Enter, Night

“May I ask who this is, sir?”

Jeremy took a deep breath. He leaned back against the wall of the phone booth. “This is Jeremy Parr. I was… I am a friend of Constable McKitrick’s. From school. I’ve just come back to town. From Toronto,” he added, feeling like the biggest babbling jackass that ever troubled daylight. At the same time, he noted how artlessly he’d slipped back into the entitlement of his family name. Not My name is Jeremy Parr, but This is Jeremy Parr, conveying the automatic expectation that the person on the other end of the line should recognize his name and be able to identify him. He suddenly missed the anonymity of the city even more.

There was a pause on the other end. “Of course, Mr. Parr. Welcome home. We’d heard that you were back in town.”

The policeman’s voice was as polite as ever, and if Jeremy had expected to hear some note of derision or condescension in it, he was relieved not to have heard any such thing. Even though he knew rationally that Elliot would never have willingly talked about what had happened between them-and its terrible consequences-Jeremy’s dominant memory was of the scandal, and he assumed everyone else in town shared the same memory. Paranoia, obviously, but not necessarily unfounded paranoia. To his mother, it was as though it all happened yesterday, as she had reminded Jeremy every minute since his return to the Landing.

“Thank you, sergeant,” Jeremy said. He waited a beat, then asked again, “Is Constable McKitrick in the office?”

“No, I’m sorry,” Thomson said. “He’s not. He’s not on duty for a few hours yet. I don’t expect him till early afternoon.”

Jeremy frowned and looked at his watch. It was almost eleven. He didn’t cotton to waiting around town for two or three hours till Elliot came on shift. “Thank you, sergeant,” he said again.

“Any message?”

“No, sergeant.” He was suddenly struck by how ridiculous he sounded. Who calls a police station and asks for a particular cop, but doesn’t leave a message? Are you trying to sound weird? “Actually, yes,” Jeremy said firmly. “Would you tell him I called? And that I’ll try him again?”

“I will indeed, Mr. Parr. And again, welcome back to town.”

“Thank you, sergeant,” Jeremy said for a third time, then hung up.

What to do, he pondered. Then he picked up the telephone directory hanging from the ledge next to the phone in the booth and looked up the phone number and address of McKitrick, E. The phone number was there, right beside the address on Martina Street.

His mouth was suddenly very dry, and his heart sounded like the echo of a trip-hammer in his ears. No guts, no glory, he thought, even though he’d always hated that phrase, associating as he always had, with clubs he would never, ever be part of. But it still rang true.

The worst case scenario would be that Elliot refused to see him, or threw him out, or decked Jeremy for daring to show up at his house, especially if he was with a woman. On the bright side, maybe in the privacy of his own house, Elliot might be able to talk about his feelings. Christina is right. I am just like a girl.

Jeremy pushed open the door of the phone booth and walked over to where his car was parked. No guts, no glory, indeed. He slipped behind the wheel and turned the key.

Anne Miller had decided against taking Finn to the hospital even though when he’d regained consciousness he’d been hysterical. He’d only been out for a few minutes, but to his frantic mother it seemed as though he’d been in a coma for six months. She’d shaken him and patted his face, trying to wake him.

When he’d woken, in between great arcs of crying, Finn had tried to tell Anne and Hank something about Sadie catching fire. It made no sense to Anne, but the fact that he’d come home distraught and nearly delirious without his beloved Labrador was a fact that asserted itself in the midst of his agitation. Also, he was covered in ash, an incontrovertible fact that chilled Ann Miller to her heart’s core.

“Finn, slow down,” she begged. “Tell us again. What happened?

Where’s Sadie?”

“I threw the buh-buh-ball,” he wept. “And she… she burned up. My dog burned up into smoke.”

“Finn, that’s not possible,” Hank had said, slipping automatically into the reasoned tone of fathers, a tone that usually had the power to right the world’s wrongs and bend reality with the sheer power of its unquestioned authority. “Did someone shoot Sadie? Was it maybe a gun you heard? Did you see smoke?”

“I threw the ball and she burned up! She burned up! SADIE BURNED UP!” Hank went to slap Finn’s face-not out of anger, but merely a lifetime of watching movies where hysterical people are slapped across the fact to calm them. Before he could, however, Anne stepped between Hank and their son, holding Finn tightly to her breast. Over the top of Finn’s head, Anne shot her husband a look that clearly telegraphed, Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hank. Finn buried his face in her bathrobe and sobbed till his entire body shook, but even Hank could see that his mother’s embrace had a calming effect on him.

“Shhhhhh,” said Anne. “Shhhhh, Finn. It’s all right. Take your time.

It’s all right. We’ll figure out what happened to Sadie. Shhhh…” And yet Finn was inconsolable. “I told you what happened. I told you.”

In his bedroom, Finn curled against his pillow as though it were Sadie’s body. She hadn’t seen that posture in her son since he was a baby, and if Finn had suddenly popped his thumb in his mouth and began to suck it, she wouldn’t have found it out of place. As his mother, Ann knew every position of his sleeping body, every curve, every mood-based physical cue. What she saw here terrified her. It was as though Finn was retreating into himself, reverting to a preconscious infantile state. And Sadie was definitely missing-again. There wasn’t any way around it.

Finn lay on top of the coverlet. Anne took a blanket from the foot of his bed and covered him. As she watched, his shallow breathing deepened and he closed his eyes. If he was not actually sleeping, she thought, he was at least slowly calming himself. Ann ran her fingers through Finn’s hair. Her fingers came away matted with a combination of ash, sweat, tears, and snot. She wiped her hand on her bathrobe. Ash. Sadie? On fire? It’s not possible.

Back in the living room, Hank was waiting for her, pacing the floor. “Anne, what the blazes…? Where’s Sadie? Did Finn say anything else?”

“He’s resting,” she said. It was as though she hadn’t heard the question. “Not sleeping, but resting. He’ll sleep.”

“Anne, where’s Sadie? Where’s the damn dog? Last night she could barely walk. This morning he takes her out for a walk and comes back without her, and with some crazy story like something out of a horror movie. Did he do something to her? Did he hurt her?”

“Jesus Christ, Hank. What do you mean, ‘did he hurt her’? Are you insane? He loves-loved-that dog like a baby. He’d never hurt her. What the hell are you asking me? Did he hurt her? What’s wrong with you?”

“Anne,” Hank said, with a patronizing patience that would normally have driven his wife to thoughts of murder, “the dog is missing. You don’t believe she burst into flames all of a sudden, do you?”

“Hank, Finn is covered with ashes! And Sadie isn’t here! You bet something happened! But what?”

Hank thought for a moment. “A gunshot? Did a hunter shoot her, maybe? Did he imagine the rest? You know the way he is, especially with those bloody Dracula comic books of his. His imagination can be the very devil.”

“Hank, if Sadie had been shot, he’d have blood on him. He doesn’t have blood on him. He has ashes on him.”

“Summer lightning, maybe…? It does happen. It’s rare, but it does happen. I can’t think of any other explanation. Can you?”

Anne was silent. Then she said, “Hank, can you go out there and see if you can find her… her body? Even if she was struck by… by summer lightning, she should still be there, shouldn’t she? Can you bring her home? So we can bury her in the yard? I think it would be a good thing for Finn, don’t you?”

Hank sighed. “I can’t go now, Anne. I have to be at work. But I’ll try to cut out earlier today and head up there before sunset. I just can’t manage it any sooner than that.”

“How will you know where to look?” Tears filled her eyes at the thought of Sadie lying untended on some rock