All Shots

need to call him. You can ask how he is and what he’s doing, and then you can tell him about Strike and about promises. And you can ask him what to do. Okay?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Promise?”
    She didn’t make the connection. Solemnly, she said, “I promise.”
    I knew she’d make the call. After all, she certainly did keep promises.
     

CHAPTER 29
     
    What I knew about Roman Catholicism was almost nothing. In particular, I knew almost nothing about confession except what everyone learns from movies and TV shows, for example, that priests were forbidden to reveal anything they’d learned during confession. What had Mel-lie told her priest about Strike and about the woman who’d left Strike with her? What, if anything, had she said to him about the murder? Mellie and her priest spoke on the phone and probably in person. If she’d told him anything important about the murder victim or the murder, had she done so in an informal conversation? Or during confession? In any case, I somehow trusted Father McArdle to advise Mellie to talk to the police, if not to me, and to be fully truthful in spite of whatever promise of secrecy she’d made about Strike. From what I’d heard, he sounded like a good man. After all, according to Mellie, he had assured her that her Boston terrier, Lily, had gone to heaven. That assurance continued to comfort her.
    I thought of the priest as I passed Saint Peter’s Parish at nine or nine fifteen that evening. I’d dropped Leah off after the run-throughs and was looking forward to getting home. At the start of the evening, as we’d headed out of Cambridge, I’d thought about presenting the entire story to Leah, but I’d decided that she’d have nothing useful to say about it. On the contrary, I was sure that she’d suggest pressing Mellie far more forcefully than I wanted to do. Not that Leah was a mean or inconsiderate person. She was kind, but she’d never met Mellie and wouldn’t understand why I was unwilling to try to shake the truth out of her. Speaking of truth, I have to confess that I had a selfish reason for avoiding the subject of Mellie, Streak, and the murder: I wanted a few hours of respite and escape, and once Leah gets started on something, she just won’t let it go. So, I got what I wanted. Leah was bubbling with news of her friends and her courses, and I enjoyed listening to her and sharing her happiness. In return, I told Leah about Gabrielle’s new friendship with the DEA agent whom she met because someone had been growing marijuana on land she owned, the same DEA agent who was probably going to turn up at Thanksgiving dinner and become our honorary cousin.
    At the rally event, I ran into a lot of people I knew, and Rowdy did exceptionally well, even on an advanced exercise called the Offset Figure 8 that required him to refrain from devouring the contents of two bowls of little dog cookies. According to the rules for rally novice and advanced, the handler is allowed to communicate with the dog during exercises by talking, patting her leg, clapping her hands, and otherwise providing encouragement, but I’m far from sure that the people who wrote the rules understood that a malamute handler determined to keep her dog’s attention away from food has to blast the dog with every allowed form of encouragement all at once. Talking is easy: “Good boy, Rowdy! That’s it! Excellent! This way! Perfect!” Fine. But just try slapping your thigh while simultaneously clapping your hands. I mean, it can’t be done, can it? You’d need three hands. Well, as an alternative, what you’d really need is liver, beef, or chicken, all three of which I used in quantity. Food isn’t allowed during actual trials, but this was a run-through, and I make no apologies. I got the behavior I wanted. That was my goal. I achieved it. And Rowdy and I both had fun. Kimi, I might add, got the little dog cookies in the bowls. She had fun, too.
    I spent the drive back to Cambridge persuading Leah to stop blaming herself.
    “It was just a little setback,” I said.
    “She’ll remember it forever. I haven’t been working with her. I knew it was too advanced.”
    “Leah, rally is supposed to be fun. So a malamute stole food. That’s news to you?”
    “Rowdy didn’t.”
    “He isn’t crazy about those dry cookies.”
    “I should’ve used treats the way you did.”
    “Next time you will, okay? For now, just let it go. Kimi had a happy experience with rally. Focus on