“Maybe.”
He hit the play button again, and went back to watching David.
35
TUESDAY, EARLY AFTERNOON, MAY 30
Las Piernas
The Moth stood still, watching, listening.
The door at the back of the garage was well concealed. There was a high fence, and a row of trees to shade the dog runs. The dog runs were empty, but clean.
A neighbor’s dog was barking, but no one seemed to pay any attention to it. On a weekday, at this time of day, most of the residents were at work, and their children in school.
There was an old woman across the street who might have chanced to look out her window at the dead man’s home, but if she had, she would be hard put to describe the person she had seen going into the backyard. A repairman, she probably would have guessed, judging by the large toolbox (mostly empty), the dark coveralls and boots, the leather work gloves, the billed cap pulled low over the Moth’s face. She might have noticed a limp.
The Moth stooped to open the toolbox, then paused for a moment to handle a set of trophies there — drain plugs.
Not everyone would have thought of these fuel-coated bits of metal as treasures, and Nicky would probably be angry to know the Moth kept them. But Nicky wasn’t here, was he?
In their intended place, these little darlings belonged beneath helicopters. By taking them, the Moth had ensured that the Forest Service Helitack units nearest to the meadow stayed on the ground.
The newspaper had even included a separate article about the cleverness of the ploy — an article the Moth had read every morning, almost as if it were a morning prayer — it was not a prayer, of course, but a wonderful tribute, even if Nicky had been given the credit.
Nicky had taught the Moth this method of disabling a helicopter, after all, and other methods as well. Still, the Moth had made choices. The Moth had succeeded.
The Moth was proud of this accomplishment not only because it had worked perfectly, but also because it was really a very considerate sort of sabotage, which gave it a subtlety the Moth liked. The removal of a drain plug could keep a helicopter on the ground without destroying it.
The renewed barking of the neighbor’s dog reminded the Moth of the business at hand. The drain plugs were returned to the toolbox. The Moth removed a pry bar and, within seconds, entered the garage.
The Moth propped the toolbox against the door from the inside, to hold it closed, then flipped the light switch and listened to the soft “chink-chink-chink” and then hum of the chain of fluorescent lights overhead.
The garage was clean and orderly. A group of cardboard boxes was stacked along one wall, labeled with the names of rooms — KITCHEN, BEDROOM, BATHROOM, GARAGE and — the largest number of boxes, STUDY. Curious, the Moth inspected them more closely. The top of each box had a small address label on it, of the type that is sometimes mailed with a request for a donation. These had American flags on them. There were two names on the labels: Ben Sheridan and Camille Graham. The address wasn’t this one.
Ben Sheridan. The Moth knew that Nicky was angry about Ben Sheridan. He thought he had killed Ben Sheridan, but he had only wounded him.
Only wounded for now, thought the Moth. Sooner or later he would have to leave that hospital. And poor Nicky, who couldn’t go to a hospital! The Moth had wanted to comfort him, but wisely refrained. Nicky had been too angry to accept any coddling. Actually, the Moth thought, you really couldn’t coddle Nicky. He didn’t need anyone. Not even his Moth.
Frowning, the Moth picked at the address label on one of the boxes marked STUDY. It came off easily. The Moth carefully pocketed it. Using a utility knife to cut the tape which sealed it, the Moth opened the box and studied its contents. Books. Not even the books the Moth had hoped for — ones about forensic anthropology, which might have photos of dead bodies in them — but stupid, stupid books, by Jane Austen and James Baldwin and Charles Dickens and Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor. Poetry by Auden, Dickinson, Eliot, Housman, Hughes, Neruda, Poe.
Tired old books that any kid in high school might be made to read! Why, any public library had these books in it — why buy them? And what did any of them really have to say about life in these times? Nothing! Had the writers ever met the likes of Nicky and the Moth? No, never!
Disgusted, the Moth folded the box closed and proceeded into the house.
The door between the house and the garage was not locked. The Moth stepped into the kitchen, then stood motionless.
Someone had already been here. The Moth could tell that the house had been opened, aired out. The Moth drew in a deep breath, tried to allow the scent of the house to tell the story, as Nicky might have done.
There was still the smell of dogs. If you allowed dogs to live indoors, even house-trained dogs, there would be their doggy scent. Trying not to allow that to interfere, the Moth continued through the house. In the kitchen there was the scent of cleaning products — chlorine and something with lemon in it. The Moth opened the refrigerator. The shelves were pristine; there was no milk or meat or any other thing that might rot. There were only a few jars and an open yellow box of baking soda.
The trash had been taken out; there was a new white plastic bag in the kitchen trash can — the only object in it was a crumpled paper towel, smelling of window cleaner.
As the Moth walked slowly through the house, it became clear that someone had been here in the time since the owner died. Who? Did the dead man have a maid? No — no, he only taught at the college. He had no money to hire someone to clean his house.
The Moth knew this, and all sorts of other things about the dead man, things most people didn’t know. The dead man’s mother had died when he was two; his alcoholic father had abused him terribly throughout his childhood — if there had been larger pieces of him left behind in the Meadow, investigators might have seen the scars.
The dead man’s father had always marked him in places that could be covered by his clothes. These facts might have shocked another person, but they had quite a different effect on the Moth. The Moth knew all about hidden scars.
Like many abused children, David Niles was a good student, a child who tried to please. His father died when he was a teenager. He had been sent to live with his mother’s sister, an old maid who raised dogs in New Mexico. He loved dogs. He loved his aunt. She put him through college, where he met Ben Sheridan, who was a year or two ahead of him.
The Moth knew that it was Ben Sheridan’s enthusiasm for physical anthropology that led David Niles to change his major. Niles’s graduate studies were interrupted when he took care of his aunt before her death. She had already found homes for her dogs when she became too ill to care for them. No one would take care of her except her nephew. After her death, he went back and finished his doctorate, then — with Ben Sheridan’s help — obtained a part-time teaching position at Las Piernas College. Just before he died, he had been promoted to a full-time position.
The Moth also knew that David Niles — no, the Moth decided, call him the dead man — had inherited a little money from his aunt, and had used that to buy this house, build the dog runs, and cover the expenses of buying, training, outfitting, feeding, and otherwise caring for two large search dogs.
The Moth knew a great deal about every member of the group that went up to the mountains with Nicky, but knew more about this dead man than the others. This one had been the Moth’s special project, which was how it came about that this search of the dead man’s home was necessary.
In the living room, the Moth detected an odor of lemon furniture polish and, in the carpet, the scent of the dogs.
Not nearly as well as Nicky would have done. Nicky could distinguish scent better than any human alive. The Moth firmly believed this to be true.