Chapter 5 #3
Zeke frowned. “Isn’t that a waste? The town is paying you a salary to relocate squirrels? Why not have them call an exterminator, bring in a business?”
Even with as long as I’d been in Burrsville, I got this question a lot. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for people to confess I was their second call, and they’d only looked up animal control once they realized the nearest exterminator wouldn’t make the drive out in the time frame they were hoping for.
“Exterminators love to tell people they’re relocating animals because they know it makes them feel better, but it’s bullshit,” I said.
“Animals can’t magically find food, water, or shelter in a place they’ve never been before, so when the Orkin guy comes and traps a couple raccoons, drives them ten miles out of town, and dumps them, they’re as good as dead.
In fact, it would be kinder if he put them down.
Half the time, they’re already injured and dehydrated because those guys don’t check the traps often enough, and the animals don’t know where to find food or water.
If they’re lucky, a coyote will grab them before they have to starve to death.
People say, ‘Oh, at least they have a chance,’ but they don’t have a chance.
Successful rehabilitation and relocation takes time and effort. ”
“Well, then it sounds like we agree—the better option is to put them down. They’re not pets, they’re not even endangered. It’s a waste.”
“Why would it be a waste to relocate squirrels but not, for instance, a bear? It’s a hell of a lot cheaper to rehabilitate and relocate squirrels.”
“Maybe it’s a waste for a bear too.”
“Not sure you’d feel that way if you found one in your backyard.”
“In that case, I think I’d just shoot it.”
The nervous shake in my hands disappeared.
My trembling muscles stilled and cooled, and the shifting, unsettled pieces of my mind slid back into place.
This man wasn’t Norman, but I knew him anyway; I’d met him a hundred times, a thousand times, and he was always the same.
His was always the same brand of cruelty, as commonplace as a dandelion, and yet he always expected I would reel back in shock at his hard-boiled masculinity.
I smiled nastily, meeting his gaze with my own flinty stare. “I’m sure Chief Broder would have something to say about you discharging a firearm in the village.”
There was another beat of brittle silence; David was breathing quick, anxious breaths. Finally, Zeke forced a laugh.
“Well, all hypothetical anyway.”
“Of course,” I said, “but in a very real sense, a big part of my job is animal cruelty and poaching. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d love to see this quilt your wife was talking about—it must really be something.”
I walked out of the room without waiting for Zeke’s answer, catching a glimpse of David as I did. He looked almost frightened, but his eyes were shining.
I found my friends and Sharon a few rooms away, in a space dominated by a massive old sewing machine and littered with fabric scraps and snips of thread.
Rachel was hovering over a pattern book with Sharon and Evelyn, but I entered to find her already staring at me, as if she’d been tuned in to my conversation with Zeke.
I took Christine’s elbow and murmured my apologies, saying I needed to get back to the sanctuary.
“Oh, well, thanks for coming, Tess! Always great to see you.”
Everyone else looked up and chorused their goodbyes, and I met Rachel’s eyes. “Welcome to Burrsville,” I said. “If you need any help with the squirrels in the attic, you give me a call, okay?”
“Well, that’s up to my husband, of course,” she said, and the disapproval dripped thicker than unset concrete. “I imagine he’ll take care of it himself.”
I left the house before I lost my temper, only to be met with the sight of Broder’s black-and-white in the driveway.
He was stepping out as I came down the porch stairs, and his face immediately hardened.
I recognized the look, the expression of a man who knew he was angry but didn’t exactly know why.
“Hey, Tess, didn’t expect to see you here,” he said casually, almost hiding the stiffness in his voice.
“Yeah, I’m part of the welcome wagon, but you know how it is—duty calls.”
“Sure, yeah. So what ended up happening with that fawn from the other day?”
I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but I didn’t want him thinking too hard about it, so I said, “Oh, nothing at all. She came home with me and she’s been settling in.”
“You haven’t had any problems with her?”
“Nope, no problems at all. Very healthy, eating well.”
“Ah, okay. Because I heard through the grapevine she wasn’t fitting in so well with the other deer at the sanctuary.”
I cursed Georgie’s love of gossip, the long, lonely hours at the store that left her with nothing better to do than pass along every seemingly harmless bit of news to whomever stopped by. It worked for me as often as it worked against me.
“That’s not how I would characterize it,” I said. “I tried to graft her onto another doe, but you know, it’s the wrong time of year. She wasn’t too keen on me saddling her with a baby with winter coming.”
“I see. Well, glad that worked out.” He hitched up his belt and looked away, dismissing me, but I wasn’t fooled.
Broder was, by every description and definition, a slouch, but every once in a while he’d get something between his teeth and refuse to let go of it.
I’d have to be careful not to let the fawn pique his interest again.
As I got in the truck, I saw the pastor’s wife standing in the window.
My friends were arrayed behind her, examining a scrap of quilt, but she was watching me.
One hand was clenched around the edge of the faded curtain, and the other was pointing at me, a single yellowed nail pressed against the glass.
Her eyes bulged like flayed grapes in her sunken face, and her lips pulled back in a strange grimace, caught somewhere between laughter and rage.
The tendons in her thin neck strained, muscles working as if she were a snake choking down a rat.
Something inside me coiled in revulsion.
I paused at the door of my truck with half a mind to go back inside, drag my friends out of that place, and never return.
The pastor’s wife started, as if she had just realized I could see her. Her lips closed over her teeth, and her head sank back to huddle between her shoulders. With a quick twitch of her wrist, she closed the curtain.