Sire and Damn (Dog Lover's Mysteries Book 20)

by Susan Conant

  As we set out, neither Izzy nor Sammy showed any sign of residual stress from the events of the morning; on the contrary, they were both eager to move, as I was myself. The rain had tapered to foggy mist. The vivid colors of Zara’s yellow slicker, Izzy’s matching vest, and Sammy’s red pack popped out of the gray-green background.

  The sight of Zara and the dogs, so bright and healthy and beautiful, impelled me to apologize to Zara for our surroundings. “I should’ve warned you that this trail isn’t exactly Central Park.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s all weeds.”

  Flourishing to our left, to our right, behind us, and ahead of us were tall weeds, short weeds, weedy trees, weedy brush, weedy vines, weeds of all sorts, weeds great and small. The ground between the path and the river was thick with dense vegetation and unpruned trees, some listing at weird angles, some bending over to dip themselves into the river, which was swollen and muddy from the rain.

  Zara was kind. “I have a friend who gathers weeds in Central Park. She says that they’re food. And medicinal herbs.”

  I laughed. “I have friend like that, too. She’d turn this stuff into ointment or make wine with it. That’s elderberry over there, I think. But there’s probably not a lot you can do with wild morning glory. Zara, don’t touch that! There’s poison ivy in there.”

  The lower stretch of the Charles, where it separates Boston from Cambridge, is wide and impressive. Here, it was a river, not some piddling stream, but it looked unimportant and dirty; and the ugly white cinderblock pool building, the trashy vegetation, and an abundance of rusty chicken-wire fences combined to create a rubbishy gestalt worse than the sum of its unappealing parts. Why had I brought us here when we could easily have gone to Harvard Yard?

  Beyond a footbridge that crossed the river, the trail took us close to a small cove thick with lily pads and the foulest of fowl, Canada geese. Although no sensible person who has ever set foot on ground made slimy and revolting by a flock of Canada geese ever feeds those damned birds, a short man carrying three big white plastic shopping bags was on the bank tossing torn-up pieces of bread into the water. The geese were squabbling among themselves, snatching up the bread, and gobbling it down. I thought of Ecclesiastes: “Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.” Well, after many days, this bread wouldn’t be recognizable as such, but the defecatory habits of Canada geese being what they are, the unfortunate feet of thee and everyone else would be doomed to find this bread again, and in no time at all.

  The man, who was facing the geese, wore baggy jeans so long that they brushed the muddy ground, and a lime-green rubberized rain jacket. The hood was down, and his hair was plastered to his head. As we approached, he turned to us, and my attitude softened. His round face showed the distinctive signs of Down syndrome. His smile was pure joy. Gesturing to the geese with one bag-laden hand, he said loudly, “They’re hungry.”

  All thoughts of goose droppings forgotten, I smiled back. “They like you to feed them.”

  The quarreling geese had attracted the attention of both dogs. Izzy, I suspected, was more eager to plunge in and take a swim than she was to chase the birds. Sammy, however, had gone rigid all over, his predator’s eye fixed on the geese and, secondarily, I thought, on their doughy snack. I could almost hear him order lunch: I’ll have the raw, feathery goose special, please, with a side of sodden bread.

  “Leave it,” I told him.

  The man transferred his attention from the geese to the dogs. Pointing at Izzy, the gentlest of animals, he said hoarsely, “Black dogs bite! Don’t touch!”

  The reaction was odd: Sammy was big and substantial, and to people more familiar with movie depictions than with Northern breeds, malamutes look like wolves. In contrast, Labs look harmless, and the public perception of the breed is benign.

  I started to correct him. “Not this black—”

  Quicker than I was, Zara said, “Some black dogs do bite. I guess you know one who does. We’ll go ahead.”

  “We’ll catch up with you,” I told her.

  Once Izzy was out of sight, the man turned his attention to Sammy. The beautiful smile reappeared. Carefully setting his bags on the ground, he stretched out both hands.

  “Would you like to pat him?” I asked. “He’s friendly. His name is Sammy. Come over here. We don’t want Sammy to eat the bread.”

  “For the geese.”

  I nodded. “Not for dogs.”

  Still holding both hands out, the man approached. Now that he had stopped casting bread upon the waters, the geese had settled down, so Sammy shifted out of predator mode. His plumy white tail sailing over his back, his dark eyes gleaming, an honest-to-dog smile on his face, he took slow, small steps toward the man, who shoved a clenched fist in front of Sammy’s black nose. Instead of sniffing, Sammy responded by scouring the hand with his big pink tongue. The man’s eyes widened, and he silently opened his mouth as if he expected words to flow out on their own. Then he burst into laughter that intensified when Sammy added his own peals of woo-woo-woo.

  “Sammy likes you.” Why say what my dog had just said? “It’s okay to pat him.”

  The man held out his other hand and thumped Sammy twice on top of the head. According to the experts, it’s not the ideal way to pat a dog. The same experts warn that dogs don’t like to be hugged. Some dogs, yes. But what the experts overlook is canine brilliance in reading human facial expression, body language, and intentions. Geniuses at decrypting our codes, dogs understand what we mean even when we express ourselves awkwardly; and they care more about the genuineness of hearts than they do about the gaucherie of our thumps and pats and squeezes. Sammy upped the tempo of his tail-wagging.

  “We’d better get going,” I said. “We need to catch up with my friend. Bye!”

  As we left, the man called out, “Bye-bye, Sammy!”

  I’d lingered longer than I’d intended, but Zara would understand. Even so, I let Sammy set the pace and hurried along with him. Somewhere ahead of us, a dog barked. The single woof could’ve come from any medium-size or big dog, possibly Izzy, possibly another dog. Canine yelps of pain, menacing roars, or the growling curses of a dogfight would’ve sent me flying. As it was, Sammy and I continued briskly along the wet, gloomy path, and I felt no alarm at all until Zara shrieked from somewhere ahead of us, how far I couldn’t tell.

  “Izzy! Izzy! Izzy, come! Izzy, here!” Then, “Holly! Holly, help! Help me!”

  And finally, a wordless scream.

  chapter nineteen

  Sammy and I ran so fast that we nearly collided with Zara, who continued to scream until I put my free hand on her shoulder and spoke firmly. “Zara, I’m here.” I must have sounded as if I were talking to a panicked dog. “I’m here.” Then I stated the obvious: “You fell, and Izzy is loose.”

  Splotches of mud covered the front of Zara’s yellow slicker. Dirt streaked her face. Although her battered-looking hands suggested that she’d tried to break her fall, her left cheek, too, was red and raw. Her eyes were wild, and she was gasping for breath.

  I looked around in search of a bench or a fallen log, but found no place she could sit. “Tell me what happened.” Her silence was so frustrating that I felt tempted to shake her. I waited. Eventually, I said, “You fell. Did you trip? And let go of Izzy’s leash?”

  She shook her head.

  “Someone pushed you. Did you see who it was?”

  Once she started speaking, her words flew out so fast that I had to strain to understand her. “We were just walking along, and all of a sudden, someone slammed into my back and knocked me to the ground. It was like being hit by a brick wall. One second, I was walking along, and the next second, I was flat on my face. I can’t even remember falling. Izzy, come! Izzy!”

  “Zara, did you see who it was?”

  “No.”

  “Did he grab Izzy’s leash?”

  “I don’t know. Holly, what if I let go? That’s one of the things
they teach us. They said that you never let go of a dog’s leash. Never. What if I did?”

  “If you did, it was because you couldn’t help it. And if you let go, maybe she’s loose and we can find her. Let’s see where it happened, okay? Sammy, let’s go.”

  For once, Sammy’s sunny attitude irritated me. In his place, Kimi would’ve understood that something was dreadfully wrong. She might even have known what it was. Because Rowdy was Izzy’s special buddy, Rowdy’s presence would have attracted Izzy, and he’d have noticed her absence and maybe even helped to find her. Sammy, who was beautiful beyond beautiful, had Rowdy’s lovely almond-shaped dark eyes, Rowdy’s perfect ear set, Rowdy’s gorgeous head.

  Looking at Sammy, I thought, Why couldn’t you have inherited your father’s brains, too? Then I felt guilty. “Sammy,” I murmured, “I’m sorry. You’re not brainless. You’re just optimistic. Your water bowl is always half full. And you have way too much faith in me.”

  Zara, meanwhile, was shrieking for Izzy.

  “Zara,” I said sternly. “Zara? Zara, stop for a second. When you call her, try calling the way you usually do.” I wanted to tell her to take a deep breath, but I hate, hate, hate being told how to breathe. Of all the bossy, intrusive pieces of advice that one person can give to another! You can tell me to calm down or to keep quiet or to stop hollering, but how I breathe is my own damned business. “Just use your ordinary voice,” I said.

  Unprompted, Zara took a deep breath. Sounding more or less normal, she called, “Izzy, come!”

  Half reluctantly, I joined in. “Izzy, come!” Dog is my native tongue. A loose dog who’s ignoring his owner will sometimes respond to my firm, happy Rover, come! by sprinting right to me, much to the embarrassment of his owner, to whom he says, “She speaks my language. Why don’t you?” Well, no, not in those exact words. Still.

  I had no desire to play the game of dog-handling one-upmanship with Zara, but I had to do everything within my power to get Izzy back. I gave it my best: “Izzy, come!”

  My puzzled Sammy looked at me as if to say, Why are you calling me when I’m already here?

  When we reached the spot where Zara had been shoved to the ground, I felt like a lone Dr. Watson in need of Sherlock Holmes. To my eye, there was nothing to see except a few marks left by Zara’s hands. Or boots? Holmes, having observed a dozen significant disturbances, would’ve deduced that her assailant was a corpulent redheaded Freemason who’d once lived in China or a dog who’d failed to bark in the night. I did notice, though, that there were no rocks or roots that could’ve tripped Zara, who was too well coordinated to have stumbled over her own feet.

  We could’ve examined the thick, bushy weeds and low branches for signs that someone had lurked nearby, but for the moment, we cared only about recovering Izzy.

  “We’d better call the police,” I said.

  “I don’t want to talk to them. Izzy, come! Here! Izzy, here! Holly, she’s been stolen.”

  “The experts on finding lost dogs always say that you should never assume that a dog has been stolen. We need to keep looking.”

  We followed the trail upriver for five or ten minutes. Zara continued to call for Izzy, and with an increasing sense of futility, I did, too. Soon after we reversed direction, we ran into a gray-haired couple with waterproof binoculars hanging on their chests. The birders listened politely but hadn’t seen any dogs at all. Assured that Izzy was friendly, they promised to catch her if they could and to call the number on her ID tag.

  “We know not to chase loose dogs,” the man said. “We have crackers and cheese with us. We can use that. Good luck.” Two drenched runners in neon-pink Spandex responded to my question about a black dog only by shaking their heads while speeding by. When we reached the little cove, the geese were still there, but the smiling man had left. As we passed the swimming pool and when we reached the parking lot, we encountered four or five people who heard me out and wished us luck.

  By then, Zara was incapable of asking the simple question of whether someone had seen a black dog. Her hands were trembling, and her face looked like a death mask. Belatedly, I realized that we should have left something that bore Zara’s scent at the place where she’d been assaulted, the place from which Izzy had vanished. If Izzy was loose, she might return there and stay near Zara’s possession. I was, however, too worried about Zara to retrace our steps or to search elsewhere.

  “Let’s get you home,” I told her. “Then I’ll make some calls.” In response to her oddly suspicious look, I added, “I want to call animal control in Watertown and Waltham, and since that footbridge goes to Newton, I’d better call Newton, too. “

  It proved a lot easier to crate Sammy in the car than to settle Zara in the passenger seat. I had to open the door for her, and when I’d persuaded her to get in, I had to fasten her seat belt for her. Although I’m always a careful driver, I was particularly cautious on the way home, mainly because I was fighting the urge to floor the accelerator and race back to Appleton Street as quickly as possible. Zara’s state of mind—more accurately, her state of mind and body and spirit—was beyond me. She needed help that was in Rita and Quinn’s province and not in mine.

  So eager was I to find professional help for her that when we passed Rita and Quinn’s house, I was tempted to pull in. All that stopped me was the fear that Vicky might be there; I couldn’t take the chance of inflicting Vicky on Zara, especially now. To my disappointment, neither Steve’s van nor John’s rental car was in our driveway; I’d hoped that either Steve or John would be available to help.

  Getting Sammy out of the car, I wondered what to do if Zara insisted on going up to Rita’s old apartment and isolating herself there. To my relief, she let me guide her to my kitchen.

  “You look cold,” I said. After turning off the air conditioner, I ran upstairs for a blanket that I wrapped around her. Then, feeling like a Barbara Pym character, I insisted on making her a cup of sugary tea and made one for myself, too. Sitting opposite Zara at the table, I took a sip of tea and said, “I know quite a lot about finding lost dogs.”

  “Izzy isn’t lost.”

  “Zara, Frank Sorensen hasn’t come back from the dead. And please try to remember that Willie was found—and pretty quickly. Izzy has ID tags. Someone may call any minute.” Then I asked an apparently innocuous question: “She’s microchipped, isn’t she?”

  Our five dogs are chipped, of course. Even my cat, Tracker, who never leaves the house, is microchipped. Chipping is routine.

  Zara shook her head.

  I was so surprised that I blurted out, “She’s not?”

  Zara must have heard the question as an accusation. “I was afraid that they cause cancer.”

  “Does she have a tattoo?”

  “What?”

  “It’s what we did before microchips. Rowdy has one. Some people still do them.”

  “No. I’ve never even heard of tattooing dogs.”

  “Zara, if you have to pick only one form of ID for a dog, a collar with tags is your best choice.” It takes two seconds to remove a collar and throw it out. I didn’t say so.

  “Someone could take her collar off. And she’s a black Lab! There are millions of them.”

  “With no white anywhere. That’s a little bit distinguishing. Lots of black Labs and Lab mixes have at least a little white somewhere.”

  My words weren’t comforting. If we’d been in an English novel, the blanket and the sweet tea would’ve helped. As it was, Zara was still shaking, and her face was still white.

  “Zara, is there a medication you should take?”

  Her expression was blank. I handed her a tissue, not because she needed one but because I had the idea that crying would somehow be good for her.

  “If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’m going to call Quinn.”

  Summarizing Steve’s and my take on Rita’s about-to-be husband, Zara said, “He’s a pompous ass, but he’s kind.”

  “I won’t quote you to him.”
<
br />   She didn’t smile. The levity was misplaced, anyway.

  When I called Quinn and spoke briefly to him, I told him only that Izzy was missing­—lost or stolen—and that Zara could use his help.

  “He’s coming right over,” I told her.

  “Holly, someone’s been following me.”

  Sammy had been dozing on floor. I called him to me. “Who?” I asked Zara.

  “I never see him. Or her.”

  “Then how­—?”

  “I just sense someone. A presence. You know that feeling of being watched?”

  I nodded. Kimi can awaken me from sleep by looking at me, or so it seems. In truth, what awakens me is the sound of her exhalations and inhalations or the breeze of her breath on my skin. I don’t believe in ESP. I wanted to know whether Izzy, too, had sensed the presence­—In Dogs We Trust—but I didn’t have the heart to ask.

  “Zara, I want to call the ACOs. Animal control.”

  “She isn’t lost.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “I do.”

  chapter twenty

  When Quinn arrived, he was at his best: kind, thoughtful, and blessedly low-key. While he and Zara conferred in our living room, I called the ACOs in Waltham, Watertown, and Newton, and I e-mailed Lab Rescue. I made sure to let everyone know that Izzy was a service dog and that she’d been wearing a yellow service-dog vest.