All Shots

dead for... I don’t know. Days, I think. The biker couldn’t have left here and then murdered her. And it really has nothing to do with me. I’ll know more tonight. Kevin and I are having dinner. Until then, I’m just going to stay busy. I’m taking Rowdy and Sammy to the LaundroMutt. They’re both entered tomorrow. After the show, Buck and Gabrielle are coming back here. They’re staying here Saturday night.”
    “Lucky you.”
    “Leah, really! I love having Gabrielle here, and she’s pretty good at keeping a lid on my father. And at least Steve is away, so I don’t have to try to keep Buck from grating on his nerves.”
    “Do you want me to stay? I was going to move out tomorrow, but I could stay another few days.”
    I’d have loved it. “No, of course not. But thank you. All your friends are coming back. You’ll want to see them.”
    “If you change your mind...”
    “I’ll let you know.”
    “But I’m going to help you groom.”
    “You don’t have to.”
    “The LaundroMutt is a cool place. I want to.”
    “I’d love it,” I said.
    An hour later, we were at the LaundroMutt, which is, as Leah had said, a cool place, a self-service dog wash on the Fresh Pond rotary. Leah had Sammy in one of the big stainless-steel tubs, and I had Rowdy in the one next to it. Sammy, I should note, is a funny malamute. For one thing, he loves to fetch balls. He’ll keep retrieving as long as I keep throwing. Kimi regards this behavior as a sign of mental aberration. As Sammy flies after a ball and returns it to me, she watches him with an expression of perplexed disdain. For another thing, Sammy likes water. Kimi doesn’t mind it and will even go swimming, but Rowdy hates water. What he detests is the sensation of water on his skin, especially on his belly. I’d had to lure him into the stainless-steel tub with a fistful of roast beef, and even using the treat, I’d had to shove him up the folding ramp to get him in. Now that he was hitched to the tub and soaking wet, he was behaving himself in the sense that he wasn’t fighting to escape, but he was bellowing complaints that must have been audible in Harvard Square. When the dogs were thoroughly rinsed, we used the big professional dryers to blow them dry. My latest grooming discovery, the Chris Christensen 27mm T-brush, did an admirable job of grabbing hair that would otherwise have flown all over the place, and the T-handle minimized wrist strain. Even so, by the time we finished, most of the air in the LaundroMutt had been displaced by malamute undercoat, which probably lined our lungs. Leah is a decent groomer, but I’m better with nail clippers and scissors than she is, so I cut the dogs’ nails and then neatened their feet with a little trimming. Father and son looked spectacular, thus prompting me to check the sky for the black clouds that laborious show grooming generates. I swear that the harder I work on a dog’s coat and the better he looks, the more likely it is that rain will pelt down and, worse, that in spite of extreme vigilance, the dog will somehow find a gigantic mud puddle and transfer its contents to his coat. The sky had not yet darkened. Not yet.
    I posted one of the flyers at the LaundroMutt. When we got home, Leah left on her bike—her bicycle, of course, not a Harley or the like—with some flyers to post in the Square, and I went to Loaves and Fishes for food shopping, made a beef stew to serve to Buck and Gabrielle the next evening, checked the guest room, and was just sitting down to squeeze in some work time when the phone rang.
    “Francie here.”
    I was elated. “Has Strike turned up?”
    “Sorry. No. No news at your end?”
    “Nothing. I’ve posted to a lot of lists. That’s the most effective thing to do. I’ve also started putting up flyers. The other thing would be to contact the owner and find out whether Strike headed for home, but when I asked about the owner, Mellie clammed up.”
    “I have no idea why. Mellie does do that, though.”
    “Maybe you could talk to her. She knows you, and she’s just met me. Among other things, the owner has a right to know what’s happened.”
    “It’s possible that Mellie made some kind of promise. She takes promises seriously. And concretely. Her universe is very black and white.”
    “But why would she...? Well, maybe. I guess it could be a divorce situation, a sort of custody battle, and one of the partners could’ve stashed the dog with Mellie. Would you see