Murder in the Dog Days (Maggie Ryan) (28 page)

Maggie winced. “Maggots?”

“Part of the treatment, Helen said. The doctors left them there until they’d cleaned off the necrotic tissue. When the dead stuff was gone they’d remove the maggots and fix the guy up.”

“Christ.” Maggie was shaken. “You had a year of—of that. And then here comes old Ryan, a bundle of reminders.” She crossed her arms as though erecting a barricade to protect Holly. “Is there someone you can, you know, talk to about this?”

“Are you kidding? Who wants to hear about this? I learned as soon as I got back that telling the truth about Nam is like farting in public.”

“Yeah. I remember, trying to tell the little bit of truth that I knew—I guess everyone prefers romantic John Wayne wars. God, to go through all that and then be told to shut up and pretend it’s all okay—”

“Look, can it, okay? I’m not looking for pity.”

“I know.” Maggie studied the ground for a moment, face drawn, before she said, “Suppose we took a walk, you and I, and happened to bump into Josie. Would you give me fifteen minutes alone with her before moving in?”

“Fifteen minutes? You’re crazy!”

Maggie smiled blandly. “Well, yes, guess I am. No reason really to think we’d bump into her, is there?”

Infuriating creature. This was probably supposed to be a concession. But Holly still had cards to play. She said, “Look, I know you were involved in a kidnapping case in New York.”

Respect flickered in Maggie’s eyes. “You’re not just a good cop, you’re a quick one. But as it happens I was one of the good guys in that case.”

“Innocent as the driven snow, no doubt.”

“I didn’t say that.” Holly was surprised to see pain cross her face. “There was too much shooting. Too much death. If I’d been quicker—” Maggie looked up at the clouds, steel-wool gray, that were scouring the sky. She spoke almost to herself. “Anyway, the kids come first. There’s no such thing as justice if it hurts a kid. I was right about that at least.”

Which meant there was no budging her about this kid. What the hell, Schreiner, you always did your damnedest to help kids. Besides, going along might save dozens of man-hours. Holly said gruffly, “You can have five minutes.”

The blue eyes returned to Holly’s. “Ten and it’s a deal.”

“Ten. Let’s go.”

She followed Maggie’s long strides to the top of the street, then south a block to the deserted school. Honey Creek Elementary, flat-roofed, red brick, no character except for a white colonial pediment and two thin columns framing the glass doors, puny reminders of Virginia’s glory days long ago, before another war. Maggie ignored the rambling building and passed across an asphalt parking lot dotted with gleaming puddles, through a playground outfitted with wet swings and jungle gyms and basketball hoops still jeweled with raindrops. The rough lawn at the rear of the school property sloped to one of Mosby’s many little streamlets, drainage ditches really, that fed rows of tall white oaks, tangled bushes, and thick grasses.

Maggie seemed less certain now, slowing to reconnoiter the steep banks as she walked along the mowed edge above the rivulet. It gurgled with about a foot of water from the recent rains. Holly asked impatiently, “What are we looking for? Bicycle tracks?”

“No. Hush,” said Maggie, still peering into the ditch. They moved on, but after a moment she murmured an explanation. “We’re looking for a hobbit-hole.”

17

Maggie raised her palm. “Okay, here,” she whispered. “Ten minutes.”

Holly paused beside an old oak at the top lip of the ditch. The worst of the clouds had blown over but the sky was still overcast, filtering the August sunlight to pale blandness. She was standing a few yards from a back entrance to the school yard, where a little footpath crossed the ditch over a culvert. On the other bank of the stream, a segment of cement curbing from an earlier version of the crossing had rolled halfway down the bank and lodged behind some bushes. Holly watched Maggie pick her way quietly down the bank, step over the water, and brush off the cement before sitting down.

“I like it here, Josie,” said Maggie after a moment.

A little startled scrabbling sound from inside the culvert pipe, then silence.

“The sounds are nice. The wind in the treetops, the water gurgling. It sounds like the Shire,” Maggie went on.

A small choked voice said, “Go away!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t come in. I was just wishing I’d known about a place like this back when my friend died.”

“Go away!”

“See, I felt really confused. I thought if somebody died you were supposed to feel sad. Well, I thought I was some kind of freak because I didn’t feel sad. First I felt nothing. Like all my feelings were locked in a vault. Remember Denethor when his son was dying? He was seized by the power of the death crystal, and was numbed. It was like that at first. But then when my feelings got out of the vault they were terrible feelings. The worst was feeling so angry.”

She paused. Holly could feel the rough bark of the oak through her shirt, the touch of a damp breeze on her cheek, the humid air rising from the vegetation like primeval breathing. Her hand rested on the thick branch of a bush laden with damp green leaves. She could just pick up Josie, get her back to her mother, get on with the damn investigation. But Maggie had fulfilled her part of the bargain. So unless the kid tried to run—Was the kid still there? She hadn’t heard the noise of flight. Holly listened for Josie’s voice but the only sounds were leaves, water, faraway cars. Then Maggie went on, quiet, serious. “I was angry at whoever killed my friend, of course. But what seemed awful was that I was angry at my friend.”

She paused again, and this time the small voice responded, “Why?”

“Why was I mad at my friend? Because I still wanted to be with her, to talk to her, to explain things. But she’d gone away and I couldn’t reach her. It wasn’t fair, I knew. But still I felt angry at her.”

The breeze fingered the damp leaves. The water gurgled. Maggie said, “It turns out that most people feel angry. Because most people want things to be fair. But death isn’t fair. Not at all. And it hurts a lot. And there’s no way to fix it.”

Amen, sister. Holly could hear snuffly sounds coming from the culvert now. Maggie still sat on the broken curb, her dress airy blue against the jungle-green of the foliage. Still talking in that pleasant, serious voice. “I was angry because I kept thinking what I could have done differently. Maybe if I’d done this or that she wouldn’t be dead. Maybe if I’d been nicer to her, maybe if I’d thought nice things instead of being mad at her, maybe I could magically have saved her. Maybe it was my fault. So I was angry at myself.”

Red mud on the floor, water, blood. The young soldier’s hand already cold in hers. Nurse, tell me why, his murmur in her ear just before he slid into darkness. If only she’d tried harder, there must have been a way, there must have! And then the surgeon, wearily: C’mon, Schreiner, pull yourself together, there’s five more guys waiting. Cut ‘em up, sew ’em back together, send ’em to Japan.

Tell me why.

Holly hauled her mind back to the present. Somehow she had broken off the branch in her anger and was holding it, green and dying. She realized then that Josie had crept out of the culvert, and was sitting on the cement block with her face against Maggie’s arm. “It was my fault,” the girl whispered.

“Yes, I thought it was my fault too, when my friend died,” Maggie agreed.

“It’s like you said. I was mad at him. I was so mad.” Holly had to strain to hear the little voice.

“Even before it happened, you were mad?” Maggie asked.

“Yes. Before. I was mad, and I wished—I wished—”

“Sometimes when I’m really mad at someone I wish he was dead.”

It was like pulling a trigger. Josie burst into a frantic fusillade of wails. Maggie held her, absorbing the storm, murmuring softly. Faces swam into Holly’s memory, the kids, boys was all they were, dressed like soldiers but sobbing out their fear and despair to her. Twenty, she was; but they were only eighteen so she became mother. Taking on the sorrows of the whole 4th Division. Recruiters didn’t mention that little duty, did they, Schreiner?

Maggie had succeeded in calming the girl. She was explaining, “Everybody’s mad sometimes at people in their family.”

“Yes—but—” Josie’s mouth trembled. She swiped at her eyes.

“Did he do something to make you especially mad?”

“It was a t-tape,” Josie explained, little hiccupy sobs punctuating her phrases. “There was a John Denver thing on the radio and I needed to—to record it. But I forgot to get—get a tape.” Holly could see Josie’s unfocused gaze roving around the trees of the little dell. “And Daddy was so busy always. And Mother’s so dumb, she’d just tell me to ask him. So I took—took one of the tapes from the living room.”

“Oh, boy. Was he mad?”

“Yes.” Josie gave another little hiccup. “He yelled and yelled, and he spanked me.”

“That must have been awful.”

“He spanked me so hard! Look!” Josie pulled up her shirt, twisted around.

Maggie looked and hugged the girl again. “Oh, Josie, I see why you felt mad! You’re twelve, you should have your own music. And you’re too old to be spanked.”

“Yes! And it’s like you said, I wished—” She hesitated.

Maggie said gently, “For a minute, you wished he would die. And suddenly he did.”

Another burst of sobs. “I was so mad at him! It’s like—like I killed him.”

“No you didn’t. We all get mad at people sometimes. It doesn’t make them die. I bet you’ve been mad at lots of people who didn’t die.”

She thought that over and admitted, “Yeah.”

“But when somebody does die, we wish everything before had been perfect. And of course it never is. So we feel guilty and angry and cheated.”

“Yeah.” Josie was looking up at the branches again. Holly held still behind her tree, her throat tight. The girl said, “Sometimes he was nice.”

“Yes. He was busy but he loved you.”

“Yeah. Sometimes he’d watch TV with us. The best was when he’d read us the newspaper.” Josie straightened on the cement block, reached down toward her feet, and found a handful of pebbles. She tossed one into the water. “He’d read to us. He was smart, he knew how to explain it. Not like Mother, she just said to ask him. And he’d give us lemon drops. It was good, when he read us the newspaper and we all had lemon drops.”

“Yes. He loved you.”

“It’s only that—well, Mother says I’m smart too. He’s not the only smart one. But he acted like I was still a little girl.” Another pebble hit the streamlet, kicking up a crown of drops.

“Yeah, that’s a problem. When you’re twelve you’re more grown-up.”

“Maybe he was too busy to notice,” said Josie. “Mother said he was busy.”

“Maybe that was it. I think he would have noticed pretty soon that you were growing up, though.”

“Maybe—maybe he was noticing a little. And that made him mad too.”

Maggie had picked up a few pebbles of her own and was tossing them too. “Yeah, could be. He liked everything to be under control, your mother says. He liked to be in charge. But when a girl grows into a woman she’s in charge of herself. Maybe that bothered him a little. It bothers some people.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Josie, her pebbles all gone, stuck out her feet and wagged them slowly back and forth, together then apart. It made Holly think of a butterfly fresh from its cocoon, drying damp new wings. The girl asked, “But what do I do now?”

“Well, that’s the hard part to figure out,” Maggie said. “It takes a while of feeling frightened and sad and angry.”

The feet were still. Josie gave another sad little hiccup. “I don’t want him to be gone.”

“Of course you don’t. And one of the things you’ll be figuring out is how to sort of keep his dreams for you. Remembe
r
The Fellowship of the Rin
g
, after Gandalf the Grey was killed? They had trouble figuring out what to do. But they got the job done at last.” Maggie tossed her last pebble and rested an elbow on her knee. “Did you know that Tolkien’s parents died when he was a kid?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And later, when he was in college, one of his very best friends was a guy called G.B. Smith. They had lots of plans about writing wonderful stories, with trolls and so forth. But World War I started and they both had to go fight. And Tolkien’s friend was killed.”

“Oh.”

Holly was picking nervously at the leaves on the broken branch.

“Well,” Maggie went on, “G.B. Smith had written a letter to Tolkien, just a little while before he died. He wrote, ‘Say the things I’ve tried to say after I’m not there to say them.”’

Josie’s feet waggled once, thoughtfully. “That’s why he wrote th
e
Rin
g
books?”

“That’s one reason, yes. But it was later. Years later. By then he’d figured out a lot about death and about how much it hurts to survive. And it takes time to figure out what’s best to do. Like the Fellowship. You have to find something that’s worthy of the ideals you shared. And true to yourself.”

Mitch’s voice in Holly’s ears: something worthy of my dead. Something authentic.