Animal Appetite

probably knows all that.” Rita ate a bit of yogurt. “They probably try. Most of these families do.”
    “He’s had a haircut,” I conceded. “He’s not all that dirty. And his shoes and his parka look expensive.”
    “Well, there you have it. The family probably does its best, but this guy can’t be easy to help. With someone as disturbed as this, there are no simple solutions.”
    “I should never have mentioned his father.”
    “Anything could have precipitated it.”
    “Not just anything. His father really was murdered.” After Rita left for her office, I tried to settle down to my own work. Gareth’s ranting about rats and poison seemed to haunt me. On inspiration, I consulted The Merck Veterinary Manual. It’s a fat book, and in addition to chapter after chapter about the ailments that afflict dogs, cats, livestock, marine mammals, fish, and all the rest, it has a long section about poisoning, because, of course, animals accidentally poison themselves much more often than human beings poison themselves or one another. Anyway, there were four dense paragraphs about sodium fluoroacetate, which came across as the answer to a poisoner’s prayers. It barely sounded real: no color, no odor, no taste, soluble in water, and ultradeadly—the victim dying an agonizing death from either convulsions or heart failure. This incredibly dangerous stuff was banned for use on federal land and available only to certified, insured exterminators. The law required that it be mixed with black dye. According to the Manual, the dye was for identification, meaning, I guessed, that poisoners couldn’t go around insinuating it into lemonade or beer, but had to stick to drinks that were black already. Coffee, for instance.
    Feeling slightly nauseated, I emptied my coffee cup into the sink, went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth, changed into my heavy boots, and pulled on an old jacket and pigskin gloves. After checking the fenced yard for signs of anything even remotely suggestive of rodents, I let the dogs out. Then I went through the gate to the driveway, carefully closed the gate, and set to work on my wood.
    The afternoon was, if anything, grayer, colder, windier, and nastier than the morning had been. The unsplit logs seemed to have propagated in my absence. Every piece resisted my wedge. In my effort to split one especially recalcitrant piece, I slammed my sledgehammer against the wedge, pounded my left index finger, and cursed. When Randall Carey showed up to offer me a book —Good Wives by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich—and a couple of photocopied articles about Hannah Duston, I was glad for an excuse to quit.
    Remember the comic strip character called Tubby? Well, I’d have been willing to bet that Tubby had been Randall Carey’s childhood nickname. Not that Randall was fat—he wasn’t—but he was nonetheless round, as if he’d been drawn by an illustrator who preferred circles and curves to angles and straight lines. Today he had on khaki pants and a suede jacket that would be ruined if the dark sky let loose. He didn’t wear an ascot or carry a stout walking stick, but he looked as if he might have thought about both. In the fresh air, I caught a whiff of men’s cologne or aftershave. Bay rum? Isn’t that what English gentlemen pat on? In the movies, they do. The only artificial odors you ever smell on Steve are the manly scents of dog shampoo, Panolog cream, and chlorine bleach.
    But Randall Carey knew about Hannah Duston. After stowing my sledgehammer, wedges, and ax under the little porch, I invited Randall in for coffee. When he accepted, I led him through the gate to the yard. As thrilled as ever to welcome a visitor, Rowdy and Kimi came bounding toward him. They know better than to jump on people except by invitation. Randall made the mistake of inadvertently issuing one. By then, I was carrying the book and the articles, and Randall’s hands were free. As the dogs happily charged up to him, he raised both arms in what I suppose was an unconscious expression of the wish to take immediate flight and soar far above the yard and the dogs. Rowdy and Kimi, however, recognized the signal even in the absence of the command that goes with it: Up! It’s a nifty trick. I raise my arms shoulder-high and tell the dogs “Up!” Rowdy and Kimi leap up and rest their beautiful snowshoe paws on my outstretched arms. Only now, of course, the dogs jumped on Randall Carey. He was not favorably