All Shots (9 page)

Early that evening, when the rain had stopped and
Rowdy and Kimi were in the yard, Steve got through on his cell phone. By unfortunate coincidence, I’d taken advantage of the absence of the other dogs to let Sammy play with his Buster Cube, a one-dog toy if there ever was one, especially if even one of the dogs is a malamute. As perhaps I need to explain, the Buster Cube is a plastic box that you load with dry dog food or treats that it subsequently dispenses as the dog paws it, noses it, or, in Sammy’s case, delivers massive whacks that send it noisily flying across the room. Anyway, Sammy was whamming the plastic toy across the tile of the kitchen floor when the phone rang, and since caller ID displayed Steve’s cell number, I grabbed the wireless phone and took refuge in the living room.

“I’m so glad to hear your voice,” I said before he’d had time to say a word. “I miss you. Are you okay?”

“Didn’t you get my message? We’re fine.”

“That was days ago. Rowdy got a Group II on Saturday, and Sammy went Winners Dog. Steve, Teller is a mistake. He mixed up the dogs, and the handler he provided for Sammy was a dope. But the dogs looked good. I was proud of them. And it’s always good to see Gabrielle.”

“Did your father behave himself?”

“More or less. Not exactly. No. He could’ve been worse, I guess. And they left early this morning. Are you having fun?”

“Holly, I can’t begin to tell you. The dogs are loving it. You should’ve come with us. No, you shouldn’t. Except for the bugs, you’d love it. But they’re pretty bad.”

“I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of black fly season in Maine. You’ve seen the scars. And I hate bug dope. It always ends up in my eyes.”

“You’ve mentioned that once or twice,” he said, meaning ten thousand times.

After that, I told Steve how much I loved and missed him, as I really did. I then intended to tell him about the murder, the whole Holly Winter identity business, the photo of the blue malamute, and so forth, but the damned inevitable intervened: with no warning, we lost the connection. I tried his number, got nowhere, waited for him to call back, tried his number again, and settled for leaving a short message in which I said nothing about the murder. The aborted call left me feeling cheated and unsettled. The sense of dissatisfaction lingered, and throughout the evening, I was restless and jumpy. In particular, my ears were sharply attuned to the sound of motorcycles passing by on Concord Avenue. Ridiculous! I was so used to the Concord Avenue traffic that it was background noise that ordinarily didn’t register on me at all and had no business alarming me now. And why motorcycles? Damn! I’d sent the biker, Adam, in search of the other Holly Winter, but she’d been so unpleasant to me that the incident had slipped my mind and I’d neglected to ask her about him.

“He had nothing to do with us,” I told Rowdy. “He was here by mistake.”

Unless…unless the murdered woman had, in fact, begun to assume my identity? Or the identity of the other Holly Winter? Unless she’d passed herself off to Adam as one of us?
You have something for me.
That’s what he’d said. I had a vivid memory of the view through the glass door into the kitchen where the body had lain. Someone, presumably the killer, had trashed the house in search of something. And found it? Failed to find it? And was still looking?
You have something for me.
The same thing he’d been seeking in Dr. Ho’s house?

Whatever it was, I didn’t have it. Furthermore, I knew nothing about it. At bedtime, I let go of what Rita would have called my “pointless obsessing” by surrounding myself with dogs. Rowdy slept on the bedroom floor under the air conditioner, which I’d turned on to provide white noise; Sammy was in his crate; and Kimi spent the night next to me on the bed, her spine to mine. It’s possible, I suppose, that eight hours of close contact with Kimi’s backbone cured me of my bout of spinelessness. For whatever reason, I awoke in the morning feeling calm but also feeling eager to do my part to figure out what the hell was going on, my part being, of course, to trace the identity of the blue malamute. Fortunately for Phyllis Hamilton, my eagerness did not prompt me to call her at seven
A.M.
when the dogs and I got up; since she’d been at the shows all weekend and had had a long drive back home to Pennsylvania, I decided to wait until at least eleven. At ten, however, just after I’d ordered a credit check, she called me.

When we’d exchanged greetings and congratulations on the weekend’s wins—Heart had gone Winners Bitch on Sunday—I filled Phyllis in on the circumstances surrounding my curiosity about the blue malamute.

Phyllis said, “Well, I can get you started. I knew there was something about her that was ringing a bell. I was thinking about her on the drive home. She has the look of the Snosquall dogs. But Minnie Wilcox stopped breeding…oh, it must be six years ago.”

“I’ve heard the name,” I said.

“And Debbie Alonso. You might have run into her. She’s in Illinois.”

“Crevasse?” I should perhaps point out that I was not asking whether Debbie Alonso had fallen into one. Rather, I was confirming that Crevasse was Debbie Alonso’s kennel name.

“Yes.”

“Is she still breeding?”

“No. You know, Holly, I’ve been thinking it over, and I think that maybe now I’m the only one actively breeding with blue in the lines. Not that I breed a lot. But maybe I’m the only one.”

“You’re the one everyone thinks of,” I said. “Maybe because you show a lot. And win!”

“They both showed, but they weren’t around here. They were in Illinois. They bred some nice dogs. And then there was Graham Grant. You know about him.”

“There was some kind of scandal. A couple of years ago? Some of his dogs ended up in rescue. That’s all I remember.”

Phyllis sighed in a way that expressed sadness and disgust. “Debbie took back the dogs he got from her, and I think she took Minnie’s, too, but rescue helped with the ones he’d bred himself. You probably met him at the National in Massachusetts.”

National: Alaskan Malamute National Speciality, an annual all-malamute dog show, the yearly gathering of our clan.

“I met hundreds of people there,” I said. “I don’t remember him.”

“Oh, Grant was a charmer! And he had nice dogs. Well, he would. Snosquall and Crevasse lines.”

“Did he belong to AMCA?” The Alaskan Malamute Club of America is our national breed club, membership in which is a sign of reputability. Among other things, you have to be sponsored by two established members, both of whom have to have known you for at least two years and one of whom has to have visited your house.

“Oh, yes. As far as anyone knew, he was a responsible breeder. Well, he
was
, I think, until his marriage fell apart, and he got into some kind of financial trouble. By the time people realized what was going on, his dogs were in terrible condition. Filthy. Starving. Debbie Alonso knows all about it. She was furious.”

“What happened to Grant?”

“He disappeared, I think. And good riddance!”

The conversation left me with leads to pursue: I needed to get in touch with Minnie Wilcox and Debbie Alonso, and I also needed to find the malamute rescue people who’d taken in Grant’s dogs. Had there been a blue female? If so, where had she gone? If I could find out who had adopted her, I’d be on my way to discovering a connection between the malamute in the photo and the unidentified woman who’d had the print in her possession. For all I knew, the murder victim herself had adopted the blue malamute, either from a breeder or from rescue. With luck, someone would recognize her description. Why had she had the photograph but not the dog? In examining the picture, I’d grown attached to the dog, but it was, of course, possible that she was dead. If so, the death had probably been recent; the police had found traces of dog hair on the woman’s possessions. Of course, the hair might have come from a different dog. I made a mental note to ask Kevin for details. There were other possibilities. Maybe the unidentified woman had simply left her dog at home. Indeed, where was home? Or maybe…

Instead of trying to think out all possible scenarios, I got out my AMCA directory and looked up Minnie Wilcox and Debbie Alonso. In addition to listing names, kennel names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, the directory showed the month and year in which each person had become a member. Minnie Wilcox had joined about forty years ago; Debbie Alonso, twenty years ago. Some listings showed abbreviations for the services a member’s kennel provided. The letter
P
, for example, meant that puppies were sometimes available, and
S
meant that stud service was available to approved bitches. Neither Minnie Wilcox nor Debbie Alonso listed her kennel as offering anything; as Phyllis had told me, neither was actively breeding.

I dialed Minnie Wilcox’s number. A woman answered.

“My name is Holly Winter,” I said. “Is Minnie Wilcox there, please?”

“Mom doesn’t come to the phone very often these days,” the woman said. “Can I help you?”

“Maybe. I’m trying to track down a blue malamute. I’ve just been talking to Phyllis Hamilton, and she thought maybe your mother could help.”

“Phyllis doesn’t know, I guess,” the woman said. “Mom’s been out of touch with everyone. She had a stroke about five years ago, and then her memory…her memory is failing. Well, worse than that. Basically, it’s gone. She wouldn’t be able to help you.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I wouldn’t have called.” I paused. “Unless maybe you remember? There was a man named Graham Grant. He was a malamute breeder, and—”

“Sorry. I don’t know. Mom hasn’t had dogs since her stroke. She only had two, and a friend of hers took them. She moved in with me, and we don’t have room.”

“Do you remember who the friend was?”

“Debbie Alonso.”

“I’ll give her a call,” I said.

When I tried, I got an answering machine and left a short message. After that, I wrote a long e-mail message to Elise Everett, who was active in the Illinois Alaskan Malamute Rescue Association and whom I knew because we both posted regularly to AMAL-L, the e-mail list maintained by the Alaskan Malamute Assistance League. We also exchanged private e-mail and had friends in common. In fact, I had to think twice to remember that Elise and I had never actually met and had never even talked on the phone. Still, in e-mailing Elise, I had the sense of communicating with someone I knew fairly well. I gave Elise a short version of the whole story, mentioned Graham Grant, and provided a brief description of the unidentified woman. I also attached the photo of the blue malamute. Had Illinois Rescue taken in a blue female like this one? If so, who had adopted her? Could the adopter have been a woman matching the description?

Seconds after I’d sent the e-mail, my phone rang. I answered.

“Holly Winter?” a woman asked.

“Yes.”

Her tone became oddly coy. “My name is Donna Yappel,” she said. “Have you lost a dog?”

Late on that same Monday morning, the other Holly
Winter also makes phone calls. Data analyst that she is, she has winnowed down the list of 154 of us to just under 100. She begins with those of us in the eastern daylight time zone. Many of us are at work; it is, after all, Monday morning. When she reaches a machine or voice mail, she does not leave a message.

“I’m trying to help someone find a lost Siberian husky
. She isn’t mine,” I told Donna Yappel. “But I’m so glad to hear from you. Is she all right?”

“This is a boy,” Donna Yappel said. “And he has your name on his tag. And your phone number. I think he’s a boy. He’s a boy isn’t he?” She called out. “Yes, he’s a boy. He’s too big for a girl.”

Although the call should have assured me that the dog—which dog?—was safe, my heart was pounding. Damn! No matter how careful you are—and I am very careful—any dog can get loose. Well, Sammy hadn’t. At that moment, he wandered into the kitchen with Pink Piggy in his mouth. Rowdy. Damn it all! He and Kimi were in the yard, or that’s where they were supposed to be, and that yard was close to what’s known as Malcatraz: escape-proof containment for malamutes. My house formed one wall of the yard. Opposite it was the long, narrow little building at the actual corner of Appleton Street and Concord Avenue that housed a diminutive shop. Its brick wall was my wall, too, and the dogs couldn’t possibly have climbed it. The wooden fences at the front and back of the yard were six feet high, and to prevent the dogs from digging under, I’d buried chicken wire and poured in enough concrete to provide a solid foundation for a substantial house. The gate to the driveway was as high as the fence. It had two latches, both secured with snap bolts, and a sturdy lock. My suspicions fell on Kimi, the most vigorous digger in our pack. If Rowdy had escaped and been found, then Kimi was loose.

“I’ll be right back!” After shouting into the phone and dropping it on the counter, I ran to the door that leads to the yard, threw it open, and was in equal parts amazed and relieved to see Rowdy and Kimi curled up on the mulch taking midmorning naps. I closed the door, caught my breath, and returned to the phone. “My dogs are here,” I said. “All three of them. We have two more, but they’re both on a canoe trip with my husband in Minnesota. I don’t know what to say.”

“You
are
Holly Winter?”

“Yes, but—”

“His tag has your name and this number, and if you don’t want your dog—”

“It isn’t that. It isn’t that at all. But maybe I’d better take a look at the dog. Where are you?”

The address Donna Yappel gave me was in Lexington, which is, of course, famous as one of Paul Revere’s principal destinations. The green in the center has a minuteman statue, and on Patriots’ Day, authentically costumed men reenact the Battle of Lexington. It’s a pretty town, with houses that date to the Revolutionary War and also with large neighborhoods of ranch houses and such that date to the years just after World War II. The Yappels lived on a street of what must originally have been almost identical split-level houses. Over time, as Lexington real estate values had increased, owners had built upward and outward, and what had started out as modest tract housing had become prosperous and individualized. Donna Yappel’s house, for instance, was a split-level with large additions on either side, one with big windows, the other with walls made entirely of glass. Natural wood siding and timbers were everywhere, and the wide steps to the front door were made of three or four different kinds of stone. Instead of a lawn and conventional shrubbery, the grounds were landscaped with thickly planted perennials, low evergreens, and what I was surprised to recognize as highbush and lowbush blueberries. In spite of the proximity of neighboring houses, the place had the feel of a luxurious lodge in a wooded resort.

When I rang the bell, I had the vivid fantasy that I’d be greeted by the barking of small dogs. Yappel? People with canine names are greatly overrepresented among dog lovers of every variety, from AKC judges like Mrs. Woofenden to pet owners named Fox, Basset, Baylor, Collier, Howland, and, I assumed, Yappel. Are these people drawn to dogs because of a sense of natural affinity? Are dog-loving women compelled to marry and take the names of men called Wolf, Ladd, and Barker? Life’s little mysteries! In any case, although the bell chimed, the pack of terriers failed to show up. The woman who answered the door, Donna Yappel, looked like a grandmother in a children’s book. Her silver hair was swept up in a loose knot on her head, and it was easy to see that when she sat down, she’d have a comfy lap.

When she’d ushered me into a spacious hallway filled with gigantic houseplants, I said, “Thank you for calling. I have no idea what’s going on, but we’ll find out. All of my own dogs are definitely accounted for. I am mystified.”

In a guilt-inducing tone, she said, “He is a very sweet dog. Very friendly. And he was starving, poor thing.” As she spoke, her eyes darted down and then left and right, as if she were checking to see whether something was there. “Donald!” she called. “Donald!”

As you’ll have guessed, I assumed that Donald was the little terrier who’d mysteriously failed to herald my arrival and whose presence Donna Yappel had been seeking when she’d scanned the floor.

“The husky is in the yard,” she said to me as I followed her to what proved to be a large kitchen with stainless-steel appliances, granite counters, and cherry cabinets and woodwork. “Donald! Oh, there you are!”

I nearly gasped. My sense that Donna Yappel owned a terrier turned out to be almost correct. The incorrect part was this: Donna Yappel didn’t own a dog; rather, she was married to one, and a handsome one at that. His breed was unmistakable. Donald Yappel was an Irish terrier. His hair and his neatly trimmed beard were wheaten and were, as the AKC standard says, “dense and wiry in texture.” His head was long, his skull was flat, and his eyes were not only dark brown but, and again I quote, “full of life, fire, and intelligence, showing an intense expression.”

“This is Donald,” she said. “My husband.”

Restraining the impulse to stroke his shoulder, I said, “I’m Holly Winter.” With heartfelt sincerity, I added, “Pleased to meet you.”

His eyes crackling, Donald said, “Pleased to meet you, too, now that you’ve decided to take responsibility for your dog.”

I know when to quit. “How did you happen to find him?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s been around for a couple of days,” Donna said, “but it was only this morning that he showed up on our doorstep.”

“Starving,” Donald said pointedly.

“At first, I was a little afraid of him because of his size, but Donald lured him into the yard, and once he was there, we saw how friendly he is. He’s quite the clown! There, you see! He’s doing it right now!”

Donna Yappel pointed to a glass door eerily like the one at Dr. Ho’s house. This door, however, gave me a view radically different from the one I’d had there. Just on the other side of the glass, lying on her back on a teak deck, waving her big white snowshoe paws in the air, eyeing the three of us, and begging for a belly rub, was a distinctly female Alaskan malamute. Her color was unusual. Indeed, it was the rarest color in the breed: blue. She looked just like her picture. I still had no idea where the blue malamute in the photo had come from, and I had no idea who she was, but I knew for certain where she’d gone and knew that she was right in front of me.

I slid the door open, stepped onto the deck, and rubbed her white tummy. “We meet at last,” I said. Whispering so that the Yappels wouldn’t hear me, I added, “You’re safe now. You’re with one of your own.”