Brute Strength (30 page)

‘Holly?' the woman asked.

I nodded.

‘That's a strong dog you have,' she said. ‘She's out of surgery. It'll take a while for the anesthesia to wear off, but she's looking good. She's just beautiful. She's—'

Out of nowhere, or so it seemed, Leah flew into the waiting room. Her masses of red curls were wild and wet, and her face was dead white.

‘Kimi is out of surgery,' I said. ‘She is—'

‘She's alive?'

The surgeon replied for me. ‘Oh, yes, Kimi is very much alive.'

THIRTY-SIX

S
teve awoke me the next afternoon by letting Rowdy and Sammy bound into the room and jump onto the bed. ‘It's three o'clock,' he said. ‘I thought . . .'

‘Kimi?'

‘She's fine. Leah's there now.'

I smacked my lips at the dogs and got my face licked. Leah taught them that stupid kiss-kiss trick. They don't think it's stupid. They're crazy about it.

The air smelled of burning meat. ‘My father is cooking,' I said.

Instead of complaining about Buck, Steve said, ‘He wants to help.'

‘Then let him go back to Grant's Camps.'

‘Do you want to say that to him?'

‘No, of course not. Let's hope that he'll make the decision on his own.'

‘Dogs, off!' I said. ‘I need coffee. And a shower. Off!'

I'd stayed at Angell until Steve arrived. In her typical high-handed fashion, Leah had called Steve, who, remarkably, had alerted Buck. Even more remarkably, the two had driven to Boston together, accompanied, of course, by India and Lady and by Buck's golden retriever, Mandy. Once Steve had spoken with Angell and had been reassured about Kimi, he should've returned to Grant's Camps, but he'd wanted to be with me, as had my father. I still don't know everything the two of them talked about during the trip. What I do know is that my father regaled Steve with stories of cute things I'd said and done as a child. I will never live down having referred to the ocean as ‘big bath'. If I'd been as bright a child as Buck claims, I'd have had the brains to keep my mouth shut.

My family rallies round in a crisis. Perhaps too much so. After my shower, I went down to the kitchen in search of coffee to discover that Gabrielle and Molly were there and that Steve had gone to Angell. Buck was hovering over the stove stirring what smelled like canned dog food. Seated on the floor next to my father was Sammy, who had a long stream of drool dripping from his mouth.

‘Her children have turned against her!' Gabrielle announced. She sat at the kitchen table with Molly in her lap. Responding to Gabrielle's melodramatic tone, the little dog was all eyes.

‘Vanessa's?' I asked as I put on the electric kettle.

‘Hatch,' said Gabrielle in the low, confiding tone of hers, ‘had always wondered about his father's death, but it was Avery who knew that her mother was thoroughly infatuated with your father!'

Buck issued an inarticulate bellow.

‘And once the children compared notes,' Gabrielle continued, ‘it all came out. Avery knew that her mother was determined to keep Hatch near Boston, so she wondered about poor Fiona, and all along, Hatch had been wondering about his father's death. What he thinks is that Vanessa just sat around and let his father die before she called an ambulance. And once Hatch said that to Avery, she said that she'd wondered, too, because the parents did
not
get along. And then Avery and Hatch saw the
convenience
of having Isaac out of the way. From their mother's point of view, it would've been ideal, having her father right next door but not actually living with her. And they perfectly well understood that their mother had wanted Ulla all along and couldn't get her hands on Ulla with the owner still alive.'

‘How on earth do you know all of this?' I asked.

‘Avery and I had a little chat.'

Buck said, ‘People talk to Gabrielle. They tell her things.'

‘I know,' I said, ‘but how did you happen to have this little chat?'

‘Kevin asked me to keep an eye on her.'

‘You've talked to Kevin, too?' I made myself a cup of coffee, added milk and sugar, and took a swallow in the hope that caffeine would help me to make sense of Gabrielle's disjointed account.

‘Yes,' said Buck, who was adding something to his concoction that made it stink worse than ever. Cat food?

‘Kevin,' said Gabrielle, ‘was there at the hospital when the children turned against their mother, and he didn't like the idea of Avery at home by herself.'

‘Hatch could stay with her, couldn't he? And what about Tom?' It occurred to me that imbibing caffeine was insufficient; I needed an IV infusion. ‘Gabrielle, would you like some coffee?'

She rejected the offer and said rather impatiently, ‘Hatch was
with
Tom. He probably still is.'

‘Well, where's Tom?'

‘In the hospital.'

‘With what?'

‘A massive heart attack. He heard the sirens, and he went out to see what was going on, and he had a massive heart attack. He was a . . . what do you call it? He was an unwitting accomplice.'

‘Last night?'

‘No. Before. With all his liquid medicines.'

‘OK!' I felt pleased to have grasped a point. ‘His supposed inability to take pills. Flavored syrups! Maybe cough syrup. Poor Fiona! Whatever it was must have been in the cherry crisp. A lot of those liquid antihistamines come in cherry flavor. Antihistamines really knock some people out. And some dogs.'

Because I wasn't sure that Gabrielle had told Buck about her own episode, I refrained from saying that she'd probably been dosed with the same thing, but when she caught my eye and nodded, I knew that she'd made the connection.

‘And Isaac,' I continued. ‘It would've been so easy to feed one thing to him and another to Elizabeth, because of her celiac disease. If something contained gluten, Elizabeth wouldn't eat it.' I remembered Avery telling me that Isaac had loved her cherry crisp. Since it contained flour, Vanessa could have spiked it with anything and been sure that Elizabeth wouldn't touch it. ‘Acetaminophen, maybe. There are liquid versions of that. Large doses can cause liver and kidney damage. Steve won't even let me keep it in the house. It's very toxic to cats, and he doesn't want it given to dogs – or to us, either.'

‘You do understand what her plan was, don't you, Holly?' Gabrielle asked the question and promptly answered it. ‘Really, what she was up to was matchmaking. She wanted Elizabeth for Tom, of course, and Buck for herself – that's why she sent him that awful picture of me – and Leah for Hatch, and Steve for Avery, and—'

‘Sammy for Ulla,' I finished. ‘OK, something just fell into place. With me out of the way and Avery matched up with Steve, Sammy would be part of her family. I get it. She was an evil Emma.'

‘Emma!' my father exclaimed. ‘Now there was a lovely bitch.' Emma was one of my mother's favorite golden retrievers.

‘Not
our
Emma,' I said. ‘Jane Austen's Emma. The novel is about matchmaking gone awry. But not this awry. I'm surprised that she didn't think that Steve was too old for Avery.'

‘He had compensating virtues,' Gabrielle said. ‘Notably, Sammy.'

‘Steve,' I said. ‘I need to call him.'

When I reached him on his cell, Quinn Youngman had just left Angell.

‘He's decided that he wants to get a malamute,' Steve said.

‘That's a terrible idea. He's never even owned a dog, has he?' Getting a malamute as your first dog is like taking your first flying lesson in a 747.

‘He fell for Kimi.'

‘Quinn really did save her life. I'd have known to apply pressure to the wound, but I'm not sure that I'd have done it right. And he was very kind to me. In fact, he was wonderful. He couldn't have been better. But that still doesn't mean that he should get a malamute. Well, maybe an old, mellow one.'

‘He's also decided that he wants to marry Rita.'

‘A much better idea. But he can't do both – get a malamute and marry Rita. She refuses to feed malamutes. You know that.'

‘Max Crocker has a malamute,' Steve pointed out.

‘Yes, but Mukluk is exceptional. He's easy. And I hadn't quite worked out the Willie and Mukluk part of my plan. Or the cat part.'

‘Or the Max and Rita part.'

‘That does seem to be the hitch,' I conceded. Switching topics, I asked, ‘So, when can Kimi come home?'

‘Tomorrow, it looks like.'

‘Tomorrow? Oh, Steve!'

‘She's going to have to take it easy.'

‘Is she putting any weight on that leg?'

‘Not yet. But she will.'

When I'd hung up and reported the good news about Kimi, Buck said, ‘Tough cookie.'

‘Yes, she is. She's a heroine. She really is.'

‘Kevin told us,' Gabrielle said. ‘We are very proud of her. And of you, too.'

Buck grunted.

‘I broke Vanessa's hip. That's what Kevin said, but I don't understand how it happened. I threw myself at her and knocked her down, but I'm not all that big. And I also don't understand what she was doing with a handgun. I could hardly believe my eyes. She never struck me as someone who'd even think about owning any kind of gun. But I obviously didn't know her at all.'

‘The revolver belonged to her late husband, and her hip broke because she has osteoporosis,' Gabrielle said. ‘Hatch knew, but no one else did because she didn't want her father to find out.'

‘I can understand why. But she looks so fit.'

‘She takes whatever that medicine is, and she walks. That's what she was advised to do.'

‘A silent disease,' Buck said ominously.

‘Very clever,' said Gabrielle. ‘Exactly. That's exactly what that woman was. A silent disease.'

‘I wanted to kill her,' I said.

‘You're a tough cookie, too,' said my father. He dipped a spoon into the reeking mess, tasted it, and gave a sigh of delight. ‘You ready to go?'

‘Where?'

‘To visit Kimi! What's the matter with you? You didn't think I was cooking for us, did you?'

THIRTY-SEVEN

S
o, it's mid June, and I'm out in the yard with Kimi and with Rowdy, who can be trusted not to slam into her. She's out of her E-collar, so she no longer has to listen to Kevin tease her about wearing a lampshade on her head, and although she still favors the wounded leg, Steve says that she'll end up without a limp. The hair may never grow back completely, but a heroine can't be faulted for a battle scar, can she? Speaking of scars, the yard bears no trace of the events that took place here, and now that the gutters and downspouts have been replaced and the north side of the house has been painted, I am perfectly comfortable here. I did not do the work myself. It may be a while before I climb a high ladder again. Also, the yard looks different from the way it did that rainy, muddy night. We've had it paved in stone that the dogs can't dig through. Or haven't managed to dig through yet, anyway.

Rita is engaged to Quinn Youngman. As it turned out, Max Crocker did call her. He was, however, asking for an appointment rather than a date. Rita respects patient confidentiality. It was Max who told me that he'd gone into therapy with her. He said that he needed to resolve his feelings about his break-up with his former partner, whose name was also Max. Oh, well, so Rita was right. She often is. Anyway, she and Quinn are thinking about buying Vanessa's house, which is vacant right now. Tom is in rehab, and when he gets out, he is moving to an assisted-living facility. Disillusioned with him and his whole family, Elizabeth McNamara has replaced him with a darling male puli puppy, who will be the perfect companion for Persimmon. Elizabeth holds the entire family responsible for Isaac's death. Her take on the Jones family is that every member has a propensity for betrayal. Maybe she's right. As Gabrielle kept emphasizing, Avery and Hatch turned on their mother. According to Kevin, it was Vanessa's sense that her children had ganged up against her that prompted her full confession. Avery has moved in with Hatch. More than that, I don't know. Rita has her theories, of course. I also don't know what the shocking proposition was that Hatch made to Leah. I do know, however, that neither Avery nor Hatch showed any loyalty to Ulla, who, being a dog, betrayed no one. Pippy Neff grudgingly agreed to take Ulla back, but I told Pippy that I had the perfect home waiting, as I did. Ulla is doing beautifully with Max's Maine coon cat and with Mukluk and Max, too. The only surprise about Ulla was that Vanessa had lied to me: Ulla had actually not been spayed. Hence Vanessa's extreme interest in Sammy? Speaking of Ulla and Vanessa, Avery told me that her mother was furious that I'd given Ulla third place instead of first at the match. Honestly!

Surprises. This one is utterly weird. One day last week, Lucinda and Eldon Flood showed up here with four pies, two apple and two blueberry. The Flood Farm logo on their van had been painted over. In its place was a painting of a couple of sheep and Jesus holding a shepherd's crook. Eldon had found religion and had resolved to atone for the wrongs he had done. Hence the pies. Could Buck have knocked some sense into him? I hope so.

Leah has joined what her Harvard commencement ceremonies described as the ‘company of educated men and women'. By implication, the rest of us don't work for the company, but I don't mind. By virtue of having attended a lot of classes with Leah, Kimi is at least an honorary employee, and after all, Vanessa Jones was an alumna, and where did it get her? She couldn't even handle a revolver, and she raised children who turned against her. It seems to me that Avery and Hatch's disloyalty demonstrates why some people have dogs instead of children and, in some cases, instead of spouses or even human friends. If I murdered a hundred people, my dogs would put their paws on a Bible and swear to my innocence. So would the human members of my family, all of whom are half canine. And the better for it.