All Shots

by Susan Conant

  Rowdy and Kimi’s absence also offered the opportunity to let Sammy play with one of his beloved one-dog-only toys, which is to say, toys that dispensed food. I had phone calls to make, so instead of giving him the noisy Buster Cube, I packed pieces of cheddar into the three openings in a hard black rubber disc that was supposed to look like a spaceship. (The real name of the toy is a Kong X-treme Goodie Ship. No, I do not own stock in Kong or, for that matter, in Dyson or in the company that makes Dr. Noy’s toys, either. I just wish I did.) Sammy watched eagerly as I jammed in the cheese; and when I had him sit in heel position, the tip of his tail flicked back and forth, his body almost vibrated, and his eyes gleamed. Still, when I told him what a good boy he was and presented him with the toy, he refrained from grabbing it and instead took it politely from my hand before dashing around in joy and then settling on the kitchen floor to chew out the bits of cheddar.

  I then settled myself at the kitchen table and called one of my counterparts in Siberian husky rescue. As I expected, she had no news about Strike. She assured me that there had been posts about the lost Siberian on the sled dog lists and breed lists, and she promised to call me if she had any news.

  Almost as soon as I hung up, the phone rang.

  “Holly? Elise. Illinois rescue. I got your e-mail.”

  I thanked her for calling and said, “Actually, I have the dog now. The blue malamute. She was found running loose, so I know a little more about her. She’s young, two or so, and I think she’s a breeder dog. We can’t find a spay scar, but we haven’t done an ultrasound, so we’re guessing. You know what that’s like.”

  “Do I ever. The vet opens her up and finds she’s already been spayed, and you end up paying the whole bill for a spay.”

  So why not do an ultrasound whenever there’s a question? Ultrasound is expensive, and rescue groups need to control expenses. In some cases, there is no question: the shelter or the owner assures you that the dog has been spayed…and you get a surprise.

  “We’ve had that happen, too.” The we wasn’t royal. Or maybe it was? I meant AMRONE, Alaskan Malamute Rescue of New England.

  “If she’s intact, then we didn’t place her,” Elise said.

  “Of course not.” Every reputable rescue group spays or neuters all dogs before placing them unless the surgery would pose a health risk to the dog. For example, no sensible person subjects a fragile twelve-year-old male to neutering. Anyway, a firm spay-neuter policy is one hallmark of a good rescue group, and I didn’t want Elise to feel insulted.

  “But she doesn’t sound like one of ours,” Elise said. “The woman you asked about doesn’t ring any bells, either, but I don’t meet all of our adopters myself. I might see their applications, or I might talk to them on the phone. But—”

  “I don’t meet all of ours, either. If another volunteer works with an adopter, then maybe I’ll meet the adopter at one of our events, but that’s it.”

  “So, what’d you want to know about Grant?”

  “The reason I’m interested in him is that he had blue in his lines. And not all that many people do.” I explained the circumstances under which the photo had been found. “And the police still don’t know who the murdered woman is. I thought that if I could find out who the dog is, then maybe that would help to identify the woman. I showed the photo to Phyllis Hamilton, and Grant was one of the breeders she mentioned as a possibility. Anyway, let me tell you what I know about him, which isn’t much. Phyllis told me that he was a reputable breeder—or people thought he was a responsible breeder—and then his marriage went to pieces, and he got in some kind of financial trouble, and he disappeared. He got his dogs from Minnie Wilcox and Debbie Alonso.”

  “Poor Minnie,” Elise said.

  “Yes. I talked to her daughter.”

  “Her mind’s gone. It’s so sad. Debbie took responsibility for the dogs of Minnie’s that Grant had. And her own. We got the rest.”

  “The ones Grant bred himself.”

  “Fourteen. Seven adults, seven puppies. His wife had left him, and he was living out there alone, and no one knew he was gone for maybe ten days. He just took off and left the dogs in their kennels, not that they’d been in great shape before. One of the males had an infected wound on his leg that hadn’t been treated. It was a real mess getting that cleared up. And all of the dogs were starving, and not from being without food for just ten days. The kennels were filthy. What happened was that a neighbor noticed that Grant wasn’t around and went to take a look. And found the dogs. Otherwise, they’d’ve all died. It’s a good thing for Grant that he took off. Everyone who saw that place and those dogs wanted to kill him.”

  “No wonder.”

  “And, Holly, these were such sweet dogs. They were real sweethearts. We placed all of them. They’re loves.”

  “Any blue females?”

  “One. One of the adults. She was five or so. But she’s not the one you have. I see her all the time. I know the adopter.”

  “A puppy?”

  “There was a blue male. That’s it.”

  “Elise, when was this?”

  “Two…two and half years ago, let’s say. Yes. It was in April. What I heard was that Grant started getting in trouble the summer before that. You know about that?”

  “No. Phyllis says that I might’ve met him at a National, but if I did, I don’t remember. All I really remember is that you got a lot of his dogs.”

  “Well, the trouble was that his money, which he didn’t have a lot of to begin with, was all going up his nose and into his veins. And his wife got sick of it, and she left him. I never met her. She didn’t go to shows or anything. I heard she was a nice woman. Debbie Alonso knew her a little.”

  “You don’t suppose…?”

  “That it’s her? The one who was murdered?”

  “Just a thought. How old is Grant?”

  “Thirty-five? Forty, maybe.”

  “The murdered woman was probably too young to be his wife. She was in her early twenties. Still. I wonder how old Grant’s wife is. Was? His ex-wife.”

  “You could ask Debbie.”

  “I will. Elise, do you have any idea what happened to Grant? Where he went?”

  “To hell, I hope. That’s where he belongs.”

  “In the meantime?”

  “Someone told me he was in the Southwest. I heard that someone ran into him there. I don’t care where he is as long as he doesn’t have dogs.”

  “Do you remember who saw him?”

  “Sorry. Someone told someone who…one of those things. This was maybe a year ago, anyway.”

  After that, we talked about rescue for a while. As soon as the call ended, I refilled Sammy’s toy and called Debbie Alonso. The conversation was brief. Debbie had nothing good to say about Graham Grant. In fact, it sounded to me as if she was so furious at him that she could barely talk about him at all. His kennel name, I learned, had been Rhapsody. His wife was about his age, in her late thirties, Debbie thought. She certainly wasn’t in her early twenties.

  Feeling discouraged, I made two calls intended to cheer me up. The first was to Steve. Amazingly, I reached him. Just as amazingly, his cell phone didn’t quit, so we had a long talk, during which I told him about everything except the murder and associated horrors. He’d be home on Saturday, and especially because we couldn’t count on being able to reach each other by phone, I didn’t want to worry him. Instead, I told him about the rally run-throughs I was going to the next evening, rally being a fun variety of obedience. Instead of performing a fixed set of exercises on the judge’s orders, the dog and handler move through a course marked by signs. Each sign represents an exercise, sometimes a simple one like Halt, sometimes a more complicated one that involves, for example, heeling in a pattern around traffic cones. Anyway, a few months earlier, I’d had a flare-up of ring nerves, and although I was feeling almost ready to show again, I was still concentrating on lighthearted dog sports and avoiding competition obedience, which was formal, serious,
and nerve-wracking, mainly because I made it that way. Run-throughs, I should add, are just what they sound like, opportunities to practice for trials under similar conditions but without actual competition and without scoring that counts. The run-throughs were taking place on the green of a suburban town. A pleasant evening spent playing with Rowdy was just what my healing nerves needed. Heeling nerves. Sorry. Punning is an affliction, presumably one with a neurological basis. Anyway, Leah and I were taking Rowdy and Kimi, and I was looking forward to time with Leah, too. I’d talked to her on the phone a couple of times, but I missed having her live with us.

  My second cheer-myself-up call was to Gabrielle. I simply wanted to hear her voice, which, I was increasingly forced to recognize, always felt more maternal than my own mother’s ever had. Force of habit, which is to say, the habit of addressing golden retrievers, had made Marissa sound like my handler and my breeder, as she was, of course, but my stepmother sounded like a mother and nothing more. Fortunately, it was Gabrielle and not Buck who answered, and she was filled with yet more excitement about drug enforcement and, in particular, about the DEA agent, Al, who was becoming a friend of hers. I was anything but surprised. Knowing my stepmother as I did, I expected to find that Al would be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner at her house in Bar Harbor and that Gabrielle already had a list of suggestions about what Steve and I should give him for Christmas. I’d have bet anything that Gabrielle had invited him to use her guest cottage whenever he liked and to spend his next vacation there. So, I let Gabrielle’s comforting warmth soothe me and paid little attention to the particulars about the latest complete stranger she was welcoming into our family. Out of the corner of my ear, I heard that the DEA confiscated all sorts of marvelous things. Raids yielded luxury vehicles and first-rate sound systems. Suspects were known as “subjects.” Al sometimes went undercover. I knew that if he ever did anything iffy or odd or obnoxious, Gabrielle would tell me about it before adding in tones of shared affection, “But that’s just Al. You know what he’s like.” If he did something truly egregious, she’d advise me to think of him as a difficult relative. She’d say it before I’d even met him.

  But that’s just Gabrielle. You know what she’s like.

  Yes, wonderful. I felt equally certain that my honorary cousin-to-be returned Gabrielle’s affection. For obvious reasons, everyone loved her.

  Although Gabrielle’s chatter should have been an effective lullaby and although I had all three malamutes with me, I still felt uneasy at bedtime. To reassure myself, I checked the locks on all the doors and windows in the house, and I reminded myself that Kevin lived right next door. Then I loaded my Smith & Wesson and put it in the drawer of my nightstand. Why? Three reasons: Rowdy, Kimi, and Sammy. The woman who’d been stealing my name for herself had been stealing Kimi’s identity for a malamute. I wouldn’t have slept without the knowledge that I could protect my dogs.

  CHAPTER 23

  The other Holly Winter is a more private person than I am. Because of my volunteer work for malamute rescue, my name, address, and phone number are all over the World Wide Web, and when I call people, my name and number show up on caller ID. Why block my identity? When I call someone, the first words out my mouth when someone answers are going to be, “This is Holly Winter,” so if caller ID has already transmitted the information, what do I care? And if someone sees my name on caller ID and decides not to answer? So what! In almost all circumstances, I’d rather get an answering machine or voice mail than force myself on someone who doesn’t want to talk to me or who just feels like being left alone.

  The other Holly Winter, however, has arranged never to have anyone’s caller ID display her name and number. Our preferences in this regard reflect deep character differences that are, I believe, intimately tied to our radically divergent perspectives on Life Itself. Capitalized. What I mean by “Life Itself,” capitalized, is…take a guess. Also take the matter of caller ID and Life Itself—or my very own Lives Themselves, so to speak, although not necessarily on the phone. Anyway, if the doggy equivalent of a phone company were to ask Lady, India, Rowdy, Kimi, and Sammy whether they wanted to hide or announce their identities when they were trying to reach people, the dogs would unanimously and vigorously veto the option of ID blocking. Once having agreed about the desirability of revealing their identities, they’d disagree about whether radical changes would be required in existing displays of caller ID. Lady, our timid pointer, would be content with the status quo: her name in plain, unassuming little letters. India, our proud shepherd, would push for the tasteful yet dignified: a gold-framed screen and elaborate Gothic script. The malamutes, however, would insist on neon signs the size of billboards that would flash their identities while simultaneously setting off simulated bursts of fireworks and deafening emissions of loud, brassy music. I can hear it now. Sammy would go for marching-band renditions of John Philip Sousa; Kimi would insist on references to glory, laud, honor, conquering heroes, and the trampling out of vineyards; and Rowdy, my Rowdy, would settle for nothing less than “Hail to the Chief.”

  Have I digressed? Anyway, on that same Monday evening, Holly Winter uses her caller-ID-blocked phone to dial a number in California. She gets an answering machine, hangs up, and tries another number, this one in Oregon. A human being answers but has nothing to say that interests Holly Winter. She tries several other numbers from her long list. Her quest is fruitless. So far. She will pursue her inquiries tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 24

  It may seem as if I never work. Not so! I spent Tuesday morning finishing a profile of a breed so obscure that I’d never heard of it until Bonnie, my editor at Dog’s Life, gave me the assignment. In Bonnie’s view, since the other dog magazines were publishing articles about popular breeds like the Labrador retriever and the cocker spaniel, we should go after readers by filling the niche left open by the competition. Yes, stupid idea. If your magazine has a photo of a Lab on the cover and an accompanying article inside, the issue is going to attract Lab devotees, of whom there are zillions. But why try to increase readership by attracting all six people in the country who have what even I, a born dog lover, felt to be the misfortune to spend their lives with the Breed Not to Be Named? In appearance, the BNTBN, as I shall tactfully call it, reminded me of the famous reference in Sherlock Holmes to the giant rat of Sumatra: BNTBNs had snoutlike muzzles, small, beady eyes, and furtive expressions. The desired coat was short and brownish gray, the tail long and nearly hairless. Worse, instead of having originally served humankind by performing some appealing task such as herding sheep, pulling carts, guarding monasteries, or sitting in laps looking cute, this obscure breed had once specialized in doing a job so disgusting that I spent a half hour trying to come up with a suitable euphemism for it. So, you see? I don’t exactly have a real job, but I certainly do work

  I finished the profile, e-mailed it to my editor, and went to Steve’s clinic to check up on Miss Blue. The staff would reliably take excellent care of her, but I wanted to get to know her, in part to see whether her behavior had anything to tell me about her otherwise unknown owner and in part to help me think about the kind of home that would be best if she ended up as a rescue dog in need of an adopter. By two thirty, Miss Blue and I were in the park behind Loaves and Fishes, an area where the owners of dog-aggressive dogs sometimes cause problems by deciding that the therapy their dogs need is “socialization,” meaning the chance to bound around off leash while perfecting their prowess in attacking other dogs. The advantage of the park behind Loaves and Fishes is that it’s open, so you can at least watch for potential troublemakers instead of getting taken by surprise. Fortunately, the fields were uncrowded that afternoon, which was overcast and chilly, so I felt hopeful that I wouldn’t need the aerosol boat horn and the citronella spray I was carrying in case I had to defend Miss Blue.

  So far, she’d ignored a golden retriever running at his owner’s side and a wonderfully assorted trio of terrier mixes all trotting together in front of an elderly
woman who had the brisk gait of a teenager. In the middle of a field, I repeated my previous experiment of baiting Miss Blue and got the same result I’d had the previous day: she had no idea what I wanted. When I said, “Miss Blue, sit!” in my most thrilling dog-trainer tones—well, dogs are thrilled, anyway—she looked utterly delighted with herself as she slowly lowered her hindquarters to the grass and then immediately stood up again. My “Down!” did nothing except make her look vaguely puzzled. Translation: “But I wasn’t up on anything! Why are you telling me to get down?” Obedience trainers use down exclusively to tell the dog to lie down. If the dog is countersurfing or, doG forbid, jumping on someone, we use off or some other command that doesn’t confuse the dog. Heel? To her ears, the word came from a foreign language she didn’t speak. So, as I expected, Miss Blue hadn’t been trained for the show ring or the obedience ring.

  But was she ever a great pet! When she made eye contact, as she did all the time, her eyes sparkled. Affectionate? She rubbed against me without shoving, and she had the delightful habit of raising her paw as if asking to hold hands. As she’d done the previous day, she dropped to the ground and rolled over to present her white tummy for rubbing. And someone had taught her to walk on leash without mistaking the activity for a weight-pull competition and without trying to dislocate the shoulder of the person at the other end of the leash. Feeling like a monster, I checked for hand shyness: I raised my hand and jerked it sharply toward her hindquarters and then toward her head. It goes without saying, I hope, that I hit nothing but air. Miss Blue didn’t flinch. Steve’s staff had seen no indication of what’s called “resource guarding,” in other words, growling and otherwise turning possessive in response to an effort to take away toys or treats. In a formal temperament test, the evaluator would’ve pushed Miss Blue hard to assess resource guarding. I’m not trained to do temperament tests, and I saw no reason to stress her. If she’d suddenly become my dog, I’d have played it safe by assuming that she’d guard her food and toys; I’d have taught her that an approaching hand meant food; and I’d have taught her to trade toys for treats. She wasn’t going to become my dog, of course, and I’d been finding homes for homeless malamutes for too long to confuse my rescue dogs with my personal dogs. What enabled me to love the rescue dogs yet let them go was the joy they brought to the people who adopted them and the happiness the dogs felt in being home at last.