Black Ribbon

by Susan Conant

  Let me remind you that Eric Grimaldi was a handsome man with an appropriately judicial air of authority. He started the class by assembling us in one of the rings and explaining what we’d try to accomplish. We’d begin, he said, with a review of a few basics: the correct collar position, the appropriate position of the dog, the stand. Then we’d break into groups. Eric would work first with the real beginners; meanwhile, the rest of us could observe or, if we liked, practice in the other ring.

  Rowdy sat at my left side with his eyes fixed on my face. When he’s with his breed handler, Faith, he knows not to sit, and he gaits for her without twisting his head to watch her face. I had to remind myself that in taking Rowdy to a single breed handling class, I wasn’t going to confuse him; plenty of dual-ring dogs had the same handler in breed and in obedience. In fact, I paid more attention to Rowdy than I did to Eric, who was delivering a little introductory lecture about the artificiality of the show pose. “The natural look isn’t what we’re after here,” he told us. When Eric switched to the topic of collar position, I followed his instructions, moving the collar to Rowdy’s jawline, tightening it there, and making sure that the dead ring was just below Rowdy’s right ear. Glancing around, I noticed that, for once, Craig was working with Lucky, stooping down and running unfamiliar fingers around the little dog’s neck. When it came time to pose the dogs, I mechanically followed along with everyone else. Rowdy, however, who’d evidently grasped the purpose of the class, got a glint in his eyes and not only stacked himself to advantage, but went to great lengths to wag his tail with eye-catching enthusiasm.

  “That’s a real showman you’ve got there,” Eric commented.

  I nodded. To Rowdy, I said, “Happy now?”

  Soon thereafter, Eric asked the experienced people to leave the ring. To what was probably Rowdy’s disappointment, I led him out. In other circumstances, I’d probably have gone to the second ring to practice almost anything. Instead, I stood outside Eric’s ring and listened to him address the beginners. “The first thing you have to ask yourselves is: What is your intention here? If you’re here to have fun, that’s fine. If you’re here to socialize your dog, that’s fine, too. If you’re here because you’re thinking about trying to finish your dog, I’ll give you my opinion. But if you ask for it, there are a couple of things you have to bear in mind. First of all, it’s just my opinion, you asked for it, and you do what you want with it—keep what you want, throw out the rest. And second of all, don’t ask if you don’t want to hear.”

  Stepping rapidly up to me, Joy asked, “What’s he talking about?”

  “Finish means finish a championship,” I said. “Some of the people might want to know whether their dogs might be worth showing, and he’s offering to give his opinion, but just if it’s helpful, just if people want to hear.”

  Joy burst in: “Well, I hope he doesn’t say anything awful about Lucky! Because that’s the last thing Craig … I understand, and I really love Lucky, and I don’t care, but … I don’t know why Craig insisted on coming to this. We really don’t belong here. We don’t belong at this camp at all. I wanted to go home this morning, but Craig said we’d paid our money, and we were going to stick it out.”

  “If Craig asks, Eric will be tactful,” I said.

  “Not like Eva.… Was that the most awful thing? Everything has been awful since practically the first second we got here, but last night was the worst.” Joy paused. “But do you believe what Lucky did?” When Ginny came striding up with Bingo, Joy’s pride evaporated. “Oh,” Joy said softly, “here comes that horrible dog. But at least today he’s wearing a muzzle.”

  “Rowdy, down!” I ordered. “Stay!” I bent over to give him the signal, my flat palm in front of his face. When I stood up, Ginny and Bingo had reached us.

  “That’s not a muzzle,” I informed Joy. “It’s a training halter.”

  And in combination with Ginny’s in-charge manner, it worked very well indeed. When Ginny told Bingo to sit, sit he did, and promptly.

  “Eva,” Ginny announced with glee, “was planning to open a dog camp! Next summer! That’s what she was doing here all along, the little sneak—trying to find out about what they were like. She’d been to two others this year.”

  “Yeah,” Joy said vaguely. “That’s why she was getting people’s addresses. She asked us not to mention it, because Maxine might not understand. And Eva said she wasn’t inviting everybody—just a few people she liked.”

  I ignored Joy. “Ginny, where did you hear that?”

  “Oh, it’s definite. I talked to her brother-in-law, just now.

  Max gave me the sister’s phone number. Eva’d listed her sister as her emergency contact, and I had to arrange things about Bingo, not that they had much choice, but I wanted it settled.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s going to cost me,” Ginny said, “but I was prepared for that all along. They’re not dog people—the sister and the brother-in-law—and no one else in the family is, either. They don’t want him. We settled for the purchase price. With me, you know, he’s been perfectly okay. The Halti’s just in case he forgets who’s who. And I’ve been thinking: I’ll get this blubber off him, give him some exercise, get him in shape, and … Well, we’ll see, but I think maybe I can finish him.”

  At my side, Rowdy stirred. “Stay!” I reminded him. To Ginny, I said, “So this business about Eva’s camp … That explains a lot. The sympathy cards, the gruesome stuff, the troublemaking.”

  “The police found a dozen more cards in Eva’s room,” Ginny informed me. “Clippings. Lots of stuff.”

  “So we were right all along. She must’ve arrived here ready to—”

  “To ruin Maxine’s camp,” Ginny said. “To kill the competition.”

  “I’VE JUST STARTED going through the magazines,” Leah reported. “I haven’t had time.”

  “Leah, you know, I don’t ask you for all that many favors, and—”

  “But I have the Passaic catalog,” she replied smugly. “That’s what I’ve been doing all this time. Or doesn’t that interest you?”

  “Of course it does! But where …?”

  “Faith Barlow.”

  As I’ve mentioned, when I show Rowdy in conformation, I use a professional handler: Faith Barlow. Faith shows a lot. She shows her own dogs and other people’s. She hits so many shows up and down the East Coast and is such an avid collector of show catalogs that as soon as Leah spoke her name, I felt stupid. Leah never tries to make me feel that way. Far from it. She achieves the effect by assuming that I’m as quick as she is. In her place, I’d have started by poking through dozens of recent issues of dog publications. Leah, however, had gone straight to the point, or to one of the points, anyway.She’d still have to look through the magazines, but in getting hold of the show catalog, she’d obtained a complete list of everyone officially connected with the show: the officers of the Passaic Kennel Club, the judges, the stewards, even the vendors and the official show veterinarian, as well as the name of every dog entered, and the names of the dog’s breeder, owner, and handler, too. Leah was about to start her freshman year at Harvard. I wished Harvard luck.

  “Oh, Faith Barlow, of course,” I remarked, as if the need to call Faith had gone without saying. “You went out there? How’d you get there?”

  “Borrowed Steve’s van. Does it ever smell like dogs!”

  “He’s a vet,” I said. “What do you expect it to smell like? Did you take Kimi?”

  Faith has malamutes. With the Alaskan Malamute National Specialty coming up in October, Kimi—in season or out—needed all the exposure to others of her breed that we could provide.

  “Yes,” Leah said. “I fed her chlorophyll and sprayed her with Lust Buster, but the males were interested anyway.”

  “And how’d she do?”

  “Okay.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I did what Anna Morelli said to do. I put Kimi on a down and—”

  “Y
eah, well, Anna Morelli’s one of the people we’re going up against, you know, and Tundra is so good with other animals—”

  As a reminder to myself that an exceptionally brilliant and intense malamute can, in fact, be trained to behave herself in the presence of other animals, I’d placed a framed photograph of Anna and Tundra on the windowsill directly in front of my computer, where I had to look at it every time I sat down to work. Also present in the picture was, of all things, a ferret, which lay spread out on Tundra’s neck, its head peering over the top of hers. In case you know anything about malamutes, I should add that, remarkably enough, the ferret was alive and that, rather than attempting to kill it, Tundra was making intelligent and peaceful eye contact with the camera. Anna was smiling joyfully. And for good reason.

  “Stop!” Leah demanded. “I know all about the ferret! I’ve seen the picture. And if you expect me to go out and get some ferret so that Kimi can learn … Holly, it’s a malamute specialty! There aren’t exactly going to be a lot of ferrets—”

  “It’s important to proof against all possible contingencies,” I said blandly.

  “So are you interested in this catalog, or would you rather nag me—”

  “Leah, I’m sorry. What have you found?” I rested a little notebook on a shelf under the pay phone and prepared to scribble.

  “Okay. Um, Mrs. Donald Abbott judged Novice A and Open B.”

  “You have the catalog there? Where are you in it? At the beginning?”

  “Yes. Where it lists the rings. You want me to read it to you?”

  “Yes. Just the relevant parts, not everything.”

  “Okay. ‘Ring eleven. Judge: Mrs. Donald Abbott. Stewards: Mary Ellen Fisher, John Greely, Trudy Parker.’ ”

  “Never heard of them. Go on.”

  “ ‘Nine A.M.’ I’ll just summarize this, okay? Twenty-four Novice A entries. Lunch at noon. Then twelve-thirty, Open B had fifteen entries, and the stewards were, uh, Eileen Alberts, Arm Hull, Joseph Weiss.”

  Again, unfamiliar. “Now look at the entries, okay? Toward the back—”

  “I know! Just a minute. Okay. Novice A—”

  “See if she had a dog called Benchenfield—”

  “Benchenfield Farmer’s Dog,” Leah said. “Yes. The breeder … This is one of the ones you gave me. The breeder is Virginia Garabedian. That’s Ginny, isn’t it? The one with the skinny braid all wrapped—”

  “Yes. Where’d you meet her?”

  “Hockamock.”

  “So, keep reading.”

  “Labrador retriever. And the owner is Eva J. Spitteler. You want me to look up the addresses?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Before we hang up. For now, just scan the rest of Novice A, and see if you see any of the other names.” I waited. Leah found none. She turned to the page of Open B entries. “This is one of them,” she said. “ ‘CH OTCH Windemere’s Nickum.’ ”

  Owned, of course, by Camilla White. I recognized a few other names of people who’d had dogs in Open B, but no one from camp. In case you don’t show your dogs … Well, in fact, if you don’t show your dogs, consider taking up the sport, huh? It’s a lot of fun. But, as I started to point out, if you don’t show, you may not realize that you don’t just turn up at the last minute. You mail or fax your entry weeks before the show, and definitely by the closing date, after which time the show-giving club prepares the catalog. Consequently, unless there’s been an error in the printing of the catalog, every dog actually shown is listed under the class in which he’s entered.

  When we’d finished reviewing Open B, Leah turned to the last pages of the catalog and consulted the index of exhibitors, looked for names, and gave me a few addresses. Maxine McGuire’s name appeared. Turning back in the catalog, Leah found that Max had had a mastiff in Open Bitches, which I might add, is a conformation class that has nothing to do with Open Obedience—or, for that matter, with bitchiness, either, except in the strictly technical sense. Ginny’s name appeared under the heading “Retrievers (Labrador) Open, Yellow Bitches” as the breeder, owner, and handler of Benchenfield Prodigy CD, JH—Junior Hunter—the only owner-handled entry in the class. I wondered how they’d done. The judge had been Horace Lathrop, who’s a friend of my father’s and a fair judge, or so Buck says, anyway. Eric Grimaldi had had a long day. He’d started his breed judging with pointers at eight-thirty A.M., taken a lunch break between spaniels, English springer and field, and ended with Weimaraners; and then at six o’clock, he’d judged the Sporting Group and Brace.

  I thanked Leah, asked her to keep looking through the catalog, and reminded her to check the dog magazines. She’d shown initiative in hunting up the catalog, and it had provided some information, but any show catalog is subject to what I guess you’d call false positives: dogs and people whose names were printed in the catalog, but who for one reason or another had never turned up. It happens all the time. Dogs go lame or blow coat. Exhibitors get the flu. Although the American Kennel Club is formally protesting the matter in the Highest Court of All, as of this date, even AKC judges are still subject to attacks of appendicitis and to the other sudden ills of ordinary mortals. And if a club is forced to use a substitute judge? If there’s time, the club mails a notice to everyone who’s entered, and the substitution is always posted at the show, but the original name still appears in the catalog, of course. Furthermore, although you can’t enter a dog after the closing date for a show, there’s nothing to prevent you from going there and wandering around with the hundreds or thousands of other spectators, none of whose names are recorded anywhere.

  When I emerged from the stuffy heat of the phone booth, it was time for drill team, the prospect of which really put me off. For one thing, the day had become oppressively hot and humid. Mostly, though, the idea of heeling dogs around in would-be precision lines and pinwheel formation to the brassy, jolly strains of a marching band only a few hundred yards from where Eva had died felt uncomfortably like dancing on her grave. Perhaps my objection seems senseless. I don’t really like the idea of tutued ballerinas pirouetting on the sod over my own remains, but I take comfort in advance from the vision of happy teams of handlers and dogs parading above while I’m down below—provided, of course, that the handlers insist on tight heeling and quick sits, and that the dogs invariably come when called. But remember! No forging, no lagging, no sloppy work at all, or the ground beneath your feet will rumble and shake, and you’ll know that Holly Winter will keep rolling over until that dog shapes up.

  But Rowdy and I went to drill team nonetheless. Janet, our instructor, conducted herself and the activity with admirable dignity. She omitted the music. What piece could we have used? The Dead March from Saul? With an air of brave determination to carry on, Phyllis Abbott took her position at the center of the line, moved briskly, and paid what must have been close attention to Janet’s cues. I had the feeling that Mrs. Abbott was concentrating on setting a good example. The AKC would even have approved of her apparel, knitted coordinates that would have looked dowdy on a young woman, tailored pants and a matching twin set in a muted, demure shade of spruce, clothing too warm for what had become a July-hot day. As attentive as his handler, Nigel kept his bright dark eyes on her face. His task couldn’t have been easy. Phyllis was a big, tall woman, so it was a long way up to her face from Pomeranian level, and the jut of her bosom must have blocked Nigel’s view. From Rowdy’s face to mine was no great distance, and my anatomy presented no natural obstacles to eye contact, but he remained as unfocused on me as I was on the pattern we were supposed to be following. Although we were practicing what we’d learned the day before, I kept forgetting the next move, turning in the wrong direction, and failing to keep tabs on the other handlers and dogs, thus throwing us as out of sync with everyone else as we were with each other. By the time drill team finally ended, I felt sorry I’d gone to it at all, not because we’d displayed any disrespect for Eva or for her memory—we hadn’t—but because I’d literally misled Rowdy, who had deserved all my a
ttention or none at all and had received a confusing mishmash of the two. To make amends, I stayed for flyball, which Rowdy had loved the day before and which, at his beginning level, required very little from me. Focused on the flyball box and on the tennis balls that sprang from it, Rowdy must have found the inanimate objects more responsive than I’d been during the previous hour. Except to cheer Rowdy on, I spoke little. Avoiding my friends, I exchanged a few aimless words with people I didn’t really know: the couple with the beautiful English setters, Ms. Baskerville, the owners of the handsome basenjis, the woman named Jennifer with the obedience Doberman, Delilah.

  Walking Rowdy back to our cabin, I had a sudden attack of homesickness. I missed Kimi so sharply that tears came to my eyes. With a leash in only one hand, a dog on only one side, I felt oddly unsafe. When we reached the cabin, I gave Rowdy a bowl of water. When he’d finished slurping it up, I presented him with a big dog biscuit. He didn’t have to sit, give his paw, drop, watch me, or do anything else to earn the reward; it felt important to me to give him a simple gift. Furthermore, although I’d laughed at the presence of an air conditioner in a cabin in God’s country, I turned the silly thing on and settled Rowdy under it. When he’d wrapped himself up in his classic heat-conserving sled dog position, tail curled to cover his nose and thus warm the frigid air, I sat at the desk and covered its surface with some of the material I’d used in drafting my article: copies of AKC rules, regulations, and guidelines; a couple of old issues of the Gazette; and pages of notes scribbled on yellow legal pad. Like everything else I write by hand, the notes were almost totally illegible, even to me. I was a prescient child, convinced that penmanship exercises were a waste of time. It’s clear to me now that I foresaw the invention of the personal computer. I wished now that my clairvoyance had had a practical bent: A psychic pragmatist would also have divined the means to afford a laptop. With complete foreknowledge that unless I printed carefully, I’d soon be unable to decipher what I wrote, I took brief, careful notes about possible grounds for AKC suspension, reprimands, and fines. From the Gazette and from memory, I made notes of particulars, most of which were irrelevant to my purpose. If anyone at Waggin’ Tail had committed any of the obvious AKC crimes, I’d certainly have heard by now. No one was guilty of any of the dramatic offenses for which people had been publicly shamed in the Secretary’s Pages of the Gazette: No one had kicked a judge, shouted obscenities at a steward, or thrown a grooming table at another exhibitor. In search of subtle or private transgression, I studied the AKC rules pertaining to shows, the guidelines for conformation and obedience judges, and, for perhaps the millionth time in my life, the obedience regulations. From the beginning, it was clear that the person most likely to have risked reprimand or suspension was Eva Spitteler herself. Hers was the dog most likely to have caused a problem at a show, and it was easy to imagine Eva using abusive language to a fellow exhibitor, starting an altercation with an official, or arguing about a judge’s decision. As I already knew, exhibitors were forbidden to threaten judges and to question their decisions. Judges were absolutely and repeatedly forbidden to solicit judging assignments. In all respects, the behavior of judges was supposed to be above reproach. Eric Grimaldi and Phyllis Abbott had judged at the Passaic show. Ginny, a tracking judge, had been an exhibitor.