Bloodlines

all alone. This good-for-nothing husband never should’ve let her do that.” Kevin gnawed thoughtfully and added, “Unless...”
    Rita maintains that what keeps Kevin single is his relationship with his mother. She’s wrong. The truth is that he fears for his life.
    I knew what Kevin was going to say. I beat him to it. “Well, I was wondering about the husband. Except...”
    “Yeah, the goose that laid the golden egg,” Kevin said. “But if you ask him, John Sweet, he was the head honcho, and all’s his wife did was the scut work, is what it boils down to.”
    “Did the Sweets, uh, not get along? Did they fight?”
    “Not so’s the employees and the neighbors noticed, not the ones we talked to so far. Sounds more like they both went their separate ways, and his separate way was staying home watching TV and letting his wife support him, and her separate way was running the pet shop, working all the time so’s he could—”
    I’d had about all I could take. “Kevin, I know... Look, Kevin, nobody should have to die like that, and I’m really sorry, but no matter how hard Diane Sweet worked, she was in a very dirty business. It’s like what your mother’s always saying: Satan finds work for idle hands to do. That’s whose work Diane Sweet really did, you know. Plenty of people make a good living selling pet supplies and food, and doing grooming. Diane Sweet didn’t have to sell puppies.”
    “If you’d’ve seen—”
    “If I’d seen her body, I’d probably feel sorrier for her, okay, but I still wouldn’t think that running Puppy Luv was a good thing to do. Kevin, in Kansas—”
    “I’m going to say it again. The puppies they got there didn’t come from Kansas, and they didn’t come from the airport.”
    “Then where did they come from? Kevin, if what we’re talking about is Kansas in Massachusetts, I want you to tell me where. In a way, you know, this is my business. I am a dog writer. Maybe there’s something I can—”
    “Not on your life,” he said. “Some of these people... Well, they’re not nice people.”
    “You see? They aren’t nice people, and Diane Sweet was one of them. Kevin, compared with the dogs on the average puppy farm, this chicken we just ate had a beautiful life.” I looked down at my blackened plate of greasy bones. “And,” I added, “if that’s happening around here... Hey, Kevin, are you, uh, assuming that if it wasn’t the husband, then, uh, what happened was that she basically interrupted a burglary? Not interrupted, but that someone broke in, and she was there? Because, Kevin, Puppy Luv is a storefront. It has big windows. A burglar would’ve had to be pretty stupid to think the place was empty. Wouldn’t a burglar look in the front before he broke in through the back?”
    “The theory is she was out back where they do the grooming. There’s a cubbyhole of an office there and a stock room, bunch of little rooms in the back.”
    “Maybe,” I agreed, “but think about the people she must’ve dealt with. In terms of buying the puppies, you said it yourself. They’re not nice people. Also... I tried to tell you this morning. Kevin, with Trapper, you lucked out, but—if you don’t believe me, ask Steve, if you want—Diane Sweet sold a lot of dogs that ended up getting sick and costing people a ton of money. And breaking their hearts, too. It could’ve been someone who bought a dog from Puppy Luv and had some kind of nightmare experience, someone who really hated Diane Sweet. Anybody would’ve had the sense to make it look like a robbery. The point is, Kevin, that running a pet shop isn’t like running a bakery or something. It isn’t neutral. Dogs get hurt, puppies get hurt, and the people who buy the puppies get hurt. And on the other end, the brokers make a whole lot of money, which means... Well, I’m not sure how, but I guess it means they’ve got a lot to lose. Anyway, there was money and pain on both sides. And Diane Sweet was right in the middle.”
    “ ‘Caught in the middle,’ ” Kevin intoned dramatically. He carried our plates to the sink and put the bones down the garbage disposal.
    “Laugh if you want, but it’s true. Except the ones who usually get caught in the middle are the dogs. Diane Sweet was an exception.”
    Kevin squirted a stream of generic liquid detergent into the sink. Suds billowed. “I hate to be the one to tell you, Holly, but you’re a dog snob. You ever owned a mutt in your life?”
    “That