Buddy continued to howl.
Henrietta got on her housecoat and slippers and went outside. As she was standing on the sidewalk, a car pulled up. It was Douglas Twitchell, no doubt on his way to the hospital. He looked puffy-eyed and was clutching a takeout cup of coffee with the Sweetbriar Rose logo on the side as he got out of his car.
'You all right, Mrs Clavard?'
'Yes, but something's wrong at the Freemans'. Hear that?'
'Yeah.'
'Then so must they. Their cars are there, so why don't they stop it?'
'I'll take a look.'Twitch took a sip of his coffee, then set it down on the hood of his car. 'You stay here.'
'Nonsense,' said Henrietta Clavard.
They walked down twenty yards or so of sidewalk, then up the Freemans' driveway. The dog howled and howled. The sound of it made Henrietta's skin cold in spite of the morning's limp warmth.
'The air's very bad,' she said. 'It smells like Rumford used to when I was just married and all the paper mills were still running. This can't be good for people.'
Twitch grunted and rang the Freemans' bell. When that brought no response, he first knocked on the door and then hammered.
'See if it's unlocked,' Henrietta said.
'I don't know if I should, Mrs - '
'Oh, bosh.' She pushed past him and tried the knob. It turned. She opened the door. The house beyond it was silent and full of deep early morning shadows. 'Will?' she called. 'Lois? Are you here?'
No one answered but more howls.
'The dog's out back,' Twitch said.
It would have been quicker to cut straight through, but neither of them liked to do that, so they walked up the driveway and along the breezeway between the house and the garage where Will stored not his cars but his toys: two snowmobiles, an ATV, a Yamaha dirt-bike and a bloated Honda Gold Wing.
There was a high privacy fence around the Freeman backyard. The gate was beyond the breezeway. Twitch pulled the gate open, and was immediately hit by seventy pounds of frantic Irish setter. He shouted in surprise and raised his hands, but the dog didn't want to bite him; Buddy was in full please-rescue-me mode. He put his paws on the front of Twitch's last clean tunic, smearing it with dirt, and began to slobber all over his face.
'Stop it!'Twitch shouted. He pushed Buddy, who went down but popped right back up, laying fresh tracks on Twitch's tunic and swabbing his cheeks with a long pink tongue.
'Buddy, down!' Henrietta commanded, and Buddy shrank onto his haunches at once, whining and rolling his eyes between them. A puddle of urine began to spread out beneath him.
'Mrs Clavard, this is not good.'
'No,' Henrietta agreed.
'Maybe you better stay with the d - '
Henrietta once more said bosh and marched into the Freemans' backyard, leaving Twitch to catch up with her. Buddy slunk along behind them, head down and tail tucked, whining disconsolately.
There was a stone-flagged patio with a barbecue on it. The barbecue was neatly covered with a green tarp that said THE KITCHEN'S CLOSED. Beyond this, on the edge of the lawn, was a redwood platform. On top of the platform was the Freemans' hot tub. Twitch supposed the high privacy fence was there so they could sit in it naked, maybe even pitch a little woo if the urge took them.
Will and Lois were in it now, but their woo-pitching days were done. They "were wearing clear plastic bags over their heads. The bags appeared to have been cinched at the necks with either twine or brown rubber bands. They had fogged up on the inside, but not so much that Twitch couldn't make out the empurpled faces. Sitting on the redwood apron between the earthly remains of Will and Lois Freeman was a whiskey bottle and a small medicine vial.
'Stop,' he said. He didn't know if he was talking to himself, or Mrs Clavard, or possibly to Buddy, who had just voiced another bereft howl. Certainly he couldn't be talking to the Freemans.
Henrietta didn't stop. She walked to the hot tub, marched up the tyvo steps with her back as straight as a soldiers, looked at the discolored faces of her perfectly nice (and perfectly normal, she would have said) neighbors, glanced at the whiskey bottle, saw it was Glenlivet (at least they'd gone out in style), then picked up the medicine vial with its Sanders Hometown Drug label.
'Ambien or Lunesta?'Twitch asked heavily.
'Ambien,' she said, and was gratified the voice emerging from her dry throat and mouth sounded normal.'Hers. Although I'd guess she shared it last night.'
"Is there a note?'
'Not here,' she said. 'Maybe inside.'
But there wasn't, at least not in any of the obvious places, and neither of them could think of a reason to hide a suicide note. Buddy followed them from room to room, not howling but whining deep in his throat.