The Boy Who Drew Monsters: A Novel (25 page)

Ever the good host, Tim saw Miss Tiramaku to the door, said the obligatory “so nice to meet you,” and then watched with relief as Holly drove her back to the rectory. The boys, too, seemed glad to see her go and to have a measure of the old order restored. From the front window, they watched the car drive away, but Tim could detect no signs upon their faces, no hints that they had been spellbound.

Holly must have passed the police car on the road heading in the opposite direction, for no more than five minutes elapsed between her departure and the arrival of the big cruiser in the Keenans’ driveway. Across the street, the Quigleys’ dog barked madly at the man in uniform. The boys drew up at the sight of the policeman, exiting the car, zipping his jacket against the cold, and by habit checking in all directions for some danger. In the gray wash of the winter’s day, his sunglasses seemed fairly ridiculous, a stab at authority and menace but out of place on such a youthful face. With a few brisk steps, he was at the front door. The boys swung around as smartly as soldiers and stood at attention. Officer Pollock saluted them when he came in and flashed his baby-toothed smile when they returned the salute. He shook hands with Tim and then removed his hat, holding it in his hand.

“You just missed my wife, she’ll be sorry. But if you’ve come about the bones, you’re too late,” Tim said. “We’ve lost the hole, too, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, right. The bone.” The young policeman looked baffled. “What do you mean, lost the hole?”

“That’s just it. The hole was gone the next morning. Completely vanished.”

“That’s a head-scratcher. Maybe the wind filled it in, or the tide came up farther than we thought. But I didn’t come about the bone. Haven’t had the chance yet to send it to the lab. I came about your monster. I’ve got the DB in the back of my rig.”

“DB?” Tim asked.

“Dead body.”

The boys rushed to the window to spy on whatever might be in the squad car.

“You’ve got a monster in there?” Jack Peter asked.

Pollock shifted his weight and slid a thumb into the waistband of his trousers. “Remember how we thought there might be a wild thing roaming around these parts? Well, Mr. Keenan, you weren’t too far off. We’ve found it. It’s in the trunk. If the boys want to come out and see it with you, they can.”

“My son never leaves the house.”

“Ah, right. I’d forget my head sometimes. Then you and the other boy come out and have a look-see.”

Bundled in their coats, Tim and Nick followed Officer Pollock into the yard, stranding Jip like a jailbird in a glass cage. Thick clouds gathered in the west, full of long-promised snow, and Tim’s joints and spine ached with the moist threat of it. In the driveway, the car sat like a cold metal sarcophagus, and as they made their way back to the trunk, Tim couldn’t help but tingle with fear. Suppose the policeman had found the white man and now had bound the creature and stowed it in the back for safekeeping? An image flashed in his mind, the thing that had attacked him on the beach. He could picture the constrained wildness, snarling and straining against the rope at its wrists and ankles, the awful nakedness of the creature, its dead fish smell, its tangled hair and beard, the rotting teeth and filthy nails. Its fearsome prospect thrilled him as well, for he could at last prove that he had not hallucinated and willed the thing into being. He was doubly glad to have Nick along with him as a witness.

“It was frozen when I found it,” Officer Pollock said. “Probably been dead overnight.” He fumbled for the keys to the trunk, and then motioned for them both to stand back, as though he did not believe his own words. They retreated a step and craned their necks to see what might be inside.

The first glimpse of white nearly stopped Tim’s heart, but when the fullness of the color and its nature became apparent, he had to stifle a laugh, despite himself. It was a dead dog, a big white German shepherd curled into a sleeping position, the black nails on its paws ragged and broken, its great pink tongue lolling between two rows of sharp teeth. Lying on a piece of old tarp, the dead body took up virtually the entire space. Were it not for the open eyes, the corpse might be mistaken for merely resting. Nick leaned in close and reached out with tentative fingers, caught between the desire to prove the dogness and revulsion over its deadness.

“Here’s your monster, Mr. Keenan. Found it on the road near the tree line on Mercy.” He took the muzzle in hand and turned the head so a large red contusion could be seen. “Blunt object, if you ask me. Bumper of a car, poor thing, and then it must’ve wandered off to die. But take a good look, Mr. Keenan, that there is bigger than any coyote, big as a wolf. A great white wolf—that explains a lot, I expect.”

“Are you sure it’s dead?” Nick asked.

“Sure as sure can be,” he said. “I had to kinda fold it to get it into the trunk, so you better believe it would have bit me if it had breath. No tags, no collar, who knows how long it was out there, terrifying the public. I guess that’s what you seen, Mr. Keenan. What dug your hole and found that bone. I guess that’s what’s been running round these parts.”

Nick brushed his hands through the dead dog’s fur. The hairs bristled at odd angles, and the body was as cold as a tombstone.

“That’s not it,” said Mr. Keenan. He turned his back on the car and caressed the wounds on his neck. “That’s not what I saw, sorry to say. Or at least, I don’t think so. What I saw was big as a man. That’s quite a large dog, but still—”

“You sure you don’t want another look? If the evidence points in one direction, it’s hard not to trust what’s right in front of your eyes. You said there was something wild roaming about, and I find you a wild thing. Pretty much locks down the case.”

They stood for a while considering the dead animal, like uncertain mourners at a funeral. Nick poked at the corpse as though attempting to get it to move or bark or growl.

“A man,” Mr. Keenan began, but then he cut himself short and just smiled at the trooper. “Could be,” he finally said. “You could be right. Maybe it was just a big white wolf-dog all along. Thanks so much for taking the trouble to bring it by.”

“Knew you and your wife had been concerned.”

“She’ll be sorry she missed you.”

Pollock reached for the lip of the trunk lid and was surprised to find Nick leaning inside the well. “You’ll have to get out of there. I’ve got places to go and criminals to catch.”

Slipping out of harm’s way, Nick straightened and shielded his eyes to look at the policeman. “You are a superhero.”

“Officer Pollock,” he said. “To the rescue.” With a grin, he slammed the trunk, got into the car, and drove away.

“Hi-yo, Silver,” Tim said, and then he put his arm around the boy’s shoulders and they walked back inside.

Waiting like a fledgling in the nest, Jip began pestering them at once. “What was in the car? I couldn’t see, I couldn’t see.”

“A monster,” Nick said. “Hairy white beast straight out of your nightmares.”

Tossing his jacket over the back of a chair, Tim grimaced at the boy. “Don’t pay any attention to him. It was just a dog. A poor misfortunate German shepherd dog, white as winter. Must have been a beautiful thing before it met something bigger and more dangerous. Now it’s just a broken body in the back of a police car.”

“That’s right.” Nick sniffed. “Just a dog.”

*   *   *

Holly could not remember a time over the past few weeks when she had such an unbroken stretch of peace without the constant drumming in her head. The talk with Miss Tiramaku had done her good she was certain, and on the ride back to the rectory, they had discussed more of Jack’s case history from the very beginning. Holly told her about the first time she had noticed her son’s strange affect. He was cradled in her lap, laid lengthwise against her propped-up legs, and she bent down to kiss him again and again, soft zerberts on his tummy and cheeks, but he didn’t respond as she’d hoped, didn’t respond as other babies with a yelp of glee or belly giggles or even just a sharp inhalation. No, he seemed to resent her affections. Her suspicions played out in the months to come, Tim fighting her all the way when she sought out specialists. The pediatricians were missing it. She knew. A mother knows her child.

“Sometimes a father is too close to tell,” Miss Tiramaku said. “Or maybe your husband doesn’t want to admit his child is different. I can connect with Jack, and I’d like to talk with him again. Maybe next time Nicholas, too. Do you think he is angry with Nick?”

“Angry?”

“Or resents him, perhaps. Resents the difference he feels?”

“No, Nick’s a good boy. He’s like a brother.”

“A brother,” Miss Tiramaku repeated and stared through the window, chewing on the word.

They had arrived at the rectory and sat in the car, plotting the next steps. To be sure that Miss Tiramaku hadn’t been locked out, Holly watched her go to the door, changing from spry to tottering as though she were a windup doll herself in need of another turn of the key. Father Bolden met her on the porch, held the storm door for her in a gesture of familiar welcome. Holly did not bother to wave good-bye, but turned the car around and drove home.

In the last navy blue moments of the day, she pulled into the driveway. The Christmas lights were on, and when she walked in, the rich aroma of a beef stew made her dizzy with hunger. The boys were busy setting the table, and Tim stirred the pot with a big wooden spoon. A glass of red wine sat breathing at her place at the table, and she felt a surge of tranquility shoot through her veins with the first sip.

After a quick hello kiss, Tim shared the news. “You’ll never guess who came by the house, not ten minutes after you left.”

“Santa Claus,” she said. “Come to deliver that Caribbean cruise he forgot?”

“Very funny.” Tim reached for the wine bottle to top off her glass. “It was Haddock. That policeman who was here Christmas Day.”

“Pollock,” she said. “To check up on the case of the mystery bone? I have a theory where it came from.”

“That’s what I thought too, at first, but no. Not that at all. You’ll never guess what he had in the back of his car.”

Jack Peter shouted, “A monster.”

“Now, Jip, let your mother guess.”

“A monster?” Holly asked.

“Sort of,” said Tim. “Remember that thing I saw on the rocks, that thing that got at my throat? Well it wasn’t a coyote, it was a big white dog, the size of a wolf. Found it dead at the Point. Pollock had to stuff it in the back of his rig. Been roaming round here for weeks. Isn’t that great?”

“That’s terrible,” she said. “Poor thing.”

“It was already dead, of course, but don’t you see? It proves there’s been something out there, just like I thought, and it explains everything—the noises, the dog across the street going crazy, the feeling like you’re being watched all the time out there.”

She drained her glass of wine. “If you say so, dear.”

“What do you mean, if I say so? Don’t you understand, this fixes everything.”

“A big white dog?”

“Precisely.”

“Precisely.” She helped herself to the bottle and refilled her glass and lifted it in a toast to her husband. “Case closed.”

The boys were already seated at the table, quietly waiting for the start of dinner. The oven timer buzzed, and Tim retrieved a pan of biscuits and set in motion the whole process of clattering bowls and spoons and fetching the milk from the fridge and getting dinner on the table. They all tucked in, and in those first moments, appetite trumped conversation, and they ate as though this meal was their first in ages.

Tim speared a chunk of potato on the end of his fork and blew to cool it down. “It looked like it was asleep, all curled up like they do, in the bottom of the trunk.”

“If you cut them open to let the steam out, you wouldn’t have to blow on your food,” Holly said. “Potatoes stay hot a long time.”

“That’s what I like about living in a small town. Mighty nice of that young policeman to keep us informed.” He fanned his open mouth with his free hand.

Jack Peter blew on his potato.

“Same goes for you,” she said. “Let the steam out, so you can eat them sooner.”

“At first I didn’t believe him,” said Tim. “About a big dog, but the more I got to thinking, the more it makes sense.”

She buttered a biscuit and ignored him. “Jack, Miss Tiramaku said you and she had a good talk, is that right?”

When he heard his name, Jack stopped chasing a pearl onion around the bottom of his bowl and stared at his mother.

“Says she wants to talk with you some more. Would that be all right, son?” Holly sank her teeth into the biscuit, and Jack nodded and resumed his game.

Tim waggled an empty fork at her. “I’m not sure it’s all right with me.”

“It doesn’t have to be with your approval, Tim. He needs somebody. I don’t think there’s any harm in her talking with the boy.”

“Bunch of superstition.”

Her spoon clattered when she dropped it into the bowl. For the next few moments, they ate in deep silence.

“Didn’t seem real at first,” Nick said. “A make-believe dog. Like something Jack Peter would dream up.”

*   *   *

They all made their peace after supper, managing a few hands of cards before bed. On the calendar in the boys’ bedroom, Nick drew a big black
X
through another number and calculated how long it would be until his parents returned. Just a few more days. While Jack Peter was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, Nick changed his clothes. He stripped off his shirt, and as he undid his belt buckle, he felt the lump in his jeans pocket. He pulled out a wad of papers, the torn strips from the drawing adhering together like a ball of yarn, ragged and matted. The drawing. The babies. It seemed so long ago in retrospect, and with all of the strange visitors, Nick had forgotten to ask Mrs. Keenan about it, and he had not dared mention the drawing to Jack Peter. From down the hall came the sound of the bathroom door opening with a burst. He would be back soon, so Nick shoved the pulpy mass under his side of the mattress.

He was tired, oh so tired.

When the lights went out, he had hoped to go straight to sleep, but instead, Jack Peter rolled to his side and faced him in the darkness, wanting to talk. Nick could smell the mint toothpaste on his breath and the scent of soap on his skin. Go away, he wanted to shout, but he said nothing and tried to will his friend to sleep.