"Possibly."
And she bent down and kissed me, a quick peck at first, then a longer, more exploratory kiss, with her long dark hair spilling across my face, that hinted of much better things to come. She untangled herself from me, smiled, and left for the kitchen while I swiveled back around, made an adjustment in my jeans, and brought my chapter back onto the screen. I deleted the parts I'd written since Sarah's arrival, then reread the last few paragraphs before that to reacquaint myself with where I was in the story.
A few moments later, from the kitchen, Sarah said, "Shit!"
I jumped up and ran in to see what was wrong. A chunk of drywall, about the size of a paperback, had fallen from between the pot lights, in that spot where the shower water leaked down. It had landed on the just-opened package of fresh pasta.
Chapter 6
Once I'd thrown the cups into the dishwasher after Trixie'd gone back to her place, I put on my walking shoes. I was going to try something new today. Walk before I got stuck at the computer. Maybe a little exercise first thing, filling my lungs with fresh air, would set me straight for the entire day.
I set a brisk pace for myself through the areas of the development where construction was in full swing. Some days, I was a six-year-old boy again, transfixed by oversized trucks unloading lumber, workers swinging prebuilt roof trusses into place, the rhythmic hammers as roofers put down shingles. I could stand and watch for an hour or more, until someone started wondering whether I was a building inspector.
But this day I longed for the restfulness that the creek offered. I wanted to meander along its bank, hear the sound of water trickling by as twigs cracked under my feet. Maybe think of a way to get back into Sarah's good books. Maybe there was something I could get for her, like a gift certificate from a spa, or I could take her someplace nice for dinner, maybe back into the city to one of our favorite spots around the corner from our house on Crandall. No, maybe not. That would just lead to comments along the lines of "If only we had places like this where we live now." I'd find something good in our new neighborhood. I'd ask around. Surely people in Oakwood appreciated fine dining, they could recommend something to me other than DQ or Red Lobster. Maybe if -
I spotted the hiking boots first.
The heels pointed skyward, the toes dug into the dirt. The soles, mud caked between the treads, faced me as I approached the bank of Willow Creek. It was an odd sight at first, given the angle from which I was strolling. The boots seemed planted into the ground there on their own, and it was only as I got close that I was able to see that they were laced onto an individual, who'd been hard to spot before, what with most of his body being underwater and all.
I said something out loud, like "Jesus Christ" or "Holy shit." I'm not sure. When you find your first dead guy, it's like that clichT about when you're in a car accident, and everything seems to move in slow motion. Of course, the dead guy wasn't moving at all. The only things moving were me and Willow Creek as it flowed around the body.
It was a man, in boots and jeans and a plaid shirt, and even though he was facedown in the shallow water, the crown of his head just barely above the surface, I had an inkling of who he was.
Part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, he might still be alive, even though he had a very visible gash in the back of his head that offered a view of what I could only assume was brain. So I stepped into the water, grabbed hold of him by his arms, up close to his shoulders, and rolled him over. It wasn't that hard, the water giving him a bit of a weightless quality, and once I could see his face I knew that the Mississauga salamander had lost its greatest ally.
I pulled Samuel Spender up onto the bank, resting his body on its back. Lifeless eyes stared skyward. It was clear to me now that he was long gone. There would be no need, I thought, for any heroic mouth-to-mouth efforts at resuscitation.
I thought of my friend Jeff Conklin, where he might be three decades later. I finally caught up to you, Jeff.
I reached into my jacket pocket for the cell phone I carry around most everywhere. It wasn't until then that I realized how upset I was by this discovery; my fingers were shaking too much to punch in the numbers. You might think that punching in 911 wouldn't be that hard, but when your background is in journalism, and your wife still earns her living at a newspaper, you know that the first thing you do in an emergency is call the city desk. And that's more than three numbers.
I took a couple of deep breaths and dialed.
"City."
"Hi. I need to talk to Sarah. It's an emergency."
"Hey, is this Zack?"
"Yeah. Who's this?"
"It's Dan. Remember we talked that time, when you pretended to hurt yourself on the stairs, and your kids called the ambulance? Sarah told us all about it. That was really something."