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She sat on the floor beside the boy. “Now, where’d you find him? Do you know who did this?”
He shook his head. “I went out in the yard. You fix animals, so I brought him.”
He must have been outside while she’d been trying to spring Lancelot from Tim’s bed. She wondered how he planned to get back into the house. The back door locked automatically when it was on the latch as she had left it. He probably hadn’t thought that far ahead.
The Halliburtons’ yard—she had to stop thinking of it as the Halliburtons’—was surrounded by thick woods that went down to the lake. Hers, across the lane, had a ten-acre pasture behind it with an old barn. The rest of the fifty acres she owned was covered in equally dense woods.
The nearest house directly behind Eddy’s was probably a couple of miles south of the village on the side road. She’d have to go over to those woods to see if she could find any other wounded animals and the scene of the crime, because it was a crime. She’d call Mike O’Hara, the sheriff, and notify him they had a mutilator in the neighborhood. He could alert the rest of the community.
“Do you know what happened to it?”
Eddy looked up at her. “Why would somebody burn it?”
She had to admit the possibility that he’d done it himself, then become frightened of what he’d done and tried to save the animal.
Nancy didn’t think so though. She’d seen kids and adults who mutilated animals for what they considered fun. They felt nothing except annoyance that they’d been caught. Animal cruelty was one of the first symptoms of a psychopathic personality—a Ted Bundy in the making. She couldn’t remember the other symptoms—that spelled trouble.
That Wainwright guy ought to know. “Eddy, do you know if either Jason or Angie went out of the house last night?”
His head jerked up. “They like animals.”
Smart kid. Knew precisely why she was asking.
“Angie’s horse-crazy. Jason even liked the sheep.”
Nancy had no idea what sheep, but for the moment, at least, she respected Eddy’s take on his siblings.
“He’s finished,” Eddy said. “See?” He held the empty bottle up.
“Okay, rub his tummy until he piddles and poops.” She reached under the sink for a new roll of paper towels, took a couple and handed them to Eddy.
He didn’t hesitate. He simply set to work until the pup had evacuated satisfactorily. Nancy took the neatly folded paper towels from him. They’d go outside in the trash.
“Do you have any idea who he belongs to?” she asked. Stupid question. If she didn’t recognize the pup or its parents after six years in the neighborhood, he couldn’t be expected to know after one night.
Eddy shook his head and laid the sleeping pup and his nest back into the corner.
“That presents a problem. If I take him to the clinic, it costs money, and I suspect he’s a stray.”
“Can’t he stay here? I’ll look after him.”
She knew absolutely, positively that she shouldn’t even consider agreeing. “At his age he needs to be fed every four to six hours, and his bandage changed morning and night. We’ll get him onto puppy food soaked in milk, and after he starts getting better he’ll need to go outside to the bathroom.”
“School doesn’t start for a while,” Eddy said with what passed for enthusiasm with this child. “I can do it.”
“I’m sure your father won’t want you spending all your time looking after the pup.”
“Sure he will.” Then he ducked his head and all enthusiasm vanished. “He said we couldn’t have a dog yet. I could keep him here.” He stroked the pup’s head. “And I can pay you. My Gran’mere will send me some money if I ask her.”
When he looked up at her, she wondered how she could ever have thought he was expressionless. Such longing, such sadness, such hope! What had happened to this child to make him close down? She’d have to find out. And if that Wainwright fellow had anything to do with it, she’d see him rot in hell.
As if in answer to her summons, the doorbell rang again. Eddy jumped. “That’s my daddy,” he whispered.
“Stay here.”
“Do we have to tell him?”
“Don’t worry, Eddy, I’ll handle it.”
When she opened her front door, Wainwright stepped in without asking. “Have you seen my son? I can’t find him.”
“He’s here,” she said, and turned back to the kitchen.
“Eddy,” Tim rushed past her.
Eddy hunched over the puppy’s nest.
Tim squatted beside his son. “Eddy, don’t you ever do that again, you hear me?” Then he hugged the boy.
If he was an abuser, he was good at concealing it. Nancy saw tears in his eyes.
He held Eddy at arm’s length. “Son, you’re filthy. And no shoes. Where’ve you been?”
“I went out. I thought I’d be back before you woke up.” Then, as if realizing he’d actually spoken more than a few words at a time, he seemed to shrink into himself. “I’m sorry.”
She saw Tim gulp convulsively.
“It’s okay, son. It’s good that you wanted to go out and explore. Just don’t go out alone again without telling me. Even if I’m still in bed, I’ll get up and go with you. Maybe we’ll all go. We definitely need to explore our land, but this is the country. There’s a whole bunch of new stuff you’re not used to—snakes and fast trucks and woods and streams. You could have gotten lost.” He drew back and glanced over his shoulder. “And what are you doing over here bothering Miss Mayfield?”
No mention of their previous meeting. Thank God he chose to ignore it.
Eddy looked down at the nest. The only visible portion of the pup was an inch of charred brown ear.
“How about I make some coffee,” Nancy said. “I’ve also got OJ and a coffee cake. Sit down and let Eddy tell you about it. He’s a real hero.”
Eddy gave her a grateful look. She winked at him. Whether Tim Wainwright liked it or not, his son had a dog. If she had anything to say about it, he’d keep it.
CHAPTER SIX
TIM SIPPED HIS COFFEE and watched with wonder as his son wolfed down his third piece of coffee cake. He was on his second glass of orange juice, as well. In the past year, Eddy had grown thinner and thinner. Tim gave him vitamins, made certain his mother-in-law kept the house filled with fruit and lunch meat as well as pastry and tried to believe the doctors who told him his son was perfectly healthy. Physically, maybe he was.
Didn’t stop Tim from worrying. On the one hand, he had to watch his mother-in-law to keep her from stuffing Angie, already verging on pudgy, with French pastry. Jason could eat Chicago without gaining an ounce. Every calorie went straight up. Eddy seemed to have lost his sense of self-preservation when he lost his mother.
Now, here he was swigging orange juice and actually kicking the rungs of the kitchen chair like a normal kid. He opened his mouth to admonish his son, then clapped it shut. If it didn’t bother her, it shouldn’t bother him.
“So you see, he’s a hero,” Miss Mayfield said.
“I’m going to look after him while Nancy’s at work,” Eddy said. He met his father’s eyes as though daring him to object.
“The lady’s name is Miss Mayfield,” Tim said automatically.
“Nancy,” she said, “I hate being called Miss Mayfield. Makes me feel as old as my grandmother.” She smiled at Eddy, who actually smiled back. “Nobody in Williamston stands much on ceremony. We all live too close to one another.” He saw her give a convulsive gulp as though she realized what she’d just said. She quickly poured Tim another cup of coffee without being asked and turned her back on the table.
Lancelot had managed to stay on his good behavior until he smelled the coffee cake. He sat at Eddy’s feet and gave an occasional soft oink. Tim saw that Eddy was sneaking him bits of coffee cake under the table. He seemed to accept Lancelot as casually as he did the cats.
Lancelot pushed his snout against Tim’s leg. One look into those eyes and Tim was forced to give him a bit of coffee cake himself.
So far the only eyes he’d managed to avoid were Nancy’s. She seemed to be cooperating by avoiding his as well. Good. Better to forget the entire incident with the pig and the mirror. God that sounded like a fairy tale. Despite his previous resolution to stay aloof, he found himself grinning down at Lancelot.
Besides, he couldn’t stay aloof when he was so elated that Eddy had found something worth fighting for.
“Wonderful coffee,” he said. “Chicago coffee tends to be dark auburn unless you spend a fortune for it at Starbucks.” Actually the coffee could probably strip the bristles off Lancelot’s back, but at the moment, that was what he needed. He wasn’t used to 5:00 a.m. crises.
“Thanks,” she said. “Be back in a minute.”
He watched her go into what must be her bedroom. He could see the corner of a high, unmade bed through the doorway.
She still wore her cutoffs and a T-shirt. Even seminaked and embarrassed in his bedroom, Tim had appreciated the sight of his new neighbor as she dragged that blasted pig down his hallway. A man who didn’t enjoy looking at her long legs and tight rear end would have to be dead. Tim wasn’t quite dead. He was, however, turning into a randy old man. Celibacy tended to do that to the male of the species.
He realized he was getting hard, took an almighty gulp of coffee, scalded the roof of his mouth and drank half of Eddy’s orange juice.
“Hey!” Eddy protested.
Tim laughed. In the past eighteen months Eddy hadn’t cared enough about anything to feel proprietary. Even a little thing like begrudging his father a swig of orange juice was a major victory. He put down his son’s glass and topped it up from the pitcher on the table. “You realize you’ve drunk an entire orange grove there, son.”
“Oh.” Eddy looked away and set his glass down untouched.
Tim wanted to kick himself. “Joke,” he said. “Tell you what. We’ll bring Miss Mayfield—”
“Nancy,” Eddy corrected.
“—Nancy a gallon of OJ from the grocery.”
At that moment Nancy came back into the kitchen. She had combed her short, brown hair, but those delectable nipples were still very visible under the thin cotton of her T-shirt.
“I called Mike O’Hara,” she said. “He’s the sheriff. Lives a couple of miles outside town. He’s going to stop by on his way into the office. He wants to talk to you, Eddy, find out exactly where you found your pup.”
Eddy’s terrified eyes went straight to his father’s face. “Do I have to?”
“He’s a great guy,” Nancy explained. “He’s proud of you, too.” The look on Eddy’s face didn’t change. “Say, I thought I heard a whimper. You better go check on your puppy. Why don’t you move his bed into my bedroom?”
Eddy slipped off his chair, went over to the corner, scooped up pup and towels, and disappeared through Nancy’s bedroom door without a word.
“Of course what was done to the dog is a crime,” Tim said. “I should have realized.”
“A felony. There may be more hurt dogs out there that weren’t so lucky as Eddy’s puppy. He needs a name, by the way.”
Tim started to say that the dog wasn’t actually Eddy’s, but stopped. Of course the puppy was Eddy’s. It would remain Eddy’s even if he had to fight half of Williamston for possession. “Eddy will come up with something.”
Nancy took the chair across from Tim. “Okay, what gives with Eddy?”
Tim sat up. “That’s hardly your business.”
“The minute he dragged that burned puppy into my house, it became my business. At first I thought he must have burned the puppy himself—”
“Eddy loves animals! He’d never—”
“Calm down. I said at first. Nothing like this has happened in Williamston in the six years I’ve lived here.”
Tim felt his temperature rising. “Then the first night we’re here, somebody burns a puppy in my yard?”
“You do have two other children.”
Tim wanted to snatch Eddy, stalk out and slam the door after him.
“I’m not accusing you,” Nancy said.
“The hell you’re not.”
“You think Mike’s not going to ask these questions? You’re supposed to be this hotshot educator with degrees up the wazoo. You must know about kids who like to torture animals.”
“Not my children.” Suddenly he felt his anger evaporate. She was right, although he didn’t like to admit it. He walked over and looked into Nancy’s bedroom. Eddy slept on the rag rug beside her bed with the puppy’s bed in the crook of his arm. Lancelot had moved to snuggle into the crook behind his knees and was fast asleep as well. The two cats, he noted, were curled up together on the foot of the bed where they could oversee everything. Tim closed the door softly and went back to his place at Nancy’s table.
“A year ago my wife was killed in a drive-by shooting.”
Nancy caught her breath. “Oh, I am so sorry!”
“It’s been hard on all of us, but especially Eddy. He was the youngest and the closest to Solange, I think.”
“Solange? Is that Angie’s real name?”
He nodded. “Her father brought his family to Chicago from St. Nazaire in the fifties. He was a chemical engineer. Solange was born in Chicago.”
“Of course I hear about drive-by shootings, but I guess nobody ever thinks it will happen to them.”
Tim took a deep breath. “After she was killed, we did grief counseling, went a couple of times to groups for people who’ve lost loved ones to violence. The kids hated it. You can see how Angie reacted.” He laughed ruefully. “The day she dyed her hair jet-black, I thought her grandmother would have a stroke.” He glanced at Nancy. “Solange’s mother has been babysitter and substitute parent since Solange was killed.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring her down with you.”
“She wouldn’t have come. She thinks Chicago is barbaric. God only knows what she’d make of Williamston.” He wondered whether Nancy would notice his tense. He hadn’t actually asked Madame to join them. One of his reasons for leaving Chicago was to get away from her.
“Anyway, Jason seemed to be doing okay bar the oversize clothes. Then his grades started falling, I caught him smoking—only tobacco, thank God—and he started hanging around with some local gang wannabes. Then he took up skateboarding. You’ve already seen the hair and the earring holes. The next step would have been tattoos. He’s basically sound, but I was afraid he wouldn’t stay sound if I didn’t get him away.”
“And Eddy?”
“Eddy shut down. He’s been a little ghost. Never speaks unless he’s spoken to, does what he’s told, makes A’s in school. A Stepford kid.” He ran his hand over his short hair. “Even the psychologists couldn’t get through to him. I certainly couldn’t.” He nodded at her. “But you did.”
“Not me.” She nodded toward the bedroom door. “What’s the fancy academic phrase for therapy dog?”
