Bloodlines

competed for Simms. He left Janice’s, drove to Diane’s. Janice called Diane, and Diane said she was busy. They hung up at twelve minutes after ten? It takes maybe forty minutes, give or take, to get from Westbrook to Cambridge. Late on a Sunday evening, maybe less. So when was Diane murdered? What time did she die?”
    “Body temperature, stomach contents, doesn’t mean a thing,” Kevin said dismally. “You been watching too much TV.”
    “Right,” I said. “The Westminster Kennel Club
    Dog Show. All the latest news in forensic science. What time did she die?”
    “After the last time she was known to be alive. Before she was found dead. Hey, no joke. This is what they tell us.”
    “Don’t they even give you a guess?”
    “Ten-thirty, eleven, eleven-thirty. Give or take.”
    “Then Janice had time. Where does she say she was?”
    “Home, like everybody else. Where were you Sunday at eleven?”
    “Home.”
    “Yeah. Me, too.”
    Kevin looked as discouraged as I felt. Kevin, though, is a good cop. He really gave a damn about who murdered Diane Sweet. John Sweet? Joe Rinehart? Walter Simms? Janice Coakley? Prove they conspired, I thought. Lock them all up for life.
     

26
     

     
    When Kevin left, I idly gathered up the three photocopied pages, crumpled them into one ball, and aimed at the kitchen wastebasket. After all the practice I’ve had in tossing obedience dumbbells, I should be Larry Bird, but I missed. When the ball of paper hit the floor, Rowdy and Kimi looked, twitched their ears, and decided that it wasn’t worth retrieving. They were right, of course. Even so, I picked it up, separated the pages, and took them to my study.
    Imagine a dog writer’s study, and you’ll see mine. You’d never guess that I do most of my writing at the kitchen table. The study is hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and in the spring and fall, it’s either freezing or sweltering, but, as I’ve said, it looks perfect. Framed pictures of dogs and certificates of titles cover the walls. Match, trial, and show ribbons flutter from the frames. Tacked to a big bulletin board by my desk are scads of dog photos mailed to me by people who read my column. Danny and Vinnie’s trophies rest on top of the bookcases, and the shelves below are jammed with thesauruses, style manuals, and books on obedience training, breed handling, grooming, veterinary care, the history of the genus cams-, issues of Dog’s Life, the Gazette, DOGworld, Dog Fancy, Off-Lead, Front & Finish, and the six or eight canine newsletters I receive every month; the complete works of Jack London; histories and first-person accounts of the Byrd expeditions; and everything ever written about the Alaskan malamute. The filing cabinets by the desk support an unabridged dictionary and the diehard Okidata printer that’s cabled to a PC so old that if computers were licensed, mine would wear antique plates. The computer rests on the desk facing the window.
    I dropped the wrinkled pages on top of the pile of new magazines, unfinished work, and to-be-filed papers that covered the keyboard. My hand-scrawled draft of the article on Sally Brand half-covered the USDA booklet of licensed puppy mills and brokers. Missy’s pedigree rested on the latest issue of the Gazette — Pure-Bred Dogs/American Kennel Gazette, the official publication of the American Kennel Club. I felt sad and bitter. I’d been crazy about the whole idea of tattooed dog portraits. The article now hit me as shameful and frivolous, especially the stupid, cutesy title: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” In Kansas alone, there were three thousand nine hundred twenty-seven USDA-licensed puppy mills and at least as many more that were unlicensed. And what was I doing? Making corny word plays about ink, dogs, and love.
    What was the AKC doing? Accepting fees: litter registration fees, individual dog registration fees, and miscellaneous other fees from USDA-licensed Class A and Class B dealers and from almost any other puppy mill operator or broker who mailed in a check, too. The AKC litter registration fee? Fifteen dollars. According to most estimates, puppy mills annually produce and register about one hundred thousand litters. In litter registrations alone, that’s an income of one million five hundred thousand dollars a year. My God—I was raised to believe that His earthly address was 51 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, AKC headquarters. And what Was my Vatican doing about the