Hank nodded. 'Makes sense. Ticks me off. But it makes sense.'
'A helpful hint: don't watch Kingdom of the Spiders if you're looking for realism.'
The old man chuckled. 'You're all right, son. Come off a that counter there and eat with us. I got a lot a questions and I don't like standin' here this close to Bert. It's disturbing.'
'Hey,' Bert growled.
Barry picked up his plate and glass and followed Hank back to his table.
Ever since then, he'd been treated like one of the regulars, one of the gang, and that was another reason he was glad he'd been forced to rent the office. There was something gratifying about being a part of the workaday world rather than remaining apart and aloof, isolated in his hillside house in his gated community. It appealed to his egalitarian, democratic sense and made him feel as though he were a better person for it.
Lurlene came over and took his order--barbecued chicken sandwich and a Coke--and he nodded to Lyle and Joe over at the next table. 'Where's Hank?' he asked.
'Can,' Joe said simply.
Hank emerged a moment later, wiping his hands on his pants. He nodded at Barry, smiled. 'Howdy, son. Hot enough for you?'
'Temperature's fine out in my little shack.'
'Lucky bastard.' Hank sat down in his usual spot at the adjacent table, gestured to Lurlene for some more iced tea.
At the next table over, Lyle cleared his throat. 'Another dog got poisoned last night.'
'No shit?'
'Bill Spencer's Lab, Go. They found him facedown in his bowl, tied up right in the front yard. Guzman's going to do an autopsy on him this morning.'
Hank shook his head. 'Never liked Guzman. I take all my animals to Ryan. He's my pet and livestock vet.'
'Yeah, but Guzman'll be able to tell what killed him.'
'We already know what killed him. What's this make? Four dogs this year?'
'Somewhere around that.'
'Six pets total if you throw in Abilene's cats,' Joe offered.
'I never even heard about this,' Barry said.
Hank nodded. 'Been goin ' on for a while. It's not regular, not consistent, but every month or two some dog'll be poisoned. Always happens in the middle of the night. It's bad enough for a man to come out and find his animal dead, but when it's kids that find the body, like with the Williamson girls ...' Hank shook his head. 'It just ain't right.'
'And that walking piece of crap Hitman won't do a damn thing about it.'
Hank snorted. 'Hitman. There's a proper candidate for lynching.'
Barry chuckled, but stopped when he realized that he was laughing alone. Hank wasn't serious, he wasn't proposing murder, but the sentiments behind the statement were anything but joking, and he understood, looking around the room, just how different he was from these people. This was a whole other world, and while he might be friendly with Hank and Joe and Lyle and some of the other regulars, he was just a visitor here.
A woman at one of the other tables spoke up. 'Why don't the sheriff just arrest those bastards?'
'That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question.'
Barry was incredulous. 'You mean the sheriff knows who's doing this?'
'Everyone knows.'
'Who is it?'
Lyle looked at him as though he were a moron. 'Your homeowners'
association.'
The answer came as a complete shock, and Barry's first instinctive reaction was one of guilt by association-- no pun intended. He was suddenly certain that everyone in the coffee shop held him at least partially to blame for the pet killings, but a quick look at the faces of his lunch buddies convinced him that such was not the case, that he was considered one of them--not one of them--and though he was filled with relief, he still felt at fault somehow, as if he had betrayed the people around him.
'The homeowners' association,' he said dumbly.
Lyle nodded.
Hank spoke up. 'It's true.'
The expressions on the faces of the other men and women were grim.
Barry wished he could dismiss such a charge out of hand, but it was too easy to believe, and he had no trouble picturing a pet-killing committee dressed all in black, spreading out through Corban in the middle of the night to do away with dogs.
He thought of the dead cat in the mailbox, thought of Barney.
'But why would they do that?' he said aloud. 'What's the point?'
Hank shrugged. 'They're trying to extend their influence into town, trying to make us all into a part of their little kingdom. Corban's unincorporated, and they want to take over. We have no town council, so they figure they can call the shots.'
'But no one's buying into it,' Lyle said. 'Their Master Plan just won't fly here.'
Joe nodded. 'So they're trying to force their lifestyle on us. They don't allow pets, so they start killing our pets.'
'Next they'll be painting our houses for us, cleaning up our yards.'
'Let 'em!' someone called from a booth near the door. 'I'd appreciate some free maintenance work!'
There were scattered chuckles, even Lyle smiled, and the mood seemed to be broken. The tension that had been gathering over the coffee shop dissipated, and Lurlene brought over his Coke. 'Sandwich's coming,'
she said.
'I'muna get me one of them motion detectors,' Joe said. 'Put it on in the backyard where I keep Luke tied' up. Anyone comes snoopin ' around in the middle of the night-Warn!--all the lights'll go on, and I'll come out with my shotgun, blasting.'
'Not a bad idea,' Hank said. 'Maybe everyone with a dog oughta do something like that.'
Lyle nodded. 'Maybe they should.'
Barry walked back to his office after lunch feeling strangely unsettled, and though he immediately fired up the old computer and sat down before it, more than an hour passed before he finally started writing again.
He closed up shop late, time-fooled by the summer sun, but when he got home, Maureen was still down in her office, knee-deep in calculations.
She was auditing the pay roll expenses for Corban Title and Mortgage, and she informed him that she didn't have time to cook dinner and wasn't in the mood for any of the limited number of dishes he knew how to cook, so he was on his own tonight.
'No problem,' Barry said. He went upstairs, micro waved a frozen pizza, and sat on the deck eating, watching the sun start its slow descent toward the canyons.
After depositing his plate and glass in the dishwasher, he told Maureen that he was going to go for a walk, get a little exercise, maybe step by Ray's for a minute.
'Say hi to Liz for me,' she said.
'Will do.'
Barry hiked up the road to the top of the hill. It was still light out, but the world was suffused in an orange glow, and from this angle the Dysons’ house looked like it was on fire, so bright was the reflection of the setting sun in the home's windows. Ray must have seen him walking up, because his friend was on the porch steps drinking a beer and waiting to greet him as Barry trudged across the gravel driveway.
Ray smiled. 'Hey, stranger. What brings you up this way on a school night?'
'The homeowners' association.'
Ray's smile faded. He nodded toward the front door. 'In or out?'
