Four

The divers had arrived by the time I got back to Creek House, coffee half gone already. Mike was standing on the bank in waders and two frogmen in full wetsuits, with tanks and masks, were standing chest-deep in the slough just off to the side of my porch.

“Move along,” Mike said.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Have you IDed him yet? Did the missing persons list turn anything up? When’s the autopsy? Was the bullet still in him?”

“I’m not answering questions,” Mike said. Then she raised her voice. “Anytime you feel like starting, guys! Let’s get done here.” I was sure she wrinkled her nose. But then she was standing plank in the middle of the kittens’ favourite patch of undergrowth. I really didn’t live in a very salubrious neighbourhood in any way at all.

“Will you answer this question, though?” I said. “Should I cancel my list of clients for the day? Is it okay to have people traipsing in and out? What with the crime scene and everything?” I waved at the two ribbons of yellow tape running from the side rail of the boat to the opposite bank, carving out a wedge.

“This isn’t a crime scene,” Mike said. “The tape’s only there for the dive.”

“Not a crime scene?” I echoed. “What?”

“I’m not answering questions,” Mike said.

“I’ll cancel,” I said. “It’s not exactly conducive to good therapy, is it?” Then I pulled my Voyager from the box nailed to the post at the bottom of the steps and climbed aboard.

She scowled at me when I settled on the porch, at the riparian side, to finish my coffee and pretend to read my paper. But what could she do? I was on my property. It just so happened that my property had an excellent close-up view.

One frogman jumped up, jack-knifed, showed me his black rubber bottom and disappeared with a flick of his flippers. “You have my sympathies,” I said to the other one, who was treading water above the surface. I couldn’t see much face inside the mask, but I thought he looked puzzled. “Slough water,” I said. “With a bit of corpse juice still.”

He spat out his breathing apparatus to answer me. “Good money.”

“Where there’s muck there’s brass,” I said. “Never mind,” I added when he pursed his lips to start asking what the hell I was on about. It didn’t happen every day anymore, but often enough for it still to be tiring.

“And you’re supposed to be working for it!” Mike shouted from the shallows. “Not hitting on bystanders.”

The bits of the frogman’s face that I could see round the edge of the mask went deep magenta and he turned away. I shook my head slowly in Mike’s direction and opened my paper.

I started on the back page, as ever. It was soothing to read of sports I’d never seen and couldn’t understand, like whale music for the eyes. Sophomore’s fine defense yielded only two touchdowns, I read. Ommmm, I thought.

The small ads were the usual carnival of weirdness. Spray-on bed-liners for sale, Soroptimists’ Crab Grabs coming up, Mandala planned at dawn. None of it meant a damn thing to me.

At my side the frogmen changed over, the first one coming up and the blushing one—who had absolutely not been hitting on me and even if he had, I wasn’t interested—going down. I watched out of the corner of my eye. Yip, no interest. Whose bum and thighs wouldn’t look good in black rubber?

I turned back to my newspaper. Ah, the letters page. Feuds were simmering, snowflakes being triggered, and sheeple calling wahmbulances. In the Community section, where the feathers ruffled in the letters were smoothed again, I saw that the Name of the Month was open for entries. I loved the Name of the Month thing. All the shops and small businesses took it in turns to offer free stuff to people with a certain name. And once a month the person with the most free stuff won a big prize. So the florist would offer boutonnieres to Sarahs on Thursday morning, and then the petrol station would give an oil change to all Josés over one lunchtime. The downtown independent cinema gave matinee tickets and popcorns to Daves one Sunday. I imagine more Daves saw more Iranian film in Cuento that day than in the rest of California all year.

I always entered my personal total to the prize draw, just to make a point: L-E-A-G-S-A-I-D-H, I texted, and then ZERO. It had been the same my whole life. I’d never had a key-ring or Coke can with my name on it. Not once. But I was convinced that, one of these months, someone in this town would take pity on me and realise if they put a sign out on the street with Free Pedicures for Every LEAGSAIDH, it would cost them at most one pedicure. It made good business sense as well as being a nice gesture to a recent immigrant, just what Lady Liberty would do.

The frogmen, once more, were swapping places. This was a very thorough search of the slough bed and the air on my porch was no longer its usual blend of washing powder, leaf litter, and a whiff of kitten. There was an unmistakable eggy top-note now. I recognised it from when I had churned up the slough running cable out to Creek House and driving in a pole to lash the propane tank to in case of earthquakes, in accordance with many city ordinances. I felt sorry for the blushing frogman, who was adjusting his rubber suit at the waist as he surfaced. If there was a gap in the middle and the slough was seeping in, his drive home wasn’t going to be much fun.

I put my phone away again, took a draught of my coffee, and turned another page, ready now for the hard news—for whatever the Voyager had made of the corpse in the slough and for however they were going to stick it to me for finding the body.

But the front page wasn’t a grainy shot of the back of the Last Ditch, or a blurry shot of the pathologist’s van speeding away with the body bag on board. The dead guy wrapped round my beer rope had quite a write-up. Of course he did. This was Cuento, and a corpse was big news. But, on the other hand, this was Cuento, and even bigger news was animal cruelty. Cuento had a duck crossing staffed by volunteers during fledging, and a designated turkey advocate to represent the rights of the local wild flock at city council meetings. Cuento had protective orders slapped on wasps’ nests and anthills.

And so the photograph on the front page of its news organ today was a picture of a horse, staring straight into the camera, and a rider, dismounted and standing by its head, managing to pull the longer face of the two somehow and holding up a mystifying handful of … What the hell was that? Dead grass?

I ignored the splash of the frogman coming up at my side and bent over to read the story.

Veterinary Science student Kimberly Voorheft (20) had her evening ride cut short yesterday when a vicious attack on her pony, Agnetha, left both horse and rider in shock. “I was headed home, just crossing the pedestrian bridge near the stables on the east side of town, when Aggie pulled up short and made sounds of distress. I dismounted and tried to lead her over the bridge, but she showed great reluctance. If I didn’t know her and if I didn’t follow this route twice a week, I’d have said she was spooked. But there was nothing to spook her.” An experienced horsewoman, Ms. Voorheft decided to turn back and take an alternate route. “It was when we turned that I realized what had happened. I skidded on something slippery. At first I thought it was a patch of oil that I hadn’t noticed on the way up the approach. Then I looked back at Aggie to see if she was all right. And that’s when I saw that her tail was gone.”

I coughed up an inhalation of coffee. Did I really just read that?

“Her tail had been chopped off, leaving only six inches still attached, and the hairs were spilled all over the path. That’s what I had skidded on.” This bizarre attack on an innocent animal has left Ms. Voorheft mystified. “Someone crept up behind us and took a pair of shears to Aggie’s tail,” Ms. Voorheft confirmed. “It was the feeling of suddenly having her tail hairs removed that spooked my poor pony. I just don’t get what would make anyone do such a weird and sick thing to such a sweet creature. She didn’t deserve this.” If anyone has information that might shed light on the mystery, we invite you to call the Voyager at 530-752-HELP.

“Mi—olly,” I said, standing up and waving the paper at her. “Have you seen this?”

“We’re busy here, Ms. Campbell,” Mike said, rolling her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was rolling them at my slip or my save. She was in the slough up to her knees now, bagging items as one of the frogmen handed them over.

“Have you found the ring?” I said, even though it looked like Dorito bags and crushed water bottles she was currently handling. She ignored me. “Did you see this about the horse?” She tried to ignore me, but it’s hard not to react to someone saying something wildly unexpected. And among the many occupational hazards of being a cop, one of the worst ones is how they’re incapable of not being interested in unexpected stuff. They’re professional noticers. Must be exhausting.

“Horse?” said Mike.

“A horse had its tail cut off crossing a bridge last night. It’s in the paper.”

“What?”

“I don’t think the Jimmy wig’s got anything to do with me after all.”

“What? What bridge?”

“The wotchermacallit call it—the overpass. The footbridge over the railway line out near the stables over there.” I waved my paper in the vague direction of the east side of town where the railway line cut through the suburbs.

“That’s miles away,” Mike said. “What are you talking about? Please stop interrupting me while I’m trying to work.”

“I’m trying to help you,” I said. “Forget what I said about the hat. No one here calls it a Jimmy wig except me. It’s what you call it that matters.”

“Ms. Campbell, if you continue to obstruct the progress of this enquiry, you will be charged.”

“Was there any aggro at the cemetery last night?”

“Are you high?” said Mike. “Hat, horse, cemetery … it’s word salad!”

“Was there?”

“We had a detail up there,” Mike unbent so far as to say. “Halloween, better to not take chances.”

“Hmph,” I said. “Right.”

As the second frogman came to the surface, brandishing a rotted tennis shoe in one hand and a bike wheel sans tyre in the other, I skipped down the steps to go and assemble my posse. “Just do me one favour,” I said to Mike as I swept by her. “At some point, google Tam O’Shanter and read the poem.”

“Poem?”

“Poem.”

“Word salad,” she said again, shaking her head and laughing at me. She’d be laughing on the other side of her face once she’d put in a little Wikipedia time.

I had no idea where Todd might be, but the chances were good that Kathi would be on duty in the Skweeky Kleen, so it was Skweeky Kleen–ward I trotted, Googling on the fly. The page was loaded by the time I burst in through the door into the delicious fragrant warmth of Kathi’s domain. She was ironing shirts, a crumpled pile of them in a basket beside her and a sheaf of cardboard inserts waiting on the folding table. And Todd was there too.

“What are you doing?” I said. He was hunched over a sewing machine set up in the window.

“Saving my bacon,” Kathi said. “Did you know the Wash-n-Dry started offering alterations?”

“Okay,” I said.

“So, when one of my best sweaty but fussy customers cancelled her standing order and told me why, I opened my piehole and said we were doing alterations too.”

“Can you sew?”

“Nope.”

“Can you sew?” I said to Todd. His phone was propped up in front of him with what looked suspiciously like a Wiki-how page on threading a machine needle open on it.

“Yes,” Todd said. “For Kathi, my good friend, in these uncertain times, I’m sure I can.”

“Oh, change the record!” I said. “And get out the way, will you? What is it you’re trying to do?”

“Replace a zipper,” said Todd standing up and letting me slide into his place. “Wait. Can you sew?”

“Like an extra in The Pajama Game.” I threaded the needle, checked the tension, and grabbed Kathi’s pin-cushion to start fixing the new zip into place in the dress that was sitting in a heap on the floor. “Did you read about the horse?”

“That poor horse!” said Todd.

“Yeah, well now you can read off my phone and tell me what you think.”

“What?”

“Humour me,” I said. “Go on. Start reading.”

Todd cleared his throat. “‘Tam O’Shanter,’” he declaimed. “‘A tale.’ But not that sort of tail.”

“We’ll see,” I said, my mouthful of pins making my voice even grimmer than the grim idea forming in my mind.

“‘When chapman billies leave the street,’” Todd began. “What’s a chapman billy?”

“No clue,” I said. “Keep reading.”

“‘And drouthy neebors neebors meet.’ What is this garbage?”

“Good point,” I said. “Google an English version and read that. Sorry.”

It only took a moment. “‘When peddler people leave the street and thirsty neighbors neighbors meet,’” he began again. “This is a very long drinking song, Lexy. Even for Scotland.”

“It’s not a drinking song,” I said. “It’s a ghost story. Set at Halloween. Keep reading.”

He kept reading, breaking off every so often to editorialise. “So Tam O’Shanter’s a guy’s name? Not a hat?”

“Typical unreliable alcoholic husband,” Kathi said, when Todd got to the bit about Tam’s wife waiting at home with his dinner drying out.

“No way he’s fit to ride a horse,” she added when Tam set off at last. “This guy’s a jerk, Lexy.”

She snorted when Tam stopped at the churchyard wall to watch the dance of the witches, salivating over the comely wench in her short shift. “When was this written? Nothing ever changes, does it?”

But when the witches gave chase to Tam on his trusty mare, hounding him to the bridge, trapped on its one side (since devils and demons cannot cross running water), catching poor Maggie by her tail, pulling it off at its roots, Kathi grew quiet again. And, by the time Todd finished, she was standing gazing at him, her iron steaming away neglected on its stand. I had abandoned pinning the zip too.

“So … Tam O’Shanter is the story of a man who sees witches dance in a graveyard at Halloween and has his horse’s tail pulled off while he’s escaping across a bridge,” said Todd.

“And last night,” I added, “at Halloween, a man with a Tam O’Shanter stapled to his head was tipped into a river and a horse crossing a bridge had her tail cut off. I asked Mike if there was any trouble at the cemetery, but she said they watched it like a hawk last night of all nights.”

“The cemetery, I bet they do,” Kathi said. “But what about the old burial ground?”

I shivered. Who wouldn’t? Then I realised the sudden cold draught was because Mike had opened the launderette door.

“We’re done,” she said.

“That was quick,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” she told me. “When we find the scene of the death, we’ll have more to do, but the slough was just the dump site.”

“Did you find the ring?”

“There was no ring,” Mike told me. “Dr. Kroger here didn’t see it. Dr. Roger Kroger didn’t see it. No one saw it except you. And let’s be honest, you didn’t see it. You were partying pretty hard, weren’t you? A seventy-two pack of beer is not tea with the vicar. You saw a reflection.”

With that she was gone.

“A seventy-two pack of beer that we hadn’t started yet!” I yelled after her. “I didn’t imagine that ring any more than Tam imagined the dancing witches. I wonder if he got this much crap from the authorities the next day.”

“So where’s this burial ground?” Todd said.

“Noleen knows the way,” said Kathi. “Let’s ask Della if she’ll do a stint on the desk when she gets in from work tonight and we can go see if there’s anything to see.”

“Won’t it be getting dark by then?” I asked her.

“We can wear our head lamps,” said Kathi.

“I am not wearing a flashlight strapped to my head,” said Todd.

“Also,” I said, “how can we get in touch with the vet student kid?” I said. “I bet she’s got more to say than got written up in the paper.”

“You think?” said Kathi. “I’d have thought they’d stretch it out instead of cutting it down.”

“That’s just my cover story,” I said. “Actually, I was wondering if she knew him.”

“Who?” said Todd.

“Dead Guy,” I said. “Who else?”

“We can’t keep calling him Dead Guy,” said Kathi. “It’s disrespectful.”

“Jimmy?” I said. “Mr. James Wigg?”

“You said that was a red herring,” Todd pointed out.

“And it’s nearly as bad as Dead Guy,” Kathi added.

“Okay,” I said. “Till the cops find out his real name, let’s just call him Tam.”