His torn ear had been neatly stitched together. Something rumbled—a neighbor rolling a garbage can to the street. Hurriedly, I yanked the blinds closed.
“Hello?” I ventured.
Nothing.
Scooping up the water bowl, I filled it at the sink. The dog danced and whined at my feet as if to say:I have plenty of toilet water, you beautiful idiot. I need food!
As soon as I poured dog food into his plastic bowl, the ravenous pit bull started scarfing. My Mom Instincts forced me to sweep the drying piles of dog doo into a dust pan and fling them into the backyard. NextI dropped tea towels on the pee puddles to soak them up. Only then did I begin to scan the house for clues.
The fridge hosted a bottle of ketchup and some moldy leftovers from Panda Express. My hopes the box of Tillamook ice cream sandwiches in the freezer would be full of cash, illicit drugs, or bars of gold were dashed. But the sandwiches were salted caramel, my favorite.
I peeled off a glove, unwrapped a sandwich, and nibbled as I walked the house. A couch and giant flat-screen dominated the living room. A poster for the movieFace/Offhung from a shiplap wall alongside a life-sized cutout of comedian-turned-podcaster Joe Rogan. Go figure.
Soap and a disposable razor sat on the bathroom counter. A cracked leather belt dangled from the shower rod. The cabinet drawers housed tweezers, aspirin, Q-tips, and not much else.
In the bedroom, an open laptop with a sticky-looking screen made me willing to bet the whole thing was radioactive with porn. I didn’t have the slightest idea how to open it without a passcode.
In the lone framed photo on the desk, Connor stood with his arm around a smiling woman with bleached hair. Was this Baylee? A little boy, maybe four years old, stood beside her. Connor wore a happy smile. The woman smiled too, but her eyes were melancholy. The little boy looked worried. Anxiety sank its talons into my guts. I suddenly remembered Connor saying he went to Huckleberry’s to stop thinking about “the one who got away. And her kid.”
This must be them. I set the ice cream sandwich on the desk and used my phone to snap a photo of the framed picture.
The dog trotted into the room, looking at me with big wet eyes.
“Don’t try to make me love you,” I said.
Bam! Bam! Bam!A fist pounded the front door. The dog raced toward it, barking wildly.
Dropping to the hardwood, I army-crawled to the window and lifted the corner of the blinds. A muscular man with a crooked nose stood on the front stoop. His thin T-shirt defied the breath-clouding cold. Squinting,I could make out the smiling face of a golden retriever and the plain black outline of a dachshund inked on his arms. Part of me wanted to throw open the front door and ask if he wanted to take this puppy home with him. But then, to my horror, the front door actually clicked opened.
“Aw, hey there, sweet boy.” The intruder’s voice reached me from the living room. What did the dead guy have against locking his doors?
Looking around in a panic from my vantage on the floor, I saw my fatal mistake: the uneaten half of the ice cream sandwich lay in plain view on the desk. The bedroom door was open—the intruder would see me if I made a grab for my pilfered snack. I had only one option. Using a floorwork pole dancing move called the cobra wiggle, I shimmied through the quarter-inch thick dust under the bed until I was entirely hidden from view.
“Connor! You home?” the intruder called. “Looks like your ear’s healing up nice,” he said to the dog. “Now tell me, buddy—where is that shit-heel owner of yours?”
As he headed to the kitchen, I prayed he wouldn’t glance out into the backyard and see my lone set of footprints. Next, I heard him rustling through the bathroom cabinet. The dust was making my brain tickle. I pinched my nose to fight back a sneeze as the footsteps headed my way. Any second now he’d come into the bedroom, spot what was left of my ice cream sandwich, and realize he wasn’t alone.
Dog nails clicked into the bedroom. Paws hit the desk and I heard a happy gobble as the dog wolfed down my ice cream.
A blink later, the interloper strode into the bedroom. I didn’t dare breathe. As desk drawers opened and closed, the dog trotted over and sniffed at my feet. I desperately tried to telegraph to the pup that, despite having just saved me, it now needed to stay the hell away.
“What are you doing over there?” the man asked. The dog continued to sniff at my ankles. I sweated it out in the dust as a pen scratched paper. “You’ll tell Connor I’m looking for him, won’t you, boy?”
Blessedly, dog nails clacked after the intruder as he tromped fromthe room. The front door opened and closed; I let out the longest breath of my life. Only when the truck motor faded did I dare wriggle out of my hiding place.
The dog galloped back into the bedroom and licked my face.
“Thank you,” I said, giving him a grateful pat. I’d climbed to my feet and was trying to brush dust off my clothes when I spotted a handwritten note laying where my ice cream sandwich had been.
Connor,
Give me back the meds you stole. I’m serious, bruv.
—Harlan
Maybe the Ambien that’d rolled out of Connor’s pocket belonged to this Harlan guy. If so, I didn’t blame him for being pissed. I’d had two bad night’s sleep in a row and already I felt borderline psychotic. Harlan’s note slid into my back pocket.
After taking one last look around, I scooped up the mail from under the mail slot and grabbed a leash from a nail in the kitchen. The dog wiggled so much it was hard to hook the leash to its collar. It looked up at me with warm, shining eyes.
