Lila harbored an unspoken belief that motherhood was the best possible rehearsal for a prospective police officer. (Unspoken especially to Clint, who would have had a field day with it; she could picture how he’d cock his head and twist his mouth in that rather tiresome way of his and say, “That’s interesting,” or “Could be.”) Mothers were naturals for law enforcement, because toddlers, like criminals, were often belligerent and destructive.
If you could get through those early years without losing your cool or blowing your top, you might be able to deal with grown-up crime. The key was to not react, to stay adult—and was she thinking about the naked woman covered in blood who had something to do with the violent deaths of two, or was she thinking about how to handle someone closer to home, much closer, the fellow who rested his head on the pillow next to hers? (When the clock clicked to 00:00, the gymnasium horn had blared, and the boys and girls cheered. The final score: Bridger County Girls AAU 42–Fayette Girls AAU 34.) As Clint might say, “Huh, that’s interesting. Want to tell me a bit more?”
“So many good sales right now,” Evie rattled on. “Washer-dryer. Grills. Babies that eat plastic food and poop it out again. Savings galore all over the store.”
“I see,” said Lila, as if the woman was making sense. “What’s your name?”
“Evie.”
Lila twisted around. “And a last name? How about that?”
The woman’s cheekbones were strong and straight. The pale brown eyes glowed. Her skin had what Lila thought of as a Mediterranean tint, and that dark hair, ooh. A splotch of blood had dried on her forehead.
“Do I need one?” Evie asked.
As far as Lila was concerned, that carried the motion: her new acquaintance was definitively, catastrophically high.
She faced forward, tapped the gas, and popped loose the mic. “Base, this is Unit One. I’ve got a woman in custody, found her walking north from the area of the lumberyard on Ball’s Hill. She’s got a lot of blood on her, so we need the kit to take some samples. She also needs a Tyvek suit. And call for an ambulance to meet us. She’s on something.”
“Roger that,” said Linny. “Terry says it’s a real mess at that trailer.”
“Roger that.” Evie laughed cheerily. “A real mess. Bring extra towels. Not the good ones, though, ha-ha-ha. Roger that.”
“One, out.” Lila racked the mic. She glanced at Evie in the mirror. “You should sit quiet, ma’am. I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder. This is serious.”
They were approaching the town line. Lila rolled the cruiser to a pause at the stop sign that brokered the Ball’s Hill–West Lavin intersection. West Lavin led to the prison. Visible on the opposite side of the road was a sign that warned against stopping for hitchhikers.
“Are you injured, ma’am?”
“Not yet,” said Evie. “But, hey! Triple-double. Pretty good.”
Something flickered in Lila’s mind, the mental equivalent of a glittering fleck in the sand, quickly washed over by a frothing wave.
She looked in the rearview again. Evie had shut her eyes and settled back. Was she coming down?
“Ma’am, are you going to be sick?”
“You better kiss your man before you go to sleep. You better kiss him goodbye while you still have the chance.”
“Sure thi—” Lila began, but then the woman bolted forward, headfirst into the dividing mesh. Lila flinched away instinctively as the impact of Evie’s head caused the barrier to rattle and vibrate.
“Stop that!” she cried, just before Evie smashed against the mesh a second time. Lila caught the flash of a grin on her face, fresh blood on her teeth, and then she battered against the mesh a third time.
Hand on the door, Lila was about to get out and go around to the rear, tase the woman for her own safety, settle her down, but the third strike was the last. Evie had crumpled down to the seat, gasping in a happy way, a runner who had just ripped through the finish line. There was blood around her mouth and nose, and a gash on her forehead.
“Triple-double! All right!” Evie cried out. “Triple-double! Busy day!”
Lila unracked the mic and radioed Linny: change of plans. The public defender needed to meet them at the station just as soon-as. And Judge Silver, too, if the old fellow could be persuaded to come down and do them a favor.
Belly-deep in a clutch of sweet-fern, a fox watched Essie unpack her cart.
He did not think of her as Essie, of course, did not have a name for her at all. She was just another human. The fox had in any case been observing her for a long while—moons and suns—and recognized clearly her ramshackle lean-to of plastic sheeting and canvas draping for the foxhole that it was. The fox also understood that the four chunks of green glass that she organized in a semi-circle and referred to as “The Girls” held great meaning to her. At times when Essie was not present, the fox had smelled them—no life there—and sifted through her possessions, which were negligible, except for a few discarded cans of soup that he had licked clean.
He believed that she represented no threat, but he was an old fox, and one did not become an old fox by proceeding too confidently on any matter. One became an old fox by being careful and opportunistic, by mating as frequently as possible while avoiding entanglements, by never crossing roads in daylight, and by digging deeply in good soft loam.
This morning, his prudence appeared to be unnecessary. Essie’s behavior was entirely in character. After she removed the bags and sundry mysterious items from her cart, she informed the glass fragments that mother needed a snooze. “No tomfoolery, you girls,” Essie said, and entered the lean-to to lie on the pile of mover’s quilts she used as a mattress. Though the lean-to covered her body, her head poked out into the light.
While Essie was settling into her sleep, the fox silently bared his teeth at the male mannequin top that she had set in the leaves beside the lean-to, but the mannequin did nothing. It was probably dead like the green glass. The fox chewed his paw and waited.
Soon the old woman’s breath settled into a sleeping rhythm, each deep intake followed by a shallow whistle of exhalation. The fox stretched slowly up from the bed of sweet-fern and slunk a few steps toward the lean-to, wanting to be absolutely sure about the mannequin’s intent or lack thereof. He bared his teeth more widely. The mannequin did not move. Yes, definitely dead.
He trotted to within a few lengths of the lean-to, and stopped. A whitish fluttering was appearing over the sleeping woman’s head—white strands, like cobwebs, lifting from her cheeks, unfurling breezily and settling on her skin, coating it. New strands spun out from the laid strands and they quickly covered her face, forming a mask that would soon extend all the way around her head. Moths circled in the dimness of the lean-to.
The fox retreated a few steps, sniffing. He didn’t like the white stuff—the white stuff was definitely alive, and it was definitely a different creature altogether from those he was familiar with. Even at a distance, the scent of the white stuff was strong, and disturbingly mingled: there was blood and tissue in the scent, and intelligence and hunger, and an element of the deep, deep earth, of the Foxhole of Foxholes. And what slept in that great bed? Not a fox, he was certain.
His sniffs became whines, and he turned and began to trot away west. A sound of movement—someone else coming—carried through the woods behind him, and the fox’s trot became a run.
After helping Oscar Silver inter Cocoa the cat—wrapped in a threadbare terrycloth bath towel—Frank drove the two short blocks to the house at 51 Smith Lane that he paid the mortgage on, but where, since he and Elaine had separated, only she and their twelve-year-old daughter still resided.