Brute Strength

by Susan Conant

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘You haven’t even met Rowdy.’

  ‘And I wonder if we could make a play date for Sammy and Ulla. One of the reasons I bought the house is that it has a big yard, at least for Cambridge. Fenced.’

  ‘Ours is fenced,’ I said, ‘but it’s not very big. Yes, let’s get them together.’

  We agreed to talk the next day and to set a time. Then all our guests left at once. Steve and I accompanied them out to the sidewalk. Leah got on her bicycle and rode off with everyone waving to her. Avery, I remember, was clinging to her brother almost as if she rather than Fiona were his fiancée, and Tom was issuing alarmist cautions to Fiona, who said, ‘Really, I’ve done this drive dozens of times. With no traffic, it’ll be under four hours, and it’s highway all the way.’

  Tom put his arm around her shoulder, hugged her, and said, ‘You’re very dear to us, you know.’

  ‘You’re very dear to me, too,’ Fiona said.

  FIVE

  When the phone rang at nine o’clock on Monday morning, my father was living dangerously: he was cooking with a malamute loose in the kitchen. For once, Buck wasn’t burning food in grease. He’d put two slices of bread in the toaster and was at the stove scrambling eggs. Rowdy was in perfect heel position at Buck’s left side, his almost-black eyes fixed adoringly on Buck’s face. Speaking of adoration, I’m just going to blurt out the full, raw truth about Rowdy, which is that he’s the most beautiful dog who ever lived. Period. As it happens, he is the incarnation of the American Kennel Club standard for the Alaskan malamute – the ideal made manifest – but even if you could barely tell a show dog from a river rat or if you mistook Rowdy for a Siberian husky or a mix of muscular Arctic breeds, you’d take in his powerful build, his handsome gray-and-white stand-off coat, his gorgeous broad head, the sweeping white plume of his tail, and all the rest, including his warm, gentle expression and his air of owning the universe, and you’d say to yourself, Now that’s a magnificent animal! I make that very remark to myself all the time. AKC judges have said exactly the same thing. Increasingly, they say it about Rowdy’s son, Sammy, too.

  For all his splendor, Rowdy is not without fault: he steals food. And for all his knowledge of dogs, my father can be tricked. Thus it was that at the very second the phone rang, Buck foolishly took his eyes off Rowdy to glance at his eggs, and the Alaskan malamute standard incarnate, who’d been awaiting his moment of opportunity, vanished from Buck’s side and, in a flash, had his massive white paws on the counter and the fresh toast in his jaws. Does Rowdy watch bread descend into the toaster and start counting? Maybe. He definitely knows to the nanosecond how long the toaster takes to release its contents. Kimi also filches toast right out of the toaster. She’s world class. Rowdy is merely fast. Kimi is canine lightning.

  ‘And at the end of the first inning,’ I said, ‘the score is one to nothing. Malamutes lead.’ When I picked up the phone, I was laughing. To my relief, caller ID read: Jones, Vanessa. I felt relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with another nasty anonymous call in my father’s presence. When I’d told Steve about the call as we were getting ready for bed, I’d promised him that if another such incident occurred, I’d immediately hang up. Still, I was glad to see Vanessa’s name. She was, I assumed, calling to thank me for dinner and to set up a play date for Sammy and Ulla.

  ‘Hello?’ I said.

  I heard what sounded like a muffled gasp. ‘Holly? Oh, Holly, the most awful thing has happened. Horrible!’

  ‘Vanessa, what is it?’

  ‘Fiona. Holly, Fiona is dead. She fell asleep at the wheel. Her car went off the highway. Why did I ever let her leave so late?’

  ‘Vanessa, you did everything you could. You told her to stay with you and leave in the morning. Your father warned her, too.’

  ‘Oh, who listens to him? I should have made her stay. I should have insisted. Hatch should have. All of us.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d have listened. And she didn’t seem exhausted. Or even sleepy. She hadn’t been drinking. She had a small glass of wine before dinner, but after that, she drank water. I’m positive. And then coffee. Real. Not decaf. I should have made her take a Thermos. Oh, Vanessa, I am so sorry. I can hardly believe it!’ I made the inevitable and useless offers. ‘If you need help with Ulla, Steve and I could walk her. Feed her. Anything that either of us can do. Anything at all.’

  ‘I don’t even know what’s going on yet,’ Vanessa said. ‘But thank you. There’ll have to be a funeral, presumably in California. Her parents are devastated.’

  ‘And Hatch.’

  ‘I don’t know what he’ll do,’ his mother said. ‘There’s that research team to deal with. That’ll obviously have to be rearranged. I’ve told him to come and stay here, but . . . And there’ll be something at the hospital, too, I assume, some sort of memorial service. I have no idea yet.’

  As the call ended, Gabrielle appeared in the kitchen. When she and my father heard the terrible news, they were, of course, shaken and saddened. Reluctant though I was to do it, I called Leah and then Steve. For once, I managed to reach both of them directly. They echoed the useless offer I’d made to Vanessa, certainly with my own unspoken sense that the only truly useful thing that anyone could do would be to raise the dead.

  Although it was still raining, Buck wanted to walk one of my dogs. In Rowdy’s opinion, water belongs in dog bowls and nowhere else. If you try to walk him in the rain, he balks and glares at you. The attitude represents an admirable defense against hypothermia. Kimi, however, doesn’t share Rowdy’s Arctic-dog determination not to freeze to death, and neither does Sammy. I expected Buck to take both of them, but he picked only Sammy, probably because Kimi is a serious being, whereas Sammy’s heart is forever light. In Buck’s absence, Gabrielle and I settled ourselves at the kitchen table, each of us with one hand on a mug of coffee and the other on a dog. Molly sat in Gabrielle’s lap, and Kimi rested her lovely dark head in mine. At first, we talked about Fiona.

  Then, with some hesitation, I asked, ‘Gabrielle, is something wrong? When you got here yesterday, I had the feeling . . . but maybe . . .?’

  As if she were uttering a complete sentence, she said with great deliberation, ‘Your father.’

  Instead of asking what the hell Buck had done now, I waited.

  ‘I do know,’ Gabrielle said, ‘that your mother was a fine woman.’

  I understand Buck all too well. ‘He didn’t! Damn it! At the memorial service, instead of delivering his eulogy the way he was supposed to—’

  ‘Oh, he delivered a eulogy! A very touching one.’

  ‘To my mother.’

  ‘Well, to give Buck credit, it wasn’t exclusively about your mother. And I’m afraid that I reacted very childishly. Not that I let my feelings show. But the truth is that I felt hurt and jealous.’

  ‘Of course you did! Anyone would have. If I could apologize for him, I would. Well, I will anyway. I am so sorry. He has all the sensitivity of a hunk of granite. He is an idiot. He should fall at your feet and grovel. Gabrielle, he adores you! And he did this!’

  ‘Well, I do have to admit that Buck may have . . . it’s possible that . . . well, let me spit it out. I do have to tell you a little secret.’

  I nearly wept. Buck’s marriage to Gabrielle had been as wonderful for me as it had been for him.

  Gabrielle said, ‘I have taken up dog training.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have been training Molly. And I do not want your father to know.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ I said. ‘It’s great! So, why . . .’ I stopped myself. ‘He’d move in and take over. He’d intend to help you by offering advice. He’d say that he was sharing his observations, and he’d make you feel like the most incompetent person who ever told a dog to heel. I absolutely hate showing a dog in obedience when he’s within a hundred miles of the ring. Are you using a book? A video?’

  Gabrielle’s eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, no, Molly and I take pr
ivate lessons.’ She gently clucked the little white dog under the chin. ‘It all has to be very hush-hush, so we couldn’t go a class, or Buck would find out. We go once a week to the nicest woman. We sneak off! She’s in Ellsworth. Theodora, her name is.’

  ‘She has Border collies,’ I said. ‘You could not have a better instructor. And she’s lovely.’

  My late mother, I must mention, was a dog-obedience fanatic. As an instructor, she was not lovely. She was a martinet. I should know. But as Buck had probably mentioned in his inappropriate eulogy the previous day, she and her dogs got very high scores.

  ‘We are practicing for the Canine Good Citizenship test,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Now, I know that to you, that’s nothing. But Theodora believes in setting a goal.’

  ‘She’s right. And the CGC test is the perfect place to start. When are you thinking about taking it?’

  ‘Well, there’s the problem. Theodora says that we’re ready. Molly is such a good girl! But it’s one thing to scoot off to Ellsworth for lessons and swear Theodora to secrecy and practice when Buck’s not around. But—’

  ‘He knows everyone in dogs,’ I said. ‘Everyone in Maine anyway. If he didn’t turn up at the test, he’d hear about it.’ I thought for a moment. ‘I have a solution. All you need to do is come here for a visit. There’s a little obedience match a week from Saturday, and there’ll be CGC testing, too. Steve and I are judging obedience, so we’ll be going, anyway. Besides, it will be good to have you here.’

  Gabrielle looked delighted. ‘We’ll think up some excuse,’ she said. ‘We’ll plan something girly so Buck will stay home. Actually, there is something . . . Holly, thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure. It really is.’

  My father and Sammy burst into the kitchen. Buck shook off more water than my dog did. ‘Your pleasure what?’

  ‘To have Gabrielle in my life,’ I said.

  SIX

  To create the opportunity to firm up plans for Gabrielle’s visit without having Buck listen in and invite himself to accompany her, I carried her suitcase to the car. She followed with a tote bag of Molly’s gear in one hand. In the other hand, she held Molly’s leash. Miracle of miracles, Molly was trotting along at the other end of the leash. From the time I’d first met Gabrielle, she’d been in the habit of carrying the little dog. The AKC standard describes the bichon frise as ‘a small, sturdy white powder puff of a dog’. Molly was, indeed, small and sturdy, but she must have weighed twelve pounds or so and was consequently a bit of an armful. Even so, Gabrielle had often clutched Molly as if the dog were a fluffy white muff.

  ‘Theodora is drumming it into my head,’ Gabrielle remarked, ‘that small dogs are dogs, too, and that Molly needs to learn to stand on her own four feet.’

  Molly showed no sign of objecting to the new policy, but she almost never objected to anything. I’d wondered off and on whether her almost marsupial existence had contributed to her evident sense of contentment and security. For whatever reason, she was an altogether cheerful creature.

  ‘You’re both doing beautifully,’ I said. ‘So, a week from Friday? Sooner? You’re always welcome.’

  ‘I have . . . well, let me arrange things.’ Gabrielle looked vaguely mysterious or even secretive, but I didn’t want to pry.

  After Molly had been settled in her crate, Buck barreled down the back steps and said, ‘There was a call for you, but I handled it.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Rescue call. Some young guy who wanted to dump his dog.’

  ‘I hope you got his name and number.’

  ‘I told him to call the breeder. This is one of those guys who never should’ve gotten a dog to begin with. He’s a kid. Works twelve hours a day, and with the commute, he’s gone fourteen hours at a stretch.’

  ‘You know, you really should’ve just taken his name and number, and told him I’d call right back. Look, I’m the one who does malamute rescue. You are not. Did you get the name of the breeder?’

  ‘Pippy Neff.’

  ‘Buck, this situation could be delicate. You know as well as I do who Pippy Neff is, and in case you don’t know, I’ll tell you that she does not always take responsibility for her dogs. How old is the dog?’

  ‘Six months. A puppy. Expected to hold it for fourteen hours. I asked him how he’d like it.’

  ‘Buck, what else did you say?’

  ‘That he never should’ve gotten a dog.’

  ‘You didn’t! Buck, get this straight! If someone wants to surrender a dog, you do not alienate the owner until the dog is safe, damn it all! For all we know, the next thing that’ll happen is that this puppy will end up in a shelter, and God knows which one. And if you answer my phone and the call is for me, then it’s for me! In the future, please don’t answer my phone. Let the machine pick up. Or limit yourself to taking messages. Please do not handle my calls.’

  Although Buck did not apologize, our parting was fairly amicable, mainly because I remembered caller ID. With luck, I’d be able to return the call that had been mine to begin with.

  I also consoled myself with the thought that the puppy’s owner might have found a list of Malamute Rescue volunteers and was getting in touch with all of us, as happens fairly often. If so, he’d reach Betty Burley or some other legitimate representative of our organization, as opposed, for example, to my father. As it turned out, that’s exactly what had happened. Throughout Monday, I played phone tag with the owner, whose number did, in fact, show up on caller ID, but Betty Burley phoned me on Tuesday afternoon to say that she’d talked with him and persuaded him to call Pippy Neff.

  ‘And,’ Betty added, ‘I told him to tell Pippy that according to Malamute Rescue, responsible breeders take permanent lifetime responsibility for the lives they bring into this world. Is she still pestering you about Rowdy?’ Betty reminds me so vividly of my Kimi that I understand what she means even when she doesn’t say it outright. Now, what she actually meant was that I was at fault for allowing Pippy to get away with plaguing me.

  ‘Now and then,’ I said. ‘If she doesn’t take back this puppy, at least I’ll have the perfect excuse to turn her down. And I know that you don’t think I need an excuse! But Pippy is someone I don’t want as an enemy.’

  ‘Hah! I’d send her away with a flea in her ear,’ Betty said. ‘Now, there’s one other thing. Have you had any peculiar phone calls?’

  ‘Yes. On Sunday. Why? Have you?’

  ‘No.’ Betty sounded offended, possibly at the notion that a crank caller would dare to target her. ‘Katrina had one. She is very upset.’ Katrina was a quiet young woman who’d begun to do foster care after she and her husband had adopted a dog from us three years earlier. ‘She is very sensitive, you know. She takes things to heart.’ Betty sounded as if the concept of sensitivity were so foreign to me that I required a translation.

  ‘Was her call about rescue? Mine was . . . I think it was personal. It was some man who asked for Vinnie. Vinnie was my last golden. At first, I thought the name was a coincidence. I just thought he had a wrong number. But he knew my name, and then he started laughing and laughing. And it turned into an obscene phone call. I hung up.’

  ‘Oh, dear. It does sound like the same sick man. But how did he know about your dog?’

  ‘Dog’s Life. Or the web. I’ve written a lot about her.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Betty, who venerated the Alaskan malamute and couldn’t understand why I’d ever bother to write about another breed.

  I said, ‘Maybe the thing to do is to hope that he’s made his calls, and that’s that. No, you know what? It’s possible that other people have had calls that we don’t know about. And if it’s someone with a grudge against all of us, the whole organization, then there might be people he hasn’t called yet. We ought to warn them. I’ll post to the list.’

  As soon as I hung up, I went to my office and sent a message to the little email list maintained for active volunteers in our organization:

  From: HollyWinter@amrone.org


  To: Rescuelist@amrone.org

  Subject: Strange Calls

  Two of us have had obscene calls from a man who laughs like a maniac. Has anyone else had weird calls? If so, please let all of us know.

  Holly

  After sending the message, I worked on an article about preventing pet poisoning in the home. The topic is a staple for dog writers. It’s up there with such all-too-familiar subjects as treating flea infestations and teaching your dog to like vet visits. As I would obviously never admit in print, I was thoroughly tired of warning people about the toxicity of almost all common house plants and shrubs, but my editor at Dog’s Life had insisted, so I was once again hammering out cautionary words about aloe, pothos, oleander, tulips, ferns, foxglove, and so forth. When I took a break to check my email, I found only one reply to the message I’d sent earlier:

  From: BettyB@amrone.org

  To: Rescuelist@amrone.org

  Subject: Re: Strange Calls

  This laughing fool has now targeted me. That makes at least three of us to hear from Mr Unknown Name, Unknown Number. I assume he is finding our names on the web and looking up our phone numbers there, too. Some people will do anything for attention. If he calls you, hang up.

  Betty

  PS. The number doesn’t show up on caller ID.

  The obscene calls angered me but didn’t scare me. Our next-door neighbor, Kevin Dennehy, is a Cambridge cop, and Rita is, of course, a shrink. On previous occasions, I’d heard both of them express professional opinions about anonymous callers. Kevin and Rita had agreed that the people who made these calls were afraid of direct confrontation. Calling was what they did; in almost all instances, they stopped there. As I saw it, cowards stayed cowardly.

  At three o’clock, I finished the article, emailed it to my editor, and checked Google News in the hope of finding answers to my questions about Fiona’s death. What I knew was almost nothing: she’d fallen asleep at the wheel and had a fatal accident. The stories I found provided a few details but no real explanation. The following is typical: