Bloodlines (25 page)

“For Christ’s sake, Gloria,” I hissed softly, “three days ago ownership was exploitation. Remember? And now, all of a sudden … The Finnish spitz is a totally inappropriate breed for that woman.”

“They’ll be nice to the puppy,” Gloria said.

“They’ll probably have her debarked,” I whispered, “if they keep her at all. And if they sell her or give her away, those’ll be three brokenhearted kids.”

Gloria looked so crushed that I was sorry I’d spoken. The woman and her daughters had seemed kind and decent. Maybe they’d adapt to the puppy after all.

“Or maybe it’ll work out,” I added very quietly. “Are you all alone here? Where’s …”

“At her lawyer’s. Mrs. Coakley’s sister just died, and she wants to know what’s in it for her, or that’s the feeling you get. There’s an old guy around somewhere, but he doesn’t know how to work the cash register.”

“Do you?”

“Now I do,” Gloria said. “Anyhow, Mrs. Coakley didn’t have much choice. She was going to close up, but then that woman called and wanted to know if we were open, and I guess Mrs. Coakley didn’t want to lose a sale.”

We were open?
What’s this
we?
I thought. Then I had what my friend Rita calls an ah-hah experience. This must be Gloria’s first real job, and, like any other kid her age, she was proud to find herself behind a cash register, taking money and handing out receipts. Even so, Gloria’s rapid identification with her new employer made me uneasy. Also, I remembered Mrs. Appleyard’s warning. On Sunday, Gloria had been unnaturally eager to switch her loyalty to me. Had I lost it already? Had I ever had it? I felt frightened about trusting Gloria and guilty about using her, but, as I’ve said, I’ll do anything for dogs.

I cleared my throat and asked under my breath, “Where’s this guy who works here?”

“Out back,” Gloria told me. “It’s okay. And I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

“When is Janice Coakley due back?”

“I don’t know. Half an hour maybe. She’s getting her hair done, too.”

I leaned an elbow on the counter. “Okay, but if she shows up, just start telling me about Siberian huskies or something, okay?”

“I don’t know anything about them,” said Gloria, suddenly childish.

“You know as much about them as you know about the Finnish spitz,” I said, “and you winged that all right.” Gloria smiled. I felt a pang of guilt. I still hadn’t called the dermatologist to make an appointment for her. “Walter Simms delivers puppies here,” I went on. “I know that now.”

“Yeah,” Gloria said. “A lot of them come from him. We’re supposed to tell the customers that Mrs. Coakley breeds them all, but she doesn’t, really.”

“She breeds some of them?”

Gloria pushed her braids back. “Yeah, she’s got—That’s her house, out there, in back of the parking lot. That’s where she lives. And somewhere behind there, maybe in the barn, I know she has some dogs. You can hear them. I haven’t been back there.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “But Simms brings most of them?”

“Some,” Gloria said. “He’s supposed to bring some tonight. She put in an order. That’s what she does. She calls up and orders them, what breeds she wants. I heard her. It’s weird. It’s like someone calling up a store and ordering groceries, only it’s dogs. It’s really weird.”

“I believe you.” I tried to keep the disappointment from my voice. I’d already known that that’s how pet shops order puppies, and I’d known that Simms delivered to Your Local Breeder. In hoping that Gloria would learn anything useful, I’d been kidding myself.

“Only,” Gloria continued, “at least this morning, she made two different calls. Her office door was open, and I was supposed to clean the kennels, so I did the ones close to the door.”

“Maybe she deals with more than one broker.”

“Except they’re all coming at the same time.” Gloria’s eyes were serious.

“That does seem kind of strange,” I admitted.

“So,” said Gloria, pulling herself up straight and holding her shoulders back, “as soon as Mrs. Coakley left, I went and looked.”

“You looked …?”

“It sounded fishy, and that’s what I thought you wanted, anything fishy. So as soon as Mrs. Coakley left, I went into her office.” Gloria glanced toward the back of the shop. “Back there. And the file was right on her desk, because, I mean, she’d just been making these calls, and she was going out. And it was like what she said on the phone. Like, uh, two lists. Only the other sort of strange thing was that the prices were different.”

“They would be,” I said. “Pet shops pay different prices for different breeds. They sell them for different prices, right? The puppies here don’t all cost the same, do they?”

“No, but for the same breed, they do. Like that Finnish spitz was seven hundred dollars, and some of the others are a whole lot cheaper. Like cocker spaniels are three twenty-five. But, like,
all
the cocker spaniels are three twenty-five, only she pays a hundred for them to one guy, and a hundred and fifty at the other place.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “So why not just get them all from the place that only charges a hundred?”

“Because those people didn’t have enough,” Gloria said. “That’s what it sounded like. We sell a whole lot of cocker spaniels, I guess, and she wanted, like, a litter of puppies, and she was supposed to get them Sunday, only she didn’t. So the first call she made, she tried to get, like, three of them, only she ended up ordering two, and the next call, she only ordered one.”

“So she got as many of the cheaper ones as she could,” I said.

“Yeah,” Gloria said. “Yeah, I mean, if you look at the lists and stuff, you can tell that’s what she did. It’s like, well, my mother’ll do this when she shops for clothes. She’ll go to T.J. Maxx, Hit or Miss, those places first, and then there’ll be stuff she can’t find discount, and she’ll go to the regular places and pay full price.”

Beano! Have I lost you? Well, then, bingo! But that’s not what it’s called at the fairs in Maine, where we still use real beans, dried ones, of course, to cover the numbers on our cards. When it comes to dogs, I’ve learned to temper my competitive spirit, thus malamutes in obedience, but when I’m seated on one of those old wooden benches in a Maine beano tent with three cards lined up in front of me on the oilcloth and I put the fifth bean in place to complete that straight, winning line? Well, I’ll tell you, I’m a killer.

“Beano!” I said out loud.

Gloria looked mystified. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Never mind, Gloria, this is very helpful. You’re doing great. This is really helpful.” I quit leaning on the counter and began to zip up my yellow slicker. “So the first call was to Simms, right? And I bet the second one was to a guy named Rinehart.”

“That’s what the papers say,” Gloria confirmed. “Her list and the, uh, order forms, I guess you call them.”

“Simms and Rinehart,” I said. “I knew who they were, but I didn’t know what was going on. Now I do. Hey, Gloria? Thanks a whole lot. I think maybe you’ve done enough, okay? When Janice Coakley gets back, just tell her you’re allergic to dogs or something, or just don’t show up tomorrow.”

“But, Holly—”

“I know what’s going on, okay? I’ll explain it some other time. I’m going now. Janice Coakley’ll be back soon, and I want to get home. My dogs have been alone long enough.” Through the plate glass window, I could
see that the rain had started up again. I pulled the hood of my slicker over my head.

“Holly?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you want the, uh, papers? The list and—”

I did a swift about-turn. Gloria was holding out a large manila envelope.

“Don’t you want them?” Gloria’s voice was hurt and puzzled. “They’re just copies, but I thought … The Xerox machine was right there, and I thought … I couldn’t take them, because Mrs. Coakley would notice they were gone. So I just copied them. Isn’t that good enough?”

I snatched the envelope from Gloria as eagerly as Rowdy and Kimi grab liver treats. I used my hand, of course. If I’d used my teeth the way the dogs do, Gloria would have lost a finger.

“Good enough?” I told her. “It’s beautiful.”

“Oh, and there’s one thing … About Mrs. Coakley?” Gloria’s face took on the condescension of youth for age. “She’s … This is sort of … You can tell she’s sort of in love with this guy.”

“The old guy who—?”

“No. This guy, Walter Simms. You can tell from how she says his name. She gets sort of smug sounding, like,
‘Walter’s
bringing me some puppies tonight.’ Like that. It’s kind of cute, the way she says it, you know, ‘Walter.’ Like she’s bragging about her boyfriend. Is he?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Gloria said. “I was just kind of wondering.”

I’d missed Rowdy and Kimi so much that when I returned home, I made the mistake of greeting them on bended knee. I ended up with a scratched chin, a sore nose, and a bruised jaw. Since winning the unconditional love of these two dogs, I have sustained more injuries than I received in all my pre-malamute years. Take it from someone with the scarred knees of a retired quarterback: If a happy malamute ever makes a mad dash toward you, flatten yourself against the nearest solid vertical object. I’ve been dragged down the back stairs three times, and before I learned never to walk malamutes in icy weather, I hit the sidewalk twice. Oh, and watch out: These dogs have skulls of steel. Knock heads with a malamute, and you see double for three days. You
still
think you want a malamute? Well, the breed boasts a few angels, but most mals will steal food, raid the trash, chase cats, kill livestock, and kiss the burglar. When mals are shedding, your house looks like the aftermath of a sheep-shearing contest, and, with the possible exception of all terriers, they are the world’s greatest diggers and the world’s worst obedience dogs. But as soul mates? As kindred spirits? As an intelligent companion in a partnership of equals, the Alaskan malamute is without peer.

So I washed the scratch on my chin, forgave the dogs, let them out and in, fed them, admired them while they ate, and then made my way to the Dennehys’ back door. Have you ever met Kevin’s mother? If not, maybe I should warn you: Her Biblical pronouncements can be slightly startling; she favors the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation. Also, her face has a severe expression that I attribute to chronic pain; instead of cutting her steel gray hair or just letting it hang, she twists it into a knot that she bolts to the top of her skull.

Mrs. Dennehy edged open the back door, eyed me, and opened her mouth.

I beat her to it. “Behold,” I said, “I stand at the door, and knock.” Revelation, chapter three, verse twenty. “Is Kevin home?”

He must have heard my voice. A couple of seconds later, he loomed behind his mother. He was pulling on a black raincoat. His eyes looked hungry for escape.

I was bursting with enthusiasm. “I have a million things to tell you, Kevin,” I said as soon as he stepped outside.

“You want to walk?”

“I have some things to show you first,” I said impatiently. “I know what’s going on. Kevin, Simms is double-dealing. He’s cheating Rinehart, and I can prove it.”

When we reached my kitchen, I ignored the dogs, who were bouncing around and playing up to Kevin. Before Kevin even had his raincoat off, I’d whipped out the envelope Gloria had given me and spread the three photocopied pages on the table. “There!” I said. I kept talking while Kevin pulled his arms out of his sleeves. “This one is a shopping list. Okay? They’re all from this place called Your Local Breeder. In Westbrook. This is how many puppies Janice Coakley wanted, the breeds, how many of each breed. She wanted twenty puppies. Like here? One mini schnauzer, one Shih Tzu, three cockers, one Doberman. Anyway, I even know why she wanted three cockers, okay? First of all, it’s a popular
breed, but the line she gives her customer is that she’s a breeder, right? Your Local Breeder. And apparently she does breed some dogs, but she also buys puppies and passes them off as her own. Like these cockers.”

“Hey, slow down,” Kevin said. He lowered himself into a chair.

“Sure,” I said, but I was wired. I didn’t take a seat, and the words kept tumbling out of my mouth. “Then after she’d decided what she wanted, instead of making one call to place her order, she made two. First she called Walter Simms, and then, after that, she called Rinehart. And the reason she called Simms first was to see which breeds she could get cut-rate. Discount, okay? Like take the cockers. On the first page, you can see that she wanted three, but Simms must’ve said he could only supply two. So she ordered those two from Simms, here on this page. And then when she called Rinehart, she just wanted one cocker. Rinehart charges more than Simms. Like here? She’s paying Rinehart one-fifty for a cocker, and Simms only charges a hundred.”

Kevin was thumping Rowdy on the back and rubbing the top of Kimi’s head.

“Don’t you get it?” I demanded. “Just on these two cockers that Janice Coakley ordered from Simms instead of Rinehart, Simms is cheating Rinehart out of a hundred dollars.”

Kevin finally glanced at the pages, Janice Coakley’s initial shopping list and the lists of the puppies she’d ordered from Simms and from Rinehart. “Yeah, same as at Puppy Luv,” he said blandly.