Bloodlines

song running through my head had finally reached my stomach.
    My answering machine had two messages, one from Gloria Loss, the other from my father. Both said they would call back. When Rowdy and Kimi had gobbled down their dog-show samples of all-natural lamb and rice, they eyed the rapidly accumulating pile of pizza crusts on my plate. I untied the dogs and took a handful of pizza crust. What I had in mind was a quick play-training session to work on speeding up their downs, but before I’d said a word or given a signal, Rowdy’s legs went out from under him, and about a second afterward, Kimi hit the floor, too. Great. They’d both mastered a whole new obedience exercise: the notorious Drop on Pizza.
    The phone rang. Gloria was elated. “I decided I’d just show up there, not call, just show up, and—”
    “You didn’t have directions,” I said sourly.
    She was breathless with excitement. “I just went out there, and I thought I’d ask at a gas station or something, but I didn’t even need to. I saw the sign, and I just walked in, and the most amazing thing happened. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “You know how there’s this sort of front room? In the front, there’s like a little shop. And the puppies are in the back.”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, I just sort of walked in, and there wasn’t anyone there, and then I heard people’s voices in the back, so I went there. And you won’t believe it.”
    “Try me,” I said.
    “This guy?”
    “Ronald?”
    “Yes. He was... I guess he was supposed to be cleaning out the kennels, only I guess, while he was, they started having a fight.”
    “He and Janice Coakley?”
    “Yes. And you won’t believe it.”
    “I might,” I said, “given the opportunity.”
    “The second I walked in, the exact second, he had this sort of little shovel in his hand, and it was, uh, full. And Mrs. Coakley... I guess she’d just said something to him? And he just hauled off and threw it at her!”
    “The shovel?”
    “No! The, uh, the... everything that was in it!” Gloria finally found the lost word. “Pooh! He threw this gigantic shovelful of dog pooh at her.” Gloria caught her breath and added, “And he didn’t miss, either.”
    “Janice Coakley must have been a little provoked,” I said.
    “Provoked! I thought she was going to kill him. All I could think of was this woman that was murdered at Puppy Luv, and I thought, wow, there’s going to be a whole series of murders in pet shops, and here I am—”
    “But she didn’t.” I stopped. “Or... My God, she didn’t, did she?”
    “No, of course not. What she did was... It was just like a movie. She pointed her finger at him and yelled, ‘Ronald, you’re fired!’ It was totally amazing.”
    “I can imagine,” I said.
    “So then, honestly, it was incredible. He just left. He walked out. Just like that. And so I helped her get cleaned up, and she hired me.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Not exactly. It took a while. She was sort of upset.” Gloria’s voice dropped. “She was crying. It was sort of awful. And then a couple of the puppies threw up, and that’s basically how I got the job.”
    “How?”
    “I asked her if she wanted me to clean up, you know, after the puppies.”
    “And she just hired you? Just like that?”
    “Sort of. I’m, uh, kind of on probation. I’m temporary. But it was really amazing.”
    Lucky, yes. Amazing? Not really. Just the work of the great semantic palindrome. You know what a palindrome is, don’t you? The same thing spelled backward and forward. Madam, I’m Adam. And semantic is meaning, right? So a semantic palindrome means the same thing both ways. Anyway, the truly amazing thing is that, so far as I know, in the entire English language, there’s only one example. Yes, you got it. Divine intervention.
    After I’d reminded Gloria of her tasks at Your Local Breeder, I called Buck, who always comes through when I really need him, which is to say, whenever I’m desperate for help that has anything to do with a dog. Icekist Sissy’s story started as I’d expected. The breeder was, of course, Lois Metzler, and the first owners were Mark and Linda Ames, Lois’s yuppie couple. Sissy’s ownership had been transferred to Joseph Rinehart. The surprise was that he still owned her.
    “Then he must have leased her,” I said. “He leased her to Walter Simms.”
    Have I lost you? According to Section 1 of