All Shots

by Susan Conant

  “So Zachie’s milk won’t spoil,” Mellie said. “He’s my good friend.” In a gesture that took no more than a microsecond, she reached up and fluffed her hair.

  Francie had told me that Zach Ho was one of Mellie’s mainstays. I’d had no idea that Mellie had a key to his house, and I was quite sure that the police didn’t know about that key, either. I’d been equally oblivious to what might, for all I knew, be a universal female response to Dr. Zach Ho. Now that I thought about it, I remembered that Francie had talked about him with particular affection and indulgence. When she’d said that he had an eye for the ladies, her voice had conveyed not a hint of Cantabrigian feminist blame; on the contrary, she’d sounded titillated. As if to investigate my new hypothesis about Zach Ho, I took another look at Holly Winter, whom I’d have thought incapable of blushing. She was as tiny and bony as ever, but there was something different about her hair. It was still almost painfully short, but brightening its predominant darkness were fine streaks of…could it be? Yes! Blond. Zach Ho, I decided, must possess the animal magnetism that Steve unintentionally radiated. Rowdy, I might mention, had that same electric effect on females of his species. In his case, though, the impact was deliberate. Indeed, it was calculated. He had a way of puffing himself up to display his rich coat and massive musculature to greatest advantage, and when circumstances permitted, he’d wait until his female object’s eyes were on him to ignore her completely while raising his leg to an impossible height and drenching the nearest tree or fire hydrant in a show of masculine hyperfluidity. So, I wondered about Dr. Ho. The Steve type, inadvertently alluring? Or the Rowdy type, aware of his appeal and eager to show it off?

  “I don’t give a shit who this is,” Grant said. “The toys. And everything else that slut left here. Including Streak.”

  “Don’t use bad words,” Mellie told him.

  “Screw you,” he said. “The toys. And my bitch.”

  “God is listening to you,” Mellie said. “God is everywhere, and God hears everything.”

  Holly Winter wore one of those boxy linen outfits beloved by academic women, a loose dark skirt with a white shell and a mannish jacket. From the pocket of the jacket she pulled a cell phone. As she flipped it open, Grant dropped his knife to the floor and, as if mimicking Holly Winter, pulled out a small semiautomatic.

  Holly Winter pointed a finger at me. “Look what you’ve done. This is all your fault, you and your dogs with their big stomachs, you and your lucrative family business.”

  Instead of asking her what she could possibly mean, I ignored her. “We’re going to cooperate,” I told Grant, who was pressing his pistol to Sammy’s beautiful head. “Mellie, go and get everything the girl left here. Strike’s toys. Anything else the girl left with you.”

  “Go ahead and shoot the dog,” Holly Winter said. “Good riddance.”

  “Stay out of it!” I told her. “You have no idea what’s going on. All we need to do is give him what he wants. Now stay out of it.”

  “Traces of methamphetamine were found on the victim’s possessions,” she said. “Possessions including clothes from L.L.Bean. You’re not the only one who talks to the police. L.L.Bean. Maine. The DEA’s task force on keeping that very same drug out of Maine. The long border with Canada. The long coastline. The picture of your dog. The Ellsworth American is on the Web. Your mother and her marijuana is the least of it.”

  Again resisting temptation, I restrained myself from pointing out that L.L.Bean ships everywhere and that Gabrielle was, in fact, my stepmother. “Your bitch ran off,” I told Grant. “She ran away.”

  Entirely misinterpreting my use of a technical term for canine females, Holly Winter said, “Ran away? You shot her!” Pointing at Grant, she said, “I’ve got news for you. While you were busy implanting your drugs in the dogs, your wife here was running around with that redheaded cop the two of you work with.”

  In desperation, I said, “This is not my husband. This man is not a vet. My husband does not implant drugs in dogs’ stomachs. Yes, drug smugglers do it, but I am not one. And I am not having an affair with Kevin Dennehy. Now stop! Mellie, just get the dog toys. And everything else.”

  Grant moved the pistol away from Sammy’s head, pointed it at Mellie, and shouted, “The toys. Like she says. Now!”

  The words had barely left his mouth when the front door flew open and in burst a man I’d never seen before. In his hand was a revolver. He was younger than Grant and blessed with the rugged good looks of the young Paul Newman; the breathtaking bone structure, the short, curly brown hair, the irresistible mouth, even the baby blues. The second he spoke, I knew that he was from Down East Maine; you can’t miss the accent. “Grant, you son of a bitch, where’s Holly? How the hell did you know—”

  “Calvin, cool it,” Grant said. “I can explain everything.”

  The name Adam had spoken: Calvin.

  “Holly Winter,” the statistician said.

  “Yeah,” the newcomer replied. “Where is she?”

  CHAPTER 32

  “The little slut took off on me,” Grant whined. “Look what she did to me first, Calvin. Waited until I was sick and then beat the shit out of me with a two-by-four, fractured my goddamned skull, and ruptured my spleen. Left me alone in the cabin. I was there for three days before I managed to crawl to the road and get out and get to the hospital. She took off with my money and my merchandise and my blue bitch. But I lucked out. She was stupid enough to take my truck, too.”

  Mellie looked relieved to understand a piece of what was happening. “The machines come and clean the streets, and I don’t like it.” Almost reluctantly, she added, “Holly said bad words.”

  “Her truck was towed?” I asked.

  “It was my damn truck,” Grant said. “She stole it.”

  I said, “And the city towed it because that side of the street was being cleaned. And she couldn’t reclaim it because it wasn’t hers. So the city sent you a notice that it had been impounded. With the address where the truck was parked.”

  Grant had had enough. “Calvin, I’m on private, personal business here.” He was now aiming his weapon as well as his words at the newcomer. “Get out.” He pointed the weapon at Mellie. “And you, lady, I’m telling you, get my stuff, and get it now.”

  I can sense the beginning of a fight. When the potential combatants are dogs, I do my best to defuse the situation. Now, I decided to make it explode. But I wanted Mellie out of the way. “Mellie, please go get Strike’s toys right now. And everything else.” As soon as she stepped toward the stairs that began near the front door and ran up to the second floor, before she’d even begun to ascend, I said to Grant, “Look, your buddy Calvin didn’t get a notice from the city of Cambridge about an impounded vehicle. He knew where she was. How? She told him. I hate to tell you, but they must’ve been more than friends. Grant, she didn’t just put you in the hospital and dump you. She made plans to get rid of you and start her life all over with everything you had. Your truck, your merchandise, your blue bitch. And your friend, too. Calvin.”

  “Not to mention my name and my credit,” Holly Winter said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Calvin demanded.

  “Holly Winter,” said Mellie from the staircase. “That’s everyone. Her and her and the girl.”

  I wanted Calvin’s attention back on Grant. And Grant’s on Calvin. I wanted their eyes locked, their hackles up, and their hearts filled with rage. “She was shot,” I told Calvin. “She was shot to death with a Smith and Wesson .22/.32 Kit Gun.”

  I got my explosion. Too enraged to settle for bullets, Calvin hurled himself at Grant and slammed into him so swiftly and so powerfully that Grant didn’t stand a chance of using his pistol. He might’ve done better with the knife he’d abandoned. But maybe not. What Calvin delivered was a full-body blow that must have knocked the wind out of Grant and that certainly knocked him to the floor. Calvin was on top of him as he crashed, and the weight of the two big men made a tremendous boom and s
hook the little house so hard that you’d have sworn that it had been hit by an earthquake.

  But Sammy was free. With his leash trailing after him, he fled toward—damn it!—the back of the house. Trust a malamute to head for the kitchen. Frozen in terror, Mellie was still on the staircase near the front door. In backing away from the fight, I’d ended up near the couch, the chairs, and the television, which is to say that I had access to the dining and kitchen area at the rear of the house; I could have found Sammy, snatched his leash, and escaped with him out the back door. But what about Mellie? To reach her, I’d need to go in exactly the opposite direction, that is, to the front of the house. If I stepped between the couch and the front window, I’d be near the stairs and the front door; if Mellie didn’t spontaneously join me in fleeing, I could grab her by the arm and haul her outside. Calvin was still on top of Grant, but Grant was kicking hard, and Calvin was beginning to look winded. I couldn’t see Calvin’s revolver, but Grant’s weapon lay on the carpet only five or six inches from his right hand. If shooting started, any of us could be hit in the crossfire. Sammy was still out of my range of vision, but he could come bounding back into the living room any second, and I’d have lost the chance to get him out of danger.

  The most likely victim was, however, Holly Winter, who had flattened herself against the wall beneath the staircase, only a few feet from the brawl. She was far better positioned than I was to rouse Mellie from her frozen state and take flight through the front door, but she was, if anything, even more paralyzed than Mellie. Her back was to the wall, and her eyes were dark pools of fear. If she’d kept her head, she could have bent down and seized Grant’s semiautomatic or at least stretched out a foot and slid it out his reach; she could have helped Mellie; or she could simply have bolted out the door. Instead, she directed all her energy toward squeezing herself against the wall. She looked, and probably felt, as if she were perched on a narrow rock shelf high on a mountain, with her back pressed against the illusory comfort of a cliff and with her feet only an inch or two from a thousand-foot drop to death.

  My only weapon was my dog-trainer’s voice. “Mellie, go upstairs!” To encourage her, I waved and pointed upward. Mellie looked bewildered, but to my relief, she finally awoke from her trance and began to climb the stairs. Would she have the sense to hide under a bed or take refuge in a closet? I didn’t know, but I simply couldn’t go after her. “Holly!” I said sharply. “Holly, get out! Go! Run!” I gestured to the front door. Holly Winter remained frozen. Desperate, I picked up one of the bright pillows from the drab brown couch. It was a small pillow and heavier than I’d expected. I took careful aim, and, with the skill I’d learned tossing dumbbells in obedience, hurled the pillow and hit her directly in the face. “Get out!” I ordered her. “Go!”

  Grant’s fingers inched toward his pistol. Calvin was shouting, “You bastard! You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you!”

  Holly Winter finally left her imaginary rock shelf, descended her mountain of the mind, and bolted through the front door.

  Two safe: Mellie and Holly. Two to go: Sammy and me. Feeling my body relax, I was moving toward the kitchen when a patch of bright yellow caught my eye. Veering around, I saw to my horror that Mellie was coming back down the stairs. In her hands was a big yellow gym bag—the bright, eye-catching yellow I’d glimpsed. Tucked under one of her arms was a dog toy, a medium-sized duck that I recognized as a cousin of Pink Piggy’s. Damn! Mellie had been repeatedly told to get the dog toys, and, at the worst possible moment, she’d done what she’d been told.

  I heard the gunshot while I was still staring at Mellie. The sound reverberated through the little house, and Mellie’s immediate and terrified screams seemed to match the pitch of the reverberation and to play hideous variations on the theme of violence. Blood was flowing from Calvin’s belly. Grant, struggling to rise, had reclaimed his semiautomatic. From the street, I heard a crash I couldn’t identify, not the metallic bang of one car smashing into another, not sirens, not human voices shrieking for help. Hadn’t Holly had the sense to summon the police? Or to bang on doors? Hadn’t she…?

  Grant was upright and aiming the weapon at Mellie. I knew he’d kill her. And Calvin, of course. And me. And Sammy? I knew very little about semiautomatic weapons. The principal fact that had stuck in my brain was that a semiauto held more rounds than a revolver. If Grant started shooting, he might not stop, and he’d have plenty of ammo for all of us.

  The front door of the little house shot open, and a roaring mass of gray muscle rocketed in and smashed full speed into Graham Grant, who, for the second time that night, was body-slammed to the floor with such stupendous force that the little house shook. Once again, Grant’s pistol dropped from his hand. This time, though, instead of hitting the carpeted floor, Grant’s head struck the baseboard of the wall beneath the staircase. All color drained from his face, all but the fading purple and blackish green of his old bruises and the dark traces of those raccoon circles around his eyes.

  Sammy! How had Sammy managed to get out the back door, circle around, and enter from the front through the door that Holly had left ajar? How had danger ever registered on Sammy’s carefree puppy brain?

  I had to act. For all that Grant had the look of death, he could revive. Calvin, too, was comatose, but he might rouse himself. In seconds, I had that semiautomatic in my hand. Covering Grant, I got Calvin’s revolver.

  Only then, as I rose, did I take a good look at the dog who had saved us. He stood at my left side, his glowing dark eyes on my face. The likeness that had fooled others, the resemblance between father and son, had, for the first time, tricked me. “Rowdy,” I said. “My Rowdy. I should have known.”

  CHAPTER 33

  “Her name was Holly Winter,” said Holly Winter, who had a fleecy pink Ballet Barbie blanket wrapped around her shoulders but was shivering anyway. “I got that much right.”

  She, Mellie, Rowdy, and I were sitting on the steps of Dr. Zachary Ho’s porch. We were in that order, with Rowdy between Mellie and me, and with Mellie serving as a buffer between Holly and, doG forbid, the dog. The Barbie blanket was on loan from a neighborhood child who’d pressed it on Mellie, who, in turn, had insisted on wrapping it around Holly. The EMTs had offered emergency blankets, but Mellie and I had refused them in favor of a couple of old blankets I’d had in Steve’s van. The night wasn’t all that cold, and we’d been in greater need of soft comfort than of physical warmth. Rowdy gave both. Mellie was snuggled up against him, as was I. Mellie was clutching the crucifix that hung around her neck and a rosary as well. I was clutching Rowdy. Holly Winter had accepted the EMTs’ offer but had the emergency blanket clenched in her hands, where it did nothing for her violent trembling.

  The narrow street was even more crowded with official vehicles of all kinds than it had been on the day I’d discovered the body of…Holly Winter. Ambulances had made screaming departures with Grant and Calvin, who’d both been alive but might get to the hospital DOA for all I knew. I can’t say that I particularly cared. All I wanted was to go home, but the gridlock made it impossible to leave in the van, and I had no other way to transport the dogs. Also, I couldn’t desert Mellie. Neighbors kept asking her to stay with them, but so far, she was insisting that she wanted to sleep in her own bed. On the topic of neighbors, the sight of so many people milling around and standing in groups, together with the misleadingly festive illumination from the cruisers and the lights of every nearby house, created the impression of a late-evening block party minus the food and fun.

  “Shit,” Holly said stiffly. “Needless to say, I am very sorry.”

  “Don’t say bad words,” Mellie told her.

  “There’s nothing needless about apologizing,” I said. “Apology accepted. Your teeth are chattering. I think you should wrap that emergency blanket around your shoulders. Or I’ll get you a regular blanket from my van. Maybe you should go to the hospital. The EMTs offered to take all of us. Or to one of the neighbors’ houses. You
’re shaking.”

  “It’s a normal physiological reaction to stress,” she said.

  “No one said it was abnormal,” I pointed out.

  Mellie responded better than I did. With her rosary still in her hand, she put her arm around Holly and said, “Every-body feels sad sometimes. And angry.”

  “I’ll be fine once I understand exactly what happened.”

  “Now you understand what didn’t happen,” I said. “That’s a start. My husband and my father and my stepmother and I are not engaged in some conspiracy to use dogs as body packers. That’s the term. Smuggling drugs in the intestinal tracts of dogs. Or people.”

  “Drugs are bad,” Mellie said.

  I said, “But I can see…well, some of the pieces you put together are right. Sort of. Maine does have a long history of smuggling. Pirates. Prohibition. But why would anyone use body packers? The border with Canada is mostly wilderness, and the coastline, I happen to know, is three thousand four hundred seventy-eight miles long. I had to memorize that in school. I do come from Maine. You got that right. And Gabrielle, my stepmother, does own a wood lot where someone was growing marijuana. But not Gabrielle. And when you saw me with Kevin Dennehy, you misinterpreted what you were seeing. Kevin is my next-door neighbor.”

  “The databases—” she began.

  “The house belongs to his mother, and the phone is in her name. They live on Appleton Street. You were at my house. You know that it’s on the corner of Concord and Appleton. Kevin and I have been friends for years. That’s all. And Kevin is the last cop in the world to take bribes or cover anything up.”