Heart of Ice

Chapter Thirty-eight

Tustin, California

The dog’s name was Maggie. Michael Barton called her Maggot.

She was a ten-year-old liver-and-white Springer spaniel mix that, by most observers’ accounts, had to be the love of Mrs. Hansen’s life. There was even proof of it. The wall next to the TV had been outfitted with shelves that gave clear and incontrovertible testament to the dog’s place in the family—there were a dozen pictures of Maggie in silver and gold frames. There were none of any of the children who lived there with “Mama and Papa,” as they were instructed to call the Hansens. Not a single one, not even a Polaroid. But there was Maggie on the beach in the surf, barking lazily at the sky. A shot of Maggie sprawled out on the sofa. Maggie with a Frisbee in her mouth, looking brightly at the camera.

How Michael grew to hate that canine. Certainly jealousy was a factor, and later in life, he’d figure that out. The dog was more important than any of the kids in the house.

One time when he didn’t eat the rancid lentil soup that Mrs. Hansen had made and left on the stove for four days, she ladled some of it over the dog’s kibble and made him eat it there, on all fours like he was nothing more than an animal. When he cried and screamed and finally succumbed to her demands, she laughed and turned to her dog.

“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll wash the bowl after he’s finished so you won’t have to get any of his germs.”

The dog seemed to smile.

But there was another reason to hate Maggie. The dog was a cheerful witness to Michael’s repeated humiliations at the hands of Mr. Hansen.

Sometimes when Mr. Hansen had his pants unzipped and his pelvis pressed into Michael’s face, Maggie would sit in the corner, panting like she was enjoying what the smelly man was doing.

Maybe the dog was happy that she didn’t have to lick her master there?

Michael tried to talk to Maggie by sending messages from his brain, to hers.

Bite him! Make him stop! Bark! Do something! Stupid dog!

But Maggie sat there, almost smiling at what was happening.

Please help me, he thought.

Instead, she wagged her stub of a tail.

Michael was sure the dog understood just what he was saying, just what Mr. Hansen was doing to him. The dog, he reasoned, was evil.

The first time that Michael hurt Maggie was entirely by accident. He was coming down from his bunk bed and didn’t see the dog curled up on a sleeping bag that held the newest arrival, Kenny.

Maggie yelped when Michael planted his foot on her hindquarter. Instead of dropping down to see if the dog was all right, Michael felt an odd surge of something that he couldn’t quite peg at first. Something about hurting that animal, though accidental, felt good.

He did it again. This time, he put some effort into it.

Maggie growled and the noise only served to excite Michael. He wanted to jump up and down on the dog, busting its ribs into shards, cutting through the dog’s organs, the lungs, the heart…and stopping her from that stupid dog smile.

“Hey, you’re hurting her!” Kenny said, sitting up, wide-eyed with fear.

Michael pulled himself together, the vision of Maggie flattened into a bloody mess passed. “She’s in the way!”

The new boy cradled Maggie. “Leave her alone.”

Michael grinned. He didn’t know it then, of course, but he’d just found something that gave him both pleasure and control. The smile that he gave Kenny had nothing to do with genuine joy. It was an involuntary, natural response to another person’s fear.

In time, Michael started kicking the dog when no one was around. A while later, he graduated to other animals in the neighborhood. The first one that he killed was a neighbor’s tortoise that had free rein of their backyard, eating bugs, vegetation, and enjoying the California sun that filtered through the eucalyptus and sycamore trees. Michael stole a screwdriver from Mr. Hansen’s workbench and drove it through the reptile’s shell. He sat there and watched the life drain away.

Two days later, he cut off the head of a cat that he’d beaten with a plastic baseball bat. It was easy to do, and it felt good, too. The tabby hadn’t even put up a fight. It just looked up from the garbage can and he landed a blow, stunning it. He’d stolen a box cutter that he’d intended to use on Mr. Hansen’s penis one time, but never found the nerve for it. But the cat was different. The cat couldn’t get him in trouble.

Michael was surprised how easy it was to cut through the tabby’s matted fur. It was nothing to slice through the skin, the tendons, and the vertebrae. Then, like a plucked orange from the mini citrus grove two doors down, the head fell off. So easy and so very final. He crouched behind the house next to the corral Mr. Hansen had built for the garbage receptacles and watched, coolly absorbed in the sight of a pool of maroon fluid as it slowly filled the spaces between the crushed white rocks that Mexican workers had hauled in the week before.

“That’s so pretty,” Mrs. Hansen had said. “Like a fairytale beach.”

Not anymore, he thought. He felt nothing for the cat he’d decapitated. It had been a nuisance, anyway. It shouldn’t have been in the trash in the first place.

When Mrs. Hansen saw the blood on his shirt later that afternoon, she said nothing. She didn’t bend down to see if he was hurt. There was no running to the bathroom for a bandage and antiseptic as his mother might have done. No offers to kiss him and make him better.

She didn’t chide him for making a mess of himself. She didn’t do a damn thing.

He was sure he knew why.

She thinks Mr. Hansen hurt me. She’s a stupid fat cow.