Bloodlines

that the indoor dogs were small—I spotted some cockers, Shih Tzus, bichons, and dachshunds—and that only the big dogs lived outdoors. According to the announcer, the golden retrievers and what he crassly referred to as “huskies,” meaning malamutes and elkhounds, I guess, were in better condition than the little indoor dogs, whose small, filthy cages and boxes were stacked throughout the house. Bitches of big breeds are usually free whelpers. But tiny breeds? Forced to bear litter after litter? Their agony was unimaginable. I wondered how they’d survived at all. Many hadn’t, of course.
    At the end of the story, the camera zoomed in on Cheryl, who stood on the sagging porch in her pink raincoat, her thin, blotchy face a mindless mask of rage. She opened her mouth and wailed directly at the camera. “Me and Walter didn’t do nothing wrong. You’d’ve thought we was in Communist Russia the way they just come and took all our dogs away.” She fell silent for a second, then added fiercely, evidently as an afterthought, “And Walter, too.”
     

31
     

     
    Kevin Dennehy appeared at my back door that evening wearing a rumpled blue suit and, as befit both his profession and the damp weather, a tan trench coat. Clutched between the thick fingers of his enormous hands was a heart-shaped box only slightly redder than the blush on his face.
    He stammered his routine greeting: “Hey, Holly how ya doing?” Before I had a chance to answer, he added, “Where you been?”
    “At a tracking test,” I said more or less truthfully. “Kevin, I had totally forgotten it was Valentine’s Day. This is—”
    Let me say that Kevin was really embarrassed. He looked like an overage kid forced to serve as the ring bearer at the formal wedding of some despised relative. He thrust the candy at me, two pounds of dark chocolates with all soft centers. As Kevin had obviously remembered, I don’t like milk chocolate, and my fragile dental work won’t stand up to anything more solid than cream fillings and squishy cherries.
    I thanked Kevin for the chocolates and offered to share, but he refused. I ate one, made happy noises, and then, to relieve Kevin’s discomfort, changed the subject.
    “So Simms murdered Rinehart, huh? How come nobody noticed he was missing?”
    While I was stashing the box of chocolates in the refrigerator, one hidey-hole that Kimi hasn’t yet learned to penetrate, Kevin said, “Joe was the kind of a guy who didn’t like people sticking their noses in his private business. The salesmen out there and the mechanics and the secretaries and whatever kind of wondered what happened to him, but what with Enzio and all and what with the economy and all, they weren’t going to come running to us and then have Joe turn up.”
    “I guess it wouldn’t exactly have earned them any bonuses,” I said. “You want to help me walk the dogs?” Kevin agreed to take Rowdy. Unlike Rita, Kevin considers the malamute a walkable breed. The policeman is your friend, right? Strong and brave. In fact, Kevin is always glad to take Rowdy, but he hates being in charge of Kimi. Although Kevin never admits it, I’m convinced that he doesn’t like being seen with a girl who lifts her leg.
    The rain had started up again, but the air was warm, at least by the standards of coastal Maine, where warm is any temperature above forty degrees. I wore my yellow slicker and Wellies. Kimi and Rowdy wore matching red training collars and leads. The light over my back door showed a few crocuses breaking through the frozen ground in a patch of earth between the fence and driveway. Kimi cocked a hind leg over them. Ever the gentleman, Kevin looked away. Rowdy, though, watched, sniffed, and covered her scent. In his own way, he’s a gentleman, too.
    “But, Kevin,” I said, “didn’t you notice that Rinehart was gone? I mean, Diane Sweet did business with Rinehart, Simms worked for him, Simms was at Puppy Luv.... So didn’t you try to...? I mean, I would’ve thought that a guy like that would’ve—”
    “Yeah, yeah, they want to look like the upright citizen, got nothing to hide,” Kevin said, “but they’re kind of like a housewife with company coming. They want a couple of days to get the accountant in there and get a little housework done. But even if his body hadn’t turned up, sooner or later, we’d’ve put it together. And if the scene hadn’t been such a godawful mess, they could’ve got it sorted out easier. They