Evil Breeding

offered their paws, I said thank you. And when I needed Tracker to get off the mouse pad, I often added the word please. If the scene I’d just witnessed represented the graciousness of the moneyed aristocracy, I’d take genteel poverty any day.
     

Chapter Nine
     
    REMEMBER THAT MOUNT AUBURN is a cemetery and not a public park and always act accordingly. Considering Mount Auburn’s popularity as a birding spot, I hesitate to call this injunction the cemetery’s cardinal rule, but that’s exactly what it is. A sign near the main entrance on Mount Auburn Street specifically stated that dogs were not allowed. I had no need to take Kimi to the cemetery. It was Rowdy who had to visit the grave of his previous owner, Dr. Frank Stanton.
    After returning from Mr. Motherway’s, I removed both dog crates from the back of the Bronco and placed a copy of Peterson’s field guide in a prominent position on the dashboard. Raising the backseat and settling Rowdy in a down-stay on the floor, I took pleasure in my ability to enrich the famous garden cemetery’s canine population, which, in Rowdy’s absence, consisted exclusively of marble and granite dogs. In memorializing Dr. Stanton’s birthday as he would have wished, I was making a creative contribution to Mount Auburn.
    The first time Rowdy visited Dr. Stanton’s grave, he and Steve and I went on foot. In refining my technique, I’d switched to the car and explored alternatives to the main entrance. For a city cemetery, Mount Auburn is big—174 acres, ft extends beyond Cambridge into Watertown and has more than ten miles of roads and paths. It started as a rural cemetery for Boston’s elite dead. Just why do I have these facts at my nontouristic fingertips? Because in preparation for writing my article about the dog statues of Mount Auburn, I’d helped myself to free pamphlets available from a rack at the entrance gate. I’d also bought a map, a necessity for finding your way around as well as for plotting ways to sneak in a dog. As my j map shows, the cemetery stretches from Mount Auburn I Street all the way back to the intersection of Grove Street 1 with Coolidge Avenue, which borders Mount Auburn on the east and southeast. To the west is a Roman Catholic cemetery. Now and then, the dogs and I walked along Coolidge « Avenue on our way to the Charles River. Grove Street, which is semi-industrial, has what I had hoped would be a useful; service entrance to Mount Auburn. I tried it a few times, but; eventually settled on the main entrance, where my car was just one of many carrying birders, walkers, tourists, and, of J course, mourners.
    As I turned in at the main gate, I spoke a warning to Rowdy. “Down!” I reminded him. “Good boy! Stay!” I could hear his tail thump. He is not immune to the delights of forbidden pleasure. After bearing right and then left, I followed Spruce Avenue—green line, no parking—through the heart of the cemetery and eventually turned onto the narrow road that led to Dr. Stanton’s grave.
    “Now, be a good boy while I reconnoiter! ” I told Rowdy. “Stay!”
    Our adventure was not, admittedly, in a league with the Gardner heist. Even so, I didn’t want to get caught. If our; secret forays became known, the guards might watch for my ’ license plate and stop us before we even entered. Nothing worse would happen, I thought. I did, however, imagine worse outcomes, for example, wanted posters of a guilty-looking woman and her innocent accomplice, a handsome gray-and-white malamute, plastered on tree trunks throughout the cemetery. So far, we had pursued our life of minor misdemeanor with impunity.
    Leaving Rowdy in the car, I walked the few yards to Dr. Stanton’s grave, which was marked by a plain granite stone that bore only his name and the dates of his birth and death. Sometimes I brought flowers, but only as a prop. Dr. Stanton would have traded every blossom in the Garden of Eden for one glimpse of Rowdy. Today, empty-handed, I pretended to read his stone while concentrating my attention on the periphery of my vision. I listened. From the low branch of a shrub, a catbird imitated Tracker. Any species I could identify was too common to attract a flock of skilled birders. The catbird wouldn’t squeal on us. No one else was around.
    I stepped back to the car, opened the door, picked up Rowdy’s leash, and smacked my lips. “Here we go, pal!” I whispered. Rowdy knew the routine. He moved swiftly out of the car and