Authors: Susan Conant

The Wicked Flea (27 page)

BOOK: The Wicked Flea

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“Enjoy? Really, Althea—”

“Let me finish! And before I do, let’s add as a little aside that in a misguided effort to assist in the control of the victim’s dog, you offered the murderer a handy means of covering, or diverting attention from, the sound of gun shots, a means available to a great many people at the park. And used by a great many. Meanwhile, at this same park, the exhibitionist was engaging in criminal acts. Motive for murder: the victim could have been in a position to disclose the man’s identity. At the same time, the victim’s son, Eric, was making irreverent use of the urn containing his father’s remains to hide his
stash.
Lovely word, isn’t it? And at your inadvertent prompting, so Ceci tells me, the victim chose rather belatedly to scatter those remains, thus providing a motive for the son, who would presumably have tried to prevent his mother from throwing away his supply of whatever drug it was. Cocaine, dare I wonder? But there we have the fortuitous concatenation of motives. Wilson hated his mother-in-law. She needled him. He was greedy. He wanted her money. And Fate, the careless owner of us all, left unguarded before him this delectable smorgasbord of other people’s motives. Those motives were Wilson’s opportunity. He pounced. Like a big, hungry dog.”

Chapter 37

Subj:AfriCam

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

------------------------------

Rita,

There's a web site you’ve probably visited that has cameras trained on waterholes in Africa. I spend a lot of time watching those murky waterholes, hoping to see lions or leopards. No luck so far.

That's my life lately—all mud, no big cats. The only thing worse than divorce was marriage.

Steve

Chapter 38

Subj: Re: AfriCam

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

------------------------

Steve,

No big cats here, either—but you're not really a cat person, so what does it matter? I suspect you'd have better luck if you trained your sights on half-wild dogs.

Rita

Chapter 39

One evening in mid-January, my stepmother and I finally disposed of her first husband. The credit for our success belongs to Kimi, who created our excuse to linger in Harvard Yard when she marked the base of a certain famous statue in front of University Hall. Happily
—God
spelled you know how—Kimi thus chose a suitable and dignified resting place for Professor Beamon, who lies in perpetuity at John Harvard’s feet.
Requiescat in pace.
Good riddance! After what happened to Sylvia Metzner when she belatedly scattered the ashes of
her
late husband, I’d developed a superstitious dread concerning the sprinkling of dead spouses and was actually surprised when we dispersed Professor Beamon without being murdered.

Despite my gratitude to Kimi, I sent her to Maine with Gabrielle. Cindy Neely had phoned with the welcome news that Emma’s litter brother, Howie, had announced that the time was right to breed his sister. In Howie’s view, the proper stud dog was undoubtedly himself rather than Rowdy. Even so, Cindy and Emma were flying from Washington to Boston the next day. If you don’t breed dogs, perhaps I should mention a fixed rule of purebred canine etiquette, which is that the gentleman invites the lady home to see
his
etchings, and not the other way around. The custom is falsely believed to be based on the male’s preference for his own turf, where he feels so self-confident that he doesn’t keep interrupting the proceedings to gulp Viagra. Another myth I’d like to dispel is that stud dogs own large and expensive art collections and therefore have etchings worth seeing. Hah! The true explanation is that if
he
went to
her
house, she’d make him pick up his socks and empty the dishwasher instead of devoting himself exclusively to siring puppies, which is what breeding is all about, isn’t it?

Speaking of siring puppies, the plan was that Cindy would drop off Emma with me for the breeding and then go on to visit her family in Pennsylvania and friends in Connecticut. I felt honored to have Cindy entrust Emma to me. Kimi would’ve spoiled our carefully made plans. The feminist extremism that impels Kimi to leave her mark on public icons of human paternalism somehow fails to translate into a friendly sense of sororal obligation to creatures of her own breed and sex, especially when they are in standing heat.

Emma was an outrageous flirt. Rowdy was smitten. When Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics to “Embraceable You,” the procreation of show dogs probably wasn’t foremost on his mind—was it?—but in Rowdy’s opinion, CH Jazzland’s Embraceable You lived up to her name.

Repeatedly.

Afterward, Rowdy’s lady love flew back home to the Pacific Northwest. Practically before the plane had landed in Seattle, I began to check my E-mail every hour. When I wasn’t logging on, I was hovering by the phone. Filled with nervous energy, I finished my cookbook and mailed the manuscript. My notes about fatal dog attacks ended up at curbside on trash day; my interest had shifted from death to birth. I had no intention of breeding Kimi. Knowing her as I did, I felt certain that she’d produce a litter of ten or twelve vigorous little female-rights fanatics. What would I do with them? There’s barely room enough in the world for one Kimi, never mind a whole litter. As for me, there wasn’t a suitable stud in sight. Besides, I’m ordinary. Rowdy is special. Kimi agrees. As I tell him, he’s our boy. That’s an understatement. Rowdy is
the
dog.

The gestation period of
Canis familiaris
is sixty-three days, give or take. In some cases, each of those days is a hundred years long. A few weeks after the breeding, Cindy sent E-mail to report that Emma was suffering from all-day-long morning sickness. According to Cindy, Emma was ravenously hungry. When Emma had stayed here, she’d tried to convince me that she was starving. Rowdy and Kimi always act famished. But at about four weeks, Emma showed a subtle raising of the hairline along the side, and soon after that, she lost hair around her nipples. Finally, Cindy called with the happy announcement that Emma looked as if she’d swallowed a Thanksgiving turkey whole. Afraid to get my hopes up, I reminded myself that although Thanksgiving was long past, Emma, like Rowdy or Kimi, would’ve happily dispatched a turkey, including a live one, feathers and all, and might have done just that. But when the vet counted six puppies, I was finally convinced.

Nine weeks after the breeding, at seven o’clock in the morning, which is, of course, four A.M. Pacific time, I happened to be sitting in the kitchen eating scrambled eggs, drinking coffee, and staring at the phone. When it rang, I grabbed it, not because I have ESP, but because I’d been leaping at it like Kimi after liver every time it had rung for the past five days. This time, the call was the one I’d been waiting for. Cindy spoke in that exhausted, blissful voice that’s unique to devoted breeders who’ve been up in the night whelping puppies. Emma had had seven strong, healthy puppies so far, five males, two females, with at least one more on the way. According to Cindy, the puppies were beautiful. It’s a universal truth that whereas newborn puppies of other people’s breeding look exactly like drowned rats, those of one’s own breeding are staggeringly gorgeous even before they’re dry. Since these were Rowdy puppies, I had no doubt that they really were beautiful. In the background, I heard the puppies mewling. The little cries were plaintive and miraculous.

The bawling of the puppies stayed with me after I hung up. It rang in my head until my eyes filled with tears. My weeping began softly and gently, but the more I cried, the harder I cried. Just before Cindy had gone back to attend to Emma, she’d said, “You know, Holly, you can still have a puppy instead of a stud fee.” I wailed for the puppy I couldn’t introduce into my two-malamute pack and couldn’t keep in my little house with its small yard. I hate crying and seldom do it. Once I started, monumental sadness poured out, never-ending grief at my mother’s death, longing for my long-dead golden retrievers, and the overwhelming loneliness of life without Steve Delaney. Rowdy and Kimi stared at me with wide eyes. Rowdy leaned against me, and Kimi licked and licked my damp hands as if they were her own newborn pups. Eventually, I staggered to the bathroom, blew my nose, and washed my face in cold water. I simply had to pull myself together. Rowdy and Kimi trusted me. They deserved better than this blubbering mess. The puppies were
good
news. I was blessed with a family and friends who’d celebrate it—Rowdy’s breeder, my father, Gabrielle, my cousin Leah, even my annoying cousin Janice, Rita, Kevin Dennehy, Ceci and Althea, friends from dog training, my editor at
Dog’s Life
magazine, E-mail friends I’d made on Malamute-L, the AMHotline, caninebackpackers, Dogwriters-L... I was continuing this ineffectual internal pep talk and blotting my haggard face dry when the phone rang once more. Bolting for it, I snatched the receiver without even checking caller-ID. I pray as seldom as I cry. Now, I was pleading for the well-being of Emma and her Rowdy puppies.

“Holly,” the familiar voice said. It was octaves lower than Cindy’s.

“Steve.”

“I heard that you bred Rowdy. I hope you don’t mind...”

“I don’t mind.” The sobbing had left my voice thick. Anyone else would’ve asked whether I was okay. Steve said, “Are your dogs all right?”

“Fine.Both of them.”

“The breeding. Did something go wrong?”

“No. In fact, I just heard. There are seven puppies so far, five boys, two girls, and at least one more on the way.”

“All spoken for?”

“Some. Not all.”

“I’m interested.”

Steve had always preferred civilized breeds. “You’re joking. They’re
malamutes,”
I said. “Obviously.”

“I’m a vet. Remember? They taught us that in school. Malamutes produce malamutes.” After a second or two, he repeated, “I’m interested.”