All Shots

mail, she does not leave a message.
     

CHAPTER 18
     
    “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 diminuitive 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,