Paws before dying (20 page)

“Oh, well. O’Brian? Here it is. Jim O’Brian.” She gave me a number that started with 332, a Newton number. Then we talked a little. My teeth and my dogs were fine, I said. She said that Jack was, too.

By the time I hung up, Leah was in her room reading
Northanger Abbey
aloud to Kimi. I was alone with Rowdy. Alone.

“Alone,” I said to him. I sank to the floor, downed him, and massaged his big fur-dripping neck. “We are alone! Savor it, buddy. So the story is, now I have his number and an excuse. Well, okay, not an excuse. He really might like her. So I’ve got an excuse to call, right? Hey, Jim, how’d you like to adopt a nice malamute bitch, spayed, four years old, no history of abuse, and speaking of which, when you were student-teaching with Rose and she filed that 51 A, was it the Brawleys or someone else? Natural, right?”

Jim O’Brian was home when I phoned, and although I led
^U
P to the topic of abuse somewhat more indirectly and discreetly than I’d rehearsed with Rowdy, what I had to say was pretty much the same thing. I reminded him that he’d said he might be interested in a rescue dog. Then I described the dog and made sure he didn’t have any cats. Finally, I took a deep breath and tried to sound casual. “The woman who’s got her doesn’t see any sign of abuse. There’s no guarantee, and sometimes you can’t tell. Maybe it’s like that with children, too. Maybe you can’t always tell.”

“Not always,” he agreed.

“Like those people Rose filed the 51A on? Well, something sort of like that can happen with dogs. You’d never suspect the owners, and then suddenly some situation crops up.” Remember, I was trying to sound casual and natural, and in the dog world, that means talking on and on about dogs. “And the dog’s shaking all over. And you have to wonder what happened the last time he was in that situation, you know? In the back of a van, on a boat, whatever. But I guess with children, you’re more apt to see the physical signs, like bruises, like with Zeke Brawley.”

“Yeah, judging by the parents, you wouldn’t’ve thought, but even when you see the child, you can’t always tell.”

If I’d used the wrong name, he’d have corrected me. Whew. He’d certainly remember that he’d been indiscreet, but would he be absolutely sure he’d stopped short of using their names? Did it matter? Rose could’ve told me.

“Well, with this malamute,” I said, “there’s no sign, but you never know for sure. Anyway, I hear she’s a sweetheart. You want to take a look at her?”

He did. I gave him Tina’s number. Was that ethical? Is it right to place an Alaskan malamute, a member of dogdom’s royalty, a noble creature of shining intelligence, with a mere human blabbermouth? Sure. Jim O’Brian had loose lips, but the dog wouldn’t care.

I hung up and gently rubbed the left side of my head, which felt hot and almost swollen. To own a malamute, you need muscular arms and a strong will. Insensitive ears help, too—outer, not inner. Malamutes woo-woo, but it’s nothing compared with the way human beings blah-blah about them on the telephone.

As I was poking in the freezer for an ice pack or, failing that, something to eat, Kimi bounced into the kitchen followed by Leah, who was dressed for bed—or so I assumed—in my red Malamute Power T-shirt, yellow neon running shorts, and a loose white belted top designed for karate practice.

“We have to talk,” she announced.

My left ear throbbed, but Rita had recently given me a lecture on the importance of open communication with adolescents. “Sure. Of course,” I chirped. My voice shifts smoothly into happy gear. What lubricates my vocal transmission is an Open obedience exercise called the Drop on Recall. You call the dog, tell him “Down,” and he drops on the spot. Simple? It’s inexplicably difficult for dogs, but worse for handlers, because you absolutely must keep that “Down!” light and sunny for all those hundreds of times it takes the dog to catch on. Sweet and soft is how you want your voice; cheerful, without a hint of exasperation or impatience. The secret is honesty: Feel happy that the dog’s trying and that the sixteen-year-old is still speaking to anyone over the age of seventeen. “About?”

Please, not safe sex again. Rita made me raise the topic with Leah. “What do you know about safe sex?” I’d asked. I’m not sure whether Leah’s answer was comforting or terrifying: “Everything,” said Leah.

But this time Leah held a sheaf of little multicolored booklets in her hand, premium lists and entry blanks for dog shows. “These,” she said. “Are you trying to put this off or something? We don’t have forever. Is there, uh...”

“Not at all,” I interrupted, shutting the freezer door.

“You think we’re not ready?”

“No, of course not. You’re ready. You’re both ready. And Kimi’s a lot more ready than Rowdy was for his first trial.” With Leah handling her, Kimi was ready. If I’d been handling her?

“Look, is there some problem here? Is it because she’s your dog? You’d rather—?”

“No,” insisted my better self. “Not at all. Let’s plan it out.” I went on: “What we’re after is who’s judging Novice B. Okay? Any AKC trial is going to have Novice B. So we’ll just look through for the Novice B judge, and then we’ll decide, because judges aren’t all the same. In theory, they are, but they aren’t.” Leah thumbed through a pale green premium list while I checked one for an upcoming trial in Vermont.

“This is Mr. Fish,” she said.

“Good! He’s okay. He isn’t too friendly. He won’t go out of his way to make you feel relaxed. But he’s very fair. He’s a good Judge. He’d be fine. Let’s see. There’s more than one Mr. Fish, hut I think the other one retired. Let me check.”

She handed me the premium list folded open to the page that showed the obedience classes. I flipped the page to find the judges’ full names and addresses. “It’s the right Mr. Fish,” I assured her. Also on the list was Samuel Martori. “What show is this?”

“Guilford,” Leah said.

“Damn, I think that’s already... Some of these are old. I should’ve thrown them out. Yeah, this one’s already been held. Look, sort through them, will you? Get rid of the ones we’ve missed. Fish might be judging somewhere else, and there are plenty of other good judges.”

Then the date of the Guilford show and trial hit me. It was one of a cluster of three shows, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Guilford had been the first, the Friday show. All the shows in the cluster had taken place at the same 4-H grounds in western New York State. Martori had been judging Utility B. And I remembered Heather Ross’s brag at class one night: Panache had been high in trial at Guilford.

How far was it from Boston? Vinnie and I had been there more than once, but that had been years ago. Five hours? Maybe more. And one piece of information that’s maddeningly absent from the premium lists is the time the judging begins for each class. They do announce dates, of course. On the Friday that Rose Engleman died, Sam Martori had been judging at Guilford, and Heather had been there, too, handling Panache. What time had Utility B been judged? Had Heather and Abbey had enough time to drive back to Newton? And had they driven all that way for one trial? Heather would’ve entered Saturday, too, I was willing to bet, and probably Sunday. Yet she’d been at Jack’s house on Sunday. Why?

But if she’d finished late on Friday afternoon? If Martori had been judging then? And especially if they’d all been in western New York State late on Friday and early on Saturday morning? Well, then Heather, Abbey, and Martori had the same solid alibi.

And they did. Late on Sunday night, I reached Sandi Matson, one of my
Dog’s Life
buddies. At Guilford, on Friday, she said, Utility B started in the afternoon. Martori and Heather were both at the Saturday show, too. So why didn’t Heather brag about her Saturday score as well as about Guilford? Well, that’s obvious: It was a lousy score. Anyway, Saturday didn’t even matter, because Sandi has poodles, and poodle people hang out together. She had dinner with Heather and Abbey on Friday night. Martori sat two tables away. While Rose was in Newton training for the last time, they were all in New York State.

Chapter 21

WILLIE Johnson called Leah the next morning on the pretext of asking about an upcoming fun match. Spurred by Rita’s strong views on open communication, I used his call as the opportunity to have a frank discussion with Leah about my take on his family. Open is just that, open, according to Rita, two-way and honest, and I was. People who grow up in dysfunctional families have a hard time learning how to act in the rest of the world, I said. Furthermore, this family had a history of violence, and it made me nervous. Leah had probably been talking to Rita, too, because she pointed out that my nervousness was my problem. My hackles went up a little, and I told her about the abuse of one of the dogs and about the fights at the family business, more than I probably had a right to spill. Maybe I was unfair to Willie.

An hour later, while Leah was taking a shower, the front doorbell rang. Hell, roses again, I thought. I prepared a speech for the florist’s delivery person: Leah Whitcomb had moved, she wasn’t coming back, and I wouldn’t accept the flowers.

But when I opened the door, the brown UPS van was pulling away, and a box with a return address in Freeport, Maine, sat on the porch. Good clothes and large, shedding dogs are incompatible, of course, but nevertheless Pd splurged on a summer-weight short-sleeved cotton sweater from L. L. Bean, in a very impractical shade of navy blue, together with a pair of hiking boots. I didn’t even open the box before I stashed it in my bed-room closet, out of Leah’s view, and shut the door.

A moment later, a heavily betoweled Leah emerged from the athroom with that incredible glowing hair plaited, wrapped, and wound into an elaborate coiffure suitable for a lady about to be presented to the Court of St. James. Kimi and Rowdy, my own royalty, were daffy about her, anyway, but she’d evidently rubbed some kind of after-bath lotion on her legs and feet, and they ran for her and began licking her skin and wagging their tails.

“Oh, God, no!” she ordered them. “Get away! Holly, get these dogs away! They’re getting their fur all over me!”

“Easy, there,” I said. “They don’t know they’re shedding. Come on, guys. I’ll be nice to you.”

But when she’d layered herself, she was all smiles and pats again. She made up with the dogs and took Kimi out to do some work. In their absence, I called Steve and reached him between patients.

“Look, I’ve thought of an excuse for you to find out about Don Zager,” I said. “The nephew? What you need to do is call him.”

“Clever,” he replied. “Devious. I’d been thinking of something simple and straightforward. Like calling him.”

“Well, so what’s your excuse? You don’t have one. Were you just going to call up and introduce yourself and say hello? What you need to do is ask about this stuff he does. Tell him you heard he did this alternative veterinary whatever it is, homeopathy, and say you’re interested. Why don’t you say you might want to refer someone to him?”

He answered patiently and slowly. “I called him this morning,” he said one word at a time. He’s used to explaining complex veterinary matters to uncomprehending owners. “I called him this morning,” he repeated. “He was not available. I left a message. About my interest in acupuncture. He will return the call.”

“A step ahead, huh? So when he calls, you also need to raise the subject of shock collars.”

“Acupuncture is painless,” he said, “or it’s supposed to be-I haven’t tried it myself, but people swear the needles don’t hurt. So I pretend I don’t know that, and I say, ‘Well, Don, now that we’re on the subject of needles, you ever try electric shock?”

“There is that,” I said. “Or what if you ask something about behavior? Like, tell him you have a client with two malamutes that fight, and ask if acupuncture helps. Then we’ll at least know if he’s a big proponent of shock collars, because if he is, he’ll say that’s the answer.”

“And let him think...? Hell, no. Anyway, we don’t know much about him, but we do know he does alternatives, right? You know anything about homeopathy? You know what they use? Powders. Herbs. They call them gentle remedies.”

“Okay. A shock collar’s not exactly a gentle remedy. Well, we already know he’d know where to get one. So his mother would, too, presumably, if she saw the catalogs. And we know he uses needles. Obviously, he can’t be exactly squeamish. I guess mostly what we need is some kind of feel for what he’s like, and also some idea of the finances.”

“Piece of cake,” Steve said. “ ‘Tell me about acupuncture, and while you’re at it, mail me your last year’s 1040.’ ”

“Stop it! What you need to do is commiserate with him. Say something about Cambridge rents, insurance. Think of something to bitch about, and then maybe he’ll tell you about how he’s trying to pay off his student loans or how he wishes he had some new ultrasound equipment or something. Obviously, you can’t drag it out of him, but give him a chance.”

I hung up with little hope. Steve either does something or he doesn’t. Maybe I should fabricate some ailment in my dogs and ask Zager to cure it. Fine if he prescribed a gentle powder I could throw out, but what if he decided to use needles? Forget it. Steve keeps my dogs up on their shots. Except for that, no one punctures my dogs, acu or otherwise.

In the early evening, Jeff and Lance, the border collie, stopped in. Rowdy and Kimi leapt around. He woo-wooed, but she turned food-protective when Lance’s eerie eyes wandered toward her water dish, and I hustled them outside to the fenced-in yard.