Bloodlines

fuck out of here.”
    “That’s a handsome Rottie you’ve got there,” I said. “You know, a bad case of fleas could really do a job on him. Fleas can carry tapeworms, for one thing. And a lot of dogs are allergic to fleas. If he starts scratching, he’ll tear up that beautiful coat.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Simms jerked his thumb back toward the source of the yipping. “Champ’s around all them other dogs, and he never picked nothing up.”
    “Well, he could,” I said, wiping the rain off my face with my free hand, “if the other dogs have fleas. Maybe you’ve just been lucky so far. You take pretty good care of Champ, don’t you?”
    And, I swear to God, Walter Simms beamed. Like his Rottie, he was dark-eyed and muscular, and his face had the same well-developed cheekbones as his dog’s. “Yeah,” he confessed almost shyly. Then he turned serious. “I ain’t got no money to waste on them dogs out there,” he said, jerking his thumb once again, “but I don’t want nothing happening to Champ. That stuff really work?”
    “Yes,” I lied. “I told, uh, Miss Simms. I’ll leave you the free samples.” I was as close to Walter Simms as I wanted to be. “I’ll put them in your mailbox, okay? Is that all right?”
    Cheryl threw Walter a look so subservient that I almost expected her to crouch and leave a little submissive puddle on the porch at his feet.
    “Is that all right?” I asked again.
    Walter looked Cheryl up and down, then said, “Yeah.”
    As I was stashing Flee-B-Gon containers in the Mailbox, I called casually, “Hey, what’s so special about Champ? I mean, your other dogs...”
    Walter Simms looked at the Rottie and clapped his hands. The sleek black-and-rust dog gave a powerful upward bound and made a springing, muscular landing at Simms’s feet. As if stating the obvious, Simms said, “Champ’s not like them others. Champ’s my dog.”
     

24
     

     
    I left Afton that Wednesday afternoon feeling wet, weak, and cowardly. In visiting Walter and Cheryl Simms, I’d accomplished nothing. I’d smelled and heard the evidence of a puppy mill, but the only dog I’d observed had been Walter’s pet Rottie. Champ looked anything but neglected. According to Missy’s papers, Simms had malamutes, presumably including Missy’s dam, Icekist Sissy, but I hadn’t even been able to verify the presence of the breed. I’d had a small camera tucked in my shoulder bag. In retrospect, I wondered why I’d even bothered to take it with me. Had I expected Walter and Cheryl Simms to give me free run of the place to do a full-page spread for Dog’s Life ?
    But if Cheryl Simms had been alone there? It seemed just possible that Cheryl might at least have opened that gate. She’d eyed my briefcase of bright containers with the greediness of a deprived child. If I’d taken advantage of Cheryl’s simplicity to buy my way in, I just might have had the chance to get a couple of photos. If so, Jane Appleyard might have had the probable cause she needed to take legal action, maybe enough evidence to get the authorities to raid the damned place and permanently close it down.
    As it was? I hadn’t even found out for sure that
    Simms had Missy. I tried to forget Missy’s open, friendly trust, the eagerness of her greeting, her puppy sweetness, that full mask on her face, the markings so much like Kimi’s. Until the previous Friday, only five days ago, Missy had spent a pampered life in the small and hot but clean and toy-packed pantry of Enid Sievers’s overstuffed raspberry house. I tried to console myself. Although Missy’s own existence had left her utterly unprepared for hardship, she was, after all, an Alaskan malamute. The breed evolved in the brutal environment of the Arctic. Some of Missy’s own ancestors had survived the unspeakable cruelty of the men and the climate in Little America. An Alaskan malamute can endure almost anything, I reminded myself. Tears filled my eyes. I pulled to the side of the road. The Byrd expeditions are the stuff of my nightmares. Why in God’s name had I looked to Antarctica for consolation?
    When I'd blown my nose and pulled myself together, I decided that instead of heading directly back to Cambridge, I'd detour through Westbrook and stop at Your Local Breeder. Gloria Loss had been due to start work there this morning. She’d had very little time to discover anything, and Janice Coakley had probably kept her busy cleaning out kennels and scrubbing kibble