Bloodlines

and then when his daughter dies, that’s on account of Joe, too.” He tilted his head back and emptied the can of Bud.
    As I got him another, I said the obvious, namely, “That’s totally senseless.”
    “Tell that to Enzio,” Kevin said. “Take that back. Don’t tell that to Enzio.”
    “So Joe doesn’t work for Enzio?”
    “Like I said, they aren’t pals. But, of course, Enzio’s had a little trouble in his life lately. Maybe Joe doesn’t work for Enzio. Maybe he doesn’t exactly not work for him, either. To a guy like Enzio? So maybe Joe was a bastard, but he was Maria’s husband, and... These Italians are like that.” In case you happen to be a militant member of the Cambridge Committee on Political Correctness, let me implore you not to get Kevin fired. For one thing, Kevin’s best friend, Mickey De Franco, is also his cousin, and, like most other Irish people in Greater Boston, Kevin is part Italian himself.
    “So this guy I saw tonight,” I said. “When I asked you if that was Rinehart, you didn’t just say no. You said something like, ‘That’s not Rinehart.’ So it sounded like... I mean, I had this feeling that what you meant was that he was someone else. Not just not Rinehart?” Kevin stood up and stretched. “He’s a tough little nobody.”
    “Rowdy didn’t think so,” I said. “When... I’d turned my car around, and... really, I didn’t do anything to him. He’d pulled his van out of the back lot at Rinehart’s, and he got out to shut the gate, and I saw him in the headlights. And so he started swearing and yelling at me to get out of there. And Rowdy growled.” The sound of his own name would rouse Rowdy from a coma. He’d been stretched out on the floor in a deep doze, but now he stood up, shook himself, and padded over to me. Have I ever mentioned what a beautiful dog he is? As maybe you’ve noticed, he looks quite a lot like a famous malamute named Inuit’s Wooly Bully, who was called Floyd. Rowdy’s a pretty boy, too. I told him so.
    “Probably a dog somewhere around,” Kevin said. He had a point. That van could have been packed with puppies. When Rowdy and Kimi are in their car, they’ll warn other dogs away. If they spot a particularly dominant-looking canine, they’ll roar, yell, and claw at the windows.
    “I didn’t see one,” I said, “and if there’s a dog around, I notice. Besides, I could tell. Maybe you won’t believe it, but it’s true. Rowdy didn’t like the sound of this guy’s voice.”
    Kevin’s big face crinkled up, and he said, “Oh, yeah?”
    “Yes,” I said. “So what’s his name?”
    “Simms,” Kevin said. “He’s Rinehart’s delivery boy. He’s the guy who brought the puppies to Diane Sweet. Walt Simms. Hey, Holly, like I told you, local dogs.”
    Rowdy strolled to his water dish. He drank with loud splashes. The refrigerator hummed. Kimi yipped softly in her sleep. To hide my face from Kevin, I got up, filled the kettle, and put it on to heat.
    “Oh,” I said, smiling. Smiling? You bet. Kevin would arrest Walter Simms for the murder of Diane Sweet; Simms’s dogs would somehow be confiscated; we’d get Icekist Sissy back; and we’d rescue the others, too. “Well, Kevin, if this guy was there that night, then obviously—”
    “His story’s, uh... his story checks out.”
    “He admits he was there?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “And?”
    Kevin’s smile was wry. “I’ll tell you something.”
    Kevin’s eyes have a wonderful clarity. They locked on mine. “You hear the craziest things in this job. Amazing things. And every time I think I’ve heard it all, then I hear something else.”
    “What did you hear this time?”
    “Well, Sunday night, Monday morning, we figured what we were dealing with here was a rape and robbery.”
    “You didn’t tell me that,” I said. “My God. That really is awful. Now I am sorry for her.” And I was, too. Yeah, I know. Murder didn’t elicit all that much sympathy, but rape did. I’m not trying to justify my feelings, you know. I’m just telling you what they were. “Kevin, what the hell are you smiling about? You know, I have read and heard a lot about how the police, at least male cops, don’t take this seriously, but I never, ever thought that you —”
    “It wasn’t rape,” Kevin said.
    I was furious. “Oh,” I said, “I suppose she had on black lace underwear, so you guys decided—Kevin, I can hardly believe this. If anybody had asked me, I would have