LITMIR.BIZ

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a little, his head cocked to one side as he watches Danny sobbing on the floor. I undo his leash and quietly say, “Go to him.”

      Roscoe drops down and does a belly crawl toward Danny, nuzzling his nose against Danny’s feet. Danny drops the slapping hand and looks at Roscoe with his tear-stained face. A hint of a smile forms on one side of his mouth. Roscoe sees it, too, and he gets up and sniffs around Danny’s face for a few seconds before gently licking one salty tear that’s about to drop from his jawline.

      I’m not sure how Danny will react to this and my muscles tense. I’m ready to call Roscoe back if need be, but a moment later I see it won’t be necessary. Danny reaches up and strokes Roscoe’s furry head, eyeing him with affection. With one long, shuddering breath all the tension leaks out of Danny’s body. Roscoe thumps his tail, lies down, and rests his chin on one of Danny’s knees.

      Devo holsters his Taser, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. As Danny strokes Roscoe’s head, I can see that his eyes look calmer and his muscles are more relaxed. After a minute or two, Danny lies down on the floor, stretching his body out alongside Roscoe’s.

      I look past Danny to Allie and Joel and, with a sideways motion of my head, gesture toward the kitchen, which is just off the living room. I say to Devo, “Let’s talk to his sister. He’ll be fine, and we can keep an eye on him from the other room.”

      Devo nods and we all make our way into the kitchen. Allie gestures toward a small table, the surface of which is nearly covered by a large bowl filled with fresh fruit—oranges, kiwis, apples, bananas, and grapes—and says, “Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

      “I’m fine here,” I say. There are only two chairs around the table, and I figure Allie and Joel might need to sit in them. “I want to stay where I can keep an eye on Danny.”

      “Me, too,” Devo says, positioning himself directly across from me on the other side of the doorway.

      Joel walks over to the fridge and says, “I’m going to have a beer. Allie?”

      Allie shakes her head. “I’m on call. I’ll take a cream soda, though.”

      As Joel removes the drinks from the fridge, I gesture toward him with a nod and give Allie a questioning look.

      “Oh, sorry,” she says with an apologetic grin. “I should have introduced you.” She gestures toward Joel. “This is Joel Niedermeyer. He’s my fiancé.” She proffers her left hand and shows me the small diamond on her ring finger, smiling at it for a few seconds before continuing. “And this is Hildy Schneider, the social worker I told you about.”

      “Congratulations,” I say to the two of them. “You are a lucky guy, Joel.”

      Joel walks over and hands Allie her soda, then comes over to me and extends his free hand for a shake. “Don’t I know it,” he says with a smile. I take the offered hand, trying not to wince at the clammy wetness of his palm from holding the cold can of soda. “Allie has mentioned you. She says you’ve been a big help to her and Danny in the past. We really appreciate that.”

      “Well, that’s what we social workers do,” I say, using all my willpower to not yank my hand away from him. When he finally releases me, I quickly wipe my palm on my pants as surreptitiously as I can. What I want to do is run over to the sink and stick my hand beneath a full-running faucet with water as hot as I can stand and then scrub it with soap. It’s my OCD kicking in and I work at subduing the urge. I’m so focused, in fact, that I don’t hear any of the introductory exchange between Devo and Joel until Joel says, “Hell of a way to meet you folks.”

      I try to keep my attention on the topic at hand, focusing on Allie’s hand instead of mine. “So, when’s the big day?” I ask her.

      “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, popping the tab on her drink can. “I need to get Danny straight before I can even begin to think about planning something like that.” She looks at Joel and smiles. “Joel is living here with us now, to help out.”

      Joel reaches over and massages one of her shoulders, then he leans in and kisses her on the temple. “She doesn’t accept my help as much as I wish she would,” he says, looking at Allie with an adoring smile.

      “Tell us what happened,” I say to Allie. “What led to you calling us tonight?”

      Allie leans back against the counter in front of the sink and takes a drink of her soda, squeezing her eyes closed as she swallows. Joel walks over to the table and settles sideways into a chair, his long legs extended out and crossed at the ankle. Holding his beer in one hand, he raises it toward Allie and says, “Go ahead, hon, tell these people what happened. I would, but I’m not sure I fully understand it.” He looks at me and adds, “I didn’t hear or see the start of all this. I’m a nurse and I work the evening shift at the Sunrise Nursing Home. I got home right before you guys showed up.”

      Allie takes another gulp of her soda, and then, with a deep, bracing breath, begins. “Danny came home from a walk about ten minutes before I called you. He takes long strolls nearly every night now, and for a while it seemed like it was helping him, you know?” She gives me a look as if she’s appealing for my understanding, so I nod. “Anyway, something clearly happened tonight that set him off, though to be honest he’s been off for the past two nights. I could tell something was bothering him and I asked him yesterday, but all he said was that he was tired and thought maybe he was coming down with a cold or something.”

      “Was he displaying the usual behaviors that precede one of his episodes?”

      Allie frowns and shakes her head. “Not really, no. He’s been oddly sullen and withdrawn, and he seems to be unusually scatterbrained. That’s not like him. Then tonight he came in from his walk and he was all wild and panicky. He was as pale as a ghost, which is ironic I suppose, because he started ranting about seeing one, saying that this ghost was after him, that it wanted him dead.”

      She pauses, taking another drink of her soda. Then she sets the can down on the counter and crosses her arms in front of her. “He kept saying that he saw someone get killed and didn’t do anything about it. And now the ghost of the man who was killed is haunting him.” She sighs and shakes her head, a mirthless smile on her face. “I tried to calm him down, telling him there was no such thing as ghosts, reminding him that I should know given my line of work.”

      Devo looks at me, eyebrows raised in question.

      “She works at the Olson Funeral Home,” I explain.

      “I mostly do funeral planning,” Allie tells him. “You know, meeting with families to help them figure out the specifics. Sometimes it’s preplanning, older folks who come in and want to make arrangements ahead of time, so their family won’t have to deal with it. There’s a lot to it from choosing between burial and cremation, picking out a casket, deciding what clothes the deceased will wear, choosing the burial plot location, and of course, the fees associated with all of that. It can get intense at times.”

      “I can imagine,” Devo says.

      “Anyway,” Allie goes on, “I kept trying to convince Danny that whatever he had seen, it wasn’t a ghost. But he kept escalating, and then he started talking about needing to run and hide. The last time he said something like that he ran off and lived in the woods on the north side of town for two weeks. By the time we found him he’d been half-eaten alive by bugs, lost thirty pounds, and his illness was way out of control because he hadn’t been taking his meds. We had to have him admitted to a psychiatric hospital for three months to get him back on track, and I don’t want to have to go through anything like that again.”

      “I remember that episode,” I say. “It was my first encounter with Danny. And Allie is right. He was in really rough shape that time.”

      “Maybe he should have stayed in the psych hospital,” Devo says, sotto voce, glancing back into the living room. “At the very least he should be in a halfway house where he can be monitored and cared for by people who know what they’re doing.”

      “I

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