sobbing, followed by 'Oh, my God. Oh, my God,' again and again and again.
'How?' she asked, her voice soaked in a cascade of tears. 'Who? Why?
Why would someone do this?' Her sobbing descended into crying before I could hear her try to collect herself. I felt like a voyeur on my end, the unintended survivor breaking the bad news to the next of kin.
'I was with him at the end,' I said. 'He was alive after the explosion, then I felt him die in my arms. The EMT'S seemed to revive him, but then the doctor declared him dead in the emergency room of Georgetown Hospital.'
I paused and listened to her sobs, pictured her sitting on the edge of her bed, surrounded by family mementos, knicknacks, every photograph, every vase, representing some day in their long marriage. Suddenly that house would seem so empty, the future overwhelmed by the past.
'Margaret,' I said, 'I work with words every day, but I could never find the right ones to tell you just how sorry I am right now.' I paused and said, 'And I mean this, Steve said just two hours ago how much he loved his life with you, how he wouldn't trade it for all the money in the world. He talked about you and the kids all the time.'
'Thank you, Jack,' she said through her tears. 'Steve really enjoyed working with you.'
There was a moment of silence until she asked, 'Who, Jack? Who did this to Steve?'
'I don't know yet, but you can be sure we're going to find that out.'
I could still hear her sobbing. She said, 'I'm going to go now. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I think I should go. Thank you, Jack.' And with that, she hung up the telephone to face a life alone that she never wanted or expected.
After that, the call to Peter Martin was relatively easy. He was upset to the point of being choked up, and not just over having the story delayed yet again. And as with so many other times in life, he was able to cut to the chase in a way that even the Washington police didn't seem capable, saying to me, 'This means you're in grave danger.
I want you out of your house,' he said. He didn't know yet that I really had no choice, not to mention doors and windows. 'Check in at a hotel somewhere, then call me. I'm going to hire some security guys to watch you, whether you want the protection or not. Be in touch within a couple of hours, or you're fired.'
I ambled outside into the cold, coatless, with a bandage over my right eye, dried blood on one of my arms, my hair mussed to the point of wildness. I was not a pretty picture. I flagged a taxi, and as I settled into the backseat, the driver, a man with a turban, turned around and gave me a nervous once-over. I couldn't even smile back.
'Friendship Animal Hospital,' I said. He thought I was crazy, I'm sure. But he took me there nonetheless, to be with the animals.
When Kristen saw me, she rubbed her palms across her face and followed me with her enormous eyes, just kind of looking at me in mute amazement. When I sat beside her, she said, 'The doctor wants to put Baker to sleep. I told her she couldn't do anything until you got here.'
I was running low on emotional strength, not to mention physical strength. This news made me feel like I had been kicked in the chest by a mule.
Some sort of veterinary assistant, a kid with a pair of studs in his right ear, led me down the hallway into a visiting room. He opened the door, and I saw Baker sprawled out on top of a stainless steel examination table, tied down. Baker saw me as well. Without lifting his head, his tail whacked the table several times. I leaned over and kissed his muzzle, then gently stroked his soft ears. The kid said,
'The doctor will be right with you.'
When the door shut behind him, I pulled up a stool and sat. My head was close to Baker's, and I whispered to him, 'You are the best boy in the world. You really are.' His tail thumped the table again, his head stayed flat. He followed me with his brown eyes. I kissed him again, and he ran his coarse tongue slowly over my soiled face, relieved, I suspect, that he had done nothing wrong to cause all this, that his pain was not some punishment. Dogs think like that, best as I know.
'You are my very best friend,' I whispered into his ear. It was the truth, almost from the minute I met him. I got Baker a little under three years ago. At the time, Katherine and I had just moved into our new house in Georgetown and decked it out for the holidays. We dragged in a Christmas tree that soared ten feet. I arrived home from work on Christmas Eve to our plans for a quiet dinner alone. She was sitting in the living room, sipping a glass of red wine, wearing a red satin dress, festive, just for me.
'I'm going to give you your gift tonight,' she said. 'I'm going to give it to you now.'
She pulled a large hatbox out from under the coffee table. I sat on the couch beside her and undid the ribbon. There was no wrapping paper. When I lifted the top, all I saw was a ball of fuzzy blond fur.
I looked back at Katherine, confused. She beamed and put her face close to mine. 'Pick him up,' she said.
'Oh my God,' I remember exclaiming. I looked at this frightened puppy, scooped him up in one hand, and held him tight to my face. His fur mopped up a tear that Katherine never saw.
'This is like going to the driving range,' she said, imitating my long-held argument for getting a dog. 'Same basic swing, plenty of room for error.' Baker would be our predecessor to children, our chance to step tentatively into a life of responsibility. Three years later, he is the only living, breathing remnant of our marriage, aside from me, of course. If this veterinarian thought she was about to put him to sleep, she had no idea how wrong she was.
'Mr. Flynn, hi, I'm Dr. Gabby Parins. Sorry to meet you under these conditions.'
Coming through the door, she looked up from her clipboard at me for the first time, a pretty young woman with glasses and blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. 'Oh, my. It appears you've been through some trauma as well.'
I explained the situation, the explosion, the falling chandelier, the broken glass. She told me of the extensive injury to Baker's hips, the fractures in both his hind legs. He might never walk again, she said, and he would certainly never be able to run the same way. She could perform surgery, but it might fail, and he could easily die on the operating table, at considerable expense. Her recommendation, given the costs, the pain, the lifetime of a debilitating condition, was to put him to sleep.
'That doesn't seem very humane,' I said. 'Not to him, not to me.'
'On the contrary, Mr. Flynn, given the extent of the injuries here, the multiple abrasions to his skin, the overwhelming possibility of infection, the likely loss of the use of his legs, I think it's the most humane thing you could do right now.'
I looked down at the dog, at his profile, pleading with me to make things better, to take him home. I thought of that first night I had him, this vanilla fluffball walking on city sidewalks for the first time, people padding their way in the snowy dusk squealing as they saw him. I thought of the way he moped around the house when I came home from the hospital that awful October day without Katherine, how he sniffed at her side of the bed, waited constantly by the door. I was not about to give him up now, to say goodbye to him and all he represented.
'Doctor,' I said, my voice so thick that it surprised me. 'Please, perform the surgery. Perform it well. Let's take it one step at a time and decide where we should go from there.'
She stood near me in a white coat, with a clipboard in her hand, looking from the dog to its owner. She nodded and said, sweetly,
'Okay. I'll do that. I'll do that this morning. We'll both keep an open mind.'
While I still stood there, she shot him with a sedative. I rubbed his head until he fell sound asleep. I went out and told Kristen that Baker was going to have surgery. She shed some tears of relief and said, 'I knew that's what you'd do.' She asked if she could wait with the dog.
I dug into my pocket to see if I had enough money for a cab. When I did, my hand came across a crumpled piece of paper. I pulled it out, and the memory of Havlicek telling me to reach into his coat suddenly pulsed through my mind. Nerves caused me to fumble a bit as I unfolded it, then read the handwritten line: 'Paul Stemple, 898 C St.' SE, Washington, DC. Apt. 2.'
nineteen
