“That’s a good rule,” I pointed out. “Remember that time you got cut?”
“Don’t overload the circuits, make sure-”
“Okay, okay, but that’s all good advice. It’s just commonsense safety stuff. I mean, I could have fallen down the stairs, and I could have broken my neck. The fact that I didn’t, that’s a good thing. It’s really the happy ending to this whole mess, if you want to know the truth. Remember how mad you got one day, throwing their backpacks down the stairs? I think the kids learned a valuable lesson today without there having to be an actual tragedy.”
“I think the kids are thinking the real tragedy is that you survived.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I wandered over to look at the pastries. I felt like a chocolate cake. An entire one, just for me. I looked back over at Sarah, who had moved away from our cart to grab some pizzas in the frozen food aisle.
And she had left her purse sitting in the cart, unguarded, where anyone could walk off with it. Maybe she was only going to be a second. But then she looked at the frozen juice, and some frozen vegetables, the whole time with her back turned to her purse.
I returned to the cart and guarded her purse until she was done with the frozen foods.
“What?” she said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Your purse,” I said. “Anyone could have walked off with it. You shouldn’t leave the cart unattended like that. You’d lose your cash, credit cards, everything. Wasn’t there something on the radio, some woman had her purse stolen in the grocery store, lost all the pictures she’d just had developed of her sister’s wedding?”
“We carried the story on the Metro page.”
“There you go,” I said. “So you already know, and still you leave your purse unguarded.”
Sarah looked at me long and hard. “You need to learn to pick your moments better,” she said. “And another thing.”
“Yes?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
6
ONCE I’D THROWN THE CUPS INTO the dishwasher after Trixie’d gone back to her place, I put on my walking shoes. I was going to try something new today. Walk before I got stuck at the computer. Maybe a little exercise first thing, filling my lungs with fresh air, would set me straight for the entire day.
I set a brisk pace for myself through the areas of the development where construction was in full swing. Some days, I was a six-year-old boy again, transfixed by oversized trucks unloading lumber, workers swinging prebuilt roof trusses into place, the rhythmic hammers as roofers put down shingles. I could stand and watch for an hour or more, until someone started wondering whether I was a building inspector.
But this day I longed for the restfulness that the creek offered. I wanted to meander along its bank, hear the sound of water trickling by as twigs cracked under my feet. Maybe think of a way to get back into Sarah’s good books. Maybe there was something I could get for her, like a gift certificate from a spa, or I could take her someplace nice for dinner, maybe back into the city to one of our favorite spots around the corner from our house on Crandall. No, maybe not. That would just lead to comments along the lines of “If only we had places like this where we live now.” I’d find something good in our new neighborhood. I’d ask around. Surely people in Oakwood appreciated fine dining, they could recommend something to me other than DQ or Red Lobster. Maybe if-
I spotted the hiking boots first.
The heels pointed skyward, the toes dug into the dirt. The soles, mud caked between the treads, faced me as I approached the bank of Willow Creek. It was an odd sight at first, given the angle from which I was strolling. The boots seemed planted into the ground there on their own, and it was only as I got close that I was able to see that they were laced onto an individual, who’d been hard to spot before, what with most of his body being underwater and all.
I said something out loud, like “Jesus Christ” or “Holy shit.” I’m not sure. When you find your first dead guy, it’s like that cliché about when you’re in a car accident, and everything seems to move in slow motion. Of course, the dead guy wasn’t moving at all. The only things moving were me and Willow Creek as it flowed around the body.
It was a man, in boots and jeans and a plaid shirt, and even though he was facedown in the shallow water, the crown of his head just barely above the surface, I had an inkling of who he was.
Part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, he might still be alive, even though he had a very visible gash in the back of his head that offered a view of what I could only assume was brain. So I stepped into the water, grabbed hold of him by his arms, up close to his shoulders, and rolled him over. It wasn’t that hard, the water giving him a bit of a weightless quality, and once I could see his face I knew that the Mississauga salamander had lost its greatest ally.
I pulled Samuel Spender up onto the bank, resting his body on its back. Lifeless eyes stared skyward. It was clear to me now that he was long gone. There would be no need, I thought, for any heroic mouth-to-mouth efforts at resuscitation.
I thought of my friend Jeff Conklin, where he might be three decades later. I finally caught up to you, Jeff.
I reached into my jacket pocket for the cell phone I carry around most everywhere. It wasn’t until then that I realized how upset I was by this discovery; my fingers were shaking too much to punch in the numbers. You might think that punching in 911 wouldn’t be that hard, but when your background is in journalism, and your wife still earns her living at a newspaper, you know that the first thing you do in an emergency is call the city desk. And that’s more than three numbers.
I took a couple of deep breaths and dialed.
“City.”
“Hi. I need to talk to Sarah. It’s an emergency.”
“Hey, is this Zack?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“It’s Dan. Remember we talked that time, when you pretended to hurt yourself on the stairs, and your kids called the ambulance? Sarah told us all about it. That was really something.”
“Listen, Dan, I need to talk to Sarah. Like I said, it’s an emergency.”
“She’s just coming out of the M.E.’s office. What is it this time? The house on fire or something? Fire trucks on the way?”
“Put her on the fucking phone, Dan.”
“Yeah, sure, fuck you, too. Hang on.”
Sarah took the phone. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“What is it? What did you say to Dan, to make him tell you to fuck off? He hardly knows you. If he did, I could understand.”
“Look, something’s happened. You know that environmentalist guy? The one who wants to save the creek?”
“No.”
“Spender. Samuel Spender. Didn’t I tell you about running into him when I went over to the sales office the other day?”
“Oh yeah, I remember. That’s when you asked me about those other names. Benny something, and Carpington. So?”
She still had a tone. I said, “That’s right.” I took a breath. At my feet, Spender’s battered head slowly listed to the left. “The thing is, I’m down by the creek, I was doing my walk-”
“Must be nice.”
“And I found him here. In the creek. He’s dead.”
Sarah paused. “What?”
“He’s dead. I just dragged him out of the water. He’s dead, Sarah.”
“Is this another one of your tricks? Because if it is, I swear to God, I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to prove this time.”
“It’s not a trick. I’m standing here, right over him. He’s dead like I’m a jerk.”
I heard Sarah breathe out. “Whoa. Have you called the cops?”
“No. I called you first.”
Sarah didn’t question that.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll send someone out, and a shooter.” Photographer. “Call the cops as soon as you hang up, but you should write us something, freelance, about six hundred words, what it’s like, finding a body, how you discovered it, how-”