Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

And he almost had himself convinced. He made it to the bottom of the hill with Buddy trailing him. A little dazed, but the dog was starting to get his legs beneath him again. At the bottom, Rube started to turn left, toward home, but Buddy’s growl stopped him.

Worse, his old habit of noticing details kicked in. Like a bad habit.

Rube turned to see the dog sniffing at spots on the walkway. Could be anything, Rube told himself. Some kid dripped his milk nickel in the heat of the day. Some tourist had a leaky beach bucket. But he knew better, even before the dog started to seriously sniff and follow the spots. Whoever had hit Buddy on the head had gotten past him in the dark. Wouldn’t be hard to do. And Buddy had gotten a piece of him before whoever it was conked the old dog on the head. Now Buddy smelled his blood on the sidewalk.

Buddy started to trot, an ungainly thing seen from Rube’s perspective. But the big dog ate the distance like a racehorse, even trotting.

“Buddy!”

No use.

Go home and go to bed.

But he couldn’t.

Wait and tell Boggert tomorrow.

But he couldn’t. He felt responsible somehow.

Rube turned and started after the dog, running a little.

The saloon was almost empty as Rube trotted by. He craned his neck and saw the big bartender leaning over to jaw with a lady holding a pool stick. Even the old fishermen in back had left.

Call me a tourist, huh?

At the end of the street the sheriff’s office sat dark and closed. The Jeep was missing from the lot. Rube knew too little about the town or sheriff. His landlord had said the sheriff was new, that they shared him with Morro Bay and another tiny town along the coast. This wasn’t New York, he reminded himself.

He slowed to a walk, blowing hard.

The marine layer found Rube before he found the turnoff to the harbor. First the slice of moon disappeared, as though a hungry gray sky had devoured it. Then the street lights started to blink out, nothing left but a fuzz of light through the heavy mist.

Rube shivered as he walked, fingering the bloody patch of cloth. The fog was too thick; he couldn’t see. He turned to go home.

Buddy howled — only this time there was anger in the howl, the sound of a predator.

Rube moved through the fog toward the sound.

A hull creaked against a dock, water slapped — but he couldn’t see a foot in front of him. Stumble around like a foolish tourist and fall in the water and get washed out to sea and drown yourself. My God, Rubekowski, what would old Sheriff Boggert and the bartender say to that? Think of the laugh they’d have at your funeral, you old—

And then he heard something he’d hear again and again, many nights, in his worst dreams. A thwock of wood on bone, a heartrending, terrible sound. Only to be surpassed by a worse sound, an awful whiny little dog sound, like a puppy lost and alone.

Rube tried to part the fog as Moses must have the Red Sea. If sheer will had been enough, the night would have cleared. But as it was, Rube just stumbled forward, his hands waving helplessly in front of his body, like a man batting at a smokescreen. His foot stumbled on something, something that was solid and rose at an angle from the ground. He walked up the gangplank, realizing as he did so that he was almost blind. The thought hadn’t cleared his mind when he stumbled over the edge of something and went flailing forward to land on all fours. Pain shot from a knee up through his hip, but he clenched his teeth and kept the whimper to himself. He’d just caught his balance when the boat lurched and he lost it again. What fool would move a boat in this fog, he wondered, grabbing for the deck. He hugged the deck and tried to breathe deep while listening once again for the dog’s whimper. Instead he heard a bell. A buoy marker, he realized. He’d heard them earlier when he was wading. Beneath his body there was a thrumming now, a deep engine sound as the boat moved toward the marker.

This is crazy. He can’t see. He’ll crash and—

As they moved, someone shuffled through the fog. Rube could see a disturbance in the misty textures, like a ghost passing.

Buddy whimpered. A soft, hurt kind of sound. But then it grew and he started to howl.

“I’ll shut ya up.” That awful thwock again.

Silence.

Rube stood. His balance was bad, but he was determined to stay up. He moved toward the last sounds he heard.

The late September onshore breeze picked up and plucked at the fog, thinning it, and light streamed from an open cabin. Rube could see a figure hunched over something. The man’s hand was raised.

A belaying pin, Rube realized, as thick as a man’s forearm and shorter than a Louisville Slugger. The man was waving it above Buddy’s head. Buddy lay on his side, one paw up, as if to defend himself.

“Ya had to have a chunk of me, huh? Again? You’re worse than the little bitch that owned ye. She had to have it all, too. Killing my boy wasn’t enough. She wanted the captain’s boat. My home. My home since Maria died.”

The voice was a slow rave.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t, you see? I had to—”