Bloodlines

by Susan Conant

  I erased the messages, went back to the TV, tuned in midway through another story about the raid, and learned that I’d missed most of the dogs because forty-eight of them were discovered inside Walter and Cheryl Simms’s little house. I gathered from the TV footage that the indoor dogs were small—I spotted some cockers, Shih Tzus, bichons, and dachshunds—and that only the big dogs lived outdoors. According to the announcer, the golden retrievers and what he crassly referred to as “huskies,” meaning malamutes and elkhounds, I guess, were in better condition than the little indoor dogs, whose small, filthy cages and boxes were stacked throughout the house. Bitches of big breeds are usually free whelpers. But tiny breeds? Forced to bear litter after litter? Their agony was unimaginable. I wondered how they’d survived at all. Many hadn’t, of course.

  At the end of the story, the camera zoomed in on Cheryl, who stood on the sagging porch in her pink raincoat, her thin, blotchy face a mindless mask of rage. She opened her mouth and wailed directly at the camera. “Me and Walter didn’t do nothing wrong. You’d’ve thought we was in Communist Russia the way they just come and took all our dogs away.” She fell silent for a second, then added fiercely, evidently as an afterthought, “And Walter, too.”

  31

  Kevin Dennehy appeared at my back door that evening wearing a rumpled blue suit and, as befit both his profession and the damp weather, a tan trench coat. Clutched between the thick fingers of his enormous hands was a heart-shaped box only slightly redder than the blush on his face.

  He stammered his routine greeting: “Hey, Holly how ya doing?” Before I had a chance to answer, he added, “Where you been?”

  “At a tracking test,” I said more or less truthfully. “Kevin, I had totally forgotten it was Valentine’s Day. This is—”

  Let me say that Kevin was really embarrassed. He looked like an overage kid forced to serve as the ring bearer at the formal wedding of some despised relative. He thrust the candy at me, two pounds of dark chocolates with all soft centers. As Kevin had obviously remembered, I don’t like milk chocolate, and my fragile dental work won’t stand up to anything more solid than cream fillings and squishy cherries.

  I thanked Kevin for the chocolates and offered to share, but he refused. I ate one, made happy noises, and then, to relieve Kevin’s discomfort, changed the subject. “So Simms murdered Rinehart, huh? How come nobody noticed he was missing?”

  While I was stashing the box of chocolates in the refrigerator, one hidey-hole that Kimi hasn’t yet learned to penetrate, Kevin said, “Joe was the kind of a guy who didn’t like people sticking their noses in his private business. The salesmen out there and the mechanics and the secretaries and whatever kind of wondered what happened to him, but what with Enzio and all and what with the economy and all, they weren’t going to come running to us and then have Joe turn up.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t exactly have earned them any bonuses,” I said. “You want to help me walk the dogs?”

  Kevin agreed to take Rowdy. Unlike Rita, Kevin considers the malamute a walkable breed. The policeman is your friend, right? Strong and brave. In fact, Kevin is always glad to take Rowdy, but he hates being in charge of Kimi. Although Kevin never admits it, I’m convinced that he doesn’t like being seen with a girl who lifts her leg.

  The rain had started up again, but the air was warm, at least by the standards of coastal Maine, where warm is any temperature above forty degrees. I wore my yellow slicker and Wellies. Kimi and Rowdy wore matching red training collars and leads. The light over my back door showed a few crocuses breaking through the frozen ground in a patch of earth between the fence and driveway. Kimi cocked a hind leg over them. Ever the gentleman, Kevin looked away. Rowdy, though, watched, sniffed, and covered her scent. In his own way, he’s a gentleman, too.

  “But, Kevin,” I said, “didn’t you notice that Rinehart was gone? I mean, Diane Sweet did business with Rinehart, Simms worked for him, Simms was at Puppy Luv.… So didn’t you try to …? I mean, I would’ve thought that a guy like that would’ve—”

  “Yeah, yeah, they want to look like the upright citizen, got nothing to hide,” Kevin said, “but they’re kind of like a housewife with company coming. They want a couple of days to get the accountant in there and get a little housework done. But even if his body hadn’t turned up, sooner or later, we’d’ve put it together. And if the scene hadn’t been such a godawful mess, they could’ve got it sorted out easier. They can tell dog hair from human hair, no problem, but it would’ve taken them a while, what with that much of it to look at. But once the body turned up …”

  “Rinehart was at Puppy Luv?”

  “Oh, yeah, Rinehart was there. No question. Everything matches up. The dog hair on him comes from there, traces of the dog shampoo they use. He’s got Puppy Luv written all over him. The head … when they found the body, the head was wrapped in a piece of this clear plastic, and it matches up. Covered with traces, Diane’s saliva, lipstick, an eyelash. And a piece torn out of the plastic fits with the little piece that got caught on her earring. No question.”

  The dogs brought us to a halt at a lamppost on Concord Avenue that looks like every other lamppost in Cambridge, but obviously smells utterly distinct and fascinating. Kimi sniffed the base while Rowdy was checking out the area above her head.

  “We’ll have to wait for them,” I said. “So it was Rinehart who strangled Diane Sweet? Kevin, that doesn’t make sense. Why would Rinehart kill her? She was a good customer, I think, and she was no threat to him. I mean, what kind of trouble could she have caused? Being a puppy broker is evil, but … Well, except that according to USDA regulations, Rinehart was supposed to hold the puppies for twenty-four hours, or something, and he probably didn’t. But, you know, when the USDA even bothers to inspect, they don’t do much. If they find a violation, all they usually do is tell the people to correct it. I can’t understand why Rinehart … Kimi, enough! Let’s go!”

  Kimi lifted her leg on the interesting lamppost. Kevin hauled Rowdy away and looked back at Kimi. “You ever, uh, ask Delaney about that?”

  “It’s perfectly normal,” I said. “A lot of bitches do it, but, of course, some of them just do it once in a while, and a lot of them don’t actually … And sometimes she squats. Anyway, it’s perfectly normal. So Rinehart—”

  “Probably didn’t even touch her,” Kevin said. “Diane could’ve been dead when Rinehart got there. This plastic from the dog bed went from her to him. If Rinehart had been standing ten feet from her and sneezed, the lab could tell you, but Rinehart had on a dark suit, and Diane was wearing a fuzzy white sweater, so if he’d got close enough to strangle her, you could’ve seen it with your naked eye.”

  “But, Kevin, I don’t see … The thing is, Rinehart … Kevin, on Wednesday morning, someone placed an order with Rinehart. Someone ordered puppies from him.”

  “From his people,” Kevin said. “The business is still there. It’s an office, is what it is. Rinehart Pet Mart. Deals in cats, too. Kittens.”

  “Jesus. So Rinehart got to Puppy Luv after—or probably after—Diane Sweet was dead? So Rinehart wasn’t—”

  “Couldn’t’ve been,” Kevin said. “Rinehart tries to use this plastic on her, and that doesn’t work, so he strangles her, and someone comes along and grabs him and cracks his head on a bathtub, and wraps him up in the same piece of plastic he just-used …?”

  “A bathtub?”

  “The one in the back. Raised up high so’s the top is about level with your waist.”

  “Right. So …?”

  “Hair all over the place,” Kevin said, “including the drain of the bath tub, and, like you’d expect, most of it’s dog hair.”

  “But?”

  “But in the drain of the bathtub, we find a couple of strands of human hair. And just a little trace of human blood.”

  “Thorough,” I said. “You guys are very thorough. From Rinehart?”

  “From Rinehart,” Kevin agreed, “who happened to have had his
head bashed against a solid object.”

  “By Walter Simms,” I said. “Eliminating the middleman, right? So that was it? Brokers are the middlemen, and they’re the ones who get rich, and that’s what Simms was doing after all, right? Eliminating the middleman. Or wrong. I mean, I told you that Simms wasn’t trying to do that, because he couldn’t supply what Rinehart could, you know, that many puppies, all the breeds. But, Kevin, does Simms say … Look. Simms got there first, right? He got to Puppy Luv, and he killed Diane, and then—”

  “You’re getting there,” Kevin said. “But you need to back up.”

  “Janice Coakley? Simms goes to Your Local Breeder. He delivers the puppies Janice ordered from Rinehart, plus a few he’s selling her himself that Rinehart doesn’t know about.” Kevin said nothing. Then I got it. “But Rinehart does know! Rinehart knows. He’s caught on to Simms.” I paused. “And to Janice Coakley. And to Diane Sweet.”

  For reasons perceptible only to dogs, Rowdy and Kimi had lost interest in the lampposts, fire hydrants, and trees, and were now setting a fast pace down Concord Avenue toward the Armory and Fresh Pond. Kevin and I were trotting after the dogs.

  The words started to tumble out of my mouth. “And, Kevin, Janice Coakley knew! Or I think she did. On Wednesday, yesterday, Janice Coakley knew that Rinehart was dead, because yesterday morning, she placed two orders for puppies, some from Rinehart—or from Rinehart Pet Mart—and some from Walter Simms, and if she knew Rinehart had caught on, and if she thought Rinehart was still alive … So Walter Simms told her, right? Either he told her he’d killed Rinehart, or else he just told her that Rinehart was dead. Anyway, she knew it was safe to keep ordering from Simms.”

  “You’re ten steps ahead,” Kevin said.

  “So Rinehart had caught on to Simms and the whole deal. Rinehart knew they were cheating him.”

  “How, I haven’t got that worked out yet, but, yeah, Rinehart caught on. More likely, he got told.”

  “Okay. So Simms goes to Your Local Breeder, and … I’m lost. Anyway, he leaves there, and he drives to Puppy Luv. And then, he, uh, either he delivers the puppies first and makes love to Diane, if you can call it that, or he delivers the puppies after. And then, for some reason, Simms murders her. He gets this dog bed, and he starts to smother her, only he ends up strangling her? Anyway, for some reason, Rinehart is there, and Simms murders him, too, because … Well, for some reason, he does. And then, obviously, Simms isn’t just going to leave Rinehart’s body at Puppy Luv, because he wants it to look like a robbery, right? So he puts Rinehart’s body in whatever he’s driving. And then when he gets home, he dumps it in the shed. That part makes sense. The ground is frozen. Simms was waiting till the ground thawed to bury him.”

  We turned onto Fayerweather Street, the Concord Avenue end, of course, which is like my block of Appleton Street, two-family houses, cops, writers, students, professors who live on their salaries. The neighborhood on our side of Huron Avenue is Fresh Pond, but once you cross Huron Avenue and head toward Brattle Street, twenty-room mansions replace the two-family houses, and … Well, congratulations! You’ve moved up in the world. Now you’re Off Brattle. Kevin voted for Governor Weld, who lives at the Brattle end of Fayerweather, but he avoids crossing Huron Ave. except in the line of duty.

  With justifiable pride, Kevin said, “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Of course I do.” My voice was huffy.

  “No, you don’t. And, geez, you’re the dog expert, and here am I—”

  “What does my, uh, expertise—?”

  “You pull out this pedigree, and you tell me all about—”

  “What does that have to do with …?” It seemed to me that Kevin hadn’t been all that interested in Missy’s pedigree. Mostly, as I recalled it, he’d been morally outraged.

  “You remember what you said?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Well, what you said was that dogs don’t know. Like, uh, one stud and two sisters.”

  “Walter Simms. Diane Sweet. Janice Coakley. But, Kevin, if Janice Coakley … Janice found out? And after Walter Simms left her, she followed him, and—Okay, Kevin, this has gone far enough.” I was actually angry, more at Walter Simms than at Kevin and his guessing game. Running a puppy mill is no crime. Even with blatant evidence of neglect and cruelty? That son of a bitch Walter Simms would pay a small fine and spend maybe a few months in jail. I’d wanted him convicted of one crime that everyone, even the AKC, would take seriously, namely, murder.

  “Mrs. Coakley didn’t find out until today when yours truly opened his big mouth and told her, and, once he did, you should’ve heard what came out.”

  “So … But Diane found out. Who told her? Walter Simms? He told her and then … Just tell me, would you?”

  “Joe Rinehart gets a tip about the ripoffs, or else he tumbles to it, but whichever way, he gets to Mrs. Coakley’s. This is Sunday night, quarter of ten, somewhere around then, and Simms has just left to go to Puppy Luv, but Rinehart reads her the riot act, scares the shit out of her, only he only knows half of it. Rinehart knows about the puppies, he knows Janice and Simms are pulling one over on him, but he doesn’t know about her affair with Simms. So Rinehart scares the pants off her, and then he takes off after Simms.”

  “So Janice calls to warn Simms! Only, of course, Diane answers the phone, right? I mean, she owns the place, and her voice is on the tape. So did Janice talk to Simms?”

  “That wouldn’t’ve done it,” Kevin said. “Remember, like I told you about the dogs. If they know, they care. Janice calls Diane, and she wants to talk to Simms, and when Diane asks why, Janice makes a big mistake, not for her, for Diane. She tells Diane that Rinehart’s on his way and she has to talk to Simms, and she lets it slip that they’ve got this special relationship. Or maybe she says Walter is special to her. Something like that. She can’t remember exactly.”

  “So basically Janice told Diane. Diane thought Simms sort of belonged to her, and then she found out he was sleeping with her sister, too. Oh, okay! So Diane never passed on the message, right? She heard special, and she probably heard something in Janice’s tone of voice, and so she never told Simms that Rinehart was on his way.”

  “Cool customer,” Kevin said. “Businesswoman type.”

  “And then?”

  “Conjecture. Diane doesn’t pass on the word about Rinehart. She just tells Simms that she knows all about him and Janice, and while she’s yelling at him and maybe he’s yelling back, Rinehart shows up, and I think he comes to the back door. That’s where Simms’s van is, and Rinehart’s on a kind of back-door errand, anyway. So Rinehart’s at the door, and when Diane hears him, she knows who it is. She’s expecting him.”

  “And Simms could’ve … He could’ve thought it was her husband, I guess.”

  “Not if he heard Rinehart’s voice. Simms worked for Rinehart. He would’ve recognized his. So when Simms heard Rinehart holler to open the door, that’s when he decided to shut her up, and while he was at it, he decided to make it permanent.”

  “He knew Diane hadn’t warned him. He realized why Janice had called, and he knew Diane hadn’t warned him. Oh, and Simms hadn’t talked to Janice, so he didn’t know for sure that Rinehart had caught on, did he? And maybe Diane could’ve told Rinehart, I don’t know, more than he knew already, like how long it had been going on, whatever.”

  “Or maybe Simms just does what little Walter does when he’s really pissed off.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You will,” Kevin said.

  As predicted, at the intersection with Huron, the great sociogeographical divide, Kevin turned right instead of crossing over into Off Brattle. Rowdy darted toward a tree, raised a hind leg, practically wrapped himself around the trunk, lowered his leg, sniffed the tree, and then lifted his leg so high that he almost toppled over.

  “Macho,” Kevin said with approval.

  “So how did Rinehart get in? Did Simms open—”

  “Tire
iron. We got that one wrong to start with. We figured that was part of the business of faking a robbery, like emptying the cash drawer and all, but the tire iron’s covered with Rinehart’s prints. Rinehart did that. Dumb guy, when you think about it. You know, I’ve been thinking about that, about him and Enzio, and I was thinking maybe what Enzio always had against him wasn’t that he wasn’t Italian. Maybe Enzio just always figured Rinehart was stupid. Anyways, he should’ve pulled his gun.”

  “Rinehart was carrying a gun?”

  “Ça va sans dire,” Kevin said and added, rather unnecessarily, “like the Frogs say.”

  “So then Simms—?”

  “Socked him one in the gut, gave him a swift kick where it hurts, and dragged him around the corner to this bathtub and banged his head.” Kevin paused. “Contusions. Not a lot of blood.”

  “So the plastic was to keep the blood off the van or truck or whatever. Hey, wait a minute. What happened to Rinehart’s car? If he drove from Janice Coakley’s to Puppy Luv …”

  The streetlight near Henry Bear’s toy shop showed Kevin’s grin. “Just like Mabelline.”

  “What?”

  “Coupe de Ville. Like the song. Mabelline. Cadillac Coupe de Ville.”

  “So where is it?”

  “Parked on the street, couple of blocks away, covered with tickets, tire iron in the trunk, right where little Walter put it. Like I said, we would’ve worked it out sooner or later.”

  “Okay, so what’s the ‘You will’? There’s something else, right? I can tell from your face.”

  “Little Cheryl,” Kevin said. “You catch her on TV?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I don’t know what Rita’d call it, but, in my opinion, she hasn’t got all her marbles. Christ, poor kid, no wonder.”