A New Leash on Death (Dog Lover's Mysteries Book 1)

by Susan Conant

  I often went to Dr. Stanton's to poke around and find a few books to borrow, but that day, I checked the walls. If Rowdy's pedigree were hanging up, I thought, I would have noticed it before, but I checked anyway. As I'd remembered, though, there were only a couple of prints of hunting dogs, so I went to the desk, which was where Millie thought Rowdy's papers would be. There, near the phone, the appointment book, and a pen set, was a photo of Rowdy on a snowy lawn, but that was it. Although Millie had given me the key to the file drawer on the lower right of the desk, the drawer wasn't locked, and the manila folder marked with Rowdy's name contained a complete record in Dr. Stanton's handwriting of Rowdy's checkups and immunizations, plus some more photos, a certificate of rabies vaccination dated about a year ago, a Cambridge dog license certificate, and a policy issued by the Animal Health Insurance Agency.

  "You're up to date on your shots, big boy, and you don't have heartworm," I said. "But your papers aren't here."

  Before we left, I signed out Riddle and Seeley's The Complete Alaskan Malamute and—even though Rowdy was probably too young to have sired a litter—the malamute stud book, which lists more than you ever wanted to know about every Alaskan malamute ever to produce puppies registered with the American Kennel Club: sex, date of birth, registration number, color, sire, dam, breeder, owner, and more.

  Roger Singer, I knew, would probably know where the papers were. Roger, however, was not someone I was eager to call, partly because I still had some lurking idea that he might try to take Rowdy, but mostly because he'd asked me out three or four times, and I'd always said no. Forgive a coarse analogy: an all-too- common behavior problem in male dogs is the habit of directing obvious sexual attention to pieces of furniture, people's legs, and such. Need I say more? Roger had always reminded me of those dogs, and I'm not sure why because, if anything, he probably struck most people as rather asexual. All I can say is that even though he knew about Steve, I didn't want to do anything that might sound like an invitation.

  I called him anyway, offered my condolences, and asked about the papers. He was perfectly wholesome and unhelpful.

  "Didn't you know? Rowdy doesn't have papers. He's a rescue dog."

  I didn't believe it. A rescue dog? Maybe. But no papers? I knew, of course, that Rowdy was no puppy when Dr. Stanton got him. That was a little more than a year ago, and Rowdy had looked about ten months old. I'd also heard Dr. Stanton say that Rowdy was adopted, and I'd always assumed that he'd been returned to a breeder. Unlike a pet shop, a responsible breeder will take back a dog that has a problem—health, temperament, anything. Breeders also find themselves taking back full-grown dogs. A couple buys a dog. They split up, fight over the dog, and decide to put him to sleep unless the breeder takes him back. These things really happen. Rowdy obviously hadn't been returned for any health problem, so my guess was that he'd been too rambunctious for his first owner or that he'd been a casualty of a failing relationship. It never occurred to me that he'd been rescued. For one thing, a lot of rescued dogs have been abused, and he just didn't act like a dog with a history of abuse. For another thing, the dogs that end up with rescue societies tend to be pet shop dogs, and he looked to me, and to Buck, of course, like somebody's prize show dog—in fact, like a dog from the kind of kennel where you'd expect Dr. Stanton to buy a dog. Finally, although I knew Dr. Stanton had stopped showing, it hadn't crossed my mind that he'd have taken a dog without papers, a dog he'd never have the option of showing in breed or using as a stud.

  One thing Roger did tell me was the name of Dr. Stanton's lawyer, and on Sunday, I managed to reach the guy, who was probably less than pleased to be called at home.

  "I'm looking for his dog's papers," I said.

  "Just use anything," he said. "They don't care. Or better yet, take him right outside. Keep taking him to the same spot. He'll get the idea."

  "No, no. His AKC registration papers. A form from the AKC. And a pedigree, too, probably."

  "Are they valuable?"

  "Not exactly. But to Dr. Stanton, I'm sure they were. I thought he might've left them with you. Or in a safe-deposit box?"

  "Sorry. If he had, I'd know."

  I made some coffee and got out the stud book and the paper onto which I'd copied the tattoo, WF818769. The coffee was to keep me awake—unless you're deep into pedigrees, a stud book's plot is hard to follow—but I saw right away that I wouldn't need it. The last listing was for just about the date when Rowdy must have been born, much too early for him to have sired a litter.

  For someone who raises wolf dogs, my father is a reaction­ary when it comes to the American Kennel Club. He wants wolf dogs recognized as a breed. (Actually, the AKC now recognizes them for what they are: interesting wild animals.) Buck knows that they won't be admitted soon, but he says that he's planning for the future. The planning seems to consist of ingratiating himself with the powers that be in the American Kennel Club. Or maybe, like a wolf, he's a creature of the pack, and the AKC has been his pack for so long now that he can't change his allegiance. For whatever reasons, he still knows a lot of people at the AKC, and if he wants something expedited there, he knows people who will help. A lot of those people, I suspect, remember Marissa. I called Buck with the registration number, and since the AKC wouldn't be open until the next day, he promised to call them and get back to me.

  In the afternoon, I walked Rowdy back up Appleton Street to get Brearley's This Is the Alaskan Malamute from Dr. Stanton's library. Since I was there anyway, I fished around in the desk. The library was always open to everyone, so I didn't feel sneaky. Dr. Stanton wouldn't have kept anything personal in the desk, and I was still convinced that the papers were there somewhere. I found something, but not the papers. Maybe I shouldn't have read the appointment book, but I did. He had quite a few things listed for the week he died and the week after. On Friday, the day after he died, there were three appointments.

  "Nine a.m. Sorenson, cleaning," I read aloud to Rowdy. The dentist? The guy who did the housework? "Noon. M.R. And four, our paper-training lawyer."

  Kevin or the state police had probably checked up on everything. Millie had told me the police had spent hours here. I signed out the malamute book and a couple of recent issues of the Malamute Quarterly, called good-bye to Millie, and let myself out.

  Buck didn't phone until late the next afternoon.

  "Rowdy," said Buck, "is Snowcloud Kotzebue Thunderking."

  When people hear names like that, they sometimes say things like, "Oh, so his real name is Snowcloud." Not so. If a puppy eventually becomes an international champion, the breeder wants the kennel name to share the glory. If Rowdy hadn't been Snowcloud Kotzebue Thunderking, he'd still have been Snowcloud something, or something of Snowcloud. If my parents had had high expectations for me, I'd be Winterland's Holly.

  "And?" I said.

  "And the breeder is Janet Switzer."

  He paused. I knew something funny was going on.

  "And," he continued, "the registered owner is one Margaret L. Robichaud."

  "Jesus," I said. "Did you tell anyone at the AKC why you wanted that number looked up?"

  He hadn't. He also pointed out that everyone knows what he breeds now. Anyone would assume that he was checking out a dog he wanted to use to produce hybrids, or checking out the bloodlines of a wolf dog. Besides, when Buck calls the AKC, people don't ask why he's calling.

  Margaret's dead malamute licked my hand and woo-wooed at me to get off the phone.

  8

  For the next two days I kept the information about Rowdy's registration to myself. I wrote an article about a man in Sudbury who uses Irish setters as sled dogs, got my hair cut, took Rowdy running, worked on his heeling, and thought about Margaret L. Robichaud.

  I remembered all the squawking Margaret had done about the puppy. His name was King. Originality wasn't one of her strengths. According to Margaret, he was house-trained at ten weeks. Then she cured him of chewing. We heard about every obedience milestone from his heeli
ng to his perfect recall. Meanwhile, of course, we saw nothing. There had even been jokes about Margaret's imaginary dog until she brought in photos. All I could remember about them was that one showed Margaret holding what was undoubtedly a malamute puppy. I looked at Rowdy, asleep on his side, legs stretched out, and I tried to match his face with the half-remembered blurry snapshot image I'd seen long ago. The pup, like Rowdy, had an open face—no dark markings on his muzzle or around his eyes—or so I thought. Otherwise? Otherwise, I didn't know. I also tried to fit Rowdy, Margaret, and Dr. Stanton into a single picture, even a blurry one, but someone always got left out or cut off. Had someone wanted Dr. Stanton cut out of the real picture?

  I rechecked the registration number on Rowdy's tattoo, not hard to find now that I knew where to look. The numbers hadn't rearranged themselves. What had Stanton been doing with Margaret's dog? Had he even known that the dog was hers? After all, my eyesight was far superior to his, and I hadn't seen the tattoo until I’d given Rowdy a bath.

  On Wednesday I called Millie.

  "This is Holly Winter. I've got a stupid question."

  "Ask it," she said. She sounded lonely, glad to be asked anything.

  "Did Dr. Stanton ever give Rowdy a bath?"

  She laughed. "He tried once, when Rowdy first got here. I had such a time cleaning up that bathroom, and Rowdy never even got in the water."

  "So what did Dr. Stanton end up doing? Did he have him groomed somewhere?"

  "Oh, no," Millie said. "He always used a powder. Outdoors. A dry bath, he called it. But he didn't do it very often. Rowdy's a nice clean dog."

  I hadn't thought of that. Malamutes are clean. They have less doggy odor than practically any other breed.

  I had another question. "Could you tell me something? Where did he get Rowdy?"

  "A lady brought him here," she said brightly. "The one with the corgis."

  No one who'd worked for Dr. Stanton as long as Millie had could confuse corgis with Margaret's golden retrievers. Corgis stand about a foot high. They're sturdy, tough, bright little workers, and for a handler who likes spirit, they're great for obedience. I must have known forty women who could have been Millie's lady with the corgis.

  "Do you remember her name?" I asked.

  "I have no idea. She's a nice little thing."

  No one, even Millie, would have called Margaret Robichaud a nice little thing. A mean big thing, yes, but Millie wouldn't have said it. Even before I’d talked to Millie, I'd known that Margaret hadn't given or sold Rowdy—King?—to Dr. Stanton. Harvard types like to talk about something called prosocial behavior. It's one of the things Sesame Street is supposed to teach. Maybe Big Bird would give or sell a dog to his archenemy, if he had one, but not Margaret L. Robichaud. Admitting defeat is probably prosocial behavior. Strangling probably isn't. I pictured Margaret and Dr. Stanton on the lawn outside the armory. She loomed over him with the leash wrapped around her bony hands. Her elbows stuck out like the wings of an obese plucked goose. She was saying what she always said to us: "And if that doesn't work, jerk harder!"

  But if Rowdy really was her dog, and if she wanted him back, why strangle Dr. Stanton? Why not just take Rowdy? And if she wanted Rowdy, why try to kill him, and me, too? Why let me keep him? Why let Dr. Stanton? If Margaret had gone to Stanton, shown him Rowdy's papers, pointed out the tattoo, and demanded him back, Dr. Stanton would have had a motive to kill her, of course, but he was dead and she was alive. Could there have been a struggle outside the armory? Steve had thought not, but Kevin might know something he was keeping to himself.

  It's generally a good rule to avoid feeding two alpha males together. Circumstances sometimes demand exceptions to the rule. After a trip to the Fresh Pond Market that yielded three fat steaks, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, and four six-packs of Bud, I invited Kevin and Steve to dinner. Steve's mother and sister were in town, and they were all having dinner with old Dr. Draper, whose practice Steve had taken over, but Steve promised to stop by at ten or so when he was free. Once Kevin knew Steve wouldn't be there, he accepted.

  Kevin seldom drinks hard liquor. I primed him with Johnnie Walker, then I pumped him. Except for his relationship with his mother, he's an attractive man—I like reddish hair and brawn—but I wasn't leading him on. He knew I was expecting Steve.

  "Margaret Robichaud," I said over the steak. "I want to know where she was the night Dr. Stanton died."

  "Mrs. Robichaud," Kevin said a little thickly, "was walking dogs."

  "She only has one."

  "She has four. Four dogs." He sounded put out. "Oh, excuse me. Four goldens. Margaret L. Robichaud was otherwise occupied in the daytime, and the four goldens required their walkies. Have I got that right?"

  "Yes," I said. "I can see that you found her charming."

  "I found her a pain in the butt," he said. "Pardon my French."

  "And last Thursday?"

  "Walkies. And did Mrs. Robichaud meet anyone while the doggies had their walkies?" Kevin's imitation of Margaret's anglicized Brattle Street drawl was not bad. "No, she didn't meet anyone. Has she ever taken Valium? She believes in saying no to drugs."

  "Has she ever given it to the dogs? Did you ask her?"

  He looked as if I'd asked him whether the goldens ever snorted coke.

  "I'm not joking," I said. "Vets use it. Suppose you've got a male and you've also got a bitch that comes in season."

  Kevin blushed.

  "You put them in separate crates," I went on.

  "Crates."

  "Portable pens. Boxes. The things you see at the airport. Or in the back of a car."

  "Cages," he said. He'd finished the steak, plus a baked potato and green beans. He was now on Budweiser, the great American truth serum.

  "Crates. You put both of the dogs in crates, or you put them out in separate kennels, but what do you do about the noise? The male is going to be beating the sides of the crate or howling so all the neighbors complain. Solution? Doggy Valium."

  Kevin gave his beer a suspicious look. He studied the can. Maybe he was wondering whether Budweiser sold a medicated variety to young women with overardent suitors.

  "Or," I continued, "she might have used it if she shipped them by plane. Someti mes people sedate their dogs for plane travel so they don't get nervous."

  "What's the story on that? Costs a bundle?"

  "Showing dogs? Shipping them to shows? Costs a bundle." I nodded. "You pay plane fare for yourself and the dogs. Plus your hotel. Meals. That's why most people have RVs. Then there are entry fees, though they aren't much compared to the rest. You want some cake? Chocolate."

  He did. Kevin believes in carbohydrate loading. He runs at Fresh Pond. The skinny Harvard types in their New Balance track suits take one look at him, sneer their genteel sneers, and streak ahead of him for the first half mile. He passes them, and he keeps passing them. Mrs. Dennehy attributes his success to a vegetarian diet.

  "Of course," I said, "Margaret handles the dogs herself. She doesn't have any handler's fee."

  A handler's fee is not small. And not only do you pay whatever the handler charges for showing the dog, you also pay travel and hotel expenses.

  "But," I added, "keeping four dogs isn't particularly cheap, and she must have paid something for the new ones."

  I was sure she'd bought them. I'd never known her to breed her own dogs. She'd always been the kind of person who arranges to have the pick of the litter, for which you pay a premium.

  The Johnnie Walker was wearing off, or maybe it had been absorbed by the cake. Kevin's eyes looked a little sharper than they had before. I handed him another can of Bud.

  "So she's loaded," he said, opening the can.

  "No, not loaded. Not broke. Comfortable. Her family had a lot of money, but they weren't too pleased when she dropped out of college to get married. Or that's what I heard. I don't know whether they left her anything besides the house. The husband didn't have much, but maybe he had life insurance or something. She wo
rks. She does something at HCHP."

  Harvard Community Health Plan is the biggest health maintenance organization in Boston. I'd never understood exactly what Margaret did there.

  "Maybe she had access to pills there." He pointed to the steak bone left on his plate, then cocked his thumb in Rowdy's direction. "Mind if I give it to him?"

  "Go ahead."

  Rowdy, who'd been wandering around looking hopeful, snatched the bone from Kevin's hand and slunk off to a corner of the kitchen. Denned up there, grasping the bone between his front paws, gnawing on it, and raising his eyes to make sure we weren't going to try to take it back, he looked even more wolflike than usual. I wouldn't have wanted to try to take the bone away.

  "HCHP doesn't leave Valium lying around," I said. "And she's not a doctor. She doesn't do anything really medical. She does, I don't know, patient education. Community relations. Something like that."

  "And, in your opinion, what would a new dog have set her back?"

  "I don't know," I said truthfully. "I don't know where she got them. I haven't seen them. I didn't even know she had them."

  "Just say for a good one. Give me a ballpark number."