Mercy Dogs Read online

  Just as he decided to lower himself back down, the creaking sound made him open his eyes again.

  It could have just been the sound of the old house settling. It was built in ’45. Thirty years before he was even born. When was the last night he hadn’t heard it settling half a dozen times?

  The noise came again.

  He recognized the sound. The low, long moan of floorboards inside the front door. Whenever he came in after his dad had gone to bed and eased the deadbolt into place behind himself, he’d always walk as lightly as possible, but he could never be completely silent, no matter how hard he tried. Sometimes, if he took a big-enough step, he could almost make it across, but there would always be something, some sound. And even though it might be louder or quieter depending on how careful he managed to be, it was never completely silent.

  There it was again.

  Someone was inside. Ben was sure of it.

  He wished he still kept a gun in the nightstand.

  Instead, he had the big old Maglite in his hand as he inched open the bedroom door. It hadn’t quite been closed all the way. He always kept it cracked in case his father needed him in the night.

  He didn’t see anything. It wasn’t completely dark in the house—there was a lamp on in the living room ahead of him, and the light over the stove dimly illuminated the kitchen and dining room to the right.

  There was no movement.

  Ben listened.

  No sound other than the furnace blowing warm air through the vents and the muffled hiss of the refrigerator.

  He stepped through the door.

  Just moments ago, he’d been sure someone was in the house. But now, he didn’t know. He clicked on the flashlight and lit up the living room.

  Nothing.

  He moved cautiously through the dining room and kitchen.

  Nothing.

  The hallway.

  Nothing.

  Ben stood on the balls of his feet outside Peter’s bedroom door and listened to the heavy in-and-out of his father’s breath. Almost—but not quite—snoring.

  There was no one else here.

  Back in the living room, Ben looked through the window across the backyard. He couldn’t quite see the studio from there, but he could tell there were no lights on. When Grace worked nights at the restaurant, she’d get home at eleven or twelve and wouldn’t go to bed for a while.

  It was close to two now, though, so he couldn’t know for sure if she was back unless he went outside and looked for her Prius.

  The nervous tension and the adrenaline rush were fading, but he didn’t want to unlock the back door and go outside.

  Would waiting until morning to check for Grace be more anxiety provoking or would it be worse to check on her now? If she was back, it would be better to know. He’d be able to stop worrying and sleep. But what if she wasn’t? Would he ever get to sleep at all?

  He looked at his badge on the mantel again, opened the door, and went outside. It was quiet and chilly, but there was more than enough moonlight to see by, so he didn’t have to turn on the flashlight. The studio was still dark, but as he got closer he heard something in the alley on the other side of the fence. A scuffling sound.

  As he neared the small back patio outside the studio, a car door slammed shut and an engine turned over.

  Ben’s old instincts kicked in and he ran for the gate. He made it through in time to see a red Camaro run into his neighbor’s trash cans, slowing just long enough for him to read the license plate. As it sped up the alley, Ben reached for his notebook to scribble 2CDG720 but realized he’d left it inside. When he’d been a cop, memorizing plate numbers was second nature, but now he wasn’t sure, so he repeated the number over and over again under his breath like a mantra, hoping to hold on to it long enough to write it down when he got back inside.

  He stood there, trying to catch his breath and thinking about what he had just seen.

  Judging by the sounds he heard and the position of the moving car when he came through the gate, the Camaro must have been in or close to Grace’s parking spot next to the garage door.

  As he was trying to figure out the implications of what had just happened, something occurred to him.

  He’d forgotten.

  Just for a few seconds.

  But he had forgotten.

  He hadn’t stopped to think.

  He hadn’t hesitated.

  He had acted.

  Was that who he used to be?

  Of course sleep never came. He took a lorazepam and that helped tame the anxiety to a small degree. There was Ambien in the cabinet, too, and Ben knew it would probably work. It almost always did. But what if Peter woke up and needed something? And if he took it now, he wouldn’t be able to get up in time to make breakfast.

  Usually when insomnia hit, he would turn on the white-noise machine or the radio or listen to music. Sometimes, if it was really bad, he’d get up and do more steps. Those things helped him focus and calm the cascading thoughts that made him anxious. But he didn’t do any of them. That night, his wandering mind wasn’t the problem—no, it was the inescapable question of what to do in the morning that kept him awake.

  Grace hadn’t come home in more than eighteen hours, and someone had been parked in the alley. Was the driver of the Camaro looking for her, too? He must have been. There was no other reasonable explanation for why he would have been there at that time of night. Was he just looking, or would he have tried to get into Grace’s apartment if Ben hadn’t come outside?

  But the real question he kept asking himself was whether or not to call the police the next day. Did he have a good-enough reason for them to open a missing-persons case? Would the car in the alley be enough to convince them? With his history, would they even take him seriously?

  He wouldn’t let himself ask the next question that needed to be answered: Should he take himself seriously? It had been more than three years since he’d had any significant issues with paranoia. Once they’d found the right meds and he’d started the sessions with Emma, things had settled down and he’d made a lot of progress.

  But how many times had he called in false reports in those early days? That was before his father’s first surgery, so Peter headed a lot of them off, but still, how many were there? Six? Eight? And how many times did he see the pity and fear in the responders’ eyes when they recognized him and let him off the hook again? He felt the embarrassment and humiliation just thinking about it.

  Could he even bring himself to call again?

  Then he had an idea. Maybe not a good one, and he’d still probably embarrass himself, but it might not be quite as bad.

  He turned on the lamp on the nightstand and opened his notebook. The license-plate number, 2CDG729, stared back at him while he wrote. He hoped he had gotten it right.

  2:58am Still awake

  Call J?

  THREE

  Ben didn’t feel like he’d slept at all. But he must have, because when he’d closed his eyes it was dark, and when he opened them again, the morning light was streaming in through the slats of the shutters.

  Before he made his morning notes and before he turned on the coffee maker and before he put the kettle on to boil the water for Peter’s breakfast oatmeal, he went outside and checked the alley, the cold morning biting through his T-shirt and shorts.

  There was no sign of Grace.

  And no sign of the Camaro in the alley.

  What did he expect? Skid marks? A pile of cigarette butts like in some stupid movie?

  Shit.

  Had he even really seen the car last night? Could he have imagined it? He’d never really had hallucinations except for when he took that one medication, and that was years ago, wasn’t it? Things had been better lately. Good, even. He wasn’t filling the notebooks like he used to, one or two every day, trying to hold on to everything. His memory wasn’t quite normal, it probably wouldn’t ever be again. But it was better. It was good now. And he wasn’t the only one who thought s
o. Dr. Bolinger confirmed it. Emma did, too.

  He had seen the Camaro. He was sure of it. Wasn’t he?

  When he went back inside, his first step on the floor squealed and he looked down at his feet. His Tevas were covered in wet grass from his trek across the back lawn. He took them off and left them by the door. In his bedroom, he put on a thick pair of socks and a sweatshirt. Ben hadn’t even realized he was shivering until the shaking began to subside.

  Still gone, he wrote.

  The call from Kessler was a surprise. You hadn’t seen him since the hospital. He was on one of the first lists you made. Early on, when you were still using those spiral-bound steno pads. THE ONES WHO CAME. Jennifer and her partner from Homicide, what was his name? Becker? They were right up at the top. Only the lieutenant was there before them. Everybody from Violent Crimes showed up eventually. Even a few from your uniform days. But not as many as you’d expected. Not as many as you’d hoped. You never made the other list, the ones who didn’t come, but it was always there, no matter how hard you tried to push it out of your head.

  But you didn’t expect to hear from Kessler. Not then. He’d moved to San Bernardino three or four years ago, worked for the sheriff’s department now. Lateral hire.

  When you call him back, he says, “Hey, Ben, how are you?” He used to call you Shepard. Everybody did. Now they call you Ben.

  “I’m good, Rob,” you say. It’s easier that way.

  “How’s your dad?”

  “It’s been rough since the last surgery, but he’s doing better now.”

  “That was his second?”

  “Third.”

  “Shit. Sorry to hear that.”

  You want to say something, but you don’t know what. You used to be good at it, talking to people, making conversation. That was your thing. It made you a good cop. A good detective. Now, though, not so much. You’re always worried about saying the wrong thing, embarrassing yourself. Making it weird or awkward for the person you’re talking to, the way it always is for you.

  “Listen,” he says. “Are you still looking for someone to rent your guesthouse?”

  You don’t say anything.

  Because for a moment, you don’t know what he’s talking about.

  Then it comes back to you. You told some people at the LBPD that you were hoping to take on a tenant, hoping a cop referral might help you find someone reliable. How long ago was that? Three months? Four? You make a note to check your notes. How did he hear about it all the way in San Bernardino?

  “I guess so,” you say.

  “Good,” he says. “I think I might have somebody for you.”

  Ben waited, but his father still hadn’t asked about Grace.

  Peter held up his coffee cup. “Can I have some more?”

  “How’s your stomach feeling?”

  “All right.” He’d only been to the bathroom once so far, and he’d usually have gone twice by his second cup. But calories were calories. As Ben stirred the coffee, Boost, and sugar, Peter asked, “Outside?”

  “It’s pretty cold this morning, Dad. Why don’t we wait until it warms up a bit?” Ben put the cup down on the place mat.

  “Okay.” Peter seemed to be thinking about something. “Is the girl here today?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ben said. “I haven’t seen her, but I’ll check in a little while.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. At least for now.

  1/9 9:50 am

  560 calories, good bm, stomach not too bad

  no Grace—text? Call? Missing person rpt.? Not sure, but camaro

  Don’t know what to do

  Anxiety/stomach hurts (ME not dad)

  After lunch, Ben sent the text. He spent way too long composing it, but he was still worried that he was overstepping his bounds as a landlord. Maybe she met someone and stayed at their house. Maybe she went away with a friend or relative for a few days. Maybe she went someplace by herself. Why was it any business of his? Grace was friendly and generous, sure, especially with his father. It was only two or three weeks after she moved in that she was spending an hour most days on the patio with Peter. She was good with him and he certainly liked her. At what point do you consider a tenant a friend?

  Hi, Grace, the text message said. We haven’t seen you for a while and we wanted to make sure everything is okay. My dad is asking about you. Please let me know if you need anything. He added a ☺ for good measure, but regretted it as soon as he sent the message.

  Peter was finishing up on his exercise mat in the living room. He had a stretching routine he did a few times a day. It was a combination of a couple of old stretches from his long-ago running days and a set of yoga positions and exercises he’d been taught ten years ago by a physical therapist when he’d first started having gastrointestinal problems.

  Ben couldn’t figure out how his father remembered the whole routine. But Peter, for some reason, did very well with physical tasks. He still did the laundry, kept the kitchen clean, dusted and swept every day. He couldn’t remember what the laundry soap was called, but he knew exactly how much to use. The neurologist diagnosed him with vascular dementia, though it never seemed that simple to Ben. Before the first surgery, almost five years ago now, Peter was having some mild difficulty with names and paying bills and things. That seemed to be as much due to his macular degeneration as to his memory. When he had the colonoscopy, though, and they’d had to schedule a major procedure to remove a polyp that was too big for Dr. Riyaz to take out with the scope, the real trouble began. The recovery was harder than anyone expected, and Peter was never the same. His cognitive decline was so significant that even Ben, who was still mired in his own recovery, knew they were in trouble. Then the first emergency surgery for an obstructed intestine hit him hard again and the second, a year and a half later, did the same. It seemed to Ben that Peter only lost more of his words and memories after each surgery. He didn’t think his father had slipped much between the procedures or since he’d come home from the last one. Ben was keeping track in his notebooks along with everything else. He lived in constant fear of another trip to the ER, because he knew if Peter had to go under again he’d lose what little he had left.

  An hour after Ben sent the text message, Grace hadn’t responded. He checked out back again. She hadn’t returned. He went through the gate and stood in the spot where he’d seen the Camaro and looked up and down the alley. Then a memory triggered a thought and he began to scan the backs of the houses across from him.

  There it was, right where he remembered it, about a foot from the top of the redwood gate two houses down, across the alley. “WARNING,” the sign said in white letters on a red banner, over an image of an old-school wall-mounted video camera. “VIDEO SURVEILLANCE IN USE ON THE PREMISES.”

  The camera itself was still there, too, up under the eave above the top-right corner of the garage door. It was rectangular and bigger than most of the newer cameras he’d seen lately. It had been there for a long time. Probably since he’d moved back in with Peter. So a few years at least. Ben wondered if it even still worked. Maybe, if it was compatible with all the new video-security apps everyone seemed to be getting these days.

  He walked out of the alley and around the block to the front of the house on Gaviota Avenue. Even though he walked past it almost every night with his father, he wasn’t sure who lived there. It was a pale-green house with a red-orange door. He felt a knot twist in his stomach as he stepped onto the porch and hesitated. Jesus. Even knocking on a neighbor’s door made him nervous these days. After a few deep breaths, he rang the bell.

  An older woman with short silver hair, who he recognized but couldn’t name, answered. “Oh, hi, Ben. How are you?”

  “Pretty good,” he said, feeling awkward.

  “How’s Peter?”

  Shit, he should know her name. Why couldn’t he remember it? “He’s doing well.”

  “That’s good. I’m happy to hear it.”

  She waited for him to speak.
>
  After what felt like a very long pause, Ben remembered why he was there. “That video camera in the alley? Does that still work, by any chance?”

  “That old thing?” She let out a sound like a polite snort. “Fred put that up years ago. It never really worked at all. It’s fake.”

  “It is?” Ben felt the small bit of hope he’d been holding on to flicker out.

  “I told him it was dumb, but he said no one would know and it would be just as good as a real one. Why? Did something happen back there?”

  “There was a strange car parked by our garage last night. They took off when they saw me coming. I was hoping you might have gotten them on camera.”

  “Oh dear. I’m afraid not. Do you think they were burglars?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Me too,” she said. “Tell your dad hi for me, okay?”

  “I will,” Ben said. If I ever remember your name.

  It came to him much quicker than he expected, as soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk. “Kelley Hall,” he whispered. She’d been one of his mother’s best friends. Brought casseroles every couple of days when she was sick. Held her hand near the end.

  He should have remembered.

  Back at home, he wondered what to do.

  His gut told him something was wrong, but these days his gut was always telling him something was wrong. Could he trust it? He didn’t think so. The spare key was hanging on its hook in the kitchen. Maybe if he took a look around inside, that would give him something to go on. That wasn’t right, though. One Camaro wasn’t enough probable cause to go into Grace’s apartment.

  Probable cause. Thinking like a cop again. He had to stop that.

  Maybe he should call the police, though. Make a missing-persons report. Was it too soon for that? You didn’t have to wait forty-eight hours like on all the TV shows. That was bullshit. You didn’t have to wait at all. At least not in California. He couldn’t remember if it was the same in other states, though he was certain he used to know.

  He wondered if it was the same for his father. If Peter knew how much he couldn’t remember, how much was lost. Ben didn’t think his father was as aware of the vast ocean of the past now forever lost as he himself was. Oh, Peter knew he forgot things—of course he did—but, Ben thought, he didn’t really know how very much was gone.