“To hell with this,” said Dale. He went out of the barn, pulled the screeching doors as shut as he could get them, and went back to unload his groceries.
On the way, he walked around the farmhouse, checking to see if there was another way anyone could have gotten to the second floor. The tall old farmhouse had no easy way to the six windows more than fifteen feet up there. The windows were all shut, most covered on the inside by drapes or curtains, or both. Someone with a tall ladder might have done it, but the dirt around the farmhouse was all mud after the night’s rain, and there were no footprints or marks from a ladder.
I guess whoever turned on the light lives up there, thought Dale. It was hard to scare himself in the bright daylight under the blue sky.
He set the crowbar and the baseball bat just inside the kitchen door and went out to ferry in his small-fortune’s worth of groceries, trying not to track in too much mud as he did so.
NINE
DRIVING to pick up his truck that afternoon, Dale took the Catton Road shortcut to Oak Hill Road. A few miles away from Duane’s farm—the dead zone, as he thought of it—his cell phone came alive again. The asphalt road was empty. The day was still warm. Dale drove with one hand on the wheel and punched in Sandy Whittaker’s real estate number.
“Heartland Realty.” It was Sandy answering. Dale identified himself, and there was the expected salvo of niceties. They both agreed that it was a beautiful fall day and very welcome after the cold and snow.
“Is everything all right, Mr. Stewart. . . Dale?” said Sandy.
Dale hesitated. He was tempted to ask about the upstairs light, but what could he say? “Say, Sandy, any reports of phantom lights on in the McBride farmhouse?” Instead, he said, “Yeah, I was just wondering if you knew anything about a dog hanging around the farm I’m renting.”
“A dog? What kind of dog?”
“A little one,” said Dale. “A black one.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Dale drove by clean white farms and large barns. The road stayed empty.
“Never mind,” said Dale. “Silly question.”
“No, no,” said Sandy Whittaker. “Have you seen a dog on the property?”
“In the house, actually.”
“In the house ?” said Sandy.
“I left the inside door open this afternoon. I guess the screen was open just enough to let a dog in. . . a little thing. It ran off and I just wondered who it might belong to. Duane’s aunt didn’t own a dog, did she?”
“Mrs. Brubaker?” said Sandy. “No. . . no, I’m sure she didn’t. No one saw her much, but everyone knew that Mrs. Brubaker was crazy about keeping things clean and tidy. I’m sure she didn’t own a dog.”
“Maybe it was a neighbor’s dog,” said Dale, already sorry that he’d called the woman. “Coming over to check me out.”
“Not if it was a small black dog,” said Sandy. “Mr. Johnson to your south owns two hounds for hunting, but they’re big and brown. The Bachmanns—the young family who moved into your aunt Lena and uncle Henry’s place over toward the cemetery—they had an Irish setter, but it was killed by the milk truck last summer.”
Christ,thought Dale, talk about small towns.
“What kind of dog was it?” Sandy asked again.
Dale sighed. Some cows in a muddy field looked up as he drove past, and he wondered if his expression was as vague as theirs. “I don’t really know dogs,” he said.
“I do,” said Sandy Whittaker. “I own five and subscribe to the AKC journal and watch the Westminster Dog Show on satellite every year. Describe the dog and I’ll tell you what kind it is.”
Dale rubbed his head. It was beginning to ache. “A little thing,” he said. “About ten, twelve inches tall, I guess. Not much longer. Black. I thought that maybe it was a terrier.”
“Did it have longer hair?” said Sandy.
“No, it didn’t really have hair.”
“No hair?” said Sandy. She sounded shocked, as if he’d said something obscene.
“I mean really short hair,” said Dale. “Very short. Black.”
“Well, American staffordshire terriers and toy terriers and pit bull terriers and Boston terriers and their type all have very short hair,” Sandy said dubiously, “but none of them are all black. And no one in the county owns any of those breeds. Did you see the dog’s head?”
“Sort of,” said Dale.
“Was the snout long, thin? Or sort of pushed in?”
“Sort of pushed in, I think,” said Dale. He had to grin. He felt like a crime witness being grilled by a relentless cop. “Sort of like a bulldog’s.”
“Hmmm,” said Sandy Whittaker, sounding judicious. “American bulldogs and Old English bulldogs are larger than you described, unless you saw a puppy. . .”
“I don’t think it was a puppy,” said Dale, no longer sure what he’d seen.
“Then it could have been a pug or a French bulldog. Was it slim and sleek, or did it have a sort of barrel chest?”
Dale was tempted to close his eyes to remember. A pickup passed the other way. Dale kept his eyes open. “It did sort of have a barrel chest—powerful—and little tiny legs, but solid—not like one of those ratty little Chihuahuas.”
There were several seconds of silence. “Two of my five dogs are Chihuahuas, Dale.”
Dale rolled his eyes. “Well, gosh, thanks for your help, Sandy. . .”
“What kind of tail did this black dog have?” she asked, all business now.
“Tail?” He called back the memory of the little dog’s black ass retreating toward the chicken coop. “I didn’t see a tail. I don’t think it had a tail.”
“Pugs have curled tails that sort of sit up on their backs,” said Sandy Whittaker. “What about this dog’s ears? Were they flat or raised?”
“Raised,” said Dale, not really caring any longer. “Triangular. They stuck up.”
“Then it’s not a pug,” Sandy Whittaker said. “Their ears curl down. Do you remember anything else about the black dog?”
“It had sort of a pink splotch on its face, muzzle, whatever,” said Dale. He was almost to the outskirts of Oak Hill. He could just stop by Sandy Whittaker’s office if he wanted. He had no intention of doing so.
“Yesss,” said the woman, “it sounds like a French bulldog. They grow about twelve inches tall, weigh about twenty-five pounds. They have a puglike face, barrel chest, and pointy ears. And they have a broad, short, snubby nose with slanting nostrils and a pink flush to their muzzle.”
“Well, thanks, Sandy. You’ve been a big help and. . .”
“The only problem,” interrupted Sandy Whittaker, “is that French bulldogs come in fawn coloring, pied—that’s black and white—red brindle and black brindle—that’s sort of reddish and black. Never pure black. Are you sure that the dog you saw wasn’t pied?”
Absolutely, positively coal blackthought Dale with absolute, positive certainty. “It could have been pied, I guess,” he said. “Well, thanks again, Sandy, you’ve really. . .”
“The other problem with a French bulldog,” said Sandy Whittaker, “is that there aren’t any around here. Not in Elm Haven. Not in Oak Hill. Not anywhere around here. Not even on any of the farms in your part of the county. I would have noticed.”
After confronting C.J. Congden in the garage and paying for the new tires, Dale drove back to the farm. He had always hated confrontations, especially confrontations with any sort of authority, but rather than being rattled by the encounter, he found himself slightly amused by it. And the previous night’s sense of being displaced far from the center of things—even from himself—had receded. He had his truck back, the farmhouse was full of food and drink, and if he wanted, he could drive west—or east—anytime he wanted. Things looked better.