The Pink Flamingo

She ran all the way to the end, stood at the mouth of the Nestucca River, and watched several salmon swim past. Even if it was late in the spawning season, they still headed upstream, hoping to contribute to the next generation. She had never picked up fishing. She liked to eat fish, although the Zen art of fishing never got through to her. During her first fall and winter in Oregon, she had gone salmon fishing twice in the rivers: once with Bruce, and once with several other patrol deputies who were avid fishermen and who had reached out to the new female deputy. She hadn’t caught anything. She was glad because she wasn’t sure what she’d do with twenty or more pounds of fish if she’d caught one.

Goodbye, fish, she thought, and good luck on your return to wherever you hatched. You know your place in the world and where you think of as home.

She started to feel chilled from the wind penetrating her sweaty clothes and she headed back north. She jogged to warm up and then walked the last mile and left the beach well before the closest approach to her house so she could walk through the neighborhoods. She noted the houses, how prosperous they looked as potential burglary targets, and cars that might indicate the number of residents. She also used the time to go over, for the umpteenth time, details of the Toompas case.

She walked several blocks, her mind hardly observing what she passed, when something jolted her. She stopped to look back. She didn’t know why, but she knew she needed to backtrack. She retraced her steps, casting her eyes to both sides of the street, as she tried to bring to the surface . . . something.

She stopped in front of a small house, one of the smallest on the street. A section of lawn separated the sidewalk from a wide flowerbed in front of the entire house. The plants in the bed were mainly quiescent for the winter with a few flowers she didn’t recognize and some she did. A few still bloomed. On one side of the walkway was a stone angel standing in a bed of petunias fighting a battle against the winter and snails. On the other side of the walkway, standing above yellow and red pansies, were three plastic pink flamingos.

She stood for almost a minute, staring. No specific thoughts ran through her mind. Sweat still beaded down her face from her jog. One of the flamingos stared back at her. It was different from the other two. Those two were a brighter pink plastic; the third was a faded pink, as if out in the weather much longer. Its neck and head appeared to be chewed on.

She licked her lips.

No way, she thought incredulously.

She quickly walked home. She deliberately took her time in the shower, toweled off, pulled on a robe, and scrambled two eggs to go with toast and tea. While she ate, she pulled up CNN news on her laptop and scanned the morning’s top stories, although from one story to the next she couldn’t have summarized the earlier one. Finished with breakfast and pretending to read the news, she dressed for work and drove the four blocks to the Home of the Pink Flamingos.

A short, portly woman in her seventies answered the door and widened her eyes when she saw a uniformed officer more than a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier than she was.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m Sheriff’s Deputy Greta Havorsford. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your flamingos.”

Greta felt like giggling at the question. She hadn’t heard that one on Law and Order, Blue Bloods, or any CSI shows.

The woman put a small arthritic hand to her cheek. “Oh, my! Have you found Sophie?”

&nbs

p; “Sophie?”

“Sophie. My flamingo. Harold gave them to me on our tenth wedding anniversary. They’ve been out front ever since. Almost thirty years until Sophie disappeared last year. Edward has been so lonesome.”

“Edward?”

Greta felt her repartee choices dwindling by the moment.

“Yes, poor Edward. He and Sophie were together all those years. When she disappeared, neither he nor I knew what to do. When she didn’t come back, I knew he would be too lonesome, so I bought two more. I really only needed a girl flamingo, but they only sell them in pairs. I haven’t named the new ones yet because I don’t know which is the male and which the female. Harold knew about Sophie and Edward, but I can’t tell with the new ones.”

The woman paused and looked up at Greta. “Maybe you can tell the difference?”

“I’ll take another look when I leave,” Greta said faintly, with a surrealistic feeling. “Do you remember when the fla . . . er . . . Sophie disappeared?”

“Last year. I don’t remember the exact date. I know I called your department that very day to report her missing.”

Am I in the Twilight Zone or something? Greta wondered.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t ask your name.”

“Muriel Pastorini. Me and Harold lived here for forty years. Well, the two of us for thirty-six years. I’ve been alone the last four years, except for Edward and Sophie.”

“Mrs. Pastorini, I noticed that . . . uh . . . Edward seems to have chew marks or something.”

Mrs. Pastorini frowned. “It was that dreadful Paula Merkins. She won’t control Ringo.”

“Ringo?”

“Ringo. That big ugly dog of hers. Some kind of sheepdog or something. Big shaggy thing that sheds clumps of hair everywhere. I complained about him chewing on Edward and Sophie several times. I also called the sheriff and talked to a very nice man on the phone, but no one ever came out to investigate.”

Greta knew that whoever took the call probably chalked the woman up as a wacko and forgot about it. For once, she couldn’t find major fault with Wallace’s or whoever’s reaction.