Hesitantly, Larry turned to the older cop. “But what about the guy in the car?” he ventured. “I mean, like Doris says, if the dogs did it, why isn’t there…?”
“The rain.” Barry spoke slowly. “The rain washed the dog fur off him. That’s all, twit.” He looked at his watch. “Is that it?”
“The stateys may have something,” added Doris.
“Yeah, so? What do you want me to do about it?”
“Couldn’t you maybe talk to somebody?”
He mumbled an obscenity.
“When I was in the trailer…”
Everyone turned toward the flat voice.
“I think I heard…what ever it was…fighting with the dogs. It…the man…may be bitten. We could check hospitals.”
Barry made a scornful noise.
“Maybe what you heard was your brother-in-law,” Steve suggested, “being attacked by the dog pack.” His hand inched across the table toward hers, then stopped, fingers curling.
Barry blew smoke. He leaned forward, parodying Steve’s position and tone of voice. “Listen, Athena, I understand how bad you feel about poor old Lonny, but you really do know it was dogs tore them men up, don’t you?”
Athena clenched the handle of her mug so hard her knuckles stood out like a row of pearls.
Steve cleared his throat. “Barry, I thought you were the one saying these animals weren’t dangerous.”
“I never said they wasn’t dangerous,” Barry railed at him, obviously feeling betrayed. “I just said—”
“It wasn’t an animal! I told you, it stood on two legs like a man! Why doesn’t anybody believe me?”
“And I’m telling you we don’t need to stir up no trouble like that!” Barry answered, breathing hard.
“About what time would you say this all happened?” asked Steve. “’Thena?” When she didn’t answer him, he looked around and realized that all over the restaurant, people were staring at them. “’Thena?” he repeated. “What do you want us to do?”
She looked at him and didn’t say anything.
“What?” He furrowed his brow.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I want you to help me, I guess. I had a chance to shoot it and couldn’t do it. I waited too long. I don’t know why.”
“Could it have been your brother-in-law who chased you?” asked Steve.
“Listen, Doris.” Jack started to get up. “Larry and me, we got to get going.”
“Yeah, right,” said Larry. “We, uh, got things to do.”
“Could a couple of scrawny mutts tear a man’s arm off?” demanded Doris.
“You saying a man did that?” Barry slammed the photos down in the center of the table. “You said it yourself—look at the claw marks.” He sat back, satisfied he’d made his point. In a softer, patronizing tone, he added, “Now, it would be different if you had one shred of evidence.”
“That’s exactly what we do have.” Doris shoved the pictures back at him. “Shred of evidence.”
“I’m not crazy. Don’t everybody look at me like that!”
“Honey, nobody said that.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait a minute, Barry,” Steve said. “If it is wild dogs, and if they have started attacking people…”
“What the frig’s going on at this table?” Doris looked up to find Sims glaring down at them, his mustache twitching with outrage. “People comin’ in here for lunch, an my customers is complainin’ you’re takin’ their appetites away. Good Christ, what are those?” He snatched the photos off the table before anyone could stop him. “What the hell kinda thing is ’is to bring inna restaurant?”
Larry and Jack took advantage of the diversion to edge away from the table. Hopelessly, Athena watched as they headed for the door.
“If they’re your patrons, they don’t need us to make them sick,” Doris growled, her hand on Athena’s shoulder. “They should thank us. We probably saved them from ptomaine.” She turned back to Athena. “Excuse me, honey. I have to go to the little girls’ room.”
“Wait, Doris, please, just…Even if the dogs killed Lonny, I tell you I saw what was chasing me. After I got away, the thing must’ve found the man on the road and…Doris?”
“Back in a minute, honey. Yo, Sims, why don’t you turn the air-conditioning up?”
“Shit.”
Steve watched as Doris took the proprietor aside. They stood by the door, Doris whispering and gesturing rapidly, and Steve knew Sims wouldn’t bother them again. When he returned his attention to the table, he saw Barry leaning across it with both his hands on Athena’s folded hands. She kept shaking her head. When he caught some of Barry’s words, he faced away in embarrassment.
The woman at the next table had impossibly blonde hair sprayed to brittle stiffness. “So she was riding the…you remember the old Camden trolley, don’t you? And there the Devil was, she said, just sitting right on top the power cable, wings folded up, she told me, just sitting there like a bird or a bat or something.” She waggled bright red fingernails. “Anyways, the driver stops the trolley, and they all hanged out the windows to watch until a policeman come along and shoots at it. Then it flaps away. She says it made a awful noise, like something dying.”
Steve craned his neck to look around the room and overheard wisps of similar conversations. Some people even kept glancing at the windows, and a few actually started gathering up their things.
“But it’s what you said. Remember?” Athena’s voice grew louder. “There’s always been too many deaths and disappearances out here. There must be a reason. Remember, you said…?”
Movement across the room caught Steve’s attention: Sims stood on a chair and, after several wobbling attempts, managed to unhook the painting that hung over the counter. He jumped down heavily, muttering, then stuck the picture of the Devil behind the counter before hobbling back to the stove where things were frying. A dark grease shadow lay where the painting had been; at its center, wormy laths showed through a hole in the crumbling plaster.
“She told me herself she had a big fight with him a couple days before he died. He even hit her, and she had to set that damn big dog of hers on him. Now he’s dead, and she finds the body? If she makes a federal case out of this, who the hell’s she think the prime suspect’s gonna be?”
Pines whipped furiously past the car.
“Slow down. I’ll bet Frank won’t care much for this development. If they get a manhunt started, it’ll really ruin your little business.”
“Shit.” Barry gritted his teeth, jerked the wheel. “We’ll handle it,” he said finally, flicking a butt out the window. “Things’ll die down after while.”
“You hope.” He looked hard at his partner and didn’t like what he saw. “I doubt the ambulance people will just let it drop.”
“Well, then, maybe Frank’s got some ideas about that.” Barry shook with laughter. “Ideas that’ll fix their wagon.” The car swerved.
Uneasy, Steve watched him, puzzled.
By the time she’d left Doris—after an evening spent hanging around the hall—it had already grown quite dark.
She wondered what time it was as she slammed the car door and walked around to the back of the house. She only knew that it had to be late. She felt drained by anger and frustration, sick and furious with herself every time she thought of Barry. At least Steve had seemed more receptive. Or perhaps just more polite.
The darkness around the house seemed more solid than usual as she limped heavily up the porch stairs. Every light in the place blazed. She couldn’t wait to see this month’s electric bill.
A shriek assaulted her ears, and a heavy iron skillet gouged wood from the doorframe. “It’s me! Pamela, stop it!” The thrown skillet rolled, thudding on the floor.