by Susan Conant
“Mrs. Dennehy? Holly. I’m trying to reach Kevin,” I said, “but I haven’t had any luck.”
“That Jennifer! That’s where he is. Pouring oil on troubled waters. She was sent to this training course, and what did she go and do? Sent there to learn to be nice to people, and could she manage that for as much as a week? The little miss could not. Lost that temper of hers, that’s what she did. Stamped her little feet and marched out and got in her car and drove home. And that’s where my Kevin is now. In Attleboro, of all places, trying to help her out. Pearls before swine!”
It was the most uncharitable remark I’d ever heard Mrs. Dennehy make. In fact, so far as I could recall, it was the only one.
“He isn’t answering his cell phone,” I said. “And I don’t have Jennifer’s number.”
“I don’t have it. And don’t want it.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that there’s trouble,” I said. “I won’t bother you anymore. Just, uh, if you talk to Kevin, could you tell him to call me? I have to go out soon. I should be home at nine or so.”
“You’re a good girl,” she said, as if making an implicit comparison. “Kind to animals.”
When we’d said good-bye, it occurred to me that for all of Jennifer’s difficulties in getting along with people, especially the residents of Newton whom she was supposed to protect, she’d never shown any animosity to animals. She was a tiger about the leash law and the pooper-scooper law, but she correctly blamed violations on dog owners rather than on dogs, and, in any case, behavior even bordering on unkindness to animals would’ve driven Kevin off long ago. How he tolerated her impossible attitude toward people was, however, beyond me. If he married Jennifer, he’d spend the rest of his life doing what I suspected he was doing now, namely, to use his mother’s phrase, pouring oil on troubled waters. At a guess, he was talking sense into Jennifer and also trying to talk the people in charge of the training course into giving Jennifer another chance. He might even succeed. While I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call Jennifer a swine, Kevin truly was a pearl among men.
Mindful of the time, I tried to work out a plan. There was no reason to wait for Kevin to question Mellie. In fact, she might speak more freely to me than she would to anyone in authority, even Kevin, and I could pass along whatever she told me. The run-throughs started at six thirty. I’d need to leave Cambridge by about five forty-five. It was now four thirty. The dogs wouldn’t mind eating early, and I could have a quick sandwich, put Rowdy and Kimi in the van, pay a visit to Mellie, get Leah, and arrive at the event more or less on time. I placed a quick call to Mellie to ask whether I could stop in. She said yes. I put the plan into operation: feed dogs; feed self; change clothes, fresh, not fancy; give Rowdy and Kimi a minute in yard; crate them in van; give Sammy five minutes in yard; crate him in kitchen; go!
CHAPTER 28
As I’d done the first time I’d visited Mellie, I avoided the hassle of parallel-parking the van on the narrow, carlined street by pulling into her driveway. For once, I chose not to take the dogs with me to a place I knew they’d be welcome. At Mellie’s, Rowdy, Kimi, or both would be all too welcome. She’d fuss over them, and she’d be so distracted that I’d never persuade her to tell me anything about the woman who’d entrusted her with Strike. Streak. Rhapsody’s Woo Streak? With the blue malamute.
The small areas of grass on either side of the steps to Mellie’s porch were freshly mown, and a pot of yellow mums sat next to her front door. Was it Mellie herself, I wondered, who tended the grass and who had bought the fall flowers? How much could she and had she done for herself? Could she possibly have had anything to do with…? I rang the bell, and when she opened the door, I felt like a fool for suspecting someone who looked as thoroughly harmless as Mellie did. Her round face was guileless, and as she invited me in, I sensed nothing but warmth and genuineness. As usual, she wore bright colors: a green sweatshirt and matching pants. As on my previous visit, I was struck by the colorful pillows and the other cheerful objects that brightened what would otherwise have been the overwhelmingly brown and depressing decor of the living room. I wondered whether Mellie’s parents had chosen the religious paintings or whether Mellie herself had selected The Last Supper and the Madonna and Child. Although neither picture was outright gloomy, The Last Supper was, of course, the last one, and both the Madonna and the infant Jesus looked pensive and slightly jaundiced. I had a hunch that on her own, Mellie would have picked biblical images that included animals and that expressed themes of happiness and hope: Christ with a symbolic flock of sheep, the Magi at the stable.
“You want coffee?” Mellie asked. I was getting used to the hoarseness of her voice and to her habit of speaking a little more loudly than necessary.
“No, thanks. I’m on my way somewhere, so I can’t stay long.”
“You want to sit down?”
I accepted the offer and took a seat on one of the brown chairs. Mellie sat on the couch facing me.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“About Strike? She’s fine. And she’s going to be all healthy very soon. But her vet needs help. Her vet needs to know what shots she’s had.”
“Up-to-date on all shots.” It was one of the times when Mellie spoke as if she were repeating a phrase she’d memorized.
“Do you have her rabies certificate?”
Mellie’s face went blank.
“Mellie, you know what a rabies certificate is. It’s a piece of paper proving that a dog has had a rabies shot, a shot that stops the dog from getting sick with rabies.”
Mellie remained silent, but her round face became pinched.
“And other vet records? About other shots?”
Still no luck.
I went on. “Mellie, shots hurt.”
Mellie almost shouted in agreement: “I hate shots!”
“I do, too,” I said truthfully. “And so do dogs.” Some more than others. Rowdy had never shown any sign of minding them at all. I didn’t say so. “We don’t want Strike to have to have shots she doesn’t need, do we?”
Mellie said nothing.
“And heartworm medicine. You know what that is.”
“The first day of January, February, March, all of them.”
“Exactly. So that the dog doesn’t get sick from heartworm.” I paused. “And September first. Strike. Did you give Strike her medicine on September first?”
Mellie laughed. “Of course!”
So, Streak had been with Mellie then. “And the girl who left her with you gave you the medicine for Strike.”
All the bright good humor left Mellie’s face. She locked her jaw.
“And Strike might like to have her own blanket. Or toys.”
“Don’t tell.” Mellie again seemed to be echoing someone else’s words.
I took a guess. “You promised. You made a promise not to tell.”
Mellie burst into tears. I felt like a monster. “Mellie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. You don’t need to cry. I’m so sorry.” I moved to the couch beside her and took her hand. “Look, I have an idea. You’re having a hard time figuring out what to do. I think you’re not sure what the right thing is.”
She nodded.
“Father McArdle is a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
Her face brightened. “You know Father McArdle?”
“I know who he is,” I said. “I live right near Saint Peter’s Parish. I think you should talk to Father McArdle. And ask his advice. Ask him about the right thing to do. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to know the right thing. And all of us need help deciding. And when we do, we ask other people. Can you call Father McArdle? Do you have his phone number? Do you ever call him?”
“And he calls me, too.” She sounded wonderfully proud. “He says, ‘Mellie, how are you?’ And he asks what I’m doing.”
“Well, this time, you need to call him. You can ask how he is and what he’s doing, and then you can tell him about St
rike and about promises. And you can ask him what to do. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Promise?”
She didn’t make the connection. Solemnly, she said, “I promise.”
I knew she’d make the call. After all, she certainly did keep promises.
CHAPTER 29
What I knew about Roman Catholicism was almost nothing. In particular, I knew almost nothing about confession except what everyone learns from movies and TV shows, for example, that priests were forbidden to reveal anything they’d learned during confession. What had Mellie told her priest about Strike and about the woman who’d left Strike with her? What, if anything, had she said to him about the murder? Mellie and her priest spoke on the phone and probably in person. If she’d told him anything important about the murder victim or the murder, had she done so in an informal conversation? Or during confession? In any case, I somehow trusted Father McArdle to advise Mellie to talk to the police, if not to me, and to be fully truthful in spite of whatever promise of secrecy she’d made about Strike. From what I’d heard, he sounded like a good man. After all, according to Mellie, he had assured her that her Boston terrier, Lily, had gone to heaven. That assurance continued to comfort her.
I thought of the priest as I passed Saint Peter’s Parish at nine or nine fifteen that evening. I’d dropped Leah off after the run-throughs and was looking forward to getting home. At the start of the evening, as we’d headed out of Cambridge, I’d thought about presenting the entire story to Leah, but I’d decided that she’d have nothing useful to say about it. On the contrary, I was sure that she’d suggest pressing Mellie far more forcefully than I wanted to do. Not that Leah was a mean or inconsiderate person. She was kind, but she’d never met Mellie and wouldn’t understand why I was unwilling to try to shake the truth out of her. Speaking of truth, I have to confess that I had a selfish reason for avoiding the subject of Mellie, Streak, and the murder: I wanted a few hours of respite and escape, and once Leah gets started on something, she just won’t let it go. So, I got what I wanted. Leah was bubbling with news of her friends and her courses, and I enjoyed listening to her and sharing her happiness. In return, I told Leah about Gabrielle’s new friendship with the DEA agent whom she met because someone had been growing marijuana on land she owned, the same DEA agent who was probably going to turn up at Thanksgiving dinner and become our honorary cousin.
At the rally event, I ran into a lot of people I knew, and Rowdy did exceptionally well, even on an advanced exercise called the Offset Figure 8 that required him to refrain from devouring the contents of two bowls of little dog cookies. According to the rules for rally novice and advanced, the handler is allowed to communicate with the dog during exercises by talking, patting her leg, clapping her hands, and otherwise providing encouragement, but I’m far from sure that the people who wrote the rules understood that a malamute handler determined to keep her dog’s attention away from food has to blast the dog with every allowed form of encouragement all at once. Talking is easy: “Good boy, Rowdy! That’s it! Excellent! This way! Perfect!” Fine. But just try slapping your thigh while simultaneously clapping your hands. I mean, it can’t be done, can it? You’d need three hands. Well, as an alternative, what you’d really need is liver, beef, or chicken, all three of which I used in quantity. Food isn’t allowed during actual trials, but this was a run-through, and I make no apologies. I got the behavior I wanted. That was my goal. I achieved it. And Rowdy and I both had fun. Kimi, I might add, got the little dog cookies in the bowls. She had fun, too.
I spent the drive back to Cambridge persuading Leah to stop blaming herself.
“It was just a little setback,” I said.
“She’ll remember it forever. I haven’t been working with her. I knew it was too advanced.”
“Leah, rally is supposed to be fun. So a malamute stole food. That’s news to you?”
“Rowdy didn’t.”
“He isn’t crazy about those dry cookies.”
“I should’ve used treats the way you did.”
“Next time you will, okay? For now, just let it go. Kimi had a happy experience with rally. Focus on that.”
“You and your positive methods! I half wish you were still using choke collars.”
“You do not!”
“I do. At least you didn’t use them on me.”
So, I had a good time, in fact, such a good time that it wasn’t until I was driving up Concord Avenue past Saint Peter’s that I again began to worry and to wonder about Mellie, and to hope that Kevin had finally freed himself from the impossible task of rescuing Jennifer from her social-skills-training fiasco. As I turned left onto Huron Avenue, I found myself missing Steve and wishing that he, Leah, and Rita hadn’t all departed at the same time. I should explain that although my house faces Concord Avenue, the driveway is on Appleton Street, which is one-way. From the Square, I take Concord to Huron, turn left, and then go right on Appleton, as I did that night. When I pulled the van into the driveway, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The exterior of our house is exceptionally well illuminated. There are so many lights that we’d be guilty of polluting the environment if we routinely used all of them. Fortunately, they have separate switches, so we limit ourselves to turning on the lights we need when we need them. Because I knew I’d be coming home after dark, I’d turned on some lights on the back of the house, enough for me to see that there was no one around. Next door, Kevin’s car wasn’t in his usual spot in the driveway, but the windows in the Dennehys’ living room showed the glow of the television. Mrs. Dennehy was waiting up for her son. When I opened the door of the van, I heard the muffled ring of the phone in my kitchen. The machine was set to pick up after the phone had rung eight times. Had it just started to ring? Was Kevin trying to call me? Or Steve? Maybe Steve had reached a place where his cell phone worked. Maybe he’d tried to call me on mine. It was in my purse, but I’d turned it off. Damn! I should’ve remembered to turn it on and check for messages before starting back home.
With my key ring still in my hand, I quickly locked the van, ran the few feet to the back steps, and sprinted up to the door. The dogs would be fine in the locked van; a back window was open. My purse, too, was in the van, as were empty spring-water bottles, a little cooler that I’d used for fresh dog treats, and other odds and ends that I’d carry into the house after I took the phone call. I put the key in the lock and opened the outer back door, which leads to a small hallway, little more than a landing, with a door to the cellar and with stairs that run up to the second floor and to Rita’s third-floor apartment. Straight ahead is the door to our kitchen. I’d unlocked my outer back door thousands of times, of course. The phone was still ringing, and I was in such a hurry to answer it that I can’t even remember the automatic act of unlocking the outer door and pushing it inward. When I opened the door, it never occurred to me that in my rush to leave the house, I’d failed to make sure that the outer door was locked. I can recall no sense whatever of the presence of another person in that small space.
The first thing I remember is what the man said: “You have some things that belong to me. I want them back.”
He was standing behind me. For a moment, it seemed as if he had materialized out of nowhere; caught off guard, I was too startled and frightened to realize that he’d already been in the hallway when I’d entered. It seemed to me that I was caught in a recurring nightmare: I enter my own house to find a strange man there who says that I have something of his and who wants me to hand it over. Since I have no idea what he means, I can’t just get rid of him by giving him what he wants. This second version of the scene was, however, different from the first. Adam’s Harley had been parked in my driveway. Leah had let him in. “You have something for me,” he’d said. Adam hadn’t implied that the something belonged to him; he’d seemed to expect me to pass the unknown something along to him rather than to give it back. But the big difference, the terrifying difference, was that Adam hadn’t tried to scare me. “Hope
I didn’t startle you,” he’d said. Furthermore, there’d been nothing threatening about his manner; he’d been perfectly pleasant. In comparison with the man in the hallway, Adam now seemed like the ideal guest. Why the hell had I dashed for the phone? Cell phones work both ways. If Steve could call me, I could call him back. Damn it all! Why had I left my big dogs in the van?
“You have the wrong person,” I said. “You have me confused with someone else.” The tactic had worked with Adam. It was worth trying again this time.
“Holly Winter,” he said. His voice was unfamiliar. I was still facing the kitchen door, and he was still in back of me. I hadn’t had so much as a glimpse of him.
“This happens all the time,” I said. “There’s another Holly Winter in Cambridge. People get us confused.” My voice was steady. Truly, it was.
“You have malamutes. You do rescue. You write for Dog’s Life. Now, open that door.”
The phone had stopped ringing. The caller had hung up without waiting to hear the recorded message. The silence made me feel entirely cut off.
I said, “I prefer not to.”
“We can do this nice. Or not. Now open the door and give me my stuff.” A sharp, pointed object pressed into my back. “Including my bitch,” he said. The dog person’s word, bitch. That’s when I began to suspect who he was.
I opened the door and flipped on the light. In his wire crate, Sammy rose to his feet and shook himself all over. I felt overwhelmed with love for him and overwhelmed with regret that it was puppy-brained Sammy in that crate instead of Rowdy. If Rowdy had been there? He’d immediately have sensed the threat and taken action, and the crate wouldn’t have stopped him. In comparison with our expensive Central Metal crates, this wire one was flimsy. I’d bought it as a travel crate because I’d hated lugging the heavy ones. We used it in the kitchen because it was easy to fold and put away, and also because Sammy liked it. If Rowdy had wanted to get out of it, he’d have destroyed it in seconds.