The Children (19 page)

“No, please. Go on.” I was curious.

“Well, last night a bat came in the house and tried to attack me.”

“It tried to attack you?” We have brown bats in this area. They eat a lot of mosquitoes, but they don't typically attack anyone.

“I have this thing. I'm fine with anything. You know, throw anything my way and I can deal with it. Except bats. They … I'm … I don't like them.”

I was trying not to laugh. “Are you afraid of bats?”

“No, not generally, no. I mean, I don't mind if they're flying around outside, but this one came in the house. It came after me, I swear. That's why I look a little rough. I slept in my car last night.”

“Can't you call one of your trooper friends?” I asked.

“I don't have any friends up here. These guys aren't thrilled that they sent me up here from Bridgeport—kind of an old boys' setup here.”

“Do you have a tennis racket?” I asked.

“No, I don't play. I've always wanted to take it up, though. Why? Are you looking for somebody to play tennis with?”

Now I laughed. “I can't believe you grew up here and don't know the first thing about bats.”

“I didn't grow up here, I just lived here during high school. My mom sent me to her brother's because the schools are better up here.”

“Come in,” I said. “You need a tennis racket.”

I grabbed one of Joan's tennis rackets from the front closet and handed it to him.

“Yeah, okay, so what do I do? I swing at it? Do I serve? Is it like what Serena Williams does or what?”

“That does it,” I said. “I'm coming with you. I'm afraid you're going to kill the poor bat.”

And then I did this remarkable thing. I followed him right out to the car and climbed into the passenger seat, as if I get in cars with people I don't know every day. Washington Fuentes got in and started up the car, and off we went, right down the driveway, right past the massive stone pillars where the iron gates used to be.

I've thought about this a lot. This is what I think happened that night.

Everett trains some dogs at their homes, but the real problem dogs spend a few weeks with him here. Everett says living with the dogs helps him sort out what's really wrong with them. A couple of years ago, he took in a slightly neurotic Great Dane. I was at his house when the owner of the dog came to pick him up. This woman was a sort of nervous soccer-mom type. When she stood on Everett's front steps, the dogs all barked with excitement.

Everett told the dogs to shush and they all piped down. Then he invited the woman inside.

“Blue, come,” Everett said, and the giant Great Dane trotted across the kitchen floor.

“Oh my GOD! BLUE!” The woman shrieked and the dog jumped up on her and would have knocked her over with his massive paws if Everett hadn't blocked the dog and made him sit.

“It's important to know how to curb the dog's enthusiasm,” Everett explained. “You need to lower your energy level, and he'll lower his.”

“I'm just so shocked at his transformation!” said the woman.

“I haven't even shown you what he's learned,” Everett said.

“But the floor. The tiles! He would never walk across a tile floor before, or any hard, shiny surface. He was petrified. He always was phobic about hard floors.”

“Oh.” Everett shrugged. “Didn't know that.”

“But how did you get him over his fear?”

“I didn't know he was afraid, so I guess I didn't reinforce anything and he just forgot he was afraid. You must have been reinforcing his anxiety.”

“I don't think I was.”

“You wouldn't notice, but your dog did. I expect dogs not to be afraid of floors. I've actually never known a dog to be afraid of floors, so I guess he picked that up from me.”

I think that's what happened that evening when I drove off with Washington Fuentes. I really don't leave the property very often. Joan, Sally, Spin, and Everett are all aware of this, and though we've never discussed it, they're very careful with me when there is talk of going anyplace. “If you're up to it,” they'll say. “There'll hardly be anybody there.” Maybe they were reinforcing my fears? I've had anxiety attacks that they've all been witness to. I sometimes need to get home in a hurry, and in the past year or so, I've found it easier just to stay home.

So maybe it was the fact that Washington didn't know any of this. Maybe it was the conversation with Laurel. Feelings aren't real. They're like ghosts. I reminded myself of this when our house was no longer in sight. When Fuentes drove up East Shore Drive, cheerfully commenting on how scenic it was, I found myself agreeing with him. I pointed out landmarks—the inlet where Chief Marinac had once lived; Mine Hill Road, which leads up to the old iron mines; the old inn on the left, which is now a house.

Soon we were on Railroad Street. The old Connecticut Valley Railroad track runs alongside this road, and we followed it into Harwich Center, which used to be a train depot. The railroad stopped service to this area in the early 1950s, and the old train station is now an antiques shop. The railroad bed is used by hikers and equestrians. You can follow it for miles, all the way up into the Berkshires. Right after the depot, the railroad bed curves away from the road. If you follow the trail into the woods a short distance, you'll come to a tunnel that was blasted into the hill over a hundred years ago. Go through the tunnel and you'll come out just behind the Holden campus. It's a shortcut Sally and I often took when we snuck onto campus in our teens.

“So I have no idea how it got in,” Fuentes said.

“Are any of the windows missing screens?” I asked. My heart was racing but I tried to keep my voice calm. I was thinking about Sally and the tunnel.

The way to the tunnel is dark at night. You have to take an abandoned service road to get there. You have to park on the road and walk a short path to get up to the tunnel. I've only gone there once at night in a car. It was in Everett's truck. He had left the headlights on to light our way, but the path swerved out of their glare, and I held on to Everett's belt as we scampered up the little incline to the railroad bed. We were both out of breath as we ran, stumbling, up over the frozen bank, over the slippery rocks. Long, stiff, winter-dead weeds stabbed at my hands when I tripped and fell. Everett helped me back up.

“No, and all the doors were closed,” Fuentes said.

The old railroad bed is lined with stone dust. We really started running when we got there, Everett and me. Our eyes were adjusting to the dark, but we ran toward a towering black hole that cut into the night sky. I remember the way the air changed when we stepped inside the tunnel. There was a sudden stillness. Everett called Sally's name and the echo of his voice gave us comfort. The tunnel was empty; there was nothing but hard ledge bouncing Everett's voice from one end to the other. When it stopped, I heard the slow drip of water on stone. Then the moaning.

“Hey,” Fuentes said. “I know I look a little rough, but do you wanna grab something to eat or something?”

I liked that Fuentes assumed that I did stuff like that—going to restaurants.

“Thanks, I already ate,” I said.

We drove past a woman pushing one of those jogging strollers. We passed old Norm Hungerford's house—Whit's old friend Norm—and I saw him out on his lawn, filling a bird feeder with birdseed. My breathing eased up a little.

“I don't understand. You slept in your car because of a bat? I mean, you're not supposed to kill them, but I guess you could have if you were so scared.”

“I would have if it wasn't dive-bombing my head. I would have shot it if it had landed someplace, but it was flying all over the place. Scary as hell.”

“Shot it?” I laughed.

“I know. There's no way. All I have is a pistol, and I'm not the best shot. But I would have shot
at
it, you know, just to let it know I meant business. Just to scare it away.”

“They're not like bears—you don't scare them away with gunshots. You need a tennis racket, that's all. You just have to sort of guide it out. Or you can throw a towel over it if it lands on a wall, then carry it out. I can't believe that scared you. You're a member of the Major Crime Unit?”

“I'm not afraid of people. But…” He shuddered. “Bats. I just have a thing, okay? I have a thing with bats. I don't mind mice or rats. But bats? No.”

“What is it specifically, though?” I said. I couldn't help teasing him. I loved that this very macho trooper was afraid of a little bat. “Is it just because they're like rodents that fly? Little beady-eyed rodents. That fly?”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Stop.”

“And they have little faces that are sort of half pig, half human?”

“Stop it,” he said.

“They're ugly but harmless. They eat mosquitoes,” I said. “I actually love them.”

“Let's see how much you love them when one bites you in the neck and starts sucking your blood.”

“Are you in a
Twilight
fan club or something? You just need a tennis racket.”

“Then, the next day, you wake up, and you have fangs,” he continued. “You're a vampire. Let's see how much you like 'em then.”

He was so funny, I was almost sorry when we pulled up to Ramón's house.

“So what if they eat mosquitoes? Why are bats better than mosquitoes?” he asked me as he parked the car.

“They will give you rabies, some bats,” I conceded. “That's the only danger. Fear is just a feeling, feelings aren't facts. They're like ghosts. Nobody's ever been killed by one. Have you ever seen a photograph of one?”

I grabbed my mother's tennis racket. Then I taught Trooper Fuentes how to remove a bat.

 

FIFTEEN

“I'm trying to understand,” Sally said. She had climbed into my bed very early the following morning. I was annoyed. I turned away and she drove her knees into the backs of mine as she whispered into my ear, “You went to Ramón Hernández's house with that trooper guy? That is the craziest thing I've ever heard. I can't get you to go to the Housatonic Diner with me, but you'll go to the house of somebody you don't even know?”

“I know Ramón Hernández.”

“But you said Ramón wasn't there. You were with George Washington Fernandez. You don't know him. What if he'd started interrogating you?”

“Fuentes, not Fernandez. What time is it?”

“Interrogation time!” Sally started tickling me, and I screamed at her to get out of my bed. I'm superticklish.

“Get out, get … OUT,” I said.

“What if he probed you? What if he…” Sally suddenly froze. I took the opportunity to drive my elbow into her boob.

“Ow, fuck. Shhhh, somebody's walking in the hallway.”

“It's probably Spin. He has to go back out this morning with the task force. Poor Laurel.”

“Poor Laurel,” Sally scolded. “Why would you feel sorry for her?”

“I like her, Sally. It's just bad timing that Spin's so busy this week.”

“Please,” Sally said, rolling over onto her back and staring at the ceiling. “I wish everybody would get up. I figured something out for that score, but I need the piano, and I know Joan'll get upset if I start playing too early.”

“What time is it?”

“It's got to be almost seven. I left the city around four, I think. It was still dark.”

“Did you sleep, Sally?”

“I'm not tired, and I also don't want you to keep asking me about my sleeping habits, I'm not a—”

She stopped abruptly. I turned and saw that my bedroom door was open a little. Laurel was peering into the room.

“Morning!” Laurel said.

“Hey, Laurel,” I said. “I hope we didn't wake you up.”

“No, not at all, I get up early to write. That's when I do my best writing. I heard you two in here. Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Yeah, come on in,” Sally said.

There are two beds in my room and a chair at the desk, but Laurel came over and sat on my bed with Sally and me.

“Oh, okay, why don't you sit on the bed with us?” Sally mumbled. “Because there's no place else to sit.…”

“I heard you went out on a little date last night, Lottie,” Laurel said.

“What?” I said.

“A date?” Sally said. “Who told you that? She wasn't on a date. What the hell?”

“We saw Everett when we got home last night,” Laurel said, ignoring Sally and squeezing in closer to me.

“You did?”

“Yeah, he came over and had a beer with Spin and me on the beach. He seemed a little … unsettled. He wasn't okay with you taking off with that guy, that's for sure.”

“I was gone for an hour. I caught a bat for him and he drove me home.”

“Everett seemed to think there was more to it. He couldn't understand how you would go off with some guy you don't know.”

“I know him now. Anyway, Everett said he played baseball with him. I don't know what everyone is making such a big deal about.”

“He was jealous, Charlotte.”

“No,” I scoffed.

“He said he was a little freaked when he got home and Joan's car was gone and you were gone, too. He said you could have left him a note.”

“He expects you to leave him a note?” Sally said. “Does he leave you notes? What the fuck?”

I was annoyed, too. And maybe a little pleased.

“Spin said he was glad that you had gone out and were fine with everything,” Laurel said.

I couldn't help but bristle at this. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, Spin told me about your agoraphobia. I had an aunt who had that and she went to a therapist and did cognitive behavioral therapy. It really helped.”

Sally had been lying back against a pillow, but now she sat up and glared at Laurel. “What are you even talking about? Who has agoraphobia?”