Chapter Nine

From Helene Bright’s Journal

April 28, 1977

 

What a day this has been. I’m tearing my hair out with the luncheon I’m planning at the club, the derby party I’m trying to get finalized here, and the assorted sundries I’m responsible for in just keeping my life on track. And then little Timothy, dear sweet child that he is, has been accused of something by one of the neighbors that I simply refuse to believe. Still, I find myself having to deal with a crying child and a disgruntled mother.

The Watsons three houses down recently “adopted” this horrible little creature, a Great Dane puppy. Why someone would want to take this horse of a slobbering beast into their home is beyond me, but people’s pet choices have always eluded me. Animals are for zoos, not people’s homes. I would never own one myself. The smell and the hair alone are nauseating and threats to our general well-being. To the point, though, Claire Watson came pounding on the door about eleven o’clock this morning, saying she had something she wanted to show me. She was obviously distraught, eyes red-rimmed and just this trembling, cowering demeanor that I found totally inappropriate. I was in the middle of going over the menu for the Derby Day party and had to put that aside to traipse down the road to this woman’s house. She said not a word the entire way there. And when I asked her what the matter was, she would only say, “You’ll see.”

When we arrived at the Watson’s Tudor-fronted monstrosity (ah, the tackiness of the nouveau riche), I found her son, Brian, sniveling on the porch. I asked him what the matter was, and before he could even respond, Claire pulled me inside the house. Pulled hard enough to hurt my arm. I was shocked. I snatched my arm away from her and glared. “What’s the matter with you? You hurt me.”

Claire gave only a snort of laughter in response, laughter that was mirthless and cold. By this point, I was beginning to feel worried. I still hadn’t a clue as to what was going on and had even considered turning on my heel and going home. Busy as I was, I had no time for mysteries and games of suspense. I’ll leave those to the trashy paperback crowd.

“Follow me,” Claire instructed, and I was taken aback. Who did this woman think she was? I asked her that very question, becoming more and more peeved by the second.

“I believe I’m a concerned mother. And when you see what I have to show you, I hope you’ll be a concerned aunt.” Her eyes were almost sparkling with outrage. She added, “That is, if you have a shred of decency in you.”

I was so dumbfounded by this treatment that I didn’t say anything. I followed her mutely down a hall done up in totally inappropriate modernist prints and crowded with tacky, overpriced reproduction furniture.

Claire switched on the light at the top of the basement stairs. “This won’t be pleasant, but I felt you needed to see it,” she said before descending the stairs.

I followed her down, and I have to admit I was beginning to feel a wee bit nervous. There was an odd, very distasteful smell coming up from the basement, and when I commented on it, Claire said only, “It gets worse.”

Inside the laundry room, I finally discovered what all the fuss was about. It appeared someone or something had gotten hold of their Great Dane puppy. The creature lay dead in a pool of blood on the concrete floor, its brown eyes staring at nothing.

Claire seemed to be watching me as I took in the corpse. Its belly had been slit open and, along with a tremendous amount of gore, its entrails had been pulled out. Ropes of intestine lay near the dog’s stomach, sticking to the darkening and rapidly congealing blood. I felt my bile rise and raised a hand to my mouth, fearing I would vomit.

“Pretty horrible, isn’t it?”

I nodded, feeling too sick and weak to say anything at that particular moment. Finally, I did manage to say, “I’ve seen enough. Can we get out of here?”

Claire led me out of the laundry room and into the finished part of the basement, where the Watsons had one of those rooms people are calling “family rooms.” She was decent enough to let me sit on the couch; she sat in a chair across from me and stared. That’s all, simply stared. Her eyes were once more brimming with tears, and her lower lip was quivering. What did she want me to do? Console her? Wrap my arms around her and tell her everything would be all right?

What she told me next had to be a lie.

“Brian says Timothy did this.”

I laughed in spite of my churning stomach. Timothy has to be one of the gentlest boys around. I’ve seen so much roughhousing among the neighborhood boys, and Timothy would never even take part in any of that. So how could he possibly have done something like this? “That’s preposterous,” I told her. “I think you should check again with your own. That’s not my Timothy’s handiwork, you can be sure of that, Claire.”

She regarded me again with a look of disbelief.

“Brian loved that dog.” And then she broke at last into tears. “He’s been begging us for the last year to get him one.”

“Oh, you know how boys are.”

Her eyes widened as if I had just said something shocking. But I wasn’t about to sit there and let her accuse Timothy of something of which he just is not capable.

“Brian told me that Timothy told him he wanted to see what the dog looked like on the inside. He used the butcher knife from the block in the kitchen.”

“No, that’s not possible,” I said, standing on legs that I must admit were a tad bit unsteady.

Claire stayed where she was, staring at the floor. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Brian says this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this. He says Timothy has tortured insects, and the Timmons’s cat turned up missing a couple of weeks ago. I think you should ask Timothy about that.”

“I’ll ask him nothing of the sort.” How dare this woman say such a thing! With each passing moment, I was growing more and more outraged. The nerve of this woman knew no bounds. I kept seeing the dog, and it was making me more and more ill. I needed to get outside, where the air didn’t stink of blood and entrails.

I headed for the stairs.

“You’ll have to pay for this, you know,” Claire shouted at me as I headed up the stairs.

“I’ll pay for nothing. This was not the work of my nephew. I think you better look carefully at your own household before accusing innocent neighbor children,” I shouted back. “Timothy is about the gentlest boy you’d ever want to meet. And you know it.”

And with that, I hurried from the house.

I can’t write anymore. I did not and will not ask Timothy about this disagreeable matter. I don’t want to upset him.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a saner day. I hope so.