Paws before dying (16 page)

He shook his head. “Nah. The problem was with the kids. Three of them, right? The old man, and three kids, and they all work for him. And when the oldest kid’s maybe sixteen—old enough to drive—he starts hanging around the place after work, weekends. The place is down in East Cambridge, and it’s a warehouse, and it’s got offices, but it’s got neighbors, too, and they start making complaints, and it turns out that when the place is closed, these kids are hanging around, drinking and shit.”

“And they’re underage.”

“And then the neighbors get smart, and instead of calling us, they call the old man, and then instead of a bunch of kids, we get calls about domestic altercations.”

“Between Mitchell Senior and the son? The oldest son?”

“By that time, it’s two of them, the oldest one and this one you ran into, Dale, and they’re a pair of prizewinners.”

“So what was the, uh, domestic altercation? They were fighting with each other?”

“The basic scenario is that they hang around there, and they make a lot of noise and throw some bottles, and then the neighbors call the old man. And he shows up, and there’s a lot more noise, and someone calls the station.”

“And then there’s heavy competition about who gets to go and intervene in a fight between a man and his two muscle-bound teenage sons. I’ll bet that was a lot of fun.”

“I just
love
domestic situations,” Kevin said. “Wife calls because her old man’s beating her up again, and when you get there and drag him off her, the next thing she does is grab a frying pan and bring it down on your head.”

“So did anyone get hit with a frying pan?”

Kevin stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. “Cooled off now. The oldest kid shaped up. Went to some community college, and then he turned yuppie and drives around in a Corvette instead of a truck that says he sells plastic cups.”

“So, you see? Willie wasn’t really involved in that. Anyway, let me tell you the rest.” I did. I finished with the blurred photograph Jack Engleman had shown me. “But they didn’t know she took it,” I said. “It was taken from inside. From the angle you could tell it was from an upstairs window. And she wouldn’t have confronted them with it. Obviously, she’d been reading about that case—you remember—and what she wanted to do was accumulate evidence, pictures. Hey, you know what I wanted to ask you? Jack mentioned the autopsy. Do you know what it showed? I mean..."

“Pacemaker,” he said.

“I know that.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And I heard... Saporski says it showed, uh, burns.”

“From?”

Kevin shrugged.

“Right after Rose died, I asked Steve, because I had a sort of nightmare picture, like those scenes in the movies, of people in the electric chair. Anyway, I had this horrible image of her being burned to death. But he said that as far he knows, it doesn’t do that, or not usually. Jesus. Was it...?

Kevin shook his head. “On her right hand. Two marks. Two burn marks on her right hand.”

“From what? Look, I am so tired, but tomorrow or whenever, I have to tell you... It’s basically about the pacemaker. First of all, these people who live across from the park swear that lightning didn’t strike there, and so for a while I thought... The point is that pacemakers have something to do with radio signals, don’t they? There’s another house, right across from the park, where there’s one of these electric fences to keep the dog in. Not the wire ones, you know, to keep cows in. The wire is buried. You can’t see it. And basically, it works on radio waves. They’re picked up by a gadget on the dog’s collar. So I wondered if, somehow, that could’ve been... I mean, if lightning didn’t strike, maybe what got to the pacemaker was something from that fence system, a radio signal. Electric storms interfere with regular radio, right? You hear static and all that. So it occurred to me that if that fence thing malfunctioned or whatever, it might’ve interfered with the pacemaker. The signals that were supposed to go to the dog’s collar somehow reached her pacemaker. But that wouldn’t leave marks, obviously. I don’t see how it could bum. Could it?”

But Kevin was more interested in protecting Leah than in explaining the marks on Rose’s body. “Has this Johnson kid been after Leah today? He been calling?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t know.”

“Well, tell her if he does, hang up. Look, Holly, we’ll follow this up, but the God’s honest truth is that maybe nothing’ll turn up. Between me and you, a hell of a lot of the time, there’s not a damn thing we can do. And tell her if he calls, hang up.

Chapter 17

ASIDE from some deep reflex yawning, I was okay the next morning and, in fact, got up early to walk the dogs before the day really heated up. Then I packed the car. A sanctioned obedience match stands midway between a fun match and a trial. Consequently, people drag along only the minimum equipment, about half the paraphernalia they take to shows. You see the usual folding chairs and coolers as well as some crates, cages, and crate dollies, but especially because an obedience match has no breed rings and no electric hookups, people don’t bother with grooming tables, tack boxes, hair dryers, extension cords, and the rest. On the other hand, a hot-weather trial—and outdoor obedience rings are always, always located in the sun-blasted dead center of a steamy field—requires dog-cooling equipment that you never see at an indoor show. The ice-filled cooler in the back of the Bronco contained two large spray bottles and two gallons of water. I also packed sunscreen, sandwiches, and iced tea for us, extra water and drinking bowls, dog biscuits, old towels to wet down the dogs, and, for Kimi, a terry-cloth hot-weather garment aptly known as a Wet Blanket.

As it turned out, she didn’t need it. The trial took place at a park on the far western stretches of the Charles River, before the pollution leaks in, and Leah, barefoot in rolled-up pants, took a lightly and inadequately groomed Kimi for a wade and swim amid the goldens, Labs, Newfies, and Chesapeake Bay retrievers that were dashing in after sticks, thundering out, and joyfully shaking themselves off over the driest and most fastidiously dressed of the spectators. Rowdy condescended to dampen his paws at the edge of the river, stuck his muzzle rapidly in and out, and retreated to the bank. That’s his idea of a swim. When I tried to swaddle him in wet terry, he yelped as if I’d swatted him, but while he was busy eyeing a pretty Afghan hound, I slid a dripping towel under him to soak his belly and thighs.

Like most of the other handlers, Leah and I had set up in the narrow band of shade cast by the hedge that ran along one side of the field. Tamara Ryan, with only one Westie, and Lisa Donovan, with her English cocker, were on folding chairs on one side of us, which made me a little uneasy. I am not a breedist myself, but mostly because of a rotten-tempered, untrained, pet shop cocker kept tethered outdoors a block from our house, Rowdy detested cockers, and, in spite of all his show experience, I wasn’t sure that he could tell the difference between a cocker and an English cocker. I couldn’t blame him. In the eyes of cocker fanciers, the breeds are highly distinct, but I’m not always sure myself. In any case, either because he’d mastered the subtle distinction or because he was too hot to care, Rowdy was ignoring Davy.

“So, did you work anything out with Marcia?” Lisa asked, running her spread fingers through the back of her blond Dutch-boy hair to ventilate the nape of her neck.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s making a scarf for me. Actually, not for me. A Christmas present for my father.”

“She does nice work,” Lisa said. “Lovely person.”

I nodded blankly. Lovely persons do not half electrocute their dogs, but I don’t like to preach.

“And,” Lisa went on, “she’s one of these people who do everything. Plays the cello, sort of semiprofessional—she’s in some chamber music group—and does aerobic dance, teaches Chinese cooking for Community Schools, does all this PTA stuff. Used to be president, she and her husband, Larry. Now she runs the fair, which is more work than anything else if you ask me. Anyway, she’s one of these people who make you feel totally inadequate, except you’re glad: If she’s doing it, you don’t have to.”

PTA?

“Oh,” I said. “She didn’t mention all that. Mostly, we looked at her work and talked about the scarf. But I did meet Zeke, on my way out. He told me he went to Case. Rose was his kindergarten teacher.”

Tamara joined in. “Rose was everyone’s kindergarten teacher, everyone who went to Case. There’s only one kindergarten. You know she left a scholarship?”

“Really?” Lisa said.

“It’s for Newton North graduates who went to Case,” Tamara said. “College scholarship. Didn’t you see? It was in
The Tab
and
The Graphic.
”

“Jack didn’t mention it,” I said. “I saw him the other day. I guess he started it. It’s funny he didn’t say anything.” Tamara shook her head. “It was Rose. You can contribute— probably he will, obviously—but it was Rose. I mean, they never had any children.” She lowered her voice. “And there was money there. From her parents. She was an only child, and when they died, she got a bundle. And what else did she have to do with it? He doesn’t need it, he’s a broker. The bulk of it must go to him, but he doesn’t need it, so why not?”

“Where did you hear that?” Lisa said.

“My sister. Her husband’s a broker. He knows Jack. Everyone knew about it.”

“I didn’t,” Lisa said.

“Well, everyone else did.”

I was so busy listening that I almost lost track of what was happening in the rings. Then I noticed the armband on the handler in Novice B. “Leah, you’re next,” I said. “Go and wait by the ring. Have you been watching the heeling pattern?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said. “Relax. And don’t come with me. Stay here.”

“You know you can give an extra command,” Heather chimed in from a folding chair. The sun was so strong that even Heather and Abbey, who usually stationed themselves practically inside the ring, were in the shade with the rest of us. Heather had removed her shoes and was daubing neat rectangles of Panache-like silver-gray polish on the backs of the heels. “If she lags, tell her to heel. You know you can do that. You’ll lose points, but don’t let her get away with it.”

Leah nodded politely, brought Kimi to heel, and trotted off confidently. Her hands weren’t shaking, her knees weren’t knocking, and her face hadn’t turned the usual novice ashen green. As I watched her downshift to a stride, I noticed at the far edge of the field, in the shade of a maple grove, one handler Warming up a dog, heeling him back and forth, drilling him on about-turns. The dog was Righteous. The handler was Willie Johnson. hoped he had the sense to keep Righteous away from the ring while Kimi was working. The sudden appearance of a dog at ringside is a powerful distraction. Willie wouldn’t deliberately plant his shepherd there to ruin Kimi’s performance—it’s done, oh, is it ever—but he was a novice and might do it inadvertently.

“Doesn’t she look like your mother?” Heather called to me. As I may have pointed out, everyone knew Marissa. “Have you j noticed? She looks a lot like your mother, and she sounds like I her, too. Or maybe you don’t remember.”

“I remember,” I said. “I remember very well.” Then I stopped talking. I didn’t want the sound of my voice to distract! Kimi.

With Leah and Kimi in the ring, I finally turned my attention J to the center of the field, where the sun was broiling the dogs J and handlers and had already begun to burn the judges and I stewards. Not a single spectator stood near any of the roped-off rings, and the usual collection of folding chairs, dogs, and waiting exhibitors was absent, as if the sun had worked like a self-cleaning oven to bake them into an invisible powder.

Does the mental transmission of orders count as double handling? If so, I cheated.
Don’t let her down,
I commanded Kimi.
Watch Leah. Sit. Sit straight. Heel! Sit! Stay, damn it! Don't you
move. Don't you dare pull anything. Good girl! Beautiful work!

Or maybe they did it on their own. Except at the end, when j the ribbons are handed out, applause goes exclusively to very j young junior handlers, real children, not people Leah’s age, and to dog-handier teams that have done something spectacular. If you ask me, anyone who has the guts to walk into an obedience ring with an Alaskan malamute deserves a cheer—it’s like wing-walking on an antique biplane with an unpredictable engine, a senseless act of courage—but sometimes all you get is kindly silence intended to convince you that no one was looking, anyway. That hot day, though, people were watching: Leah’s hair flashed like a beacon, and the temptation to observe how creatively a malamute will fail to qualify is more than most people can resist. At the end of a perfect recall, the last individual Novice exercise, Kimi did a flawless finish, and when Leah released her, the applause was loud, even in the big, open field. Leah and Kimi pranced proudly back. I’m not sure which had the bigger grin or which of them I hugged harder.

“Leah, that was really beautiful,” I said. “And in this heat? Beautiful. Look, I’ve got to exercise Rowdy and warm him up a little. Give her a treat, and don’t let her drink too much water, just a little at a time, and then cool her off before the sits and downs. Drench her. It’s brutal for them out in that sun, and on a day like this, even a perfect dog will break sometimes.”