Mercy Dogs Read online

  Unable to think of anything else productive to do, he went out into the living room to try to find something interesting to watch on TV.

  He struck out there, too, so he added a few thousand more steps to the readout on his Fitbit.

  Ben had dozed off on the couch and was surprised by Peter standing over him. He looked like he’d been crying.

  “Dad?” he said, one hand pulling on the backrest and the other on the cushion under his shoulder, pushing him upright. “What’s wrong?”

  “The dog,” he said.

  Ben was puzzled. “What dog?”

  “The dog,” he repeated, his voice thin and reedy. He wiped at a tear on his cheek.

  “Sit down,” he said, patting the cushion softly. “I don’t know what you mean. What dog?”

  “We can’t take the dog.”

  “Okay.” Ben couldn’t understand why he was so upset or why the idea of getting a dog was so troubling.

  “It would be bad.” He seemed wracked with grief—over what, though, Ben had no idea.

  “Why, Dad? Why would it be bad?” Ben squeezed his thigh, worrying again about its thinness.

  “Because Benny.”

  “Benny? You mean me? Ben?”

  “No.” Peter shook his head. “Benny.”

  “Bernie?”

  He nodded.

  “Why do you think Bernie wouldn’t like it?” He didn’t understand. Bernie was the one encouraging them.

  “He’s our friend.”

  “I know. He’s been our friend for a long time.”

  Peter looked more confused than ever and tried to pull away from Ben on the couch. “How could we do that to him?”

  With far more firmness than he intended, Ben said, “Do what, Dad?”

  “Take his dog away from him!”

  As his father’s misunderstanding became clear to him, Ben felt something break open inside his chest and clenched his teeth hard to hold back his own tears. He knew nothing worried Peter more than watching his son cry.

  Peter resisted as Ben tried to pull him into a hug, but ultimately didn’t put up too much of a fight.

  “No,” Ben said. “No. We’d never take his dog from him. We wouldn’t do that. We’re the good guys, right?”

  Peter nodded his head against Ben’s shoulder.

  “We’d get another dog, a different dog. One for us. Not Sriracha. She’d stay with Bernie.”

  Peter pulled back so he could look Ben in the face. “Another dog?”

  “Yeah. A completely different one. We’d never take anybody’s dog away from them.”

  “A different dog?” He finally seemed to understand.

  “That’s right.”

  The clouds drifted out of his expression and were replaced with a childlike brightness. “A different dog?” he said again.

  Ben nodded.

  Peter nodded back, grinning. “Okay.”

  They had breakfast early, and once Peter had his laundry in the washer, Ben said, “I need to run a couple of errands. Will you be okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll probably be about an hour and a half.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Peter said. “I’ll do my clothes and get started.” He made a sweeping motion with his hands.

  Ben poured one more cup of coffee and Boost, covered it with a folded paper towel, and put it next to a quarter of a Hershey’s bar on the counter. “You can have this in a little while.”

  “Got it,” Peter said.

  The Reno Room wasn’t the only establishment across the street from the Attic. Next to the old bar was a coffeehouse called the Library. He sat there at a table by the window and watched the outdoor patio on the other side of Broadway while he pretended to read a Washington Post article on his phone.

  He hadn’t forgotten everything—he was confident none of the other morning patrons had any idea that he was doing anything other than keeping himself up to date. Ben had always gotten a charge out of surveillance. He’d always been good at it. The idea of disappearing, of making himself invisible, had always given him a sense of mildly transgressive power. Now, though, he wasn’t feeling the same excitement he used to.

  A server he hadn’t seen yet came outside to take an order from one of the tables along the sidewalk, and for just a moment, Ben thought it might be her. But no. Her hair was too long and too dark. And she was taller than the woman who’d visited Grace, who he hoped was Amy.

  She went back inside and he realized something. What had been so appealing to him in the old days about surveillance wasn’t just the power or invisibility.

  No.

  It was the transformation that gave him the sense of power. The old Ben Shepard was visible. He had presence and people noticed him. They paid attention to him. They saw him.

  Hardly anyone saw the new Ben Shepard. Partly because he rarely wanted to be seen, but mostly because nobody wanted to see him. PTSD and traumatic brain injury and all the other associated conditions he carried with him were not things at which many people wanted to look too closely, and Ben wasn’t one to challenge that inclination.

  Now he realized that becoming invisible wasn’t that big a deal when you were barely visible to begin with.

  He almost didn’t notice her. She came from the covered side patio area with two plates for a table along the sidewalk. It was the same woman he’d seen with Grace at home, tall and thin, with her light-brown hair pulled back. Was that Amy?

  It didn’t look like anyone was waiting for a seat. It was late enough for the breakfast surge to have waned. He didn’t think he’d feel too self-conscious asking for a solo table. Ben tossed his coffee cup in the trash and went to the corner to cross the street. While he was waiting for the traffic light to change, a nervous excitement swirled in his abdomen. This was it. He was crossing a line. So far he was the only one who knew he was looking for Grace. When he talked to Amy—if the woman he’d just seen really was Amy, he reminded himself—someone else would know. He wasn’t sure why, but he believed that would make his search real in a way it wasn’t yet. The moment he involved someone else, he would be crossing a threshold. He’d be working a case.

  “Inside or outside?” the hostess asked. It wasn’t the same person as yesterday. That was good. He didn’t want to draw any more attention than he needed to.

  “Outside would be good,” he said. It was still gray and cold, but the weather report had said partly sunny. Maybe it would clear up.

  She led him over and sat him down at a table next to the one that the server he believed to be Amy had been working. It wasn’t very busy and he guessed that she was the only one working outside.

  He pretended to look at the menu but tried to keep his peripheral vision focused on the side patio area where he’d seen her come and go. Earlier, at home, he’d looked at the menu online and decided what to order. The crème brûlée French toast and the Belgian waffle had both been appealing, but he didn’t want the sticky mess that breakfast foods with syrup always seemed to result in these days. No, he’d just go with the simple steak and eggs.

  “Can I start you off with something to drink?” she said. She’d come down the steps from the front porch and almost managed to surprise him.

  “Hi, uh, coffee?”

  “Sure. Cream?”

  “Yes.” If she recognized him, he couldn’t tell. He hadn’t expected her to, though. The plan had been to see if she seemed to know who he was, and if she didn’t, to just come right out and ask if she was Grace’s friend and hadn’t she been to the house?

  “Are you ready to order?” He was, but how did she know that? Oh. The menu was closed on the table. Ask her, he thought. Just go ahead and ask her. But she’d already asked him a question. He had to answer that first, right?

  He told her what he wanted.

  “And how would like your steak?”

  “Medium.” Ask her.

  “Are the potatoes okay with that?”

  “Yes.” Ask her.

  “Toast
?”

  “Yes.” Ask her.

  She smiled. “What kind?”

  “Sourdough?” She didn’t write anything down, Ben noticed. It wasn’t crowded. She probably didn’t need to. He felt a twinge of envy.

  She told him she’d be right back with his coffee and he swore to himself that he’d mention Grace as soon as she got back to the table.

  He didn’t say anything when she brought his coffee.

  Or when she brought his food.

  Or when she checked to see if everything was okay.

  Or when she cleared his plate and dropped off the check.

  It was only when she returned his debit card and told him to have a great day that he finally felt the balance tip, and his fear of failing to help Grace outweighed his fear of risking an actual substantive conversation with someone he didn’t know.

  “Excuse me,” he said, just as she was turning away from the table.

  She stopped and looked back at him, eyebrows raised with a pleasant curiosity.

  “Aren’t you—I mean, don’t you know Grace?”

  The pleasantness vanished and something darker and more questioning took its place.

  “Will you help me find her?”

  TEN

  When he explained who he was and what was going on, she apologized for not having recognized him, said he’d looked familiar but that she thought she must have just waited on him before. She agreed to meet him back at the Library when her shift ended at two. By the time he got home, it had been more than two hours since he’d left. He found his father by the dryer, holding his blue plaid flannel shirt in his hands. It was covered in tiny white shreds of Kleenex. Ben hadn’t been there to remind him to double-check, and he’d left a tissue in one of his pockets again.

  “I messed up,” Peter said.

  Ben helped him carry the load of laundry out to the patio table. The sky was a lighter shade of gray than it had been, but the sun still seemed a long way off. He took a pair of jeans over onto the lawn and started shaking them, first holding the waistband and snapping the legs out away from the house, then switching his grip and flapping the waistband into the breeze. As he did, the air filled with little bits of white fluff that drifted and swirled and finally settled onto the damp green grass.

  Peter brought a T-shirt and joined him. Together they worked their way through the whole load.

  When they were finished, Ben looked down at the mess on the lawn and thought about what he’d need to do to clean it up. Could it wait until the gardener came?

  Peter bent over and ran his fingers across the shredded mess and said, “It looks like snow.”

  Ben had already left Peter alone for more than two hours that morning, and it would probably take at least another two to meet with Amy. He couldn’t remember a day he’d left him alone for that long, not since the last surgery, at least. Asking for help wasn’t something he was very comfortable with, but the more he thought about it, the more he considered asking Bernie if he could help. Bernie offered all the time and Ben had almost never accepted. For more than a minute, he just stared at the text message.

  You around this afternoon by any chance?

  Bernie answered right away. sure what do you need?

  Got an appointment. Going to be kind of a long one. Could you check on my dad around 2 or so?

  Sure

  Thanks

  no worrys

  Ben used to say that himself.

  No worries.

  But that was a long time ago.

  Amy had put on a zip-up hoodie over her black shirt. Ben wasn’t sure if that was what made her seem younger than she had when she’d served him breakfast, or if it was just that sitting down to talk with him about Grace put her in a more uncertain and vulnerable position. Earlier he had estimated her age at late twenties, but now he guessed five or six years younger.

  “Thanks for doing this,” he said, pulling his notebook out of his shirt pocket. “Sorry. I might need to write something down.”

  She had both of her hands wrapped around the oversized cup on the table in front of her. “It’s okay.”

  “When was the last time you saw Grace?”

  “Last week. Thursday, I think. We both worked the early shift. We talked about doing something on the weekend.” She looked down at the whipped cream on top of her mocha. “I didn’t know anything was wrong until I heard she missed her shift on Tuesday.”

  “Did she call in or get anyone to cover for her?”

  “No, that’s what seemed so weird. Not like her at all.”

  “You try to get in touch with her?”

  “Yeah. I even called when she didn’t answer her texts.”

  “And no replies?”

  “No.” She lifted her cup halfway to her mouth but stopped before drinking. “Something bad happened, didn’t it?”

  “I hope not,” Ben said. “But that’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “She liked you and your dad a lot,” she said.

  Ben felt himself blink. He hadn’t expected her to say anything like that but didn’t quite understand why not. As soon as he’d put the notebook on the table, he now realized, he’d slipped into interview mode. Detached. Impersonal. For just a few minutes, he’d forgotten this wasn’t a case and that he wasn’t a detective on the job. Grace wasn’t just a victim. She was a friend.

  “She said that?” he asked.

  Amy smiled, and he saw her teeth for the first time since he’d paid his bill after breakfast. “Yeah. She was always talking about how much she liked renting from you guys. Super nice, but no creepy vibes at all.”

  “Is that a thing? Super nice people usually have creepy vibes?”

  “Well, when they’re landlords they do.”

  He laughed at that, but for the first time, he wondered what it must have been like for a young single woman to rent an apartment from two old men. Did that mean she really trusted Rob? Or just that she was desperate enough to take a chance?

  “How well do you know her?” Ben asked.

  “Pretty well. She’s only been working here for what, like four or five months? But we hit it off. Before she switched to mostly nights, both of us liked the early weekday shifts.”

  “Why is that? You can make a lot more money working evenings and weekends, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s only like half as much, but it’s even less than half as much stress. It’s actually fun sometimes in the mornings.”

  “What’s fun about it?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve got regulars. It’s nice to be able to talk to them, get to know them some when things aren’t as busy.”

  Ben tried to remember if he’d enjoyed meeting and getting to know people before. He thought he used to be friendly, people used to tell him he was, but did he actually enjoy it? Honestly, he didn’t know.

  “Is that what Grace liked, too?”

  “Not as much, but she seemed like maybe she used to?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she never really wanted to talk very much about San Bernardino, but I know she had a really hard time there with the bad relationship and everything. I think she was a lot more reserved and quiet, especially when she first started. But it seemed like she relaxed more lately. Like she was adjusting, finally putting it behind her. Having more fun, doing stuff, you know?”

  He didn’t, really.

  “Just being more social, going out more and stuff.”

  “Do you know why she switched to nights?”

  “The money, is what she said.”

  Something in Amy’s expression gave Ben the sense that there might have been more to it than that, but he didn’t press. “Did you guys hang out a lot?”

  “Yeah. Not at first, though. But then more and more.”

  Ben wondered why he hadn’t seen Amy at Grace’s lately.

  When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “After we worked a few shifts together, I started asking her if she wanted to hang out. I
’d just broken up with somebody too, but not bad like her. She said no a few times, so I stopped asking. But after a few days, she asked me if I wanted to grab a coffee after work. We came here.” She looked at a table over by the window. “Sat right there and talked for a long time. I knew I liked her at work, but you know how sometimes work relationships don’t translate?”

  Ben didn’t know what she meant.

  “Like to real life? Sometimes you get away from the office or wherever and you realize you don’t have anything else to talk about?”

  He thought about all the cops he used to be friends with. All he could remember ever talking about with them was work. But was that just him? He didn’t like sports, didn’t go to the movies very often or have any hobbies. He could remember other cops talking about playoffs or politics or whatever, but did he ever join in?

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.”

  “At first she just wanted to hang out and watch Netflix and stuff.”

  “That was when you started coming to her place?”

  “Yeah. After a while, we started going out more and doing stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, different things. She liked the aquarium. She’d never been before, so we went there a few times. You know when they have live music at Fingerprints? The record store? We both really like that. We saw Tall Walls there. Do you know them?”

  He shook his head.

  “They’re so good. You should check them out. They won Buskerfest.”

  “They did?” Ben didn’t know what Buskerfest was.

  She seemed to misread his confusion. “Not this year. Last year.”