Black Ribbon

whirling, passing through the lights outside the cabins and pausing only occasionally to convulse himself in audible efforts to decontaminate himself.
    Her corpulence illuminated by the light mounted outside my cabin, my assailant stood on the slope above the dock. A towel in those strong hands, she rubbed vigorously. Although she addressed Cam, she spoke to me as well. Her tone was light, amused, and all-forgiving: “I inhaled a few drops of water, and while I was still coughing it up, Holly jumped to my rescue, and Rowdy leaped in after her.” The note of surprise was utterly genuine. After a light, brittle laugh, she went on to elaborate: a total misunderstanding, a minor fiasco, a comedy of errors.
    In emerging from the lake, two dissimilar creatures thus performed kindred rituals: In shaking off water, Rowdy was like an Orthodox Jew who’d been forced to consume trayf. Phyllis Abbott had also set about purifying herself. Phyllis, however, was concerned about her reputation; Rowdy, about his soul. Her superficial task was easier than Rowdy’s, and of the two, she was the more successful. In Cam’s position or in Ginny’s, I’d have accepted her account as unquestioningly as they did. There was, after all, no reason to doubt Phyllis’s word, especially in the presence of dripping proof that some fool had stupidly tried to play lifeguard.
    I’ve wondered, of course, what would have happened if I’d spoken up. Phyllis lured me in , I could have proclaimed, and then she tried to drown me! Cam, I predict, would have raided her own or someone else’s veterinary first-aid kit, administered a mastiff-size dose of acepromazine, packed me into an airline-approved Vari-Kennel, and assured me that I’d feel a lot better when the trip was over; and Ginny would’ve made sure I had a soft, clean crate pad and a bowl of fresh water.
    I said nothing except a few words of thanks to Ginny, who had given me the sweatshirt off her back and, more importantly, caught the errant Rowdy by credibly baiting him with a fistful of imaginary liver.
    Back in our cabin, even before I got into the shower, I treated him to the real thing. “Rowdy, I know what you did, big boy, and that’s all that really matters.” I stroked him gently, with the respect he deserved. The guard hair, his water-shedding outer coat, was almost dry, but his woolly undercoat remained damp. Since he was in no danger of contracting a serious chill, I let him enjoy the mal-deliciousness of being half frozen while I stood under the hottest shower my skin would tolerate and wished that I’d had the wisdom to stash a bottle of brandy among the extra leads, dumbbells, brushes, and other equipment I’d packed for Rowdy. My body turned a shade of red that reminded me of Phyllis Abbott’s hair and Nigel’s matching coat. In my rash to rescue her, I’d gone in fully dressed. My only visible wounds were the scratches she’d inflicted on my face, minor abrasions readily blamed on Rowdy. In a moment of petty nastiness, I hoped he’d raked Phyllis’s exposed body with his thick claws. I even regretted having given his nails a recent trimming.
    When I got out of the shower, I wrapped my head and body in the resort’s thick red towels and stood under the red-bulbed heat lamp that was mounted in the ceiling. When I’d gently combed my hair, I plugged in my blow dryer, bent from the waist, trained warm air on my sore scalp, and hoped that I was simultaneously facilitating the flow of blood to my brain. Phyllis Abbott had had no reason to drown me. If she’d been trying to protect herself, the attack had been entirely misguided: Until it occurred, I’d seen Phyllis as only one of the people who could have murdered Eva Spitteler. Had Phyllis tried to kill me for the same reason she’d actually murdered Eva Spitteler? And why had she done that?
    At least momentarily, we’d all had motives. If I read Craig correctly, he was a dog snob in the making; and in insulting Craig’s dog, Lucky, Eva had hurt Joy, Craig’s vulnerable child bride. She’d insulted Michael’s Akita, Jacob, she’d ridiculed Rowdy, and she’d undoubtedly demeaned a lot of other dogs as well. If Everett Dow had really blamed the death of his wife on the death of the pet shop pup he’d bought for her, and if be really believed that Eva’s business was a pet shop that sold dogs, he’d had a motive, too. Eric and Ginny, though, had had even stronger motives. Eva had slandered both of