Turtle Moon (27 page)

All Julian can do is stand and be a witness; he hasn't the right to intrude, since Arrow isn't really his to mourn. But standing there he feels as if he's just shot a hole in himself; it's the kind of emptiness the wind can sweep right through. He takes off his shirt and finally walks back to the clearing so he can place it over the dead man's face. How could he ever explain why to this boy, who is soaked in blood and grief?

Does Julian tell him that some things are right and some things are wrong, even if it tears you answer her. She could swear that he hasn't even heard her.

The dog's body is already stiffening when Julian kneels to wrap him in the blanket, but the wound in Arrow's side continues to bleed. Julian quickly passes his hands over the gash. He won't wash the blood off until morning, and even then he'll find blood beneath his fingernails for days afterward.

All that time Arrow spent pacing in his kennel he was dead, and whether or not the boy will ever believe it, he's the one who's set Arrow free.

It's their duty to do this together, no matter how much the boy hates Julian. They get two shovels from the back shed, and they bury the dog beneath the cypress trees, and after that Julian can t get the scent of cypress out of his throat, and it just about breaks what's left of his heart.

Keith stands beside him in the dark, shivering.

There will never be another dog like Arrow, they both know that. Not if they search for a million years. And it seems somehow terrible that as they stand there, the center of the black sky is cleared of clouds, and a white moon rises to remind them that they are both still alive.

Twelve hours later, Walt Hannen is standing over the body of the dead man. Unfortunately for Walt, he quit smoking last night and his wife will kill him if he starts up again after spending two hundred dollars on acupuncture down in West Palm Beach. He hates it when people die inside the personally. Julian as they study the Verity town limits; he takes it is standing right next to him body.

"He's definitely dead," Walt Hannen says.

There are masses of flies on the body already, and it says a lot that Julian has so quickly buried that killer dog of his and left this man out in the hot sun.

"There's no ID," Julian says. "I checked."

"Of course, you didn't bother to wait for me before you searched him."

In spite of all the visualization techniques Walt has learned from the acupuncturist, what he wants is a cigarette. He and Julian have walked down from the house with mugs of coffee, which Julian pretty much ruined by adding Cremora, and they're both careful not to get too close to the body, because of the flies.

"So what do we have here?" Walt asks. He sits down on a tree stump and sips his coffee. He knows this is going to be good.

"I figure he was a vagrant. He killed our lady on Long Boat Street, then swiped the daughter, thinking she was worth something to somebody."

Julian crouches down. "I've got the little girl. Over at Miss Giles's. Did I tell you that?"

"You mentioned something about that," Walt says. "What's interesting is that the dead man wound up on your property. Don't you think so?"

"I don't own this," Julian tells him. "State conservation land."

Julian takes a deep breath, then shakes his head. "This heat is really doing something to that guy. Maybe Fd better call Richie."

"And what are we planning to do with the little girl without some next-of-kin?"

"Leave her with Miss Giles," Julian said. "I've taken care of all that."

"You sure have," Walt says. "Give me a cigarette," he adds.

"I can't," Julian says.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I quit," Julian says.

"Just like that?" Walt says. "Jesus." He narrows his eyes. "Are you sure Rose didn't call you and put you up to this?"

"She didn't call." Julian notices that Walt has shifted his gaze back to the body. "How is Rose?" he asks.

The dead body stinks like hell and the flies are now buzzing over their heads, too.

"You want to talk about Rose?" Walt asks.

"Well, no," Julian admits.

"So is this the story you expect me to believe?"

Walt asks.

Julian gulps down what's left of his coffee, even though it's now cold.

"We just forget that our lady from Long Boat Street had a false identity, and we don't try to find out who the hell she was? And the kid who was missing? We forget about him, too?"

"I already told you," Julian says. He's extremely careful now, since this is the moment when he's more than likely to screw up. He knows the boy will never forgive him; he doesn't expect that. The truth is, he'll never be able to forgive himself. He'll never know if he did what he had to do or only what he thought he had to do, and it doesn't make much of a difference since the result is the same.

He killed a dog the like of whom he'll never see again, because of a worthless man whose name he doesn't even know. It was the right thing, he knows that; you have a dog who makes the decision to attack all on his own, and he'll probably do it again. But doing the right thing doesn't mean you can sleep at night. It doesn't mean you won't I egret it for the rest of your life.

"The kid took off after some trouble in school.

Miss Giles found him hiding out in the woods and took him in. She figured he needed some time before going back home. You know how Miss Giles is."

"That's all of it?" Walt asks.

"That's what went on," Julian says.

They stare at each other, and neither one blinks.

Walt Hannen has a real good stare; he's been perfecting it for nearly twenty years.

"It's not a bad story," Walt says thoughtfully. "I just wish it were true."

Those brown buzzards that some people mistake for red-tailed hawks have begun to circle above them; they're already fighting over the feast laid out below.

"Well, yeah," Julian says finally. "That would be nice.

"I've got forty-three weeks left," Walt Hannen says. "Not that I'm counting."

"I think my story would look great on your record," Julian says. "It doesn't have any loose ends."

"No one's going to come looking for that baby?"

"Nope," Julian says. "Not in my lifetime."

"Well, the fact that it all ends up on your property is kind of a question mark," Walt tells him.

Walt's fairly certain he'll never know what happened here, he's not even sure he'd want to. But whatever it was, it's changed Julian Cash and probably a lot of other things, too. If Walt was just a little different, more like Roy Hadley, the chief over in Hartford Beach, he'd get to the bottom of all this; he wouldn't let the fate of a twelve year-old boy or one of his men get in the way.

"I already told you," Julian says. "This property doesn't belong to me.

Walt Hannen looks up at the sky. As far as he can tell, Julian's still got good instincts. If anything, he's too unrelenting in his appraisal of what's right and what's wrong, and it's a good thing he isn't a judge, since most of the trespassers who came up before him would certainly hang.

"I hate buzzards." Walt sighs. When he retires he'll spend some time up near Lake Okeechobee.

He'll finally be able to take Rose up to Atlantic City; he'll just surprise her one day and walk through the door with the plane tickets and the hotel reservations and maybe even a new dress to wear, since she's never liked to spend much money on herself. "Goddamned worthless creatures," he says of the buzzards.

Walt rises to his feet, and when he does Julian knows he's going to look the other way. He's going to let Julian write up his story just as if he believed it.

"Let's call Richie and get this guy out of here," Walt says.

They go back the way they've come, where the earth is so damp in spite of the heat that Arrow's pawprints can still be seen. Julian knows that most people believe a dog is worth less than a human, but they've never looked into a dog's eyes.

They've never stood beside a dog when the moon rises and fills up the night.

"You know the only thing that could possibly bother me?" Walt says as they reach Julian's yard.

"It's the thought that someone who's guilty is getting off easy. I'd hate that."

"No one who's guilty gets off easy," Julian tells him.

"Karma?" Walt says. His acupuncturist has mentioned it once or twice.

When Julian looks at him, Walt explains, "You reap what you sow."

Julian nods. He believes in that. They have reached the cypress trees, and above them the merlins are unnaturally quiet. He will never be able to pass this place and not think of Arrow.

"I'm sorry about your dog," Walt Hannen says.

Julian manages to look away from the cypress trees. "Yeah, well, he never thought he was my dog," he says.

"I told you to get yourself a good Labrador retriever," Walt reminds him. "They can track anything a shepherd can."

"It wouldn't be the same," Julian says.

"You're goddamned right it wouldn't be." Walt grins. "A Lab would listen to you.

"Arrow listened to me. He just didn't give a crap about what I had to say."

Walt avoids the dog's grave as he goes to his car. He calls in for Richie to head over with an ambulance, so they can get the corpse in the woods to the morgue. Then he takes out some of the Juicy Fruit gum Rose has stocked in his glove compartment. Since he's in charge, at least for now, no one will question his decision to forgo an autopsy, no one will even know whether or not he contacts the state police about an ID check.

Walt has always been social by nature: he plays poker with several guys on the Hartford Beach police force, he's got quite a few buddies he grew up with, and he and Rose often get together with some of the other Labrador retriever breeders they've gotten to know over the years. But he supposes that if he had to pick someone to stand by him, someone to trust, he'd choose Julian. He's not even sure of the reason wfrv-maybe it's only because he happened to be on duty the night of the accident, or maybe he's just a good judge of character.

"I've got a new batch of puppies right now, Walt tells Julian as they lean on the porch railing, waiting for Richie. "Four yellow and two black.

I'd give you a good deal."

"Do you ever get the feeling that your life isn't really your own, and you've just sort of let things happen to you?" Julian asks.

Walt looks at him, to make sure it's Julian Cash who's just strung so many words together.

"No," Walt admits. "Although I've felt something like that when I've gone to the mall in Hartford Beach with Rose."

Julian laughs out loud, but the laugh cracks midway and turns into something else. A gasp maybe, a tearing sound.

"Are you going to keep on talking like this, or is this just some sort of spell you're under?"

Walt asks.

"I hate people who talk a lot," Julian says. "Now I'm one of them."

They can hear Richie's siren and Julian can gauge that he's just passed by Chuck and Karl's diner. Most likely, the people sitting in the booths by the window are craning their necks to see what's going on outside. Well, they can look all they want, they're never going to know the truth: that a hundred-pound dog could tear a man apart yet love a boy so much he wouldn't notice his own wounds, that a man like Julian could feel something after all this time.

"You're not cracking up on me or something like that?" Walt asks softly as Richie's car and the ambulance pull into the driveway and those damned merlins start to jabber.

Julian is staring at the place in the earth where the dog is buried, now and forever, beneath those cypress trees. Inside his house, Loretta is probably sleeping on the bed, though she knows she's not allowed. Twenty years ago, Julian could have wound up anywhere, but instead he found himself here, not four miles from where he was born.

On that night, all the bees rose out of their hives in the woods, startled by his mother's cry. If she hadn't covered him with her dress, he might have been the one who was stung. If she hadn't run all the way to Miss Giles's house, he would never have been alive. Maybe he can remember it if he tries: the folds of her skirt, the bees so confused by the darkness they followed all the way to Miss Giles's front yard.

"Maybe you're the one who's cracking up," Julian tells Walt. "Maybe it's nicotine withdrawal.

Ever think of that?"

"I never thought of that," Walt says, surprised to find he's actually relieved to hear Julian talking again.

Walt won't miss this job. He's getting out while his blood pressure's still in the high-normal range and his ulcer is under control. Richie Platt isn't ready to take on the job, and so Walt will probably have to look outside Verity when it comes to finding his replacement. It's not that he hasn't considered Julian. He has, in spite of the reaction he knows he'd get from the city council; he just couldn't do that to Julian. When Walt packs up his desk that will be the end of it, he won't look back, although there's the possibility that he will drive out here to Julian's every once in a while, when he's got nothing better to do, or when he just wants someone to talk to.

When Keith packs his suitcase two weeks later, he discovers that there's really not much he wants to take with him. A sweatshirt, his favorite jeans, his jar of pennies, and at the last minute, the tennis racket his father gave him last summer, even though he hasn't touched it since they moved and probably won't have time to use it this year, since he's signed up for summer school at Great Neck North. His father doesn't know everything, but he knows there's been trouble. He's already phoned to advise Keith that he'll have a curfew I ten o'clock, even on weekend nights, and Keith didn't argue with him. He's not going to bother to call Laddy Stem to say good-bye, since he probably won't be coming back. He's been given the option to stay in New York when the summer ends, if that's what he wants. But of course, the only thing he truly wants is his dog back, and he can't have that.

Since his voice returned, he hasn't used it much.