“You must have risen with the birds.”
“Have you been outside?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“It's a great gettin'-up morning out there.”
“Did you get the fax?”
“I surely did. Studied the descriptions and diagrams and took every measurement.”
“You're amazing, Primrose.”
I double-stepped the last few stairs, raced to my room, and opened the file on case number 387. After jotting down the new figures, we compared Primrose's data with that which I'd already collected.
“Each of your measurements is within one millimeter of mine,” I said. “You're good.”
“You got that right.”
Confident that inter-observer error would not be a problem, I thanked her, and asked when I could get the chapter. She suggested I meet her at the parking lot gate in twenty minutes. In her opinion, entry into the morgue was not yet an option for me.
Primrose must have been watching, for as soon as I left the highway she emerged through the morgue's back door and began picking her way across the lot, cane in one hand, plastic grocery bag in the other.
Meanwhile, the guard came forward, read my license plate, and checked a clipboard. Then he shook his head, held one hand in a halt gesture, and signaled me to reverse direction with the other. Primrose approached him and said a few words.
The guard continued to signal and shake his head. Primrose leaned close and spoke again, old black woman to young black man. The guard rolled his eyes, then folded his hands across his chest and watched her continue toward my car, a five-star general in boots, fatigues, and granny bun.
Leaning on her cane, she handed the bag through the driver's-side window. Her face was serious a moment, then a smile lighted her eyes, and she patted me on the shoulder.
“Don't you pay this trouble no mind, Tempe. You haven't done any of those things and they'll see that soon.”
“Thanks, Primrose. You're right, but it's hard.”
“Course it is. But I'm keeping you in my prayers.”
Her voice was as soothing as a Brandenburg Concerto.
“In the meantime, you just take one day at a time. One damn day at a time.”
With that she turned and set off toward the morgue.
I'd rarely heard Primrose Hobbs curse.
Back in my room, I pulled out the chapter, flipped to Table IV, plugged in the measurements, and did the math.
The foot classified as American Indian.
I calculated again, using a second function.
Though closer to the cluster for African Americans, the foot still fell with the Native Americans.
George Adair was white, Jeremiah Mitchell was black. So much for the missing fisherman and the man who'd borrowed his neighbor's ax.
Unless he'd wandered back to the reservation, Daniel Wahnetah was looking like a match.
I checked my watch. Ten forty-five. Late enough.
The sheriff was not in. No. They would not phone her at home. No. They would not give out her pager number. Was this an emergency? They would relay the message that I had called.
Damn. Why hadn't I gotten Crowe's pager number?
For the next two hours I engaged in irrelevant activity, directed by the brain for tension relief rather than goal attainment. Behaviorists call it displacement.
Following a laundry session involving panties in the bathroom sink, I sorted and organized the contents of my briefcase, deleted temporary files from my laptop, balanced my checkbook, and rearranged Ruby's glass animal collection. I then phoned my daughter, sister, and estranged husband.
Pete did not answer, and I assumed he was still in Indiana. Katy did not answer, and I made no assumptions. Harry kept me on the phone for forty minutes. She was quitting her job, having trouble with her teeth, and dating a man named Alvin from Denton. Or was it Denton from Alvin?
I was testing the ring options on my phone when a strange baying arose from the yard, like a hound in a Bela Lugosi movie. Peering through the screen, I saw Boyd seated in the middle of his run, head thrown back, a wail rising from his throat.
“Boyd.”
He stopped howling and looked around. Far down the mountain I heard a siren.
“I'm up here.”
The dog stood and cocked his head, then the purple tongue slid out.
“Look up, boy.”
Reverse cock.
“Up!” I clapped my hands.
The chow spun, ran to the end of the pen, sat, and resumed his love song to the ambulance.
The first thing one notices on meeting Boyd is his disproportionately large head. It was becoming clear that the dog's cranial capacity was in no way related to the size of his intellect.
Grabbing jacket and leash, I headed out.
The temperature was still warm, but the sky was slowly filling with dark-centered clouds. Wind flapped my jacket and gusted leaves and pine needles across the gravel road.
This time we did the uphill lap first, Boyd charging ahead, huffing and coughing as the collar tightened across his larynx. He raced from tree to tree, sniffing and squirting, while I gazed into the valley below, each of us enjoying the mountain in our own way.
We'd gone perhaps a half mile when Boyd froze and his head shot up. The fur went stiff along his spine, his mouth half opened, and a growl rose from the back of his throat, a sound quite different from the siren display.
“What is it, boy?”
Ignoring my question, the dog lunged, ripping the leash from my grip, and charged into the woods.
“Boyd!”
I stamped my foot and rubbed my palm.
“Damn!”
I could hear him through the trees, barking like he was on scrap yard sentry duty.
“Boyd, come back here!”
The barking continued.
Cursing at least one creature that creepeth, I left the road and followed the noise. I found him ten yards in, dashing back and forth, yapping at the base of a white oak.
“Boyd!”
He continued running, barking, and snapping at the oak.
“BOYD!”
He skidded to a stop and looked in my direction.
Dogs have fixed facial musculature, making them incapable of expression. They cannot smile, frown, grimace, or sneer. Nevertheless, Boyd's eyebrows made a movement that clearly communicated his disbelief.
Are you crazy?
“Boyd, sit!” I pointed a finger and held it on him.
He looked at the oak, back at me, then sat. Never lowering the finger, I picked my way to him and regained the leash.
“Come on, dog breath,” I said, patting his head, then tugging him toward the road.
Boyd twisted and yipped at the oak, then turned back and did the eyebrow thing.
“What is it?”
Rrrrup. Rup. Rup.
“O.K. Show me.”
I gave him some leash, and he dragged me toward the tree. Two feet from it, he barked and whipped around, eyes shining with excitement. I parted the vegetation with a boot.
A dead squirrel lay among the sow thistle, orbits empty, brown tissue sheathing its bones like a dark, leathery shroud.
I looked at the dog.
“Is this what's got your fur in a twist?”
He dropped on front paws, rump in the air, then rose and took two hops backward.
“It's dead, Boyd.”
The head cocked, and the eyebrow hairs rotated.
“Let's go, mighty tracker.”
The rest of the walk was uneventful. Boyd found no more corpses, and we clocked a much better time on the downhill run. Rounding the last curve I was surprised to see a cruiser parked under the trees at High Ridge House, a Swain County Sheriff 's Department shield on its side.
Lucy Crowe stood on the front steps, a Dr Pepper in one hand, Smokey hat in the other. Boyd went right to her, tail wagging, tongue drooping like a purple eel. The sheriff set her hat on the railing and ruffled the dog's fur. He nuzzled and licked her hand, then curled on the porch, chin on forepaws, and closed his eyes. Boyd the Deadly.