Deep House, page 7
Thumps included.
“Afternoon, Ora Mae,” said Thumps, putting as much goodwill into his voice as he could muster.
Ora Mae didn’t look up. Thumps glanced over his shoulder to see how far away he was from the safety of the front door.
“DreadfulWater.” Ora Mae’s voice was a cleaver in a slaughterhouse. “You got any secretarial skills?”
Thumps stopped and waited in place.
“You know, answer phones, type up offers, look after the website? Bring me coffee?”
“You lose your secretary?”
“We don’t have secretaries anymore,” said Ora Mae. “We have administrative assistants.”
Thumps slipped into the chrome and leather chair.
“Don’t be getting too comfy,” said Ora Mae. “You better be here to buy something, ’cause I’m ready to shoot the next cowboy who comes in, wants to kick my tires.”
“I already have a house.”
Ora Mae looked up and smiled. It was not a happy smile. In fact, it could have been a grimace. Thumps wasn’t about to ask.
“You know how many properties I’ve listed in the last month?”
Thumps was pretty sure this was a rhetorical question.
“You know how many properties I’ve sold?”
As a rule, Thumps tried not to answer rhetorical questions.
“Here’s a hint. The answer to both questions is the same.”
“Business not good?”
“There would have to be a business for it to be good. Or bad, for that matter.” Ora Mae turned in her chair. “The houses aren’t sick. You’re not going to get COVID-whatever from a bungalow with a two-car garage and a fenced yard.”
“People are still worried.”
“You know how many cases were reported in the last six months? Nationwide?”
“Nope.”
Ora Mae took a pencil out of the coffee cup and tapped the pointy end on the desk. “You know what scares me?”
Here was a question that Thumps could answer. “Nothing?”
Ora Mae smiled in spite of herself. “Well, aren’t you just the apple in my crisp.”
Thumps pressed his advantage. “Sheriff was hoping you could help him with an investigation.”
“What? That nice Sheriff Hockney sent you all the way over here to ask me for some help?”
“He values your knowledge.”
“The same nice Sheriff Hockney who called this morning, asked me what I might know about the test facility out by Deep House?”
“He called?”
“If you two plan on dancing together,” said Ora Mae, “you better be listening to the same music.”
Thumps waited.
“You want me to tell you what I told him?”
People liked to say that honesty was the best policy. It was a good theory, but Thumps hadn’t seen many practical or successful applications.
“Actually, Duke wanted to know about wills and executors.”
“Wills? Thought they got all the cancer.”
“He was just wondering.”
Ora Mae cocked her head. She reminded Thumps of a large bird looking at a worm.
“You’re not thinking about dying on me, are you?”
“Me?”
“’Cause this is beginning to sound like one of those ‘I got a friend who is . . .’ and then you fill in the blanks.”
“No. It’s for the sheriff.”
Ora Mae put the pencil back in the coffee cup.
“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the short course. Everyone should have a will. No exceptions. You die without a will, and it’s like putting a cow carcass out in an open field.”
“Cow carcass?”
“Your estate,” said Ora Mae. “Intestacy attracts all sorts of vultures.”
“We talking lawyers?”
“You know the difference between a lawyer and a vulture?”
“What about executors?”
“Only better job is printing money.”
“Okay.”
“And you got no interest in the property out by Deep House?”
Thumps tried to look nonchalant. “Part of the tribe’s land claim, isn’t it?”
Ora Mae cocked her head. “Well, listen to you. Wills? Executors? Treaties? Land claims? Damn. You sure you’re a photographer?”
Thumps fished the sheriff’s camera out of his pocket. “Guilty,” he said.
Ora Mae shook her head. “I got a cellphone that’s bigger.”
Thumps held the camera up so he could see the screen and focused on Ora Mae.
“You threatening me with that dinky camera?”
“I could take your portrait.”
“Not if you want to go on living.”
Thumps got to his feet. “Hope business picks up.”
“How’s Claire?”
“Fine.”
“That cute baby girl?”
“Ivory’s fine too.”
“You and Claire?” Ora Mae interlaced her fingers. “You can tell me to mind my own business.”
“Mind your own business.”
Thumps could see that he was about to be dragged into a discussion of personal relationships. If he wasn’t careful, Ora Mae would be pumping him for information about Beth Mooney and Gabby Santucci.
Ora Mae looked off into space. “You think Beth’s happy?”
Beth and Ora Mae had been lovers. And now they weren’t. Thumps had never understood what it was that brought people together or what pushed them apart. He didn’t think anyone did. It just seemed to happen.
“I hear she painted the apartment again.”
“I better get going.”
“Why do men say that?” Ora Mae frowned. “It makes it sound as though you’re on your way out of town, heading west, riding off into the sunset.”
“Headed home.”
“But then we look up, and you’re still here.”
Ora Mae walked Thumps to the door. She stopped in a pool of light that was streaming in through the window. “Is here good?”
“Good?”
“For my photograph,” said Ora Mae. “You mess it up, and you can kiss body parts goodbye.”
“Maybe I should come back with my other camera.”
“So which do you think is more flattering?” Ora Mae pulled her shoulders back, lowered her chin, and struck a pose. “Full face or profile?”
12
Thumps took his time walking home. The light in the western sky had hunkered down along the horizon, a thin gold glow at the edge of the world, and the air had stopped moving altogether. Thumps paused on the bridge and watched the water beneath his feet.
Even now, with everything that had happened, there were still perfect moments.
THE EVENING LIGHT bathed his bungalow in a brilliant warmth. The house had never looked better, and Thumps had to check twice to make sure that this was where he lived.
The pile of laundry on the porch removed any doubts.
Pops.
The large Komondor was stretched out, blocking the screen door, as though he were guarding a castle.
“Hello, Pops.”
Nothing.
“You think you could move?”
More nothing.
Thumps didn’t want to go next door and enlist Dixie and his box of doggy whatnots, but there was no way he was going to be able to move the dog to one side. Even if Thumps could clean and jerk the mutt—which he couldn’t—he was sure he didn’t want to wind up with his face buried in doggy fur.
“You know, I have to get into the house.”
Pops’s tail moved.
“And you need to go home.”
Thumps waited to see if the logic had any effect. Which is when the air on the porch went black.
“Jesus!”
Thumps stumbled backwards, momentarily blinded by the smell that had exploded out of the dog.
“You okay, Mr. DreadfulWater?”
Thumps held on to the railing and tried to get his eyes to focus.
“Pops is upset.” Dixie kneeled down next to the dog. “When he’s upset, he has problems with his digestion.”
Thumps had been sprayed by a skunk once. He had taken out the garbage late one night and had found the animal lurking next to the can. That had been bad. This was worse.
“He’s really sorry,” said Dixie. “He just hasn’t been himself lately.”
Thumps steadied himself.
“Every time I let him out, he comes to your place and lies on the porch.” Dixie stroked the dog. “You know what I think? I think he misses your kitty. I think his heart is broken. He might still be able to smell her on the porch. You know, doggy memories.”
Thumps stayed at the railing.
“You got to watch his tail,” said Dixie. “That’s your clue.”
THUMPS LOOPED AROUND the side of the house and went in the back door. He stripped off all his clothes and padded naked into the shower, where he stayed until the tank ran cold. He dried himself and took the towel straight to the laundry room, where it joined his clothes in the washing machine, with the cycle set on “sanitize.”
If that didn’t work, he would just burn the lot.
There was leftover meatloaf in the refrigerator and a couple potatoes in the basket. A simple dinner tonight. Were there any green beans? Thumps dug around in the crisper and came up with a red pepper.
Perfect.
He had just sliced the potatoes and was taking the pepper to the sink to wash it when he heard the noise. A shuffling sound, as though someone were rearranging the furniture. He waited, and the sound came again. From the back of the house. From his bedroom.
“Hello.”
The best outcome would be to find Claire in his bed, waiting for him. Thumps was sure this wasn’t the answer, but it would be a nice surprise.
And something Claire would never do.
A raccoon.
Thumps kept the knife in his hand. That’s why Pops had been on his porch. The dog knew that there was a raccoon in his house. Thumps had read about raccoon infestations and how they never ended well.
There had been a guy in Livingston who had discovered a family of raccoons in his attic. Mother, father, four babies. They tore up his insulation, fouled the lath-and-plaster ceiling with their urine and feces, and attacked him when he tried to drive them out with a broom.
Maybe he should go next door, borrow Pops, and give him the run of the house. One good doggy fart and goodbye raccoons. Of course, it would be goodbye house as well.
Thumps took the thick dowel he used for drying fresh pasta off its hook. Club in one hand, knife in the other, he advanced toward the sound.
The bathroom was clear. So was the guest bedroom. That left the master. How could he have slept in a room with a family of raccoons and not known it? And now that he was in the room, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. For a moment, he entertained the idea of backing out into the hall, going to the living room, and looking up various solutions on the internet.
Type how to get rid of raccoons into a search engine.
The noise came from the closet. The door was open. The raccoon had pushed his runners and his slippers out into the room. Thumps gripped the dowel a little tighter and held it out in front of him to fend off the animal if things went south.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he called out. “I just need you to leave.”
What he should do is call Moses. Surely the old man would have had some experience with this kind of situation.
“I’m going to step back, and you can come out.”
The cat door. That’s how they had gotten in. That was dumb. He should have locked it when it was clear that Freeway wasn’t coming back.
“It was my fault. So no harm, no foul.”
The inside of the closet was pitch black. He had always meant to install a light but had never gotten around to it. As he opened the door even wider, he made himself the promise that installing a light would be the first thing he did, once the raccoon problem was behind him.
“Come out, come out.”
The sound was sudden. A hissing snarl that crackled in the quiet confines of the room like ball lightning.
“Shit!”
Thumps leaped backwards and tumbled onto the bed. But he was up in a flash, knife at the ready, waving the dowel in front of him in little figure eights.
And then silence.
“It doesn’t have to end this way.”
He tried to put some real commitment into his voice, but it was just for show. Standing there on the bed, he had already decided to get out of the room and call an animal-removal service.
“Okay,” he called out. “You win. I’m leaving.”
Another hiss, this one less threatening. And then movement. And then a face.
“Meow.”
It took a moment to register.
“Freeway?”
“Meow.”
The Freeway in the closet was thinner than the Freeway who had disappeared, but it was Freeway nonetheless.
“What the hell.” Thumps put the knife and the dowel to one side and sat on the edge of the bed. “What the hell.”
Freeway wandered over and began rubbing herself up against his leg. Thumps reached down and ran his hand over the cat. She was skin and bones.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
More rubbing, joined by loud purring. And a second sound. Higher pitched than Freeway’s voice. Bright and tinny and quick.
Freeway left his leg and returned to the closet. Thumps slid off the bed and sat on the floor. Freeway hadn’t died. She’d come home. That’s what Pops had been trying to tell him.
“Meow.”
And she hadn’t come home alone. Freeway sat at the entrance to the closet with four tiny kittens pressed up against her.
“You’re kidding.”
“Meow.”
The kittens couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks old. One of the kittens began mewing and was quickly joined by the other three. Freeway reached down and grabbed a kitten in her mouth.
“You’re going to put them back in the closet, where it’s safe,” Thumps said, by way of encouragement. “That’s a good idea.”
But that’s not what Freeway had in mind. She carefully carried the kitten over to where Thumps was sitting, climbed up over his legs, and deposited the kitten on his lap.
And then she went back and got the other three.
Thumps started to say something clever, but nothing came out. And then tears. He tried to control the emotion, to tamp it down, but once it was out, there was no stopping it.
Freeway stepped onto his lap, rolled on her side so the kittens could nurse. And they sat there in the bedroom until evening ran to night and all the babies were full and sound asleep.
13
Thumps didn’t get any sleep.
When he crawled into bed that night, Freeway and the kittens followed, decided that they were most comfortable tucked in around his neck. Whenever he moved, they moved with him. When he got up to go to the bathroom, they tumbled off the bed and staggered along behind him.
Freeway was the anxious mother, meowing, prowling the cardinal points of the bed, rearranging the infants in a variety of patterns that only a cat would understand.
Still, having Freeway back, safe and sound, even with kittens in tow, was an unexpected delight. He had had one cat and had been ambivalent about that. Now he had five and was enchanted. He knew it wouldn’t last. The kittens were cute as all baby animals were cute, but by the time he got out of bed the next morning, reality had returned to the world.
There was the matter of a litter box. Should he have one or several? How much waste could one adult cat and four very small kittens produce? What about vet bills? Who would want a kitten? Should he name them?
Thumps stood in front of the refrigerator, tried to imagine what he might feed kittens. He knew that regular milk could cause diarrhea. He had ruled out eggs and bacon and cottage cheese when Freeway came out of the bedroom by herself. She rushed to her dish and began to vacuum up the food.
“Slow down,” Thumps cautioned. “You know what happens when you eat too fast.”
And then, on cue, the kittens spilled out of the bedroom, mewing for their mother. Freeway redoubled her efforts to eat, as her family plowed into her side and tried to push her over.
Thumps sat at the table and watched Freeway nurse her babies, watched as she licked each one clean, until they snuggled into a knot on the kitchen floor and went to sleep.
He was already in the bedroom, looking for his jeans, when Freeway appeared in the doorway. The cat gave a sharp meow and walked into the closet. Then she meowed again and walked out. Another meow and back into the closet.
“You’ve been watching too much Lassie.”
And out she came again.
“Am I supposed to follow you?”
“Meow.”
The floor of the closet was strewn with shoes. Freeway stepped over a pair of wing tips and disappeared into the deep shadows. Thumps got down on his knees so he could see better.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m here.”
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Freeway was lying on the floor next to the body of a kitten who hadn’t made it. A tiny black and white female who looked as though she might be asleep.
Freeway stared at Thumps for a moment and then gently licked at the body. Thumps felt the air leave his body. He sat back on his heels, leaned against the door frame, and closed his eyes.
BY THE TIME he got to Al’s, the place was mostly empty. There was a young woman standing at the counter, waiting for a cup of coffee to go.
“Hi, Mr. DreadfulWater.”
Thumps didn’t recognize the woman. “Oh, hi, how you doing?”
The woman smiled. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“Thumps doesn’t remember much of anything,” said Al as she handed the woman her coffee. “It’s the artistic temperament, you know.”
“Tess Duval? I work at Café Brasilero.” Tess struck a pose. “Forty-eight kinds of coffee?”
“Right.”
“What I mean is, I used to work there.”
“Tess is at the Tucker now.”
“It’s not the same. Big corporation.” Tess sighed. “They really took advantage of the pandemic. I’m getting about half of what I got before. Lots of people looking for work, so they got you over a barrel.”
