by Jon L. Breen
“No,” Miriam assured him. “That started before my Silkie got out.”
“Well, it sure seemed to come from your end of the street.”
“Yes,” she mused. “It sure did.”
With this thought in mind, Miriam made her way determinedly in that direction, passing both Elizabeth’s house and her own. She knew that Elizabeth worked during the day so didn’t bother to stop, but made a mental note to add Elizabeth to her after-dinner rounds. Instead, she aimed herself towards the house just next to her fellow sufferer, an idea rapidly taking place in her brain that had been suggested by Ward’s offhanded observation. An idea that, as she trundled along, took the form of a suspicion.
The house that she approached stood well back from the street, its rear seemingly nestled against the wood line, though this was deceptive. In fact, the owner had cleared a long, narrow strip into the woods while allowing the remaining forest to creep up to both sides of his home. The result was that from the front the cleared area was completely unseen, while the house itself appeared in danger of being overtaken and smothered by trees and shrubs. The fact that the house, like most on the street, was relatively new only added to the atmosphere of decrepitude. Miriam thought it most unwelcoming. Even so, she clutched her shopping bag tightly to herself and marched on, for this house had become the locus of her suspicion.
The facts had formed a pattern in Miriam’s mind: The owner, a taciturn and unlikable fat man who worked only intermittently, raised hunting dogs—pure breeds that he advertised for stud services. (It was also rumored that he raised fighting dogs for less humane and legal purposes.) These animals were the reason for the cleared property behind his house, and it was there that he had erected their pens and runs. This much was known.
What was also known was the time frame of the almost nightly eruptions of the neighborhood canines. These had begun almost two weeks before. What was not so well known was the mysterious disappearance of Elizabeth’s Pomeranian, which occurred during this same reign of barking, possibly even signaling its onset. Miriam’s own loss also occurred under these circumstances.
Lastly, there was the whistler, confirmed now by another, whose eerie forays confined themselves to the area just north of Miriam’s home. These things were known, and formed the framework of facts upon which Miriam draped the newly woven garments of her deductions.
With all the conviction of the convert, and a burgeoning sense of hope, Miriam waded through the rank, yellow grass of the yard to beard a dognapper in his den.
The fat man opened the door to Miriam’s knocks as if he had been standing just behind it all the while. Startled, she took an involuntary step back, as he took a baby step forward, crowding his enormous bulk into the doorway, completely blocking her view of the interior. With a grunt of effort, he twisted slightly to pull the door shut behind him, taking yet another step onto the porch and forcing her almost to the edge. “Yeah?” he wheezed.
Miriam took a steadying breath and addressed the towering, unshaven mound of flab. “You raise dogs, do you not?” she opened.
He regarded her steadily through tiny, unfocused eyes. “Uh-huh.” A scent of old food wafted unpleasantly from his frayed clothes, and Miriam wished desperately there was a way to stand further from him.
“Do you sell them?” she queried, her heart beating fast.
“S’what?” he mumbled.
“Sell them. Sell dogs?”
He seemed to mull this over, turning it from one side to the next. “Yeah . . . sometimes. Why?”
“I’m in the market,” Miriam stated emphatically.
“S’at so?” He seemed to think it over, absently fingering a piece of lint from his almost invisible belly button, which lay exposed as a result of his inability to button the last few holes on his shirt. Miriam thought she might retch, but steeled herself for Silkie’s sake. “Nothin’ you’d want,” he opined. “Only big dogs. Hunters . . . and such.”
“That’s exactly what I want,” she responded immediately. “Let’s take a look at what you’ve got.”
“No,” he shot back, for the first time evincing some animation. “Don’t have any.”
“No dogs,” Miriam snapped angrily. “You just said that you sell them.”
The fat man looked worried and ran a hand through the slick, thinning strands of hair that barely covered his giant head. “None right now,” he insisted, backing up a step towards the door. “All sold.”
Miriam was desperate. “I’ll order one from you, then,” she pleaded. “A corgi! A Cardigan corgi! I’ll pay good money! You just see about getting one and I’ll pay for it, no questions asked!”
The fat man opened his door and stepped up into the doorway to escape the desperate old woman. “No small dogs,” he announced loudly.
“So you know what a corgi looks like,” she accused, then quickly reversed herself upon seeing him closing the door. “But that’s good, then. You know what I want. I’ll pay the going price! Whatever you ask!” she cried out as she heard the metallic snap of a deadbolt slide home.
Full of anger and desperation, Miriam turned from the porch and began to hurry around to the side of the house. She would see for herself!
The front door flew back open and the fat man shouted out to her, “Get off my property right now or I’ll call the police!”
She didn’t believe for a moment that he would risk calling the police, but she knew she would never be able to reach the pens before even he could stop her. Wilting beneath the heavy limitations that age had imposed upon her, she nonetheless pointed an accusing finger in the direction of the fat man. “Give me my dog back,” she hissed. “You give me my Silkie!”
“Get outa here, you crazy old bitch. . . . Now!” he thundered, and glared at her as she turned away defeated and frightened. When she reached the street once more, he slammed the door so hard that it reverberated off the neighboring houses like a farewell cannonade.
Miriam knew with the certainty of divine revelation that the fat man had taken her Silkie, and what she must do. The thought of the house-bred corgi languishing in one of his feces-strewn pens, deprived of the affection she was accustomed to, drove Miriam to desperation. She had read disturbing stories in the papers of pets being used as bait to hone the killing skills of fighting dogs. Could that be the reason for the disappearance of Silkie and Dakota? She couldn’t allow herself to think of such a possibility. Come nightfall, she would act.
As she lay on her bed trying to rest and regain her composure for the task ahead, she reviewed the events of the previous evenings, her left hand absently stroking the small depression in the mattress left by her absent companion. All that had happened pointed the finger of suspicion, nay, accusation, at the odious, obese neighbor. He raised dogs for income and therefore understood the value of them. More important, he was in a position to find buyers. And buyers were something he would be in great need of since his wife had left him, taking both the children and, according to neighborhood gossip, the greatest portion of his income. “My God,” she chuckled bitterly. “His grocery bill alone must demand a six-figure salary.”
In any case, his house was just across the street and one north of her own—the exact location of the whistling. And now that she had stood close enough to the man to fully appreciate his enormous girth, the whistling itself proved a more understandable piece of the whole. There was no way that the fat man could even consider physically abducting a dog. The very thought of someone of that bulk attempting stealth was ludicrous. No, Miriam mused angrily, he relied on tempting and luring the poor beasts into his clutches. No doubt after driving the animals to distraction with his eerie call, and relying on their strength, or ingenuity, to find a way out to investigate, he waited in the safety of his own yard with a tasty reward and a stalwart leash or, worse yet, one of those hideous pole-and-noose contraptions that the dog wardens use. After that . . . what? Could there really be some kind of market for middle-aged dogs of unpopular breed? The alternative wa
s too awful to contemplate.
“Dear God,” Miriam prayed aloud to the empty room. “Please don’t let him have hurt my little Silkie.”
Moments later she fell asleep and began to grind her teeth.
When she awoke, the day had long since slipped away and the darkness it left behind confused and alarmed her. Miriam sat up in a panic to check the time, astounded that she had slept so long, and perplexed by the ache in her jaw. The clock read eleven-forty P.M. Almost the witching hour, she thought uncomfortably.
Nonetheless, she hurried downstairs, not wishing to turn on any lights and possibly betray her intentions. Finding her good walking shoes and a light jacket, she fumbled these on. Scurrying into the kitchen, she risked turning on the light over the stove just long enough to find the large metal flashlight her husband had always kept in a state of readiness there. Flicking off the stove light, she nervously switched on the torch. Miraculously, it seemed to her, a brilliant beam shot forth across the room, throwing a kitchen chair into sharp relief. Miriam hastily switched it off, not wishing to waste the batteries. Her husband had been a very careful and thorough man, but little of this had worn off on Miriam and she feared for the life of the batteries, unable to remember the last time she had thought to replace them. Just before letting herself out the back door, she retrieved Silkie’s leash from its nail, coiled it tightly, and shoved it securely into a pocket. Within moments, she was making her way cautiously to the front of the house, confident that she made her way into the night world unseen.
She angled across her own front yard, making a beeline in the dark for the fat man’s property. With satisfaction, she noted that not a single light shone from that direction, and her confidence increased. All she need do was make her way down his driveway in the darkness. With the small aid of the distant streetlight, she felt that this was something she could accomplish without too much chance of revealing herself. Once she reached the end of the drive, however, she would be at the wood line and it was at this point that it would be necessary to use the flashlight in order to find the path to the dog kennels. In addition, and the thought made her mouth go suddenly dry, the odds were that the fat man’s dogs would not let her incursion go unnoticed. Even so, the thought that she might recognize Silkie’s voice amongst them steadied her, and she marched on.
But when she stepped into the winding, deserted street, it was not the fat man’s dogs that rose in protest, but a distant chorus of canine voices to the south that rolled like an ocean swell towards the dark shore upon which she stood. Puzzled, Miriam stopped to listen, an in-explicable sense of alarm having claimed her. Momentarily, the rolling sound of doggie protests and alarms traversed the small woods that separated her neighborhood from that to the south and entered her own, the neighborhood dogs taking it up with gusto.
Something niggled at her brain, disturbing her earlier thought processes: The barking disturbance arrived from the south, as it had on previous nights, she now realized. Yet the whistle came from the north . . . the fat man, undoubtedly. But the barking preceded the whistling. That didn’t make sense if it was the source of the disturbance. Hadn’t the whistle preceded the barking before? Or had she got that wrong? There was no whistling now and still the dogs were frantic.
As if in answer, the whistle began, low and clear. It was almost sweet in its plaintiveness; more like a plea than a demand. Miriam began to walk rapidly in its direction, more sure than ever of its origin, yet less sure now of its meaning. She thought she could just make out the hulking outline of the fat man in the darkness of his front porch.
She paused, uncertain of just how to proceed now that confrontation was inevitable. At the same moment, she became aware that the clicking sound had ceased also. It wasn’t until then that she realized she’d been hearing something just beneath the barking and baying. Something almost inaudible beyond the blood rushing in her ears. A steady click, click, click that almost, but not quite, mimicked her own steps from the moment she had entered the street.
She took several more steps to test her theory, a surge of hope welling up in her chest that was rewarded with a soft, repetitive clatter. She recognized the sound! It was the unmistakable noise of unclipped nails striking the asphalt. The nails of a spoiled little brat dog who hated the clippers!
With a cry of joy, Miriam spun about, switching on the flashlight and instinctively pulling Silkie’s leash from her pocket. The cry died, stillborn, as the light framed the creature, its eyes glowing green and pinpointed by the harsh illumination, its stalking arrested by the sudden aggressive display of its intended prey. The leash slithered from Miriam’s paralyzed fingers to coil uselessly on the tarmac.
Miriam suddenly understood everything and mourned for her Silkie. The beast’s gray muzzle curled to bare its deadly array of wares in silent acknowledgement of its intent, while the beam of light that seemed to hold it at bay suddenly dimmed and winked out. Miriam, remembering quite clearly now that it had been several years since she had replaced the batteries, turned mechanically towards home for more; behind her there came a low, menacing growl.
The fat man closed the door behind him as quietly as his quaking bulk would allow and eased himself down onto his splayed sofa, breathing heavily through his nostrils. He feared an asthma attack was imminent.
It was not his fault, and if the old woman had left well enough alone, he might have succeeded and all would now be well. But he had seen the sudden flash of light on the street and the awful tableau it revealed, and had heard the terrible yet strangely quiet struggle that ensued. And he knew, without seeing, the inevitable conclusion. All over a stupid little dog! If she had just kept clear, he might have lured the animal back in.
He shook his head violently, spraying the cluttered room with droplets of sweat. What a mistake! What a stupid mistake he had made in buying the wolf! Besides being illegal, it had been incredibly wrong-headed. The damn thing just would not cooperate in his scheme to breed hybrids—a hugely profitable enterprise by all accounts.
It would not mate with any of his dogs and had eventually killed them all. To add insult to injury, it had resisted all attempts at even rudimentary training, responding only to his whistle for dinner—gliding out of the crate it dwelt in to glare at the fat man with baleful, challenging eyes through the chain links of its confinement, as if daring him to reach through or enter. Wisely, the fat man had contented himself with simply heaving chunks of raw meat over the fence.
Several days after it had slaughtered the last of his dogs, the wolf had demonstrated its contempt by escaping, leaving a silent, barren kennel in its wake.
Since then, every effort at surreptitiously recapturing the animal had failed. Taking his cue that the wolf was near from the uproar of the neighbors’ dogs, the fat man had left trails of raw steak and lamb leading to its repaired pen, then whistled to let it know that dinner was on. In the beginning, the wolf had eaten the offerings, though avoiding the last, which lay inside its former prison, as if well aware of the clever, spring-loaded gate. In time it spurned even those, finding its skills at hunting undiminished by its confinement and game . . . abundant.
After the death of his dogs and the escape of the wolf, the attendant monetary losses, and this last unfortunate incident, the fat man could take solace in only one thing—he had told no one of his unlucky purchase, and certainly never would.
Jon L. Breen
“Justice Knows No Paws”
What kind of conceit and vanity leads an anthologist to sneak in one of his own stories? In this case, none at all, simply the compulsion to mount his hobbyhorse while letting a cat speak for him.
The judge asked the fourteen citizens seated in the jury box all the expected questions. Did they know the plain-tiff, Iris Stapleton Goodhew? (Of course they must have heard of her—she’s a celebrity; but it was doubtful they had the pleasure of knowing her personally as I do.) Did they know the defendant, Elmo Gruntz? (Some of the cruder looking male members of the panel might have been ac
quainted with that low creature and his work, but most of them looked far too civilized.) Did they know the lawyers on either side of the action, the lovely and highly capable Andrea Frost for the plaintiff, the slickly unpleasant Forrest Milhaus for the defendant? Had they or any of their family members ever sued someone or been sued in this overly litigious society? Had they ever worked in the publishing field? Had they ever written anything for publication? Had they ever been party to a plagiarism case? Had they read about the case of Good-hew versus Gruntz in the newspapers? Were there any for whom serving more than a week as a juror would be a severe hardship?
Then the judge got to the really important question, or at least the one it seemed to give him the most smirking pleasure to ask. “Are any of you allergic to cats?”
That question was indignity number three for me in the sessions leading up to the trial. What, I ask you, could be more prejudicial than to ask the jurors, “Are you allergic to the plaintiff?”
Yes, I realize technically a cat doesn’t have status as a plaintiff in a human court. That had been explained to Iris and me at length by our lawyer before we even entered a courtroom. But in-court indignity number one had come a few days earlier when even my presence in the courtroom was being questioned by Gruntz and his sleazy lawyer. After a lot of wrangling and some superbly well-reasoned argument by Andrea, I was allowed to sit in (or sometimes lie or slink in) on the proceedings.
I suppose I must introduce myself, in the unlikely event you don’t know me already. I am Whiskers McGuffin. Yes, yes, the Whiskers McGuffin. You have undoubtedly seen my name and photograph on numerous dust jackets, even seen and heard me on the TV talk show circuit, as co-author of a very successful series of detective novels with my longtime human companion Iris Stapleton Goodhew. If you are a true collector, you may also have acquired an autographed copy with my distinctive paw print on the flyleaf. They are called novels, but in truth they are only lightly fictionalized accounts of my real-life exploits as a feline detective. While I, in the tradition established by Ellery Queen, appear in the novels under my own name, Iris adopts an alias, as the younger, slimmer, but no more beautiful and charming Winona Fleming.