A Bite of Death

by Susan Conant

  There was no mystery about Kimi's origin. She'd done some minor damage and irked an evidently harmless and eccentric dog hater. When she belonged to Elaine Walsh, she'd hardly been taken beyond the front walk, so she hadn't had much opportunity to enrage anyone. Donna Zalewski might or might not have had a milkman, and I'd discovered nothing about anything she might have said to Joel Baker, nothing about Kimi, nothing about Donna herself. I was beginning to conclude that Kimi hadn't been anyone's intended victim. I thought that I'd mostly spent my time making Kelly feel bad and that I hadn't learned anything. But, maybe because I was still stuck on that damned reincarnation story, I couldn't shake the sense that Kimi was somehow involved, that she knew something, had done something, or could tell me something. I didn't know what.

  9

  "So tell me about Sinequan," I said.

  Rita and I were at my kitchen table sharing one of nature's perfect foods: pizza. Cheese? Dairy group. Crust? Grains. Tomatoes, anchovies . . . If you order right, you hit all those food groups we learned about in junior high. It's practically human Eukanuba, and if you avoid hot peppers, dogs like it, too. On a long down on the linoleum, Rowdy looked up at us, wide-eyed but motionless. In deference to Rita, Kimi was locked in her crate in my bedroom.

  "You don't hear about it much anymore," Rita said. "It isn't trendy, you know? Since Valium came out, you practically never hear about Librium, and Valium isn't really trendy because anxiety is démodé at the moment."

  Rita, unlike certain prescription drugs, never goes out of style. She'd quit perming, scrunching, and messing up her hair a while ago and now had it in a short, straight cut that had to be trimmed every two weeks but was worth the bother because it didn't make her look like an ungroomed puli with a bald face. She looks as if she'd eat pizza with a knife and fork, but she uses her hands like everyone else.

  "And what's à la mode?"

  "Depression," she said cheerfully. "Prozac." She rolled the word out and repeated it. "Prozac."

  Even I had heard of Prozac. You couldn't go to a party in Cambridge without having to listen to six or eight people tell you how much better they were feeling since they'd been on it.

  "Doesn't that cut into your business?" I asked. Rita isn't an M.D. She does talking cures.

  "Not really. It doesn't help everyone. And people don't take it forever. And a lot of people who feel helped, in the sense that they're less depressed, still don't like it because they don't feel like themselves when they're taking it. Maybe they don't when they're not, either."

  "That's how I felt after Vinnie died. Before I got Rowdy." Vinnie was my last golden, a gift from my mother. And the gods. "Without a dog, I just wasn't myself."

  "Really! Some of these people already have dogs."

  "Like Donna Zalewski. She did."

  "No." She studied the half-eaten wedge in her hand. A mushroom dangled from a string of mozzarella. She fixed her eyes on it and observed its motion as if the pizza slice were one of her patients and the mushroom a facial tic she was about to interpret.

  "Did I ask you anything? I said she had a dog. Kimi."

  Rita made a face.

  "I just want to ask one thing, and it isn't about her. Listen. Where would somebody get something like Sinequan? Joel Baker's not a psychiatrist, right? He can't prescribe? And Elaine Walsh couldn't, either."

  "Joel's a Ph.D. psychologist."

  "Like Elaine. Right? Like you."

  "Yes."

  "So, just theoretically, suppose you've got a patient, and she can't sleep or something and wants a prescription, what do you do?"

  "Talk about it," Rita said.

  "Come on. Therapists aren't supposed to be moralistic, right? Suppose somebody wants Prozac. Just imagine that for once you decide that maybe it's a good idea. Or something is. Couldn't that happen?"

  "Of course. It does."

  "Okay. So what do you do? Do you call up the person's regular doctor?"

  "No. You make a referral to somebody who does meds. Any M.D. can write the prescription, and lots of people get Prozac or Valium or whatever from their internists or G.P.'s and never see a therapist at all. Sometimes that's part of the problem you're dealing with. It isn't hard to get a prescription. You just don't happen to know that because you never go to a doctor."

  "That's not true."

  "Vets don't count. Anyway, I've had people come to me, and I've taken them on and started to work with them before I found out they were taking Valium and Seconal, Ativan, Xanax. There's this real bastard named Arsenault. People go to him, and he gives them whatever they want. The original Dr. Feelgood."

  "A psychiatrist?"

  "An asshole."

  "By training?"

  "By birth. He's a G.P. or something. His office is in Arlington. Fortunately, there aren't too many like him. You know, doing meds is a fine art, really, when it's done right, when it's done carefully. There are people who specialize in it and people who for whatever reason have a special interest in it. And, by the way, I'm not moralistic. There are people who need to be on medication and who are helped by it. There are people who can't function otherwise."

  "So if you get somebody like that, what do you do? Is there somebody you send people to?"

  "Yeah. Well, it depends. If it's some minor, transitional thing, sometimes I send people to Ben Moss. Otherwise, there's a woman in Brookline who's been very helpful to people I've sent."

  "Ben Moss. He's the one who prescribed Sinequan for Donna Zalewski. Kevin told me that."

  "So if you know that, what are you trying to pump me for?"

  "Okay, Rowdy," I said. That's his release word. He jumped to his feet. "Catch." He loves pizza crust and has incredible eye-mouth coordination. He never misses. I tore a piece of crust into bits and kept tossing them in the air, and he kept snapping them in his jaws, one after the other. "I want to know who Ben Moss is. And whether you sent Donna Zalewski to him."

  "You probably know who he is," Rita said. "They have a dog."

  "You may find this hard to believe, but I really don't know absolutely every person who owns a dog. There are more than fifty million dogs in this country. I can't remember how many owners there are . . ."

  "Naturally."

  "But how could I know all of them? Rowdy, catch."

  "The Mosses' dog is another one of those hatchbacks, like the ones the Bakers have."

  "Ridgebacks. Rhodesian Ridgebacks," I said. See what's wrong with human education? How could a supposedly educated person forget something like that? "African lion hounds. That's another name for them. Rhodesian Ridgebacks."

  "Shouldn't it be Zimbabwe?"

  "Would you like to explain that to the American Kennel Club? You want to know how progressive the AKC is? They wouldn't accept women delegates until 1974. The Ladies' Dog Club had to send a man. You think that's cute? I didn't make it up. It's true. And if you'd ever tried to get them to change a dog's name . . ."

  "I haven't."

  "Well, if you had, you'd forget about asking them to change the name of a breed. Even if you succeeded, you'd be dead by the time the change went into effect. Besides, a lot of dog people aren't political." Except about American Kennel Club politics, of course. "So what does the dog look like?"

  "Big," Rita said emphatically. "Have you ever noticed that you hardly ever ask what people look like? When you want to identify people, you ask what their dogs look like. There happens to be a whole universe of people out there who think all dogs look pretty much alike, you know."

  "It must be a universe of fools," I said. "Is this an oversize male Ridgeback? Tall? A little rangy and leggy? Kind of a brownish-tan wheaten color. Not much red. Can I give your crust to Rowdy?"

  She nodded.

  "But with a nice ridge and good crowns," I added.

  "That's the one," she said. "Fabulous dental work. Great bonding and sealing. Flashy smile."

  "Now who's getting cute? Anyway, as a matter of fact, I do know that dog, I think. And if he's the one I
think he is, he's a very sweet dog. And he does smile. The woman is maybe in her early forties, with long hair? And long skirts. Birkenstock sandals in winter, with socks, right?"

  "Sheila Moss," Rita said. "She's a social worker."

  "So tell me about Ben Moss. Sorry, buddy, it's all gone."

  An intelligent dog is easier to own than a stupid dog, most of the time. Rowdy had had his eye on the pizza from the second we'd opened the box, and he knew I was telling the truth. He'd monitored the exact amount that had gone into our mouths and his. A stupid dog might have thought I was holding out on him and pestered for more, but not Rowdy.

  "Ben Moss is the co-owner of the dog," Rita said. "Owning a dog constitutes his entire identity. What else could you possibly want to know about him?"

  "Stop it. I don't think I know him. I only know the dog because she had him in our beginners' class for a while, and I noticed him. I like Ridgebacks. You see a few of them in obedience, but not many. I didn't even know she was married. You think if I know her, I know him? She's just some extension of her husband? What would Elaine have said about that?"

  "Actually, I assumed that if you knew the dog . . ."

  "Rita, please. I cannot understand why you are doing this. Donna Zalewski was sort of a client of yours."

  It's hard to decide whether to say patient or client to Rita. Sometimes she says patient herself, but if I do, she looks offended. The problem, I guess, is that client sounds like customer, as if she ran a store or cut hair. Consumer is impossible, of course. Rita isn't some new brand of ketchup or a household appliance. One time when I asked her whether they were patients or clients, she said that it depended on how sick they were, but later she said to forget it, that it was serious and she shouldn't have been flip.

  "And," I added, "Elaine was a friend of yours, too."

  "I knew Elaine," she said. "We were in a group together. And I really am sorry about what happened to her. But look. You've already gone and upset Kelly Baker. The next thing you're going to do is visit the Mosses and tell them that you want an interview with their dog. Correct? You'll make it a star? It'll end up in Dog's Life?"

  "So to speak."

  "Well, reopening one wound was enough. If you talk to Sheila Moss, do not, I repeat, do not mention Elaine Walsh."

  "You want to tell me why not?"

  "No, as a matter of fact, I don't."

  "Then I have no reason not to mention Elaine, do I?"

  "Yes, you do. Your reason is that I'm asking you not to."

  "And after I don't, you pat me on the head and tell me what a good girl I am?"

  "Holly, you don't want to. Would you just take my word for it? There's a relationship there that you don't know about. You don't like hurting people."

  "So was she a patient of Elaine's?"

  "No. Holly . . ."

  "Rita, if she and Elaine were very close, it probably consoles her to have people talk about Elaine. After you lose someone you care about, you need to hear that other people are mourning, too. And if they had some kind of, uh, special relationship, I don't care. I mean, I'm not as provincial as you like to think. I know she didn't believe in bourgeois taboos that exclude—"

  Rita interrupted me. "Look, Elaine was not having an affair with Sheila. She was doing something much more bourgeois than that. She was having an affair with Ben. She probably didn't call it that. I don't know what she called it." Rita stretched her neck and looked up at the ceiling as if Elaine's voice might come from beyond to provide her with the right phrase. It didn't.

  "Elaine told me she didn't believe in marriage. Maybe she really, really didn't believe in marriage."

  "Did she ever talk to you about sisterhood?" Rita looked angry.

  "Not much."

  "She made me want to throw up when she did," Rita said. "But, of course, she was less voluble about it lately. It's gone out of style."

  "Did Sheila Moss know about Elaine?"

  "I've never asked her," Rita said. "Don't you."

  "Does Kevin know?"

  "I haven't asked him, either."

  After Rita left, when I let Kimi loose, I felt guilty. Rowdy had eaten all the pizza crust, and it had never occurred to me to save any for Kimi.

  "You really are my dog, too," I assured her. "I'm sorry I forgot."

  Then I phoned Steve.

  "It's Holly. Something is bothering me. It's stupid, but I need to ask."

  "With Kimi? It's normal for her to lift her leg like that, you know. She's a nice, healthy bitch."

  "I know that," I said.

  "You'll see shepherds do it, too. Lots of breeds."

  "I know!"

  "What's the problem?"

  "I'm just going to spit this out. Okay? It's probably nothing. Look, Elaine Walsh didn't believe in marriage. In fact, I just looked it up in one of her books, and what she said is that she didn't acknowledge marriage. On the grounds that it's a form of slavery. If you acknowledge it, you condone it."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I mean, if she didn't acknowledge marriage, she'd hardly think the vet-owner relationship was sacred, would she?"

  "You don't."

  "Oh, yes, I do. That's exactly what I think. But my worldview is a little different from Elaine's. What's sacred to me might have been profane to her. And vice versa."

  "You want to know if Elaine seduced me?"

  "No," I said. "Did she act interested?"

  "No," he said. "And I wouldn't have been interested if she had. You know that." His voice turned scornful. "Even if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have been interested. The woman was a philistine."

  He didn't have to elaborate. He meant that she didn't know the first thing about dogs.

  Shortly after I hung up, as I was standing at the sink washing human plates and dog bowls and working out a feminist perspective on jealousy, I heard one of those sounds I know so well, the bang of a plastic plant mister hitting the kitchen floor, immediately followed by the jangling crash of a metal can that had once held coffee and now contained a handful of noisy pennies. Since Kimi's arrival, the wastebasket lid had been densely covered with dog deterrents, but malamutes don't scare easily. I heard the rapid rustle and furtive swish of a dog raiding the trash. By the time I turned my head, Kimi was a blurred gray streak dashing toward my bedroom door, a streak carrying an oil-and-cheese-soaked pizza box in its jaws.

  I turned off the faucet, dried my hands, and practiced a meditative exercise I learned in a Zen handling seminar. All of my negative thoughts disappeared of their own accord and made mental room for the image of Kimi trotting back to the kitchen and depositing her spoils at my feet. The picture came, but she didn't. I took slow, deliberate steps to the bedroom. She wasn't there, or so it seemed until I heard molars grinding up cardboard in the narrow tunnel formed by my platform bed and the wall. Gripping the box in her front paws, she was holed up in the den, gnawing on her prey. Rowdy, who'd followed her into the room, stood in a spot in the middle of the room, debating with himself, I suppose, about whether to steal her kill or enjoy the show. If I failed to come out top dog with Kimi, she wouldn't be the only one to demote me in the pack hierarchy.

  "Rowdy, sit," I told him in the same calm tone of voice I always used. He obeyed. "Good boy. Stay."

  Kimi had made one mistake. She'd dragged a large carcass into a small den. A corner of the carton projected a few inches. "Kimi, that is mine." I tried to sound matter-of-fact. I reached down, grabbed the carton in both hands to stop it from ripping, and gave it a sharp jerk. I got most of it, and, as I'd optimistically calculated, she was so tightly wedged behind the bed that she couldn't emerge in time to snatch it back. Although I felt tempted to slip the carton out of sight before she freed herself, I stood and held it as I watched her squirm and crawl out. She saw me in possession. So did Rowdy. For now, at least, I was still top dog.

  10

  Since Steve Delaney took over from old Dr. Draper, the practice has doubled in size, and about three-quarte
rs of the new human clients are women, a phenomenon that Steve cannot understand any more than he can understand the rise in trivial and psychosomatic ailments among the patients he inherited from Dr. Draper. Maybe psychosomatic is the wrong word. The psyches involved are human, the somata animal.

  "Why would anyone pay me to trim a cat's nails?" he'll complain. "I've shown her how to do it, and I've watched her. I'm not a damned manicurist. And there's that lunatic who keeps wanting pregnancy tests on that boxer I spayed last year."

  Steve's hair is brown, thick, and wavy, like the coat on the shoulders and neck of a Chesapeake Bay retriever. His eyes are greener than Siberian-husky blue and just as intense, but not at all unnerving.

  "They aren't doing it intentionally," I tell him. "They just have an urge to be around you."

  "It makes me feel like some kind of object when you say that," he'll protest. "It's dehumanizing. I hate it."

  "Imagine that," I'll say. "I just can't fathom what it would feel like."

  Before Kimi's arrival, we'd been seeing quite a lot of each other and hadn't been having any big problems. Rowdy and Steve's two bitches, India, the German shepherd, and Lady, the pointer, got along well together as long as we fed them separately, and, in fairness to Rowdy, nobody got to sleep in the room with us, even though he was the only one who'd howl. Kimi was still wild—I was working almost exclusively on teaching her to watch me and barely trying to start her heeling and sitting—but, at least in the absence of food, she and Rowdy were beginning to work things out. With either India or Lady, though, she was a fiend, leaping on the other bitch, snarling, provoking wrath in India and terror in Lady, who would barricade herself behind Steve and whimper to him.