All Shots

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?”
     

CHAPTER 17
     
    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