“Going to the dogs would be a major improvement,” I said.
A second later, we did, however, see a sign of life, namely, a black sedan parked under some trees in a little turnout. Even I, an automotive ignoramus, was able to identify the vehicle as Artie Spicer’s Citroën. Citroëns are, of course, distinctive, and who but an ornithological zealot like Artie would go birding at this bleak sanctuary during a deluge? Steve said the obvious: “That’s Artie’s car.”
I slowed down and pulled to the side of the lane. “He must’ve dragged Rita here to add some rain-loving migrant to her life list. We’d better try to rescue her. We can all go and get sushi somewhere.”
Steve tried to stop me. As I opened my door, he said, “The motor’s running.”
“Rita’s probably making Artie wait for the rain to let up.”
“Holly—”
What failed to register on me was that although the motor was, indeed, running, and although the windows were defogged, no one was sitting in the car. Did I imagine that Artie and Rita had left the engine going as they wandered nearby in search of a rara avis? No, I did not. I imagined nothing whatever. Fool that I was, I pulled up my hood and ran through the downpour to Artie’s car.
Fate was smarter than I was and more effective than Steve had been. Fate and nothing else prevented me from rapping on the glass before I looked in the car. Stretched out on the rear seat, wearing a black merry widow I’d last seen in her hand, was Francie Julong, the dowdy birding buddy of Rita’s we’d met at the mall. Francie didn’t see me; her eyes were closed, and her attention was elsewhere. Specifically, it was on the man whose face I couldn’t see.
Rara avis was the wrong Latin phrase. The right one was in flagrante delicto.
CHAPTER 14
My first word was dog. I spoke it at the age of nine months and—yes—haven’t shut up since. Now, for once, I was not only silent on the subject of dogs, but shocked into utter speechlessness. Utter. Sorry. Victim that I am of anxiety-driven punning, I could serve as a case study in the verbal psychopathology of everyday life. The Viennese Dog Man would have understood. Now, he’d have been quick to remark that the source of my tension was sex. While I’m on the subject of Freud, let me digress briefly by guessing that little Sigmund’s first word was almost certainly Hund.
Anyway, after tiptoeing away from Artie Spicer’s car and hastening to my own, I got in and drove slowly away without so much as swearing or groaning.
Steve refrained from saying that he’d told me so. Actually, he hadn’t. Not outright. What he said, with maddening equanimity, was, “Not Rita, I take it.”
I exhaled noisily. “Steve, the worst of it is that I’m not sure it was Artie. And whether it was Artie or someone else, if you want to say ‘I told you so,’ that’s okay. Except that you didn’t. Not exactly. And why should you have had to? Who’d’ve thought that I could be so stupid? Here’s this nowhere place with a car pulled in at what any idiot would recognize as a lover’s lane, and the engine’s running, and when I don’t see anyone sitting in the car, do I reach the obvious conclusion? I do not. And why not? Because it never crosses my feeble excuse for a mind that Artie Spicer, nice Artie Spicer, Artie the birdwatcher, is a lying, two-timing bastard who isn’t just cheating on Rita, but is doing it in the backseat of his car like some teenager, for God’s sake, in daylight! If it was Artie. And with that smarmy little hypocrite, who, I have to tell you, had the nerve to fall all over Rita! But it’s possible, remotely possible, that she borrowed Artie’s car. Anyway, I saw her clearly. Maybe I should’ve tapped on the window! That way, I’d know for sure whether it was Artie or not.”
“You want to go back?”
“No! Of course not. And we’re not lurking around until they drive out, either. You know what’s amazing? Steve, I literally can hardly believe it! I saw it myself about two minutes ago, and I am having trouble convincing myself that I saw what, believe me, I really did see. Incredible!” With the calmness I love so deeply, Steve said, “Holly, you need to slow down. Slow it all down. For a start, you need to pull over and let me drive.”
I had the sense to realize that he was right. With my foot safely off the gas pedal and Steve at the wheel, we headed for Route 2 and then toward Cambridge.
“The woman was someone you know,” Steve said.
“Francie Julong. I met her on Friday when Rita and I went to the Chestnut Hill Mall, and let me tell you, Steve, she greeted Rita like a dear friend. She gushed. And kowtowed. She’s a member of Rita’s birding group. In other words, Artie Spicer’s birding group. That’s what makes me wonder. It’s possible that Francie borrowed his car. The problem is that seen from... seen from the perspective... the problem is that Artie isn’t all that distinctive. From that angle. But one thing I can promise you is that if it was Artie, Rita has no idea. None. None!”
“Take a slow, deep breath.”
“Stop sounding like Rita! I don’t need to take a deep breath!” But I did pause for a second to collect myself. “I’m sorry. I am so stunned that I’m incoherent. Thank God that Rita hasn’t married him! Steve, if this is true, she is going to be devastated. Heartbroken. If it was Artie, how could he do this to her? If he wants other women, lots of them, any of them, okay! But there he was on Saturday night at the restaurant saying how he, quote, adores Rita, unquote, and here he is two days later sneaking around having sex in a damned car with that corset-wearing tramp? So maybe it was someone else. But you wondered about him. When he said that he adored Rita? You wondered.”
“Corset?”
“That’s what Francie was buying when we met her. Black lace underwear. A thing called a merry widow.” I managed not to mention that we’d been in Victoria’s Secret, and I especially managed not to report that his ex-wife had been there, too. “Steve, if that was Artie, he must be insane. This woman, Francie, is... any sane man who could choose between her and Rita would choose Rita. On all counts. This whole thing is so squalid! My God! Rita deserves the best. You know that! She is the best friend in existence, and the finest human being in the world. She is kind, intelligent, pretty, funny... and if this is true, she is going to be so sick and so crushed. I just can’t stand it.”
“You’re going to tell her.”
“I have no idea. Among other things, there’s...”
“HIV,” he said. “In the long run, there’s one big issue. And that’s what it is.”
“If that was Artie Spicer, I could kill him. I could happily kill him for this.”
I talked pretty much nonstop throughout the short ride home. As we drove up Appleton Street, Steve said, “One thing is, Holly, it’d be a bad idea just to blurt all this out to Rita.”
“I won’t. Of course not! Why would I do that? Damn it! I have no idea what to do!”
“If you’re going to tell her, you’ve got to think about what you’re going to say. How you’re going to say it.”
“I’m not telling her anything right now. First of all, we have to think this through. Also, she’s got some cousin here, the daughter of a cousin, a girl who’s looking at colleges. One of them is MIT. She’s staying with Rita. And Rita has moved some of her regular Monday patients to Tuesday, because of Labor Day. So she’s got a heavy day tomorrow. Ten hours, she said. I can’t break this news to her when she has to face ten patients. If it is news. I mean, if it’s true. And if it isn’t, what a horrible way to treat Artie!”
When we pulled into the driveway, Rita’s car was there. For the first time I could remember, I was sorry to see a sign that she was home; my strong suspicion created a barrier I’d never felt before. As Steve and I ate dinner, fed and walked our dogs, checked our E-mail, and went about our ordinary business, it seemed to me that the ceiling overhead had somehow thickened; even though I could occasionally hear sounds from Rita’s apartment—a bark from Willie, the muffled voices of a radio program—she and I now lived far away from each other instead of comfortingly close. If the incident at Wayside hadn’t occurred, I’d proba
bly have gone upstairs just to say hello and to meet the visiting cousin. As it was, I fought a sense of shame about wanting to concoct innocuous excuses to dash up and have a word with Rita: I could pop in to tell her about the new outside lights. As if I needed an excuse! But I didn’t run upstairs. In fact, I just couldn’t face Rita. And when Steve and I discussed what I’d seen and what we should do, we abided by an unspoken agreement to talk in low tones, as if our voices and words might magically rise upward and break Rita’s heart. But talk we did—and clung to each other and to our dogs almost as if Artie’s probable falsehood were a contagious disease that would afflict us unless we warded it off with little rites and incantations of love. During the night, I awoke several times to find myself reaching for Steve.
Over breakfast, I said, “All along, you didn’t trust him.”
“In dogs we trust,” he said. “And in each other. Holly, I love you. And it isn’t as if you knew for sure it was Artie.”
After Steve left for work, I tried to distract myself by bathing and grooming Kimi so she’d look her best at a signing that Mac McCloud and I were doing at a bookstore that evening. Both dogs, of course, would’ve made a more spectacular PR statement than either dog could achieve alone, but any two malamutes, even two as well trained as mine, might go so far as to make a spectacle of themselves by raiding any food the bookstore offered or by unintentionally frightening customers who had the misfortune not to love dogs: I did not intend to handle both Rowdy and Kimi while I simultaneously signed books. Consequently, my plan was to let Rowdy and Kimi share the role of PR dog by taking turns. Tonight was to be Kimi’s turn.
The weather was warm enough to allow me to cut down on housework by washing and grooming her outside. My plumber, Ron, had rigged an outdoor faucet that sent warm water through the hose, and I moved a grooming table and my powerful dryer into the yard. Kimi didn’t share Rowdy’s conviction, common among malamutes, that a bath was a dangerous prelude to death from hypothermia. She cooperated as I shampooed and rinsed her, and stood happily on the grooming table as I blew her dry and brushed her out. Ordinarily, I enjoy being outdoors, and with a dog who likes being groomed, I let the repetitive motion of brushing and the familiar feel of the dog’s body draw me into a meditative trance. Today, the weather interfered. Despite the previous day’s rain, the sky had a bloated, jaundiced look, as if the atmosphere suffered from hepatitis, and the air was thick and polluted. My thoughts, too, felt ugly, and my bewilderment kept me from losing myself in my simple love for Kimi and my pleasure in taking care of her. When I’d finished, Kimi looked as beautiful as a malamute can look when she’s shed most of her old coat and is waiting for the new one to come in. The bookstore, however, wasn’t a show ring. A lot of people would probably admire my “husky” or ask whether Kimi was part wolf. Furthermore, no one but me would notice how shiny and perfect she was. But especially now, it felt important to have acted on my love for Kimi and my pride in her by seeing to it that in this jaundiced and corrupt world, one creature was clean and sweet.
When Kimi and I were back inside, I continued to sense the new and unwelcome barrier that separated me from Rita. Although my main concern was for Rita, it also irked me to realize that I was now without my principal confidante and advisor; had my concerns been about anyone but Rita, I’d have consulted her. I thought about discussing the matter] with my stepmother, but realized that she’d immediately guess who it was I was talking about; to tell Gabrielle felt like a betrayal. As to Steve, we’d already talked everything over. Besides, I wanted to talk to a woman, preferably a wise one.
Consequently, I called Althea Battlefield, to whom I intended to give a somewhat general account, with names deleted and graphic details expurgated. Althea was a strange choice in that she was one of the most rational people I’d ever known, the opposite of the sort of emotion-driven earth-mother type to whom I could pour out my rage and confusion. She was, however, ethics incarnate. What’s more, she was generous about sharing her wonderful intelligence and always interested in dilemmas of the human condition. Unfortunately, when I phoned, I reached her sister, Ceci, who informed me that Althea was asleep and then went on in her usual garrulous fashion to question me about my wedding plans and talk about Nina Kerkel, the ex-daughter-in-law of her friend Greta.
“Naturally,” Ceci said, “I had to tell Greta that that Nina had died, because for all we know, Hal, that’s Greta’s son, the one who was married to this Nina, might not have heard, and after all, they were married once and even though that Nina was anything but my idea of a wife, or Greta’s, for that matter, she was Hal’s... well, probably not his idea of a wife, either, but he did marry her, and the wedding was very nice, although that Nina was ungrateful for everything Greta did. Have you thought about a champagne fountain?”
“A champagne fountain?”
“I thought of it because Greta offered to have one, and that Nina did nothing but sneer at her, and it might not have been to Nina’s taste, not that she had any, the truth is, not to be snobbish, but she was something out of the gutter, I don’t know where Hal found her, her family simply devoted itself to producing illegitimate children and nothing else... but generosity is generosity, and Greta was making what was meant as a nice offer, and all this Nina did was make fun of Greta for it, and if you ask me, Greta would’ve done better to offer her a keg of beer instead of a champagne fountain. Of course, she was quite pretty, that must’ve been the attraction, drugstore blond, not that there’s anything objectionable about helping nature along if it’s done well, hut she had no bosom and very chapped lips and I remember that she wore one of those... what do you call them? Those wide bracelets. Way up on her arm.”
A slave bracelet.”
“That’s it! But in her own way, although Greta doesn’t like to admit it, Nina was quite pretty, like a child really, very young, almost like a young boy, really, but with long blond hair, you don’t suppose... where was I? The champagne fountain! Have you thought of one?”
“You’re way ahead of us. So far, we don’t have a place for a champagne fountain or anything else. We don’t have a place to get married. But we’re looking. The prospects aren’t good.” In part to keep Ceci from returning to her obsession with Greta Kerkel and the regrettable Nina, I related the story of our visit to the Wayside Wildlife Refuge. In a fashion intended to distract and entertain Ceci, I described the dismal building with its sagging roof and the finding of the dead rat, but I said nothing, of course, about Artie’s Citroen! Francie, or wildlife I’d accidentally witnessed at the refuge; In a peculiar way, I loved Ceci, but my primary attachment, as Rita would say, was to her sister, Althea, whom I’d met when she was in a nursing home where I took Rowdy for therapy-dog visits. Our friendship had continued and deepened after Althea had moved in with Ceci. Rowdy, Kimi,; and I made social rather than therapeutic visits to the elderly sisters, who shared Ceci’s lavish suburban house with Ceci’s Newfoundland, Quest. Ceci and I shared a passion for dogs, but she was not someone whose advice I ever sought about important questions.
Indeed, when Ceci ended our phone conversation with entirely uncharacteristic abruptness, I wondered whether she’d sensed my desire to consult with Althea and had felt slighted. I was wrong. About a half hour later, Ceci called back with what might be termed a marriage proposal. After we’d hung up, Ceci had awakened Althea from her nap, and my honorary aunts had swiftly resolved to pop the question: Would Steve and I do them the honor of holding our wedding and reception at their house?
Would we ever!
CHAPTER 15
Partnership with a good dog has millions of advantages over partnership with even the best human being. If a generous friend, Ceci, for instance, had extended an invitation invitation to my dogs and me, I’d have been free to accept without quizzing Rowdy and Kimi about their feelings. As it was, although I was almost positive that Steve would be as relieved as I was to have secured a suitable site for our nuptial show, I couldn’t give Ceci a definite yes until
I’d checked with him, as I dutifully did on the way to my Tuesday evening signing. Mac McCloud, I might mention, had a habit of dragging his friends to his signings and talks whenever he suspected that attendance would be sparse. He’d recommended the practice to me. It was one piece of advice from Mac that I meant to reject. For one thing, I had no intention of going to any book event without Rowdy or Kimi, so I felt assured of always having a devoted and attentive audience. The prospect of having no human audience and no book buyers didn’t bother me as it did Mac. In other words, I was the real dog person. If Mac had sat alone in a bookstore with no one but Uli, his Bernese mountain dog, he’d have felt all alone, in part because Uli’s deep allegiance was to Judith rather than to Mac. With Kimi, I, in contrast, would be in excellent company. I’d thus planned to go to the signing with Kimi and hadn’t intended to haul Steve along. He’d insisted. I’d said that he’d be bored. He’d countered that on the contrary, he’d enjoy himself. He’d also mentioned the two murders and my safety.
As it turned out, the drive to the bookstore was a lot more fun with Steve than it would’ve been without him, and it gave us the chance to talk about Ceci’s offer. As I expected, he had to think through every aspect of it.
“Did you discuss costs with Ceci?” he asked. For once, he was driving my new Blazer, a vehicle he objected to because of its source. Enzio Guarini had gotten me a good deal on it. Steve, who wanted nothing to do with my Mob-boss dog-training client, had decided that the car must therefore have been stolen. The conviction was ridiculous and atypical of Steve, who was almost always logical.
“No. There’s nothing to discuss, is there? We’d want a tent, and Ceci obviously shouldn’t pay for that. Otherwise, the costs would be the same as they’d be at some historic house or anywhere else, wouldn’t they?”
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