All Shots

lines.” A breeder dog: a dog from a reputable kennel rather than from a backyard breeder, a pet shop, or one of those ghastly Web sites that are nothing more than cyber pet shops. “Where did you get this?”
    “All this stuff,” Kevin said. “All of it was in Dr. Ho’s house.”
    “My utility bills? And a picture of a blue malamute? That’s what she is. Blue. The color is rare. It’s the rarest malamute color. It’s distinctive and unusual. I know she doesn’t look sky blue, but that’s what this color is called.”
    “Gray.”
    “This shade of gray is called blue. Like Russian blue cats, okay? It’s called blue. Take a look at the pigment on her nose. In my dogs, it’s black. Hers is slate gray. Or blueberry, except that it’s more gray than blueberries really are. And her eyes are light. It’s a little hard to see in the picture, but they’re not the dark brown you’re used to seeing. She’s a blue malamute. I’ve never seen her before. And I’d remember. I’ve seen pictures of blue malamutes, but I’ve actually seen only a few of them. The first one I ever saw belonged to a really nice man named Jim Hamilton. Jim died a few years ago. His wife, Phyllis, is a top breeder, and she has blue in her lines. Anyway, Jim had a dog called Steely Dan, and at shows, people always wanted to see the blue malamute, and Jim was always good about going out of his way to—”
    The server removed Kevin’s empty plate, left my halfeaten salad, and presented us with our main courses. I belatedly realized that my fettuccine Alfredo would contain the same flavorless cheese granules that were in the salad, as proved to be the case, but melting had improved the cheese, and the pasta was less mushy than I expected. Kevin’s steak looked big enough to feed six people. It was served on a platter and accompanied by a bushel or two of french fries. “You want some?” he asked.
    “Far be it from me to take food away from a growing boy. Anyway, this is a blue malamute, but I don’t think that Phyllis Hamilton bred her. She doesn’t quite have the look of Phyllis’s dogs. Phyllis’s dogs have small ears, not that these are all that big, and Phyllis’s dogs have plenty of facial markings, more than this. Do you know anything about her?”
    “Nope.”
    “And my utility bills? My bank statement? These are recent. I’m not sure when I threw this stuff out. Just before Labor Day? Kevin, I don’t like that.”
    “That was what made ’em think she was you.”
    “Who is she? You must know by now. What’s all the secrecy about?”
    “We don’t know much yet, but, yeah, she’s unidentified. There was a purse there, but it’d been emptied. No cash, no ID in it, junk dumped out. Lipsticks, empty wallet. The neighbors say that this Dr. Ho had a house sitter lined up, and the guy backed out at the last minute. He didn’t want to leave it empty because of the plants and the fish.”
    “Fish,” I said. “I can never quite get that. They’re pretty. But why keep pets that don’t love you back? Anyway, speaking of fish, I heard that Dr. Ho picks up women at Loaves and Fishes. The neighbors think that’s what happened.” Kevin shrugged. “No luck reaching him.”
    “He’s in Africa. That’s what I heard. What else was in the house? What else that belonged to the woman, I mean.”
    “Stuff in the name of Holly Winter.” Kevin is not normally laconic. He was working away at the steak and trying not to talk with his mouth full.
    “Kevin, you just showed me that. What else?”
    “The other one, too.”
    I helped myself to a french fry. “The other Holly Winter? There were things of hers there, too?”
    Kevin nodded.
    “Bills and stuff from her trash? Kevin, look, this whole situation is weird for me. Could you please give the steak a rest and talk to me?”
    He put down his knife and fork, wiped his mouth, and looked me in the eye. “It looks like someone got into the other one’s apartment. She was in England for the summer. Lah-di-dah. She just got back on Tuesday. And she left a key hidden where nobody’d ever guess. You got it: under the doormat. You see, the way it works is that the world’s divided in two, the smart and stupid, and the way you tell the smart ones, they’re at Harvard, and it’s a whole other world there, so—”
    “She went to England for the summer and left her key under the doormat? What did she expect? Harvard. I thought she had some connection with