"I don't ask." She watches Marino work. "Maybe I should. Some people talk a lot and tell you more than you want to know. Some don't want you in their business."
"What feeling did you get from him?" I keep prodding her.
"Well, Mr. Peanut didn't like him."
"Who the hell is Mr. Peanut?" Marino reaches down with a ceiling tile that is attached by an eyebolt to a four-inch section of joist.
"Our dog. You probably noticed her when you came in. I know it's kind of a funny name for a female that's had as many puppies as that one, but Zack named her. Mr. Peanut just barked her head off right when that man showed up at the door. Wouldn't come near him, the fur just standing up on her back."
"Or maybe your dog was barking and upset because someone else was around? Someone you didn't see?" I suggest.
"Could be."
A second ceiling die drops, and the ladder shakes as Marino descends. He goes back into his toolbox for a roll of freezer paper and evidence tape and begins wrapping the ceiling tiles in neat packages as I walk into the bathroom and shine the light around. Everything is institutional white, the top of the counter scarred with yellowish burns, probably from guests parking lit cigarettes while they shave or put on makeup or fix their hair. I see something else Stanfield missed. A single strand of dental floss dangles inside the toilet. It is draped over the edge of the bowl and trapped under the seat. With a gloved hand, I pick it up. It is about a foot long, several inches of it wet from toilet water, and the mid-section of it pale red, as if someone flossed his teeth and his gums bled. Because this latest find isn't perfectly dry, I don't seal it in plastic. I place it in a square of freezer paper which I fold into a jeweler's envelope. We probably have DNA. The question is, whose?
Marino and I return to his truck at one-thirty, and Mr. Peanut flies out of the house when Kiffin yanks open the front door to go back inside the house. The dog chases us as we pull out, barking. I watch in the side mirror as Kiffin yells at her dog. "You get here right now!" She angrily claps her hands. "Come here now!"
"Some asshole take time out from torture to floss his teeth?" Marino starts in. "Like what the hell is that about? Or more likely, it's been hanging out in the toilet since last Christmas."
Mr. Peanut is now right by my door, the truck bumping over the unpaved drive that leads through woods to Route 5.
"Come here now!" Kiffin bellows as she comes down the steps, hands smack-smack-smack.
"Goddamn dog," Marino complains.
"Stop!" I am afraid we are going to run over the poor animal.
Marino stamps the brakes and the truck lurches to a halt. Mr. Peanut jumps up barking, her head bobbing in and out of my window. "What in the world?" I am baffled. The dog was scarcely interested in us when we first showed up a few hours ago.
"Get back here!" Kiffin is coming after her dog. Behind her, a child fills the doorway, not the little boy we saw earlier, but someone as tall as Kiffin.
I get out of the truck and Mr. Peanut starts wagging her tail. She nuzzles my hand. The poor, wretched creature is dirty and smells bad. I get her by the collar and tug her in the direction of her family, but she doesn't want to leave the truck. "Come on," I talk to her. "Let's get you home before you get run over."
Kiffin strides up, just livid. She pops the dog hard on top of the head. Mr. Peanut bleats like an injured lamb, tail tucked, cowering. "You learn to mind, you hear me?" Kiffin furiously wags her finger at her dog. "Get in the house!"
Mr. Peanut sneaks behind me.
"Get!"
The dog sits down in the dirt behind me, pressing its trembling body against my legs. The person I saw in the doorway has vanished, but Zack has emerged on the porch. He is dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt that are way too big. "Come 'ere, Peanut," he sings out, snapping his fingers. He sounds as frightened as the dog.
"Zack! Don't you make me tell you again to get your butt inside the house!" Zack's mother shouts at him.
Cruelty. Leave, and the dog will be beaten. Maybe the child will. Bev Kiffin is an out-of-control, frustrated woman. Life has made her feel powerless, and beneath her skin she seethes with hurt and anger, the unfairness of it all. Or maybe she is just plain bad, and maybe poor Mr. Peanut is running after Marino's truck because the dog wants us to take her with us, to save her. That fantasy enters my mind. "Mrs. Kiffin," I say in the calm voice of authority_that cool, cool voice I reserve for times when I intend to threaten the living shit out of somebody. "Don't you touch Mr. Peanut again unless you do it gently. I have this special thing about people who hurt animals."
Her face darkens and anger glints. I fix my stare dead center on her pupils.
"There are laws against cruelty to animals, Mrs. Kiffin," I say. "And beating Mr. Peanut is not a good example to set in front of your children." I hint that I spotted a second child she has failed to mention to us thus far.
She steps back from me, turns and walks off toward the house. Mr. Peanut sits, looking up at me. "You go home," I tell her as my heart breaks. "Go on, sweetie. You need to go home."
Zack comes down the steps and runs up to us. He takes the dog by the collar, squats and scratches between her ears, talking to her. "Be good, don't go making Mama mad, Mr. Peanut. Please," he says, looking up at me. "She just don't like it 'cause you're taking her baby buggy."
This jolts me, but I don't let it show. I get down to Zack's level and pet Mr. Peanut, trying to block out that her musky stench triggers memories of Chandonne again. Nausea twists my stomach and makes my mouth water. 'The baby buggy's hers?" I ask Zack.
"When she has puppies, I take them on rides in it," Zack tells me.
"Why was it over there by the picnic table, Zack?" I ask. "I thought maybe some campers might have left it there."
He shakes his head, petting Mr. Peanut. "Uh uh. It's Mr. Peanut's buggy, isn't it, Mr. Peanut? I gotta go in." He gets up, glancing back furtively at the open front door.
"I tell you what." I get up, too. "We just need to look at Mr. Peanut's buggy, but when we're done I promise to bring it back."
"Okay." He tugs the dog after him, half running, half yank- ing. I stare after them as they go inside the house and shut the door. I stand in the middle of the dirt drive in the shadow of scrub pines, hands in my pockets, watching, because I have no doubt Bev Kiffin is watching me. On the street it is called signifying, making your presence known. My business isn't finished here. I'll be back.
Chapter 23
WE HEAD EAST ON ROUTE 5 AND I AM MINDFUL of the time. Even if I could conjure up Lucy's helicopter, I would never make it back to Anna's house by two. I pull out my wallet and find the card Berger wrote her phone numbers on. There is no answer at her hotel, and I leave a message for her to pick me up at six P.M. Marino is silent as I slip the cell phone back inside my satchel. He stares straight ahead, his truck rumbling loudly along the winding, narrow road. He is processing what I just told him about the baby carriage. Bev Kiffin, of course, lied to us.
"The whole thing out there, wow," he finally says, shaking his head. "Talk about a creepy feeling. Like there were all these eyes watching everything we were doing. Like that place has a whole life of its own nobody knows nothing about."
"She knows," I reply. "She knows something. That much is obvious, Marino. She made a point of telling us the baby carriage was left by the people who abandoned the campsite. She volunteered that without pause. Wanted us to think it. Why?"
"Those people don't exist, whoever was supposedly staying out in that tent. If the hairs turn out to be Chandonne's, then I'm gonna have to entertain the idea she let him stay out there, and that's why she got all hinky about it."
The vision of Chandonne showing up at her motel office and asking for a place to stay for the night shorts out my imagination. I can't picture it. Le Loup-Garou, as he calls himself, would not take such a chance. His modus operandi, as we know it, was not to show up at anyone's door unless he intended to murder and maul that person. As we know it. As we know it, I keep thinking. The truth is, we know less than we did two weeks ago. "We have to start all over," I tell Marino. "We've defined someone without information, and now what? We made the mistake of profiling him and then believing our projection. Well, there are dimensions to him we've completely missed, and even though he's locked up, he isn't."