I said, very quietly.
We went to the door, giving Lug-nut a wide berth. The dog was almost hysterical now, and despite myself, I felt sorry for him.
“It’s okay, Lug-nut. It’s okay, boy.” I always said that, using my most soothing voice. It probably didn’t make a scrap of difference to Lug-nut, but it made me feel braver.
Becker had been knocking but there was no reply.
“That’s odd,” I said. “It’s almost noon, and Francy usually puts the baby down for a nap around now and has a smoke on the porch.” (I didn’t tell Becker what kind of smoke she has on the porch at noon. I’m not stupid.) “You can usually set your watch by her.”
“There’s no car here,” Becker said, “or at least no car you could drive. Maybe she’s at a doctor’s appointment or something.”
“Francy doesn’t have a car and she can’t drive anyway,” I said. “John’s truck’s missing, though. It wasn’t at the dump, was it?”
“Nope. What kind of truck was it?”
“GMC half-ton. Beat up. Baby-poo brown. Don’t know the year.”
Becker went down the steps back to the cruiser to talk to Morrison. I supposed they would put out an A.P.—whatchamacallit for the truck.
“Try Kelso’s Tavern in Laingford,” I called. “He used to drink there practically every night.”
Becker nodded, presumably passing the information along. Lug-nut had stopped barking. In fact, he had stopped doing much of anything. He was lying with his head between his paws, ears drooping instead of the usual flat-against-the-skull signal to back off. His ribs stuck out. His water bowl was empty. He whined once, piteously.
I felt awful. Francy didn’t like the dog, I knew that, but depriving him of water was mean.
“Are those crocodile tears?” I said to him. “If I come over there to fill your bowl, will you bite my hand off?” He didn’t say.
Becker returned. “We’ll be looking for Travers’s truck,” he said. “Now, what about Mrs. Travers? She got a neighbour she might have gone to?”
Then I realized that the pram was gone.
Francy and I had found the pram at the dump. It was an old-fashioned one with a high undercarriage like those monster trucks favoured by big men with small dicks. We had taken it away on a Spit day and it hadn’t cost us a cent. Francy kept it on the porch because it was too wide to get in the door. When the new baby, Beth, was put in it, she looked like she was lying in a football field. I told Becker about the missing pram.
“She might have gone over to the Schreier’s place, I suppose,” I said. “It’s the closest, and young Eddie sometimes helps John out in the shop. Francy’s not particularly friendly with Eddie’s mother, though. Carla Schreier’s a holy roller, and doesn’t approve of John or Francy.”
“We’ll go over there, then,” he said.
“Wait, Becker.” I had left off the “detective” part on purpose, because I wanted to know what his first name was. He knew mine, after all, and my hormones were way ahead of my reason. If he told me his name, I thought, it would be a step in the right direction. “Becker” was what Morrison called him, and it sounded mildly aggressive. He stopped in mid-turn.
“Mark,” he said. “It’s Mark.” Hah. I tried not to smile in triumph.
“Mark, listen, we have to do something about this dog. He’s got no water and his master’s dead, so he isn’t likely to get fed any time soon. Francy will have enough to worry about after we tell her.”
Lug-nut was listening half-heartedly. He wasn’t a bad looking dog, really, when his ears weren’t plastered to his head. Part shepherd, part black lab, and something else. Something mongrelly. His eyes were yellow, which was unfortunate, but it wasn’t his fault.
Detective Mark Becker looked at me, then at the dog. Lugnut knew we were talking about him and pressed his body further into the ground, achieving a kind of road-kill effect that was far from attractive. He whined again.
“Yeah, okay. You’re right.” Becker’s eyes went to the hose attachment next to the porch. “We can fill his water bowl there, but unless his food is kept outside, he’ll have to stay hungry for a while longer. We can’t just break in.”
“Why not?”
“It’s against the law, Polly.”
“Oh, puhleeze. Francy’s my friend. I walk in all the time. I know where the food is. I’ll do it.”
“She keep her door unlocked?”
“This is the boonies. Nobody locks their doors here. You should know that, a country cop and all.”
“I haven’t been here very long,” Becker said. “Where I come from, you don’t go outside to water your lawn without locking your door.” I didn’t bother to answer. City people. Geez.
He walked towards Lug-nut and reached for the bowl. At once the dog sprang up from his abject pose and snarled, displaying an impressive set of fangs. Becker dropped the bowl and leaped back, swearing. From the cruiser came a highpitched giggle.
“Morrison doesn’t like you much, does he?” I said.
“The feeling is mutual. The dog’s not crazy about me either.”
“Let me try. He knows me, sort of.” I moved forward, my hand out in the age-old Nervous-Human-Pretending-to-be-Friendly routine. “It’s okay, Luggy. Okay, boy. Nobody’s going to hurt you.” I talked to him the way I talked to Beth, Francy’s baby, who made me just as nervous as the dog did, for different reasons.
Lug-nut bought it. He sniffed my hand, then licked it and wriggled over on his back, presenting his belly to be rubbed. It was like winning a lottery. If only men acted that way.
Becker made a huffy, annoyed little sound.
“Want me to rub your belly too?” I said without thinking. He laughed aloud. A cop with a sense of humour. Curiouser and curiouser.
Lug-nut obviously wanted me to make up for his lonely years of never being touched, and I knew how he felt. But there was sad news to be delivered and I couldn’t sit around playing Her Majesty and the Corgis all day. I picked up the bowl and turned to Becker, but he had walked back to the cruiser to talk to Morrison.
I filled the water bowl and put it within reach of Lugnut, who drank most of it in one schloop. Then I took the food bucket and walked in the front door. Becker didn’t follow.
The hall stank, as usual. It was full of sweaty, mud-encrusted boots and oily overalls. I headed through to the kitchen where Lug-nut’s food was kept under the sink.
There had been a “domestic”, I thought.
Chairs were overturned, there were beer bottles on the table, some smashed on the floor. The fridge door was open. I moved to close it and my foot slipped in a patch of wet. I looked down
