Creature Discomforts

Gabrielle asked the question abruptly, as if it had been lingering on her lips and suddenly spat itself out of its own volition. “I keep thinking about that. Like atheists and God! How would you ever prove that there aren’t benefactors?”
    “Gabbi,” Quint said softly, “the point here isn’t theological. And it isn’t whether or not Holly saw anyone. It’s whether or not the foundation has backing.”
    “What’s needed,” Wally said, “is an independent audit. Anita, when was the last one?”
    “Recently,” she said.
    “Recently meaning yesterday?” Opal demanded. “Or recently meaning two years ago?”
    “Don’t you just love Gilbert and Sullivan?” Gabrielle exclaimed. “Not that this is the time or place. Why is it that serious worry always brings out the absurd in everyone?”
    “It doesn’t bring it out in everyone,” Effie said. “It brings it out in you.”
    “Anita,” her father said, “Wally has asked you the date of the last independent audit. That’s a reasonable question from one of the foundation’s investors, and it deserves a prompt, specific answer.”
    “I don’t know the date off the top of my head,” Anita said coolly. “The point is that these accusations don’t deserve serious consideration. They’re completely unfounded.”
    “What’s unfounded, ” Buck charged, “is your foundation. Hah!” He’s at his most obnoxious when he’s pleased with himself. Unfortunately, when it comes to himself, he’s easy to please.
    As I’d done on about a million previous occasions, I sought solace in the company of dogs. As I climbed the slight slope to where the dogs were tied, my father was lecturing about Ponzi schemes. According to Buck, every characteristic of the Pine Tree Foundation was cause for suspicion, and taken together, the cluster of characteristics led to the conclusion that its proper name would’ve been the Ponzi Foundation. As I unhitched one dog, then the other, Buck pointed to the incredibly high rate of return, the payment of the initial investors, the old investors’ reinvestment and their recruitment of new investors, and the reliance on the foundation itself as the only source of information about its dealings.
    “Ponzi schemes collapse!” Anita Fairley countered. “They are houses of cards! What makes these charges so ludicrous is that the Pine Tree Foundation is thriving. Everyone connected with it is doing very nicely indeed, thank you very much. No one is absconding with anything!”
    As I led Rowdy and Kimi back toward the group on the trail, we passed the big rock where Malcolm Fairley had spread his jacket to dry. Rowdy brought me to a sharp halt by stopping suddenly to sniff Fairley’s jacket. The source of Rowdy’s interest, I assumed, was either the scent of a dog that had marked the rock, or my own scent, which must have transferred itself to the jacket when my head had rested on its fabric. To Rowdy, the source wouldn’t matter. In Rowdy’s view, interestingly odiferous outdoor objects have no damned business emitting any scent except his. The nerve! The world is his fire hydrant. For the sake of civility, I speak euphemistically to Rowdy when informing him that people’s belongings are not fire hydrants and are not to be treated as if they were. Instead of shouting, Don’t lift your leg on that! I say sternly, Not there! Kimi sometimes requires the same command. She’s not just a girl. She’s a malamute.
    So, as I was starting to say before my train of thought fell off its tracks and crashed in a brain lesion, I found Rowdy’s interest in the jacket unwelcome. As I tell Rowdy and Kimi, if I don’t want dog urine on my possessions, imagine how everyone else feels about it!
    “Not there!” I told Rowdy.
    To Rowdy’s credit, he quit running his hydrant eye over the jacket. Perfect obedience to human commands is, however, contrary to the Alaskan Malamute Code. Instead of abandoning all curiosity about the jacket, Rowdy switched to sniffing and nudging it. Unlike my father, Malcolm Fairley wasn’t the sort of person who always carried dog treats, but he might have stashed trail mix, crackers, a sandwich, or some other snack in one of his pockets. Preoccupied with Rowdy, I took my eye off Kimi, who, obedient to the Malamute Code, Opportunism Provision, seized on my inattention to her to snatch the jacket off the rock so swiftly that by the time I saw what she’d done, she had it clamped between her teeth and was