All Shots (19 page)

But Holly replaced the media-free material in her briefcase and read from a single sheet of paper. “‘Delayed presentation of a massive sub-capsular haematoma of the spleen,’” she intoned as if the medical report were sacred text. “This is a case report about a man who fell down a manhole. His chest X-ray was normal. He was sent home. Then he developed a painful lump, and three weeks later he was diagnosed with an occult rupture of the spleen.”

Zach Ho, who was, after all, a doctor, looked a little perplexed, but I understood. I use the Web to look up diseases and ailments, too. I do it even after Steve has told me what’s wrong with the animal I’m worried about or after he’s told me that there’s nothing wrong except my hypochondria by proxy.

“Thank you, Holly,” Al said. “It looks like that’s what happened. So, Grant was discharged on Labor Day. Meanwhile, Holly was staying here, and to be on the safe side, she was calling Calvin strictly from pay phones. She was careful. So, Calvin filled her in on Grant, and they were both worried that he’d rat on them or go after her. But she wasn’t so careful about the truck.”

“I warned her,” Zach said.

Al said, “Street cleaning was on August thirty-first. Thursday. On the even side of the street. She couldn’t have bailed out the truck without ID. It wasn’t her truck. Grant was still in the hospital. He got out the next Monday, Labor Day, and he went home, and the day after that, he got the impound notice.”

“With an address,” I said. “On this street. Right near here.”

“And he went apeshit,” Al resumed. “He must’ve. He was supposed to take it easy, and what he did was jump on his old Harley and beat it to the address on the notice. We don’t know exactly what happened then. He found this house. Maybe he looked through windows. When he got in, we don’t know what he did first. Tried to get her to tell him where his money was? And the meth she’d taken?”

“And his dog,” I said.

“That, too. He tore up the place. And he shot her. In what order, we don’t know. Everything was down the street at Mellie’s, of course. Cash, meth, all of it packed in those dog toys.”

“Shooting her might’ve been what scared him away,” Zach said. “He sounds like a guy who wasn’t used to near neighbors. No one heard the shots, but someone could’ve. That might’ve occurred to him and sent him running. And there’s the ruptured spleen. He must’ve been in pain. Feeling weak.”

“Well, he made it back home,” Al said. “Checked himself into the hospital the next day. Had his spleen out. He was there until this past Monday.”

“And we know what he did after that,” I said. “And Calvin. Holly had been calling him. She must’ve told him where she was. Then she stopped calling. He was worried.”

“Calvin’s not a guy who does a lot of reading,” Al said. “Basically, none. And a low-profile murder in Massachusetts doesn’t make the TV news in Washington County, Maine.”

I asked, “But why did they show up at almost the same time?”

“They didn’t,” Al said. “Calvin had been hanging around since Sunday, staying at a motel out on Soldiers Field Road. He thought she might’ve gone somewhere, and he kept checking to see if she’d come back. He must’ve heard Grant’s voice. Grant was shouting at Mellie just before Calvin came in.”

“Mellie,” Zach said. “The worst thing I’ve done is to get her involved in this mess.”

I feel compelled to leap beyond the narrative moment to comment that one of the things I liked about Zach Ho was his guilt, which was somewhat justified. Despite his peculiar attachment patterns or sexual oddities or whatever you want to call them, I liked and admired him and wanted him for a friend. As it turns out, Steve and I have had dinner with him a few times, not at our dog-saturated, asthma-triggering house, but once at his place and once in a restaurant. Holly Winter has not accompanied us; Zach has no interest in her. I have been thinking about introducing Zach and Rita to each other, but I haven’t done it yet, mainly because I can’t decide whether to try fixing them up or whether to send him to her for therapy.

“Zach, please stop blaming yourself,” I said and added somewhat mendaciously, “If you think about it, it’s really the city that’s responsible. If it weren’t for this draconian policy about towing and impounding cars, Grant wouldn’t have known where Holly was. And Mellie is doing okay. If she’d told the full truth to begin with, we’d all have known what was going on. Not that that’s a reasonable expectation. She did what she thought was right. She sees things in black and white. She promised Holly not to tell anything to anyone, and she kept her promise. Yes, she was terrified, but we all were.”

“You less than others,” Holly Winter said.

“I was petrified,” I said. “But Mellie is recovering. She has wonderful friends, and she has her religion. And I’m helping her to look for a new dog.”

“The husky?” Zach Ho asked.

“Malamute,” I said reflexively. “No, it’s the wrong breed for Mellie.”

Maybe another Boston terrier, like Lily. Or a pug. A Border terrier? A mini poodle was an excellent possibility. Or a bichon, like Gabrielle’s Molly. Gabrielle might know a good breeder with a retired show dog in need of a pet home. Or possibly a mixed-breed dog, a medium-sized terrier cross? Or a sheltie! Yes, a sheltie or a sheltie mix with bright eyes and a lively personality. Mellie would enjoy the ritual of daily brushing, and she’d have fun with a dog who’d like learning tricks. My spirits rose. Until then, I’d found the debriefing informative but depressing. In particular, it was sad to realize that Zach was barred by asthma from the life-affirming experience of owning a dog and had to settle for tropical fish. As to his “eye for the ladies,” to use Francie’s phrase, I thought that his habit of picking up strange women in a health-food market placed him more in Rita’s territory than in mine; in other words, I thought he was crazy. Here he was, a gorgeous, intelligent doctor who devoted himself to helping desperately needy people in third world countries. And his sex life consisted of one-night stands with sushi eaters? And then there was Holly Winter, whose efforts to attract him consisted of softening her appearance without…well, I’m doomed to sound like Rita, here: Holly had softened her appearance while leaving the inner person frozen and sharp. But the prospect of finding just the right dog for Mellie? I was elated. Francie had told me that Mellie had special needs. Francie had been right. Mellie’s special needs included the best special need of all: the urgent need for the right dog. For someone else with that need, Streak was waiting. Interested? Visit www.malamuterescue.org. That’s the Web site of the Alaskan Malamute Assistance League. It has links to our affiliates all over the United States. Maybe one of them has a dog who is waiting for
you.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I’d better be going. There are some phone calls I have to make. Things I have to do. Zach, thank you for having us here. This actually has been a healing experience.”

On Saturday afternoon at three thirty, Steve called me
on his cell phone. This time, he had no trouble reaching me. He was on the Mass. Pike, only a half hour from home. I felt like a teenager waiting for a boy she has a crush on. I’d cleaned the house, filled the cupboards and refrigerator with food, moved the van so that the ruined window faced away from our house, brushed the dogs, taken a shower, dried my hair, applied a little makeup, and put on good clothes—not a dress and certainly not high heels, but clean jeans that fit well and a heavy cotton sweater with happy colors and a pattern that suited me. As a matter of fact, it had come from L.L.Bean. Actually, from the Bean’s outlet in Ellsworth, Maine. So, I did have a few things in common with the Holly who’d been murdered. L.L.Bean. The love of dogs. She had not been an admirable person, but she had loved a dog, a malamute, a member of my own breed. Therefore, she had redeemed herself.

And the living Holly? The
other
? Eager to welcome Steve home, I took Rowdy, Kimi, and Sammy out to the yard. I’d intended to spend the time planning how to tell Steve about everything that had happened in his absence. I’d thought about telling him on the phone, but I’d decided to wait for his return. As it was, as Rowdy, Kimi, Sammy, and I awaited the man we loved, I found myself diverted by the sudden recollection of my image of Holly Winter as a person trapped on a narrow rock ledge, a person inaccessible and paralyzed by fear. And I finally understood who she was and, in a new way, who I am. She was who I might have become if it weren’t for my special need. Yes, there but for the grace of dogs was this Holly Winter.

The dogs recognized the sound of the car before I even heard the engine, and by the time I was unlocking the gate to the driveway, the air was ringing with Rowdy’s basso profundo, Sammy’s alto, and Kimi’s spine-tingling contralto. I slipped out, closed the gate, and heard Lady’s excited whines and India’s big-girl woofs. Steve was tan and bug-bitten and infinitely desirable. He was wonderfully mine. He surrounded me with his arms and his warmth, and I buried my head in his chest.

Over the caroling of the dogs, he said, “You look beautiful. I’ve missed you so much. Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. Except…there was a slight, uh, accident involving your van.”

He laughed. “How slight?”

“Not very. Rowdy went through that rear window that’s been rattling.”

“What was he doing loose in the van?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

And now I have.