Brute Strength

by Susan Conant

  Crash in Nashua under Investigation

  Nashua, N.H. Nashua police are investigating a fatal one-car rollover that happened near Exit 4 from Route 3/ F.E. Everett Turnpike around 10 p.m. on Sunday. Police said that a Toyota driven by Fiona Frazer, 29, swerved off the exit ramp and collided with a tree. Frazer was killed in the crash. Police had little to say about the cause of the accident except that alcohol was not a factor.

  The damn thing about the web – and especially about Google – is that it tantalizes you with the prospect of being able to find out everything and then, just when you think that omniscience is within your grasp, reminds you that even Google can’t make you God. So, even if the police had discovered more than was reported in the news, God only knew why Fiona had taken that exit from the highway and why she had smashed her car into a tree and died. Had she felt sick? Or sensed that she was in danger of falling asleep at the wheel? Or been in search of a ladies’ room? In any case, although Google had failed to tell me everything, the stories it provided left me with a sharp, painful awareness of the reality of Fiona’s death. Furthermore, for the first time, I was hit with the realization that the accident victim could easily have been a member of my own family rather than a member of Vanessa’s. Leah, Steve, Buck, Gabrielle, and I all drove back and forth between Cambridge and Maine all the time, and we weren’t always careful to do long drives only when we were well rested. Feeling ridiculously vulnerable, I called Leah, listened to her voicemail message, and then called Rita at work and invited her to dinner. I was hoping for her sake that Quinn had apologized and that she’d refuse my invitation because he was taking her out. In fact, she hadn’t heard from him since Saturday’s fight and sounded happy to accept. When I made lasagne for the three of us, I made a second pan for Vanessa’s family. Since lasagne is perishable, you can’t leave it on a doorstep, so I called to make sure that someone was home.

  Avery answered. When I’d explained the reason for my call, she said, ‘What?’

  ‘I have a lasagne for you,’ I repeated. ‘I wanted to see whether I could drop it off.’

  ‘Why?’

  Although taking food to the bereaved is a little old-fashioned, it isn’t freakish. Furthermore, as I reminded myself, when Avery’s father had died the previous winter, she must have become familiar with customary responses to a death in the family. Even so, I said, ‘I thought that after Fiona’s death, it might help to have food in the house.’

  ‘We already have food.’ Belatedly, she added, ‘But it was nice of you to offer.’

  I’d also intended to ask about writing to Hatch and to Fiona’s parents, but I didn’t feel like listening to Avery’s response to a request for addresses. For all I knew, she’d never heard of sympathy notes and would find my intention incomprehensible. I settled for asking to speak to Vanessa, but Avery said that her mother wasn’t home. I was heartily glad to have the call end.

  ‘A barbarian!’ I said to Rowdy. ‘And to think that her mother reads Jane Austen.’

  SEVEN

  On Wednesday morning over breakfast, Steve and I talked about Rita, but neither of us could think of a way to help her. At dinner the previous night, she’d done her best to be sociable, but she’d seemed like someone in mourning. All we could do, we decided, was to be with her. Two hours later, when I met Max Crocker, I changed my mind.

  As is perhaps needless to say, Max Crocker had not submitted an online application to become the new man in Rita’s life. Rather, he had adopted a malamute from a shelter and wanted another as a companion for himself and as a playmate for his dog, a male named Mukluk. I’d claimed his application for two reasons. First, I was the Malamute Rescue volunteer closest to his house, which was in Cambridge. Second, having performed the unpleasant task of turning down the Di Bartolomeos, Irving Jensen, Eldon Flood, and so on, I deserved a reward. Screening Max Crocker’s application would constitute what dog trainers call a ‘jackpot’, a fantastic treat given for first-rate performance, usually when the dog has completed a whole series of desired behaviors one right after the other. Animal behaviorists will tell you that in dog training, jackpots don’t work. Among volunteers for breed-rescue groups, we take positive reinforcement where we find it or where we dole it out to ourselves.

  I loved Max’s application the minute I read it online, and I continued to love it when I’d printed it out and studied it in detail. Among other things, not only was his yard fenced, but he was concerned that the fence might be insufficiently secure to contain the new malamute he wanted to adopt. Mukluk, he wrote, respected the fence and showed no desire to escape. Would someone from Malamute Rescue be able to take a look at the fence and advise him about its adequacy for a more typical malamute? Would she ever! With few exceptions, the dreadful applicants go on and on about what great dog owners they are and what perfect homes they’ll provide; and the perfect applicants express doubts about themselves and ask for advice. Anyway, Max had provided a detailed list of the dogs he’d owned, including a Scottish terrier his family had had when he was a child. The veterinary clinic he gave as reference was in New Haven, Connecticut. I called the number.

  ‘This is Holly Winter from Malamute Rescue,’ I said. ‘One of your clients has applied to adopt a dog, and I’m calling to check the reference.’

  ‘The client’s name?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Max Crocker. The dog is Mukluk. Max also has a cat.’

  ‘Oh, Mukluk! He’s a great dog. We’re going to miss him. Max is a wonderful owner. He was in here all the time. He does everything. He goes above and beyond.’

  So, to skip ahead, ten o’clock on Wednesday morning found me ringing the bell of Max Crocker’s house, which was on a quiet street a few blocks from Fresh Pond Parkway, not far from Huron Avenue and thus not far from where Steve and I live. Like our house, which is the barn-red one at 256 Concord Avenue, Max’s had three stories and was made of wood, but his had experienced greater upward social mobility than ours had. Both had started out as unabashedly plebeian. The improvements we’d made on ours, including work I’d done with my own hands, had gentrified it a bit, but Max’s showed unmistakable signs of having been transformed by a Henry Higgins of an architect. In place of a plain porch, it had a little deck with natural wood partitions and planter boxes, and the creamy yellow of its facade had jazzy but tasteful details, including wide frames around obviously new windows. The front door was made of a rich, dark wood so exotic that I didn’t recognize it. The hardware looked like solid brass.

  Mukluk may have been atypical of his breed in respecting the boundary of an iffy fence, but in greeting me by dropping to the floor and rolling over for a tummy rub, he was pure malamute. I was almost certain that he’d originally come from a pet shop, which is to say that he’d been whelped at one of the thousands of puppy mills that breed dogs with less care and compassion than amateur gardeners lavish on their tomato plants. Alternatively, he’d come from a backyard breeder who’d bred one pet-shop dog to another. Like my own three mala-mutes, he was dark gray and white, but he was tremendously tall and rangy, with long, fine-boned legs, a narrow chest, a head that belonged on a collie, and ears that suggested Dumbo in flight. When I’d finished rubbing his white chest, he rose to his feet and greeted me with peals of woo-woo-woo so familiar and so heartfelt that I couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘Holly,’ the man said. ‘Thank you for coming. Max Crocker. And Mukluk.’ Max was a handsome, rugged-looking man who could’ve modeled for the Orvis catalog. In fact, his charcoal sweater might well have come from Orvis. His short brown hair was shot with gray. He was about five ten, with broad shoulders, and when we shook hands, his grip was firm. He’d said on his application that there was only one member of his household. Even so, with Rita in mind, I checked out the third finger of his left hand and was happy to find it bare. Rita appreciates a clean-shaven, well-dressed man with skilfully trimmed hair and neatly cut nails. Max Crocker was just such a man.

  After I’d said the usual things about being
glad to meet both of them, I voiced my admiration for Max’s house and managed to do so without referring to Rita, who would love the place as much as I did – and would, I vowed, do so at the earliest possible moment, that is, as soon as I could contrive to introduce her to Max. The interior of the house had obviously been gutted and totally redone. The design was simple and open, with floors made of hardwood in the living room and dining room, and smooth stone in the foyer and kitchen. The couches and chairs were leather, a material that stands up well to dogs. Artwork was everywhere: bold paintings and striking photographs on the walls, pieces of stone sculpture in the backyard, the fence that had, alas, been chosen for aesthetics rather than for canine containment.

  ‘Well, you’re right,’ I told Max. ‘The typical malamute is going to get under and out of this in seconds.’ To Mukluk, who was trailing along with us, I said, ‘You are an exceptionally good boy.’

  ‘He really is,’ Max said. ‘Of course, he’s never out here alone. In New Haven, I had a six-foot fence – we just moved here a month ago – and I still didn’t leave him out by himself. But from what I understand, he’s an exceptionally easy malamute. We’ve never had a problem with other dogs, including males. And he and the cat are great friends. They both sleep on the bed with me.’

  Naturally, I didn’t respond by asking, ‘And does someone sleep in the bed with you?’ When we screen homes for rescue dogs, we feel entitled to grill people. Because many rescue dogs have been repeatedly passed along from owner to owner, booted out, neglected, or worse, we try to make sure that our adopters will offer permanent, loving, responsible homes. Still, there are limits to the kinds of questions you can get away with asking. For example, after one young couple complained about having been interrogated about what kind of birth control they used, Betty banned the topic.

  ‘The cat,’ I said. ‘That’s the only potential problem with your application. We just don’t get a lot of dogs we can trust with cats. Also, you need a female, and the dogs coming into rescue tend to be males. Mukluk might be fine with another male, but it’s the other one I’d worry about. So, you need a female who’d be good with Mukluk and your cat. We don’t have one right now.’

  ‘I can wait,’ he said. ‘That’ll give me time to do something about the fence.’

  ‘Think of me as your matchmaker,’ I said. ‘Or your adoption social worker. Your advocate. I will do my best to find you the right dog. We’re getting a young female from Maine, but I don’t know much about her yet. She’ll need to be evaluated and vetted. I have no idea how she is with other dogs. Or with cats. But I’ll find out.’

  Max offered me coffee. I accepted. As we sat at the granite island in his kitchen, he made the same French roast that Rita buys, and I learned that he was a professor of psychology. A psychologist! Just like Rita! So, of course, I immediately said that I had a dear friend and tenant who was also a psychologist, and when I mentioned Rita’s name, Max sat up a little straighter and, if I may slip into the Boston vernacular, looked wicked impressed and said that Rita had an excellent reputation. He went on to explain that he was not a clinician but an academic psychologist, a researcher. Close enough for me! I didn’t say so, nor did I mention that he and Rita were both from New York City, and instead of telling Max that Rita had a Scottie, the breed of his childhood, I decided to let him make that discovery for himself. Furthermore, on inspiration, I created the occasion for him to do it.

  ‘I don’t know if you’d be interested,’ I said, ‘but my dog-training club is having an event in a few weeks. On May eleventh. It’s a Saturday. It’s part of National Pet Week. The idea is to help educate the public about responsible dog ownership. There’ll be what’s called a Meet the Breed part, so people learn about different breeds, and we’ll have booths run by rescue groups, including ours. I’d love to have Mukluk there. He’d be perfect. It’s at the Cambridge Armory, which is on Concord Ave., right near the Fresh Pond traffic circle. It’s no distance from here. You could walk.’

  Max agreed to be there with Mukluk. All that remained was to persuade Rita to show up, too. Well, almost all. There was also the matter of Willie’s less than ideal temperament. If I muzzled Willie, Rita would protest, and a muzzle would, in any case, create a poor and misleading impression of the breed. Could Steve be persuaded to drug Willie for the occasion? Probably not. Besides, a sedative might have the paradoxical effect of making Willie agitated instead of peaceful. There was also the matter of Willie and Max’s cat, a gorgeous and gigantic male red tabby Maine coon cat who strolled in while we were having coffee. Anyway, the problem of Willie was one I’d solve later. If need be, I’d drag Rita there without her dog. The crucial thing was to get Max and Rita together. I felt absolutely confident that they were made for each other.

  EIGHT

  Sweeping her eyes over the dogs and handlers, Avery said softly, ‘Hardly any men. I don’t know why Mom bothered dragging me here. She should’ve brought Hatch instead.’

  Although Steve was standing a good two feet away from me, I could feel every muscle in his body stiffen. The remark jolted me, too. Fiona had crashed her car and died on Sunday night. It was now Thursday evening, far too soon for Hatch or anyone else to be on the lookout for a replacement. At least for now, decency required everyone to think of Fiona as irreplaceable.

  To backtrack. On Wednesday, when I’d called Vanessa to get the information I needed to write sympathy notes to Hatch and to Fiona’s parents, she’d asked about dog training. ‘That must sound heartless, but I believe in getting back to normal life as quickly as possible,’ she’d explained. ‘No matter how hard it is. When Jim, my husband, died, that’s what I did, and that’s what I made the children do. Life simply has to go on. Different people deal with loss in different ways, but that’s ours. So, dog training?’

  The armory where the Cambridge Dog Training Club holds its classes is less than a half mile down Concord Avenue from our house, so Steve and the dogs and I often go on foot. I’d invited Vanessa to walk with us, but she’d said that her father would be with her and that he might insist on going by car. ‘Or worse, once it was time to go home, he’d decide that it was too dark and dangerous in the big, bad city, and we’d be stuck begging a ride or trying to find a cab that would take Ulla. No, we’ll see you there.’

  So, when Steve and I were checking in at the desk in the front hallway, Vanessa appeared with Ulla and also with Tom and Avery; why, I couldn’t imagine until Avery glanced into the big hall where we train and made the unfortunate remark about the shortage of men and, of course, about Hatch. I chose to ignore Avery’s tactlessness. After all, I knew nothing about her relationship with Fiona. They’d seemed to be on good terms, but I couldn’t remember having noticed any particular affection or closeness between the two. For all I knew, Avery had hated Fiona and was relieved to have her dead and thus out of Hatch’s life.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll be very bored,’ I told Avery. ‘We don’t even have a spare dog for you to train.’ We’d brought only two, Lady and Sammy. Neither Steve nor I had any great ambitions for Lady as a competition obedience dog. Rather, I was convinced that the structure and clarity of formal obedience work would help to build the timid little pointer’s self-confidence. As it was, she trusted Steve completely. She also trusted his shepherd, India, and she’d made gratifying progress in trusting Rowdy, Kimi, Sammy, and me. She continued, however, always to look outside herself for strength. Corny though it may sound, I hoped that in mastering the exercises, she’d discover her inner resources and thus her own strength. In contrast, full-of-himself Sammy was convinced that the point of obedience training was the point of life itself: fun, fun, and more fun! At the moment, as we waited for our classes to begin, he was fooling around with Ulla, who was preening and woo-wooing and otherwise flirting with him so outrageously that one of our instructors said as she passed by, ‘Oh-oh! Sammy’s got a girlfriend!’ And he did, too.

  ‘These two were made for each other,’ Vanessa said.

&nbs
p; The Cambridge Armory, however dear to me, is not one of those funky Richardsonian Romanesque fortresses. Rather, from the outside, it looks like an unprepossessing elementary school, and the big interior space we use for dog training is the kind of gymnasium you find in high schools and YMCAs everywhere. The bleachers that line one of the long sides can be folded up to create extra floor space, but we extend them for classes so we have seating for people who aren’t working with their dogs and a place to leave our jackets, coats, and training gear. Seated at the near end of the bleachers was Elizabeth McNamara, who always accompanied her husband, Isaac, to dog training, but who never handled their young puli, Persimmon. A tall, lanky man of about seventy-five who dressed in khakis and plaid flannel shirts, Isaac liked to imagine that people mistook his wife for his daughter. The error probably did occur now and then. Elizabeth was ten or fifteen years his junior, and the two differed radically in size and style. Elizabeth was a tiny little woman with delicate bones and small feet and hands, and she carried to the extreme the Cantabrigian preference for ethnic and artisanal clothing and accessories. Almost everything she wore had been spun, woven, embroidered, or crafted by hand in Third World countries or in economically disadvantaged regions of the United States: Peruvian vests, African paper beads, hand-knitted Appalachian shawls, and loose peasant shirts made of unbleached muslin. Their house was full of museum-quality quilts. Elizabeth’s full, curly, shoulder-length white hair framed her pretty face. She made no perceptible effort to look younger than she was, but she had an appealing agelessness. I suspected that her diminutive build and her husband’s affection for her made him see her as she had looked when they’d first met. She had a high-pitched voice, and her laughter was like tinkling bells.

  Spotting Elizabeth, Tom headed straight for her and in no time was settled next to her on the bleachers. The sullen Avery sat with them. The classes that had been meeting when we’d arrived came to an end, and Vanessa and I, with Ulla and Lady, joined the big drop-in class that served a variety of functions. Some of the dogs and handlers in the group had just completed the basic beginners’ class and were there to keep training and to have fun, and others were preparing for the Canine Good Citizen test. Lady and I were there to work on the nit-picking details of the obedience exercises in a relaxed, cheerful context; in other words, I expected the low-pressure atmosphere to counterbalance my insufferable perfectionism, as I’m glad to say that it did. When I tell a dog to sit, I’m not just telling him to put his rear end down. What I’m after is a fast, perfectly straight sit in which the dog is close to my left side but not leaning into me. Furthermore, in my estimation, a dog whose eyes are fixed on anything except my face is a dog whose mind is wandering and who is thus not sitting at all. In case I sound like a tyrant, I must mention that by way of compensation, I train with first-rate treats: bits of steak, roast beef, liver, and Cheddar cheese. Also, when I expect a dog’s total attention, I give exactly the same complete concentration in return. Because the class had about twenty dog-handler teams, the instructor had two assistants, so Lady had lots of opportunity to practice letting people put their hands on her during the stand-for-examination exercise. The combination of hard work, high standards, great tidbits, and lavish praise did wonders for Lady, who was too busy to be nervous, and before we knew it, the hour was up, and the class ended.