Bride & Groom

down-stay and put my foot on the section of her leash right near her collar in case she decided to break. Irene was lovely about Kimi’s misbehavior. She laughed it off and said, “It’s always the minister’s children, isn’t it! Please don’t worry about it.”
    The incident, which could’ve broken Irene’s pelvis, broke the ice between us. Its absurdity somehow made one of us mention Barbara Pym, who turned out to be one of Irene’s favorite novelists as well as one of mine. We drifted into an enthusiastic discussion about Jane Austen and Penelope Lively. Kimi remained in a solid down-stay. Eventually, Irene asked me to sign the copies of my book that were stacked on the card table. I considered the signing a success. As I got ready to leave, Irene again raised the question of my safety.
    “I’ll be fine. I’ll crate Rowdy. Then Kimi and I will get into the car together. Besides, I’m parked right outside. There’s plenty of light.”
    “These women were murdered right near where they lived. Or were staying.”
    “I’ve made an arrangement at home. When I get there, I’ll use the horn, and my fiancé will come out. I live in Cambridge. I’m used to being careful.”
    “I’m sorry if I’m being pushy. It’s just that I knew the first victim. Victim! I can’t think of her that way. Laura Skipcliff. I hadn’t seen her for ages. Decades. But she and Mac and I went to college together. I always liked the two of them. Mac was crazy about her, but she left him for someone else. And then she went off to medical school. I haven’t seen Laura since we graduated. But I always liked her. What a terrible way for her life to end.”
    I was too surprised to do anything except echo Irene. “Terrible,” I said inadequately. “Terrible.”
     

CHAPTER 33
     
    “The rest was speculation,” Steve said. “What you’re doing now is withholding information.”
    “What I’m doing? What we’re doing. But it's got to stop."
    The second I’d arrived home from the bookstore, I’d told Steve about Mac McCloud and Laura Skipcliff. We were now in the yard sitting at our wedding-present picnic table sipping wine from wedding-present glasses. The wine bottle was on the table. Next to it, a fat candle burned in a glass-sided lantern cleverly designed to prevent breezes from blowing out the flame. Wedding present. Good one. It’s easy to see why some couples get married for the gifts.
    “We’re victims of dog osmosis.” Steve gestured toward our five dogs, who were in the yard with us. “We’ve absorbed an attitude of unconditional loyalty. It’s like that thing you’ve got framed in your office. Senator Vest’s Eulogy on the Dog. ‘Faithful and true even to death.’ Only here, what’s at issue is the death of other people, these women. Mac has been helpful to you, and in some ways, he seems like a nice guy, but he doesn’t own you.” Having left a crucial point for last, he said, “Besides, we’re not dogs.”
    “You’re right. When you’ve spent as much time with dogs as we have, it’s easy to get the idea that the only kind of loyalty worth having is unconditional loyalty. Perfect fidelity.”
    “This is a friendship,” Steve said. “And not even all that close a friendship. Okay, you don’t want to be a lousy friend. Who does? And that’s not what’s required. All you have to do is tell Kevin one thing, and that’s that Mac knew all the victims.”
    “I’m the one who has to?”
    “We have to. Faithful and true, Holly. I’m on your side.”
    “I know you are.”
    “All the rest of what we talked about is guesswork. We’re not getting involved in spreading rumors. Or gossip.”
    “Certainly not. Sammy, stop that! Steve, he’s chewing the leg of our new table. Make him stop!”
    More than with any other dog I’d ever owned... let me start over. The problem I encountered in disciplining Sammy was the difficulty of avoiding the most common pitfall in dog training, which was, is, and ever shall be the tendency to give unintended positive reinforcement for undesirable behaviors. Sammy was so damned cute that it was almost impossible to tell him to quit doing something without simultaneously letting him know how damned cute I thought he was. With his adult-size jaws wrapped around the leg of the table, he wore an expression of winsome innocence.
    “Sammy,” Steve said, “has taken a cost survey of available wedding presents, and he’s picked the table because it’s the