I polished off my soda, piled the outgoing mail on a corner of the table, popped the empty can into the recycling basket in the pantry, and looked out the window into my backyard. The dogs were stationed at the back door, eyes wide and gleaming. Pip’s tail waved, and Jay’s entire rear end wriggled. “Okay, boys, let’s go play ball.” They started shouldering each other for first dibs on barging out the door, so I made them sit and stay while I opened it. They whined and squirmed, but both held the stay until I released them. It makes for a much safer egress, since bouncing down the back steps on my butt hurts a lot more than I remember things hurting thirty years ago.
An assortment of dog toys obscured a lounge chair on the patio. I’d put them there on Friday to save them from the lawnmower and there they had stayed while we ran back and forth to the show all weekend. I found Jay’s favorite Jolly Ball, a thick blue bouncy sphere about the size of a soccer ball with a handle molded of the same thick rubbery material. I also pulled a reasonably ungummed-up tennis ball from the pile for Pip. I pitched the blue ball toward the back of the yard with my right hand, and the tennis ball wildly to the left. Ambidextrous I am not. But dogs don’t care how goofy you are as long as they’re having fun, which these two were. Pure, unadulterated, ball-crazed fun. Perfect role models, if we only pay attention.
When the edge was off the canine energy, I abandoned my pitching station, left the boys to their own devices with balls and a tug rope, and surveyed the modest flower garden at the back of my lot. Buds on my bearded irises and peonies were beginning to split open, and the mounding foliage of coreopsis, coneflower, black-eyed susans, and catmint made colorful promises. The daffodils were finished and the lilacs beginning to droop, but full-blown late-blooming tulips glowed like watercolors and the edge of the bed smiled with violas. With all due respect to Emily Dickinson and the things with feathers, I think hope is the thing with petals that blooms within our hearts.
Poofy white clouds lazed across the warm blue sky, and the thermometer on the back fence read seventy-five degrees. June would arrive in less than a week, bringing warmer temperatures, and I couldn’t help wondering what else might heat up in the wake of Abigail’s death.
13
“Janet!” My neighbor, Goldie, waved across the fence at me. “Whatcha up to?” Goldie was grinning, but pale violet half-moons under her eyes accentuated the pallor that had me worried about her the past few weeks.
“Just enjoying this glorious spring day.” That’s the thing about northern Indiana—spring is fickle. She grants us only a few balmy days, making the move from bone-cold, windy, rainy post-winter to sticky-hot summer in one nimble leap. Days with reasonable temperatures, soft breezes, and no rain arrive not in packs, but as lonely strays, and you’d better enjoy them while you can.
“How’s the garden?” I asked.
Goldie’s garden. I’ve never seen anything like it that wasn’t sustained by an army of paid laborers. Grass walkways wind from one plot to another with such craft that the small yard expands in your mind until you think you’ve walked through acres of flowers rather than a simple suburban lot. And if ever a person’s yard reflected the person herself, Goldie’s does. The exuberant, joyful profusion of colors mingle in unexpected combinations that, to a casual eye, might suggest chaos. But under it all is a rich and deep foundation built on discipline and strength, nurture and ruthless culling.
“My babies are starting to peek from under their earthy cover!” She laughed from deep inside and threw her head back so that the wide rim of her straw hat hit the top of her spine and popped from her head, revealing thick braids crossed and fastened into a crown of silver. Little stray hairs sparkled around it in the warm light. She caught her hat and tapped it back in place. “Ain’t I poetic?”
“You’re a wonder, Ms. Golden Sunshine.” That’s her name. Honest. Goldie has several years on me, so she was old enough in the sixties to be fully immersed in the counter culture. Née Rachel Golden, she went off to San Francisco in ’68 with flowers in her hair, and called herself “Sunshine” for a while. When she went back to school, she liked hearing her professors call “Golden, Sunshine,” so she went to court and reversed the names for real. She’s been Goldie Sunshine ever since.
Goldie had seen an article in the paper about Abigail’s death. “They didn’t say what she died of. Do you know?”
“No, I haven’t heard anything except rumors and speculation.”
“A shame, a young woman like that.” A dark cloud seemed to pass through Goldie’s expression, but it was gone before I was sure I saw it.
“I know. And the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.”
Leo hopped up onto the fence post, and Goldie bent toward him for a nose bump and nodded. “It’s hard to make sense of a friend’s death.”
“We weren’t friends. Actually, I didn’t like Abigail very much. Didn’t know her well, never really wanted to. But I had the impression she took good care of herself. How could she just fall over and die like that?”
“So, then, what? You think someone bumped her off?”
“Bumped her off? You watching B movies again?” As if to vouch for the complexity of the human spirit, Goldie, passionately and loudly anti-war and pro-human-rights, loves murder and mayhem on the silver screen and has a huge collection of murder mystery tapes and DVDs. I returned to her question. “I don’t know. It’s possible, isn’t it? Maybe someone poisoned her.”
Goldie raised her eyebrows. “Who’s been watching B movies?” She adjusted a pin in her braid and grew thoughtful. “It happens, Janet. Sometimes people just die. Death doesn’t have to make sense.”
I met Goldie’s gaze and registered again that the circles underneath her eyes were darker than usual, and the sharp blades of her cheek bones more prominent, so I asked again, as I’d asked just about every day for a month or so, “Are you okay?”
She let out an odd little sound that might have passed for a laugh if I hadn’t known her so well. “Oh, yes, just didn’t get much sleep last night. Stayed up late baking bread.”
Meaning she wasn’t going to tell me what was wrong. But we’ve been friends long enough that I knew there was something. I’d have to try again later, or just wait until she volunteered the information. For the moment, I changed the subject. “So what’s new for this year in the garden?”
“Witch’s garden.” She gestured toward a newly planted circle of earth in the middle of her yard.
“Witch’s garden?”
“Yep. Really another herb garden, but the ones used in witchcraft through the centuries. You know, belladonna, wolfsbane, that sort of thing. ‘Double, double, toil and trouble …’ ” She let out a silly cackle. “Maybe I could stock the garden with newts and bats.” Leo hopped up onto the fence post, and Goldie slipped a hand along the length of his body. “See? I even have a familiar.”
“Long as you don’t use the stuff.”
“Nah! I’m no witch, ’though I do like the Wiccan Rule of Three. See here—I’ve painted it onto a sign for the gate to the witch’s garden.” She pointed to a colorful wooden sign, rimmed with a garland of greenery and a smattering of raspberry foxgloves and some blue blossoms I couldn’t identify. Gothic letters spelled out: Whatsoever ye shall do for good or evil shall come back to you three-fold.
I know a few witches who would do well to learn that rule.
14
Monday night Jay and I went to Dog Dayz. It’s the biggest dog training school in northeast Indiana, and the busiest. I slipped my Caravan into the last available parking space, and decided when I walked into the building that every member was there with at least two dogs. News travels fast in the dog world, and the place was abuzz with rumors, facts, gossip, and questions about the weekend’s events. People seemed to think I had the inside scoop since I’d taken Abigail’s dog home, but honestly, Pip hadn’t told me a thing exc
ept that he enjoyed his dinner and really liked fetching tennis balls.
Marietta Santini, owner and drill sergeant, called the group practice ring to order at seven o’clock. In the adjacent ring, Suzette Anderson was working Fly on hand signals, and several other people I knew only by their faces were working on various commands. “Dogs on the inside! Ready! Forward!” Marietta’s upbringing as an army brat had not gone for naught. “About turn! Halt! Forward!” I was waiting for the night her smoke-graveled drawl ordered us to “present leashes!” I have to say, though, that for all her brusqueness with people, I’ve never, ever seen her be rough on a dog.
She ran us through a snappy routine of forwards, fasts, slows, about turns, halts, and circles for ten minutes, then had us line up along one wall. “Sit your dogs! Leave!” A chorus of “Stay” sounded down the line, and we humans walked away. A few green dogs needed their people close and attached by the umbilical cord known as a leash. The rest of us scattered higgledy-piggledy ten, twenty, thirty feet from the line of canines.
“Before we get to other announcements and brags from the weekend, I’m sure many of you have already heard the sad news about Abigail Dorn. You probably remember Abigail working her Border Collie, Pip, here. For those of you who haven’t heard, Abigail died over the weekend. ”
A murmur ran through the group, and a short, plump woman with a face and hairdo much like those of her Shar-pei, wheezed, “That’s so sad! What happened?”
I didn’t hear Marietta’s explanation. Tom Saunders and Drake had walked in and I was busy thinking, Now, that’s my kind of male. Strong, graceful in a muscled masculine way, with—what do they say in those romances?—raven hair edged with a hint of silver. Tom wasn’t bad, either.
Right on cue, Tom shot me one of his grins. He sat Drake between Jay and a Golden Retriever, told him to stay, and walked across the ring to stand next to me. My cheeks felt warm, and a few other parts heated up as I became reacquainted with hormones I’d forgotten I had.
My brain wasn’t entirely disabled, though, and I heard someone half whisper, “No great loss if you ask me” and another someone reply, “No kidding. Guess her karma finally caught up with her dogma.”
I also managed to register that Marietta was calling for a moment of silence. People training in the individual practice ring stopped what they were doing, and Suzette and Fly strolled over to the wooden fence between the two rings. Everything got very quiet for about five seconds, and then Fly started to bark.
“Now, Fly, stop that!” Suzette addressed the yapping dog in a stage whisper. Yip yip yip, Fly replied. I watched the fingers of Suzette’s right hand ball into a fist, pop open, and spread, over and over. Every time they opened, Fly yipped. And I happen to know that Suzette’s command to shut the dog up is Quiet, not Now, Fly, stop that.
Tom waggled his eyebrows, Groucho style. “Subtle.”
I was about to answer when Marietta congratulated Jay and me on our success on Saturday, and went on to acknowledge other members’ victories, large and small. “And the really big brag is two in one—Fly is a new Obedience Trial Champion and Utility Dog Excellent.” She stopped and looked around the room. “Where in the heck are Suzette and Fly? They were here a minute ago.”
She was right. Suzette was nowhere in sight.
Marietta shrugged and got us back to work for a few minutes, then lined us up for recalls. Somewhere behind me I heard snippets of conversation about the long-standing rivalry between Suzette and Abigail, but what got my attention was a breathy, “I didn’t think Suzette meant it when she said she’d like to kill her.”
15
Giselle Swann waddled over and took the spot behind me in line, distracting me from the accusatory gossip about Suzette and Abigail. Precious, her minuscule Maltese, watched her warily from the end of his leash, a pink bow tilting his silky white topknot to a rakish angle. I thought of asking why he wore one topknot, like a Shih-tzu, rather than the conventional two that most Maltese wear, but I was afraid she’d take that as criticism, which I knew Giselle did not appreciate, however constructive it might be. No, she would take my question as an attack on her person.
Precious. I like to think that in the community of dogs he was known as “Spike” or “Ratslayer.” It might make up for the pink bow. He kept a close eye on his mistress, not so much attentive in an obedience sense as observant in the self-preservation sense. Some people say dogs don’t reason, but those are people who haven’t observed dogs and other animals very closely. I know the little guy had a pretty good idea of what would happen if Giselle toppled onto him. I put Jay in a down stay, and the little white fluffball came up and sniffed a greeting while Jay wriggled his rear end in reply.
Giselle peered at me from under her stringy bangs, her body listing to the left as if she were ready to duck and cover. “Hello, Janet?” It sounded more like a question than a greeting. Except for our encounters at the weekend dog show, Giselle hadn’t spoken to me in months, not since our last online dust-up over a dog training issue. I couldn’t help but wonder why she seemed so eager to talk to me now.
“Hi, Giselle. How are you holding up? I know you and Abigail were pretty close.”
“Oh, okay. Not bad? You know, I feel pretty sad for poor Greg? But okay. You know, not too bad.”
“Yeah, rough for Greg.” I tried to make eye contact, but she dodged me. “Kinda rough for Abigail, too.”
Giselle blinked and shuffled, hoisted Precious, and enveloped him in her massive arms. “Oh, sure, of course? But,” her voice went dreamy, “she’s in a better place.”
“I hope they have obedience trials there. I don’t think Abigail would find harps and clouds all that heavenly. Anyway, I’m not sure she was quite ready to go.”
Giselle shot me a look I couldn’t interpret, then lowered her gaze again. “I just wanted to let you know I’ll take care of Pip for Greg?” Was she asking or telling? “You don’t need to bother?”
“It’s no bother. I think Greg is okay with this arrangement for a few days. Besides, Pip and Jay are having fun together.” She tried to sneak a sidelong look at me, but I caught her and she looked at the floor instead. “But thanks for offering.”
We’d reached the head of the line and it was my turn for a recall, giving me an escape. The obedience rules say that “The dog must come directly, at a brisk trot or gallop, and sit straight, centered in front of the handler.” I told my dog to stay and walked the forty feet to the other end of the ring. When I called him, Jay came running, failed to brake, hit me in the chest with his front paws, and dropped into a sit in front of me with a grin on his face. Fine with me. I’ll take happy over precise any day, as long as I don’t end up on my butt.
I got a bottle of water from my bag and was just swiping my sweatshirt sleeve along my mouth when I heard Tom’s voice behind me. “Nice recall. Brownie points for staying on your feet.” He was grinning that grin again, and my stupid knees wobbled. Then he shifted his gaze to my lovely dog. “Jay’s really shaped up in the past year.” He murmured something to Drake, and the big dog lay down, rested his graying chin on the cool linoleum, and closed his eyes. “I remember when you first got him.”
You do?
Tom hunkered down and let Jay sniff the back of his hand, gently stroking the underside of the dog’s chin with the other. “You look great now, Pal! Shows what love can do.” He turned to me and winked a wicked wink.
Whoosh! Blood rushed to my face. Tom was so busy petting Jay that I doubt he noticed my reaction, and I managed to get a grip on myself and babble, “He was seventy-three pounds when I got him. His breeder had already taken ten off him. He was so fat he couldn’t roll over, had no training, and was afraid of other dogs, too. Now he’s fifty-four pounds and as sweet and confident as can be.”
“His breeder let him get into that condition?”
“Oh, no! She sold him as a pup
py. The people who bought him decided four years later they didn’t want him. Thank God they brought him back to the breeder. She was furious about the shape he was in, but thankful they didn’t just dump him somewhere. I saw him a couple days after she got him back, when she had me take some photos of her other dogs, and I couldn’t get him out of my head. I’d just lost my old Aussie, Rowdy. It took me a month to talk her out of Jay.”
“Some things are meant to be.” He stood up and I found myself falling again into eyes so brown they made my mouth water. After maybe a minute, maybe a month, Tom asked, “Have you heard any news about Abigail?”
Earth to Janet. “No, nothing, except that they aren’t sure what she died of.”
“Not bee allergy?”
Giselle was watching us from across the ring. She stopped when she noticed me noticing her.
“Apparently not. Actually, I wondered about that when the epinephrin didn’t work. It should work really quickly, as I understand it. And besides …”
“It should have,” Tom cut me off. “But I suppose other factors could affect how well it worked. I know just enough about commercial drugs to be dangerous.”
Commercial drugs, I wondered. As opposed to what?
16
I had Tuesday morning free, so after I fed the dogs, Leo, and myself (in that order) and pooper-scooped the litter box and the back yard, I settled into my new green Adirondack-style chair that sat outside the ring of shade from my enormous red maple. The chair is actually periwinkle blue, but it’s made of recycled milk jugs, so I love it double. I wrapped my fingers loosely around my mug and inhaled the musky sweet steam of blackberry sage tea and savored the moist heat against my palm. I had the latest copy of Nature Photography, the membership roster from Dog Dayz, and my cell phone. Jay and Pip were playing “toss and tug” with a big knotted rope, and Leo was honing his claws on a landscape timber backed by purple and orange Jolly Joker pansies that slow-danced in the breeze.
Drop Dead on Recall Page 5