Hidden Vices (18 page)

“No,” she'd whispered back, “I'm just waiting for the apostles to show up.”

“I wonder if he can make water into wine?” the young man asked.

“That would help,” she laughed back.

Freshman year philosophy was one of the few classes Megan never missed. It was a fond memory for her. “Hey, I never missed my morning class that year!”

Callie looked at Megan, thought about, and then said, “Actually, you're right, you never did, did you?”

“Nope.” She answered with a prideful tone. Clyde whimpered. “You have to go out, boy?” She let him out and Clyde zipped down the deck stairs as if on a mission from God, though Megan was sure a call from Mother Nature was responsible for his rush.

Megan and Callie started the second video for her to watch, as Callie suggested. Halfway through they heard a piercing yelp from outside. It was the kind of noise that was excruciating for any dog owner to hear—pure, agonizing pain. Clyde made the noise three more times. Both Megan and Callie flew off the couch and ran outside without bothering to throw on their coats. Running down the stairs, they bolted left and right into the yard. There was no sign of Clyde until Megan spied his head under one of the bushes in the landscaping. He was on his side, whimpering in pain.

“Clyde! Clyde!” Megan ran over to him. “Callie, he's over here!” She moved her hand over his side. Megan could feel something wet and sticky in his fur. “He's bleeding! Help me pick him up.”

Clyde would have been impossible for only Megan to lift with her bad arm. Together, they were able to get Clyde into the living room.

“Jesus Christ, he's bleeding so much. We have to get him to a vet. Where's the closest one?”

“I have no idea. I've never had a pet and this isn't my town.” Callie had a look verging on panic.

“Wait, I'll check the book the Macks left for me.” This turned out to be a fruitless option. “Shit!”

“Megan, he's bleeding a lot. Think of something!”

“I'm trying, Goddamn it!” She reached for her cell. “Wait, hang on.” She dialed and Leigh picked up on the second ring. “Leigh, I need your help, Clyde is hurt. I need the name of your vet. It's an emergency.” Megan grabbed a pen and removed the cap using her mouth and spat it out. She wrote down Leigh's instructions. “Okay. Got it.” She looked over at Callie. “Do you know where Landing is?”

“Um … yeah.”

“Do you or don't you?”

“Off of Lakeside Boulevard.”

Megan returned to Leigh. “Okay, we've got it. We're going now. Thanks.”

Megan wrapped Clyde in a sheet, and by some miracle they were able to carry him up the driveway to the bottom of the garage. They placed him on the back seat.

“I'll drive. You sit back in the back with him,” Callie ordered.

Thirty-Five

It took ten minutes
to get to Landing Plaza, yet for Megan it felt like three hours. Callie slammed on the brakes in front of the veterinarian's office. Megan ran in yelling for help and two assistants jetted out. Upon getting a look at Clyde, one yelled, “Get the doctor! This is serious.”

Megan followed and went with them into the back room until the vet came in and asked her to stay in the waiting room. She ran her hand over Clyde's head whispering, “You're going to be okay, boy. I'll be right outside.” Her voice cracked. “Right outside.”

They sat in the waiting room. Megan went from crisis mode to angry mode. It was her natural path, dictated by adrenaline. “What could have done this? A bear? A raccoon? What?” She started to pace.

Callie shook his head. “I don't think a bear. They're in hibernation mode. Just sit down and wait until someone comes out.”

Twenty minutes later a vet technician emerged from the back of the office. “Clyde is stable, but we're going to have to do surgery.”

“What's going on?” Megan asked.

She held out her hand and showed them three bloodied BBs in a baggie. “There are still two more in, one in his neck and another in his side. The one that hit his neck is what caused the real bleeding. It grazed an artery.”

“What? He was shot with a BB gun?” Megan held up her palms and her response bordered on a scream. “I don't understand, he was outside for less than fifteen minutes. It's a fenced-in yard!”

Callie rubbed her back. “Megan, you need to calm down and hear her out.”

“We need your permission to perform surgery.”

This was an incredibly surreal moment for Megan. “Well, what happens if you don't? What happens?” This was an odd question coming from a Homicide detective, especially Megan. She knew what would happen.

The vet assistant hesitated. “We would then need to put him down. He will bleed out unless we remove the last two BBs.”

There was zero hesitancy in Megan's response. “Do it. Do the surgery.”

Megan sat with her head against the wall while Callie went to the deli next door to get them coffee. Thoughts zipped like comets through her exhausted mind.

I didn't hear a shot. Or shots? What the hell is going on? Everyone gets hurt around me. People. Animals. Who would do something like this to an innocent animal? Nothing is making sense now.

Callie returned with the coffee. “Here. I couldn't remember how you take it.” He placed a bunch of sugar packets and half-and-half pods on the side table.

“Thanks.” She sipped the bitter coffee. “This tastes like it was made ten hours ago.”

Callie raised an eyebrow. “It probably was.”

“Why didn't we hear the BB gun? Multiple shots and we didn't hear anything.”

“I was thinking about that too.” Callie stopped to add more milk to his coffee, an attempt to give it minimal flavor. “The wind is strong tonight and the house is really well insulated.”

“But we heard Clyde.” She shook her head. “What am I talking about? I've never even heard a BB gun go off. I'm assuming it's like one of my guns.”

“I remember one of my neighbor's boys, when I was still married, that is, had one.” He searched for a description. “It's more of a snap. It's fast. It doesn't resonate the way a real gun does.”

“Like a snap of the fingers sound?”

He nodded. “Kind of. A little higher pitched, from what I remember.”

The next few hours they sat in near complete silence. Megan paced once in a while just to move her nerves around. A few minutes after another mini-lap around the waiting room, the vet technician came out. She had a hesitant look on her face. “Mrs. McGinn?”

“It's not
Missus
. How is Clyde?”

“He lost a lot of blood, but he's going to pull through. We'll need to keep him here for a day, maybe two, but he will be okay.”

“Thank God.” Megan was relieved beyond measure. “Can I see him? Would it be okay?”

“Of course. The doctor is in with him now. He'll go over everything with you. You can follow me.”

“Go. I'll wait here,” Callie said with a big smile on his face.

Megan walked into the back area where they were holding Clyde. He had a big bandage around his neck and the other areas where the BBs were removed had been shaved and covered in smaller dressings. There was an IV bag inserted into one paw. The vet took a step back. “Hey, big guy. Your mom is here.”

Clyde was groggy and, to Megan, looked basically stoned. “Hey, sweets. How's my guy?” She petted him, sure to not go near where he'd been hurt. Without fail, Clyde's tail thumped on the table. A sound that once annoyed her was now sheer bliss to hear. “You're going to be okay. You'll stay here for a day or two and then come back home.” Megan whispered in his ear, “I'll get you your favorite slice of pizza when I pick you up.” Clyde proceeded to lick Megan's hand. The word
pizza
apparently was the key ingredient in restoring Clyde's medicinal well-being.

The veterinarian spoke with Megan about some minor details and told her Clyde may even be strong enough to return home at the end of the following day. He asked that she call in the afternoon to check his progress.

Megan returned to Callie and gave him the update as they walked out to the car. Callie felt the need to mention the obvious. “Um, that is going to be one big-ass bill, Trouble.”

Megan nodded and said with no uncertainty, “Not as big of a bill the motherfucker who did this will be paying. He wants to fuck with me? Throw me in freezing boathouse water? Try to choke and drown me? Threaten me on a snowmobile? It was a wrong move to fuck with my dog.” She hopped into the truck, adding, “Wrong, stupid fucking move. Motherfucker.”

If Megan was forced to put a dollar in a jar for every swear word she'd uttered since moving to Lake Hopatcong, the Salvation Army would be making out like bandits this holiday season.

Thirty-Six

I wasn't about to
be able to sleep after watching hours of news centering on the Judge and the discovery in the main house. I wondered if my mother knew and if that's why he hated us so much, because she found his secret. She was a smart woman—not for marrying him but smart enough to hold something over him to keep her and I together. I know he had something to do with her death, and now I will never know how. All I do know is she's gone and I'm alone. I thank God for Callie. I look out my window at the Macks' house and I see the main light on, and I thank God for Megan too.

Callie dropped Megan off. Both were exhausted from the evening at the veterinarian clinic, but Megan just couldn't bring herself to sleep. It was either heat up more Chinese food or have a go on the treadmill in the lower level of the house. She was worried about Clyde and missed his presence. Megan would go swim laps at a nearby gym to de-stress from cases when she was in Manhattan. It cleared her mind and helped calm her. She donned the only set of gym clothes she had packed and remembered how cold the
lower level got. She started with just a slow-paced walk, then
revved the speed as high as she could go, given her lack of exercise in the last month, if not more. Quite soon Megan broke out into a full sweat, and it felt good. The panting coming from a good run was different from the kind of heavy breathing she'd shared with Callie lately. Most of all it felt good to be alone—with the exception of Clyde's absence, of course. It was nearly an hour before she finished on the treadmill and was soaked through to the bone. Megan sat down for a moment to catch her breath before heading into the shower to wash off her form of meditation.

The next morning Megan woke to find a few inches of snow had fallen during the night. Though it looked completely barren of life, there was a beauty to the trees with snow coating the branches. She stood drinking her coffee, and then decided to text Vivian to see if she'd like some company. She assumed she would, and if anyone could help her with the sign language DVD, it would be a deaf woman.

Vivian was very welcoming of Megan's text. Her last lake walk was such a success that she decided to put on the cleats again and walk over to Vivian's via the frozen lake. Megan wasn't in the mood to clean off Arnold and wait for the engine to warm.

Before leaving she put a phone call out to the veterinarian's office, and the report of Clyde having a good night and perking up relaxed her. They told her he'd probably be fine to be picked up at the end of day. Quite relieved, she threw the DVDs in a backpack and headed out.

Megan was less apprehensive walking over the frozen lake this time. There was little if any breeze and the sun shone brightly. She wasn't chilled to the bone as she had often been since arriving at Lake Hopatcong. There were more police at the front of the judge's house than there had been when she and Callie took food over to Vivian's gatehouse the previous afternoon. Detectives Krause and Michalski's car was parked out front, but there was no sign of either. She wondered at the cause of their presence now, when everything in the house had surely been gone through and confiscated.

Unless it hadn't,
she thought.

Megan yanked the cleats from her boots when Vivian answered the door. She had been watching the police and saw Megan when she arrived. Megan pointed to her boots and finger spelled,
Off?

She shook her head no. As Megan walked in, Vivian looked over her shoulder, keeping an eye on the happenings at the big house. Vivian gestured for Megan to sit and then raised a glass of water, pointing back and forth between the glass and Megan. She spelled
no
and couldn't help but notice Vivian's odd stare at her. Megan took the DVDs from her backpack, placing them on the coffee table.

Vivian picked one up and mouthed, “I know sign language.”

Megan pointed to herself. “For me.”

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, then wrote on a note pad, “Okay, if you want to try.”

Megan took the pad of paper and pencil. She knew her limited finger spelling would take an hour to ask her questions and wrote, “Do you know what is going on over at the judge's house? Has anyone been over here? Bothering you?”

Vivian walked over to the window looking nearly mesmerized. Megan wondered if she was questioning her actions the night her father was murdered. She tapped her on the shoulder, motioning her to start one of the DVDs. Anything for a distraction. They sat for the following two hours practicing different signs, numbers, and small sentences. Then suddenly, Vivian looked saddened, or perhaps frightened. Megan finger spelled, asking her what was wrong.

Vivian took out her laptop and opened a word processor. What she had to tell her must be lengthy, and it would be faster this way until Megan was more proficient with sign language. Vivian typed two paragraphs explaining the day the man in the dark helmet got into her car. She handed Megan the laptop to read and could see Megan's face fill with concern with each sentence she read. Megan typed, asking why she hadn't told anyone and if Callie knew.

Too afraid, no one knows but you and I,
Vivian typed back
.

Megan had a million questions for Vivian but in the end had only one request: that if she saw the man again, to contact her right away. They were interrupted when Callie texted Vivian checking up on her. She had an odd expression and looked over at Megan, showing her the screen on her phone. Megan read the text:
Checking in. I'm over at Megan's. We'll touch base later.

Megan shot up off the couch and looked over at the Macks' house. There was a blind side to the back of the house, so she was unsure if anyone was there. She called Callie immediately. He picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Trouble. I'm on the way over. How is Clyde doing?”

“Oh, well, I'm at Vivian's. I'm on my way back now. Clyde is much better. I think I can pick him up later today, actually. I'll see you in a bit.” She hung up without hearing or for the moment caring about his response. She longed for the privacy of her late-night hour on the treadmill. Megan signed
thank you
to Vivian for her tutoring skills and reminded her to lock up after she left, though Megan knew if the man in the dark helmet wanted to get in, he would.

As I kept an eye on Megan crossing the lake to go home, the oddest thought came to me. I'm not sure why, but I asked myself: When does she put down her armor? She is so self-protective and suspicious that it comes through in her body language, yet she came over to be helped in learning sign language, something she'd most likely never have to use again. Why? My mother taught me the prayer to the Virgin Mary and I said it for Megan, to protect and guide her. As she neared the house and I felt she was now safely there, I realized we were more kindred spirits than new friends—both going through a different kind of hell that changes you, that changes how you see the world and the people around you.