Evil Breeding

said. “My stepfather’s favorite dog. Judge never looked at him.” His eyes looked distant. “That was 1929. My stepfather died before the year was out. He lost everything in the Crash. My mother couldn’t live without him. She never adapted to this country. She was German. He met her there. She was a war widow. He was there doing some research. He was an art historian, too, in a way— had a modest collection, even had a little gallery. He brought us to this country. Adopted me.”
    I remembered the admonition not to ask Mr. Motherway about his sister, the one who’d died in Germany, the one he never talked about. “It sounds as if he was good to you,” I said. “And he had a major impact on what you’ve done with your life.” I meant, of course, art and dogs.
    For no obvious reason, he looked startled. “With my wife?” he said sharply.
    “With your life,” I said distinctly. “He had a big impact on your life.”
    Mr. Motherway relaxed. As he was showing me another snapshot, a picture of himself with another shepherd posed near a big pot of flowers, the door opened and in walked, I swear, a clone of the B. Robert Motherway shown in the old photos from Morris and Essex. The newcomer was, I guessed, in his late twenties.
    “Miss Winter,” Mr. Motherway said, “may I present my grandson? Christopher, this is Holly Winter. Miss Winter is writing a book about the Morris and Essex shows.”
    “How do you do?” I said. The black shepherd, Wagner, didn’t growl at Christopher. On the contrary, the dog’s eyes brightened, and he thumped his tail on the floor.
    Christopher nodded at me. I couldn’t help staring. The resemblance between grandfather and grandson was almost comical. Allowing for shrinkage—Christopher was an inch or two taller than Mr. Motherway—the pair were virtually the same man two generations apart. They had the striking sameness of appearance you see in closely linebred dogs. The grandfather’s hair was white, the grandson’s pale blond. They had the same build, the same upright posture, and identical facial features. Each was as German-looking as the other. Age had not greatly faded those arresting blue eyes.
    Approaching his grandfather, Christopher asked for a word. Mr. Motherway stood and excused himself. With no command or signal, Wagner quietly accompanied the grandfather and grandson. They held their private conference just outside the door, which, I might mention, was not equipped with a magical latch from The Rich Person’s Store, but had an authentic Early American one that failed to catch and thus left the door slightly ajar. Christopher spoke more softly than Mr. Motherway did. Several times, his grandfather told him to stop mumbling. I caught phrases and tones of voice. Christopher was lodging a complaint about his father, Peter. The discussion concerned someone named Gerhard, who I somehow gathered was a foreign student. Perhaps Christopher objected to the way Peter was treating Gerhard? I couldn’t be sure. I had the sense that Mr. Motherway promised to correct whatever situation was troubling his grandson.
    Mr. Motherway returned with Wagner but without Christopher. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “Something’s come up.”
    I thanked him for seeing me and agreed to a third meeting.
    I made it sound as if it had been my idea. It could have been,
    I suppose. I still hadn’t seen a photo of Forstmeister Marquandt, and Mr. Motherway still hadn’t told me much about Geraldine R. Dodge and her son, M. Hartley Dodge, Jr., the one who’d died young in a car accident in France.
    Mr. Motherway saw me to the door. After he’d closed it, I fished in my purse for my car keys and furtively located one of the business cards I’d made with the new computer and printer my father had given me. As I approached my car, Jocelyn staggered out of the barn carrying another neatly sealed cardboard box. With the irrational sense of committing myself to serve as a secret agent in a dangerous conspiracy, I took deliberately casual steps toward her. Making a show of fiddling with my keys, I slipped her my card. “I don’t want to see you get bitten by that dog,” I said softly. “Call me. I can help.”
    Her pasty skin turned scarlet, but she seized my card and surreptitiously slipped it into a pocket of the dowdy gray skirt. She said nothing, not even good-bye.
    As I drove home, I honestly did see the same car more than once, or I was pretty sure I did. I