“Text me when you have something.”
27
From Augusta it took me a solid hour, traveling through leafless forests and across fallow fields waiting to be plowed, to reach Pennacook. I crossed the bridge over the thundering Androscoggin and hung a right on Main Street, which took me through what remained of the downtown.
In the stark noonday light, I counted the boarded-up storefronts. There were fifteen, not including the shops with dusty windows and CLOSED signs that might or might not have been abandoned. Dani had told me that since Atlantic Pulp and Paper had decamped for South America, leaving the grand blue ruin of the mill behind, Pennacook had become one of the nexuses of the opiate scourge.
The temperature wasn’t more than a few precious degrees above freezing, but a shirtless young man was arguing with a very pregnant girl on the sidewalk. Both of the disputants had the visible facial wounds, unhealed sores, and unbandaged scrapes that are common among addicts.
The girl, who was wearing pajama bottoms, fuzzy slippers, and a hoodie, had her hands tightened into small fists. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
I pulled to the curb and cracked my window. “Are you OK, ma’am?”
The man inexpertly flicked his cigarette in my direction, where it exploded in an orange burst on the road.
The girl snarled, “Fuck off, perv.”
I turned the next corner and began climbing through a neighborhood of handsome clapboard homes dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but even these houses seemed in need of paint or new roofs, and most had election signs in their yards with the Penguin’s name on them.
Dani had never told me the name of the street where she had grown up. Nor had I met her mother or brother. Her father resided in the town cemetery overlooking the Androscoggin.
The parking lot of the Pennacook Hospital for Animals was so filled I had to park on the street. However tough times got, people cared for their beloved pets. They might not visit doctors or dentists themselves, but they would take their dog to the vet at the suspicion of a bad hip.
The young woman with pink hair sat behind the welcome desk. On one side of the room, a young Lab was lunging against his collar to get at a coon cat that had climbed atop her owner’s shoulders to escape.
The veterinary assistant sprang to her feet with a radiant smile when she saw me. “You’re back!”
“I can see you’re busy here, but I wondered if Dr. Holman had a moment.”
“I know you want to see Shadow.”
I was doing my best not to interpret the woman’s effusiveness as good news.
She told me she would be a minute and disappeared through a door behind the desk.
“He’s trying to be friendly!” the lady with the Lab assured the man with the coon cat.
The man grimaced as the terrified cat jabbed her claws deeper into his shoulder.
The young woman popped back through the door. “Dr. H is finishing up a procedure but she said I could take you in.” She peered past me at the waiting pet owners. “Will you two be all right for a sec?”
“Oh, yes,” said the dog lady. “We’re all friends here!”
The cat man had begun crying tears of pain.
The veterinary assistant led me past the surgery and around a corner to a door to the back side of the building. The sign said RECOVERY.
One side of the room had stainless steel cages in three stacks. In the top row a little calico with a patch over her eye hissed at me. A tom the size of a bobcat turned away from us with what looked like disinterest but could have been contempt. Down below, a mixed-breed dog slept under a blanket with its tongue lolling out of its mouth.
The assistant foresaw my question. “We couldn’t keep Shadow here because he wouldn’t fit into any of these kennels—and he was kind of freaking out the other patients.”
We passed through a second door into a large storeroom that was evenly divided between racks of supplies and several oversize crates. In the cage farthest from the door lay Shadow. He appeared to be sleeping. Aside from having acquired a blanket, he looked no different from when I had last seen him, the day before.
“Are you still sedating him?”
“God no. We want him to be active.”
“So why’s he out cold?”
“He’s running a bit of a temperature. But we’re giving him antibiotics and keeping a close watch on him.”
“That sounds like it might mean he has an infection.” I heard the anxiousness sneak into my tone.
“Dr. Holman will explain the details. I need to get back out front. You can wait here if you’d like.”
After the young woman had left, I knelt down beside the kennel.
“You don’t look so hot, buddy. How are you doing?”
When he opened a slitted yellow eye, I nearly fell over in surprise.
Dr. Holman opened the door, wearing her usual scrubs, but with her hair bound by a headband. You could have learned facial anatomy by studying the bones showing through her skin.
“He just woke up.”
She arched a thin eyebrow. “Really?”
When I turned around, I saw that his eye was closed again. His rib cage rose and fell rhythmically. Had I imagined his waking up?
“Your assistant told me you’re treating him with antibiotics.”
“Running a fever after surgery doesn’t mean he has an infection. But I’ve got him on enrofloxacin to be safe. He had that arrow in him for a long time. I cleaned the wound as best I could, but he’s still at risk of sepsis.”
“How long until he’s out of the woods?”
“Every hour gets us closer to a positive outcome.”
“The truth, Lizzie.”
“I’d only be guessing. That arrow did more than puncture his lung. I can’t be sure of the nerve damage he might have sustained.”
I nodded.
“A state trooper named Dani Tate called me this morning, asking about him. I
