by Susan Conant
Rita corrected him. “It isn’t kleptomania. He never shoplifts.”
“That we know of,” Zara said.
“A sterling-silver serving spoon,” Quinn said. “Tiffany Audubon.”
Rita was dismissive. “That was ours. Which reminds me, Quinn. We need to remove it from the list we gave to the police.”
I remembered seeing Uncle Oscar pocketing the pods for Rita and Quinn’s coffeemaker. “K-cups for your Keurig? But maybe there’s a coffeemaker in his room.”
“There isn’t,” Quinn said.
“We’re hardly going to begrudge Uncle Oscar a few cups of coffee,” Rita told him.
“An earring of my mother’s,” Quinn countered. “My Mont Blanc pen. Loose change. Bose headphones.”
“I wondered where those had gone,” Zara said. “And the loose change might be his.”
“Chanel sunglasses,” Quinn said.
“Oh,” said Zara, “that must’ve been when we were driving up here. I thought they’d fallen out of the car at a rest stop.”
Rita smiled at Quinn. “You see? He’s just a harmless magpie.”
“Magpies,” said Quinn, “are kleptomaniacs.”
“There’s no need to pathologize a little quirk,” Rita said.
To interrupt the diagnostic dispute, I asked, “How did he get caught?”
“The cleaning service was changing his sheets,” Rita said. “He’d put his little treasures under the mattress. The cleaners told us.”
“They didn’t want to be accused of stealing,” Quinn said pointedly.
“And how,” I asked, “did Uncle Oscar react?”
Rita was horrified. “He’d be so ashamed!”
“Mortified,” Zara agreed. “We always just reclaim our belongings.”
“And return other people’s,” Rita finished. I had the dizzying sense of being whirled around in the vortex of a family madness. “But we’re very upset about the Provigil,” Rita continued. “That could’ve been serious.”
Quinn seconded her. “Fatal.”
“We need you to make sure that he couldn’t possibly have access to any other prescription drugs. All of you.” She fixed her gaze on Zara.
I’d been about to say that Steve and I didn’t have any prescription drugs in the house, but to avoid embarrassing Zara, I said nothing.
“We’re warning everyone,” Quinn said tactfully.
“We’ll be careful,” Zara said. “And we’ll tell John.”
Having warned us to keep prescription drugs away from Uncle Oscar, Rita and Quinn were about to leave when the back doorbell rang. Steve got the door and ushered in Vicky, Monty, and MaryJo.
As if she’d read my mind, Vicky said, “We won’t stay! We’re going to the Gardner Museum. John’s driving.” With undisguised pride, she added, “We texted each other a few minutes ago. He won’t need any breakfast. We’re going to have lunch at the Gardner. Brunch. Texted. Do I have that right, Zara?”
Vicky wore what I suspected was a genuine Burberry trench coat. Monty was sensibly garbed in a black raincoat. Half his size, MaryJo wore turquoise plastic and clutched her big black patent-leather purse to her middle as if she suspected that one of us might snatch it.
Zara ignored her mother, who said, “Does anyone want to come with us? Monty and MaryJo didn’t know what the Gardner was. Can you imagine? Holly, maybe you don’t know, either.”
Condescending bitch. I didn’t say so, and Izzy didn’t say so, either, at least not in English, but she rose from the floor and stationed herself at Zara’s left side, her eyes on Zara’s face.
Before I could think of a polite way to say that I’d been to the Gardner Museum many times, John appeared from upstairs. “Good morning, Holly, Steve, Zara. Sorry I kept you waiting, Aunt Vicky, MaryJo, Monty.”
I wondered whether the pharmaceutical company trained its representatives to utter people’s names as often as possible. Clean-shaven, freshly showered, John was dressed with the kind of casual elegance you see in ads for high-end menswear. His slickness obviously didn’t grate on Izzy’s nerves the way it did on mine. At the sound of his voice, she left her post at Zara’s side, woofed, and, wiggling all over, did her best to run to John, who was making his way past the table toward Vicky, MaryJo, and Monty.
By then, there were nine people and five dogs in the kitchen. The combined body heat and the moisture emanating from those who’d been out in the rain made the air feel tropical. Although India and Lady were, as always, clean, they nonetheless gave off the distinct odor of wet dog, a scent that Vicky’s strong perfume, John’s cologne, and Monty’s usual minty scent failed to mask. The lingering smells of breakfast and coffee added to the miasma. I felt queasy and suffocated. All color had drained from Rita’s face. My own discomfort and my sympathy for Rita may explain my inaction.
Also, Vicky, Monty, MaryJo, and John were about to leave, to be followed promptly, I assumed, by Rita and Quinn. Vicky was buttoning the top button of her trench coat, and MaryJo had balanced her big purse on the edge of the table to leave her hands free to pull up her hood.
For whatever reason, I did nothing to stop Izzy’s effort to dash to John, who had reached the back door and had his hand on the doorknob, nor was I quick enough to prevent Rowdy from barreling after her. More alert than I was, Steve was shepherding India and Lady out of the crowded kitchen when in her determination to reach John, Izzy slammed into a corner of the table and knocked MaryJo’s big black patent-leather purse off balance and onto the tile floor.
Pandemonium! First the gunshot, and then screaming, shrieking, bellowing and barking. And the source of that gunshot? Who the hell expects a harmless little bird of a woman like MaryJo Youngman to go around with an ancient single-action revolver in her purse? And a loaded single-action revolver at that? Fully loaded: all six chambers. Not me! And I grew up in Maine, where a lot of people are armed—with hunting rifles, shotguns, and modern handguns that don’t discharge when they’re dropped, which is to say, almost all handguns.
But I’ve leapt ahead of myself. When the purse hit the floor, MaryJo and Monty must’ve immediately realized that her ridiculous, outmoded, dangerous Wyatt Earp-style revolver had gone off, but the rest of us were more focused on the effect than on the cause, the principal effect being a bleeding wound in Vicky’s right calf. At first, I didn’t even realize that Vicky had been shot. She was screaming, but so were Rita and Zara. Quinn was swearing, and Monty was shouting at MaryJo, who was crying. Izzy was jumping around and barking. And from his crate, Sammy was adding to the noise by imitating Izzy’s woofs and emitting his own yips and yowls.
The gunshot must have registered on me as just that, a gunshot, but all I can remember from those first few seconds is the sound of the shot reverberating in my ears; and a frantic need to get my hands on Rowdy, who was in the middle of the commotion, and to assure myself that Sammy, Steve, India, and Lady were safe. Steve, who is blessed with a calm temperament and is used to emergencies, finished the task of removing India and Lady from the kitchen.
A glance at Sammy showed me that he was unhurt: he’d risen to his feet and was pawing at the door of his wire crate. In my terror that Rowdy had been injured, I momentarily forgot the million hours that he and I had spent working on a reliable recall, but when I discovered that Rita and Quinn were unintentionally blocking my route to Rowdy, I finally sang out, “Rowdy, come!” And guess what? The handsome boy took a shortcut under the table and even had the presence of mind to sit directly in front of me. The dog is sang-froid personified. Caninified? Dogified? He is too cool for words, even too cool for invented words.
When Steve returned, he quietly took charge. First, perhaps unnecessarily, he warned everyone to stay away from MaryJo’s purse. Then, he said, “Zara, it’d be a good idea for you to take Izzy upstairs and spend some time with her. Low-key time. John, maybe you could go with them. Holly, you need to crate Rowdy in the dog room, and then take Sammy there.” The dog room is a former guestroom that’s right
near the kitchen. It has big crates for all our dogs and also provides storage for dog supplies. “Rita, MaryJo, Monty, let’s clear some space here. You could go to the living room, and Quinn and I’ll see what we can do for Vicky.”
By the time I’d crated Rowdy in the dog room and had returned to the kitchen for Sammy, no one was there except Steve, Quinn, and Vicky, who was moaning. She’d taken a seat, and Steve had our big first-aid kit open on the table. Quinn was kneeling in front of her.
“It’s just a graze,” Quinn said.
Vicky slammed a fist on the table. “I want a doctor!”
“I am a doctor,” he reminded her.
Resilient creature that he is, Sammy wooed at me when I opened his crate and snapped a leash onto his collar, and as I led him to the dog room, he bounced merrily along. After I’d crated him there, I got a big handful of liver treats, doled them out to everyone, and took a careful look at India and Lady. I don’t want to malign Sammy and Rowdy by suggesting that they’re insensitive—they aren’t—but they’re malamutes, and malamutes are tough. Although the German shepherd also has a reputation for toughness, I think that it’s a reputation based more on Hollywood than on reality.
In any case, India notices everything and takes everything seriously. When worry is warranted, India worries. Our timid little pointer, Lady, scares easily. Fortunately, though, she draws strength from India, to whom she looks for direction. I took a moment to speak reassuringly to India and Lady, and I gave Lady a few extra treats, too. A highly stressed dog will usually refuse food, all food, even liver. When Lady accepted her treats, I felt relieved.
As I passed through the kitchen on my way to the living room, Steve said, “An antique revolver.” He shook his head.
“No longer loaded, I hope,” I said.
He nodded.
In the living room, I found Rita sitting rigidly upright in the middle of the couch, with Monty and MaryJo seated facing each in the chairs at either end of the couch—and not just facing each other, but facing off.
“What did you think you were doing?” Monty demanded. “You could’ve killed someone.”
MaryJo was tearful but defiant. “I’ve heard terrible things about big cities. I’ve never been in one before.”
“The most dangerous person in this city was you,” her husband informed her. “That revolver is an antique.”
“I know it’s an antique! It’s a valuable antique. I saw one just like it on Antiques Roadshow. It belonged to my great-grandfather, didn’t it? And it’s the only one I own. The others are all yours.”
At an evident loss for words, Monty uttered only one: “Loaded.”
“Well, what good would it do otherwise?”
In tones of cold reason, he asked, “For this whole trip, MaryJo? You’ve been carrying it around in your pocketbook this whole trip?”
“Just when I was going to be on city streets. Most of the time it was in my suitcase.”
“Loaded.”
“No. Monty, I do know how to load and unload it, you know.”
“MaryJo, everyone knows that you know how to load it. We’ve seen the results of that.”
In a pitiful little voice, MaryJo directed a question to Rita and me as well as to Monty. “Are they going to arrest me?”
“If the police were going to show up,” I said, “they’d be here by now. Your purse muffled the sound, I think. Anyway, a sound like that could’ve been a car backfiring. And our neighbors on both sides of us are on vacation.”
Rita finally spoke. “How is Aunt Vicky?”
“Quinn says it’s just a graze,” I reported.
“Good. Then I would like to go home and go to bed and fall asleep and wake up and find that this entire morning was nothing but a nightmare.” She rose to her feet. “Holly, I can’t even begin to apologize. I don’t even know where to start.”
Monty took his cue from Rita. “Our apologies.” To my surprise, after standing up, he lumbered over to me, engulfed my hands in his, squeezed, and said, “God bless you and Steve. We’ll pray for you. Won’t we, MaryJo?”
She nodded.
I didn’t care whether or not she prayed for us. I just wanted her to leave. In fact, I wanted everyone to go away, everyone except Steve and the dogs. I wanted to go away myself. The thought even crossed my mind of hustling Rowdy and Sammy into my car, driving to Maine, and staying there until the wedding was over and all of Rita’s and Quinn’s relatives except Zara and Uncle Oscar had gone home. Steve, however, would’ve refused to go with me, and I simply couldn’t abandon Rita.
chapter eighteen
The best cure for a reeling head is a long walk with a strong dog. Fresh air, aerobic exercise, great company, and love! Steve said that one walk in the rain had been enough for him and that he wanted to repair the damage that MaryJo’s bullet had done to one of our kitchen cabinets.
“A purification rite,” I said.
As if to confirm Rita’s frequent statement that Steve is not psychologically minded, he said, “No. I just want to fix the cabinet.” Given a choice between a husband who psychologizes about purification and a husband who fixes cabinets, I’d pick Steve any day.
Although I’d have liked Rowdy’s company, he is convinced that rain is the liquid form of mustard gas, a chemical-warfare agent hurled downward by ancient Arctic gods who are targeting Alaskan malamutes. Consequently, he takes pains never to expose himself to it. Nothing much bothers Sammy, who was happy to see his red dog pack, in which I stowed bottles of water, a folding water bowl, clean-up bags, and—in case we encountered loose aggressive dogs—an aerosol boat horn and a can of citronella spray.
Because the mustard gas, uh, pardon me, rain was still pelting down, I wore rain pants as well as a hooded rain jacket, and I put on hiking boots instead of running shoes. I’d decided that instead of taking one of our familiar home-based routes through Cambridge, Sammy and I would pick up the river walk in Watertown and hike upriver along the Charles. The industrial, light-industrial, and formerly industrial area bore no resemblance to the Maine coast, where I longed to go, but the river trail was less obviously urban than were the streets of Cambridge and would support the illusion that I was getting away.
If I were a better person than I am, I’d have invited Zara and Izzy to accompany us, but as it turned out, fate forced me to issue the invitation: just as I was crating Sammy in my car, Zara and Izzy came down the steps to the driveway, and I had to ask Zara whether they wanted to come along, as they did. Because they’d been setting out for a walk anyway, Zara was dressed in a yellow rain slicker and matching rain boots, and Izzy wore her service-dog vest. In no time, we’d crated Izzy next to Sammy, whom Zara mistook for Rowdy.
Although I liked Zara, I felt a little irritated, not because Zara confused Rowdy and Sammy, but because I’d wanted to be alone with Sammy, and I was aching to burn off tension by moving at his exhausting pace. Even though Zara was a young, fit dog walker with a young, fit dog, I was convinced that Sammy and I would have to slow down to avoid outdistancing them. As if to prove me right, the first thing Zara did when she got into my car was to pull out her phone, question me about our destination, and then tell all of her social-network friends what we were up to. I envisioned a hike interrupted every two minutes by Zara’s need to record and broadcast our progress.
Still, as we left my neighborhood and headed toward Watertown, Zara put away the phone, and I felt reconciled to human company. Neither Izzy nor Zara, I was happy to hear, had been traumatized by the gunshot or the ensuing chaos. Steve, Zara told me, had gone upstairs to check on her and had filled her in on what had happened.
“Izzy takes things in stride,” Zara said. “That’s one reason she’s such a great service dog.”
A perfect service dog would have stayed next to Zara instead of zooming across the crowded kitchen to get to John and thus accidentally precipitating the fiasco, but I didn’t say so. In most ways, Izzy was a terrific service dog. Besides, if MaryJo’s handbag had conta
ined nothing more than the usual collection of cash, credit cards, cosmetics, and assorted junk, the consequences of Izzy’s deviation from service-dog perfection would have been negligible.
“Are your dogs all right?” Zara asked.
“They’re fine. Their ears are probably ringing, but the dogs didn’t understand the significance of what happened. And what could have happened.”
“Lucky dogs! Who would’ve thought that MaryJo was Pistol-Packin’ Mama?”
I laughed. “Not her husband, for one. Monty is furious at her.”
“What on earth was she thinking?”
“That big cities are dangerous.”
Having spent a record five minutes or so without using an electronic device, Zara again extracted her phone from one of the capacious pockets of her slicker and busied herself with it. “We’re right near a place called Eastern Something Bakers. It has great reviews.”
“Eastern Lamejun,” I said. “Yes, it’s great. Lamejuns are Armenian pizzas, more or less.”
Far be it from Zara to ignore an online recommendation; we just had to take a little detour. In spite of the rain, the day was fairly hot, so to avoid leaving Sammy in the car, I waited while Zara got Izzy out and ran into the store.
Returning with a large bag, Zara put Izzy back in the car, got into the passenger seat, and said, “I didn’t get anything perishable except some feta for our lunch. The lamejuns are frozen, so they should be okay, and I got pita bread and olives.”
“Well done.” I had no doubt that she’d checked into Foursquare, too, and had updated her Facebook status by reporting on her whereabouts and her purchases. I wondered whether she’d already described the events of the morning but decided to find out later when I took at look at Facebook myself.
“Before Izzy, I might’ve had a hard time doing that,” Zara said. “Simple thing, huh? Check out an ethnic bakery. Buy a few things. Nothing to it. Now there’s nothing to it. Izzy, you are the best!”
Miraculously, we made it to the parking lot just beyond Watertown Square without having a cyber-power command us to stop at any five-star destination. Although Zara must have been as aware as I was that Frank Sorensen’s body had been pulled from the river somewhere nearby, neither of us mentioned the significance of our location. Because that parking area served an outdoor pool as well as the riverside trail, it was usually full in the summer, but the rain had kept swimmers and trail-users home, and I had no trouble finding a space. When we got the dogs out, I delayed us by fastening Sammy’s red pack and going through the tedious business of shifting gear back and forth between the saddlebags to balance the pack. Zara took pictures of Sammy, Izzy, and me and instantly posted them who knows where, possibly everywhere, online.
