The bus rumbled away.
Claire returned to the kitchen and sat down to her cup of lukewarm coffee. The house felt hollow and silent, a home still in mourning. She sighed and unrolled the weekly Tranquility Gazette. HEALTHY DEER HERD PROMISES BOUNTIFUL HARVEST, announced the front page. The hunt was on. Thirty days to bag your deer.
Outside, another gunshot echoed in the woods.
She turned the page to the police blotter. There was no mention yet of last nights Halloween disturbance, or of the seven rowdy teenagers whod been arrested for taking their annual trick-or-treating too far. But there, buried among the reports of lost dogs and stolen firewood, was her name, under VIOLATIONS: Claire Effiot, age forty, operating vehicle with expired safety sticker. She still hadnt brought the Subaru in for its safety inspection; today shed have to drive the truck instead, just to avoid getting another citation. Irritably she flipped to the next page and was scanning the days weather forecast-cold and windy, high in the thirties, low in the twenties-when the telephone rang.
She rose to answer it. Hello?
Dr. Elliot? This is Rachel Sorkin out on Toddy Point Road. Ive got something of an emergency out here. Elwyn just shot himself.
What?
You know, that idiot Elwyn Clyde. He came trespassing on my property, chasing after some poor deer. Killed it too-a beautiful doe, right in my front yard.
These stupid men and their stupid guns."
What about Elwyn?
Oh, he tripped and shot his own foot. Serves him right:
He should go straight to the hospital.
Well you see, thats the problem. He doesnt want to go to the hospital, and he wont let me call an ambulance. He wants me to drive him and the deer home.
Well, Im not going to. So what should I do with him?
How badly is he bleeding?
She heard Rachel call out: Hey, Elwyn? Elwyn! Are you bleeding? Then Rachel came back on the line. He says hes fine. He just wants a ride home. But Im not taking him, and Im certainly not taking the deer.
Claire sighed. I guess I can drive over and take a look. Youre on Toddy Point Road?
About a mile past the Boulders. My names on the mail box.
The mist was starting to lift as Claire turned her pickup truck onto Toddy Point Road. Through stands of white pine, she caught glimpses of Locust Lake, the fog rising like steam. Already beams of sunlight were breaking through, splashing gold onto the rippling water. Across the lake, just visible through fingers of mist, was the north shore with its summer cottages, most of them boarded up for the season, their wealthy owners gone home to Boston or New York. On the south shore, where Claire now drove, were the more modest homes, some of them little more than two-room shacks tucked in among the trees.
She drove past the Boulders, an outcropping of granite stones where the local teenagers gathered to swim in the summertime, and spotted the mailbox with the name Sorkin.
A bumpy dirt road brought her to the house. It was a strange and whimsical structure, rooms added haphazardly, corners jutting out in unexpected places.
Rising above it all, like the tip of a crystal breaking through the roof, was a glassed-in belfry, An eccentric woman would have an eccentric house, and Rachel Sorkin was one of Tranquility's odd birds, a striking, black-haired woman who strode once a week into town, swathed in a purple hooded cape. This looked like a house in which a caped woman might reside.
By the front steps, next to a neatly tended herb garden, lay the dead deer.
Claire climbed out of her truck. At once two dogs bounded out of the woods and barred her way, barking and growling. Guarding the kill, she realized.
Rachel came out of the house and yelled at the dogs: Get out of here, you bloody animals! Go home! She grabbed a broom from the porch and came tearing down the steps, long black hair flying, the broom thrust forward like a lance.
The dogs backed away Ha! Cowards, said Rachel, lunging at them with the broom. They retreated toward the woods.
Hey you leave my dogs alone! shouted Elwyn Clyde, who had limped out onto the porch. Elwyn was a prime example of an evolutionary dead end: a fifty-year-old lump bundled in flannel, and doomed to eternal bachelorhood. Theyre not hurtin nothin. Theyre just watchin after my deer.
Elwyn, I got news for you. You killed this poor creature on my property. So shes mine.
What you gonna do with a deer? Blasted vegetarian!
Claire cut in: Hows the foot, Elwyn?
He looked at Claire and blinked, as though surprised to see her. I tripped, he said. No big deal.
He looked at Claire and blinked, as though surprised to see her. I tripped, he said. No big deal.
A bullet wound is always a big deal. May I take a look at it?
Cant pay you He paused, one scraggly eyebrow lifting as a sly thought occurred. Less you want some venison.
I just want to make sure youre not bleeding to death. We can settle up some other time. Can I look at your foot?
If you really want to, he said, and limped back into the house.
This should be a treat, said Rachel.