitchen. “Shelley down at the station radioed Cory and he’s closer than she thought. Should be here in no time.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“Same as the good news. You get the honor of meeting the self-satisfied prick in person.”
“That bad?”
“Thinks he’s John Wayne. That working?” He gestures to my phone. He sucks his lip when I tell him no, it’s not, but that I got Emma’s number.
He’s handing me the phone when there’s a knock on the door.
Clarence looks down at his watch and shakes his head. “Fastest that man’s moved in his entire life.”
At first, I think the feeling that spears through my chest at the sound is panic, but it’s not. It’s doom. It’s the sense that whatever’s on the other side of that door is bad, bad, bad and that we should hide, hunker down, stay safe.
I say nothing, and watch as Clarence opens the door.
Sheriff Cory walks into Clarence’s living room with his hand on his gun and a sunburn peeling the ridges of his cheeks. He’s white, lean, and a little taller than my very average five feet seven inches. The sheriff’s eyes are friendly in the way they usually are. Brown and helpful until they crack your skull or shoot your dog.
Cops are only friendly up until the sudden and painful moment they aren’t.
“Place is looking good, Clarence.” The sheriff nods and looks around until his eyes fall on me in the kitchen. “Whatcha got there?”
“A hatchet.” I look at his hand on his gun. “What’sthat?”
He pauses. On the fifth beat, he raises both hands andsmiles wide. “Sorry! Habit. I used to work in the city. Dangerous place. Sometimes I forget to tone it down.”
Behind him, Clarence looks to the ceiling like he’s asking for patience. “Why dontcha sit, Cory. Lou’s having some trouble. Let her tell you about it.”
The sheriff sits on a floral couch so ancient I wonder if the house was built up around it. He says please when Clarence asks if he wants a glass of ice water.
“That dog under control?” The sheriff smiles in a way that can only be described as smarmy.
