The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs: A Novel (27 page)

With Tina busy breast-feeding her kitten and Clint resting comfortably after I gave her an injection of an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory (Lewis’s “can’t hurt” suggestion), I succumb to guilt and a wayward sense of duty by making those annoying house calls, starting with the home of Ginny Weidmeyer.

Even from the bottom of a plowed driveway that has to be a quarter of a mile long, the word
home
feels impotent for this acropolis. Amid acres of reclaimed woodland, open fields roll into a massive frozen lake, with an unencumbered view of a craggy mountain range tossed in for good measure.

I park on the circular driveway. No need for reverse. Check. There’s a huge outdoor fountain in the middle, looking like it was stolen from the Piazza Navona. Most striking is the fact that it’s still working, babbling away even in this weather. Obviously Ginny would rather pay to heat the steaming water flowing through the mouth of Triton, or whoever it is, than be deprived of its soothing sounds.

I step down from the truck. To one side of the main house there’s a massive four-season porch, positioned to take in the vistas, and on the other, a four-car garage, outside of which lurks a brand-new black Range Rover bearing the license plate ONFYA.

I press the doorbell, and I’m treated to Mozart’s
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
.

“Dr. Mills, thank you so much for coming out to see us.”

Ginny wears a pink polo shirt, skin-tight riding breeches, and leather riding boots. I’m sure there’s plenty of room for a barn and indoor arena out back, unless she’s simply playing dress-up for … enter the man himself, clad in white bathrobe and flip-flops, clopping across the marble floor of the foyer. Why do I have the uncomfortable feeling that he is naked underneath?

“Hey, Doc,” says Steven, mussing his slick wet hair with a towel.

“Please,” says Ginny, gesturing for me to come through. “She’s in the great room.”

Bag o’ tricks in hand, I follow them into what appears to be a private country club. Besides the vaulted ceilings and the French doors that open onto a bluestone terrace with a covered swimming pool, I see two fireplaces, three antique Persian rugs, and enough sofas, love seats, and armchairs to furnish four good-size living rooms.

“Here’s my baby.”

Ginny kneels into a sheepskin rug on which Chelsea luxuriates in the golden glow of burning embers.

“What has you worried, Ms. Weidmeyer?”

I want to be empathetic, really I do, but my dispassionate cadence reveals a man with more pressing problems on his mind.

“I’ve not seen her drink or pee today. And she feels a little dehydrated to me.”

I catch the whites of Steven’s eyes and the inconspicuous shake of his head.

I join Ginny on the rug, as if the two of us are in prayer, carefully pinch Chelsea’s skin around the scruff of her neck, and watch as innate elasticity slowly sucks it back down. Too slowly. I lift the cat’s lip, run my finger across the gum line, blanch it out, and time the capillary refill. Three seconds. Too long. Despite my skepticism, Ginny is correct. Chelsea is becoming clinically dehydrated.

I get to my feet and step away from the heat of the fire. I see the familiar plaques and awards for golf that I saw at Greer’s house and, angled toward Chelsea, what appears to be a security camera.

“You worried she might get kidnapped?” There’s no humor in my question as I point into the optical eye.

“It’s a webcam,” says Ginny. “I have four of them set up in her favorite spots around the house, recording her every move. Gives me peace of mind. I can check up on her whenever I’m out and about. What d’you think?”

“She’s fine,” Steven says, sidling in close to Ginny. Real close.

I guess I’m already on a short fuse. Maybe, since I seem to be going down in flames, I feel like embracing an uncharacteristic, “all guns blazing” attitude. My revulsion at the sight of Steven pressing the palm of one hand across Ginny’s buttock, thrumming out a rhythm with his impatient fingers, doesn’t help matters. If I have to blame what I am about to say on a single catalyst, I choose the brazen presumption in Steven’s flashing eyebrows, as if they broadcast a secret message of: “You and I
are
on the same page, right, Doc?”

“No, she’s not fine, Steven, if that really is your name. She’s actually five to seven percent dehydrated, hardly ideal for a cat with a kidney stone.”

Ginny looks like I may as well have just smacked her across the face. Instantly, the set of Steven’s jaw switches up from cordiality to hostility.

For a moment I flounder and clear my throat. “My apologies for my candor, Ms. Weidmeyer, but yesterday evening I bumped into your fiancé at the local convenience store where he was purchasing, among other items, nonprescription cat food. Assuming Chelsea to be your only cat, and that you yourself are not a fan of canned beef and giblets, I have to conclude that the food has been maliciously administered to sabotage your attempts to control her kidney disorder.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Steven is in my face, pupils dilated, no doubt some of that Dutch beer on his breath.

I turn to face Ginny. “Steven is an alias; his real name’s Stuart. According to his driver’s license he’s from somewhere in Florida, not Manhattan. What you two do together is absolutely none of my business, but what is my business is assuring the well-being of this little cat.”

Chelsea raises her head, ever so slightly, as if to request we keep it down, before settling back into her white pelt and closing her eyes.

“You told me yourself, you’re not the one getting Chelsea her breakfast in the morning. That’s when I suspected she’s eating a diet high in salt and protein. Hold back on her access to water and, for a cat with her kidneys, subclinical dehydration quickly sets in.”

Ginny still looks more alarmed than interested.

“If you’re the one who feeds her in the evening, you’ve probably noticed how she’s hardly touching her food. That’s because those high-salt diets are highly addictive, just the way the pet food company designs them.”

Ginny’s blank stare neither confirms nor denies my supposition.

“Get your stuff and get the hell out of here,” says Steven, shoving a flat hand into my sternum. “How dare you come into our house, making these ridiculous accusations.”

The blow makes me grunt. There’s not a hint of a quaver to his voice. I’m guessing Steven is quite comfortable with confrontation.

“She needs fifty milliliters of normal saline injected subcutaneously.” I direct my treatment instructions to Ginny as the man formerly known as Steven begins dragging me toward the front door. I wonder if he senses that I still have one more bomb to drop from my apocalyptic payload.

“Just you wait ’til I contact the State Board, the Better Business Bureau, the attorney general,” he barks, and I feel the spittle land on my left ear. “After I’ve finished with you, you’ll be lucky to get a job as a butcher.”

I think about telling him to take a number and get in line but, over my shoulder, marching at double time, I shout, “Have a professional jeweler look at your diamond ring, Ms. Weidmeyer. It’s a fake. I noticed it on one of Chelsea’s X-rays. Probably cubic zirconium.”

With all the efficiency of an experienced bouncer, I’m tossed off their front stoop, forward momentum having fun with minimal friction at my expense as I slip on a patch of black ice and land hard on my coccyx.

I look back to find Steven delivering what I can best describe as a “withering farewell.” I’m not talking about the gritted teeth, the jabbing index finger, and the fire in his eyes when he insists, “You’re so dead.” Instead, I refer to the fact that the man safeguarding the threshold, despite the arctic chill, seems totally unaware that his bathrobe has fallen wide open.

My suspicions were correct.

I pull out of Ginny’s driveway, punch in the number, and it feels as though I’ve spent my whole life
not
making this type of phone call. When it came to my mother, I was unable. When it came to my father, I was unwilling. Self-preservation or selfish, I prefer the big decisions in life to impact only one person. Me. Now, thanks to Bedside Manor, I’m bound to a nicotine-addicted receptionist, a terminally ill woman I’ve never met, a kidnapped golden retriever, and a growing list of people and animals that constantly fill my head with worry and responsibility.

“It’s me, how’s Mrs. Lewis?”

“She’s good, just a second.” I hear footsteps and imagine the old man leaving a hospital room to find a corridor where he can speak and not get into trouble with an officious nurse for interfering with the monitors.

“Thanks for checking in. She fainted. Or at least they think she fainted. They didn’t want to take a chance, you know?”

Lewis’s obvious gratitude leaves me with a heady sense of guilt for bugging him about my problems. “Of course.”

“Everything fine on your end?”

“Sure. No problems.”

There’s a pause. “I’m not deaf, what’s going on? And what was that package Doris gave you?”

The guy doesn’t miss a trick. I tell him everything and hope it helps justify my run-in with Steven.

“Trust me, it’s not Greer.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Why are you ignoring the phrase ‘trust me’? How’s Toby?”

“From what I can tell, back to his evil self.”

“Good. If I were you I’d discharge him this evening. I guarantee Greer’s focus will be on what you’ve done for his dog.”

“But what about Ginny Weidmeyer?”

“Leave Ginny to me. I don’t know about this fiancé of hers, but she’s a good person. I have a feeling I can talk her down.”

Again, there’s a clandestine certainty in Lewis’s tone.

“You think Brendon Small sent the article?”

“No idea,” says Lewis, “but maybe it’s no bad thing.”

“What? How can you say that?”

Somehow I know Lewis is smiling on the other end of the line. “Because you’re actually worried about what you stand to lose and that means you must be starting to care.”

He’s wrong. “Maybe I just don’t like losing is all.”

But Lewis has the last word.

“Or maybe you’re not the man you used to be.”

Eden Falls Academy bears no resemblance to my late Aunt Rachel’s private school in Beaufort, South Carolina. For starters, the campus signposts gratuitously steer visitors like me (and, presumably, the parents of prospective pupils) past what looks to be a brand-new Center for the Performing Arts. And for those who find themselves overwhelmed by the size of the nearby sports center, little white hands with pointy fingers are eager to show off the “Olympic pool,” “indoor track,” an ice hockey rink, and dance studio. Did I mention I passed the school’s private ski resort on the way in?

Eventually I locate “The Master’s Lodge,” though the word
lodge
feels far too crude and earthy for the classic multigabled Colonial the Haggertys call home. I park out front. There’s light behind drawn curtains in several rooms.

Maybe Dr. Haggerty is home?

Encouraged by this prospect, I grab my bag, select one of the three possible front doors, march up the salty walkway, and knock. The door yields into my first rap, opens a couple of inches, and Puck comes bounding toward the crack, barking with junkyard ferocity.

“Hello, it’s Dr. Mills,” I shout, reassuring the black Lab that I’m friend not foe. “Anybody home?”

I’m standing in a large vestibule featuring a freestanding staircase and an extravagant crystal chandelier. From somewhere on the second floor I hear Crystal shout, “Go on through, Doctor, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I feel my earlier optimism waning as Puck adopts the role of butler and leads the way toward the back of the house. He deposits me in an expansive kitchen, trots over to his bed in a little breakfast nook, pads around, and lies down.

Is he weary of yet another gentleman caller?

As I vacillate over the option to bolt, my eyes fall upon what I can only describe as a smoking gun: an uncorked bottle of Veuve Clicquot on ice and two champagne flutes.

Stop jumping to conclusions. Concentrate on the Lab who loves lingerie. “What’s happening, Puck?”

I park myself on the floor next to him, struck by the difference in his demeanor. Crystal Haggerty was right. Puck acts like a different dog at home. The cordial and chirpy “Fatador” from my exam room has morphed into a mopey and withdrawn husk of his former self.

Though he’s reluctant, I get Puck to his feet so I can examine him properly, and this time I appreciate some significant bloating of his belly, up front where his stomach lies. He actually grunts when I press too hard, which is probably as vocal as this indomitable creature ever gets.

I kneel-walk my way around to Puck’s blocky head and get totally suckered into feeling sorry for him. It’s the way he stands there, pathetic, jowls hound-dog floppy, eyes sad and waxy, like he’s fed up with feeling seasick and why can’t we head back to shore?

That’s when I register the approach of clicking high heels on hardwood floors, rummage for my stethoscope, shove the buds in my ears, close my eyes, and twist my features into my best imitation of concentration as I listen to Puck’s lungs.

In order to sell Bedside Manor I am prepared to endure a certain amount of humiliation, but that does not include spending the rest of tonight locked inside Mrs. Haggerty’s love dungeon. I become aware of her presence, very near, almost hovering over me. Head bowed, out of the corner of my left eye, I catch sight of a glossy black stiletto. If the shoe is a harbinger for what lies above, this isn’t good.

Deep breath. Open your eyes and look up.

“Be a love and zip me up?”

From my submissive position, practically genuflecting, I’m forced to take in the view. If she were some twenty years younger and about to visit a Vegas nightclub, then I’m sure she’s appropriately dressed. But for Eden Falls? Her black cocktail dress is all about plunging down and rearing up, clearly designed to emphasize an oversize bosom and shapely legs. Did Mrs. Haggerty select this particular outfit to intimidate me? Should I defuse the situation, nip any sexual tension in the bud, suggest she rethink the sheer black nylons failing to disguise the cottage cheese cellulite of her thighs?