Hi, Daddy!”

          Gordon Markley could barely hear his daughter’s words over the roar of the lawnmower, but she mouthed them in exaggerated fashion, added a wave of her hand, and he knew well enough what she was saying.  He nodded, for he needed both hands to steer the mower, and smiled.  Sarah was walking down the street with two of her friends, girls he recognized by sight but whose names he could never remember.  They were three of a kind: twelve going on thirteen, t-shirts displaying images of Hello Kitty or Britney Spears, far-too-expensive jeans, coltishly thin arms and legs, and bubbly, giggly girl energy.  Energy that was already fueling the beginnings of puberty.

          He suddenly felt old, too conscious of the roll of flab pushing over the top of his belt, his receding hairline, the gray at his temples that had seemed to spring up overnight, like silver-white weeds.  More than old, he felt foolish.  He imagined how the girls saw him – a paunchy man in his forties in a white t-shirt, tan shorts, running shoes, and white socks that nearly came up to his knees – sweating and breathing hard as he pushed a lawnmower around his postage-stamp sized front yard on a Sunday afternoon.  A ludicrous, clownish figure that inspired giggles, sideways glances, and behind-the-hand whispers.

          Cut it out.  Sarah’s a good kid.  Her old man may not measure up to the pretty boys on the cover of Non-Threatening Teen Heart-Throb magazine, but that doesn’t mean she thinks any the less of you for it.  But that wasn’t the question, was it?  The question was, did he think any the less of himself?

          The girls continued on up the driveway, heading for the backyard.  Gordon almost stopped the mower so he could call out to Sarah and ask where she’d been.  He hadn’t even been aware that she was outside, had thought she was still in the house watching TV or listening to music.  But he didn’t want to cramp her style and embarrass her in front of her friends, so he just waved back.

          Sarah grinned, showing off white, even teeth that until just a few weeks ago had been in braces, and waved one more time as she passed around the side of the house.

          And that’s when Gordon noticed the blood on her fingers.

* * * *

          “Did you tell Sarah that she could play outside?”

          Gordon stood in the kitchen before the sink, half empty glass of ice water in his hand.  His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his skin, feeling cold and clammy here in the air-conditioned house.

          Kathy sat at the dining table, her back to him, laptop open and turned on, checkbook and bank statements near to hand as she worked to update Quicken.

          “For god’s sakes, Gord, she’s almost a teenager.  She doesn’t play anymore.”  Kathy sounded amused.

          He took another drink of water, but the cool liquid did nothing to soothe his scratchy throat.  He should’ve taken a decongestant before going outside.  He’d probably end up with a throbbing sinus headache before too long.

          “You know what I mean.  She came walking down the street with those two girls she always hangs around with.  You know the ones – ”

          “Abbie and Melissa.”  She tapped on the keyboard, kept her attention focused on the screen as she spoke.  “So what?  She’s at the age where she’d rather run around with her friends than be stuck at home with her boring old Mom and Dad.   It’s perfectly natural.”  She looked over her shoulder, gave him a smile.  “What’s wrong?  Feeling a bit obsolete?”

          That was exactly what he was feeling, but it wasn’t all.  There was something else, something deeper, darker, but he wasn’t sure he could articulate it, even to himself.  He saw Sarah wave, saw the reddish-brown stains on her fingers once more.

          “I’m just . . . concerned.  This is a safe enough neighborhood and all, but it’s not like when you and I were kids.  Back then, we could run around outside all day long, from sunrise to well after sunset, and no one worried about us because they didn’t have to.  Most of the moms stayed home and they all kept an eye on each other’s kids.  But now . . .”  He paused to take another sip of water and gather his thoughts.  “Well, look at what’s been going on the last couple weeks.”

          Kathy had turned back to her laptop and continued to input data, fingers click-click-clicking on the keys.  “You mean the dogs?”

          “Yes.”  His throat felt more dry than ever, as if it were plastered with sandpaper, and the word came out as a raspy croak.  Over the last month, three dogs had been killed in the neighborhood, all horribly mutilated – throats cut, intestines pulled out, eyes and tongues removed, limbs torn from sockets . . .  The assumption was that teenage boys (who else?) were responsible, though the local paper, probably in a bid to drive up circulation, hinted that a serial killer with a doggie fixation was on the loose.

          “Sarah’s not a dog, Gord.”  That tone of amusement again.  “I think she’ll be fine.”

          “That’s not it.”  He thought a moment.  “Well, maybe it is, a little.  I mean, that’s how it starts, right?  A sicko begins with dogs and then works his way up to people.  Kind of a like an artist doing sketches in preparation of beginning a painting.”

          “I’m not sure I agree, but I have to give you style points for the comparison.”

          Gordon grimaced.  Kathy had always had a sharp tongue; it was the quality he liked least about her, especially because he could never think of a good comeback.

          He walked to the back door and looked through the window.  Outside, he saw Sarah and her three friends sitting in the middle of the backyard, near the swing set she was too old to use anymore.  They sat in a close circle (since there were only three of them, he supposed a triangle would’ve been a more accurate description) looking down at something on the ground between them.  What, he couldn’t tell, for their bodies blocked his view.  He wished he could see Sarah’s hands, see if they were still stained red-brown, but her back was to him and her hands weren’t visible.

          He watched for a moment longer before turning away to face his wife once more.  “All I’m saying is that maybe we should keep closer tabs on her.”

          Kathy, her back to him, made an mm-hmm noise as she continued typing.  Irritated, Gordon said, “I’m going to take a quick shower.”  This time, he received no response at all so he drained the rest of his water, set the glass on the counter, and headed for the bathroom.

* * * *

            He had plenty of time to think as he showered, the water washing away his concerns as effectively as it cleansed his body.  It hadn’t been blood on Sarah’s hand.  How could it have been?  Dirt, maybe, even rust.  Despite what Kathy said, Sarah was still a girl and still played, though perhaps not as often as she used to.  There were a million ways she could’ve gotten dirt or rust on her hands: playing on a swing set, exploring a cluttered basement or garage . . .  Hell, maybe she’d been over at one of her friends’ houses trying on makeup.  Sarah was always after Kathy to let her try on lipstick or eye shadow.  Maybe she’d been wearing lipstick and when she saw he was out mowing, she quickly wiped it off with her fingers, but forgot to conceal the reddish-brown smear when she waved.  There were any number of explanations, all rational, all comforting, all equally likely to be true.  He could take his pick.

          He turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and began to towel himself dry.

          What had he been worried about anyway?  That Sarah and her friends were doing something they shouldn’t – like killing a dog?  The thought was beyond ridiculous.  He knew his daughter; she’d never do anything like that.  If she found a spider in the house, she’d catch it in a cup and take it outside rather than kill it.  Not exactly the sort of kid who went around disemboweling animals.

          And yet . . .

* * * *

          “What’s on your mind, Gord?”

          Gordon looked up as Jerry entered the small room that served as a lounge for their practice.  It wasn’t much – a round table, three plastic chairs, a small fridge and a microwave – but it gave them a place to eat their lunch.  Gordon wished they could’ve afforded something a bit more luxurious, but while dentistry paid the bills, it hadn’t exactly made either of them rich.

          “Nothing.”

          “My ass.  You’re wearing your basset hound face.  You know, the one you get whenever something’s bothering you.”

          Gordon didn’t reply, though he knew Jerry wouldn’t give up until he pried the truth out of him.  They’d gone to dental school together, been business partners since they graduated.  In all that time, Gordon had never been able to keep a secret from him.  Gordon picked up his tuna sandwich, took a bite and chewed while Jerry got a Lean Cuisine – pasta Florentine with miniature red potatoes – out of the fridge and popped it in the microwave.  While his meal cooked, he sat down across from Gordon, an expectant look on his face.

          “Well?”

          Gordon swallowed, considered taking another bite to stall, decided against it.  “It’s Kathy.”

          “Ah-ha!  Trouble on the homefront!  Now we’re getting somewhere!”

          Jerry was the prototypical single man without a care in the world, approaching life as if it were one big party and he the guest of honor.  Even though he was in his forties, his face was still boyish and he still had a head full of black curls.  His short-sleeved blue dental smock – twin to the one Gordon wore – only reinforced the impression of youthfulness.  It wasn’t really a uniform, more like a t-shirt or pajama top.

          “It’s not really that serious.  I mean, she’s not having an affair or anything like that.”  Gordon put his sandwich down on the cellophane he’d been using as a makeshift placemat and took a sip of his Diet Sprite.  “Kathy took Sarah out shopping for soccer shoes last night.  Kathy had been in the process of doing laundry, and she left a basket of clean clothes on our bed.  Normally, she’d just put them away after she got home, but I thought I’d surprise her and put them away for her.”  Kathy only worked part-time, had ever since Sarah came along.  Since she was home more than Gordon, she did the lion’s (or perhaps that should be lioness’s) share of the household chores.  Maybe that made them an old-fashioned couple, but they were comfortable with their roles.

          “So what’s the big deal?  Sounds like you were just trying to be helpful and maybe score a few points with Kathy in the bargain.”

          Gordon felt suddenly uncomfortable despite the fact that he and Jerry had been friends for years.  There wasn’t anything about each other’s lives that they didn’t know.  But this problem was more . . . personal than the ones they usually discussed.  At least, more personal than what Gordon brought up.  Jerry had no trouble sharing the most intimate details of his life – and in the most graphic detail imaginable yet.

          Jerry’s eyebrows lifted.  “Waitaminnit!  I get it!  You folded Kathy’s undies and started to put them away in one of her dresser drawers when you found something.”

          Gordon felt his cheeks burn as he blushed.  He couldn’t meet Jerry’s gaze, could only nod once.

          “Let me guess: you found what is euphemistically known as a ‘woman’s best friend.’”  The microwave dinged, but Jerry made no move to get up.

          “If by that, you mean a vibrator, yes.”

          Jerry laughed and clapped Gordon on the shoulder.  “C’mon, man!  That’s nothing to be upset about!  Hell, it’s a good thing.”

          Now Gordon turned to look at his partner.  “Huh?”

          “You can add it to your repertoire, if you know what I mean.  Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.”

          Despite himself, Gordon smiled.  “Do you ever think about anything besides sex?”

          Jerry grinned.  “Who’s the one who brought the subject up?  Seriously, though, why is this bothering you?  It’s perfectly normally.  Every woman I’ve ever dated has had one.  Hell, at least one.  I dated this one girl once who had a closet full of sex toys, and I couldn’t figure out what most of them did.”  He shrugged.  “It’s no different than men masturbating.”

          “I know.  At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.”  Gordon paused.  Jerry’s shrug had shifted the collar of his smock, revealing an edge of white.  It looked like a necklace of some kind.  A necklace made of . . .

          Jerry frowned, looked down at his collar, and casually reached up and adjusted it, concealing the necklace, or whatever it was, once more.  But now that Gordon was aware of it, he could see the outline of the object beneath the smock’s blue cloth.  It seemed bumpy, kind of like a string of pearls, but the individual pieces were more square than round.

          “Then why aren’t you believing yourself?”

          The question startled Gordon out of his scrutiny.  He took his gaze from the necklace and looked Jerry in the eye once more.  “What?”

          “You said you’ve been telling yourself it’s normal for Kathy to want a little electric assist ever now and then.  So why are you still bothered by it?”

           “I’m not sure.”  Actually, he knew exactly why.  It wasn’t so much the vibrator itself as the kind of vibrator it was.  Curious – and though he’d never admit to this Jerry because he didn’t want to be teased – a little turned on, Gordon had removed the silvery object from the drawer and inspected it.

          It was a foot long and shaped more like a giant lipstick than a phallus.  The surface was smooth and shiny, and the metal felt cold and hard in his hand.  He had a difficult time imagining Kathy, or any woman for that matter, being turned on by having this sterile, unyielding thing inside her.

          There was a switch on the base of the vibrator.  He couldn’t resist thumbing it.

          The device jerked to life in his hand, emitting a soft mmmmmmmmmmmm that reminded him of a cat’s purr.  This was it?  It didn’t even have a speed setting.  You’d think it would at least –

          Snik!

          Gordon let out a cry and dropped the vibrator to the carpet.  It was now covered with barbed hooks, like some kind of oversized fishing lure.  Gordon could only stare at the machine mmmmmmmmmed, some of the hooks jangling against each other, some catching in the carpet.  After a few moments, he knelt down and, careful to avoid the vibrating hooks, touched the switch on the base.  The device stopped shivering and tiny panels, their seams invisible a second ago, opened.  The hooks that weren’t caught in the carpet smoothly withdrew, and the panels slid shut, their edges melding seamlessly into the silver metal once more.

          He carefully freed the remaining hooks from the carpet, each one retracting as soon as he did.  When the vibrator was back to the way he found it, surface smooth and unblemished, he put it back and closed Kathy’s underwear drawer.  Then he went out in the kitchen and poured himself a scotch, drank it down, and poured another.

          “Afraid you won’t measure up to the miracles of modern engineering?” Jerry asked.

          Gordon came out of his memory and gave his friend a smile, though he feared it came out more of a grimace.  “A bit.  But what really bothers me is that Kathy and I have been married for fourteen years.  I should know her by now.”  The woman he’d married, the woman he’d lived with day in and day out for almost a decade and a half, the woman who’d fathered his child, wouldn’t get off by putting such a monstrous machine inside her.  And how could she use the goddamned thing without shredding her vaginal canal in the process?

          “People grow, Gord.  They change.  But even if they didn’t, no one really knows anyone else.  Not completely.”  Jerry scratched his chest, just about where the lower curve of the necklace (or whatever it was) hung.

          “I’m not sure what you mean.”

          Jerry finally stood and went to the microwave to get his pasta.  When he sat again, he took a forkful of noodles and creamy whitish-green sauce – which was still steaming despite how long it had sat untouched in the microwave – and chewed.  “When I was a kid, do you know what my grandmother used to call Halloween masks?  False faces.  ‘Time to go out begging, Jerry.  Get your false face on.’  I think all of us wear false faces, all the time.  We can’t always say what we think or what we feel, right?  If we did, we’d have a world full of perpetually pissed-off people.  So we lie, we conceal, we evade and avoid.  We pretend to be something we’re not.”  He took another mouthful of pasta.  “It’s how we get along.”

          “My god, I knew you had a cynical streak, but that’s the most goddamned bleak thing I’ve ever heard you say!”

          “Not at all.  We don’t do it just to protect ourselves.  We do it to protect the people we love, the people we work with.  It’s very altruistic, in a way.  You have to admit, it’s certainly adaptive.  We couldn’t function as a society any other way.”

          “So you’re saying that last night – ”

          “You caught a glimpse behind Kathy’s mask, that’ all.  And if you’re smart, you won’t say anything about her little vibrating friend.  Things are good in your marriage, right?  Emotionally and physically?”

          “Sure.”  It was true.  Gordon and Kathy had their problems, but no more than any other couple.  And he couldn’t complain about the frequency or the quality of their lovemaking.

          “So why rock the proverbial boat?  Just keep your mouth shut and go along as if nothing happened.  Use your mask.  Hell, that’s what it’s for.  And if you’re still feeling down tonight, when you and Kathy hit the sack, remind her what it’s like to have something organic between her legs.”  He grinned, then took another mouthful of pasta.

          Gordon did his best to grin back, but he couldn’t get the image of those hooks out of his mind, and he couldn’t stop thinking about what Jerry had said, that no one really knew anyone.  After all, he hadn’t known Jerry wore a necklace.  Certainly not one which appeared to have been made out of human teeth.

* * * *

          After getting out of the shower, Gordon went into the bedroom and dressed in yet another t-shirt, pair of too-wide shorts, and nearly knee-high socks, as if it were some sort of springtime uniform for suburban husbands slash fathers.  He avoided looking at Kathy’s dresser, though he couldn’t keep from thinking about the silvery object which lay inside – or from wondering if it were the sole means of self-pleasuring which she had stashed away.

          No one really knows anyone else.  Not completely.

          Gordon put on a pair of running shoes – not the same, worn-out, grass-stained shoes he used when mowing the lawn; those were in the gardening shed along with the mower – and went to the kitchen.

          Kathy still sat at the dining table, tapping keys on her laptop as she continued to work at balancing the checkbook.  Or at least, that was what it appeared she was doing.  Gordon didn’t know much about computers.  She could be doing just about anything on the damn machine for all he knew.  Composing e-mail to a lover, logging onto an Internet gambling site . . .  He was half-tempted to stroll casually past her and glance over her shoulder at the computer screen, but he resisted the impulse.  He refused to give in to the seed of paranoia that Jerry had planted within him.  Besides, a marriage should be based on trust, right?  Even if Kathy did have a secret or two – in his mind, he heard a snik, saw hooks lunge forth from smooth metal – they were minor secrets, nothing to get worked up about.

          He imagined her lying back on the bed, naked, legs spread apart, vagina glistening as she gripped the base of the vibrator, hooks jangling as it hmmmmmmmmed.  Imagined her guiding the machine closer . . . closer . . . eyes closed, breath coming fast and shallow, biting her lower lip as the first of many hooks slid inside her . . .

          He gave his head a shake to force the image away.  He tried to swallow, but his throat was still dry.  Damn allergies.  He decided to get another glass of water and, as he sipped slowly, he walked to the back door and looked out the window.  Sarah and her friends were still sitting cross-legged on the grass, laughing as they passed something back and forth, as if they were playing a game of hot potato.  But no matter how long Gordon watched, he couldn’t make out what they were playing with.

          Then he noticed the gardening shed: its doors weren’t quite closed all the way.  The shed was an old, cheap thing that had been here when they bought the house.  The doors were thin, flimsy metal and had a tendency to open back up, especially if a strong breeze were blowing.  He was always going back outside and shutting the doors to make sure birds or rabbits didn’t get inside to nest.  He knew he should probably get a chain lock of some sort, or even just use a simple bit of rope to tie the door handles together, but like so many other little chores around the house and yard, he’d never gotten around to it.

          But he was grateful for the doors’ tendency to open now.  It gave him a pretext to go outside, should he wish to use it.  He considered for a moment, drained the last of his water, put the empty glass on the counter next to the one he’d used previously, and went out the back door.

          The girls looked his way as soon as the door opened, like animals suddenly scenting danger, he thought.  He waved – it would look suspicious if he ignored them completely – and walked down the back steps.  The May afternoon was warm, warmer even than it had felt when he’d been mowing, and immediately beads of sweats began collecting on his forehead.  Perhaps, he thought, the sweat was due to nervousness as much as heat.  The air was filled with the smell of freshly cut grass, a smell he used to like, until one day when Kathy pointed out that the smell was due to the chlorophyll released from the grass: the plant equivalent of blood.

          He walked across the yard, taking his time without trying to look like he was taking his time.  The girls watched him without looking as if they were watching him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he tried to see what they’d been playing with, but they kept their hands pressed to the ground, their fingers – and presumably whatever they’d been playing with – hidden by the grass, despite the shortness of its length.

          He reached the shed, pulled the doors shut, and then turned around, trying to think of another excuse to remain outside, but he came up empty.  The grass was cut, and since he had a mulch mower, there was no need to rake it.  It was still too early in the season for the hedges to need trimming, and while there was probably work to do in the flower beds, those were Kathy’s department.  He hadn’t the first notion about what might need doing, and besides, it would look odd to Sarah if her father took a sudden interest in gardening.

          He had no choice but to go back inside.  Maybe, though, he could swing by the girls, say hello to Sarah’s friends, make a friendly show of being a nosy parent and ask what they’d been up to so far today.  It wasn’t like him – he usually didn’t take such a close interest in what Sarah did with her friends – but it wouldn’t be as much unlike him as puttering around in the flower beds would be.

          Decided, he started toward the girls.

          But before he got more than halfway to them, they stood and started walking away from him.  Sarah, he noted, kept her right hand closed in a fist, as if she were trying to hide something from him.  And he could see now that there were definite stains on her fingers – reddish-brown stains – and that the other two girls had similar stains on their own hands.

          “Where are you going, Sarah?”  It sounded like more of a challenge than he would’ve liked, but he couldn’t help it.

          She didn’t turn around as she answered.  “Over to Melissa’s.  Her brother just got a new video game, and he said we could play it.”

          He didn’t know which of Sarah’s two companions was Melissa, but didn’t want to let on.  He tried to think of a follow-up question that wouldn’t sound suspicious, wished he could come out and demand that the girls halt, turn, and hold out their hands for his inspection.  But he had no good reason to do so, nothing but vague fears he couldn’t put a name to.

          “All right.  Have a good time, but make sure to be back home in time for dinner.”

          “I will.”  Her tone held an adolescent’s edge, as if he’d just made the most unreasonable demand in the world, and she had the patience of a saint for deigning to respond to it.

          He sighed as she watched the three girls open the wooden gate, go through, then close it.  Sarah was growing up fast.  Too fast.

          His little spy mission had been a bust.  Yes, he’d managed to see that the girls had some sort of stains on their hands, but that in and of itself hardly –

          And then it hit him.  He walked over to where the girls had been sitting, knelt down, and inspected the grass.  It looked normal enough, but when he ran his fingers through the blades, they came up coated sticky red.  And while he wasn’t a medical doctor, he didn’t need an MD after his name to tell what the substance was.

* * * *

          “I think I’ll go out for a walk.”

          Kathy looked up from her computer screen, left eyebrow arched.  “Oh?”

          Gordon felt suddenly self-conscious.  He’d never been the active type – something Kathy, who was, had teased him about numerous times over the years.  “The doctor’s always telling me I need to exercise more.”  He shrugged.  “And I don’t really have anything else to do.”

          He waited for Kathy to challenge him, or to at least make a cutting remark or some sort, but all she did was nod once.  “Good for you.”  She turned off her laptop and shut the lid.  “It’ll give you something to occupy your time while I run to the grocery.”

          “Again?  You just went yesterday.”  Kathy made three, sometimes four grocery trips in a week.  Gordon often joked that they should buy a house next to the grocery to save on gas.

          “You know I like fresh food.”  It was true; Kathy preferred to shop in what she called the “European fashion,” buying fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat as needed and preparing them that night.  She hated the taste of frozen food, said it was like eating musty ice.

          She stood, gathered the bank statements, then came over and gave Gordon a peck on the cheek.  “Don’t tire yourself out.  I may have plans for you later on this evening.”  She waggled her eyebrows with mock lasciviousness, and Gordon forced a smile.  Ever since discovering her “woman’s best friend,” he’d had trouble getting excited at the prospect of sex.  The thought of putting his penis inside her, inside the same place where she put all those hooks . . .

          “I’ll try to conserve a little energy,” he managed to reply.

* * * *

          Kathy went to the bathroom after that, which gave Gordon time to rummage through the junk drawer in the kitchen and find Sarah’s address book.  Kathy insisted Sarah keep the addresses of girls who attended her birthday parties and the like so she could write thank-you notes.  The book, which had a picture of a unicorn on it in bright pastel colors, was small and had only a dozen or so entries in it.  It took him no time at all to find Melissa’s name, Melissa Syler to be exact.  1707 Kittredge Avenue.  Only a few blocks away.

          He closed the book and replaced it in the drawer before Kathy finished in the bathroom.  He went into the bedroom – again not looking in the direction of her dresser – grabbed his keys off his dresser, called out a quick “see you later” as he passed the bathroom, and headed for the front door.

          Outside, he was struck again by the smell of cut grass, only now the scent didn’t seem so fresh, so springlike.  It was sour and stale, the stink of death and decay.  He went down the front steps, cut across the lawn to the driveway, then walked onto the street.  Forrester, the street they lived on, had no sidewalks.  This was an older part of Oakmont, and most of the homes had been built in the early to mid twentieth century.  The yards were small, and there were few garages, and even fewer sidewalks.  It was expensive to live here, though not nearly as costly as on the other side of town, which residents referred to as the “Sunny Side.”  You needed to be a millionaire just to be able to afford to look at houses on Sunny Side, let alone actually purchase one.

          But Gordon was happy where he was.  The houses and yards were well kept, the neighbors were mostly professional people like himself – doctors, lawyers, college professors – and there was hardly any crime to speak of.  Unless you counted dog mutilations, of course.  Otherwise, Oakmont was like a refuge from the rest of the world, a suburban bubble where the good life was preserved and protected.

          As he walked down the street, he waved to neighbors who were out working on the lawns, some mowing, some landscaping.  They smiled and waved back, though he doubted more than half of them knew his name.  But that didn’t matter; living in Oakmont meant being friendly, even when you didn’t know someone.  Especially when you didn’t.

          He reached the intersection of Forrester and McKimson, looked both ways, saw no traffic.  He turned right.  Halfway down the block, he saw a police car parked on the side of the street, its lights flashing silently.  He felt a tingling at the base of his skull and his abdominal muscles tightened.  Even though the police car wasn’t parked in front of Melissa’s house – Kittredge Avenue was still a couple of blocks over – his first thought was that something had happened to Sarah, that maybe his fears had come true and the dog mutilator had finally decided to abandon canines in favor of two-legged prey.

          He started walking faster, almost but not quite jogging.  The air was warm, and by the time he drew near the police car, he was dripping with sweat.

           A small crowd had gathered in the street a half dozen yards from the police vehicle, a mix of men and women, some middle-aged like him, others in their sixties and seventies.  All were dressed for warm weather – t-shirts, light blouses, shorts, sandals – but none of their clothing was worn or faded.  It looked new, as if they had gone shopping this morning to purchase outfits just for this occasion.

          As Gordon approached he recognized one of the men as a patient of his, and he struggled to recall his name.  Sam?  Scott?  No, it was Steve.

          “Hi, Steve.  What’s going on?”

          Steve (Gordon couldn’t recall his last name) turned and frowned at Gordon for moment, obviously not recognizing him.  Then his eyes widened and he smiled.  “Gordon!  How’re you doing?”  He stuck out his hand and Gordon shook it.  Steve was tall, lean, and tan, looking younger and more fit than Gordon, though he was in fact at least a decade older.

          “Not bad.  Teeth still holding up?”

          Steve flashed Gordon a smile, displaying white, even teeth.  “That whitening treatment sure did the trick.  My smile hasn’t looked this good in years.”

          It’ll stay like that for a long time if you’d give up smoking, Gordon thought.  The man’s breath reeked of tobacco and coffee.  Still, Gordon kept smiling.  That’s what the good, friendly people of Oakmont did.  They smiled no matter what.

          Gordon nodded to the police car.  “Nothing serious, I hope.”

          Steve’s smile dimmed a few watts.  “Afraid so.  Another dog’s been killed.  This one in broad daylight, too.”  His tongue tssked behind those white-white teeth, and he shook his head slowly from side to side, the movement mechanical and unconscious, more ritual than honest reaction.

          Gordon turned to look at the house.  It was a Cape Cod, red brick, white trim, black shutters.  Covered front porch, red-wood fence enclosing the back yard.  Lawn was neatly trimmed (of course), and while the flowerbeds were bare, they were cleaned out and mulched, ready to accept whatever plants the owners decided to put there.  There was something about the house that Gordon found familiar, but he couldn’t quite think what it was.  Maybe it was simply that it looked like so many other homes in this part of Oakmont, his own included.  But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than that.

          The gate to the backyard was open, and he could see a police officer in his late twenties, early thirties, speaking with a short, stout women in her forties dressed in a white blouse and light blue shorts.  The woman kept wiping her fingers across her cheeks, and Gordon knew she was crying.

          “Just like the others,” Steve said.  “All torn up.”  He leaned closer, presumably so he wouldn’t be overhead by anyone else in the crowd, especially the children.  “Seems there are a few pieces missing this time.”  There was an unmistakable undertone of glee in his voice.  Even the good life in such a perfect place as Oakmont could get a little dull from time to time, and the occasional neighborhood scandal helped spice things up a bit.

          Gordon experienced a sudden wave of loathing for Steve, and he nearly shoved him away, but he restrained himself.  Gordon was a civilized man, and Oakmont was a place dedicated to civilization.  One simply didn’t shove one’s neighbors here, no matter how much they deserved it.

          Instead, Gordon gave the expected reply in this upper middle-class call and response.  “How awful.”  He looked into the backyard again, but the officer and the woman were no longer visible.  He assumed they’d moved into another part of the yard, perhaps to get a closer view of the dead animal.  Gordon wished he could sneak up to the open gate, peek into the yard and see the dead dog for himself.  Not out of morbid curiosity (and least, not only) but because if he could see the extant of the animal’s injuries, he might . . . might . . .

          Might what? he thought.  Get a better idea of who might have done such a thing?  Three little girls, for example?

          It was absolutely insane.  There was no way Sarah and her two friends could possibly be responsible for this latest dog mutilation, let alone the others.

          But that’s what’s been in the back of your mind, ever since you first saw the blood on Sarah’s fingers.

          It wasn’t blood.  It was dirt, rust, anything else.  But not blood.

          You saw them playing with something in your backyard, tossing it back and forth.  They hid it from you, took it with them when they left, but you found blood in the grass where they were playing.

Then there was Steve’s nasty little tidbit.  Seems there are a few pieces missing this time.

Pieces small enough to play hot potato with in the backyard?

“Stop it,” he whispered to himself without realizing he spoke.

“Excuse me?” Steve said, frowning.

“Nothing.  Just . . . thinking out loud.”  He gave a small, embarrassed smile.  “Bad habit.”

Steve looked at him for a moment before finally nodding.  “Well, it was good to see you, Gordon.”  It was time to move on and share his little revelation about missing doggie parts with someone else.

“Same here.  Keep taking care of that smile.”

“I will.”

Steve moved off into the crowd, but Gordon remained where he was, gazing through the open gate and into the backyard, trying to figure out why this house seemed so familiar to him.  And then he had it: this was the home of one of Sarah’s friends.  Not Melissa, but the other one.  He struggled to recall a name but came up blank.  It didn’t matter; he didn’t need a name.  He remembered stopping here once to pick the girl up when he drove Sarah and a few of her friends to a roller-skating party.  He had honked the horn and the girl came running from the backyard.  He remembered the gate banging open, the girl running down the driveway, not bothering to close the gate behind her.  Remembered wondering if he should tell her to go back and close it or if he should get out of the car and do it himself.  In the end, he’d done neither, just driven away once the girl was inside and belted in.

It could be a coincidence, of course.  Just because the home – and the dead dog in the backyard – belonged to one of Sarah’s friends didn’t mean that they’d stopped here before wandering through the neighborhood and eventually ending up in Gordon’s backyard.  Didn’t mean that whatever secret plaything they’d tossed back and forth between them had once been something wrapped inside canine flesh and fur.

Jerry’s words came back to him.  No one really knows anyone else.  Not completely.

Fuck off, Jerry, Gordon thought.  But despite the warmth of the May day and the sweat that coated his body like a second liquid skin, he felt a chill as he moved away from the crowed and continued walking toward Kittredge Avenue.

* * * *

1707 wasn’t hard to find.  It was on the corner of Kittredge and Stansbury, another Cape Cod, though this one had an unattached garage off to the side, a two-car one at that.  Melissa’s parents (assuming they were the ones who’d put the garage in and not the previous owners) had sacrificed a good deal of their backyard in order to make room for the garage, but Gordon thought it was worth it.  Less grass to mow, and more to the point, you’d have a place to shelter your car from the elements.  No ice to scrape off windshields in the winter, no blazing hot upholstery in the summer.  Funny how the little things like garages and roomy backyards seemed like such a luxury here.  In a smaller, less pricey town, there’d be garages everywhere and no one would give them a second thought.

Not that Gordon really cared about the garage.  He knew he was just trying to distract himself from the real reason he’d come here: to find out what Sarah was up to.

She’s not up to anything.  Playing with Barbies, listening to a CD of the latest, hottest boy band . . .  Normal, everyday girl stuff.

Mutilating another household pet?

Stop it! he told himself.  Just stop it.

And maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.  Now that he was here, standing in the street and looking at the house – closed door, windows rendered opaque by the shadows within – he considered turning around and leaving.  He remembered something else Jerry had said.

Why rock the proverbial boat?  Just keep your mouth shut and go along as if nothing happened.

Gordon had a good life, the kind everyone sought but didn’t always attain.  A lucrative career, a nice house in an expensive (but not outrageously so) neighborhood.  A good marriage and a great kid.  Sarah got straight A’s in school, played soccer, belonged to girl scouts, played flute in the school orchestra.  She was sweet and well-mannered, everything that parents could hope for in a child.  And if there was something. . .  more, did he really want to know about it?  If his life was the equivalent of a soap bubble – shiny on the surface but all-too-easily burst when pressed – did he truly want to risk destroying it?

He almost walked away, it was that close.  But in the end, he started up the driveway.  He decided against knocking on the front door.  What would he say? Hi, I’m Sarah’s dad.  I just came to see if my little girl was pulling the intestines out of your dog.  Or maybe you have a cat.  As far as I know, she hasn’t killed any cats yet, but here’s always a first time, right?

Melissa’s parents would slam the door shut before he was finished speaking and be on the phone to the police before he stepped off the porch.  So what options did that leave him?  Sneak around the house and peer through the windows?  He could see the headlines in the Oakmont Daily Call now:  Local Dentist Turns Peeping Tom.  Scratch that.

The backyard, then.  After all, that’s where they’d been playing at his house, and the most recent dog mutilation had taken place in a backyard, too.   And if Melissa’s parents caught him, he could just say he’d come to collect Sarah and thought he’d heard the girls playing out back.  A lame excuse – after all this was Oakmont; you knocked on doors first here, no matter what – but at least it was plausible.

He headed for the backyard, listening as he walked.  He heard no laughter, no conversation, just the soft rustling of leaves in the mild breeze.  The Sylers’ backyard was enclosed by a chain-link fence, not wood as was the norm in Oakmont.  They’ll probably receive a few pointed comments about that from the zoning board, Gordon thought.  He reached the gate, opened it, stepped through, then walked around the side of the house.

The backyard (what there was of it since the garage took up most of the space) was empty.  No gardening shed, but then with a garage, you wouldn’t necessarily need one.   The grass was neatly trimmed, of course, but there were no flower beds, no hedges, not so much as a single tree.

And no trio of twelve-year-old girls playing keep-away with something small and secret.

Gordon didn’t know whether to feel relieved or concerned.  Sarah had told him they were coming here, so where –  And then he remembered her exact words when he’d asked where she was going.

Over to Melissa’s.  Her brother just got a new video game, and he said we could play it.

If that was true (if, if, if) then they wouldn’t be outside, would they?  They’d be inside, sitting cross-legged in front of a TV set, eyes bleary, fingers furiously working game controllers.  He glanced at the back door, but decided against knocking on it.  It would seem odd to go to the rear door first.  He should go back around to the front.

He started toward the gate again, but took less than a half dozen steps when his shoe came down on something moist and yielding.

He stopped and debated far longer than he expected before bending down to pick up the object.  There wasn’t much left . . . pieces had been chewed off . . . and he was a dentist, not a veterinarian, but he was fairly confident that what he was holding in his hand was the remains of a dog’s heart.  He looked at it for several long moments, trying to ignore the sweet-sick stink of raw meat that’s been out in the sun too long.  Finally, he turned his hand over and the grisly hunk of ragged muscle fell back to the ground.  He wiped his hand in the grass, then stood.

That doesn’t prove anything, he told himself.  It’s a chunk of meat, sure, but not a goddamned dog’s heart.  Probably a leftover bit of rabbit or squirrel killed by a cat, or maybe even an owl last night.  It has to be something else . . . anything else . . .

Then he heard a noise that sounded like a muffled scream.  Too much like.  And, unless he was mistaken, it had come from inside the garage.  He hesitated for an instant – but only an instant – then started walking.  He didn’t want to go look, he really didn’t, but he couldn’t help himself.  Besides, he had to; he was her Daddy, wasn’t he?

The door was down, and windowless.  But there were windows on the side of the garage, and that’s where Gordon headed.  As he drew closer, he realized that the windows, which he had first thought merely dark because the garage was closed with no lights on, had instead been covered over on the inside with black paper.  So no one could see out?  Of course not.  So no one could see in.

Except that wasn’t entirely true, was it?  The paper had folded back at one corner.  Not much, hardly at all, in fact.  But enough.

He placed trembling hands on the smooth wood of the door to steady himself and leaned forward, squeezing his left eye shut and looking through the tiny opening with his right.  The interior of the garage wasn’t exactly lit by klieg lights, but Gordon saw far more than he wanted to.  Saw that Sarah was playing a game with her friend’s older brother, only it wasn’t the kind of game that entailed interacting with a computer-generated image on a video screen.  The boy’s sister was playing too, as was the remaining girl.  There were two adults present as well – Mr. and Mrs. Syler, he presumed – but they weren’t chaperoning.  They were right in the thick of things.  Black leather, metal studs and zippers.  Chains hanging from the ceiling.  Drain in the middle of the concrete floor.  Blunt objects, sharp objects, objects to bite down on, objects to be struck with, objects so complex and nightmarish, they made Kathy’s fish-lure dildo look like it had been designed by the good folks at Playskool.

Gordon only had to watch for a few moments to know that the cry he had heard a short time ago had been one of pleasure, though undoubtedly mixed with pain.  Still, it hadn’t been a cry of distress.  Not if the expressions on the girl’s faces (on his daughter’s face) were any indication.

He watched several seconds longer before turning and heading for the still open gate.  He walked through and down the Sylers’ driveway, into the street, turned to his right and began walking back toward his home, past houses with closed doors and murky windows, each one a mask that could be hiding almost anything.

* * * *

          He didn’t question Sarah when she finally came home, looking tired but happy.  In fact, he didn’t say much to either his daughter or his wife.  He busied himself with all the handyman jobs he’d neglected – fixing leaky faucets, replacing the air filter in the furnace, putting on a new hose for the dryer vent, and more – anything that kept his body in motion and his mind silent.

          Toward evening he finally ran out of work, and he found himself standing in the space between the dining room and the kitchen, wondering what he should do next.  Sarah was sitting at the table doing math homework, and Kathy stood at the stove, working on dinner.

          Kathy glanced in his direction.  “You know the problem with you, Gordon?  You just don’t work hard enough.”  She smiled to show that she was joking, but when Gordon didn’t react she said, “Why do you sit down and rest, maybe watch a little TV?  I’ll have dinner ready in just a little bit.”

He didn’t feel like watching TV, but he didn’t want to rock the boat, did he?  So he walked into the living room and sat on the couch.  He turned the set to the local news, though he kept the sound muted and paid no attention to the forms and colors that moved across the screen.  Paid no attention, that is, until these words appeared in blood-red letters next to the news anchor’s head: Two-Year-Old Disappears from Park.

Gordon unmuted the sound, turned it up several notches so he could hear better.

The anchor, a chisel-jawed man in his late twenties with a stylish blond hair helmet and an expensive navy blue suit, relayed the details with professional dignity and gravity, though he couldn’t quite keep a gleam out of his eye as he spoke.  A toddler had disappeared from Indian Creek Park earlier in the afternoon.  No one had seen anything and the police had no leads.  It was as if – as the toddler’s tearful, quavering-voiced mother put it – “My baby vanished in a puff of smoke.”

The news drone started to give a number for viewers to call if they had any information on the missing child, but Gordon turned off the TV before he’d finished.  He sat for several minutes, staring at the blank screen and the tiny, vague reflection of himself sitting on the couch.

          Eventually, he stood and walked into the dining room.  He pulled out a chair and sat at his usual place opposite Sarah, who looked up from her homework and gave him a little smile (a little knowing smile?) before returning her attention to her math.

          Gordon heard Kathy open the refrigerator and take something out.  Her listened as she put a plate down and unwrapped cellophane.  Seconds later, a hiss came from the stove as she tossed something into a pan to fry.  The sound was almost instantly followed by the smell of searing meat.

          “We’re having stir fry tonight,” she called.  “How does that sound?”

          No one had seen anything and the police had no leads.  “Chicken or beef?”

          “It’s a surprise.  A little something I picked up today.”

          Gordon turned to look at her, watched as she tossed vegetables into the pan on top of the meat.  The features of her face had become smooth and hard.

          “Of course it is,” he said softly.

          Sarah looked up from her textbook and gazed at him with dry, painted eyes that didn’t blink.  “Did you say something, Daddy?”

          Gordon didn’t have to work up a smile; his plastic lips were already doing the job for him.

          “No, Sweetie, I didn’t.”  He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of cooking food, and sighed with contentment.  The good ship Markley was running nice and steady, and it looked like smooth sailing from here on out.  Smooth sailing all the goddamned way.