Dead and Doggone

by Dead

  “He tells me he’s working on a strain that will make the perfect hunting dog.”

  It’s nothing more than a harmless effort to combine his hobbies, really, and you should hear the

  enthusiasm in his voice when he talks about replicating man’s earliest interdependent relationship

  with canines, but I just smiled and passed it off. “A golden retriever is the perfect hunting dog,” I

  said.

  “He mentioned golden retrievers, as a matter of fact. He told me your mother lives with hers.”

  “In a matter of speaking,” I said. Oh, hell. The Victorians devoted a lot of time to the question of whether dogs and people go to the same heaven. After Marissa died, my father went through a bad

  spell. Then he resolved the question. Once he decided that my mother wasn’t lonely, he perked up

  and got his first wolf dog. Lots of people believe that dogs go to heaven. Lord Byron even wrote a

  poem about it. It just sounds eccentric.

  “When did your parents separate?”

  “Almost nine years ago.”

  “He took it hard?”

  “Yes. They’d been very devoted.” To dogs, of course.

  “He hunts?”

  “Yes. He lives in Maine. He fishes, too.”

  “He collects guns. And hunting knives.”

  “He also collects fishing rods and reels. He ties fishing flies.”

  De Franco looked straight at me. “He invited me for a meal of sea urchins.”

  “Eggs,” I said. “You eat the eggs, not the whole thing. They’re considered to be a delicacy. They’re

  popular in Japan.”

  De Franco didn’t look reassured. “He’s described his, uh, meeting with Celia Quiley.” Celia, so

  that was it. De Franco wasn’t ho-hoing or tap-tapping anymore.

  “I was there,” I said, “for some of it.”

  “He’s staying with you?”

  I said he was. I never promised to keep him there.

  Jolly old De Franco asked me a lot of other questions, too. He asked about Sissy. Did I know her?

  How well? What time was it when I found her? It seemed to me he knew the answers already. Or

  else he wasn’t very interested in them. He was interested in Buck.

  -7-

  The only further competition at the Bayside Exposition Center that day was the contest to see

  who regretted Sissy's murder most: the exhibitors whose wins wouldn't count, the exhibitors who'd

  never even entered the ring, or the American Kennel Club and Masconomet Dog Club officials

  who'd have to handle the complaints and straighten out the paperwork for the aborted show.

  We obedience handlers comported ourselves well. We're used to accepting the inevitable. A bitch

  comes in season the morning of a show, and there's not a damn thing you can do. You could show

  her in breed, but not obedience. Or two seconds before the end of the long down, when you know

  that for once you're no more than three or four points away from the legendary two hundred, a

  perfect score, a static-crackling loudspeaker blasts out a reminder that there's no smoking allowed

  except in designated areas, and your dog leaps in the air as if he's been caught lighting up.

  "I know, I know," Faith said. "It's only a dog show. There'll be others. But what a pain in the

  neck."

  "Shh! The husband is right over there," I said. "He looks pretty upset."

  He was emerging from the corridor to the lunch rooms with his son by his side and another man

  just in back of them — a cop, I guessed. I'd never seen the guy without Sissy before, and without

  her, he didn't look so weird, just limp and defeated.

  "He ought to look relieved. I'm sure she was a big embarrassment to him," Faith said. "You know, she used to say terrible things about me."

  I didn't think much about it. People who show in breed are always saying terrible things about

  each other. And complaining that people are telling lies about them.

  "Yeah," I said. "You told me."

  "And Libby! You wouldn't believe the things she said about Libby."

  "I gathered there was a little competition there."

  "What there was, was unbelievable jealousy. I mean, how could Sissy really expect to compete?

  When her husband runs a drugstore, and meanwhile Libby's got a blank check from Mimi Nichols?

  Look at any of the magazines or newsletters, and you'll see the ads. Thank you, judge so and so. And

  you can say whatever you want, but the judges do read those, you know. It doesn't hurt."

  An ad like that is a full-page spread in one of the breed quarterlies or a magazine that goes to

  American Kennel Club judges. At the top of the page is a picture taken at a show with the handler,

  the dog, and the judge, who's smiling and holding the ribbons. Underneath, there's the dog's name

  in giant boldface print, then maybe a pedigree, then something like "Happydog's Busy Lizzie goes

  BOS, BOW, 5-point major from Open class. Thanks, Mr. John C. Judge!" When Mimi Nichols hired

  Libby Knowles to handle the pointers, she'd gotten herself a professional who knew all the tricks

  and who understood, as Faith said, that the ads don't hurt." What they do is cost.

  "And, of course," Faith continued, "Libby can go wherever she wants, and Sissy had to schlep

  around in a beat-up station wagon and, you know, look for a cheap motel or whatever and hope the

  car wouldn't break down on the way home. The thing about handling for Mimi Nichols, I guess, is

  there's no limit. And, furthermore, if you ask me, she has no idea about what handlers normally do

  and don't do, and Libby has no intention of telling her. If you ask me, she's practically turned it into

  a full-time job. With a lot of perks. And no limit on anything. Can you imagine? I mean, she literally

  can pay anything."

  "That would be hard to take," I said. "For anyone, not just Sissy. It must've seemed so unfair."

  "Life isn't fair."

  "Yeah," I said. "What I can't see, though, is how this could have happened here."

  "No one saw, I think."

  "But, look, Faith, there were thousands of people around. How many people were here? How

  many dogs were registered — nineteen hundred something? I don't know how" many people that

  makes, but if you count all the owners, handlers, spectators? Plus the officials and the people who

  run the concession stands? How could nobody see?"

  "She was probably sneaking a cigarette," Faith said. "She did that all the time. She'd scrunch

  down between the crates. She was always blowing smoke into the dogs' faces. Besides, this is a dog

  show. Nobody looks at people."

  "No refund?" The shouting woman wore a red-flowered dress stretched tightly across a jutting

  bosom against which she pressed a bewildered-looking Lhasa Apso. "What the hell do you mean, no

  refund?"

  Her target, an elderly man in a gray suit with an official's badge pinned to the lapel, calmly read

  to her from the show catalog. From the tone of his voice, it was obvious that he'd read the same

  passage aloud to other disgruntled exhibitors, too. " 'If because of riots, civil disturbances, or acts

  beyond the control of the management it is impossible to open or to complete the show, no refunds

  of entry fee will be made.' I'm sorry," he said.

  "Twenty dollars for this one and twenty for the bitch!" the woman yelled at him.

  "I'm very sorry," he said. "Every show has the same policy."

  "Forty dollars! That's not fair."

  "Life isn't fair," I told the woman, "It's all a dog show. It's all unfair."

  She looked startled
.

  "Come on, Rowdy," I said. "Let's get out of here."

  We did, but not as quickly as I would have liked. Buck, who seldom asks for human help, but

  occasionally drafts me into service on the grounds that I'm still one of his pups, was taking down

  his display and packing it up.

  "Are you sure this is all right? Aren't you supposed to leave everything the way it is?" I asked.

  "They gave up on that and took a lot of pictures," he said. "Realized if they kept all the crates

  here, it'd mean keeping half the dogs, too."

  A lot of people showing more than one dog would have been stuck. Some people would have been

  able to pile all the dogs into the van or RV or station wagon, but not everyone. Most show dogs are

  used to riding in crates, and, turned loose, some would have turned on each other.

  "Yeah," I said. "I guess. And I suppose people couldn't really leave their stuff, either. I mean, they couldn't be expected to drive back here to pick it up. It would be a nightmare."

  If you've never been to a big dog show, you won't believe I how much paraphernalia people haul

  in besides dogs and I crates. Someone who'd driven three dogs from New York or New Jersey

  couldn't drive home with three loose dogs, then show up a week later to retrieve the crates,

  grooming table, folding chairs, hair dryer, tack box, and cooler, which is some people's idea of the

  minimum equipment.

  "It's a nightmare now," Buck said. "It's terrible. Most peaceful place on God's green earth, a dog

  show. A little healthy competition, a little petty bickering, you've got to expect that, but not this.

  Poor silly woman. An ignoramus, of course. You know what she called Clyde?" His big face wrinkled

  into lines of delight. "Bloodthirsty!"

  Clyde had been pacing back and forth at the end of his leash looking uneasy, but at the sound of

  his name, not the adjective, I assume, he pricked up his ears and stared at my father. A wolf dog

  looks something like a stretched-out malamute except when you put the two side by side. If you

  compare them feature by feature, the differences are clear. Rowdy's paws were big, but not

  compared with Clyde's, and when their mouths were open, you could see that millennia of

  domestication have miniaturized a wolf’s jaws and teeth. Size and anatomy are the last points you'd

  notice, though. Rowdy's fat, fluffy tail was wagging over his back, his red tongue was sticking out

  from the big grin on his face, and his warm, happy eyes told you he wasn't scanning for any- thing

  more than a friendly pat. Tail down, eyes checking, Clyde looked, as always, serious and watchful.

  At heart, I thought, Rowdy was a rambunctious clown who took on dignity when circumstances

  forced it on him, but Clyde's dignity came from the inside and never left him.

  Although I suspect that both of them sensed the change in the human atmosphere — the shift

  from normal show-day anxiety to raw fear — Rowdy's attitude was the same one he expressed

  whenever a dog fight broke out in his vicinity: delight at the excitement, a determination to force

  his way into the middle of it, and an unwavering conviction that, whatever happened, he'd end up

  on top. Rowdy's only fear was that he'd miss out on the fun. If malamutes could speak English,

  what they'd say is "Me, too! Me, too!" Clyde, however, was showing any sensible wolfs attitude

  toward trouble. He didn't like it, and he wanted to get away from it. "Clyde looks nervous," I said to

  Buck. "Take him home. I'll finish up here."

  "He's all right," Buck said. "There's a box of doughnuts around here somewhere. Give him one."

  Begging for doughnuts may not seem like dignified behavior, but when Clyde did it, it was. At the

  sight of the sugary junk in my hand, he rose upright to his full height, perked his ears way up, and

  tucked in his forepaws to create the effect of a gigantic, eager rabbit, a wolf as cute as a bunny. And

  he didn't snatch the doughnut and wolf it down, either. I tossed Rowdy the dog biscuit I'd brought

  along as his reward for a qualifying performance, then held the doughnut out to Clyde. As politely

  as any cocktail party guest helping himself to a crab meat canapé, Clyde opened those wolf jaws and

  gently removed the doughnut from my outstretched hand and tossed it down.

  "Doughnuts are awful for him, you know," I said to Buck. "You really shouldn't give them to him.

  But how could you not?"

  -8-

  My father doesn't try to run my life. He only wants to offer the guidance and protection he thinks

  I need. When puppies grow up, you see, they never become independent — they're not supposed to-

  and Buck still thinks of me as a golden retriever with unprecedented longevity. If I explain that to

  Rita, she narrows her eyes and, for a change, doesn't say anything. Maybe it's a good thing she was

  away. I arrived home to find Buck doing a little more than guiding things.

  Rita was away, but my new tenant, David Shane, whom Buck had not only met but invited to

  dinner, was sitting at the kitchen table. I was glad to see that Buck evidently approved of him. Kevin Dennehy didn't. He'd taken one jealous look at Shane and started referring to him as the Robert

  Redford of Concord Avenue.

  Buck was standing at the stove pontificating about Irish setters and fishing rods. He was also

  burning onions. Why is it that every man who's ever cooked in my kitchen bums onions?

  Fortunately, my cream and terra-cotta color scheme hides the results much better than the

  fashionable white most Cambridge types prefer. I think there's a local ordinance in Cambridge

  against nonwhite kitchens, but so far I've escaped the notice of the authorities.

  Buck was making venison stew and feeding meat scraps to Windy. The prospect, never mind the

  sight and odor, of his dog snacking on a dead deer makes the average Harvard assistant professor

  violently in, but Shane looked not only gorgeous but unnauseated. I wondered whether he knew

  what Windy was eating, but the venison was so ripe, the way people like it in Maine, that he could

  hardly have mistaken it for anything else except equally ripe moose or bear.

  "It's been at least two years since I've had venison like this," he said with enthusiasm.

  "Oh," I said. "You hunt?"

  "A little."

  "Is Windy your bird dog? I didn't know that."

  "Her? No, she's not trained. I've only had her a couple of months. I'm more of a fisherman,

  anyway."

  "Fishes the Miramichi," Buck said with approval. "The Machias. The Dennys."

  Salmon rivers all. Fishing those rivers is more or less the fisherman's equivalent of the stark-

  white kitchen — a sign of membership in the elite. Fishing for bass is strictly proletarian. It's

  socially respectable to fish for trout, especially if you're fooling around with your kids or if the

  salmon aren't running, but in elevated Maine angling circles, you don't even say "fish" unless you

  mean the Atlantic salmon. What's exclusive about fishing for salmon is that it excludes you from

  catching fish, or that's my experience. But then again, I'm not much of a fisherman. Furthermore,

  those jokes about fish stories are no joke to someone who's wasted about a million hours of her life being bored to stupefaction with endless talk about rivers, rods, reels, and dry flies.

  "I've had a rough day," I said. "My father must have told you."

  Shane had a way of smiling a little while he nodded his head, as if he were saying yes to some

  totally different, totally intimat
e question that he understood the way nobody had ever understood

  that intimate question before.

  It wasn't easy to think straight looking at that smile, but I managed to keep cool. "Could I ask you

  to put Windy upstairs for a while so I can bring Rowdy in and give him his dinner? I can't feed him

  with another dog around. Where's Clyde?"

  Clyde was in the yard. After Shane put Windy in his own apartment and I gave Rowdy his

  Eukanuba — premium quality, guaranteed thirty percent protein — I excused myself from a deep

  discussion about Kosmic reels that I expected still to be going on after my shower.

  When I finished drying my hair, the kitchen was empty, but I could hear my father's rumbling

  voice in the hall and Shane's prep school, Ivy League voice answering him. Shane sounded naturally

  upper crust, not affected, and, in fact, attractive. I hoped Buck wouldn't tell him about any of his

  recent conversations with my mother. Or her dogs.

  I needn't have worried. And everything Buck said about law and order sounded reasonable

  coming from someone who'd been through what everyone at the dog show had been through that

  day. Furthermore, although the venison stew would have been better if Buck hadn't burned the

  onions and the venison hadn't been quite so ripe, it wasn't bad. All in all, the dinner was a big

  success except that Shane and Buck talked too much about fish and fishing, and for once, it wasn't

  entirely Buck's fault. Although I gathered that Shane was some kind of biochemist, not an

  ichthyologist, he had more to say about salmon than anyone except my father would have wanted to

  hear. It turned out that one of his colleagues was Matt Gerson, a guy I knew from dog training and

  Buck knew because Matt's an expert on wolves — an expert with academic credentials, unlike my

  father. The whole evening was such a success that I was surprised at the first thing Buck said after

  Shane left.

  "Your insurance doesn't cover tenants' property, does it?"

  "Of course not."

  "Good. Make sure you're not responsible."

  "Why?"

  "Haven't you been up there?"

  "Yeah. He's got nice furniture," I said. My father's having noticed seemed out of character. I'd

  have guessed that he couldn't distinguish between a leather couch and an orange crate.