Pulse

60

Leighton, Wisconsin, 1986

S herri Klinger said, “I’ve been thinking.”

They were sitting in Rory’s mom’s Chevy with all the windows rolled down, letting the summer breeze wend its way through the car’s interior. The Chevy was parked well off the road and shielded from view by large pine trees. The woods they faced were beginning to fill with twilight’s shadows. Rory picked up the scent of tobacco smoke. His mom had been smoking again, even though she swore she quit months ago.

“We didn’t come here to think,” he said.

“Yeah.” Sherri smiled. “We took care of that other thing, though.”

“You’re not gonna tell me you forgot your pill, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“So what’s your famous brain been working on?”

“Now that you’re finished with my famous body.”

“Not finished. It’s just time out.”

“God, Rory!”

He settled back where he was sitting behind the steering wheel, aware that he was already getting an erection just talking about sex with Sherri. And it had been… what, twenty minutes since the last time?

“I’ve been thinking about Duffy,” she said, leaning her head against the point of his shoulder.

Rory’s erection was immediately lost. “Not much to think about now,” he said. He hoped. Sherri was a brilliant girl, but she seemed fixated on the dog. What was she going to suggest, a Duffy memorial?

Sherri snuggled closer. The breeze working through the car was cooling. “I mean, like the way his collar was discovered about a hundred feet from where somebody buried him. It was unbuckled, so he couldn’t have slipped it before he died. Somebody must have taken it there. Or thrown it. How could that have happened? And why?”

“Maybe he laid there a while before somebody found him, then they took the collar off before scooping dirt and leaves over him.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. Or it could be a fox or something dug Duffy up and moved the collar.”

“A fox couldn’t unbuckle the collar, and there were no tooth or claw marks on it. Somebody must have removed it either before or after Duffy was put in the ground the first time.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure that one out. It was like they didn’t want Duffy to be identified if he was found.”

“But he was identified.”

“A little longer underground and we wouldn’t have known him. I think whoever killed him got scared, hid the body, and threw the collar far as he could into the woods thinking nobody would ever find it even if they did find Duffy.”

Rory found himself squirming. He coughed to disguise his reaction to Sherri’s words. She had it figured exactly right.

“Either way,” he said, “the result is the same.”

“But I remember the way Duffy’s head was flattened on one side.”

“God, Sherri-he was hit by a car.”

“But maybe only injured, and whoever hit him finished him off.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t want to go to all the trouble of dealing with a hurt dog. It might bite them. And they wouldn’t want it bleeding all over their car if they tried to pick it up and take it to a vet. It would be simpler just to get rid of the dog and drive away.”

“You’re saying they had a kind heart, or they would have just driven on and left Duffy injured and dying on the road. Instead, they put the poor animal out of its misery.”

“I’m saying whoever ran over Duffy and hurt him might have then gone ahead and murdered him.”

Rory faked a strangled kind of laugh. “You really think anyone would go to that kinda trouble over a dog?” He knew immediately the words were a mistake. He understood how Sherri’s mind worked. She’d ask herself why indeed someone would take that kind of trouble. The possible answers would include that they might know Sherri and fear she’d blame them for killing her dog. The next step in her logical process might lead her straight to Rory. “Whatever happened,” he said, “Duffy’s dead and you have to put the whole thing behind you.”

“I can’t. It isn’t Duffy’s death I keep thinking about; it’s like death in general. About how in this amount or that amount of years one or both of us, and most of the people we know, will be gone forever.” She looked up at him. “Do you ever really think about forever, Rory?”

“All the time.”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not, Sherri, believe me!”

She moved away from him, rooted through her purse, and fished out a small brown vial with a pop-off white plastic cap. Rory saw a prescription form stuck to the bottle.

“These help me. You know they can help you.”

“Yeah. We’ve gone through this before, with the pills. I almost wrecked the car. This time it’s no thanks.”

Sherri held the vial up and read the label: “ ‘Lorazepam. ’ The only way I can get to sleep now is by taking one of these, or by sneaking some of my dad’s scotch. But the whiskey doesn’t work as well. When I drink it I can fall asleep, but I can’t stay that way.”

“I know how that works,” Rory said.

Sherri smiled. “My mom’d never dream I took these and have been using them.”

“Didn’t she ask you about them?”

“Just if I knew where they were. I said no, and reminded her how she misplaced things. She had a lousy night’s sleep and then had the doctor call in a new prescription.”

“They’re easy to fool, aren’t they,” Rory said. “Doctors and mothers.”

“Too.”

She opened the vial and shook a small white pill into her hand and held it out to Rory. “Take one. You’ll like the way this works. It like makes you stop worrying instead of making you sleepy. Then if you want, you can go to sleep on your own.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep.”

“I just told you they don’t make you tired, just relaxed.”

“I’m relaxed enough.”

“You don’t seem like it.” She popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed it, as if she was used to taking pills without water.

“I know how I can get more relaxed,” Rory said.

“Forget that.”

He sighed. He knew she was thinking about what had really happened to the dog. She’d never let it alone. That was the way her mind worked. He knew that because his mind worked the same way.

They’d professed their love to each other. Why couldn’t she look ahead instead of backward? Was this how life worked? Dragging around the past like chains that made you raw and tired and eventually brought you down.

Rory was a realist. He understood that when Sherri figured out what had really happened to her dog, that Rory had lied to her, and that he’d even used the dog’s death to help him to seduce her, what they had together would be gone.

It was enough to make a person squirm. Lying to friends was one thing, but lying to someone you loved was different. Those were the lies that became chains.

Do you really think about forever? Sherri had asked him.

All the time.