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With a note of cheery sadism in her voice, the woman added, "A raccoon's neck isn't too thick. All you need is an ordinary garden spade or a shovel with a good edge. I don't recommend an axe because the head has to be intact. And if you swing and miss, it could mess up the brain. If you do it, I suggest you get to it soon because I'm leaving for the state lab at eleven-thirty. One more thing. Use rubber gloves." |
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Terry hung up. She called Calvin and told him, but he was on his way to class and wouldn't be free until late that afternoon. She called the police, but the sergeant regretted he couldn't spare anyone to deliver the carcass. She even called the state labs in Jamaica Plain, but the head of epidemiology said they didn't make house calls. The procedure was just as the animal inspector had advised: remove the head, pack it in ice and deliver it herself. |
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She went back outside, worried that the male might spring at her from the woods. But there was no sign of him. She went back to the house, doubled up some plastic trashbags and filled them with ice. Then, fighting the egg of nausea rising in her throat, she got the garden spade and a small rake. The blade was a little dull, so she honed it with the file she used on Matty's ice skates. |
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She forced herself not to look at the torso. The animal's head was back, its mouth in a frozen gape, the lower jaw poking at the sky. Gently she wedged the spade into the exposed fleece of the throat, thinking that this had to be the most sickening act of her life. For a moment she feared she could not go through with it. But she knew she had no choice. She couldn't use her foot for fear that blood would geyser onto her. She got a lawn chair, placed it over the carcass, then stood on the chair and with a hammer drove the blade down, concentrating on the end of the spade handle and the hammer. |
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The first blow was weak because she feared that some residual reflex would make the body jerk and she knew that would send her off. Gratefully, there was none, and on the third blow she felt the blade guillotine with a sickening crack through the neck bones. Still on the chair, she took the rake and worked the tines under the head. She swallowed hard and with a clean movement deposited it into the bag and tied a twist around it. |
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Before she left for town hall, she buried the remains of the rac- |
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