Professor Steven Rayburn had not been looking forward to this night.
He was not a fan of confrontation, and he had considered avoiding this one, but recent events had left him no choice. He knew what he had to do, even if doing it would be extremely unpleasant.
It had turned out even worse than he expected. There were no regrets from the other person, no offer of contrition or any type of compromise. Not that compromise was possible; Rayburn was not going to have any of it.
When the other person finally left, at seven thirty, Rayburn took a deep breath and headed for the den to pour himself a drink. The next steps would be important; he had to follow through and do what he had vowed to do, even though he would take no pleasure in it.
What Rayburn didn’t realize was that the person had not actually left, only simulated it by opening and closing the front door, then remained in the house and moved quietly toward the living room.
It is unlikely that Rayburn ever realized he was not alone. Perhaps he did in a nanosecond of consciousness when the metal statue was smashed into his head, but that can never be known.
What is known for sure is that Professor Steven Rayburn was dead before his body hit the floor.
I’m not a winter person.
I don’t like very cold weather, which doesn’t really set me apart from most people I know. Cold is the reason they invented furnaces, and fireplaces, and heavy coats.
I also stopped hoping for snow at around the time it stopped getting me an off day from school. It’s pretty while it’s falling, but where I live, in Paterson, New Jersey, it gets dirty and ugly on the ground and stays that way for days. It can also turn so icy that the best way to get around town would be on a Zamboni.
I don’t like skiing, or at least I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like it if I ever tried it. I can’t understand why anyone would want to barrel down a frozen mountain at high speed on two narrow ironing boards, carrying a couple of sticks and dodging trees and other lunatics out on the same mountain. Then, if you survive intact, you get lifted to the top of the mountain on a thin cable, just so you can defy death again.
As best as I can tell, a good day on the slopes is not suffering broken bones, frostbite, or worse, which is why I have spent many good days in front of the television, or reading a book. You never hear about a medevac helicopter picking someone up from their den and flying them to a trauma center.
Winter does have football, which is a major plus … I’ll give it that.
Of course, I’m not a summer person either. Summer is the reason they had to invent air-conditioning and swimming and bug spray. Lying on a beach is as nutty as skiing; the trick there is to cover yourself with so much grease that you don’t get skin cancer while you bake. Another way to avoid it would be not to bake at all.
There is much I don’t like about the heat of summer, but suffice it to say that I’m opposed to any weather in which mosquitoes thrive.
There are maybe four or five days a year that measure up to my exacting weather standards … they usually happen in early May or mid-September. My wife, Laurie Collins, sometimes comments on my complaints about the weather. Her view is that I am a pain in the ass, or at least that’s how she puts it.
But I can now report that it’s possible I am changing. I have spent the last five days in what some people would describe as a winter wonderland. Laurie and I are at a resort in the Adirondacks with our fifteen-year-old son, Ricky. Also here are Brian and Sally Rubenstein and their son, Will, who is Ricky’s best friend.
Much to Laurie’s surprise, I have become Andy Carpenter, Outdoorsman. We’ve all gone ice-skating and snowmobiling and even sledding. I haven’t gone skiing, mainly because my brain is not completely frozen.
But I’ve been out there doing stuff and I don’t have a single broken bone or frostbitten toe to show for it. And in the off-hours, I’ve been sitting in front of the fireplace and sucking down hot chocolate. Not a bad way to spend some time.
The only real negative is that Christmas music has played constantly throughout the hotel. Since Laurie thinks the Christmas season starts around Halloween, I have long ago passed my tolerance level for that gooey musical junk. I don’t care that “it’s Christmastime in the city.” We’re here to get away from the city.
This morning we had a predeparture snowball fight, the adults against the kids. We adults came in second and it wasn’t close.
All in all, we had a great time, diminished only by Laurie’s insistence that we listen to the “Jolly Christmas” station on satellite radio all the way home. By the tenth time a singer asked, “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?,” I wanted to scream, “Yes, I’m listening! I have no choice! Stop asking me!”
But now we’re almost home, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing our three dogs. There is Tara, a golden retriever who has permanently retired the Best Dog in the Universe trophy. Then there’s Hunter, a pug who understandably worships Tara and follows her everywhere. And lastly there’s Sebastian, a basset hound who is built like a combination washer-dryer and has the energy level of that same washer-dryer when it is unplugged.
We don’t travel much, and I hate being away from the dogs. Tara and I have been a team for a very long time; the other two are relatively recent additions. Tara has seen me through some tough times, asking only for petting and biscuits in return.
Taking care of them this week has been the amazing Jenny Bedell, our friend and occasional dog sitter. She lives at the house and gives them even better care than we do while she does, which is saying a lot. She also keeps us constantly informed by text about how they are doing, including photos.
I can hear the barking as soon as we pull into the driveway. We live on Forty-second Street in Paterson, New Jersey, and our neighbors are close by. They’ve never complained about the barking, possibly because most of them have dogs of their own. It’s a very canine-friendly neighborhood.
When we walk in, Jenny is standing across from the front door with the dogs, who get wildly excited and charge toward us. Just before I happily fall to the ground covered in dogs, I realize something surprising.
There aren’t three dogs.
There are four.
“He showed up at the front door two days ago and wouldn’t leave,” Jenny says about the little dog, who looks like a Yorkie mix.“I didn’t want to take him to the shelter, and I knew for sure you wouldn’t want me to. At first I fed him out on the porch, but it was cold, so I brought him inside. I didn’t know what else to do. I hope it’s okay; he seems really sweet.”
“You did fine,” Laurie says, a sentiment with which I agree.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Jenny says. “I put up signs around the neighborhood, but nobody has contacted me. I didn’t tell you about it because I figured there was nothing you could do, and you’d find out soon enough.”
“No tags on him?” I ask.
“No. I sent my cousin a picture of him. She’s very much a dog person, and she thinks he’s a terrier mix.”
“Could be,” Laurie says.
“We need to find out if he’s chipped. There’s a scanner at the foundation.” I’m referring to the Tara Foundation, a rescue group that my friends Willie and Sondra Miller run with me. They do most of the “running,” especially when I have a case in my other, less enjoyable life as a criminal defense attorney.
“What do we do if he’s not chipped?” Laurie asks.
“We’ll keep him at the foundation. I’ll alert the shelter that if anyone comes looking for a dog matching his description, they can send them to us. If they can prove that they’re his owners, then they’ll get him. If nobody shows up in the next week, we’ll find him a great home.”
“You know, he looks like Murphy,” Laurie says. “With more hair.”
We once rescued a dog named Murphy, who had a terrible skin condition. He wasn’t doing well at the foundation, so we brought him home and treated him for it while he lived with us. The process took about eight weeks, and then we placed him in a terrific home with a woman and her teenaged son. This was about two years ago.
Ricky, who is busy petting Tara, hears Laurie and says, “Is that Murphy?” He and Murphy had bonded during his time with us.
“No,” Laurie says. “It just looks like him.”
Ricky goes over to the dog and says, “The Giants won.”
The dog goes crazy, literally jumping up and down on his hind legs. “It’s him!” Ricky yells, because that is a trick he taught Murphy when he was here. Ricky runs into the kitchen and comes back with a biscuit, which was always the reward when Murphy did the trick.
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