Episode 8: A Dog Named Jesus

“Shall we go for a ramble, Jesus?”

Jesus wags his tail gently in the affirmative. There must have been a time when that tail was practically lethal, but now everything he does is gentle. If I’d said Shall we take over the world in a bloody coup? I imagine he’d turn his kind, intelligent eyes to me and give the dogly equivalent of If you like . . . .

He doesn’t really need my company when the goal is to go out and do his business, but since getting the eviction notice I’ve tried to be a better “puppy parent” (as the kids are calling it these days). I join him on his walks, biodegradable poop bags in my pocket, leash in hand in case a need arises to pretend we (Jesus and I) are in compliance with leash laws.

Once again, I’ve started in the middle, so let me back up and explain that Jesus isn’t my dog in any traditional sense. Some tenant in Unit 4 brought him in, years ago. Yes, that was and remains a violation of the apartment rules, but Looser Island isn’t really a rules-following kind of place. As far as I know, no one has ever raised an objection, or even so much as raised an eyebrow. Until now, of course.

That was at least three tenants ago, but every time a tenant moved out Jesus refused to move with him, or her, or them. I don’t know if each prior tenant actively passed the baton of ownership, all I know is that Jim, the Water District Engineer slash graphic novelist with the ridiculously-named Boxer, approached me as I was lugging my boxes in and explained the situation. He told me he always took care of Jesus in between tenants, and asked if I was willing to take on the task. I took one look at the beautiful black German Shepherd and said yes without skipping a beat. I’ve always loved dogs and Jesus is especially easy to love.

He’s been my faithful companion ever since, and no stupid eviction notice was ever going to separate us.

Reminders

Find links to the Episodes in order in the Table of Contents here (new episodes added within a day or two of posting). Find the Cast of Characters here. Both links and Cast of Characters are also available on The Dogs of Looser Island website www.alaughingdog.com.

© Shari Lane 2026 All Rights Reserved

Back to my story. I’m tempted to stay inside on this cold December day, let Jesus do his thing without me, but I feel restless, and uneasy, and discombobulated, and I’m hoping a walk through the village will help.

You see, I was the one who found the body in Unit 2, and I was the one who made the anonymous call to the Sheriff’s office, and told them I thought someone should check Theresa Scowager’s apartment.

I can’t think of any reason to hide it here. This is my story, and though I always imagine someone reading my history, someday, I can’t think of anyone who might want to peruse my memories, so that’s probably delusional. Other than readers of the Looser Island Bulletin (and, back in the day, Chronicle readers of my reviews of Blue’s shows), no one has ever expressed any interest in my scribblings, so it’s extremely unlikely anyone will read what I’ve written in these pages.

But even if it’s pointless, I’m going to continue as I began so many years ago: at the end of every day, I sit down with a cup of tea, a good ball point pen, and a lined notebook, and I spill my guts. Mundane tidbits and embarrassing secrets (I hate spinach salad, unless it’s loaded with bacon bits and candied walnuts, which kind of defeats the point), and every other detail of the day. Until recently, those recollections have been the very definition of humdrum.

Every so often I go back through some of my journals, not just the most recent but also some of the older notebooks, and I add to the continuing saga that may someday be known as The Life of Genevieve “Vivvie” Macy, 1969 - ???

Who would ever want to read that saga?

Well, I can think of one person, but I don’t know where she is, and she doesn’t know where I am, so I remain pretty darn confident that no one will read these words, which is why I feel comfortable disclosing, here and only here, in this memoir-ish summary of my journals to date, that I was the one who found the body in Theresa’s apartment.

More background for you. I moved into the apartments about four years ago, after the owner of the house I’d been living in sold the property. I was still learning my new CNA duties at the time, so it was a lot of change for me, all at once. I soldiered on. Anyway, a few weeks after I moved in, a woman who lived in the unit above me locked herself out, and on a whim we tried my key on her door. It worked. So we went around and knocked on other people’s doors, and asked if they’d mind if we tried my key, and they all said sure. As best we can tell, apparently all the locks are the same, and all our keys work on all the doors. You (my fictional reader) might think I’d care, but I don’t. I have nothing worth stealing, and I’ve always felt safe from psychos and murderers, here on the island.

Strike that. Reverse it. I used to feel safe, until I found a dead body in Theresa’s apartment.

Here’s another bit of background that is important to my current situation. When Theresa deigns to visit, she stays at the Breckenridge Inn. She wouldn’t be caught dead actually living in the apartments she supposedly manages. Pun/double entendre intended. And she rarely, if ever, responds when there’s a problem.

So, after we complained about the terrible smell—I think we called the management company in mid-November, but Theresa didn’t bother to come to the island until November 25—it was a surprise to no one that she showed up, issued a bunch of eviction notices, spent the night at the Breckenridge Inn, and left the island again without actually investigating the situation or solving the problem.

I’d interviewed her, of course, before she left, and was pleased as punch that she agreed to withdraw the eviction notices. But as I told her, we were going to keep on protesting until we saw something in writing. I’m not stupid, and neither are my neighbors. We know a casual comment in a coffee shop doesn’t get you jack-you-know-what, legally speaking.

So Theresa left, and we waited, and protested every morning, standing outside for as long as we could stand the cold rain that is the norm this time of year, but none of us heard anything more from Cruella de Ville aka Theresa.

About a week later, I finally called the management company (a California number—figures), and they confirmed that Theresa had quit, and said they hadn’t found a replacement yet. Theresa’d warned me she was leaving, during the interview, but I hadn’t realized she was truly just going to walk off the job and leave us all hanging.

The smell wasn’t as bad by then, but I’d still get a whiff of something now and then. Knowing no one was going to show up and save us any time soon, I took the initiative and strolled past all the units, and that’s when I realized the odor was localized around Unit 2, Theresa’s unit.

I’d never done anything with my discovery that my key fit all the apartments—I don’t have any desire to go snooping around anyone else’s place—but at that point I decided I’d better take a look.

Something else you should know, to make sense of this: Theresa’s apartment, Unit 2 (there is no Unit 1, go figure) is the last unit on the floor. Beyond her exterior wall is a big old marshy field that can’t be built on because ducks live there, or some such thing. She uses Unit 3, between her apartment and mine, for maintenance storage. In my opinion, it’s kind of outrageous that, with the shortage of housing on the island, an entire unit is unavailable just so management has a place to store the brooms, but what’re you going to do? Also, the tenant in the unit above hers goes off island from November to March (lucky stiff—pun/double entendre not intended this time). What I’m saying is that there is a buffer around Theresa’s apartment that might explain why even I wasn’t sure, until that moment, where the smell was coming from, in spite of the fact that my unit is closest to hers.

As I write this now, I can’t imagine how we hadn’t already figured it out. Or maybe we did, and our brains told us that couldn’t be right. But as I stood on the dusty welcome mat in front of Theresa’s apartment I suddenly knew what I’d find if my key managed to unlock the door.

The key worked, the door opened, and stretched out on the floor in front of me I saw exactly what I already knew I’d see: a body.

I’d seen cadavers during the in-person portion of my CNA classes, but nothing could have prepared me for that. I won’t describe it, other than to say it was horrible.

I made an anonymous call to the Sheriff’s office, even made an attempt to disguise my voice, and then hid in my apartment until I saw the coroner’s van arrive.

A few days later, all of us tenants banded together and hired a cleaning company that specializes in getting rid of the smell of decomposing bodies—who knew such a thing even existed?—and sent the bill to the management company.

The smell was gone after that, but I wasn’t alone in feeling unmoored. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Who was the man?

Was he afraid?

Did he die alone?

And:

Will I die alone, like that? Will they find my body, weeks later? Will anyone care?

And then there was another thought, buzzing around in almost every Looser Island conversation: was there a connection between the boat that washed up on Kameme Beach the day after Halloween, the one with all that money, and the dead man?

It sounds like the blurb on the back of a book-cover: The boat, the dog, the money, and the body.

We’re living in a damn Agatha Christie novel.

It’s not as much fun as you might think.

Meet me here next week for Episode 9, when Mac barrels back into Genevieve’s life . . .