Wishbone Read online

  Wishbone

  Wishbone

  Elaine Burnes

  © 2015 Elaine Burnes

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

  978-1-939562-78-4 paperback

  978-1-939562-79-1 ebook

  Cover Design

  by

  Bink Books

  a division of

  Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company

  Fairfield, California

  http://www.bedazzledink.com

  It’s 2004, the year same-sex marriage becomes legal in Massachusetts, the year the Red Sox break the curse, and the year everything changes for Meg Myers.

  Meg is an animal control officer who doesn’t much like people and doesn’t believe wishes come true. She grew up in state care, bouncing between foster homes and her alcoholic mother. Left physically and emotionally scarred, she is guarded about her past and pessimistic about her future. So she focuses on her job and her dream of opening an animal shelter.

  Meg’s world is rocked by three women: Pam and her foster daughter, Violet; Gina, twin to Meg’s best friend Jeff; and Samantha, the vet who shares an uncomfortable past with Meg. Meg’s relationships with these women force her to explore mother-daughter bonds, loss and grief, and what defines friendship and gender in her quest to find security and love for the first time in her life.

  For Beth

  Acknowledgements

  I didn’t realize when I started this story that a) it would grow into a novel or b) that it would take so long (don’t even ask). What began as a challenge to write about wild turkeys annoying residents of Brookline became a short story that kept growing until it became the novel, practically historical fiction by now, that you hold.

  Many people helped on this journey, beginning with the members of the Lesbian Fiction Forum, where I found many thoughtful readers; the teachers at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop and GrubStreet classes; my wonderful beta readers: DeJay Garden, Lisa Boeving, and Sacchi Green. Thank you for keeping me in my place and encouraging me to continue when that didn’t seem like such a good idea. Officer Hilary Cohen graciously answered my many ACO questions. To Kelley Eskridge at Sterling Editing, I can’t begin to express my gratitude. Kelley encouraged and scolded me into upping my game substantially. If this story fails in any regard, it will be where I deviated from her and the others’ wise counsel. Special thanks go to Linda, my favorite grammar sleuth, and to Karen for pointing out the title amid my ramblings.

  To Claudia and Casey at Bedazzled Ink, I can only say “Wow.” There’s nothing quite as nerve-wracking as hitting that submit button. And nothing quite as joyful as getting back a request for the whole manuscript and then that e-mail that does not say, “thanks, but.” Ann McMan took my dream cover and made it real.

  Without the support and love of my wife, this book wouldn’t exist. Period.

  Countless online resources were invaluable to my research. Thank god for Google. In researching this book, I’ve developed a deepened respect and admiration for those who work directly to benefit the lives of animals. Please, if you care, donate to an organization of your choice. Get to know your animal control officer.

  I’ve taken intentional liberties with many things, including several places in and around Brookline, and most notably ignoring animal welfare organizations that are a stone’s throw from Meg’s beat: the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Animal Rescue League of Boston.

  A few details have been lost to time—this story is set in 2004. Thankfully, since then, laws have changed to allow protection orders to include pets. The old bathhouse at Herring Cove has since been replaced with a lovely new structure that even includes a curtain or two, possibly for people like Gina.

  Speaking of whom, all the characters and events in this story are fictional and individual. No one is a poster child for anything: not the foster-care system, animal-welfare organizations, law enforcement, nor class, gender, or anything else. I made it all up. Therefore, all errors, intentional or not, are mine alone.

  This is for Dontel, Rebecca, Jeremiah, and the 92 other children who died in the care of the state of Massachusetts since 2001, and for all children in foster care.

  Chapter 1

  HER BREATHING SETTLED into the regular rhythm of sleep, so I eased out from under the blanket, preserving the cocoon of warm air around her. I groped for my pants and shoes and crept quietly out of the room. Thick fog pressed against the windows, diffusing the orange glow from street lamps that lit my way. I began to shiver in just my T-shirt, so I dressed quickly and found my jacket in the living room, piled with hers by the door.

  A blinking light caught my eye. Phone. That usually means paper and a pencil. After finding them, I paused. Already I’d forgotten her name. I’m not a love note kind of girl, but when a woman cries herself to sleep in your arms, it pulls at you. She’d said it wasn’t anything I’d done. In my experience, crying never helped. I doubted she wanted to be reminded of it, so I jotted simply, “Had a great time. Take care, Meg.”

  I eased the door shut behind me and slipped down the stairs and out to my car. The clock in the dashboard glowed 3:13. The fog blurred the road in front of me, erasing landmarks and signs, so I wandered blindly through twisted streets until I recognized Route 9, the main roadway, and realized I’d been in Brookline. A little too close to work for comfort, but too late now.

  Once the heat was blasting, I rolled down the window. I get claustrophobic at night and the fog didn’t help. A faint musk odor drifted into the car. Either a skunk far away or a fox closer. Night creatures, they prefer the dark.

  I crossed the Riverway into Boston and took a right onto South Huntington. The quiet streets made the city feel like a small town until I spotted a homeless man pushing a grocery cart loaded with his life possessions. My headlights reflected back in two small bright disks. Raccoon maybe. A larger shadow slipped between garbage cans. Coyote?

  I reached to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and smelled her, like she had marked me. Even my jacket carried her scent. As I maneuvered into a parking space, I tried to picture her beside me, a hand on my thigh. My friend Chaz had been on me to settle down. Why not? I was over thirty now and sober. Most women my age were looking for happily ever after. Then I laughed. Not everyone was marriage material. Everything I’d read in books or seen on TV about true love showed couples who had a lot in common. Maybe opposites attracted at first, but in the end, it was about finding someone who shared your hopes and dreams. After all, skunks mate with skunks and coyotes with coyotes. In my experience, love was elusive and masked by lies. If it existed at all.

  MY FIRST CALL Monday took me to Brookline Village, my favorite part of town, where unpretentious houses with small front yards brought an intimate scale to narrow streets. I pulled up to the curb in front of a gray colonial. A mockingbird sang its medley from a nearby rooftop. The morning light filtered bright and low through the bare branches of the maples along the sidewalk. I grabbed my equipment bag from the side compartment of my truck, pulled out my camera, and headed to the body lying on the grass near the driveway. My first photos were taken at a wide angle to show location and position, and then I moved closer and snapped details from head to toe.

  “You a p’lice officer?”

  I lowered my camera. A young girl stood on the sidewalk behind me. She was six or seven. Her blue eyes looked up at me from a field of freckles. Her strawberry blond curls parted into two braids, one starting to unravel because the elastic had come off the end.

  “I’m the animal control officer,” I said, in my crisp, official voice.

  “So you are an officer,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her budding detective skills were spot on. I wore a gun on a thick belt at my waist and dark blue pants. The only difference from my fellow officers was my jacket had Animal Control embroidered over the left breast. A Brookline Police baseball cap shaded my eyes, and my hair lay in a single braid down my back.

  “Violet.”

  A woman’s voice, from across the street. She appeared to be in her thirties. Her brown hair curled around her ears. Natural, not dyed. She wore jeans and a black North Face fleece jacket, the uniform of the middle class.

  “Let her do her work, hon,” she said.

  Violet slumped in disappointment and shuffled toward her.

  I returned my attention to the body and confirmed it was a male wild turkey by the bright red wattle at its throat and tuft of wiry feathers sticking out of its chest—the “beard.” I stretched on purple nitrile gloves then traced a narrow line of broken feathers along the bird’s back, near the neck. This didn’t look like roadkill. Could be from a golf club. I let out a disgusted sigh. Who would do this?

  I rummaged in my bag and found a tape measure and notepad and wrote down the width of the fracture line and its length. Gingerly, I poked through the iridescent bronze feathers, searching for wounds. There wasn’t any blood, the head wasn’t bashed, but the angle of the neck could indicate a fracture. I examined each wing for further signs of injury.

  Across the street, Violet and the woman watched. Midday of midweek and most people were at work. Most kids in school. I flipped bac
k through my notebook and turned to the woman. “Are you the one who called? Pam Robbins?”

  She nodded. I pulled off my gloves and stepped across the quiet street. Must be nice to have the luxury to be a stay-at-home mom. “Did you see what happened?”

  “’Fraid not,” she said. “Violet found it when she came out to get the paper.”

  “No school today?” I had to ask. As a public safety employee, I was required to report any sign of child abuse or neglect.

  Pam and Violet looked at each other. Violet’s face fell.

  “It’s okay,” Pam said. “You can tell her.”

  Violet stared at the ground. “I got ’spended,” she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her.

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said. What seven-year-old gets suspended? Then I recalled how many times I had at her age. The last thing this kid needed was more humiliation, so I turned my attention back to the case. “I need some information for my report.” I flipped my notebook to a fresh page. “What time did you discover the bird?”

  Pam shoved her hands in her jacket pockets. “I don’t know. A couple of hours ago? Look, I thought you’d just take it away.”

  I stopped writing. “I will, but if I find the bird did not die of natural causes, killing a wild turkey is illegal.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry. They’ve been driving us crazy,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Making a god awful racket, and they chase us.” She gestured toward the house behind me, where I’d found the bird. “Mr. Fielding, there, couldn’t get into his car the other morning, this big tom was attacking him.”

  I made a note to speak to Mr. Fielding.

  Violet tugged on her mother’s hand. “Pa-am,” she said, her voice high and whiney, “is Lee coming home tonight?”

  I almost did a double take, a kid calling her mother by her first name. Was she her mother? Maybe a sitter.

  A pained expression crossed Pam’s face. “We’ll talk about this later, honey. I’m talking to the officer right now.” Her tense tone made me think this wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with this question.

  “Meg,” I said.

  Pam looked at me, puzzled. “Sorry?”

  “My name’s Meg. You can call me that, if you like.” I didn’t know why I blurted it out.

  Violet pulled on Pam’s hand again. “Can we go inside?” she whined.

  Pam looked at her sternly. “I’m talking to the offi—to Meg, here.”

  Violet’s expression darkened into one I recognized. The first shot fired in the battle for control. I offered a distraction. “Want to help me?” The kid froze, suddenly shy. She stopped tugging Pam’s hand. “It might be too gross,” I added.

  Her face brightened. “Nothing’s too gross!” She looked up at Pam. “Can I?”

  Pam’s face relaxed. “I guess.” She turned to me. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. C’mon,” I said to Violet. “You can hold the bag for me.” I held out my hand, but she didn’t move.

  “You come too,” she said to Pam, her shyness returning.

  Together we went to my truck, and I got a heavy cloth bag from the back. Then I pulled another pair of gloves from my pocket.

  “Violet gloves for Violet,” I said.

  She giggled and tried to put them on. The stretchy material resisted her efforts, so I reached to help.

  “I can do it,” she insisted, pulling away from me. She managed to get one on, with her five fingers in four of the glove’s. The other one was impossible.

  “Try this,” I said and demonstrated by putting my glove back on, spreading my fingers to get them into the proper slots. Violet continued to struggle, so I waited.

  “I need help,” she said finally. Pam reached for her, but Violet swung toward me. “You.”

  I stretched on the glove and sorted the fingers. They were too big, but Violet smiled proudly, flapping the half-empty fingers. “All set!”

  I handed her the bag and showed her how to hold it open while I picked up the large bird and carefully placed it inside. The head flopped. Violet flinched once but held the bag steady.

  “Why’d it die?” she asked, peering inside.

  I didn’t mention my theory. “I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out.” I took the bag from her and pulled the string tight. “Nice job. Thanks, helper.”

  Violet beamed. I opened the back of my truck and she overcame the final hurdle to her shyness. “Can I see inside?” I took a step aside to let her.

  “Not today, Violet,” Pam said. “Give Meg the gloves and go on back to the house now.”

  “Awww,” Violet said. She didn’t move.

  “That’s one,” Pam said, her voice stern. They shared a stare, then Violet pulled off the gloves, handed them to me, and repeated her passive-aggressive shuffle across the street.

  “Can’t let a day off from school be more fun than being there,” Pam said. “You understand.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But one?”

  “If I get to three, she gets a consequence. She hates those. It’s a way to avoid power struggles. She gets to decide whether to behave or not.”

  I closed the back of the truck and decided to do a little fishing. While the kid didn’t seem like a sociopath, you never knew, and she’d already been in trouble. “Does Violet like animals?”

  “She didn’t do this.”

  That Pam guessed where I was headed so quickly surprised me. “Okay,” I said. “Let me know if you hear or see anything.”

  Pam followed Violet across the street, and I went up to Mr. Fielding’s front door. No one answered the bell. I’d look up his number and give him a call later. First I had a delivery to make.

  I TURNED NORTH on Harvard Street toward Coolidge Corner and drove to Doc Paulson’s, the vet contracted to work with the town. His first name was Dirk, but his generation didn’t believe in first names. His generation should have been retired by now, but he’d once mentioned that the Paulson nest egg took a beating when the tech bubble burst in 2000, so he’d been hanging on. At this point I was counting the days till he retired and I could corral a younger vet into the relatively thankless job of being at the town’s beck and call. I pulled into the alley behind his building, grabbed my goodie bag, and walked around to the front door.

  Mrs. Paulson looked up from behind the counter, her reading glasses balanced on the tip of her narrow nose, gray eyes the color of her hair. She glanced at my bag then went back to filling out a carbon-copy receipt for the woman waiting, cat carrier by her feet. A computer sat off to the side gathering dust.

  She finished with the woman and turned her attention to me. “What can we do for you today, Officer Myers.”

  I hefted the bag onto the counter. “Could I get a necropsy of this—it’s a wild turkey.”