Dead and Doggone

by Dead

  would they have got it? One day when Ed Nichols is strolling down the street with the bowl in his

  pocket, Sissy sidles up to him, slips a hand in his pocket, and walks off with the bowl? Right? Come

  on. Or Mimi takes it to a dog show, and Sissy lifts it?"

  "Why not?"

  "Because, for one thing, there's no room to display stuff at shows anymore, and, for another, she's

  showing Sunshine, not Regis, and for another, it’s a field trial trophy, and it's just not Mimi. It

  wasn't even hers. The dog was her husband's. He's dead, but he was the one who hunted. That's

  how she got into pointers. Regis was her husband's hunting dog. He isn't a show dog. You know

  where I think the bowl was? In her house. It was at Mimi's."

  "And?"

  "And Ron Coughlin was there once fixing a pipe, and guess who was painting the room where

  Mimi keeps her husband's collection of fishing rods? Pete Quigley. Doesn't it make sense that the

  dog stuff would be in the same room? Sissy wouldn't have been there, but we know Pete was."

  "We do, do we?"

  "Yes. And Ron said Pete was always annoyed about people checking up on him while he worked.

  Ron didn't mind it himself. He didn't feel as if they mistrusted him, and they didn't peer at him all

  the time. They just went in and out. So then we thought maybe Pete didn't like it because of Sissy,

  because she stole things, so he was just sensitive about it. But we were wrong."

  "Wait a minute. Let me hear that again so I can get it on tape."

  "Stop that, Kevin. This makes sense. Sissy used to train with us sometimes at the Cambridge Dog

  Training Club, and we've never had any complaints about leashes or anything being stolen. Austin

  was with her there. Pete never was. The people who said she stole things were the people who knew

  her from shows, and Pete went to shows with her. And, look, why would Sissy ever have stolen

  those things? What would she have wanted with more leashes and combs?"

  "What would Pete want with them?"

  "Take a look at the wall in there. Ribbons, pictures, the whole display. It's all about dogs. How

  could he help resenting the dogs? There's not one thing about Pete, not a snapshot, not his high

  school diploma, not his graduation picture, not a thing."

  “Like she cared more about the dogs than she did about him."

  "Exactly. She treated him worse than any dog, especially her own. So his mother loved the dogs,

  and he stole things that represented the dogs and how much she loved them. Remember, this

  wasn't a normal family. The dogs were Sissy's children, and the way Austin talked about Pete was

  nasty. But there Pete still was, living at home."

  "I live at home," Kevin said.

  "Your mother doesn't call you 'Baby.' "

  "She'd better not."

  "Sissy did. That's what she called Pete, to his face. I heard her. Maybe she did it one time too many."

  "I don't know about some of this," Kevin said, "but one thing maybe I buy is that Pete's the

  kleptomaniac here. You think she could've been covering for him? If she knew."

  "You know what makes me wonder? That bowl isn't dusty. It's the only thing in the room that

  isn't. I bet once she was dead, once he'd killed her, he put it out. I'll bet Mommy wouldn't let him.

  She wanted to protect him, and herself, too, of course. But you know what I don't get? The shears.

  Libby swears that Sissy stole those from her, which means that Pete did. So why did Sissy keep

  them in her tack box? She'd have it open at a show. Anybody could've seen the shears. If she was

  protecting him, why did she do that? And why did she have them there at all, for that matter? She

  had pointers. She'd never have had any use for those shears."

  "According to Mickey, Mr. Quigley explained it. One day, his wife's looking through some book of

  dog stuff, getting ready to order something, and she says, 'Hey, look at this. Two hundred and

  something dollars for a pair of scissors.' And Pete's there, and he thinks he's found a great

  Christmas present for her, so that's what he gets. And once he's thrown away all that dough, she has

  to carry them around and pretend they're just what she wanted."

  "They were different," I said. "The other things I heard about were small. That was the only

  expensive thing. I guess she honestly thought he'd bought them, as a present for her. So she carried

  them around even though she didn't have any use for them. Until Pete found one."

  "From what I heard from Mickey, this one looks like the same kind of wound," Kevin said. "We

  won't know for a while, but, off the top of my head, I'd say so. One blow. Real clean."

  "Not quite like Lizzie Borden. Much more efficient. Where do you suppose he got a hunting

  knife?"

  "Roach's," Kevin said. That's a store on upper Mass. Ave. "Anywhere."

  "Do painters use knives? I never do when I paint. I use a putty knife, for Spackle, but that's it."

  "The knife's not important," Kevin said. "Anyone can get a knife. What's important is what you

  said before."

  "What?"

  "You can grab a pair of shears, and you can buy a knife, but how do you get so efficient? That's

  not so easy."

  -21-

  Except for the two days in February when I don't miss a second of the Westminster Kennel Club

  Dog Show, the TV I watch consists mostly of Saturday morning reruns of Sergeant Preston —

  Yukon King was an Alaskan malamute — and late-night screenings of The Call of the Wild, any

  version. They all make me cry. Whenever possible I don't even watch Westminster on TV. I go to

  New York and join the fun in Madison Square Garden. Nonetheless, as I assured Kevin, I'm not the

  kind of pop-culture ignoramus who would wander around the scene of a crime leaving fingerprints

  every- where. Hadn't I used my elbow to flip the light switch?

  "Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," he said. "Not to mention drugstore counters. How

  did you manage to get into the store? And the back room? Were the doors open?"

  "The doors were closed. I went through the gate to get behind the counter. I don't remember how

  I opened it. I didn't know he was dead then."

  "Holly Winter," Kevin said, scribbling on his pad. "I suppose I have to wait around so you can ask

  for my address, too. And my phone number. After all, you might have some more questions for me,

  and how would you know where to find me?"

  "What's the number of your house again?"

  "Oh, for God's sake. It's the red house on the corner of Appleton. The next one on Appleton

  belongs to a cop. I painted my house red to match his tape."

  "You in some big hurry?"

  "Yes. In case you've forgotten how I ended up here, your mother sent me. She said it wouldn't take me a minute. She was wrong. I still have to take Max to her, and then I have a lot to do. You

  also seem to have forgotten about Clyde."

  "I haven't forgotten about Clyde. I know this is hard for you to understand, but the world at large

  happens to care more about murder than dognapping. For some strange reason, there are people

  who consider murder a more serious crime. I can't fathom why."

  "Sometimes I can't, either," I said.

  Since I'd been kept outdoors or in a cruiser most of the time, it had been easy to see that no one

  from Animal Control or K-9 had arrived to read Max his Miranda rights and haul him away.

  Fortunately for him and everyone else, he'd quit barking once there were so many people arou
nd,

  people who had filled his water and food dishes and paid some attention to him.

  What seemed like hours after I'd donated my fingerprints to the city, and been reassured that

  Pete would be pulled in any minute, Kevin finally told me I could go home.

  "Great," I said, pulling a leash out of my pocket.

  "What's that for?"

  "Max. Remember? We've been over this. That's what I was doing here to begin with. Getting him

  for your mother. I'll just keep him until she gets home."

  "No."

  "She doesn't want him in the pound."

  "She's never even seen the dog."

  "She might have. Visiting Alicia."

  "She doesn't visit Alicia. They talk on the phone. The dog is not entering my house. You weren't

  around when Trapper died. I'm not going through that again."

  "When did it suddenly become your house? So far as I know, it's your mother's."

  "Next time you aim below the belt," he said, "how about going for my shins or maybe my knees?"

  "I'm sorry. I am. Really. But, look, your mother's right. The pound is no place for Max. I'll take

  him home, and I'll find someplace for him. I can't keep him. He and Rowdy would kill each other. I

  know some people who might take him. I promise I won't leave him with your mother. Kevin, I'm

  really sorry I said that. It was a low blow."

  I made three phone calls when I got home. The first was to Linda.

  "I thought of something else I should've asked you," I said. "You mentioned that the car had a

  wagon barrier. So it was a station wagon. Right?"

  "Yes. An old one."

  "Do you know what kind?"

  "A big American one. It was green. I'm not very good at telling what kind. Maybe it was a Chevy

  or an Oldsmobile. Something like that."

  "Did you notice any bumper stickers or anything? I guess you probably didn't notice the license

  plate."

  "No, sorry. Nothing like that."

  "But it definitely had a wagon barrier. Sort of a metal grid?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure."

  "And Dave Johnson? What'd he look like?"

  "Well. . . tall, I guess-but everyone seems tall to me." I remembered how small she was. "And sort

  of darkish."

  "Eyes?"

  "I don't remember. I'm sorry; I'm not very good at faces. Just an average, ordinary-looking guy,

  nice smile. Oh, he had on a blue work shirt, denim."

  Distinctive. As long as the guy didn't change clothes more than once a month or so. I thanked

  Linda and hung up.

  My second call was to Quigley Drugs. The cop who answered refused to get Kevin and said he'd

  have him call me.

  My third was to Matt and Marty Gerson.

  If a dog lover tells you his dog has died, but this isn't the right time to get another, it's like

  hearing him say he's lost his cerebral cortex, but this isn't the right time to replace it. Matt and

  Marty Gerson, I thought, were the kinds of people who aren't all there without a dog. Even if they

  didn't share my view, I was sure I could persuade them to let Max stay temporarily in their yard.

  Once he was there, he'd be their dog, and they'd be too loyal to part with one of their own.

  Talking Matt and Marty into boarding Max was even easier than I'd expected. They spent a

  perfunctory five minutes supposedly talking it over with each other before they called me back, but I already knew they'd say yes. Among other things, they took pity on me because of the barking and

  yelping. If I'd brought Max into the house, I'd have been left with one mauled dog and no

  apartment. My car was a possibility, but loose in the Bronco, surrounded by Rowdy's scent, Max

  might have chewed or scratched a few thousand dollars of damage in a couple of minutes, and I'd

  had enough of leaving dogs in cars, anyway. As a temporary measure, then, I'd locked Max in the

  fenced-in yard and left Rowdy indoors, but each dog knew where the other was and wanted at him.

  Rowdy, it seemed to me, had worked himself into such a frenzy that he couldn't even make up his

  mind which route he wanted to take to Max. First he'd try one door, then another, but he

  concentrated on the kitchen door that opens to the back hallway. The hallway, I should add, leads

  to the outside back door I share with the tenants, the staircase to their apartments, and the door to

  the cellar stairs. I should have known something was up. It wasn't his usual route to the yard.

  To entertain me while I waited for Matt, Rowdy treated me to a concert of northern dog

  vocalizations. Max's repertoire was more limited than Rowdy's, but the pointer was apparently

  determined to compensate with volume and persistence, ceaselessly barking out a rapid-fire and

  increasingly fortissimo counterpoint. With double incarceration on my mind, I dragged two dog

  crates upstairs from the cellar. In the back hall, it became apparent that from Shane's third-floor

  apartment, Windy was contributing larghetto yowls to Max's staccato barks and Rowdy's allegro

  shifts from yip to whine to growl to roar.

  The doorbell finally rang.

  "Thank God you're here," I screamed at Matt. "Rowdy, shut up!"

  Matt said something I couldn't hear.

  "What?" I yelled.

  "Do I really want this dog?" he hollered back.

  "He's a wonderful dog. Wait till you see him. And just wait till you see him on point! Justin will

  love him."

  "Jason," Matt roared. Or maybe it was Jonah. Matt's arrival posed a dilemma for Rowdy. How

  could he keep singing out his part in the trio and still perform his see-how-cute-l-am routine for a

  human visitor? He compromised by directing a series of ah-woo-woo-woo greetings to Matt while

  edging his way toward the back door, freedom, and Max. If I'd been sensible, I'd have assembled

  Rowdy's crate and locked him in it, but it takes about five minutes to put the crate together and

  tighten all the nuts and bolts that hold the top and bottom halves together. Instead, I did something

  stupid. In the refrigerator was a casserole dish with some many-times-reheated Kraft macaroni and

  cheese encrusted on the sides and bottom. I took out the dish and put it on the kitchen floor. In the

  comparative silence, I could hear my ears ring.

  "That'll keep him quiet for maybe five minutes," I said. "Let's get Max while he's busy. Once Max

  is away from here, he'll be fine. And he's so beautiful. You'll love him. I don't think we'd better try to

  bring him through here. Let me get the key to the back gate."

  Since Rowdy and I usually use the side door of my apartment to go in and out of the yard, the

  gate in the fence stays locked. To keep Max secure, I'd locked it after I'd put him in. As soon as I

  opened it, Max quit barking, ran up to us, and sniffed my hands.

  "Did you bring a leash?" I asked Matt.

  He hadn't, and I hadn't remembered to take one from my kitchen door, either.

  "Have you got dog food at home?"

  Matt shook his head.

  "Here, hold his collar and get him in the car," I told Matt. The Gersons' old gray Volvo wagon was

  in my driveway, a couple of feet away from us. "I'll get you a leash and some food."

  "Don't bother. I can stop and get some food, or go out and get it later. I've got leashes at home."

  "Okay. But let me give you some food so you don't have to stop. I've got a forty-pound bag. It'll

  just take a second."

  By that time, Matt had Max in a sturdy-looking mesh dog crate in the back of the Volvo.

  "I'll come in and get
it," he said.

  Windy still hadn't quit yowling, and when I finished scooping four or five cups of Eukanuba into

  a plastic bag, with Rowdy sniffing eagerly around, I could hear Max start up again. The

  intermission was over. Rowdy started woo-wooing. Then I heard banging, shuffling, and yapping in

  the back hall, and, seconds later, the scramble of little long-nailed dog feet on short dachshund legs

  running up the uncarpeted back stairs. Saturday. Rita had returned home from vacation. With

  Groucho.

  "What the hell is going on here?" I heard Rita yell. "Holly? Groucho, get back here."

  Under no circumstances does Groucho come when he's called, and although he's old enough to

  have more than a dusting of white on his muzzle, Rita has never once tried to teach him even

  rudimentary manners. I'd hardly ever heard her try to get him to do anything.

  "Get back here! Quit that!" she ordered him.

  "I'd better see what's going on," I said to Matt, who followed me out into the back hall and up the

  stairs. "Shut the doors, will you?" I added over the din.

  On the second-floor landing sat Rita's suitcases and her purse. Looking up the stairwell, I saw her

  standing outside Shane's door. In her arms she held Groucho, who was in a state of unmistakably

  unaltered male excitement.

  "What the hell have you done?" Rita yelled at me. She is thin and petite, but one of her

  grandmothers was an opera singer, and Rita can belt it out like a two-hundred-pound prima donna.

  "Two unaltered males in the house, and I'm gone no time, and you let the third floor to someone

  with an unspayed bitch?"

  And I'm supposed to be the dog expert, not Rita. Well, I'd asked, and he'd said Windy was

  spayed. I hadn't examined her for a scar. No wonder Max and Rowdy hadn't settled down. No

  wonder they'd rivaled so noisily. I was lucky neither of them had broken down a door to get to her.

  "He told me she was spayed," I shouted. "And it's my door and my house she's tearing up. Get Groucho away from here."

  "It isn't his fault."

  "No," I hollered. "But it's his responsibility." That's what she always says.

  My own apartment, as I've mentioned, is unrenovated, but not the ones I rent. Both of them have

  good tile bathrooms, modern kitchens, smooth walls, and expensive new doors. As Cambridge

  landlords go, I am exceptionally considerate. If the plumbing breaks, I try to fix it, and if I fail, I call