All Shots

dog-sitting without a license, is she?”
    “I’m wondering exactly how long the dog has been missing. Days? Hours?”
    “Oh, hours. Today.”
    “Great. From Mellie’s house?”
    “Her yard, I should imagine.”
    Stop imagining! Give me facts! “And where does Mellie live?”
    “A bit north of Rindge Avenue. She’s a neighbor of mine.”
    Persistence yielded Mellie’s address, but when I asked for her phone number, Francie insisted on explaining Mellie to me.
    “Mellie is the sweetest person on earth,” Francie said. “She has special needs. She has the mind of a child, really. But I think it’s fair to say that she’s a model for independent living. She lives in the house she grew up in.”
    “Alone?”
    “People help her. Her parents died before they’d touched their retirement money, so there’s some sort of little trust fund, and there’s a man at the bank who helps. She has someone who deals with bills. Her priest helps out. We pitch in. I make sure that she sees her doctor. The dentist.”
    “And she does dog-sitting.”
    “Mellie just loves animals. She had a little dog that died a few months ago, and she takes dogs in. She walks dogs. Feeds people’s cats. It’s all very informal. But unfortunately, she saw something on television that scared her, something about a kennel. I don’t know. That’s why she won’t call animal control about this husky.”
    “Who’s the owner?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “And what does the dog look like?”
    “It’s a husky. Gray.”
    Gray doesn’t go without saying. Both Siberian huskies and Alaskan malamutes exhibit a wonderful variety of coat colors. Furthermore, the average person can’t tell one breed from the other. In different circumstances, I’d probably have probed for information about the dog’s breed, including eye color. Happiest words in malamute rescue: blue eyes. Siberians have blue eyes, brown eyes, or, in bieyed dogs, one eye of each color, whereas all malamutes have brown eyes, preferably dark brown, sometimes light brown or even hazel, but never blue. There are many other differences between the two breeds, but a blue-eyed dog is, as Betty had phrased it, not one of ours. I also didn’t bother to ask Francie why it was malamute rescue she’d called. Because the general public confuses the two breeds, we sometimes get calls and e-mail about Siberians. Like most other breed rescue groups, we are chronically desperate for foster-care space, so we have to reserve it for malamutes, but if I don’t have to come up with a foster-care slot, I’m always happy to do what I can to help with a Siberian or, for that matter, any other breed or mix. “Male or female?” I asked.
    “Female.”
    “I’ll do what I can,” I promised, “but I have to warn you that Siberian huskies love to run. The dog could be long gone by now. But maybe not.”
    “Thank you,” Francie said. “I really appreciate it. Mellie is special. She is a pure soul.”
    After I hung up, I said, “Hey, Rowdy, I’ve got a fun job for you. You want to go find a pretty girl?”
    And we did find a pretty girl, too. Or a once-pretty girl. But not the kind I meant.
     

CHAPTER 4
     
    In a self-sacrificing- act of husband preservation, I’d insisted that Steve and I trade vehicles for his trip to Minnesota. My newish Blazer was much more reliable than his old van. Because of his attachment to the rattletrap, I never called it that within his hearing, but a rattletrap was exactly what it was: every loose part rattled, and every part sounded loose. But it was perfectly set up for dogs. It easily held crates for our five dogs, and it had boxes, compartments, and hooks for leashes, harnesses, old towels, veterinary supplies, and other gear that Steve always wanted to have at hand. Because of Steve’s loyalty to the rattletrap, I hadn’t come right out and said, “Look, if you try to drive that collection of loosely attached auto parts to Minnesota and back, it’s going to break down en route if we’re lucky, and if we’re unlucky, you and the dogs are going to die in an accident, so take my Blazer.” On the contrary, I’d pleaded with him to let me have his van so that Rowdy, Sammy, and I could have charming and convenient transportation to the show they were entered in on September ninth. Never marry a dog trainer. We are sooooooo manipulative.
    To avoid the traffic at Fresh Pond, I took Garden Street to Sherman Street to Rindge Avenue and then wound my way