Chapter 2: As Things Were
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Dolores Fink wasn’t afraid of anybody. She’d called the cops on her neighbors when their parties grew violent and shook the walls of her apartment. A man broke into her place once, and she shot him dead with her dead husband’s gun.
She looked out her window at the night that God had laid over her.
There weren’t many stars, but more than she had in the city. She thought of herself as a city girl, even as an old woman living in the suburbs.
To look out the window, she had to lean over her plants, azaleas, and cactuses, which had been there for twenty years. She watered them once a week. While she looked out, she stroked the dust from their faces.
She went to her couch and turned on the news, but didn’t listen. She was turning over a thought in her head, and it took her focus off the white people talking about the city she had left. She went back once for a wedding. That was fifteen years ago, she realized. The realization stumped her. Maybe she wasn’t a city girl anymore.
She knew she kept it together for her age. She weighed out her cereal for breakfast and always had a lunch of two eggs and a tomato. She walked every morning, timing it so she’d see the sunrise when she looped around Meadow Lark Park. She drank on the weekends and had friends over. She was vigorous. Yet that night she was lethargic. She stood up from the couch and began to straighten things that didn’t need straightening. She checked the green clock over her stove. She was having a companion come over. Maybe that’s where I get the vigor, she thought, grinning. Most widows her age let themselves wither and grow cold. But she had never been one to let time be the only thing that took her.
She stretched out the soreness in her legs. She went to the fridge and pulled out a small tray of pickles, olives, and cheese. She had a six-pack of Bud chilling, the stuff that he liked. None of that Lite stuff. She stuck her head in the bathroom to make sure it was clean and that there were fresh towels and soap. Then she went to her room. She was already dressed for the evening, her face done up, her hair cut. She patted flat a wrinkle on the comforter. She wished she could pat them from her face.
A knock came from the door, and her heart swelled. She went to it, stopping to catch her breath, surprising herself with the overwhelming thought of the man. She composed herself and opened the door.
“Officer Delude,” Dolores said, grinning at the man who filled her doorway. He leaned against her door frame. “Mind if I change, sweets?” He raised a duffel bag. He was still in uniform. He reached out and hugged her, swallowing her in his bulk. She closed her eyes. He smelled of the outdoors.
“Be quick about it,” she said, touching her hair. “Most ladies don’t let strange men shower in their homes, you know.”
“I would have showered at the station,” Delude said, picking a pickle off the tray as he went towards the bathroom, “but the whole shift was in there and I didn’t feel like dodging my coworkers' pickles.”
“Don’t be crass.” Dolores smiled as he closed the bathroom door and turned on the fan. She went and wiped down the stove. She pulled out a tray of stuffed shells from the fridge and put them into the oven to warm. She pulled out a salad, the dressing Delude liked, and a bowl of fruit. She looked at the spread and tsked herself.
“You’re catching feelings for this one, woman,” she told herself. “Don’t go crazy or nothing.”
She went and turned off some lights, adjusted the pillows on the couch, and poured herself a glass of wine. She took her glass to the hallway and cracked open the door.
“Occupodo,” Delude said from the shower.
“How was work?” she asked, sipping.
“Work was work. Nasty case, though, in Hunter’s Ridge. Might have to testify at some point.”
“Testify? Did you do somethin?”
“No, just saw the scene. Nasty. Some lady got attacked by a dog.”
“Oh, my. Is she-”
“She died,” he said. “Another woman found her this morning.”
“Terrible.”
“It was rough,” Delude said. “Half the shift was working the case. None of the neighbors saw anything. They have the body back at the shop now. They’re hoping to find hair or saliva.”
“How’s Pete?
“Hildebrand? Fine, I think. I don’t know…”
“What?”
“I don’t know if he’s going to make it to the end of the year. Guy’s depressed, not that he shows it. You can feel it sitting in the car with him. He’s gone quiet.”
“Poor man. Losing his wife like he did. That was a dog, too, wasn’t it?”
“He never talks about it. Never talks about anything. He’s a good cop, though. Not afraid to get involved. The others find him strange. He’s stopped hanging out, stopped joking.”
“Ah,” Dolores shook her head. “Poor, poor man.”
“There’s nothing to do about it, which is the hard part. He’s gotta sort his shit out. I’ve tried to talk to him, Ramírez has tried to talk to him, for God’s sake, the chief tried to talk to him. But he insists he’s fine, just not getting enough sleep.”
“Maybe we should go down and see him.”
“What?”
“Go and see him. Not tonight, tonight’s for us. But maybe next weekend. Get him out of the house.”
“Now that’s a fine idea,” Delude said, turning off the water. He stood and let water drip from his head.
“Bud?” Dolores asked.
“Thanks.”
#
They ate and drank and lay together on the couch. The news flickered from car accidents to dancing babies, from a pipe bursting on the road to a French bulldog that could burp on command. Mixed with the wine, it was hypnotic.
Delude’s hands found her. She let him pull at her clothes and put his lips on her neck. He was still warm from the shower and smelled of her lavender soap.
The news flicked from spelling bee champion to a shot of police tape between two houses.
“My Lord, you’re on TV,” Dolores whispered, turning up the volume.
“Guess I’m a star,” Delude laughed, leaning into the older woman. She lay back, facing the TV. A woman was holding a dog with a bloody snout. The banner at the bottom of the screen read LOOSE POOCH KILLED WOMAN. They tried to crop the woman’s dog out, but it kept reaching up to lick the woman’s face. They cut to a picture of the woman who was killed, wearing a graduation gown and cap. The picture looked like it was from the nineties. They cut back to the scene and zoomed in on cops standing around a tarp. The cut to a photo that had the neck of the woman blurred out, her blue eyes wide on a pale face crossed with veins.
“Will you catch him?” Dolores asked as Delude pulled at her pants.
“Him? You mean the dog?”
“Yeah, the dog.”
“That’s up to the conservation wardens now. But there’s an eye out for strays.”
“That’s good,” she said, as he lowered himself onto her. She sighed and watched as the news flicked to a video of a family delivering groceries door-to-door in her old neighborhood.