Black Ribbon

them. In spreading the malicious rumor that Judge Eric Grimaldi performed butchery to correct a common show fault, Eva had threatened Eric’s ability to get what he wanted most—judging assignments—and in so doing, she’d constituted a threat to his identity as an AKC judge. Eva had also maligned Ginny, a tracking judge and a breeder with a reputation to protect, a reputable breeder who had tried everything to get Bingo away from Eva—everything but murder. In trying to spoil camp by seeding it with pet sympathy cards, material on pet funerals, and scary clippings, Eva had annoyed the campers. In doing our best to ignore her harassment and in avoiding direct confrontation and accusation, most of us, I thought, had had the sense that in failing to give Eva the attention she evidently sought, we were dealing with her as effectively as possible; we’d followed the advice we’d have offered to anyone who wanted to eradicate unwelcome behavior in an untrained dog. In theory, Eva had constituted an economic threat to Heather and Sara as well as to Maxine. She’d almost certainly have done a better job of planning, organizing, and administering a camp than Max had managed; and she’d have drawn campers who wanted a more varied program than Heather and Sara would offer. In doing her best to make Maxine, Sara, and Heather look bad, and in recruiting campers at Waggin’ Tail, she’d tried to steal business from Maxine and, potentially at least, from Heather and Sara. But I’d never been able to envision the agility people as Eva’s killers. Among other things, the personal animosity between Eva and Heather had centered on Heather’s role as fecal inspector, and I couldn’t really believe that Eva had been murdered because of her failure to clean up after her dog. Mainly, though, I was convinced that tampering with the A-frame or with any other agility obstacle was the last method that either Sara or Heather would have chosen; on the contrary, either would almost have died herself to protect the reputation of her sport.
    But Eva’s murder had obviously required knowledge of agility—not expertise, not general information about it, but a detailed understanding of the construction of Heather and Sara’s A-frame. Anyone could have heard Eva announce her intention of going to the agility area at one A.M., but not everyone could have planned the murder. Don Abbott, for instance, would have had no idea that pins ran through the hinges or that raising the obstacle would require going under it to adjust the chains. The murder had had an obvious second requirement: the ability to predict Bingo’s behavior. In a sense, when Myrna had joked about Bingo being the obvious murderer, she’d been right: Whoever had killed Eva had been able to predict that, left on a down-stay while Eva adjusted the A-frame, the Lab would break, head for the obstacle, miss the contact zone, land hard, and send it crashing down on Eva. Maxine hadn’t attended agility: She was thus exonerated, as was Everett Dow. Cam met the requirements, and she also had the organizational skills to carry out the murder, a requirement that Maxine so demonstrably lacked. But if Cam had decided to murder anyone, she’d have used a neat, sure method. The uncertainty of this one bothered me, as I was sure it had bothered Phyllis Abbott. What if, for once in his life, Bingo had obeyed? What if he’d broken his stay before Eva reached the obstacle? What if...? Phyllis Abbott was not a sloppy person. My hair dry, my body warm, I wondered what Phyllis’s backup plan had been: for Eva Spitteler. For me, too.
     

 
    IN DIMINISHING the momentous by magnifying trivia, death gives rise to vain, self-serving thoughts. I first noticed the phenomenon just after my mother died. Whenever I went to the bathroom sink to bathe my swollen eyes, I’d look in the mirror and admire the haircut I’d gotten the day before. Worse than this evidence of my coldhearted conceit was the jarring sense of self-congratulation that accompanied it, as if I’d anticipated the funeral and deserved credit for my cleverness and practicality. By chance, I wore new underwear that day. The panties had lace trim. The prettiness seemed important. I was young. At the time, these observations led me to conclude that I was a horrible human being. I have since learned to forgive myself for rejoicing in tokens of my own survival.
    Tonight, I dressed with absurd care: new underwear, as on the day my