The next day, as I was taking my nap, Dagmar showed up again and woke me.
“The cops came and talked to me.” She was wringing her hands. “I think they think I had something to do with it.”
I laughed and half shouted, “THAT’S PREPOSTEROUS!” (I really didn’t say that. Who the hell says that? But I said the equivalent. Probably something like, “That’s stupid!”)
I told her not to worry about it, that they’d figure out she wasn’t involved and move on.
Dagmar left and I went to work.
The next day, she came over again and woke me up. I was really aggravated. I told her this was my nap time and she was fucking up my mojo.
“I really think I’m in trouble,” she told me, “Because I lied to the cops.”
“You lied, about what,” I asked, no longer aggravated but intrigued.
“I told them I hadn’t seen or talked to Ted for a few days, but really that night I went by his office and his back window was broken. I reached in the window to see if I could unlock the door, and I got a little cut on my wrist,” she said, showing me a tiny red line. “I’m worried that if they find that blood, they’ll think I had something to do with it.”
“Why the hell did you lie? That was stupid,” I told her.
“I don’t know. I was scared,” she said.
“Why are they even coming and talking to you,” I asked.
“Because he sent me a Valentine’s Day card, but he put the wrong address on it and it went back to his office” she replied.
Now this was getting really interesting. And not the kind of interesting you people think. I was actually excited to know that Dagmar was dating someone.
“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” I said all singsongy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he was black,” she said.
“So,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said smiling, “I thought you would think it was wrong.”
It was then that I, sleuth Heidenrich, found this the kind of interesting you people think it is. Some guy she was dating was killed three days before and here she was smiling about him.
“So the guy you were seeing was shot to death in his office, and you went by there the night he was murdered and cut yourself on a broken window?” I said. “Yeah, you better tell the cops that. They are going to find that blood.”
Dagmar agreed. She asked to use the phone and she called her mother for money for an attorney. Amazingly, her prepaid attorney thing didn’t offer murder attorneys.
For the next few days I didn’t see or hear from Dagmar.
And then one day she showed up again during my naptime.
“I’m going out of town the next Friday. And I need you to feed my dogs,” she told me. She said she had this weekend job where she was some sort of skiing tour guide and she had to take a busload of tourists to some mountain resort for the weekend.
I told her I would feed the dogs.
“Have you heard from the cops again,” I asked.
“No,” she said.
She handed me a spare key to her place and told me the dog food was in the kitchen.
Every Thursday, my girlfriend who owns the restaurant would take me and the kids shopping. We’d go to the mall, then have dinner, and make our way back to her restaurant.
On the following Thursday, we were returning from our shopping trip when Lenny the cook came out from the kitchen.
“Some woman keeps calling here for you,” he said, wiping his hand on his grease stained apron and pulled out a phone number from the pocket.”She’s called like four times.”
It was Dagmar’s number.
I popped some coins into the payphone.
“Hello,” I heard faintly on the other end.
Immediately I became worried.
“Dagmar, what’s up. You don’t sound good.”
“I need you to come here right now,” she said.
“What the hell is wrong,” I asked. She sounded so creepy I began to panic.
“I think I have to go to the hospital.”
“Dagmar! What did you do!”
“Please, you need to come here,” she begged.”The back door is open.”
I hung up and called my dad to tell him what Dagmar said. He told my stepmom.
From the background I could hear Rose yelling, “Don’t you go over there!”
“That Dagmar’s crazy,” my father said.
I told him to ask Rose to go with me.
“I ain’t going over there.” She said.
So I went alone.
It was about 7 p.m. and pretty dark outside.
Dagmar’s alley was filled with garbage. Her back gate was locked.
I scaled this ridiculously high cinderblock wall and twisted my ankle jumping down.
Her five big dogs came running out barking and growling and nipping at me. My dog danced happily at my feet.
I waded through them all and went into the kitchen.
“Dagmar!” I yelled.
No answer.
The house smelled awful, like wet dog, and I tried to find a light switch, but couldn’t. It was dark as hell in there, with the only light coming through the front window from the street.
“Dagmar!” I yelled again, swatting the dogs away, and limping into bedroom. It was empty. The only other place to look was her basement.
I started down the stairs, still calling for her when, from the back I heard, “I’m over here.”
I stumbled through clothes hanging from pipes and over boxes and kennels until I could make the faint outline of her body lying on the floor.
“Where’s the goddamned light!” I growled.
She told me to feel on the ceiling. My hands landed on a naked light bulb and I pulled the string. Light flooded the basement.
And lying on a carpet remnant at my feet was Dagmar covered in blood.
“You have to take me to the hospital,” she said, half smiling.
“What the fuck,” I said, staring at her wrist. It looked like ground meat.
“I tried to kill myself, but it didn’t work” she smiled.
I didn’t know what to do. Should I call an ambulance? How long would that take? I guess I could just drive her. Johns Hopkins was right up the street. Yeah, that would be quicker, I’ll drive her.
She had on a pajama top, underwear and no pants.
I’ll have to get her dressed.
I was panicked, pacing back and forth and cussing. I still dont’ know why, but I was so pissed.
“Get the fuck up,” I ordered, but she couldn’t.
“Where are your fucking clothes!”
I ran into the basement bathroom, and in the bathtub there were crusted pools of blood and a serrated bread knife.
That sight me me even angrier.
I called her stupid and screamed at her for calling me. The goddamn dogs were all over the place, tripping me up and still barking.
I pulled her to her feet and helped her to the front of the basement which she used as an office. She told me where the light switch was, and I hit it.
Dagmar stood there, her hand dangling from her wrist. Her smile was still there, but it was apologetic.
“I’m sorry,” she said ” I wasn’t supposed to wake up.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the gaping wound, crosslength on her wrist. It was no longer bleeding.
“That’s not how you cut your fucking wrist you idiot. You cut the other damn way!” I snapped.
I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and practically had to lift Dagmar to get them on her. I slipped some loafers onto her feet, then grabbed a sweater and put it over her shoulders. For a split second I started to put the sweater on her, but realized there was no way I could get that mangled arm through the sleeve.
I helped her up the stairs, found her car keys on the table, and put her in her car.
I cursed her the entire 20 blocks to the hospital.
She told me that earlier that morning she decided it was time to kill herself, so she got into her bathtub and started practicing on her right arm.
She held out her arm and showed me the six or seven superficial cut marks.
After doing that for a bit, she finally got up the courage to really do it. She raised that big old bread knife and zipped it through her right wrist.
“God that hurt,” she said. From the blood loss or pain, she blacked out.
Seven hours later, she woke up and called me when she realized she wasn’t going to die and couldn’t get herself to the hospital.
“I can’t even kill myself,” she said with a half laugh.
She was amazingly chipper, considering the fact that I thought they’d have to amputate her hand.
At the hospital, we walked up to the nurse at the counter and I told her what was going on. She told us to take a seat.
We probably sat there for about 20 minutes in mostly silence except for an occasional loopy comment from Dagmar.
“The plan was that you would find me when you came to check on the dogs,” she said looking sweetly at me.
“You’re an ass,” I hissed, “By then the damn dogs would have eaten you.”
She babbled on some more about how she had thought of asking me to get her some pills.
I shushed her.
Then I heard “Plop. Plop. Plop.”
I looked over and blood was pouring from her wrist. The droplets were smacking onto the linoleum floor and were so thick that when they landed, the blood made little splatter patterns around them.
I jumped up and ran over to a nurse.
“She’s bleeding to death! Can we get a doctor.”
The nurse yawned as if to say, this is Baltimore, lady, you’re friend is better off then most of the people that come in here.
“You’re next,” she said, waving a long, curled sparkling fingernail at me.
We sat there until some woman came over and took us to a desk for paperwork.
She asked about insurance and I had to get Dagmar’s card out of her wallet. Dagmar was bleeding to death in the chair next to me, going on and on about pills and killing herself and giggling.
The woman was typing like a letter a minute. I huffed and sighed, and crossed and uncrossed my legs and scowled wide eyed at the woman as she swam through molasses.
A nurse came and took us into a little curtained off room and we sat there for a just a minute before some young kid doctor came in.
“I have to go home to my kids. Please don’t release her. Keep her here,” I whispered to him after he checked Dagmar out.
He said Dagmar would have to go into surgery and she would stay the night. He was very kind and put his hand on my shoulder and told me it would be OK if I went home.
So I left, muttering to myself in the car.
I went the restaurant and told Bangs what had happened, and then I remembered the dogs. I couldn’t just leave the dogs there, unkenneled with the back door open. I was going to have to go back there to and lock them up.
The dishwasher agreed to go with me.
By the light from the basement, we made our way through the living room, and down the stairs. The dogs followed and Mark and I grabbed each as it walked by and put it into a kennel.
As we were heading back up the stairs to leave, I noticed the screensaver was going on Dagmar’s computer.
“Wait a minute,” I said, and hopped off the stair. I walked over to the computer and hit the space bar.
Up popped a letter.
I do not want to live anymore. I have not killed Ted and have lied.
I will go to jail and my prints are there and my blood is there.
I did not kill him.
There is something very strange going on. I do not want to live.
I cannot take the pain of horrible things people do.
Dagmar rambled on some more about her failed relationships. She talked about what a jerk her last boyfriend was because he wouldn’t have a baby with her.
Suddenly, I was spooked.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” I said and Mark and I scrambled up the stairs and out of the house.
