Paws before dying (18 page)

“No. Her hand.”

“What would...?”

“Well, that’s what I’m asking you. But in theory, it’s possible, right?” I pushed my way through some scrubby maple saplings.

“Hmm. She was opening the gate. She was found next to it. The marks could’ve come from the gate. It’s galvanized. It’s like a dog run. That’s something we do see injuries from. The dog gets its paw caught in the chain link, that kind of thing. Has anyone taken a good look at the gate?”

“I assume. They must’ve. Anyway, we can look on the way out. But how would that bum? It isn’t as if she’d scratched herself on it or got cut. Obviously, chain link could do that if it was loose. Torn. But Kevin said bums.”

“If the whole thing was electrified? Say what’s hit by lightning is a tree. Then the ground currents can radiate from the tree, or whatever’s taken a direct hit.”

“But the point is, there was no direct hit. There are these people who live across the street, right across the street from the entrance, where the tennis courts are. And they are positive. I talked to the woman. They were home. And they swear that lightning did not strike there. It’s possible that it did and they didn’t notice, but this woman sounds reliable.”

“Then what...?”

“That’s it. What did? If lightning didn’t strike, what was it? How did Rose die? I didn’t see the autopsy report, obviously. Who’s going to show it to me? But if her pacemaker had just sort of broken, if there’d been something wrong with it, there wouldn’t be an inquest. Why inquire? Look, could it have been a shock collar? It’d leave two burn marks, and that’s what she had, two burn marks. Could that do it? By the way, do you know where we are? I’m lost.”

Four or five little paths led from the wooded clearing where we found ourselves.

He shook his head and took my hand. “No idea, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll just follow the dogs.” My soulmate. “Anyway, could it bum? Yes. If it was old. If it was malfunctioning. Or if it’d been tampered with.”

“Could you do that? How hard is it to tamper with them?”

“Can you up the voltage? Yeah, up to a point. It’s no high-tech project. Anyone who’s had high school physics or knows a little about electronics could do it. And the expensive, new collars are supposedly a hundred percent waterproof. Hunters want something they can leave on a retriever when he hits the water. So waterproof and water-safe are big selling points. The old ones weren’t, and if the seal’s broken... and in this situation, you’ve got water. Maybe she was standing in it.”

“We can look,” I said. “On the way out. We can see if there would’ve been a puddle there, in heavy rain. There was a real downpour, at least in Cambridge, and I gather here, too. Anyway, the burn marks are sort of confusing me because the other thing is that across the street, that woman who’s making me the scarf for Buck—Marcia Brawley—has one of those damned electronic fences. Actually, you know what’s the worst thing about it? These people, the Brawleys, have a border collie. Jesus, what kind of person would give electric shocks to a border collie? Border collies are about ten times as intelligent and sensitive as most people.”

“They vary,” he said. “But, in general, they’re real bright.” He rubbed Lady’s head. “It’s more apt to be these guys.”

“Pointers?”

“Bird dogs. Hounds. Hunting dogs all work at a distance.”

“Steve, I saw this dog, and what he does is, when he gets near the edge of the lawn, he acts really strange. He stops and backs up. But also, it’s hard to describe, but he has an odd look. Their eyes are always eerie, but he looks abnormal, not like a border collie. Anyway, his collar is definitely not a regular collar. It’s light-colored, flat, with a sort of box. Obviously, it’s a shock collar. So I assumed it’s one of those damned electronic systems, with wire buried around the perimeter of the yard. I know they work on radio waves. That’s what triggers the shock. When the dog gets in range of the wire, the collar picks up the radio waves, and the collar gets a signal to give a shock. Right? So what I thought was, maybe the system got screwed up, and the radio signals got to Rose’s pacemaker. But that can’t be right, because it wouldn’t bum. It would make the pacemaker go berserk, but it wouldn’t burn her hand.”

“So why...?”

“Why.
Yeah. I just put this together today, at the match. Look, the school where Rose taught, Case, sounds like a real neighborhood school. And it’s small. There’s only one kindergarten, and that’s what Rose taught. At Jack’s, just after she died, I heard that maybe four years ago, she had a kid in her class, and she thought he was being abused. Physically. And she filed this charge or something against the parents, a 51 A. Someone there sort of blurted out that the parents were real Newton types, the last people you’d expect. He said they were Mr. and Mrs. Newton. Among other things, they were the presidents of the PTA. And what I put together today is that it was the Brawleys, the same people. Someone was talking about how Marcia Brawley did all this stuff, and one of the things was being president of the PTA, and Marcia Brawley’s kid is the right age. So at first I thought, well, maybe there was a weird accident, right? Electric storm, radio waves, Rose’s pacemaker, and the signal accidentally gets to her. But if the signal comes from these people, that’s just too much of a coincidence. She accuses them of child abuse, she files this 51 A, and it just so happens to be their electronic fence. And since they lived right across the street from the tennis courts, and they knew her, they’d know she’d be there. They’d’ve seen her training there. So they had this grudge against her, and they had this damned fence. But it just doesn’t compute, not with the burn marks.”

“When was it this happened? Four years ago?”

“Something like that.”

“Why would they wait four years?”

“I don’t know. But I agree. Either they would’ve done something then, or you’d think they’d mostly want to forget it. And what would they get out of it? There are some kinds of hurts that can smolder for a long time, and if people want revenge, they don’t care when. But this? And while we’re on the subject, I’ve been thinking about this judge Rose reported to the AKC. Sam Martori. Rose could be pretty tough. She reported him for ethical violations. It was in the
Gazette
and everything, and it wasn’t all that long ago. But this thing with the Brawleys isn’t something like that. It just doesn’t fit. Anyway, that fence wouldn’t leave burn marks, not on her. Even if the radio waves somehow got
sent
in her direction, they might screw up the pacemaker, but they wouldn’t burn her hand.”

“Are you sure it’s that kind of system?”

“What other kind is there?”

“A plain old shock collar. With a transmitter.”

“Right. That’s possible. You hire a guy to come to the house and train the dog not to cross the boundary. Or you do it your, self. But I don’t think it works all that well, at least not the way those fences do. I’ll tell you, whatever’s been done to this dog is something that works. But it is possible.”

“Holly, how sure are you that these are even the same people?”

“Pretty sure. How many PTA presidents are there? And don’t forget, these are people who’ve done something god-awful to a border collie. A border collie! That part all fits. But am I totally sure? No. Even if they have a regular shock collar, what’s bothering me is that... It isn’t so much that they didn’t have anything to gain. It’s that a lot of other people did.”

“Like?”

“Heather Ross. You know who she is? You’ve seen her at shows, in Open and Utility. Silver-haired woman with a silver standard poodle, fabulous obedience dog.”

He nodded. “A robot.”

Maybe you know that that’s a backhanded compliment. A robot is a dog that works precisely but mechanically, without dash and spirit.

“Not really,” I said. “And he’s kind of a monster out of the ring. Anyway, she and Rose go way back, probably thirty or forty years, for all I know, a long time. And I think they were major rivals all along. You know what those poodle people are like.”

“Unlike the golden retriever people.” His voice smiled.

I defended myself. “You think you’re kidding, but you’re not. They’re much more competitive. And Heather and Abbey— that’s her daughter—did know about the pacemaker. I know that for sure. And in the ring, Rose was a threat, she really was. And for all I know, there was other stuff, too, old stuff. I’ve thought a whole lot about it. Competition
is
one thing I understand.”

We were climbing up a steep, rough trail. Lady, Steve’s pointer bitch, was following a yard or two behind us, India had temporarily vanished, and Rowdy and Kimi were ahead of us. Rowdy’d reached the top of the hill and was surveying it as his domain while Kimi made wild dashes through piles of leaves and brush.

“I know, I know,” I added, pointing to my dogs. “They aren’t exactly Gaines Top Dog material, but...”

Most of the time, Steve is a serious guy. He approaches people, dogs, cats, and all other creatures with an attitude of grave interest. His smile is never automatic—it always means something—and when he laughs, as he did then, his eyes crinkle and radiate glee.

“Well, okay,” I conceded, “but I didn’t always have malamutes, and I do know how it feels. And I have mixed feelings about it. But Heather doesn’t. A couple of days after Rose died, she was proposing a memorial trophy designed for her to win herself, and she was totally unabashed about it. And they double handle, Heather and Abbey. She probably tapes liver to her thigh, for all I know.” That’s the left thigh, at dog-nose level, right where his head goes when he’s heeling perfectly. Food is, of course, prohibited in the ring, but the stewards don’t do a strip search. “People are always saying that she’d do anything.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. “People are always saying that about top handlers.”

“I know! But maybe it’s no joke. And she does have a shock collar. Abbey told me so. I’m sure she hardly ever uses it, and when she does, she knows exactly what she’s doing, but she has one. And she’d have known Rose would be there. Rose always talked about training at the tennis courts. Not just there, of course, but it was her regular place. It was no secret. That’s how Nonantum happened to get the park, because Rose always trained there, so she knew about it. Heather and Abbey must’ve known. But I don’t know if the competition was actually cutthroat, and I have no idea whether she was really there. Or whether both of them were, Heather and Abbey, because if they had something to do with this, that’s how I see it: double handling, the old mother and daughter act.”

“They go way back? Did Rose leave anything to Heather? Was there money?”

I shook my head. “Not that I’ve heard, though she did have money of her own. She started some kind of scholarship, but apparently, the rest went to Jack. That’s another thing. You want to know who benefited? Not that Jack did, exactly, but if you go there now, it’s a kind of family reunion. You remember, I told you, when he married Rose, his family sat shiva for him? Now all of a sudden, he’s back in the family. Or they’re back with him. And maybe this is totally off base, but his sister, Charlotte Zager? She’s a dentist, right? In Newton. And her son, what’s his name, Don, is a vet. Also in Newton. You know him?”

“Only that he’s, uh, he’s a holistic veterinarian. He does acupuncture. Homeopathy. It’s real trendy now, acupuncture, all that. Most of it’s harmless. Maybe it helps.”

“If it’s so trendy, you’d think his clinic would show it, and it doesn’t. It makes yours look like Mass. General, at least from the outside. And that’s the point. No, actually, that’s the question. What we have is, Charlotte Zager’s a dentist, okay? Now, who knows more about electricity and water? That’s what dentists do all day. They use electrical equipment in wet places. And her son? He happens to be a veterinarian. So maybe people who use shock collars don’t come to you, but he’d know these things exist, and he’d know where to buy one. If he subscribes to
Dog’s Life
for the waiting room, he’s on a million mailing lists, and he gets armloads of catalogs, and most of them sell these damned things. At a minimum, he’d see the ads. And the point is, with Rose dead, Jack inherits her money, not that he needed it, I think, but his sister and his nephew inherit a rich relative. If Don needs money to fix up his clinic—and it looks as if he does—Jack is probably going to come through. He’s kind. He’s generous. He’s exactly the kind of person you could count on to give you what he had. The nephew wouldn’t necessarily know that, but his own sister would. And she’d’ve known he wouldn’t refuse to see them or anything, too. I mean, he didn’t. There they are.”

“The family kicked him out? There was no contact?”

“None, I think.”

“Then tell me something. How are they supposed to have known who Rose was? How would they recognize her?”

“They all live here, in Newton. Sometime or other, they must’ve seen each other, on the street, in a store. Charlotte would recognize Jack, obviously, and if she kept seeing the same woman with him? But there is one sort of related hitch, which is about the tennis courts. I just don’t see how they would’ve known Rose went there, that she always trained there. But it’s possible. Speaking of which, we’re almost back there, I think. I’m pretty sure the field’s over this hill. I’d better get the dogs. Okay, so when we get to the tennis courts, we take a look at the door. And if the border collie, Rascal, is out, across the street, I want you to take a look at him and tell me what you think. And there’s also... Well, there’s more.”