Dead and Doggone

by Dead

  Ron Coughlin. I return security deposits. I allow pets. Even so, my house is an investment, and,

  much as I love dogs, I don't enjoy the bounding, thumping, scraping, clawing cacophony of an Irish

  setter tearing it up. Rita carried Groucho downstairs, and as soon as I heard her door bang shut, I

  pulled the key ring out of my pocket and slid the master key into the lock in Shane's door. Matt

  followed me in.

  Apart from a large puddle and a lot of red spots she'd left on the tile floor, Windy had confined

  her damage in the kitchen to the door, which looked as if someone had attacked it with a pair of

  spiked golf shoes. "You're going to have to replace that," Matt said. He's a landlord, too.

  "I'm not paying for it," I said. "You know, this is why people don't allow pets. Damn it. The next

  person I rent to is going to have at most one declawed cat."

  Windy was frolicking around, sniffing our hands and dashing back and forth. She followed us

  into the living room, where I hoped to find that she'd given Shane an object lesson in having an

  Irish setter and a white leather couch, but I was disappointed. All she'd destroyed was what must

  have been a pillow. Shreds of patterned red fabric and fluffy bits of white polyester filling were

  scattered over the floor. As I aimlessly gathered up the shreds and fluff, Matt strolled around

  examining the fly rods hanging on the white wall above the couch and the mounted and framed

  displays of fishing flies.

  "This is some collection," he said. I remembered I'd promised Buck I'd call the insurance

  company. I hadn't.

  "That's what my father said."

  "This Payne rod's a beautiful sight. And see this reel? That's a Zwarg."

  "Buck said he had good stuff, I'm taking Windy out for a second."

  I ran her down the front stairs, let her relieve herself, then dashed back up.

  Matt was studying the flies, "Look at these," He pointed to one of the framed displays, "See that

  White Wulff? And that Silver Rat? Ed Nichols tied those."

  In the many hours of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood that I'd wasted listening to my

  father and his fishing buddies blather on, I'd involuntarily picked up a few tedious pieces of

  information, one of which was that my father and his friends always said the same thing I'd heard

  from Matt before, that they could tell who'd tied which fly.

  "One more fish story," I said. "Let's get out of here."

  "Sure," he said. "It would be embarrassing if . . ."

  "There's nothing to be embarrassed about," I pulled the door shut, locking Windy in to do to

  Shane's couch what she'd done to my door and, in truth, hoping she'd wreck another door so I

  could present Shane with a staggering bill for damages.

  "Ed Nichols was a friend of his? I never knew that," Matt said on the way downstairs.

  "I don't think so. Anyway, you can't tell. He probably tied those flies himself."

  "Come on," Matt said. "You're from Maine, You might as well say he left Ed Nichols's

  fingerprints."

  "Is that true? I've never believed it."

  "It's true. You can tell. If you know how. Besides, one of those rods belonged to Ed Nichols, too."

  "Come on. I suppose he tied it, too."

  "The tip's been mended. You can't see unless you look closely, but the mend's there. At least, Ed

  had one just like it. Have you talked to Shane yet?”

  "I haven't had a chance. I've been busy, Remember? I don't think he's been home all day, anyway.

  That was half of Windy's problem, if you ask me. She needed to go out. Believe me, I'll be here

  waiting for him."

  "When you see him, ask him where he got Ed Nichols's fishing gear."

  "I have quite a few things to ask him," I said.

  -22-

  "Damn it! This is the last thing I need."

  "Holly, I'm really sorry." Matt looked sorry, too. We were standing in the hall staring at my open

  kitchen door, the open back door, and the darkness of early evening as if looking hard enough at

  the places Rowdy had been would make him materialize.

  "Damn it! I should have done it myself. I should've known you couldn't hear me." What I could

  hear were the exhaustion and tears in my own voice.

  "I couldn't, but I should've noticed. I'm so sorry."

  "It's not your fault. I should've checked. Anyway, it must've been Rita who left the outside door

  open. She was carrying her suitcases. She probably had her hands full and couldn't pull it shut.

  Then she ran up after Groucho and forgot it." The stricken look on Matt's face and my own sick

  feeling made me add an assurance I didn't believe. "It's happened before. He'll come home."

  Any dog will escape once in a while. You leave the door open for a second while you take out the

  garbage or bring in the newspaper, and, wham, there he goes. If he's perfectly obedience trained,

  you call him and he comes right back. Otherwise, you dash for the refrigerator, grab a fistful of

  cheese or a hunk of meat, and take off in his direction cooing, "Hey, boy, look what a treat I've got

  for you!" But those methods work only if he's still in hearing (and smelling) distance. Rowdy was

  long gone.

  "I'll help you look," Matt said.

  "Really, Matt, don't. He'll come home. For one thing, he knows Windy's here, and he sure knows

  she's in season. He'll be back in no time." My words didn't comfort me. "And Max

  ,has had a rough day. Take him home."

  "Okay, but call if you need help."

  "I will. I promise. And I'll talk to you soon. Have fun with Max. He needs it."

  I stood by the back door watching Matt drive away and calling Rowdy. "Rowdy, come! Here, boy!

  This way! Rowdy, come!" I walked a little way down the block, then back home, then around the

  corner, but, unlike Clyde, Rowdy knew where home was, and my best bet was to be there when he

  arrived. If he arrived. Also, one of his tags had my phone number on it, and if the cops or a kind

  neighbor picked him up, I wanted to be by the phone. After all, Pete Quigley was in custody by now.

  Nobody'd stolen Rowdy, I kept telling myself. He'd dodge the traffic on Concord Avenue. He wasn't

  following the first person who patted him. I wasn't starting to cry.

  I snatched the phone up the second it rang.

  "Holly, where the hell have you been?" I'd always thought that Steve had the kindest voice I'd

  ever heard, but no one can sound kind and furious at the same time.

  "Busy," I said coldly.

  "I got that message. Look, we have to talk."

  "We have nothing to talk about. My job is writing about dogs. Yours is killing them. I know, I

  know. You have to think of the owners, too. You can't keep all of them yourself. I don't want to hear

  it all again."

  "This is crazy. I've got to see you."

  "You may think it's crazy, but I don't. You're used to it. I'm not. I take it seriously. She wasn't the

  greatest bitch in the world, but I liked her. And you must have seen the papers. How could you

  consider him a responsible owner? You thought he knew what he was doing? And even if you had, it

  just was wrong. And you want to know the latest?"

  "No," he said, just the way he says it to India, his German shepherd. She listens.

  "Fine," I shouted. "Don't listen. I have to get off the phone, anyway. Rowdy's gone, and I'm so

  worried I think I may throw up. But you know what? Austin Quigley isn't f going to bring you in any

  more dogs to murder. Excuse me, put to sl
eep. Right? You don't murder them. You just put them to

  sleep."

  "For starters, Austin Quigley didn't bring her in. His son did. Pete."

  "What does it matter? She's dead just the same. What matters is who killed her.” I hung up.

  I forced myself to think and not to feel. This wasn't like having Clyde disappear from the van. It

  wasn't like giving Grover away. Pete Quigley could not have gotten him. Rowdy really had escaped

  before, and he really had come home soon. Logic and judgment told me to stay there. With the door

  to the back hall and the outside door both ajar, I sat at the kitchen table and waited for Rowdy to

  barge his way in, wag his whole furry eighty-five pounds around, swish his tail, give me that big,

  wide malamute grin, lap my face, and check out his food dish. I listened for the ring of his tags and

  also listened for the smooth engine of Shane's Mercedes and the sound of his well-shod feet on the

  wooden back steps.

  So I'd been wrong about Austin, I thought. I'd assumed that whoever had killed Sissy had killed Lady, too. I'd just been wrong about who it was, Pete, not Austin, Pete, the one who'd done

  everything, Pete, the dog hater. If I'd returned Steve's calls, I might have known in time to save

  Austin. Too bad. Especially too bad for Austin, even though he'd wanted Lady dead and been glad

  she was. Hadn't he been wary of Pete? Hadn't he suspected? They were one another's alibi, after all.

  Both had said they'd been together in the men's room. Austin must have been covering up for Pete,

  just as Sissy had. What else had Austin Quigley known about Pete? Had Sissy been the only one

  who'd known that Pete was the family thief! Had Austin noticed that new bowl on the shelf! Maybe

  that's what had precipitated the final quarrel. Had Austin known about the stolen-dog operation

  too?

  I went to the open back door and called, "Rowdy, come! Come on, boy! Rowdy, this way! Here!"

  Then I stopped. The sound of someone walking down Appleton Street turned my thoughts to

  Shane, but the footsteps turned out not to be his. He'd lied to me. Windy, the bitch he'd sworn was

  spayed, had come in season. You can't have it both ways. And even after he'd known how desperate

  I was to find Clyde, Shane had done nothing to help. He'd just listened. And I'd talked and talked,

  of course. Matt had told me to ask him about Ed Nichols's fishing gear. Well, the hand-tied flies

  were easy enough to explain. They'd both fished the Machias, he and Ed Nichols, both fished the

  Dennys, the Miramichi, too, probably. Maybe Ed Nichols had traded with Shane as he'd done with

  Matt. But the rods? The reels? Shane had the money to buy gear like that, but why would Ed

  Nichols have sold any of it? They were collector's items. He was a collector. He didn't need the

  money. Neither, of course, did Mimi. Could she have given them away?

  Did she even know they were gone? Had she missed the silver bowl Pete had filched? What else

  had he taken? And Shane, with his Mercedes and his white leather, liked to impress people. If he'd

  had a millionaire friend like Ed Nichols, wouldn't he have name-dropped? He was just the type, and

  he hadn't done it. If Ed or Mimi had given him those rods and Ed's own hand-tied flies, Buck and I

  would both have heard. But if Pete Quigley had stolen them, Shane had almost certainly bought

  them from Pete. How did he know Pete?

  I had a lot of questions to ask Shane, but I couldn't stand at the back door and holler his name

  the way I kept hollering Rowdy's, and neither the man nor the dog showed up. Besides, Shane was a

  liar, anyway. Reluctant as I was to tie up the phone, I decided to ask Mimi about that silver bowl

  and her husband's gear, and about David Shane as well. If she'd been ripped off, she had a right to

  know.

  Mimi's recorded voice answered the phone. "No one is available to take your call right now, but if

  you'll leave a message, your call will be returned as soon as possible. Please wait until after the

  beep, which is rather loud, to leave your message." As Ron kept saying, she was a nice woman. She

  didn't even want her friends to be startled by the tone of her answering machine.

  I left my name and number and added, "Something has come up that I think you should know

  about. I'm concerned about it. Could you give me a call as soon as possible? Thanks."

  Not ten minutes later, the phone rang.

  "Holly? This is Reggie Cox."

  "Yes."

  "I've got a lead on the dog. You wanna meet me? You gotta be there."

  "Sure. I've got a problem here, but sure. Is this definite? You found him?"

  "You ain't gonna like it."

  "Where is it?"

  "Place called Bay Colony Biomedical. You got that?"

  "Yeah."

  According to the directions he gave me, Bay Colony Biomedical was practically down the street

  from my own house, in a big industrial area off Concord Avenue. Everyone knew that there were

  research places there, outfits that did market research and educational research, and vague things

  called consulting and development.

  "Reggie, are you sure it's Clyde? Is he alive? Is he all right?"

  "It's a wolf, all right," he said with his big, friendly laugh. "A live wolf. Live and kicking."

  -23-

  I thought I heard it just before Reggie Cox hung up, the sound like the whoosh of a summer wind

  across the Kotzebue Sound, that ridiculous, beautiful wooing, muffled and distant, familiar and

  absurd. Maybe he'd come home, prancing and grinning, wanderlust sated, singing his way back

  from somewhere down the block. For the hundredth time, I stood at the back door and bellowed,

  "Rowdy, come! Here, boy!" He wasn't there. Maybe I'd imagined it.

  For reliable feminine protection any day of the month, I depend on a dog of either sex and any

  large breed — a German shepherd, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, a Doberman, a cross-breed, a mixed

  breed-but I prefer an Alaskan malamute. One look at a dog like Rowdy throws the average would-

  be attacker into toxic shock.

  In Rowdy's absence, I was not myself. When I'm myself, I don't need a handgun. I don't want

  one, won't carry one, and don't think other people should, either. A Smith & Wesson makes a lousy

  pet. It's everything a good dog isn't, cold, brainless, and dangerous. Nonetheless, it was what I had

  left and it was better than nothing.

  I pulled the case down from the back of my bedroom closet, carried it to the kitchen table, and

  opened it. The Ladysmith lay there, still nestled in burgundy. I suppose a revolver has one

  advantage over a dog. You don't have to feel guilty about waking it up. I loaded it and tucked it in

  my shoulder bag. That's another advantage, I guess, unless you like pocket poodles, which is what I

  thought the Ladysmith was, the pocket poodle of revolvers.

  Before I left, I ran up the back stairs and knocked on Rita's door.

  "Rowdy's gone," I said as calmly as I could. "And I've got to go out. Can you listen for him?"

  Her kitchen was a duplicate of Shane's, minus Windy, plus Groucho, who was scuttling around

  eyeing the door. To hang around home and unpack and unwind from vacation, Rita had put on pale

  beige pants, a white silk shirt, a thin, two- strand gold necklace, and matching earrings. Her

  wardrobe is the antithesis of mine. She owns dresses, skirts, good wool pants, blazers, unsnagged

  sweaters, and only one pair of jeans, which came from Ann Taylor and don't have holes in the


  knees. My jeans had a designer label, too, L.L. Bean, and no holes yet, but my blue sweatshirt with

  the picture of a team of sled dogs was the same one I'd been wearing when I'd set out for the

  Gersons' that morning and had spilled coffee and dog food on since, and I wasn't wearing any

  jewelry, unless you count the revolver.

  "I'll leave the back window open so I can hear him," Rita said. "Do you want to borrow something

  to wear?"

  "I'm wearing something already."

  "I couldn't help noticing. Why do you do this to yourself! You have other clothes. Where are you

  going?"

  "Hostile," I said. "That's what you'd say if I said some- thing like that. Just listen for Rowdy, will you? And let him in if he shows up. You've got my key?"

  "Yes. I'll leave the window open. Stop in when you get home, if it's not too late."

  "I will. Listen for him. Call him."

  Once I was outside I decided not to walk. Even with my fashionable little handgun, I was feeling

  nervous. I wanted to get there as quickly as I could. Besides, I didn't know what kind of shape Clyde

  was in. I might need the Bronco as an ambulance. Or a hearse. "Live and kicking," Reggie had said.

  But he'd laughed, too.

  Bay Colony Biomedical was hard to find. It was at the far end of one of those narrow lanes that

  run off Concord Avenue beyond the Fresh Pond traffic circle, one of the ones that start out as

  ordinary streets and degenerate into rough once-paved driveways and alleys running between,

  around, and beyond warehouses and barren industrial buildings and ending near the railroad

  tracks. It was an area I'd never liked, an area that smelled and felt dirtier than it looked in the

  Bronco's headlights, as if some ancient, invisible pollutant rose from it. My eyes scanned every dark

  corner for Rowdy. He could have run this far. He could have gone anywhere.

  I missed Bay Colony twice because the lettering on the sign was small and the building somehow

  not what I expected. I was expecting some dark Transylvanian tower surrounded by lustrous, evil

  mist, I suppose, or else a minimalist, windowless white concrete edifice mounting story after story

  beyond high rolls of barbed wire. From the outside, it could have been any ordinary lights-out

  weekend office building, the local headquarters of a chain of discount clothing stores, the