“She’ll be sorry she missed you.”
Pollock reached for the lip of the trunk lid and was surprised to find Nick leaning inside the well. “You’ll have to get out of there. I’ve got places to go and criminals to catch.”
Slipping out of harm’s way, Nick straightened and shielded his eyes to look at the policeman. “You are a superhero.”
“Officer Pollock,” he said. “To the rescue.” With a grin, he slammed the trunk, got into the car, and drove away.
“Hi-yo, Silver,” Tim said, and then he put his arm around the boy’s shoulders and they walked back inside.
Waiting like a fledgling in the nest, Jip began pestering them at once. “What was in the car? I couldn’t see, I couldn’t see.”
“A monster,” Nick said. “Hairy white beast straight out of your nightmares.”
Tossing his jacket over the back of a chair, Tim grimaced at the boy. “Don’t pay any attention to him. It was just a dog. A poor misfortunate German shepherd dog, white as winter. Must have been a beautiful thing before it met something bigger and more dangerous. Now it’s just a broken body in the back of a police car.”
“That’s right.” Nick sniffed. “Just a dog.”
*
Holly could not remember a time over the past few weeks when she had such an unbroken stretch of peace without the constant drumming in her head. The talk with Miss Tiramaku had done her good she was certain, and on the ride back to the rectory, they had discussed more of Jack’s case history from the very beginning. Holly told her about the first time she had noticed her son’s strange affect. He was cradled in her lap, laid lengthwise against her propped-up legs, and she bent down to kiss him again and again, soft zerberts on his tummy and cheeks, but he didn’t respond as she’d hoped, didn’t respond as other babies with a yelp of glee or belly giggles or even just a sharp inhalation. No, he seemed to resent her affections. Her suspicions played out in the months to come, Tim fighting her all the way when she sought out specialists. The pediatricians were missing it. She knew. A mother knows her child.
“Sometimes a father is too close to tell,” Miss Tiramaku said. “Or maybe your husband doesn’t want to admit his child is different. I can connect with Jack, and I’d like to talk with him again. Maybe next time Nicholas, too. Do you think he is angry with Nick?”
“Angry?”
“Or resents him, perhaps. Resents the difference he feels?”
“No, Nick’s a good boy. He’s like a brother.”
“A brother,” Miss Tiramaku repeated and stared through the window, chewing on the word.
They had arrived at the rectory and sat in the car, plotting the next steps. To be sure that Miss Tiramaku hadn’t been locked out, Holly watched her go to the door, changing from spry to tottering as though she were a windup doll herself in need of another turn of the key. Father Bolden met her on the porch, held the storm door for her in a gesture of familiar welcome. Holly did not bother to wave good-bye, but turned the car around and drove home.
In the last navy blue moments of the day, she pulled into the driveway. The Christmas lights were on, and when she walked in, the rich aroma of a beef stew made her dizzy with hunger. The boys were busy setting the table, and Tim stirred the pot with a big wooden spoon. A glass of red wine sat breathing at her place at the table, and she felt a surge of tranquility shoot through her veins with the first sip.
After a quick hello kiss, Tim shared the news. “You’ll never guess who came by the house, not ten minutes after you left.”
“Santa Claus,” she said. “Come to deliver that Caribbean cruise he forgot?”
“Very funny.” Tim reached for the wine bottle to top off her glass. “It was Haddock. That policeman who was here Christmas Day.”
“Pollock,” she said. “To check up on the case of the mystery bone? I have a theory where it came from.”
“That’s what I thought too, at first, but no. Not that at all. You’ll never guess what he had in the back of his car.”
Jack Peter shouted, “A monster.”
“Now, Jip, let your mother guess.”
“A monster?” Holly asked.
“Sort of,” said Tim. “Remember that thing I saw on the rocks, that thing that got at my throat? Well it wasn’t a coyote, it was a big white dog, the size of a wolf. Found it dead at the Point. Pollock had to stuff it in the back of his rig. Been roaming round here for weeks. Isn’t that great?”
“That’s terrible,” she said. “Poor thing.”
“It was already dead, of course, but don’t you see? It proves there’s been something out there, just like I thought, and it explains everything—the noises, the dog across the street going crazy, the feeling like you’re being watched all the time out there.”
She drained her glass of wine. “If you say so, dear.”
“What do you mean, if I say so? Don’t you understand, this fixes everything.”
“A big white dog?”