Black Ribbon (29 page)

“Oh, Faith Barlow, of course,” I remarked, as if the need to call Faith had gone without saying. “You went out there? How’d you get there?”

“Borrowed Steve’s van. Does it ever smell like dogs!”

“He’s a vet,” I said. “What do you expect it to smell like? Did you take Kimi?”

Faith has malamutes. With the Alaskan Malamute National Specialty coming up in October, Kimi—in season or out—needed all the exposure to others of her breed that we could provide.

“Yes,” Leah said. “I fed her chlorophyll and sprayed her with Lust Buster, but the males were interested anyway.”

“And how’d
she
do?”

“Okay.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I did what Anna Morelli said to do. I put Kimi on a down and—”

“Yeah, well, Anna Morelli’s one of the people we’re going up against, you know, and Tundra is so good with other animals—”

As a reminder to myself that an exceptionally brilliant and intense malamute can, in fact, be trained to behave herself in the presence of other animals, I’d placed a framed photograph of Anna and Tundra on the windowsill directly in front of my computer, where I had to look at it every time I sat down to work. Also present in the picture was, of all things, a ferret, which lay spread out on Tundra’s neck, its head peering over
the top of hers. In case you know anything about malamutes, I should add that, remarkably enough, the ferret was alive and that, rather than attempting to kill it, Tundra was making intelligent and peaceful eye contact with the camera. Anna was smiling joyfully. And for good reason.

“Stop!” Leah demanded. “I know all about the ferret! I’ve seen the picture. And if you expect me to go out and get some ferret so that Kimi can learn … Holly, it’s a
malamute
specialty! There aren’t exactly going to be a lot of ferrets—”

“It’s important to proof against all possible contingencies,” I said blandly.

“So are you interested in this catalog, or would you rather nag me—”

“Leah, I’m sorry. What have you found?” I rested a little notebook on a shelf under the pay phone and prepared to scribble.

“Okay. Um, Mrs. Donald Abbott judged Novice A and Open B.”

“You have the catalog there? Where are you in it? At the beginning?”

“Yes. Where it lists the rings. You want me to read it to you?”

“Yes. Just the relevant parts, not everything.”

“Okay. ‘Ring eleven. Judge: Mrs. Donald Abbott. Stewards: Mary Ellen Fisher, John Greely, Trudy Parker.’ ”

“Never heard of them. Go on.”

“ ‘Nine
A.M.
’ I’ll just summarize this, okay? Twenty-four Novice A entries. Lunch at noon. Then twelve-thirty, Open B had fifteen entries, and the stewards were, uh, Eileen Alberts, Arm Hull, Joseph Weiss.”

Again, unfamiliar. “Now look at the entries, okay? Toward the back—”

“I know! Just a minute. Okay. Novice A—”

“See if she had a dog called Benchenfield—”

“Benchenfield Farmer’s Dog,” Leah said. “Yes. The
breeder … This is one of the ones you gave me. The breeder is Virginia Garabedian. That’s Ginny, isn’t it? The one with the skinny braid all wrapped—”

“Yes. Where’d you meet her?”

“Hockamock.”

“So, keep reading.”

“Labrador retriever. And the owner is Eva J. Spitteler. You want me to look up the addresses?”

“Yes,” I said. “Before we hang up. For now, just scan the rest of Novice A, and see if you see any of the other names.” I waited. Leah found none. She turned to the page of Open B entries. “This is one of them,” she said. “ ‘CH OTCH Windemere’s Nickum.’ ”

Owned, of course, by Camilla White. I recognized a few other names of people who’d had dogs in Open B, but no one from camp. In case you don’t show your dogs … Well, in fact, if you don’t show your dogs, consider taking up the sport, huh? It’s a lot of fun. But, as I started to point out, if you don’t show, you may not realize that you don’t just turn up at the last minute. You mail or fax your entry weeks before the show, and definitely by the closing date, after which time the show-giving club prepares the catalog. Consequently, unless there’s been an error in the printing of the catalog, every dog actually shown is listed under the class in which he’s entered.

When we’d finished reviewing Open B, Leah turned to the last pages of the catalog and consulted the index of exhibitors, looked for names, and gave me a few addresses. Maxine McGuire’s name appeared. Turning back in the catalog, Leah found that Max had had a mastiff in Open Bitches, which I might add, is a conformation class that has nothing to do with Open Obedience—or, for that matter, with bitchiness, either, except in the strictly technical sense. Ginny’s name appeared under the heading “Retrievers (Labrador) Open, Yellow Bitches” as the breeder, owner, and handler of Benchenfield
Prodigy CD, JH—Junior Hunter—the only owner-handled entry in the class. I wondered how they’d done. The judge had been Horace Lathrop, who’s a friend of my father’s and a fair judge, or so Buck says, anyway. Eric Grimaldi had had a long day. He’d started his breed judging with pointers at eight-thirty A.M., taken a lunch break between spaniels, English springer and field, and ended with Weimaraners; and then at six o’clock, he’d judged the Sporting Group and Brace.

I thanked Leah, asked her to keep looking through the catalog, and reminded her to check the dog magazines. She’d shown initiative in hunting up the catalog, and it had provided some information, but any show catalog is subject to what I guess you’d call false positives: dogs and people whose names were printed in the catalog, but who for one reason or another had never turned up. It happens all the time. Dogs go lame or blow coat. Exhibitors get the flu. Although the American Kennel Club is formally protesting the matter in the Highest Court of All, as of this date, even AKC judges are still subject to attacks of appendicitis and to the other sudden ills of ordinary mortals. And if a club is forced to use a substitute judge? If there’s time, the club mails a notice to everyone who’s entered, and the substitution is always posted at the show, but the original name still appears in the catalog, of course. Furthermore, although you can’t enter a dog after the closing date for a show, there’s nothing to prevent you from going there and wandering around with the hundreds or thousands of other spectators, none of whose names are recorded anywhere.

When I emerged from the stuffy heat of the phone booth, it was time for drill team, the prospect of which really put me off. For one thing, the day had become oppressively hot and humid. Mostly, though, the idea of heeling dogs around in would-be precision lines and pinwheel formation to the brassy, jolly strains of a marching band only a few hundred yards from where Eva had died felt uncomfortably like dancing
on her grave. Perhaps my objection seems senseless. I don’t really like the idea of tutued ballerinas pirouetting on the sod over my own remains, but I take comfort in advance from the vision of happy teams of handlers and dogs parading above while I’m down below—provided, of course, that the handlers insist on tight heeling and quick sits, and that the dogs invariably come when called. But remember! No forging, no lagging, no sloppy work at all, or the ground beneath your feet will rumble and shake, and you’ll know that Holly Winter will keep rolling over until that dog shapes up.

But Rowdy and I went to drill team nonetheless. Janet, our instructor, conducted herself and the activity with admirable dignity. She omitted the music. What piece could we have used? The Dead March from
Saul?
With an air of brave determination to carry on, Phyllis Abbott took her position at the center of the line, moved briskly, and paid what must have been close attention to Janet’s cues. I had the feeling that Mrs. Abbott was concentrating on setting a good example. The AKC would even have approved of her apparel, knitted coordinates that would have looked dowdy on a young woman, tailored pants and a matching twin set in a muted, demure shade of spruce, clothing too warm for what had become a July-hot day. As attentive as his handler, Nigel kept his bright dark eyes on her face. His task couldn’t have been easy. Phyllis was a big, tall woman, so it was a long way up to her face from Pomeranian level, and the jut of her bosom must have blocked Nigel’s view. From Rowdy’s face to mine was no great distance, and my anatomy presented no natural obstacles to eye contact, but he remained as unfocused on me as I was on the pattern we were supposed to be following. Although we were practicing what we’d learned the day before, I kept forgetting the next move, turning in the wrong direction, and failing to keep tabs on the other handlers and dogs, thus throwing us as out of sync with everyone else as we were with each other. By the time drill team finally ended, I felt sorry I’d
gone to it at all, not because we’d displayed any disrespect for Eva or for her memory—we hadn’t—but because I’d literally misled Rowdy, who had deserved all my attention or none at all and had received a confusing mishmash of the two. To make amends, I stayed for flyball, which Rowdy had loved the day before and which, at his beginning level, required very little from me. Focused on the flyball box and on the tennis balls that sprang from it, Rowdy must have found the inanimate objects more responsive than I’d been during the previous hour. Except to cheer Rowdy on, I spoke little. Avoiding my friends, I exchanged a few aimless words with people I didn’t really know: the couple with the beautiful English setters, Ms. Baskerville, the owners of the handsome basenjis, the woman named Jennifer with the obedience Doberman, Delilah.

Walking Rowdy back to our cabin, I had a sudden attack of homesickness. I missed Kimi so sharply that tears came to my eyes. With a leash in only one hand, a dog on only one side, I felt oddly unsafe. When we reached the cabin, I gave Rowdy a bowl of water. When he’d finished slurping it up, I presented him with a big dog biscuit. He didn’t have to sit, give his paw, drop, watch me, or do anything else to earn the reward; it felt important to me to give him a simple gift. Furthermore, although I’d laughed at the presence of an air conditioner in a cabin in God’s country, I turned the silly thing on and settled Rowdy under it. When he’d wrapped himself up in his classic heat-conserving sled dog position, tail curled to cover his nose and thus warm the frigid air, I sat at the desk and covered its surface with some of the material I’d used in drafting my article: copies of AKC rules, regulations, and guidelines; a couple of old issues of the
Gazette;
and pages of notes scribbled on yellow legal pad. Like everything else I write by hand, the notes were almost totally illegible, even to me. I was a prescient child, convinced that penmanship exercises were a waste of time. It’s clear to me now that I foresaw the invention
of the personal computer. I wished now that my clairvoyance had had a practical bent: A psychic pragmatist would also have divined the means to afford a laptop. With complete foreknowledge that unless I printed carefully, I’d soon be unable to decipher what I wrote, I took brief, careful notes about possible grounds for AKC suspension, reprimands, and fines. From the
Gazette
and from memory, I made notes of particulars, most of which were irrelevant to my purpose. If anyone at Waggin’ Tail had committed any of the obvious AKC crimes, I’d certainly have heard by now. No one was guilty of any of the dramatic offenses for which people had been publicly shamed in the Secretary’s Pages of the
Gazette:
No one had kicked a judge, shouted obscenities at a steward, or thrown a grooming table at another exhibitor. In search of subtle or private transgression, I studied the AKC rules pertaining to shows, the guidelines for conformation and obedience judges, and, for perhaps the millionth time in my life, the obedience regulations. From the beginning, it was clear that the person most likely to have risked reprimand or suspension was Eva Spitteler herself. Hers was the dog most likely to have caused a problem at a show, and it was easy to imagine Eva using abusive language to a fellow exhibitor, starting an altercation with an official, or arguing about a judge’s decision. As I already knew, exhibitors were forbidden to threaten judges and to question their decisions. Judges were absolutely and repeatedly forbidden to solicit judging assignments. In all respects, the behavior of judges was supposed to be above reproach. Eric Grimaldi and Phyllis Abbott had judged at the Passaic show. Ginny, a tracking judge, had been an exhibitor.

As I was castigating myself for not having been there myself, a sharp rapping on the cabin door awakened Rowdy, who leaped up, wagged his tail, bounced around, and pointed his nose toward the source of the sound.

I opened the door to Phyllis Abbott. She stepped only a few feet inside, shook Rowdy’s outstretched paw, and said, “I can’t
stay. I just stopped in to give you a message. You’re supposed to call home. Maxine asked me to tell you.”

My heart raced.

Kimi.

Five minutes later, I was in the stuffy phone booth frantically dialing my own number. Before Leah had finished saying hello, I demanded, “Is Kimi all right?”

“Would you relax?” my cousin said.

“I’ll try.”

“We were going to talk later. Remember? After I read the magazines? Well, it’s later, okay?”

“Okay. So what’d you find?”

“About two million ads for dogs, a hundred boring articles about the search for a new AKC president when what’s his name retires. It’s supposed to be soon. All this stuff about qualifications, knowledge of dogs, business management skills versus dog stuff, lots of that kind of thing.”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s not ‘yes, but.’ That’s why I called. Most of what I found is stuff we already knew—who was at Passaic, that kind of thing. But then two of the gossip columns had … Well, one of them said something about this Donald Abbott and John White—”

“John R.B.,” I said.

“Yes. And so I sort of read between the lines, and then I called your father.”

“You called Buck?”

“Yes. And he says he heard the same thing.”

“What thing?”

“About this guy Donald Abbott.”

“What about him?”

“That he’s in line. Or really, he thinks he’s in line. And that’s why he’s doing all this politicking. He’s working on it.”