Animal Appetite

impressed.
    “Off!” I ordered. To Randall, I said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. Suede, of all things! I’m very sorry. They don’t normally do that. They thought you were giving them a signal. Dogs, down!” The dogs hit the ground.
    Randall certainly noticed that the dogs were no longer depositing dirt on his jacket and digging their nails into the suede, and although he probably observed that the huge, sharp teeth and smiling jaws were no longer within immediate striking range of his throat, I somehow had the sense that he didn’t fully appreciate the perfection of those sphinxlike downs. He was busy brushing off the sleeves of the jacket.
    “They haven’t torn the suede, have they?” I asked.
    Eyeing the dogs, he shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
    “They misunderstood,” I explained. Raising my arms, I said, “Up!” And the dogs sprang to their feet, rose on their hind legs, and placed their paws on my arms. Malamutes look especially athletic when their bodies are stretched up like that. Rowdy and Kimi’s white tails were wagging. “Good dogs. Okay! Off.” To Randall, I said, “You see? It was a misunderstanding. But I’m really very sorry. Come in and we’ll have some coffee.”
    To prevent any additional miscommunication, I put the dogs in my bedroom. Then I made a pot of French roast, offered to pay to have the jacket cleaned (he refused), and, as I’d done on my visit to Randall, assured him that I was the strong alpha leader of my little pack and that Rowdy and Kimi were friendly and gentle. “I train dogs,” I explained, gesturing to the dozens of leashes that hung on hooks on the kitchen door. He eyed the leashes with curiosity. I really own more than I need. Maybe he suspected me of having a few dozen additional dogs stashed somewhere, ready to do a real job on his jacket.
    “I’m not afraid of dogs,” Randall informed me.
    “Of course not.”
    “Far from it.”
    “Of course.” After pouring coffee and offering cream and sugar, I took a seat opposite Randall at the kitchen table and thanked him for the material about Hannah Duston.
    He inquired about the progress I was making with my research and asked what had aroused my interest in Hannah.
    “My car broke down in the center of Haverhill, and I saw the statue.” I did not, of course, mention Rita’s five-hundred-dollar bet. Rather, I pulled out my folder of notes and photocopied material, and, succumbing to the low impulse to name-drop, casually mentioned that I was having tea with Professor Foley on Friday.
    Randall rested a well-groomed hand on the Laurel Thatcher Ulrich book. He smiled. “Read this before you see him,” he advised.
    I smiled back. “Oh, I always do my homework on time.”
    “There’s a surprise buried in here.” He stroked the copy of Good Wives as if caressing a fat, sedate cat. “Let me know what you think of it. It’s always interesting to see how matters appear to the untutored eye.”
    The untutored eye! Both of mine blinked. Soon thereafter Randall Carey left. He didn’t thank me for the coffee. As soon as he departed, I let the dogs loose. “If that man ever shows up again,” I told them, “dig your nails into his damned suede jacket. In fact, have it for lunch.”
    I was, however, chagrined to discover that Randall Carey was right about Good Wives. The book revealed an unsettling connection that Laurel Thatcher Ulrich had made. As I’d known, Cotton Mather preached a sermon about Hannah Duston, who was in the church when he proclaimed her a savior of New England. Four years earlier, Mather had preached a sermon of condemnation about a woman named Elizabeth Emerson. The unmarried mother of one child, Elizabeth Emerson had given surreptitious birth to twins and promptly killed them. In 1693, she was convicted of murdering her newborn babies. Hannah Duston’s maiden name was Emerson. Hannah Duston and Elizabeth Emerson were sisters.
     

Sixteen

     
    The next morning, I put both dogs in the Bronco and set out for Haverhill. Before leaving Cambridge, I stopped to mail a small package to Oscar Fisch. Then I headed north. This time I got off at a different exit from the one I’d taken the day I’d met Hannah Duston. Just off the highway was a nursing home named in honor of Haverhill’s colonial heroine. Somehow, the name didn’t connote tender loving care.
    By now, of course, I knew more about Hannah than I had at our first encounter, yet I felt almost eager to see her again. I’d