“Yeah, especially if you had to get somewhere really quick. You know, a friend calls you up and he’s in trouble, but he lives thirty miles away. You could just say your magic words and turn into a hawk or an eagle, and off you go. Faster than driving, I’ll bet.”
I’m not so sure about that. Hawks don’t reach their top speed unless they’re diving on prey; otherwise, they cruise along at around forty miles an hour, and I’ve seen drivers double that speed along the interstate. But it seems more prudent to agree. “And you arrive and everyone says, ‘How did you get here so fast?’”
“‘And where’s your car?’” Joe adds.
I laugh. “So you don’t tell any of your friends that you’re a shape-shifter?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t,” he says. “They’d think I was crazy.”
“Unless they were all shape-shifters, too. Unless everyone was.”
He wrinkles his nose in dissent. “Nah. It wouldn’t be special if everyone was.”
“Pretty big secret to keep,” I say.
He nods, but it’s clear he’s started thinking along different lines. His face is creased with an old memory. “I know people can’t really turn into animals, but there sure have been moments in my life when that was the only explanation that would have made sense.”
I take another sip of the diet soda. God, I hate fake sweeteners. “Like when?”
“Back in Joliet, when I was on the force. Couple times, we’d be chasing a perp down a street or into a building—someplace where we knew for a fact there was no way out—and we’d turn the corner or bust into the building and—” He makes a poof! gesture with his empty hand. “The guy would be gone. Nowhere to be found.”
“He probably climbed a fence or ran through a door you didn’t know about.”
“Sure, yeah, what else? But if he could turn into an animal—it would sort of make sense. There was this one time. Three of us, we had a guy cornered in an alley. I mean, there was no way out of that alley, there were ten-story buildings on three sides. It was like being in a horizontal well. The guy dives into a Dumpster and starts burrowing into the trash. We could see all these cans and soda bottles and old newspapers flying up as he dug down. We were kind of laughing because, you know, pretty gross, but where did he think he was going?
“So he digs in and he doesn’t come out, and we’re all like, ‘Shit, man, we are going to have to dig in after him.’ So we did. We emptied out that whole entire Dumpster. And that man was not in there. There was a squirrel about halfway down, and it about scared the crap out of us when it came jumping out, but there was no person. We dug all the way to the bottom. And he was gone.”
He sips from his Snapple and focuses on me again. “But if the perp had been able to turn himself into an animal whenever he felt like it—well, maybe he was the squirrel. Maybe we’d caught him after all, we just didn’t know it.”
I’m absolutely positive that that’s what happened, but I’m certainly not going to say so. “Well—the likelihood is that he got out some other way. Maybe there was a loose panel at the back of the Dumpster and he crawled out that way while you guys were digging in from the top. Or something.”
“Yeah, I mean, we had to assume that’s what happened. But it was still pretty damn weird.”
“I can imagine.”
There’s a short silence and I’m trying to think of a natural segue to any other topic, when Jezebel comes to my rescue. She’s been lying quietly on the kitchen floor, but a noise at the door catches her attention. She levers herself awkwardly to her feet with a little whuff of warning.
“Easy, girl. It’s just my dog. Scottie,” I tell her. “He wants us to come out and play.”
Joe sets his empty bottle on the counter. “Yeah, and we want to take that tour now anyway. Let’s go.”
We all step outside, and Scottie and Jezebel sniff at each other and decide to make nice. I pat Scottie heartily on the shoulder and say, “What do you think? Shall we introduce our guests to the puppies? Maybe they’ll want to take one home. Life would be a lot calmer then, don’t you think?”
Scottie offers a short bark of approbation and we head off in the direction of the kennel. But Joe’s already been distracted by something else. “Who’s that?” he asks in a quiet voice.
He’s spotted Alonzo shooting baskets at the forlorn hoop by the patio. There is no possible way that Alonzo—who is preternaturally aware of the exact whereabouts of anyone in his vicinity—overlooked Joe’s arrival. Unlike Scottie, Alonzo hasn’t come forward to investigate because he doesn’t actually want to meet Joe or Jezebel. He doesn’t even look in our direction as he sinks another basket.
“Alonzo. He’s the foster son of some friends of mine who live in town. He comes out sometimes and helps me with the animals.”
“Shouldn’t he be in school about now?”
“Once a cop, always a cop,” I say lightly.
He grins faintly, but his eyes are still on Alonzo. “Hey, I know a truant when I see one.”
“He’s having some troubles at school,” I say quietly. “So they’re teaching him at home. So far it’s working out.”
“He doing any extracurricular stuff? Playing soccer or whatever? ’Cause otherwise it’s hard to make friends.”
“He plays basketball sometimes, I think.”
Joe nods, watches Alonzo for another moment, and then puts his attention back on me. “So. The puppies,” he says.
Scottie and Jezebel follow us through the gate into the dog run, and we’re instantly surrounded by a frisking, leaping, yapping vortex of canine excitement. Scottie lopes off to the side, away from the frenzy, but Jezebel stands her ground. Her lip curled, she gives a very slight growl, warning the puppies to keep their distance. They’re less interested in her than in the humans, anyway.
Joe is laughing out loud. He drops to his knees, patting the top of his thigh, and all three puppies instantly pounce. The littlest one takes Joe’s wrist in a mock bite, the middle one leaps up and tries to lick his face. The big one, the one with all the personality, jumps on Joe’s lap and jumps away, back and forth, back and forth, as if trying to convince this new playmate to chase him around the enclosure.
“Oh, he likes you,” I say.
Joe grabs the puppy’s face and ruffles his ears. “You got a ball? You got a stick? You know how to fetch?” The dog barks and pulls away, rushing around even more ecstatically. Joe laughs again.
“Oh, man, he’s a charmer. Make you crazy, though, all that energy.”
I find a ball and toss it halfway across the grass. All three of the dogs run madly after it, but of course it’s the biggest one who reaches it first, snatches it up, and carries it back. He doesn’t even look at me; he drops it in front of Joe, then waits expectantly, practically dancing with impatience. Joe obligingly hurls the ball even farther away, and the dogs go scrambling off.
“Hope you’ve got a good throwing arm,” I say. “They can keep this up all day.”
Joe doesn’t seem to mind, and for the next ten minutes they engage in an energetic game of fetch. By this time, Jezebel has lost her aversion to the youngsters. She comes and settles beside Joe, seeming to watch with interest as the puppies chase down the ball, a chewed-up old rag doll, and various sticks that I scrounge up. She doesn’t even seem to mind much when the obnoxious puppy pauses in his frantic running to investigate her some more, sniffing at her face and backside, then barking in her face. She merely pulls her ears back with a pained expression, then drops her muzzle to her paws.
“I think she likes him,” I say in a hopeful voice.
“That seems a little strong. I think maybe she’s tolerating him,” Joe answers.
“Take him home. See how they get along over the long haul.”
He hesitates and I realize, to my surprise, that he’s actually considering it. “I would, but—I’m gone so muc
h. I don’t have time to train him and make sure he’s housebroken.”
I glance skyward and turn a hand palm up as if testing for rain. “Pretty nice weather this time of year,” I say. It’s mid-September and the days have been warm more often than not, though obviously that pattern will eventually change. “You could leave him outside most of the day, at least for a couple of months.”
The exercise has tired the puppies, and now they’ve all come to rest, panting, sprawled out on the grass between Joe and me. The big one has rested his nose on Joe’s knee and is gazing up at him with soulful adoration. As if he can’t help himself, Joe is smoothing the soft fur on top of the dog’s head.
“What do you call this one?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t given any of them names. Once I name them, I love them, and I find it harder to give them away.”
He turns his head to give me a curious look, half smile, half speculation. I can almost see his brain working through the analogy. Is that how it always goes with you? You try not to let anyone in because once you do, you know you can’t kick them out? But if that’s really what he’s thinking, he doesn’t say so aloud. “Well, I think we should call him something. Something that fits him.”
“Godzilla,” I suggest.
He wrinkles his nose. “Not the sort of name that would make me want to adopt him.”
“You’re right,” I say. “Sweetie Pie. Lambchop. Mellowhead.”
Now he’s laughing. “‘Mellowhead’? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
“There is no pleasing you.”
“Well, but a name is important.”
“Then you come up with one!”
“I’m still thinking.”
“You can name the other two while you’re at it. And then you can take them home with you, too.”
He shakes his head. “I really couldn’t handle three puppies, but my buddy might want one. Actually, he might want both. His kids have been bugging him for a dog, and he said the other day he’d get two so they could keep each other company.”
For a moment—and it’s so ridiculous—I have an actual physical pang at the thought of losing all three puppies at once. They’re so exhausting but they’re so adorable. I know I’ll miss them.
Then I harden my heart. “Great! Fabulous! Do you have a camera? Take photos. Bring your friends out here this weekend to meet the puppies. I would love for all of them to go off and live happy lives—somewhere else.”
“Yeah—hang on,” he says, and shifts his weight so he can pull a smartphone from the back pocket of his jeans. He snaps a few shots of each of the dogs, and then, before I realize what he’s doing, lifts the camera and clicks a photo of me.
“Hey,” I say.
He’s grinning as he studies the digital image. “That’s a cute one. You’ve got a little mud on your face and dog hair all over your shirt.”
“Great. Be sure to show that to your friend when you’re trying to convince him he wants a couple of dogs.”
Joe leans over and scrunches up the big one’s ears again. “So what do you think? What should your name be, little guy?”
“Snoopy,” I say. “Isn’t he the world’s most famous beagle?”
“Something more original than that,” Joe says. “And it should begin with a J. Like Joe and Jezebel.”
My mouth falls open and I can feel my face light with amusement. “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s why you named her Jezebel?”
He glances over at me, trying to look quelling, but he’s laughing. “No. That was the name she had when I got her. But I don’t want the puppy to feel left out if everyone else in the house has a name that starts with J.”
“Jujube,” I say, the word just popping out of my mouth. The next ones that present themselves are equally inappropriate, but they come spilling out anyway, as unintentional as toads and snakes. “Juilliard. Jabberwocky.”
Now he’s really amused. “You’re terrible at this. If you ever have kids, you better ask for input from your friends before you write anything down on a birth certificate.”
“Jared,” I say defiantly. “Justin. Jasper.”
“Better,” he concedes. “But not really dog names.”
“Jinx.”
“Oh, I like that,” he says, and puts his nose close to the puppy’s. “Hey, Jinx. Have you been chewing up the furniture? Have you been chasing the squirrels?” The dog wriggles free and barks in his face. “Is that your name? Jinx? Jinxie?” The puppy barks again.
“Maybe that’s a girl’s name,” I say, beset by sudden doubt.
“Too late,” Joe replies, heaving a ball so far across the enclosure that it almost goes over the back fence. “I think it’s his name now.”
I watch as the puppies tear after the ball and then fight over it before Jinx wrests it away from his sister and comes loping back. “So does that mean you want him? You’ll take him?”
“Yeah, I think it does. Not today, though. I’ve got to get some supplies and puppy-proof the house and see if the neighbor kid will come by on days I’m going to get home late.”
“Well, this is great news! Now if you can only convince your friend to take the other two, my life will be blissfully peaceful. Should we come up with names for them, too?”
“I thought we already had names,” he answers, straight-faced. “Jabberwocky and Jujube.”
I swat him with the mangled rag doll. “Don’t say that. Joke names have a weird way of sticking.”
“Oh, they were jokes! I thought you were serious!”
I laugh and climb to my feet. “Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the property while Jinx spends a little more quality time with his siblings.”
Jezebel and Scottie follow us out of the enclosure and through the barn, where I point out the other transitory animals that are here to be healed and released, or raised long enough to find homes elsewhere. We’ve just stepped outside into the sunshine when Daniel moseys over from wherever he’s been all day. I hold the door open for him so he can find his accustomed spot in one of the unused stalls. He barely even looks at any of us as he slips past, though I observe that Jezebel focuses on him with a sudden, sharp attention. She makes no effort to get close enough to scent his body. In fact, she backs away from him, slowly and unobtrusively. Joe doesn’t seem to notice.
“Is that one a pet or a stray?” he asks.
“Stray. He kind of comes and goes. I put out food for him, let him sleep here, but I don’t know that he really considers this place his home.”
Joe nods and says nothing as we cross a wide strip of lawn toward the art studio that’s on the back edge of the property. The silence unnerves me a little. I wonder if he’s regretting agreeing to adopt Jinx or if he’s thinking about some upcoming trip he’s going to take for his trucker friend or if he’s just tired of making conversation with me and trying to figure out a polite way to say good-bye. But we’re stuck with the art tour now. The studio is the one building I always keep locked, and we pause for a moment in front of the weathered wood door as I fish my keys out of my pocket and sort through them for the right one.
Abruptly, Joe voices the thought that must have been on his mind. “So is that your boyfriend?”
I’m so astonished that I drop the keys. Does he mean Daniel? Oh my God, he realized Daniel was actually a man, not a dog? I feel a sudden bloom of terror, and it’s all I can do to keep from exclaiming, How did you know? “Is who my boyfriend?” I manage to ask in a cautious voice.
“That guy who was here when I pulled up.” Even I can tell that he’s making some effort to keep his tone casual. “You were with him at the club, too, last week.”
Relief rushes through me like storm water through a drain. “Oh. Ryan.” I bend to pick up the keys. “No. But it’s complicated.”
“He used to be your boyfriend,” he guesses.
I shrug, unlock the door, and step inside, gesturing for Joe to follow into the still and lightless space. The temperature in here is perfectly controlled; the lights are always off unless I’m showing the art to someone. From my father I learned a thing or two about the best conditions for preserving artwork. When Cooper was using this space to paint, he let light pour in from windows on all sides, but I keep the heavy curtains drawn against the sun. Cooper wasn’t Picasso, maybe, but I consider his artworks true treasures. Not least because they’re really all I have left of either Cooper or Janet.
“Ryan and I have known each other a long time,” I say. “And we’ve never gotten the relationship quite right. Shield your eyes. I’m about to turn on the lights.”
Joe doesn’t cover his eyes, of course, so when the whole space flares with illumination, he stands there squinting, trying to take in everything at once. There’s a lot to see. There are five or six paintings on each of the four walls, plus covered crates that hold maybe two dozen more canvases, as well as a metal cabinet with close to a hundred original prints. Whenever I start worrying about money, I calm myself by slowly going over the math. Forty-five paintings times fifty thousand is more than two million dollars . . . If I live another thirty years, that’s more than sixty thousand dollars a year. Who couldn’t live on that?
And the chances are slim that I will live another thirty years.
Joe is studying each bank of images, then making a quarter turn to gaze at the next wall of paintings. I see his eyes flick between a few of the major pieces as he identifies a recurring model. Eventually he points to the largest canvas, the one that hangs in the center of the back wall, the pride of place. It features a small, dark-haired woman sitting on the porch of the main house. It’s autumn, so the background is filled with flaming trees and bushes in every gradation of orange; the hues are almost as violent as a van Gogh. But Janet sits in a calm oasis of shadow, protected, or so it seems, by the bulk of the two-story house and the overhang of the roof. She appears to be the still, calm center of a frenzied kaleidoscope, a point of serenity in a world of frightening wildness. It’s hardly even a metaphor; I’m convinced that’s exactly how Cooper viewed Janet.