Dead and Doggone

by Dead

  he did there must be applied, not theoretical, which in Cambridge means that it was lucrative but

  not classy. I’d wondered how Shane could afford the rent, the clothes, the furniture, the antique

  fishing gear Buck had admired. Now I knew. But he paid a price. Matt and Marty’s hand-picked,

  trash-picked found objects, their mountains of battered paperbacks, their near-antique Volvo that

  doesn’t always start in the rain? In Cambridge, all that is classier than Mimi Nichols’s thirty-room

  house. And Matt had just had a book accepted by Harvard University Press. In Cambridge, that

  means he outclassed almost everyone except the other people also published by Harvard University

  Press, all of whom, were outclassed only by the people published by Oxford University Press. Poor

  Shane. He had the audacity not only to work for money but to work for a lot of it.

  -14-

  My favorite cookbook comes from the Elizabeth H. Brown Humane Society in Orleans, Vermont.

  It has recipes for dog food, cat food, and people food. It's sometimes hard to tell who's supposed to

  eat what. Want an easy recipe for homemade dog biscuits? Here's an adaptation. Mix three

  tablespoons of oil with a third of a cup of water. Mix one cup of whole wheat flour with a quarter

  cup of soy flour. Stir in the water mixture, roll the dough out, cut it into cookies, and bake at three-

  fifty until brown. If you want professional results, you can buy bone-shaped cutters, but I just use

  an up-ended glass, which is probably why Kevin Dennehy didn't recognize what was cooling on the

  cake rack that Thursday morning. Kevin must have stupendously strong dental work, and if he had

  any tartar before, he didn't afterward.

  "You were at Quigley's the other day, weren't you?" he said.

  "Yeah."

  "Stay away from there for now. Don't go back."

  "I wouldn't dream of it," I said. "Do you know, I think Austin Quigley is crazy? Or he's going

  crazy? The man is literally unstable. One second you think he's one person, then a second later, he's

  totally different. I don't think I've ever seen anybody really have hysterics, but I thought he was

  going to. He started to giggle. And then I found out he killed one of Sissy's dogs. He actually told

  me, as if there was nothing wrong with doing it. I don't trust him at all."

  "And if you're thinking of having any painting done, do it yourself."

  "I always do," I said. "Inside and outside. Why?"

  "Pete Quigley does a lot of work around here. He's a house painter."

  "I know," I said. "Austin was telling me about it." "It's not what he calls it," Kevin said. His face was dead-pan.

  "Who?"

  "Pete," Kevin said. "The painter."

  "What does he call it?"

  "Doing finishes. He's what they call upscale." Kevin was delighted. "He doesn't paint. He applies

  finishes. Took Mickey an hour to figure out what the guy did for a living."

  "Ho," I said. "I'm sorry. He's your cousin, and he's really all right. He drops that Santa stuff after a while."

  "You've never heard him in December," Kevin said. "Anyway, I know Rita's away, and I wanted to

  pass the word to you in case you decided to do some redecorating while she's gone. I don't want

  him in here."

  "It never even occurred to me. Why would I hire someone when I can do it myself?" In a way,

  Buck is right. My mother didn't really die. Sometimes she speaks through me. "Rita's place doesn't

  need painting, anyway, and I touched up the third floor while it was vacant."

  "Good."

  "Look," I said. "I've more or less been assuming Austin had had all he could take. Right? That's

  what everybody thinks. So now you're telling me it was the kid?" The "kid," I should add, was about my age. "Or he might have? Do you really think he murdered his mother?"

  "Of course not," Kevin said. "Why, who'd ever do a thing like that? We'd have to invent a new

  word for it. Let's see. Matricide." He sounded out the syllables. "Would that do?"

  "Be serious. Do you think he did it? Does De Franco think so?"

  "He thinks they're both weird," Kevin said.

  "Genius runs in your family?" I said. "So what's this about?"

  "I don't trust your judgment," he said. "That's what it's about."

  With no success, I tried to get him to tell me what De Franco did think. Kevin kept saying it

  wasn't his case. He was as helpful as ever about Clyde, too.

  After he left, I set out to comb the shelters again. Then I followed up one of the few phone calls

  that had sounded promising, but when I showed the woman a sharp nine-by-twelve color print of

  Clyde, she said, rather indignantly, "Why, no! That's not him."

  When I got home and opened the mail, I found an invitation keyed to my state of mind.

  Tomorrow night, Friday, I Mimi Nichols was hosting a fund-raiser for her animal rights group,

  which was marshaling its forces to make sure the city council passed the law regulating animal

  research in Cambridge.

  With the invitation came some brochures and photocopies of newspaper articles about the

  committee. I'll spare you the details except to say that Cambridge was such a humane, progressive

  place that it had already banned the Draize test and the LD-50 test. Don't they sound harmless? I'd

  rather not talk about the Draize test. LD stands for lethal dose. LD-50 is a toxicity test in which

  animals — including dogs and cats —- are force-fed whatever substance is being tested. The test

  measures the dose needed to kill half of them, fifty percent. Gee, isn't Cambridge wonderful? We

  were too civilized to do that anymore. And Mimi's organization was hardly pushing for radical

  change. The ordinance was only supposed to regulate animal research, not stop it. Research could

  still kill animals. It was just supposed to do it humanely. Cages were supposed to be big enough so

  animals could move in them. Animals undergoing painful experiments were supposed to be

  "monitored." What the hell does "monitored" mean? That someone gets to watch?

  Even though it was a wishy-washy ordinance, I wrote out a check for as much as I could afford,

  filled out the little reply card to show I'd attend, put them both in the return envelope, and,

  stupidly, made sure that Rowdy was still safely asleep in his favorite spot in my room. Asleep. Alive.

  With room to move. Monitored the way dogs are supposed to be monitored, by people like me.

  Monitored better than Buck or I had monitored Clyde. Clyde.

  Rowdy didn't mind being awakened, and he'd never objected either to a walk or to the chance to jockey for position L with other dogs, which is what he did at Mimi's by voicing his regret that Regis

  and Sunshine were on the other side of their wire mesh. Mimi wasn't there, but Libby was working

  with Zip, or at least trying. When Rowdy arrived, she had to give up.

  "Could you give this to Mimi?" I asked. "It's my RSVP for the fund-raiser tomorrow."

  "You coming?"

  "Yes."

  "Steve?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "That's new," she said.

  "It's new. It's so new I don't want to talk about it. Okay?"

  "Don't bite my head off."

  "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I wanted to ask Reggie about Clyde. Is he around?"

  "He took off somewhere. Did you give any more thought to the printer?"

  "Is it his?"

  "Sort of."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Ask me no questions," Libby said. "It's a good deal, right?"

  "Yeah," I said. "But I'
m broke. Actually, I'm saving up for a new dog."

  "It's about time. No one should have to be an only dog, right?"

  "Right."

  We were standing by the kennels, right by the driveway, and Reggie drove the dented green Buick

  station wagon in so fast that I was afraid for a second he'd hit one of us, but he threw on the brakes

  a good two feet away.

  As soon as Reggie got out of the car, before we'd even had a chance to say hello, Rowdy started to

  wag allover. He danced around at the end of his leash, bounced up, and hurled himself on his back

  at Reggie's feet. I like him to be friendly, but I didn't see the need for that ridiculous performance.

  -15-

  To my parents, training and handling classes were church. I keep the faith. These days, my

  sabbath is Thursday evening, and my place of worship is the armory on Concord Avenue, near the

  Fresh Pond traffic circle, where the Cambridge Dog Training Club meets. Our sanctuary is a huge,

  shabby hall with a crumbling parquet floor, and the pews are rows of scarred wooden bleachers, but

  the place doesn't matter. Lots more than two or three of us gather together. That's what counts.

  The sacred animal and I drew our lesson for that evening's service from Section 25, Sentence I of

  the American Kennel Club Obedience Regulations. Under the heading "Misbehavior," Section 25

  decrees that "any uncontrolled behavior of the dog," including "running away from its handler,"

  must be penalized according to the seriousness of the behavior. According to my interpretation of

  the text, bolting out of the ring wasn't as serious as biting a judge, but it was serious enough to

  warrant penance, fifteen minutes of heeling on leash and fifteen minutes of heeling off leash during

  the yelping chaos of the beginners' class. Afterward, we joined the regular class, which was no

  penance for my furry sinner. A dog training class meant other dogs, and where there are other dogs,

  there's always the possibility of excitement. For instance, a satisfying slash-and-tear could break

  out, and even if the joy-killing dope at the human end of the leash stops you from leaping into the thick of it, you at least get a vicarious thrill, not to mention the joy of hearing yourself praised while

  others are scolded.

  Rowdy's hopes weren't fulfilled that night because Vince, our head trainer, nearly always

  prevents fights before the first snarl erupts. Besides, Rowdy knew he'd fallen from a state of grace

  and was determined to earn his way back. When I told him to heel, he'd bounce up, flounce around

  me, land in a perfectly straight sit at my left side, his front feet exactly even with my toes. Whenever

  I called him, he came directly to me and tossed me a smug grin. "Section 25? Me? Guilty of

  misbehavior?" his look said. "Must be some other dog."

  "Sit your dogs," Vince ordered us.

  We were lined up along one wall with our dogs sitting at heel. Those of us who show our dogs

  unsnapped the leashes and dropped them on the floor behind the dogs.

  "Leave your dogs," Vince said, and, in unison, we all said, "Stay," put our hands, palm down, in front of the dogs' noses, and walked away. Ron Coughlin's mixed breed bitch, Vixen, was next to

  Rowdy, so Ron and I found ourselves together at the opposite side of the hall. In theory, you're

  supposed to hold still and be quiet when you leave your dog for sits and downs, but in classes, no

  one does. That night, we discussed Mimi's party. We don't gossip. We're just interested in people.

  Everyone who isn't rich is interested in people who are.

  "So you going tomorrow?" Ron asked me.

  "Yeah. You?"

  "Wouldn't miss it," he said. "You ever been in there?"

  "No. I've just been outside, in the yard. Have you been inside?"

  "Yeah. How many rooms you think there are?"

  "I don't know. Thirty maybe?"

  "Not bad," he said. "Thirty-three, counting the bathrooms."

  I've always understood that you ignore the bathrooms when you count the rooms in a house, but

  I suppose it's different for plumbers.

  "Did you count?" I asked him.

  "Naw. I asked."

  "Were you installing gold faucets or something?"

  "Naw, nothing like that. One time was the garbage disposal and the other was a leaking vent

  pipe."

  "Is it fabulous?"

  "Not like you'd think," Ron said. "I mean, it's nice and all, but. . ."

  Vince interrupted. "Handlers, return to your dogs."

  During the long down, we picked up where we'd left off.

  "So I expected it to be fantastic," I said.

  "I've got a theory," he said. "She's too rich for that. Who does she need to impress? You know

  what I mean?"

  "I guess so. Besides, if you've got thirty-three rooms for one person, well? What else is there to say?"

  Ron corrected me. "Three people if you count the maid and what's-his-name. He's got his own

  place. He lives in the basement."

  "Reggie."

  "But it's real funny. Like, if you look close, some of what she's got is like what you'd expect, sort

  of. Take the kitchen. It's got four sinks, and — I see a lot of this stuff — four's a lot. Believe me."

  "I believe you," I said. "And you might not look twice at them, but they're all West German, and

  throw in the faucets, it's about a thousand dollars a shot just for materials. And then a lot of the

  other stuff she's got is, uh, ordinary. Like, the disposal I pulled out was a real piece of junk. And,

  you wouldn't believe, in the room where the vent pipe was she's got about, I swear, a hundred fly

  rods, and half of them are just cheap crap. It's funny."

  "They must have been her husband's," I said. "He fished, and he tied fishing flies. Anyway, I

  know what you mean. The dogs are like that. Have you seen them? She's got two really beautiful

  pointers. One's a show dog, and the other was her husband's hunting dog. The third one is terrible-

  looking, and it's a neurotic mess, too."

  "Return to your dogs," Vince announced.

  "See you tomorrow," Ron said.

  By the time Rowdy had sniffed his way and lifted his leg up Concord Avenue to Appleton, it was

  ten-thirty. In my driveway, Shane was getting out of his car, if you can apply the word to a

  Mercedes. The car wash charges me truck rate for my Bronco, so maybe it isn't a car, either, but it's

  unquestionably a Ford, not a Mercedes. I chose it for the two dogs I had at the time, Vinnie and

  Danny, and I wanted room for a third dog, too, just in case. You never can tell. The point of the

  Bronco wasn't just room, though. It was also snow and ice. Since Danny had terrible arthritis, and

  Vinnie wasn't young, I wanted to make sure I had a vehicle tough enough to get through snow and

  ice, so they'd never have to walk for too long. (I'm talking about Cambridge — Owls Head plows its

  roads.) The strange thing about the Bronco, though, is that Rowdy resembles it much more than

  Vinnie and Danny did. People and their dogs don't necessarily look alike, but people's dogs and

  their cars do. Of course, a reasonable person with three Great Danes doesn't expect them to fit in a

  Corvette, and a person with one Yorkshire terrier doesn't need a full-size van, but there's more to it

  than that. How did I know to buy a Bronco before Rowdy was mine? Obviously, some force moving

  in Her mysterious way directed me to choose a large, powerful vehicle designed to make its way

  through snow and over ice. Ever since I'd had Rowdy, I'd been pleased with him,
the Bronco, their

  resemblance, and this new instance of canine pattern and meaning in a sometimes apparently

  random universe.

  That was before Shane and his Mercedes moved in, and before that Thursday evening, when I

  suddenly realized just how I looked in my kennel clothes. The jeans had originally been okay, L.L.

  Bean, only nineteen seventy-five postpaid, but nothing lasts forever, and they had holes in the

  knees. My T-shirt was new, a red one with a picture that looked like Rowdy's face and "Malamute

  Power," but it didn't show under the navy-blue rain poncho that had been all right ten years ago,

  before Vinnie — she was just a puppy — shortened the front hem and before Rowdy went after a

  tennis ball in my hand and slashed a hole in the poncho by mistake. And, of course, training a

  malamute is a workout, and the mist wasn't beautifying my hair, either.

  So there we were, me with my truck, my clothes tailored by dogs, and my hair done by the

  Cambridge Dog Training Club, Shane stepping out of the Irish-setter Mercedes wearing one of

  those heavy tan English trench coats, his blond hair shining under the back door light.

  "Holly. What are you doing out so late?"

  "Dog training," I said. I thought of asking him in, but the lights in my kitchen are bright, and not

  quite all of the stains washed out of the poncho after one of my bitches, Sassy, had her puppies on

  it. "And you?"

  "Working late."

  "Publish or perish, huh?" In Cambridge, it's tactful to assume that people are working for tenure,

  not money.

  "Sort of. You busy tomorrow night?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I am. Another time?"

  "Sure," he said. "We've got lots of time."

  My machine had two messages. The first was from Steve Delaney, D.V.M. He said we had to talk.

  "Sure," I said to Rowdy. "We can talk. We can have the same old conversation again. He has to do

  it. It's his job, right?"

  I ran my hands up and down Rowdy's throat, then I sank my fingers gently into the mass of thick

  fur around his neck. A malamute's outer coat, the guard coat, is coarse, but if you dig your fingers

  in, you get to the woolly undercoat. A malamute is a sheep in wolfs clothing.

  "Right?" I said. "The cats and dogs aren't his only patients, are they? He's supposed to think of