Evil Breeding

wouldn’t have been drafted to serve as his mother’s kennel help. I’d scrubbed and disinfected the family kennels. I’d exercised, groomed, and trained our dogs. But our visitors met me; no one assumed I was a hired hand.
    Dog breeding as a true business takes several different forms. Wholesale commercial breeders, otherwise known as puppy-mill operators, mass-produce puppies sold to dog brokers for resale in pet shops. Puppy-mill operators and brokers are the scum of the world of purebred dogs. Equally scummy are operators of what are, in effect, direct-sales puppy mills. These breeders mass-produce puppies but eliminate the middlemen by selling directly to buyers, any buyers at all, anyone willing to pay cash or produce a credit card. The back pages of the dog magazines are packed with ads for these kennels. Some reputable breeders advertise there, too. The situation is a consumer nightmare. But the ads for mass-production kennels are pretty easy to spot. The phrase puppies always available should arouse suspicion. Never, ever does a reputable breeder have “puppies always available.”
    And B. Robert Motherway? Before I had a chance to check the ads in the dog magazines, Rowdy and Kimi announced the delivery of our mail in typical malamute fashion: They ran to the door, where they stood silently wagging their tails in happy ignorance of such human afflictions as overdue notices and threatening so-called reminders from banks. Today’s onslaught announced that my subscriptions to two dog magazines would expire unless I immediately sent money I didn’t have. I also received my second plain white envelope. Again, the upper-left comer was blank, and my name and address were printed in block capitals. This time, the postmark was legible: Boston. Opening the flap, I half expected to find another Soloxine leaflet. What I discovered was a handwritten letter dated March 1939. The writing paper might originally have been cream-colored. Or perhaps white had yellowed with age. The return address, handwritten, consisted of a single word that it took me a moment to decipher. When I succeeded, my heart pounded. The word was Giralda.
    The ink was faded. The backhanded penmanship was almost illegible. Here is my best try at a rendering of the letter:
     
Dear Bro,
A brief note to report I am settled here in great happiness in a little room of my own with fresh yellow paint and flowers on the curtains.
The arrangement is as you were told. Outdoors there are large numbers of dogs and inside at this moment a dozen, which do as they please. They are sweet of temperament, and small wonder! The best of everything goes to the dogs. Their hair makes a mess.
You see I find myself in a topsy-turvy world with the husband’s own fine house far away. Here the dogs occupy His place of honour.
Your,
Eva
     
    “Very strange,” I remarked to Rowdy and Kimi, who were sniffing at the old letter. “Did this come from someone who has dogs? Is that what you’re smelling? Or could it be”—I paused for dramatic effect and then lowered my voice—“the lingering scent of Giralda?” The dogs consider me the reincarnation of Sarah Bernhardt. They also love my singing, which is unrecognizable as such by any other creatures on earth. In their eyes, I perform miracles: Impenetrable barriers open before me; I unlock doors. A mighty hunter am I, departing unarmed, yet returning with forty pounds of premium kibble. Amazing grace.
    “Your faith in me is entirely unjustified,” I said. “I have no idea who Eva is or was, who sent this to me, or why.” Malamutes “talk,” as it’s said. Kimi is wonderfully vocal. She delivered herself of a lengthy reply that culminated in a question: Rrrr-ah-rooo?
    “Hypothesis,” I replied. “This second mysterious missive has something to do with the first. Same kind of envelope, same block-cap printing. Soloxine, Giralda, the husband in one house, the dogs in his place in the other. So...?” Where thought should have been, I found a great void.
     

Chapter Eleven
     
    ”SO,” SAID KEVIN DENNEHY , his big face suffused with self-congratulation, “they get this kid on the stand, Jeffrey, age fifteen, and they ask him why his big brother, Robert, wanted to kill the parents. And what’s Jeffrey say?”
    “Kevin, I saw that in the paper, too,” I replied. “He testified that Robert didn’t like their parents because they wouldn’t get him everything he wanted. Robert asked for a cellular phone