Dead and Doggone

by Dead

“I’ve been better, Kevin,” I said. “Hi, Shane.”

  “I’ve got some not-so-good news for you,” Kevin said. “Couple of other dogs disappeared around here Sunday night, both out of yards.”

  “Animal Control didn’t tell me that,” I said.

  Kevin just shrugged. “Keep the dogs with you. Or inside. Don’t leave them in the yard.”

  “Of course not,” Shane said. I’m sure Kevin didn’t like his tone or, for that matter, his voice,

  accent, clothes, educational background, profession, blond hair, brown eyes, or one single other

  thing about him.

  “We’ll be careful,” I said. “Is this the first time? I mean, has there been a lot of it lately? Have

  there been any other dogs stolen in Cambridge?”

  “Happens from time to time. We don’t always hear about it.”

  Yes, I thought. And you don’t always do anything about it, either. It does happen. A long time

  ago, it happened to Susan Butcher, who grew up in Cambridge, where she had a Siberian husky

  stolen. Now she and her Alaskan huskies live not far below the arctic circle, in the land where men

  are men, and women like Susan Butcher often win the Iditarod sled dog race — in other words,

  where women are winners and men are sore losers. From what I’ve read, though, she’s still angry

  about one loss — that stolen dog.

  “Maybe you don’t always hear about it, Kevin, but you heard about Clyde,” I said.

  “Holly, I’m real sorry.” Kevin looked at his shoes instead of at me.”

  “Then help me.”

  I’m doing my best.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yeah, I am. See you later.”

  Kevin ran off. My father had locked himself in the barn and was crying. Steve had killed Lady just

  because that was his job. But Shane was right there with me, not taking off or sobbing or murdering

  love-hungry pointers.

  “Let’s take a walk,” he said.

  Windy’s head and tail were a little lowered, and Rowdy was sniffing her with approval. As I may

  have mentioned, malamutes can act rambunctious and somewhat aggressive with other dogs, but

  Rowdy just plain liked Windy, who accepted him as top dog but didn’t grovel. She wasn’t afraid of

  him.

  I needed the walk, and although I don’t usually spill personal stuff to people I don’t know well, it

  did me good to talk about everything. I didn’t say anything about Steve — I never mentioned his

  existence — but I told Shane the rest of the story.

  “So your father went through an episode like this after your mother died?” he said.

  “Worse than this. That’s what I’m worried about. I wish Millie would hurry up.”

  “She was mated to Clyde?”

  “Yeah. This is her first litter.”

  “Clyde’s a beautiful animal,” Shane said. “These hybrids are fascinating. Your father’s quite a guy.

  I enjoyed meeting him.”

  “he’s a real character.” I’m used to explaining him to people.

  “A genuine individualist.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “A prototype.”

  The word impressed me, even though he might just as well have said that when they made Buck

  they’d broken the mold, hardly a new observation. Maybe I’m easily impressed. I’m definitely not

  hard to take out to dinner, either. Shane took me to a now-defunct place near Kendall Square called

  the Daily Catch, which was the best restaurant in Cambridge A Chihuahua couldn’t make it through

  the day on what most Cambridge restaurants serve for a three-course meal. If you ate at the Daily

  Catch, you smelled like squid, garlic, and olive oil for a week afterward, but that’s how long it took

  you to feel hungry again, too.

  “That venison was a treat,” Shane said.

  We were sitting opposite each other, reading our menus. Perhaps I should point out that the

  Daily Catch wasn’t a romantic setting unless your idea of romance is blue and white tile, crowds,

  adequate lighting, and an Italian-looking waiter who doesn’t announce that he’ll be your waiter

  tonight when it’s obvious that he already is.

  “Did you really like it?” I asked.

  “Loved it.”

  “I thought the onions were burned.”

  “Browned,” he said.

  “It’s nice of you to say that.”

  As I’ve explained, the onions were unmistakably burned. I tend to be bluntly truthful myself.

  Even so, I am embarrassed to say that for most of the meal, we talked about me. Maybe I was too

  strung out to notice or too flattered to mind. The man was a good listener. It was one of his charms.

  He had others. More than anyone should. He admired my hair. He’d never known a dog writer

  before. Wasn’t it an interesting occupation? How did I eat so much and stay so thin? Not too thin,

  of course. How many dogs had I owned? What were they like?

  On the way out, we ran into Matt Gerson and his wife, Mary. I’d known that Matt and Shane were

  in the same department, but during the entire meal, I hadn’t asked Shane one question about

  himself or his work, so it wasn’t surprising that we hadn’t talked about Matt. Matt any my father

  know each other because in their own ways, they’re both experts on wolves. Incidentally, Matt

  Gerson looks nothing like a wolf, and neither Matt nor Marty looks like a German shepherd, which

  is what they had when Matt trained with the Cambridge Dog Training Club. Actually, the Gersons

  look remarkably like each other, about five six, robust, with wavy brown hair, his on the long side

  for a man, hers on the short side for a woman. Her voice is deep, his tenor. In other words, they

  look and sound like married twins.

  The Gersons were good friends of mine until we had a silly falling-out, a misunderstanding.

  When they got a new German shepherd, I showed up with a chew toy for the puppy and a roast

  chicken for them so they wouldn’t have to cook for themselves, but last year, when their baby was

  born, I forgot to send a card, and their feelings were hurt. I missed them. I should have called,

  especially because I’d heard that their dog died. But the Gersons don’t hold grudges. They greeted

  me in a friendly way, asked about Buck, heard about Clyde, and told me to visit soon. To avoid stir

  up any of the old hard feelings, I didn’t offer my condolences about their dog. I would have had to

  ask about the baby first, and I had forgotten not only its name but its gender, too. They didn’t seem

  to notice. The only coldness they showed, it seemed to me, was toward Shane. I had the impression

  that while I was crazy about him, they weren’t. I thought he was charming. They didn’t. nothing

  more. No man ever pleases all your friends. For instance, Rita used to go out with a guy I couldn’t

  stand. He thought that dogs were so unsanitary that he wouldn’t let Rita touch him after she’d

  patted Groucho unless she washed her hands first.

  As I was stepping out of the Mercedes onto my driveway, with Shane holding the door open for

  me, Steve Delaney drove by on Appleton Street. I hoped he saw Shane, me, and the Mercedes. I

  wished Windy had been there for him to see, too.

  -13-

  That was Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, Libby Knowles called to tell me that Reggie was

  doing his best to find Clyde but hadn’t had any luck so far. She also asked if I waned to buy a new

  printer.

  “Mine isn’t wonderful, but it works,” I said. “What kind?”

&nb
sp; “It’s supposed to be a good one.”

  “What does that mean? Laser?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much is it?”

  “Cheap.”

  “How cheap is cheap?”

  “Four hundred dollars.”

  “Used?”

  “Practically new.”

  The price wasn’t just low, it was way too low.

  “When did you start selling printer?” I asked.

  “I’m not. I just heard about this, and I thought of you. I know you use a computer.”

  “Every day.” Except for the past few days.

  “Where did you hear about this?”

  “Somebody told me. If you’re not interested, forget it. I was trying to do you a favor.”

  “Thanks. I’ll think it over.”

  “Hey, do you think you could do me a favor?”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Could you ask what’s-his-name, that cop on your block, about my shears?”

  “Kevin. I guess so. Libby, are you sure you really want them back? Why do you want them?’

  “They’re mine,” she said. “They’ll have to give them back sometime, won’t they?”

  I nearly reminded her that, as far as I knew, she hadn’t even asked De Franco for them. It seemed

  to me that I was the one who’d told him they were hers — she hadn’t — but I thought she might not

  like it.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Probably not for a long time, anyway. They are evidence. Hey, how well do

  you know Sissy’s husband? Austin?”

  “A little.”

  “From shows?”

  “And the drugstore. I used to go there.”

  “Do you know what he did? I can hardly believe it. He had one of her dogs destroyed.”

  “Max!”

  “No. The bitch, Lady. He says she bit him.”

  “Bull!”

  “She could have nipped him, maybe,” I said.

  “Even so! How could he do that?”

  “I don’t know. He told me himself. I didn’t know what to say. If it hadn’t been too late, I would’ve

  tried to do something.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Libby said. “He always just struck me as kind of a nobody. I felt kind of sorry

  for him, stuck with Sissy. I figured she’d finally pushed him to the limit, you know? There’s only so

  much a person could take of her, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I’d had the same idea.

  “But Lady? Lady never did him any harm. You know, that is one thing I cannot stand. People just

  don’t like the dog, or they get another one they like better, or whatever, and half the time, they don’t

  even bother to try to give it away.”

  “I know.”

  “And a lot of breeders aren’t a whole lot better.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Yes, it is. They just don’t talk about it. Their attitude is, once a dog isn’t fit to show anymore, he

  isn’t fit for anything, and they don’t want to have to pay the food and vet bills. And it doesn’t have a

  damn thing to do with who can afford it and who can’t. If you ask me, half the time they’re just lazy.

  Take one look at a puppy and see he’s got some little fault, and do they bother to find a pet home?

  Oh, no. They’re not raising pets. Right?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And don’t tell me your malamute people don’t do it.”

  “Really, Libby, if you’re talking about Janet Switzer, you’re wrong.” Janet is Rowdy’s breeder.

  “I’m not,” Libby said. “I’m not talking about Janet.”

  “If you mean Faith Barlow,” I said, “I don’t believe it.” I didn’t. what Libby said about Faith

  wasn’t true, but it does show you how some dog people talk.

  According to Libby, you couldn’t blame Austin Quigley for ridding himself of an insufferable wife,

  but having a dog destroyed was unforgivable. Don’t look at me. I didn’t say it; she did. No matter

  what the wife was like, nobody had the right to kill her. Fine. But what about Lady? To rid yourself

  of a dog, all you need to do is pay your money and sign a form stating that you understand that

  euthanasia isn’t reversible. Laughable? Grotesque? True. I’ve signed those forms. I signed one for

  Vinnie, my last golden, the day I met Steve Delaney. I should have known then that death was his

  specialty. But I didn’t regret what I’d done for Vinnie. All I did was what I would have wanted a

  friend to do for me. I’m sorry she had cancer. I’m sorry she died. I’m not sorry I spared her the

  pain.

  Vinnie was old. The Gersons’ dog wasn’t, just horribly sick, and I hadn’t even called them then. In

  fact, I’d been a rotten friend, and not just about the dog. About the baby, too. Besides, I’d promised

  Buck I’d ask Matt Gerson about Clyde, just on the off chance that a wolf expert might hear of a

  wandering wolf, I guess.

  Since Matt and Marty look so much like each other, the baby, true to type, looked exactly like both of them, a stocky little thing with their wavy brown hair. He had one of those J names, Jason,

  Joshua, Justin, something like that. He liked the overdue baby present I brought for him, a stuffed

  animal, a toy malamute. There’s an equally cute stuffed wolf, but, considering Matt, I assumed the

  baby already had five or ten of them already. I was right. When Matt and Marty put the baby to bed

  soon after I arrived, I saw the pack of toy wolves lined up on a shelf in the nursery, and I was careful

  not to admire them more enthusiastically than I admired Jason or whatever his name was.

  If you watch television, you probably have an image of a professor’s big Victorian house filled

  with upholstered armchairs, shiny tables, crystal, and Bokhara rugs, fire blazing on the hearth,

  eminent scholar sitting at an oak rolltop desk, the whole bit. Unfortunately for Matt, he’s the real

  thing, not a TV professor, and Marty writes novels, serious books about people, and since she’s a

  real writer, not like me, she earns even less than I do. They own a house in Cambridge, a wood-

  frame one like mine, but it has only two apartments. The one they live in (painted entirely white, of

  course) doesn’t even have a fireplace, and the furniture consists mostly of director’s chairs and a

  couple of desks made from doors set on sawhorses. The tables shine because they’re plastic. Even

  so, the place is anything but empty. Everywhere you look are brick and board shelves filled with

  thousands of books, journals, stacks of reprints, and funny objects the Gersons have trash-picked.

  The kitchen walls are covered with battered gadgets whose purpose the Gersons are always trying

  to guess. The pictures are, of course, photos and posters of wolves, except for some Woolworth-

  framed mounted displays of fishing flies Matt ties. Matt doesn’t hunt, but in other respects, he’s

  what Buck calls a regular enough guy for a Harvard professor. Fly tying is an art — I’m not kidding

  — and Matt is a master. The elaborate concoction of feathers, shiny material, and colored threads

  are more than just fishing lures — they’re a form of highly structured creative expression. Not for

  the first time, I admired the display.

  “That one’s such an old-timer, even I know what it is,” I said. “It’s a Jock Scott. And that one’s a

  Silver Doctor.”

  “I am impressed.” Matt was only half kidding.

  “What’s that fluffy one?”

  “A Gray Hackle Dry,” Matt said, “but I didn’t tie it. Ed Nichols tied that one.”

/>   “Really? I didn’t know you knew him. I met his wife the other day, or his widow, I guess I should

  say. So you knew him?”

  “Yes,” Matt said.

  “Cambridge,” Marty smiled. It’s such a small world that no one bothers to say so.

  “Actually, we both used to fish the Dennys,” Matt said.

  “Really? Shane did, too,” I said. “I think he still does. So Ed Nichols tied that himself?”

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “Does it look like someone else’s?”

  “How would I know? No. I thought maybe someone else did, that he had it tied for him. Or he

  could’ve bought it.”

  “Not a chance,” Matt said. “Ed tied it. We used to trade. So what’s going on?”

  Afte we did some catching up, I raised the subject of Clyde.

  “Your father hates to hear this,” Matt said, “but I’m convinced that this hybridizing is misguided.

  It’s a mistake. I’ve said the same thing in print.”

  “I agree with you,” I said. “I’ve got a malamute now. That’s my idea of a wolf dog.”

  We talked about malamutes, and I asked whether the Gersons were thinking about another dog.

  They’d decided to wait until what’s-his-name was a little older.

  “The fence is still up, and the doghouse is still sitting out there,” Marty said. “one of these days.

  We talk about it.”

  “What are you thinking about getting?” I asked. “Another shepherd?”

  “We’ve been talking about a golden, maybe,” Mart said, “or some kind of setter.”

  “Have you seen Shane’s?” I felt compelled to keep speaking his name. infatuation is impossible to

  keep secret. “He’s got a lovely Irish setter bitch,” I went on. “Really lively and really gentle. One like

  that would be perfect with kids. I don’t know where he got her.”

  The Gersons exchanged identical glances, but neither of them said anything.

  “I could ask him,” I said.

  “Have you been seeing a lot of him?” Matt asked.

  “Not a lot. Some. He’s my tenant. He’s got the third floor.”

  “Has he been there long?” Matt asked.

  “No. He just moved in. Windy, the setter, is just beautiful. You’d love her. I’ll find out where he

  got her. Or you ask him. You’re in the same department. You see each other there?”

  “From time to time,” Matt said. “He also does some work in the private sector.”

  Private sector. So that explained it. In Matt’s view, Shane had sole out to industry, and whatever