Something Smells Rotten on King Street

Beaufort County was in the middle of a record breaking heat wave and on top of the sweltering temperatures the locals were tense because several women had mysteriously disappeared. Despite the heat, Sarah shivered as she watched the latest news report on her TV: "Investigators now believe that a cult may be involved in the disappearance of the three women. Each was taken during a full moon, just like tonight, which may mean that the women are being forced to participate in some sort of satanic ritual that may involve human sacrifice."

Sarah's stomach felt queasy at the mere thought of such a thing and she changed the channel refusing to listen to the featured expert who was scheduled to discuss facts about cults. The less I hear about this, the better. I've got enough worries just trying to raise the twins by myself.

The dogs barked warning her she had a visitor. She got up and saw that it was Bill, her next door neighbor. From the scowl on his face she knew he was going to complain about her animals, again. She opened the oak door but kept the screen door closed wanting at least the semblance of a barrier between them. The outside air was steamy and fetid and under other circumstances she would have invited Bill in just to avoid breathing the sickening vapors.

"You've got to stop feeding all those stray cats, Sarah, they're stinking up the whole block and are becoming a real nuisance. Lord knows I've tried to be patient and reason with you but the animal situation has gotten totally out of hand. He held up a paper and pointed to a list of names on the bottom of it. "This is signed by everyone on the block except for Mr. Black. It states that we've warned you to stop feeding strays or further action will be taken. If you don't open the screen door I'm leaving the letter in your mailbox."

"Do what you want but I'm telling you that the smell is coming from Mr. Black's shed, not my animals."

"Yeah right, and Kris Kringel isn't Santa Claus," he retorted, stuffing the letter in her box.

She slammed the door closed harder than she meant to. How could she ever have been friends with that brute? He might be a child psychiatrist but she felt he had shockingly little compassion for her situation since John's death. Oh, he'd still been good to the girls, she'd give him that, but his friendly relationship with her had evaporated when she started getting more animals.

Although she never drank alone, she knew she needed something to calm her down and went into the kitchen opened a bottle of holiday wine left over from Christmastime and poured herself a glass of it. She took glass and bottle into the living room and sat on the couch. Brownie, her beloved black lab, followed her and sat at her feet. He rarely left her side since John had been killed by a drunk driver two days after Christmas. Brownie put his paws on her lap and raised his beautiful face giving her a soulful look. She nuzzled his soft neck and kissed his cheek. "Don't know what I'd do without you. You'll always be my favorite pet, you know that don't you?" He licked her face and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he did know.

He also seemed to be the only one who understood that the hole in her heart needed to be filled and he'd never acted jealous of the other animals she started bringing home after John's death. First came two miniature grey hounds so that the girls would each have their own dog to help them through the grieving process. Then, in February, she found half a dozen abandoned kittens huddled together while she was walking Brownie. The kittens were malnourished and in danger of freezing to death so she took them home and nursed them to health. By then, she was so attached to the kittens that trying to find other homes for them had become unthinkable and she kept them as house pets. In early summer she saw a couple of stray cats in the neighborhood and started setting food out for them. Now there were perhaps a dozen feral cats hanging around her yard especially at night. And as the number of cats had grown her relationship with her neighbors, especially Bill, had become more and more strained.

She did have to concede one thing about Bill's current complaint- there was an odor on King St. that had gotten much worse during the heat wave. In fact, she'd thoroughly searched her yard to see if perhaps one of the feral cats had died and was rotting away, but the only thing she'd discovered was that the odor seemed strongest at the far back corner of her yard where her other neighbor, Mr. Black, had a shed that abutted her own yard. She'd tried to tell Bill that's where the odor was coming from, but he brushed her off refusing to believe it and insisting, "It's from the cats. Mr. Black keeps his yard immaculately clean and well tended, it couldn't be coming from his shed."

Sarah had taken that as a snide remark about her own yard which had become unkempt and overgrown. Everything except caring for the children and her animals seemed overwhelming to her since John's death. Even putting the children to bed was a struggle. John used to tuck them in and spin imaginative tales of guardian angels and the girls would drift off to sleep with smiles on their faces feeling safe and protected. Now they fought drifting into the land of Nod because it often led to nightmares. No one understood how hard things were and now it seemed as if the whole neighborhood was against her. Feeling sorry for herself, she poured another drink and cried until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

Brownie's barking woke her up early in the morning and when he wouldn't settle down she got up and looked outside the window. Half a dozen police cars and a news station van were lined up and down the block. Men wearing surgical masks were dressed in what looked like white "space" suits and were carrying a large black bag across Mr. Black's yard and loading it into a police van. She turned on the local news channel and was stunned by what she heard:

"Acting on a validated tip that Neal Black was the last man seen with two of the missing women, police arrested him last night and obtained a search warrant. A gruesome discovery was made in a shed at the back of his yard and at this time at least 2 dead female bodies have been found. Police said that neighbors had noticed a foul odor recently but had attributed it to the large number of stray cats that were being fed by someone else who lived on the block."

Sarah gasped as the full realization of what the odor was hit her. Dead bodies! She'd been living next door to a killer all this time and hadn't had a clue, not even with the rancid odor! Mr. Black was a strange man- a loner who worked the night shift and never "mingled" with any of the neighbors, never even nodded or returned a hello but being antisocial was a far cry from being a murderer. She was shaken to her core and felt queasy just thinking about what the police were finding so close to her own backyard!

She looked out the window again and saw Bill talking to a cop and then he turned and came up her front walk. She could tell by the ashen look on his face that he was as shaken and bemused by this development as she was and opened the door to let him in. "Are you okay?" he asked. "I feel like such a fool for the horrible way I've been treating you."

She shook her head no and was on the verge of tears but choked them back when she heard the girls come running down the stairs. "There's a bunch of cop cars outside, Mommy!"

"I know," she said, opening her arms and gathering her prescious children close to her chest. How could she ever let them out of her sight again knowing things like this could happen right next door?

To her surprise they turned toward Bill and the outspoken twin, Cindy, started grilling him with questions.

"Are you going to yell at Mommy again?"

"Yell?"

"We heard what you said last night. Did you call the cops to take away our pets?"

His face reddened. "No, no...of course not. I came over this morning to apologize to your mother and we've already made up, haven't we Sarah?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then why are the cops outside?"

"Well now, that's a long story and we can discuss it over breakfast if your mom will let me take you all out to IHOP for pancakes." He looked toward Sarah. "Is that okay with you?"

"Can we go Mommy? Please? Pretty please with cherries on top?"

Oh to be so young, innocent and easily distracted. The girls were obviously thrilled with the invitation. Their faces had a sparkle Sarah hadn't seen in a long time and though the last thing she felt like doing was going out for breakfast, she didn't have the heart to say no. "Sounds good. Go brush your teeth and put on sundresses."

"Yeah!" They bounded up the stairs and Sarah gave Bill an appreciative glance. "Thanks."

He nodded but his face looked very solemn. "They'll still have to be told."

"I know but at least now I have a few more minutes to think of what to say."

"I could help you tell them if you want me to. Right now all they need to know is that the police are here to arrest Mr. Brown because they think he's done a bad thing and are taking him to jail. Hopefully, that'll be enough to satisfy their curiosity but if they ask specific questions, I'll answer it for them, okay?"

His offer made her remember how good he always treated the girls even during the recent dispute over the animals, letting them help him tend his garden and setting up sprinklers for them to run through afterwards. "Thanks, I'd appreciate that." She hesitated, then added, "About the cats..."

"Don't worry about them right now, Sarah. I'll talk to the neighbors. I'm sure everyone will feel as badly as I do about the way we were so quick to blame the animals for the smell."

His compassion broke through her defenses when she saw that he was truly contrite and willing to make amends. "Thanks. I would appreciate that. I do have one question that's been bothering me for quite some time but haven't felt comfortable enough to ask you..."

"Just ask, I promise to listen and not fly off the handle or give you a nasty retort. I know I've been acting like a real jerk, too quick to jump to wrong conclusions."

"Yeah, you have, but the thing that hurt the most was when you told me that my having so many animals and pets around was psychologically unhealthy for the girls. My question is, were you insinuating that it makes me a bad mother?"

She was relieved to see that he adamantly shook his head. "Quite the opposite. I was just trying to get you to see that the girls needed the bulk of your attention now that they no longer have their dad. When you were nursing the kittens with droppers every few hours Emily and Cindy had told me they felt jealous of all the attention you were giving to the kitties. They loved the kitties but wanted more time with you."

His words stabbed at her heart but also enlightened her as she realized, for the first time, that she'd been so wrapped up in caring for the animals that she'd gotten out of touch with how her girls were truly feeling and how much they needed her full attention. She swallowed hard and asked another thing that had been bothering her. "Do you think I'm crazy for being so attached to my animals?"

"I've never known anyone more sane. I think you're just trying to survive an extremely painful time of loss."

She felt her face flush, embarassed by all the bad thoughts she'd been having about his lack of compassion. The sound of the twins' excited voices wafting down the stairs interrupted her current thoughts and put her focus back on the girls.

"I'm gonna have a waffle."

"Me too, with blueberries on top."

Bill smiled, "Sounds like they're almost dressed and anxious to get going. I'll be back in 10 minutes to pick you all up."

She smiled back, suddenly self-conscious that she was still in her pajamas. He let himself out the door and after checking on the girls, she went to her bedroom to pick out something to wear. She saw a bright yellow sundress that John had given her last Christmas and reached for it thinking about the half dozen similar dresses that he'd wrapped into a large box along with plane tickets for a winter vacation to Costa Rica. It was supposed to be a second honeymoon and he'd even arranged for his mother to take care of the girls. Sadly, it was a trip that had never happened and until today she'd been too heartbroken to wear any of the dresses.

She wasn't ready for another romantic relationship but her heart felt light enough to put on a bright dress, at least she momentarily thought so until, dress in hand, she looked out the window and caught a glimpse of the men in the white suits taking out another body. A moment of relief that the killer had been found was quickly followed by a disturbing thought- if the killings had indeed been part of a cult it meant there were still others in the community that had aided in this crime.

She put the yellow sundress back and reached for a black skirt and white cotton blouse, two colors that had become like a uniform since John's death. The only thing that was different this morning was that she put some make-up on. The girls came in just as she was blotting her lips.

"You look beautiful, Mommy."

"Thanks, sweethearts, so do you." And it was true. They looked like little angels in their flowered dresses and matching daisy sandals, their own Christmas presents from Daddy who had wanted all his "girls" to be beautiful and happy.