SHE TOLD HIM she wanted to check on the ice, which piled up on the creek each winter in fantastical formations that collapsed theatrically in the spring.
Sure enough, just as they reached the walking path, a sheaf of ice reared up and fell backward into an open patch of rushing black water, breaking into a dozen small floes that chased one another downstream.
“Whoa.” Calvin stood transfixed, for once ignoring Jake as the puppy nosed among the willows in wonderment at the unfamiliar scents, his nubby tail a blur.
Julia cast a glance down the trail. A few vagrants huddled at the creek’s edge, near the bridge, although this time without the benefit of a fire. Smart, she thought. The cops became increasingly attentive as the weather warmed and runners and cyclists—not to mention young moms with strollers—began to repopulate the trail.
All it took was one solid citizen calling police to complain about panhandlers and Duck Creek’s unfortunates would be banished, at least for a while, from one of their favorite places.
Julia tugged at Jake’s leash with one hand and Calvin’s hand with the other and began strolling along the trail, trying to give every appearance of meandering, even though she wanted to run toward the group. What if someone came along first and scared them off?
But the trio—the woman named Angie and her two friends again—were deep in conversation when Julia finally drew near, breaking off only when they saw Jake.
“Puppy!” Angie crooned. “Oh, the little darling.”
“He’s not so little,” Calvin announced. “He’s already six months old.”
Angie, who’d stooped to pet Jake, looked up and gave Calvin her toothless grin.
“And who are you?”
Calvin looked to Julia.
“It’s all right,” she said. “This is Miss Angie.”
“I’m Calvin.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Calvin.” The woman held out a dirty palm for a shake. Julia was embarrassed at the strength of her own relief at Calvin’s mittened hands.
Angie stood and looked at Julia. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
Somehow turning you into a near-curse.
It got worse.
Angie raised her voice for the benefit of her friends. “Remember? The one who’s supposed to be helping Ray.” She put a spin on helping that made it clear she thought Julia was doing anything but.
They’d moved a few feet out from their sheltered spot beneath the bridge, taking in the sun that cruelly highlighted their dirty, mismatched clothes, the black lines under their fingernails, the bulky tattered backpacks on the ground nearby. Calvin’s gaze moved uncertainly among them. His nose wrinkled. This close, he and Julia were well within the funk zone. She reached for his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Ichabod—Julia had already forgotten his real name—edged Angie aside and reached for Jake. “Give him to me.”
Calvin’s lip trembled, his face a mirror of Julia’s own anxiety.
But Ichabod merely held Jake close, laughing breathily as the puppy sniffed diligently around his face and neck, finally rewarding him with a series of licks that cleared a layer of grime to reveal the reddened skin beneath.
“It’s okay,” Julia whispered to Calvin. She retrieved a fact from a dog-training book she’d bought in a futile attempt to figure out how to keep Jake from trying to eat every inanimate object in sight. “It’s called socializing. He needs not to be afraid of people.”
To herself, though, she thought Jake could have been a little more discriminating, even as Little Guy—yet another name she’d forgotten—took Jake in turn, scratching behind his ears until Jake wriggled so enthusiastically in response the man put him down.
Calvin let go of Julia’s hand and ran to Jake, hugging him.
“You’re a good boy,” Little Guy said. “I can tell by the way you love your dog.”
Calvin beamed. These strange people liked his dog and that was enough for him.
Julia took Angie by the arm and steered her a few yards down the trail, keeping one eye on Calvin.
“I’m doing my best to help Ray. But it’s hard when he won’t talk to me.”
Angie’s gaze slid sideways. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe that’s because Ray’s finally got some sense in his head.”
“But they’re looking at him for homicide! Two homicides. Ones that I don’t think he did and neither do you. He could end up in prison for decades.”
Angie’s shoulders lifted and fell. “There are worse things.”
Julia gaped. “Seriously? What could be worse? The death penalty? He won’t get that—they’d have to show premeditation and all sorts of other things; besides, it’s really expensive to pursue.” She stopped. The last thing Angie needed was someone going all lawyer on her.
But Angie was nodding agreement.
“You just said it yourself. He could end up dead.”
Julia had just said Ray wouldn’t get the death penalty. Angie wasn’t making sense. Julia inhaled deeply and, she hoped, unobtrusively, trying to detect the scent of alcohol amid that of clothing and a body long unwashed. Nothing. She tried a different tack.
“I heard he was fighting. Not just arguing, like you said.” She tried to keep the accusation out of her voice and wasn’t sure she succeeded.
But Angie nodded. “Oh, Ray’s fighting, all right.” She cast a look over her shoulder. “Oh shit.” She yelled a warning to the others. “Cop. She told us to stay away from the river. We gotta bounce.”
Julia looked. There, far down the trail but approaching fast, was Deputy Sheriff Cheryl Hayes, this time on a solo run.
Angie went one way, Ichabod Crane another, and Little Guy a third. Julia reached Calvin and Jake just as Hayes pulled abreast, slowing to a near-stop, jogging in place.
“Is this child yours?” It didn’t matter that she was out of uniform. Her frozen tone, the ice in her eyes, was all cop.
“He’s my son, yes.”
“And you left him alone with those people?”
“He was in my sight the whole time—”
But Hayes was already off, her shoes crunching on pebbles, shaking her head as she went.
Jake looked after her, ears drooping, seemingly puzzled by the first human who had failed to find him adorable or even pay him any attention at all.
“I know just how you feel,” Julia said.
She picked up his leash and took Calvin’s hand.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She replayed the nonsensical conversation with Angie in her head all the way back to the house, where she paused before the gate, scanning the street. Nothing.
She closed the gate behind them and unhooked Jake’s leash. He bounded across the yard, Calvin in pursuit.
“Stay in the front yard where I can see you,” she commanded. The last thing she needed was for Calvin to stumble over another yellow-snow missive. She clicked through her phone, looking at the images from her new security system from the short time they’d been gone.
Also nothing.
She called Calvin and Jake, unlocked the door, let everyone in, and quickly shot the deadbolt behind her. “Shoes,” she reminded Calvin, hurrying in her own sock feet to the kitchen, where she raised the heavy shades and scanned the backyard, seeing nothing but melting snow and finally relaxing within the safety of her home.
Something tugged at her, though, hovering just out of reach as she prepared an early dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup—a new Sunday tradition that weekly made her miss Dom’s sauce—after which Calvin would be allowed to watch a movie while she caught up on paperwork.
It floated toward the front of her brain as she slotted the dishes into the dishwasher, skittering away just as she was about to grasp it. It poked her again as she settled Calvin on the sofa with Jake, her no-dogs-on-the-furniture rule having long gone by the wayside. And it jabbed her hard as she dialed up an old favorite, The Muppet Musicians of Bremen, with Rover Joe’s wailing lament—“I’m old. I’m tired. I’m woooorn away”—that she’d adopted as her own when Calvin made one request too many.
She retreated to the kitchen, checked the back door lock and pulled the shades down a millimeter farther, and spread her paperwork out on the table.
And just then, while she was distracted by the details of a pending bail hearing for another client on Monday, it finally surfaced.
Oh, Ray’s fighting, Angie had said.
Present tense.