Chapter 35
I start running.
Through the door and down the sidewalk; I can’t get there fast enough.
Hannah chases behind, calling after me, “Mo, I’m coming with you! Just—what’s going on? Bullet points are fine. Why are we
running?”
“It’s a little complicated,” I yell back. “There’s been some new developments!”
“Since I went to the bathroom?”
“I know who your stalker is!”
“What? How?”
“I’m kind of a detective now,” I call over my shoulder, simultaneously dodging a mailman.
“You solve mysteries?” she asks incredulously. “Does that come with health insurance?”
God, it’s nice to be seen.
“Still don’t really understand why we’re running, though!” she adds.
“I think my dogsitter might be in danger!”
After that, we run in silence, punctuated only by the very loud sound of me trying to continue breathing while also being
athletic. I’m guessing Hannah’s processing all this new info, but I’m so out of breath, I couldn’t explain anything else even
if she needed me to.
I don’t know what’s waiting for us, but Benny said he’d stay at the dog park, so that’s where I’m going. I don’t know if Leslie
is trying to kill Benny or the poodles or all four of them at once. I also don’t have any weapons to stop her unless you count
the one crappy chef’s knife I got on sale from Target, which is back in my kitchen anyway.
But I can’t do nothing.
As I turn and close in on my corner, I start to hear yelling, but . . . it’s not coming from the dog park.
It’s coming from the parking garage construction site.
And this is where things start to get a little weird.
Tond is there. He’s the one yelling. He’s also wearing a hard hat and sort of jousting with an orange traffic cone.
The person he’s yelling at is Merle, who’s on his crutches and appears to be very confused.
I run past them to look inside the dog park gate. No one is in there.
Meanwhile, behind Tond and Merle, Tond’s neon-yellow Ford Fiesta has clearly plowed through and toppled the fence around the
construction site. The car is currently banged up and smoking in the middle of everything, looking really out of place among
the piles of cement bags and assorted equipment.
What the hell is going on?
Where’s Benny?
And Leslie?
And the dogs?
I slow to a stop and Hannah pulls up next to me, panting. She swipes her forehead with her cap sleeve and then points at the altercation in front of us.
“Hey, isn’t that the alderman?” she whispers, eyes wide. “Who’s the construction site avenger with the hard hat?”
Merle looks over and sees us, his eyes pleading. My heart races, and I reflexively shove Hannah behind me. “Call 911,” he
says. “Hurry!”
“She’s on my side, you fiend!” Tond declares, holding the cone upside down above his head, where it stays rigid for a second
and then flops over.
“Tond, what the hell?” I shout. “Stop attacking him! Have either of you seen Benny?”
“Who’s Benny again?” Tond asks.
“We already had this conversation, Tond!”
“Well, I was probably drunk on cooking sherry!”
He’s not wrong. But I don’t have time to deal with . . . whatever this is, and I need to find Benny before it’s too late.
Merle, meanwhile, has opted to make a slow hobbling break for it.
“Nice try!” Tond lunges and jabs at him with the traffic cone, knocking him off-balance. Merle crumples to the sidewalk and
cries out in pain. His crutches clatter to the side, and Tond grabs one, planting it at Merle’s solar plexus like the flag
on the moon.
“Benny is the dog walker, you dumbass!” Merle moans. “God, I wish your brother was here.”
“Oh no, you’re not gonna murder old Tond too!” Tond says, laughing maniacally. “Not today, not ever!” He turns to me and grins.
“Got him! I got him before he got me!”
“Murder? I can’t even stand!” Merle yells. He turns his head toward us. “Girls, help! Help me! Stop this lunatic!”
“First of all,” Hannah says, pulling out her phone, “we are women.”
“Hold on,” Merle says, his voice shifting in surprise, as he registers Hannah. “You have got to be kidding me. Why is Hannah Hawks here?”
Hannah waves uncomfortably from behind my shoulder.
And that’s when Merle really loses it. “You stay away from my wife!”
“Can everyone shut up for a second?” I say, looking up and down the block frantically. “Benny! Benny!”
“I, er, haven’t done anything to your wife,” Hannah says, confusion splashed across her face.
“I should sue you!” Merle calls out, despite still being held down by one of his own crutches. “You brainwashed her!”
I cup my hands to make a megaphone. “Benny!”
“I don’t brainwash people,” Hannah says. “I help people get what they want!”
“Benny!” I listen hard over the sound of Tond jumping in to ask follow-up questions about who’s brainwashing who—but it’s
just regular neighborhood sounds, no cries for help or anything. This isn’t working. What if he’s already dead? In desperation,
I try something else. “Jacques!”
And from behind the school, I hear a familiar howl. Two other dog voices join it.
It’s not a howl that says we need to pee or let’s rip the duvet to shreds.
This is a we-might-be-fancy-show-dogs-but-we-used-to-be-literal-wolves howl.
“Hold on, Benny,” I plead as I take off sprinting toward the spot where the dog park curves around behind the school, a small
patch of grass that’s just out of sight from the sidewalk.
And I know this is definitely not the right moment to celebrate—but Holy cow I think I was right about the dog motive thing?
I transformed my anxiety into creativity and solved the case??
The round of high fives I so desperately deserve will have to wait.
As I turn the corner, they all come into view: Jacques and Louis are leaping and pawing at a woman’s hunched back. Jean is
delicately but firmly tugging on the hem of a silk blouse with his teeth. Charlie is pawing and barking at Jean.
Balls.
That’s Leslie, all right. There’s officially no doubt—she’s a killer/stalker/thief and all-around creepazoid.
I need better role models.
Leslie’s kneeling on the ground, and she’s got on one of those tote bags that parents put baby toys in, the wide strap diagonal
across her back. She hasn’t seen me yet.
There’s a pair of legs with sneakers sticking out horizontally from under her, and they’re not really moving.
I know those calves.
Benny.
I throw myself through the dogs, ignoring the growling and snapping teeth all around, and grab the bag strap, yanking Leslie
as hard as I can off Benny. She topples backward and skids across the ground on her butt.
Benny’s lying on his back, panting, his face beet red and his hands pulling at something around his neck. It’s a dog’s choker
collar. The metal kind with prongs sticking into his neck—basically a spiky noose.
Oh my god.
I straddle his body and try to help him loosen the collar, seeing the bruising and pinpricks of blood on the skin of his neck
where Leslie jerked it hard enough to cut off his airflow.
Behind me, Leslie screams bloody murder (Literally!
I think, unhelpfully), and I feel her slam into my back, trying to wrestle me off him.
She’s tiny, but terrifying, and as her bony hands grab for my hair and my face, all I can think is that I need to keep her off Benny until he’s okay and I’m sure he can breathe.
I don’t know how to body-slam somebody, but maybe now’s the time to try?
But then everything turns into a freaking animal channel movie of the week, and the dogs actually come to my rescue. Or at least it feels that way. Jacques throws himself at Leslie, shoving her a little off-balance. Then Jean gooses me,
which is super weird but really does boost me up, and Louis—well, Lou sneezes in my face, but I know it’s out of love this
time.
I’m up, I’m on my feet, but when I whip around to hold off Leslie’s next attack, I see that she’s pulled an actual syringe out of her tote bag and is pointing the business end right at me.
“Benny!” I yell, kicking out at Leslie to give us a little distance from that death needle. Benny’s still red and gasping,
and he’s not ready for this, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I yank him to his feet and we start running for the gate.
The poodles follow us, and Charlie chases them, nipping at their heels. They all seem to be having a great time, but there’s
Leslie right behind, racing after us with a syringe of . . . cyanide? I don’t know, arsenic? What are poisonous things that
go in a syringe? And why does she have one??
We race out of the dog park onto the street and then it’s, like, do we just keep running? Benny’s injured, Leslie’s not exactly
in her prime, and I’m really not in good enough shape for all this running and kicking and whatnot. This is, frankly, a pretty
agonizing chase. But what are we supposed to do? Stop running and face off with a geriatric murderer-slash-stalker holding a syringe full of deadly stuff?
I don’t love that either.
That’s when I see Tond and Merle and Hannah all standing next to the sinkhole, remarkably calm.
Hannah’s planted between the two men and taking notes on her phone.
Oh my god, she is “UPGRADE”ing them. I feel a pang of guilt, again, at how I treated her.
It really is amazing to see her at work.
She could be an incredible diplomat. She can do anything.
Just not right now.
I wave my arms frantically.
“Hannah!” I call out, and we approach, our slow murderous entourage and dog pack, and as Hannah turns to face us, I realize
I’ve just led her stalker, the one she is absolutely terrified of and came to me for protection from, straight to her.
“Hannah Hawks!!!” Leslie screams. Then her voice lowers dramatically like in those demon possession movies. “This is your
fault, you bitch! None of this would’ve happened if you’d just responded to my messages!”
Boy, those fangirls will really turn on you.
And with that, Leslie gets another wind, sprints past the dogs, past me and Benny, and makes a beeline for Hannah, murderous
syringe aloft. Hannah’s eyes widen.
Tond leaps out of the way and lands face down on the parkway, protecting himself with the orange cone over his head.
“Lesliebear?” Merle says feebly.
And suddenly I get the full picture. Maybe too late.
One time, I had a twinge of knee pain and was convinced it was osteoarthritis. I searched for treatments for days, went down
a surprisingly intense rabbit hole, and became very attached to an experimental new treatment. You could only get it if you
were part of some study. By the time I emerged from said rabbit hole, my knee was fine again, and I completely forgot.
The “bleeding edge” of experimental arthritis treatment is Botox.
Of course Leslie would pull out all the stops for Charlie’s dog arthritis. And I would bet approximately 11.5 grand that the syringe
Leslie is currently wielding is filled with Botox, AKA botulism.
This revelation happens in slow motion. In my mind, I mean. In real life it happens at top speed.
Benny breaks away from me, running toward Hannah.
But he’s not going to be able to get to her first. Leslie is too fast. She’s the fastest old lady in the world.
Hannah is frozen in place.
Benny leaps into the air, full-on horizontal, arms outstretched, like he’s going to tackle Hannah. He’s too far away, but
somehow it’s still just enough. His palms just barely reach Hannah’s knees. He pushes her backward onto the curb.
Leslie’s momentum betrays her, and she stabs the syringe into the air where Hannah’s neck used to be, stumbling over Hannah’s
legs, and smashing face-first into the hood of a parked car.
The car alarm goes off, and I’m having flashbacks to Cran’s Kia in the sinkhole all over again.
Benny slides across the metal plate covering the sinkhole.
Benny keeps sliding.
Benny slides right into the sinkhole.