On May 12th Fred Trapp, age 38, shot his dog in the backyard. The weapon was an unremarkable 9 mm Glock, discharged only once. The dog was a three year-old Labrador/Irish Setter mix, a female named Sammie, who had lived with the Trapp family for just over eighteen months. She was killed instantly. It being a weekday the two Trapp children, Argus and Mia, were away at school and most of the neighbors were at work, leaving few in the area to hear the gun’s report. However, Mara White, the elderly mother of Trapp’s next door neighbor, was visiting that day, and called the Avondale police to report the gunfire next door.
It was the second time in three weeks police had been called to the address in Crystal Gardens. The first had come on April 24th, when neighbors reported a loud argument taking place within the house, along with sounds suggesting an altercation. The house was quiet when the responding officers arrived. They were greeted cordially by Amanda Trapp, assured that everything was fine, and offered a bottle of beer by Fred, which they declined as they were on duty. Their incident report noted that Fred Trapp appeared intoxicated, but there were no obvious signs of violence about the house or the couple.
On April 28th Alicia Alvarez, who lived across the street from the Trapps, looked up from her bougainvillea and saw Amanda loading a large suitcase into the back of a car which Alicia had never seen before. Alicia had never cared much for Amanda, thinking her aloof and abrasive; Amanda had turned down three of her invitations to her monthly book club, and showed no interest in the workings of the Homeowners’ Association. Fred, on the other hand, attended HOA meetings at least every other month, and he and Alicia were on good terms. She waited for Amanda to leave in the unfamiliar automobile before setting her pruning shears down on the stuccoed windowsill of the front study and ambling across the street, pulling off her gardening gloves as she walked. She knocked lightly, noticing as she did that several large patches of spotted spurge had spread across the gravel on either side of the front walk. It was unlike Fred to allow such a thing in his yard. He answered the door wearing light chinos, a green polo shirt, and brown pennies that matched his belt. She noted, not for the first time, that he was in exceptionally good shape. He ran with the dog almost every night, four or five miles, he’d once said.
“Everything okay over here, Fred?”
“Sure, why?”
“I just saw Amanda drive off. You guys get a new car?”
“Oh, that. No, that’s nothing. She’s going to Sedona with some friends.”
“Sedona, huh?”
“Spa trip, I guess, I don’t really know.”
“It’s nice up there.”
“Yeah.”
He turned away from her, appeared to be looking at something inside the house hidden from her view. She noticed he was going a little gray at the temples. It suited him.
“Okay. Kids doing all right?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t they be?”
“That’s good.” He was rocking back on his heels, stabilizing himself on the doorknob. In, out, in, out. She searched for the phrase that would make him invite her in, offer a glass of something to her, as he had in the past, but his face was a stone mask of impatience, and the words were not coming.
“Well,” she said, “as long as everything’s all right.”
“I’ll see you at the meeting on Tuesday,” he said, already closing the door.
“You bet,” she turned away, saying over her shoulder, “Maybe we can discuss these weeds of yours.” Alicia had meant it as a joke, but the slamming door behind made her uneasy. She quick-stepped away from the house, glancing back over her shoulder, and was sure for a minute that she saw Fred watching her from the window of his study.
Fred did not appear at the May 1st meeting of the HOA. He was seen around the neighborhood running with Sammie in the evenings, but those that were accustomed to seeing him found him more reserved, even hostile, than usual. A raised hand of greeting was ignored, a jocular “Hey, Freddy!” was returned with a grunt and a stony stare. A rumor went around that Amanda had left him and taken the kids. That was easily refuted, as they were still standing at the school bus stop every morning, and Amanda was seen crouching on the front lawn, adjusting the sprinklers, though the strange car appeared four more times in the two weeks following Alicia Alvarez’s first sighting. Another rumor that the Trapps were underwater on that beautiful house was less easily dismissed, and led some to shake their heads sympathetically and others to observe that it was really more house than four people needed. But it was none of their business, and was not mentioned in front of either of the Trapps.
On May 8th, Fred bumped into Thomas Watt, the contractor who lived two doors down, in front of the butcher’s counter at Fresh & Easy. Fred was carrying a case of Miller under his arm and wearing khaki shorts that made obvious the knee brace he was wearing. Thomas commented on it. “It’s the damn dog,” Fred said, “she sleeps on my legs at night, thinks she’s a puppy still. It’s hyperextended, keeps popping out.”
“Why don’t you kick her out of bed?” Thomas asked reasonably, stacking in his cart two large boxes of frozen hamburger patties for the upcoming weekend block party.
“Mandy won’t let me,” was the mumbled reply. Fred looked morose for a moment while his neighbor tried not to notice. He rallied a bit, said “Hell, it doesn’t bother me all that much anyway, she’s just a dumb dog, right?” patted Thomas on the shoulder, and headed off to the check-out, beer balanced on his shoulder. He was limping slightly.
The block party was scheduled for the 11th, a Sunday. In past years, neighbors had gathered in the cul-de-sac at the end of Palm Lane and sat in camp chairs squinting in the setting sun while Perry Myvold pulled the great hulking iron grill onto the pavement and seared off pounds of hamburgers and a good linear mile of Johnsonville Brats. This year Perry had prevailed upon the powers that were to allow them the use of Kirby Park, and even turn off the automatic sprinklers for the evening. So they assembled under the palm trees and the grill was loaded onto Perry’s white pickup truck for the short trip to the carefully groomed lawn. Fred and Amanda appeared at about six o’clock, beer in tow, children absent.
“Freddy!” Perry shouted as they approached, fulfilling his duties as the de facto community mayor and organizer, he put a still-muscular ex-marine’s arm across his neighbor’s shoulders and led him away from his wife, who merged with one of the knots of neighborhood wives and began comparing labor and delivery stories (the female equivalent of the NFL). Perry was aware of Fred’s distance, of the still-encroaching weeds in his front lawn, of Amanda’s mysterious trips, as he was aware of most things that took place within three hundred yards of his house, and was determined to flush out his reticent neighbor. They moseyed over to the grill. Fred was handed a spatula and dutifully began flipping burgers.
“How’s business, Freddo?”
“Can’t complain,” Fred kept his eyes firmly on the slowly graying meat in front of him, though the smoke was making them water.
“Kids okay?”
Fred nodded and was silent for a minute as he scooped a finished patty up and deposited it in a nearby warming tray.
“Mia wants me to make her a volcano for science class.”
“Fun project.”
“My dad made one for me when I was her age, I guess. I’ll be damned if I know how he did it, though.”
“Ah, it’s easy. Just look it up online, or I can help you if you want.”
Again Fred was silent. Perry studied him, sideways out of his peripheral vision, and arrived at the conclusion that the taller man resembled a papier-mâché volcano himself. He had seen such men during his time in the corps, one young corporal he’d known had gone off the deep end one night, beaten the shit out of his girlfriend, and then thrown himself in front of a Humvee. Perry hadn’t seen that one coming, but now knew the signs, and was wondering what he could do to relieve the pressure he could sense building under Fred’s mountain. Where was the hidden packet of baking soda? The little reservoir of vinegar and red food dye?
“Saw Argus on the lake the other day, getting pretty good on that boat of his.”
“He flipped it the other day, nearly split the hull.”
“He get it back up okay?”
“Eventually, yes.”
“Well accidents happen.”
“Not to four thousand dollar Sunfish they don’t. Better not.”
“Listen, Fred,” Perry said, leaning over toward his fellow grill man but still not making eye contact, “You know if there’s anything you need...”
“Like what?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, like help with the HOA or anything like that? I’ll bet you’ve gotten some notices about your yard, right? I can get you some time to get those things cleared up. You know, get them off of your back.”
Fred turned and stared at the older man. His yard. His goddamn yard? Well, yes, the goddamn yard, the goddamn science fair, the goddamn boat, and the goddamn dog. Could Perry help with all of those things? He wanted to take that friendly, shaved-Santa face and squeeze it until the ears popped off. Instead he shrugged, and said, “Nah, thanks, I’ve got it under control.” And when Perry turned away, under his breath, “Fuck ‘em anyway.”
The next morning Fred Trapp took a day off from work, made sure that the kids got on the school bus on time, raked his front yard, and pulled up the spreading spurge. Amanda had vanished sometime after the block party broke up, saying something about “wine with the girls”, and had not returned. He let Sammie out to piss and followed her out onto the patchy lawn that never seemed to get any greener. He stood for a moment with the Glock cozied lightly in his right hand, and looked at the gravel that rimmed the yard, also beginning to sprout weeds. Once Sammie had fully relieved herself, he shot her.
When the police arrived to investigate the gunshot he met them at the front door, not even waiting for them to ring the bell, a glass of lemonade in hand. He offered some to the officers, they refused. He cheerfully admitted shooting his pet and explained how he’d buried her behind the vegetable garden if they wanted to check. The gun he left sitting out on his granite kitchen counter. Fred was arrested and booked on charges of cruelty to animals and illegally discharging a firearm.
Mia and Argus were staring at him, each face a rictus of undisguised hatred, when he stood later up to answer the judge’s questions. Amanda sat behind them, looking bored and seething with contempt. When the judge asked Fred why he had slaughtered the family pet in cold blood, it was Amanda’s eyes he found. He could tell the judge about wine with the girls, about the strange car, about the trip to Sedona, without him. He could tell him about the boat that his son had never thanked him for, and wrecked as casually as he stomped the ants on the back patio. He might mention his daughter, and the volcano that he didn’t know how to build, and frankly didn’t care to learn. He held his wife’s gaze for a moment, before she looked away and he turned back to the judge.
He answered, “She wouldn’t get off of my legs.”
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