Black Ribbon

cuff and a sock, Sara felt no warmth. Even so, she and Heather decided to apply their strength to shifting the heavy ramps. As Sara told me, “We’re athletes, just like our dogs. It didn’t seem right to leave her lying there, especially... Well, just in case. Really, we knew, though. But at the time, it seemed like we had to try. It was our equipment; it felt like our responsibility. And, of course, she’d threatened to go and use it. She kept saying one A.M. We could’ve stayed out there all night. I could’ve—I’ve got a tent with me. It would’ve been no big deal.”
    Too late to save Eva’s life, Sara maintained a civilized vigil over the pieces of the A-frame and the body they had crushed. Heather went to summon help. If I hadn’t bothered to dry my hair and if I’d crated Rowdy without giving him a little quick-leg-lift trip outside, I might have been sitting at breakfast when Heather arrived at the main lodge. I’d have been at a table eating eggs and muffins when she dashed in, found Max, and broke the news about the accident. I might even have been among the campers who followed Heather back to the agility area, maybe one of the people who made an effort to straighten out Eva’s twisted body. People shed their jackets and sweatshirts, I heard, and placed them over Eva’s battered corpse as a sort of makeshift crazy-quilt shroud. The body shouldn’t have been moved, covered, or even touched, but the massive obstacle had landed directly on Eva’s head. I wouldn’t Have been able to keep looking, either.
    Because I lingered in the shower and dutifully took Rowdy out, I learned of Eva Spitteler’s death when I arrived at the main lodge, where Chuck Siegel, Cam, and a couple of other obedience people were ordering Maxine to call the police.
    Instead of responding, Max caught my eye. With uncharacteristic solemnity she said, “Holly, the most awful thing has happened. Eva Spitteler has had a terrible accident.”
    With an exasperated sigh, Cam said outright that Eva was dead.
    “You’re positive?” I asked. “Because—”
    Cam shook her head. Her face was pale. “She never stood a chance. She must’ve been trying to raise the height of the A-frame, and she was underneath, fixing the chains, I guess, when the whole thing collapsed on her. Her head must’ve been right under one of those support beams. It’s like... It’s like somebody picked up the A-frame and hit her over the head with it.”
    Let me explain the construction of an A-frame. Each ramp is three feet wide and nine feet long, and when they’re joined together, they’re held in place at the top—at the peak of the A —by a couple of hinges. If the A-frame were raised to competition height—a bit over six feet above the ground—with nothing to link the ramps but the hinges at the apex? And then a big dog raced up and over? WHAM! So there have to be additional supports of some kind, for instance, in the case of Heather and Sara’s A-frame, a pair of chains. On that kind of A-frame, the chains are like double crossbars on a capital A —what makes the A-frame an A, and not just an upside down V that would fall apart if it took any weight. Okay so far? If so, it’s obvious that every time you raise or lower the height of the obstacle, you don’t just move the hinged ramps up or down; you also have to reset the chains. Still lost? Draw a tall, skinny capital A and then a short, fat capital A. Look at the crossbars, one very short, the other very wide. And to set the chains? You have to get under the obstacle, where the chains hook to the ramps.
    “Cam,” Max said sharply, “it was a terrible accident. ” There were bright spots of color on her cheeks.
    “Of course it was,” Cam said, “except that she had no business being out there, and—”
    Chuck tried to break in, but before he could succeed, a plump, prosperous-looking man with an air of authority—the manager of the resort, I assumed—approached Maxine and announced that someone named Wayne was on his way.
    “That’s Wayne Varney,” Maxine explained to us. “Well, that’s all right. Wayne will know what to do.” After Chuck had asked just who Wayne was, she said, “Oh, he’s Rangeley Police, and I think...” Addressing the plump man, she asked, “Is Wayne still a deputy, too?”
    The man nodded.
    The city kids probably expected to see the lodge doors swing open to admit a six-gun-toting clone of Charles Bronson. Law enforcement people in the