by Susan Conant
It seemed to me that it was more painful for Missy to be kicked out of the only home she’d ever known than it was for Enid Sievers to get rid of a dog she didn’t want, but for a change I kept my opinion to myself.
“Where is Mr. Coakley?” I asked bluntly.
“Westbrook.” Once again, she spoke with the annoyed tone of someone who is forced to keep repeating herself.
“Westbrook, Maine?”
“No, no. Massachusetts.”
My mental map of the commonwealth is probably somewhat different from yours, unless, of course, you show your dogs around here. Westford: northwest of Boston, the 4-H grounds, Minuteman Kennel Club, temperament testing. Westboro: near Marlboro, Wachusett and Worcester County shows. West Brookfield: agility training, lots of other canine activities. Weston: Weston Dog Training Club, Charles River Dog Training Club. Westfield, Westminster, Westport, Westwood? Westbrook: beyond Route 128, before 495, maybe forty-five minutes.
“Mr. Coakley breeds dogs,” Enid Sievers added.
“Malamutes?”
“Oh, lots of different kinds,” she said brightly.
Shit! I almost yelled it out loud. Two breeds? Sure. The husband has bassets, the wife has bloodhounds, man, woman, and dogs met at a tracking test. Happens all the time. Three breeds? His German shepherds, her collies, their Belgian sheepdogs. Okay. But lots? Lots makes me suspicious.
“What kind?” I asked.
“Poodles,” she said. “Little balls of fluff.” She cupped her beringed hands to demonstrate. “And something called a, uh, Pomeranian?”
“Yes.”
“Darling! And these adorable little white ones all covered with curls.”
“Bichon. Bichon frise.” Curly lap dog.
“Yes! And Pom-a-poos! Isn’t that cute?”
I almost wept. If the dying Edgar Sievers just had to have a dog, why not one of the little breeds? And not from Puppy Luv and not from someone who had lots and lots, either. I wasn’t very responsive. I said I’d better be going and asked for Mr. Coakley’s address and phone number.
Enid Sievers rose, made her way between and around a few dozen mismatched pieces of furniture, and began rummaging around in a delicate little desk with a fold-down front.
“And,” I said casually, “it would probably be best if I take Missy’s papers. They really should go with her.”
Enid Sievers looked up, darted a glance at me, and addressed the air over my head. “Missy’s papers meant a lot to Edgar,” she said reverently. “I really don’t think he’d want me to just give them away like that.” Enid Sievers resumed her rummaging.
“Here it is,” she said. She leaned over the desk, evidently copying down the information on a notepad shaped like a daisy. Then she straightened up and, as she began to make her way back toward me, said hesitantly, “And, um, this reminds me. My friend suggested …” She cleared her throat. “Missy’s doghouse?”
“Her crate? The Vari-Kennel?”
Enid Sievers brightened up. “Edgar paid a substantial amount of money for it,” she said proudly. “My friend thought that Mrs. Burley might like to buy it from me. For Missy? Or maybe you’d like it? I could give you a very good price.”
“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t need it myself, but Malamute Rescue did. “How much would you …?”
“My friend says that half of what Edgar paid would be very fair. To both of us. Eighty dollars.”
“So half is forty,” I said.
“Miss Winter, you must be joking! These things are terribly expensive! Edgar paid a hundred and sixty dollars for that house. And that’s not counting tax! So I really couldn’t let it go for—”
I’d had enough. “I hate to tell you,” I said, not hating it at all, “but the standard price for a number five hundred Vari-Kennel, which is what that is, is about eighty dollars, including shipping, maybe less. New. That’s in the discount catalogs.” I softened up. “But it’s in good shape. Maybe if you advertise, you’ll find someone who’ll want it.”
A lot of good it did me to soften up. Enid Sievers pursed her lips in a sour pout. I’d insulted Edgar’s memory, I guess. I resisted the temptation to inform her of the probable markup on Missy. The crate would seem like a bargain by comparison.
Enid Sievers handed me the slip of paper on which she’d written the information about Coakley. I glanced at it. Have you ever heard of “spidery” handwriting? Hers looked like the web: little interconnected squares linked in a complicated design, evidently meant to trap something, too.
“I’m sure Missy will be very happy with Mrs. Burley,” she said as she trailed me to the door.
“I’m sure she will,” I replied. Let Betty Burley explain that she wasn’t adopting Missy. And while she was at it, let Betty talk this woman out of Missy’s papers, too.
12
If I’d met Bill Coakley in what turned out to be the dirty flesh, I’d have hated him on sight. But I didn’t have to wait. I hated him on sound.
“Is Mr. Coakley there?” I asked.
The voice was ripe with fake heartiness. “Don’t see nobody else around, so that’s got to be me, don’t it?”
A chorus of high-pitched yapping almost drowned the reply. It came from his end of the line, of course. Rowdy and Kimi were dozing on the kitchen floor, and, in any case, malamutes don’t yap. They let out an occasional yip when the situation warrants it. They can bark, but seldom do. Sometimes they howl. They also speak their native language: Rrrrlll? Rrrwwww. Woo-woo-woo-woo. Talking, it’s called. It is, too. Once you’re used to it, it’s as plain as English. Anyway, whatever Coakley’s dogs spoke wasn’t English and wasn’t Malamute, either.
I tried to project my voice. “My name is Holly Winter. I’m calling about the malamute you’re boarding.”
“Gotcha,” he said.
“I’m the person who’s supposed to pick her up. I’m from Malamute Rescue. I wanted to make sure you’d be there.”
“Well, we’re always here. We ain’t got nowhere else to go.”
“Then I’ll be right out. I’m in Cambridge. I’m leaving now.”
“Slow down,” he said, as if I sounded hysterical. “Just slow down.”
“Is there some problem?”
“No problem at all. Your friend come this morning and took the dog.”
“Betty Burley?”
“If you say so.”
“I don’t say so. I’m asking you. Who picked up the malamute?”
“Your friend, what’s-her-name. She come and got the dog already. She come and got her this morning.”
Of course, it seemed just like that damned Enid Sievers, with her silly conviction that Betty Burley was adopting Missy. Enid Sievers hadn’t bothered to let me know that Missy was no longer with her and that I shouldn’t go there to pick her up. She also hadn’t bothered to tell me that Betty was going to Coakley’s. I thanked Coakley, hung up, and called Betty.
“Picked her up?” Betty said. “I didn’t pick her up.”
“Well, who did?” I asked. “Has Enid Sievers called you?”
“I haven’t talked to her since whenever it was. Friday. Who is the guy? Coakley? Give me his number. I’ll straighten this out.”
Beta dogs, those of subordinate rank, must feel that same sense of comfort when an alpha takes charge. Betty had been dealing with this kind of mess for years. She could handle it. Not fifteen minutes after we’d hung up, she called back.
“He says the owner came and got her,” Betty reported.
“No, she didn’t,” I said. “Enid Sievers left Missy there for us to pick up. She decided it was easier. Also, she wouldn’t give me the papers. And she tried to sell me a crate.”
“Yeah, well, she probably left the board bill for us to pick up, too,” said the voice of experience. “But if she did, you’d think this Coakley …”
“Yeah, you would,” I agreed.
“I don’t like the sound of this. I’d feel a lot better if the bitch was spayed.”
“Sh
e definitely isn’t,” I said. “I’ll bet anything that Edgar wanted her to be able to fulfill herself. As a woman, right? He sounds like the type. Anyway, Enid Sievers has this crazy idea that you’re dying to adopt Missy, and I don’t know what she thinks I’m doing, but she doesn’t like me. Maybe if you call her …?”
Betty agreed. While I waited for her to call back, I had a sudden inspiration about tattoos. Here’s what it was, and it’s a good idea. It didn’t solve my own problem, of course, but it’s the world’s first surefire plan to cure anyone of buying a dog on impulse ever again. Here’s how it works: Pick out the puppy you want. Hand over your cash, check, or credit card. And stop right there. Don’t put that hand back in your pocket. Let it rest on the nearest comfortable surface. Any place will do. Any place at all. And relax. This won’t hurt a bit. Sally Brand knows what she’s doing. Oh, you don’t want the puppy’s portrait permanently embellishing your wrist? Your back? Chest? You don’t want the tattoo at all? Well, then, I guess you don’t really want the dog after all, do you? Great scheme. No permanent commitment, no dog. Absolutely simple.
Betty called back.
“She says that Coakley just called her,” Betty said. “He’s telling her he found the dog a good home.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said. “I mean, I believe you. I just don’t believe he—”
“Yeah. This woman is … She’s on some other planet, if you ask me, but it does, uh, it does seem like she told Coakley she was giving the dog away.”
“So he took one look at her and decided—”
“Yeah. That she didn’t know which way was up.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Neither do I.”
“You and me both. We should’ve taken that dog. We shouldn’t have waited.”
“I should’ve taken her on Friday,” I said miserably. “Why the hell did I leave her there?”
“It seemed all right,” Betty said. “Didn’t it?”
“Yes. It seemed fine. I mean, how was I supposed to know she had this gentleman friend? All she talked about then was the dear departed Edgar, for God’s sake, her husband. She didn’t seem like …” Enid Sievers had seemed sexless. My mistake, of course. No one is immune to passion. “God damn. I am so sorry. I should’ve just grabbed Missy and got her out of there. Shit! Rowdy didn’t even qualify on Sunday. I should’ve taken Missy and kept her with me and stayed home. And, Jesus. It gets worse. The puppy at Puppy Luv?”
“It’s—”
“I think she’s okay. I’m not positive, but I think so. But the woman’s dead. Diane Sweet. The woman that runs the place. She was murdered. Someone broke into Puppy Luv last night and murdered her.”
Almost all real dog people are world-class talkers. Maybe it’s because we’re used to the constant presence of beings who love the sound of our voices. Maybe it’s because we have a lot to say: whose dog went B.O.B. where, whether that second testicle has dropped yet, how many points the new bitch needs to finish. The fact is that we’re exceptionally chatty. The most expensive item on any real dog person’s budget isn’t dog food, club memberships, vet bills, entry fees for shows, the cost of hiring handlers and groomers, or anything else obviously dog-related. It’s the phone bill. Always, always. For what I pay to NYNEX, I could campaign a specials dog. You know what that is, right? A dog with a championship who’s entered in Best of Breed. Am I running on? Well, I hate to say I told you so, but … Maybe if we’d been two bird-watchers, stamp collectors, or fanciers of Vietnamese potbellied pigs, the silence on the line would have been normal. Maybe it wouldn’t. I don’t know. But I assure you that dog people never let the air go dead.
“Holly?” Betty finally said. “Are you thinking …?”
I hadn’t been. If I’d been thinking about anyone, it had been Gloria Loss, and she’d barely crossed my mind. Betty didn’t know Gloria Loss, though. But Betty and I both knew Lois Metzler.
“Forget it,” I said. “Lois was upset, naturally, but … Look, I don’t know the details, really, but I think it wasn’t … It just wasn’t a woman’s crime, I think. What I heard was that a guy broke in. It did cross my mind that it might’ve been someone who’d bought a puppy that turned out to be sick. You know? Someone had humongous vet bills and tried to get Puppy Luv to pay, something like that. But Lois? I mean, yeah, of course she was … Her reputation and everything?”
Betty, the human Kimi, overrode me. Alpha and beta. “You know what my mother always used to say? She used to say it all the time. It drove me and my sisters crazy. ‘Remember, girls, your reputation is priceless.’ ”
“Everyone’s mother used to say that.”
“Everyone’s mother was right,” Betty said.
My own mother, Marissa, was positively vituperative on the subject. She banned any behavior even remotely suggestive of such gross improprieties as double handling, altering a dog’s natural color, sneaking food into the obedience ring, and stepping on the toes of a competitor’s dog. Fortunately, she considered human love affairs a personal matter, governed by the American Kennel Club only in the sense that “all participants should be guided by the principles of good sportsmanship both in and outside the ring.” At least I think that’s what she thought. She died quite a long time ago. There was one … Well, I’m not sure what she meant. The remark was a direct quote from the AKC Obedience Regulations, but Marissa definitely said it about people, not dogs. What Marissa said was that smoothness and naturalness should be given precedence over military precision and peremptory commands. Make of it what you want. Myself, I think it’s good advice.
13
As I’ve mentioned, Weston, Westford, West Brookfield, and lots of other Wests and Brooks appear in big gold letters on the Dog Lover’s Map of Massachusetts, but Westbrook doesn’t have a show site, kennel club, obedience club, or canine activity center. No one goes there for tracking tests, agility training, sled dog racing, sheep herding, lure coursing, flyball, or Newfoundland water trials. So far as I knew, there’d never been so much as a show-and-go held in Westbrook. With one exception, it wasn’t a dog town at all. The exception was a business shamelessly named Your Local Breeder. I’d seen its ads in the ‘Dogs, Cats, and Other Pets’ section of the Globe’s classifieds: “Never buy a dog from a pet shop! Come to us first, Your Local Breeder!” Puppy Luv advertised there, too: “Adorable AKC puppies! Not from puppy mills! More than twenty breeds to choose from!” Below each come-to-us pitch there’d be a list of breeds and prices. Although I’d tsked and sneered at the ads, I’d never visited Your Local Breeder for the same reason I’d never entered Puppy Luv until last Friday: The list of breeds had never included the Alaskan malamute.
Yes. As if it mattered. As if it did.
As I was saying, although I’d never stopped at Your Local Breeder, I’d driven through Westbrook from time to time on my way to and from real dog towns. The prettiest sections of the town had rolling hills thick with pines and maples, and leisure farms with saltbox houses, red barns, stone walls, white corrals, and brown Morgan horses. A few of the original working farms survived as side-of-the-road vegetable stands and garden supply centers, but most of the once-agricultural acreage was now given over to Acorn and Deck houses, Royal Barry Wills capes, and brandless, nameless neocolonial split-level hybrids inhabited by commuters who willingly traded the long daily round-trip to Boston for clean air and green trees. A few areas of Westbrook looked like the ugly parts of most New England towns. My own home town, Owls Head, Maine, has its share of hovels set in mud amidst flocks of filthy, squawking geese, broken-down cars, and the rusted remains of doorless refrigerators and irreparable kitchen stoves. Westbrook did, too. And, even viewed collectively, how beautiful can a McDonald’s, a Burger King, a Pizza Hut, a Wendy’s, a Stop & Shop, three gas stations, and a used-car lot really be? How distinctive? Westbrook’s fast-fill strip looked like a thousand others.
The turn for Coakley’s was a right at the first set of lights after the third gas station. His house was picturesquely situa
ted a quarter of a mile off the main drag, just beyond what had started out as the town dump and had evolved into a sanitary landfill. A thin row of sickly hemlocks and a ragged, tilting snow fence failed to screen the landfill from the road. Coakley’s house was a seedy-looking cedar-shingled cape progressing toward hoveldom, which is to say that it did have lots of frozen, rutted mud, a dented old maroon Chevy sedan with no tires, and a harvest gold refrigerator-freezer with no doors, but it lacked the geese. The only dog run, if you can call it that, was a small chicken wire enclosure that fenced in a pile of rough plywood and the carcass of a dead chicken. The plywood was apparently the raw material for a doghouse that no one had ever gotten around to building or the remains of one that had tumbled down. The chicken? Killed by Missy?
At the shabby front door, Bill Coakley greeted me in the same jovial tones I’d heard on the phone: “Hope you come about a dog, ‘cause I ain’t got a lot else since the wife kicked me out.”
Although the room into which he led me was almost devoid of furniture, the racket of dogs and the stench of God-knows-what would’ve been enough to fill the Astrodome. How many dogs? It was hard to count. Poms, Yorkies, toy poodles, Shih Tzus, mini dachshunds, and mini Schnauzers were packed into cages, boxes, and orange crates stacked precariously on top of one another. A makeshift cardboard pen occupied a far corner of the room.
The superabundance of little dogs certainly contributed to the odor, but its principal source may well have been Bill Coakley. One of the amazing things about Coakley was that he wasn’t very old. He couldn’t have been more than thirty. I mean, you’d think it would take longer than that for anyone to accumulate so much dirt. His yellow teeth were thickly encrusted with plaque or oatmeal, maybe both. His hair looked as if he’d coated it with cooking oil before standing out in a sandstorm. The layer of dirt left its base color an open question to which Coakley himself, not having bathed for years, might not even know the answer. I mean, how does someone like that apply for a driver’s license or a fishing license or any other ID? (Color of hair, sir? the clerk asks. Geez, ma’am, he replies, your guess is as good as mine.) Anyway, eye color was obvious—red—and it probably goes without saying that his hands and nails were … well, let’s let it go. Suffice it to say that if Bill Coakley had been found dead, the coroner wouldn’t have needed to open him up and examine his stomach contents to discover what he’d eaten lately. Dried egg coated his mouth. A long strand of spaghetti clung like a stray hair to one shoulder of his army-surplus khaki shirt.