Evil Breeding

In a few weeks, let’s say?”
    I mumbled a promise to call him. Then he escorted me to the door of his study.
    “You don’t need to show me out,” I assured him. “Thank you again.”
    According to the controls on the dashboard, my old Bronco had air-conditioning. The controls lied. Because the weather had taken one of those ghastly New England leaps from mild spring to sweltering summer, I’d left the windows down and parked in the shade of the barn, closer to the kennel runs than the resident dogs had liked. As I approached the car, the dogs in the kennel runs began barking, and Peter Motherway came stomping toward me from around a comer of the barn.
    “That look like the driveway to you?” he demanded.
    The complaint was unfair. Yes, I’d pulled off the gravel, but the spot I’d chosen was on a roughly mown area, not on the lawn. To make myself heard over the din of the dogs, I had to shout. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone would mind. My air-conditioning doesn’t work too well. I always try to park in the shade. I’m leaving right now.”
    With shamelessly bad manners, Peter shook a fist at me. “Good! And stay gone! In case you don’t know, this is a family in mourning.”
    Blood rose to my face. I certainly did know that it was a family in mourning. The knowledge helped me to keep my mouth shut. As I was about to take a step toward my car, Christopher Motherway, Peter’s son, B. Robert’s look-alike grandson, threw open the front door of the house and took long, commanding steps toward his father. The resemblance between grandson and grandfather, I instantly realized, had as much to do with attitude and demeanor as it did with physical attributes. Indeed, although Peter was shorter than his father and his son, he shared their fair coloring, their blue eyes, and their even features. But he dressed like kennel help. Did clothes unmake the man? Mr. Motherway had worn a dark summer suit. Christopher looked like a model in a magazine ad for some trendy chain of expensive sportswear shops. His blond hair was carefully tousled, and he had on tan pants, a white shirt, and leather shoes with no socks. Peter, in heavy canvas dark-blue work pants and a matching work shirt, could have been costumed to play the role of a garbage collector. In inexplicably skipping a generation, the glitter of moneyed aristocracy had excluded Peter from the elite to which his father and his son had been born.
    With the air of taking the hired help to task, Christopher glared at his father. As he shouted, the barking of the dogs seemed to echo him. “You are out of line. Grandfather was looking out the window. He saw what happened. He can guess the rest. He offers his apology to Miss Winter, who is his guest here. In case you’ve forgotten, guests park where it is convenient for them to park.”
    As if determined to top his son’s rudeness, Peter replied, “Mind your fucking business, you lazy little shit!”
    I wanted to disappear. If the battery didn’t let me down, I had the means at hand. Quietly edging my way around the quarreling father and son, I made it to the driver’s side door and slid in. Looking anywhere except at the ugly family scene, I found myself staring into the distance as I turned the ignition key. As the engine caught, the great size of the distant kennels registered on me. Just how many dogs did Mr. Motherway own? Outside the open passenger window, the shouting grew increasingly violent.
    “And keep that goddamned crazy Gerhard the hell away from me!” Peter bellowed. “Or I’ll break his fucking neck for him. And I know how!”
    I shifted into reverse and backed out. My car backfired. The sound didn’t embarrass me. Neither did the car’s dents and scratches. I took a deep breath and savored the lingering aroma of dogs. I could hardly wait to get home to Rowdy, Kimi, and Tracker. Rowdy and Kimi had an air of nobility that the cat and I lacked. Tracker hissed and scratched out of fear, but at least she didn’t scream obscenities in front of visitors, and the dogs literally fell to the floor at the feet of my guests. I made people feel welcome. I offered food and drink. Rowdy had the gracious habit of appearing before guests bearing toys he had carefully selected as tokens of friendship. Kimi occasionally pushed hospitality a bit far by merrily sailing into someone’s lap. In the privacy of our little family, I sometimes informed the dogs that they were out of line, but when they