Before I could take a guess about the Sherlock Holmes story in which the phrase appeared, Ceci said, “Suggestive? What on earth is suggestive about it? It’s weird and senseless to go around beating people to death and then drugging them when it’s too late to do any good, so to speak—any bad, really—but there’s nothing in the least bit off-color about it that I can see, but maybe I’m terribly naive. Am I missing something? These women were not... assaulted, unless they were, and the police are keeping it a secret, possibly for their own good reasons, I assume. Holly, has Lieutenant Dennehy said anything to you about whether they were...?”
“Yes,” I said. “I mean, yes, I’ve talked to Kevin, and no, the women weren’t, uh, assaulted. Althea, ‘The Crooked Man’?”
“That’s one of their stories,” Ceci told Steve. By now, she’d somehow managed to surround his plate with the salad bowl and the serving dishes of green beans, Yorkshire pudding, and mashed potatoes. The carving board was still within his reach.
“Indeed,” said Althea.
“It’s impossible to follow what they’re saying,” Ceci said. “They make no effort to make any sense, crooked men, I ask you! As if Lieutenant Dennehy were crooked, when he’s perfectly upright, I’m sure, although how does he know about this latest horror when it happened in Brookline, which is, as I was going to say, alarmingly close to Newton, and when I got out of my car this afternoon, well, before I opened the door, I checked carefully all around even though Quest was with me, but in the back, which is where Bonny Carr’s dog was, in her car and helpless to come to her rescue, but perhaps a small dog, the paper didn’t say.”
“Big. Bonny Carr had a big dog,” I said. “An Airedale mix, I guess. That’s what he looked like.”
Ceci was elated. “You knew her?”
“Not really. I went to a workshop of hers. But I didn’t really know her.” And didn’t want to.
“And you knew that tarot woman, too.”
Steve laughed. "I’m Holly’s alibi. She was with me.”
“Ceci, you may relax,” Althea said. “Dr. Skipcliff was fifty-seven. Victoria Trotter was fifty-six. Bonny Carr was only forty-five. And you are—”
“A dog owner!” Ceci hastened to exclaim. "A woman! A woman known to Holly. Who was returning home.”
“You were returning home in daylight,” Althea pointed out. Both sisters followed the television news closely. Althea’s eyesight didn’t allow her to read, but her Sherlockian admirers, Hugh and Robert, read newspapers to her. “Holly, you didn’t know Laura Skipcliff, did you?”
My mouth was full. I shook my head, swallowed, and said, “No, I didn’t. She seems to have been a nice woman.” If my Kimi had been next to the table with a clear shot at the prime rib, she wouldn’t have pounced any more swiftly than Ceci did. “And the others weren’t! You’re just too nice to say so.”
“I barely knew Bonny Carr. And I didn’t know Victoria Trotter well, either; I interviewed her for a couple of articles. That’s all. We weren’t friends.”
“If either of you uses the word nice again—” Althea began to threaten.
“Althea,” Ceci said, “you retired from teaching quite a few years ago, and we are not writing essays to hand in to you, we are at the dinner table discussing a subject of common interest, and…” For once, Ceci paused.
I pounced. “Speaking of a subject of interest and writing, we need to talk about the ceremony. Althea, what are your thoughts about your part? Is there something you particularly want to include?”
"Whoever would have thought that Althea would be allowed to marry people,” said Ceci, as if to herself.
“The Office of Solemnizations,” Steve replied. “I have the forms.”
"What if this monster is still at large?” Ceci exclaimed. “He’s not invited,” Althea murmured.
Steve said, “We’re getting married no matter what.” Have I mentioned that I am crazy about this man?
“As the Jewish ladies in Newton say,” Ceci told me, “when you got him, you got gold. One of those awnings you see at Jewish weddings would be nice, what are they called? A hoopla? And I always like that part when they step on the wineglass, and everyone says mazel tov.”
Simultaneously, Althea said, “Huppah,” while I said, “An arch with flowers would be lovely,” and Steve said, “Whatever Holly wants.”
Before Ceci could return to her plans to unite two gentiles in a Jewish ceremony conducted by her gentile sister, and before she could return to her obsession with the serial killer, Althea began to question us about precisely what we wanted her to say.
“The one that starts ‘Dearly beloved,’” Steve said.
“No obeying,” I said.
“Of course not,” Althea said. “Perhaps something from the Bible, with a few words of my own.”
I was sitting close enough to Althea for her to see the expression on my face. Or maybe she heard me catch my breath. In any case, her laughter burbled out, and when she recovered from the exertion, she said, “The King James, my dear! Did you truly imagine that I intended to string together nuptial passages from Dr. Watson?”
To the best of my recollection, Althea’s Canon contained a brief reference or two to Dr. Watson’s conjugal bliss and almost nothing else that could be construed as any sort of paean to marriage. “We trust you completely,” I said. “We hope you’ll say anything you want. And Ceci, Steve and I wondered whether you might be willing to read a poem. But you don’t have to. We know how much work it will be for you to have the wedding here, and we’re so happy about it and so grateful. So if you’d rather not read during the ceremony, just say so. You could choose any poem you wanted.” Steve and I had wanted to make sure that Ceci wouldn’t feel left out. We’d toyed with the possibility of making a secret wager about the nature of Ceci’s selection, but somewhat to our disappointment, we’d found ourselves with nothing to bet on: Both of us were certain that she’d choose a poem involving love and the moon.
Ceci was beaming. “I would adore it!” With that, she leaped from her seat and hugged Steve and then me. Having finished our main course, we moved to the living room for coffee and chocolate cake iced with whipped cream. Now that Ceci’s house had become the site of our wedding, I regarded it with a new and proprietary interest. The living room ran all the way from the front of the house to the rear, where it became a small conservatory with a tiled floor, wicker furniture, and potted palms. As I was envisioning our wedding guests strolling around in their finery while sipping champagne and listening to Ian McCloud’s music, Ceci excused herself and immediately returned with a stack of manila folders that turned out to contain thorough and sensible plans for the wedding. Her principal concern, a reasonable one, was the question of a tent or tents. Late September weather in New England being as variable as it was, we’d need heaters. But would we want a dance floor? Although Steve and I were equally capable of making good choices about the arrangements, Ceci addressed Steve, who told her about Ian McCloud, the caterer, and our ideas about a menu. The food was Steve’s responsibility, in part because the caterer was a client of his and in part because Steve cared more about the particulars of the wedding feast than I did. After Steve had consumed two big pieces of cake, Ceci decided that he needed to go outdoors with her to examine the proposed tent sites and also to check on Quest, her Newfoundland, and Lady, who had been invited to play with the big black bear of a dog while we had dinner. At home, in our own pack, the anxious pointer seldom had the self-confidence to initiate play with another dog. India guided and protected her, Kimi bossed her around, Rowdy coexisted with her, and Sammy jumped over her lengthwise, but rarely was she sought as a playmate. Quest, however, had been startlingly and touchingly smitten with Lady from the moment they’d first been introduced. Despite his great size, he romped gently with her, and she, in turn, perhaps sensing his advanced age and the joint disease that plagues giant breeds, toned down her nervous energy to become as relaxed as I’d ever seen her.
Alone with A
lthea, I was surprised to notice a marked change in her demeanor. Her ancient face was serious, and her voice, never loud, was so low that she nearly whispered. “I’m glad to have the opportunity to speak to you out of my sister’s hearing,” she said. “I’ll be brief. Ceci is, as you’ve no doubt observed, in a state of considerable hysteria about these murders, which are, of course, horrific and frightening, but constitute no personal threat to her. You, Holly, are another matter. Hugh and Robert share my concern, and I have promised them that I would speak to you, as I’d have done even without their prompting. The case that concerns us most is this recent one. I find it all too easy to see what happened. The victim, Bonny Carr, drove to her home at night. She pulled into a parking space behind her building and got out—with the intention of immediately getting her dog from a crate in the back of the car. Before she could do so, the murderer struck. What alarms me is that I can easily envision you in precisely that vulnerable situation. You go somewhere with one or both of your dogs. You arrive home. You get out of your car. You feel neither alone nor vulnerable because, in seconds, you’ll have a powerful dog at your side. For those few seconds, however, you are unprotected.”
“Althea, I’m grateful for your concern. Steve has installed new outdoor lights, as much for Rita’s safety as for mine. Kevin Dennehy lives next door. I’m sure that he has cruisers checking our neighborhood all the time. As of yesterday, Rita and I have a buddy system. She calls me when she leaves her office, and I watch for her to get home. She’s carrying a personal alarm device. I don’t go out without a dog. Even if I’m just getting something from my car, I take a dog with me, and not Lady or Sammy, either. I take Rowdy or Kimi or India.”
“These last two women were in professions similar to yours.”
“Every woman who works with animals is worried. Steve had a meeting with all his staff yesterday afternoon. No woman leaves there without an escort. He’s checking on security services and off-duty cops. And I’m concerned for Leah the way you’re concerned for me. She isn’t a dog professional, but she trains and handles Kimi, and for all we know, maybe that’s close enough. That is, if dogs really have anything to do with the motivation. Maybe they don’t. Harvard has set up extra shuttle buses and taken all kinds of precautions. Leah has sworn to me that she won’t go out alone after dark.”
“You are very dear to me,” Althea said.
“I’ll be careful,” I said. “I promise. After all, I’m fairly dear to myself, too.”
CHAPTER 19
At four o’clock on Sunday mornin?, Steve, Lady, India, and Sammy left for a little town west of Worcester. In an act of noble self-sacrifice, Steve had volunteered to play the role known as “subject” in the crucial forty-acre test that a prospective Search and Rescue dog had to pass to achieve certification for daytime searches. This Search and Rescue group shunned the all-too-accurate term victim for the person who, in the aforementioned act of noble self-sacrifice, agreed to get up before dawn, drive a long distance, hide in a forty-acre wilderness, and sit on the cold ground with nothing to do except wait to be discovered by the dog taking the test. I’d refused Steve’s invitation to accompany him to the test and on the hike he intended to take with his dogs once he’d been found. Rita, Leah, and I were scheduled to shop for wedding apparel at two o’clock, and if the canine searcher dallied, there’d be insufficient time after the test to hike and get back to Cambridge on time.
I slept until what was for me the luxuriously late hour of eight. I fed Rowdy and Kimi, let them into the yard, had breakfast, and, over coffee, checked my E-mail. Instead of leaving a note on my door, Rita had E-mailed me to say that she and Artie were leaving at 5:30 A.M. to go to Plum Island, where someone had spotted a rare bird. They were taking Willie with them—why, I couldn’t imagine, since Willie would scare off birds, rare or otherwise. Rita promised to be back in time for our dress-shopping trip. My stepmother, Gabrielle, had sent a brief message to say that she and Buck had mailed the wedding invitations on Friday. My father had made a spectacle of himself at the post office by bragging about me. She’d call soon. I scanned the messages on Dogwriters-L, Malamute-L, and the other lists to which I subscribed. Then I visited one of the online booksellers, where I was irked to see that one reader’s sour review had lowered the rating of 101 Ways to Cook Liver from five stars to four and a half. The sourpuss who’d given my book a rotten rating had written, incredibly, “This book is about cooking for dogs! What a waste of time! Why would anyone bother?”
In an effort to scrub off my resentment at the unfair treatment of my work, I took a shower. As I was toweling off, it finally occurred to me that the same mean-spirited reader had probably written almost the same thing about The Joy of Cooking: “This book is about cooking! What a waste of time! Why would anyone bother?” The realization brought me only a little consolation. To battle my sense of mistreatment, I dug two liver brownies out of the depths of the freezer and fed them to Rowdy and Kimi, who gobbled them with gusto. Yet one more reason to worship the Sacred Animal! No dog has ever given me anything but a rave review.
I made a fresh pot of coffee and settled in with the Sunday paper, which had two articles and a long sidebar about the serial murders. The first article recapped old news about the slayings of Dr. Laura Skipcliff, Victoria Trotter, and Bonny Carr. It pointed out that the three victims were dark-haired women in their forties or fifties. The murders had taken place in the evening. All three victims had been bludgeoned to death. The weapon or weapons had not been identified. Victoria Trotter had been injected with insulin, Bonny Carr with amitriptyline. Dr. Laura Skipcliff had been a noted anesthesiologist. Victoria Trotter had published a tarot deck with illustrations of dogs and a companion book to be used in what the paper called “fortune telling.” Bonny Carr had been an expert on treating trauma in dogs. And so on. The police were, as usual, pursuing their investigations.
The second article was more interesting than the first. Its material had been provided by a panel of local mental-health professionals assembled to advise Massachusetts law enforcement personnel and the general public about serial murderers. So far, the panel’s work seemed to have consisted of providing psychosocial profiles. According to the article, the typical serial killer was a white male between twenty and forty years of age who came from a dysfunctional family and had a history of abuse. He usually killed his victims near their homes or workplaces. In most cases, there was a cooling-off period between homicides. Serial killers were socially isolated men given to daydreaming and compulsive masturbation. They experienced delusions of grandeur, depression, and feelings of failure, as well as—gulp—difficulty in accepting criticism and a sense of mistreatment. I was chagrined to realize that with regard to such experiences, published writers had an awful lot in common with serial murderers.
The sidebar consisted of reasonable advice that most of us, especially women, had already taken. Throughout Greater Boston, women had installed new outside lights, set up buddy systems and phone checks with friends, and made arrangements never to be outside alone at night. I didn’t own a personal alarm device, but a lot of other women had bought them. As to the recommendation about getting a big dog, I’d done that in duplicate long before the murders. Attitude was said to be important: Like other women, especially women whose work had anything to do with dogs, I was trying to remain calm but alert. Morale mattered, too: Unlike some other women, I had not been terrorized into locking myself up in the protective custody of my house.
Just as I was reminding myself of reasons to feel optimistic about the capture of the serial killer, the principal such reason, Kevin Dennehy, showed up at my back door. He looked tired, but issued his invariable greeting: “Hey, Holly, how ya doin’?”
“Fine, Kevin. I’ve been reading the papers, and there’s something I want to ask you. So, how do these experts know that serial murderers engage in compulsive masturbation?” Kevin’s face turned as violently red as his hair, but he made a grand recovery. “They get acne,” he
said, “and then they go blind. Give me a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you all about it. It’s wicked technical. The first thing we do is look for guys with zits. And then—”
Five minutes later, Kevin was seated at my kitchen table drinking the promised coffee and fooling around with Rowdy and Kimi. Although his professional life was devoted to enforcing the public law, he was chronically guilty of breaking my personal laws pertaining to behavior with my dogs. I knew of his crimes not only because I’d caught him perpetrating them a few times, but because Rowdy and Kimi unintentionally snitched on him by begging him for food and drink, and by knocking up against him and issuing play-growl invitations to engage in rough games. Never, ever would the dogs have deliberately betrayed Kevin. Being dogs, they were incapable of lying, but if they’d suspected that their truth-telling would get Kevin in trouble, they’d have done their best to prevaricate. They simply adored him.
“I knew Bonny Carr,” I told Kevin. “Not well. She gave workshops about treating traumatized dogs. I went to one a few years ago.”
“Is there a dog owner in the Commonwealth that you don’t know?”
“There are thousands. But I do know a lot of people who work with dogs. Or write about dogs. Or show. Train. Do agility. But Bonny Carr wasn’t really a dog trainer, and she didn’t show. I went to the workshop because I thought I might write about it.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
“For no good reason.”
“On the contrary. For an excellent reason.”
“I gotta drag this out of you?”
I drank some coffee. “No. It’s... I’m embarrassed. And kind of ashamed. Because I told you that I really didn’t like Victoria Trotter.”
“And you didn’t like Ms. Carr any better.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
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