“Yes,” said Dale.
There was a long silence broken only by the tape hiss.
“Mr. Stewart, are you on any sort of medication?”
“Medication?” Dale had to stop and think a minute. “Yes, I am.”
“What kind is it, sir?”
“Ah. . . Prozac and flurazepam and doxepin. One’s an antidepressant. . .” As if the entire world doesn’t know that, thought Dale. “. . . and the others are to help me sleep.”
“Are these medications prescribed by a psychiatrist?” asked Deputy Presser.
Is it any of your goddamned business? thought Dale. He said, “Yes. They’re prescribed by a psychiatrist in Montana where I live.”
“And have you been taking them regularly?”
No, thought Dale. When was the last time he took his meds? Sometime before Thanksgiving? He could not remember. “I’ve missed some,” said Dale. “But I only take the doxepin and flurazepam to sleep and it was about time to wean myself from the Prozac anyway.”
“Did your psychiatrist say to do that?”
Dale hesitated.
“Are you on any psychoactive or psychotropic drugs, Mr. Stewart? Any medications for schizophrenia or similar disturbances?”
“No,” Dale said, more stridently than he should have. “No.” At this point in a movie, Dale would be screaming, Look, I’m not crazy!, but the truth was that this had hit him like a sledgehammer and he suspected that perhaps he was coming unhinged. Unless he was dreaming this encounter with the deputy, then some other memory was false. The photograph of Michelle, dead, cold on a Los Angeles morgue slab, had been real enough. Perhaps Michelle has a twin sister. . .
Right, Dale mentally answers himself. Has a twin sister who comes back to Elm Haven with this Diane Villanova person’s twin sister, and then passes herself off as Michelle Staffney for no reason. . . Dale shook his aching head. He remembered the Staffney family from when he had lived in Elm Haven forty years ago. Michelle had no sisters.
“Mr. Stewart?”
Dale looked up. He realized that he had been cradling his head, perhaps muttering to himself. “My head hurts,” he said.
Deputy Presser nodded. The tape recorder was still running. “Do you want to change the statement you made to us about the dogs attacking you and Miz Michelle Staffney?”
Still rubbing his head, Dale asked, “What’s the penalty for false reporting, Deputy?”
Presser shrugged, but punched the PAUSE button on the recorder. “Depends on the circumstances, Mr. Stewart. Tell you the truth, this situation’s mostly been inconvenience, it being Christmas Eve when you called for help, what with only four people on duty last night and you tying up three of them and all. But as far as I can see, no real harm’s been done yet. And you obviously did injure your head last night, Mr. Stewart. That can cause some funny reactions sometimes. Do you remember how you hurt your head?”
The hellhounds knocked me against the door while they were ripping Michelle apart and dragging her into the dark, thought Dale. Aloud, he said, “I’m not sure now. I know how crazy this sounds, Deputy.”
Presser started the recorder again. “Do you wish to change any of your statement, Mr. Stewart?”
Dale rubbed his scalp again, feeling the stitches there and also feeling the pain and throbbing just under the bone of the skull. He wondered if he had suffered a concussion. “I’ve been depressed, Deputy Presser. My doctor—Dr. Charles Hall in Missoula—prescribed Prozac and some sleeping medication, but I’ve been busy and—upset—in recent weeks and forgot to take it. I admit that I haven’t been sleeping much. I’m not sure how I hurt my head last night and Michelle. . . well, I can’t explain that, except to say that things have been a bit confused for me the last few months.” Suddenly he looked up at the deputy. “She brought a ham.”
“Pardon me?” said Presser.
“Michelle brought a ham. We ate it yesterday. And some wine. Two bottles. Red. That’s something physical. We can check that. Maybe some other woman who. . . anyway, we can check the ham and the wine.”
“Yes,” said Presser. “I have Deputy Reiss out doing that today. We found a receipt in the Corner Pantry bag in your kitchen. Deputy Reiss is going to talk to Ruthie over at the Corner Pantry and then visit the few liquor stores in the county.”
“You searched my kitchen?” Dale said stupidly.
“You gave us permission last night to search the house,” Deputy Presser said stiffly.
“Yeah.” Dale lifted the small cup to drink some more water, found it empty, crumpled the cup, and tossed it into a wastebasket. “Am I under arrest, Deputy?”
Presser shut off the recorder and shook his head. “I mentioned that the sheriff wants to talk to you tomorrow or the next day. We could keep you here until then. . .” Presser made a vague gesture toward the far wall, behind which Dale guessed there were jail cells. “But you might as well wait at your farm.”
Dale nodded and winced at the pain. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give me my shotgun back. The black dogs might be real, you know.”
“Deputy Taylor’ll drive you back to the farm,” said Presser, ignoring Dale’s question about the over-and-under. “Don’t go anywhere without letting us know. Don’t even think about leaving the county. But there’s one thing I think you should do, Mr. Stewart.”
Dale waited.
“Call this Dr. Hall,” said Presser.
TWENTY-THREE
IT snowed all the rest of Christmas Day. Exhausted and confused, Dale stood at the study window and watched the deputy’s car disappear into the snow, and then just stood there watching the snow continue to fall. After a long period of this during which his thoughts were as vague and opaque as the low gray clouds, Dale went over to his ThinkPad and powered it up. Switching from Windows to the DOS shell, he typed after the blinking C prompt—
>Am I cracking up?
Dale did not expect an answer—certainly not while he sat there waiting—and he did not receive one. After a while he wandered out to the kitchen, washed the plates, and tidied up. Someone—Michelle last night?—had put Saran wrap around some of the ham and placed it on the second shelf of the refrigerator. Dale knew that he should be hungry, since he hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before— Did I reallyhave dinner last night, or did I imagine it as well? —but he had no appetite now. Dale pulled on an extra sweater and his peacoat and went out into the snow.
Several inches of wet, heavy snow had accumulated in the turnaround. Dale headed west, past the white-shrouded sheds and the barn—its large door still slightly open—out toward the low, flat hill above the creek. There were no dog tracks on the rutted lane, no human footprints in the corn-stubbled field, no sign of an injured woman dragging herself.
Am I nuts?It seemed probable. Dale realized that the deputy’s advice had been sound—he should call his therapist. Dale might have called from Oak Hill if not for the presence of the deputy during the ride back.
It was snowing harder when Dale reached the small rise where Duane had buried his faithful collie, Wittgenstein, that same summer of 1960. The trees along the creek running north and south were indistinct in the snowfall, and Dale could not see even the barn, much less the farmhouse. Sound seemed muted. Dale remembered days like this from his childhood in Elm Haven and elsewhere: a day so still that the slight thrumming of one’s own heartbeat or pulse sounded like the settling of snowflakes.