Evil Breeding

killed? At Logan? Speaking of which, I have a lot to tell you about this puppy business of theirs. I really was very stupid. I thought Mr. Motherway was perfectly respectable. He’d been in shepherds forever, and he was an AKC judge, and he knew these important people. And I never questioned that. Until today. When I heard on the news that Peter had been shipping three puppies and that he was in the family’s dog-breeding business, it made me wonder, so I did some checking. Kevin, these people are not who I thought they were. Ages ago, Mr. Motherway, old Mr. Motherway, was respectable, but now they run what’s basically a direct-sales puppy mill. They run ads in all the dog magazines. They sell to absolutely anyone. They breed tons of dogs.”
    “So how come you didn’t know?”
    “If they’d had malamutes, I would’ve known. And now that I do know, I can see that people were giving me hints. Someone e-mailed me that she’d love to be a fly on the wall when I talked to Mr. Motherway. I couldn’t understand what she meant. I asked, but I never got a reply. Now I realize that she expected me to give Mr. Motherway a lecture on responsible breeding. What a dope I am! I thought people were impressed that I knew Mr. Motherway. And, uh, I sort of overplayed the extent of my acquaintance with him, so naturally, people didn’t come right out and say insulting things about someone they thought was a friend of mine.”
    As I didn’t bother telling Kevin, I now viewed the mysterious Soloxine leaflet as a hint I’d ignored. The point of sending it to me, I’d now decided, had been to suggest that Motherway was breeding hypothyroid dogs. Once my suspicions had been aroused, I’d checked the dog magazines and found big ads for Haus Motherway German Shepherd Dogs. Puppies, adults, and stud service were always available. There was even a toll-free number to call. In every magazine, the Motherway ad prominently displayed a professional photo of a black-and-tan male shepherd with an impressive number of German titles. A phone call to my friend Elise, who does shepherd rescue, gave me a piece of information omitted from the ad: The dog in the picture had been dead for twenty years. German Shepherd Rescue knew all about the Motherways. Elise said that no one was sure how many dogs the Motherways had. Guesses ranged from fifty to a hundred. The Motherways’ puppies were notorious for health and temperament problems attributable to a lack of genetic screening compounded by repeated inbreeding: autoimmune disorders, hypothyroidism, hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, and everything from extreme shyness to outright viciousness.
    “They just churn them out as fast as they can,” Elise had said, “and take no responsibility afterwards. When someone turns one of their dogs over to us, we don’t even bother calling him. Motherway has never taken a dog back in his life. The reputable German breeders won’t sell to him anymore. They’re sorry they ever did. They think he’s garbage.”
    Pouring a little more of the vinegary wine into my glass, I said to Kevin, “I should have known there was something fishy. Mr. Motherway came across as the gracious old gentleman, American antiques, European travel, the whole bit. The grandson, Christopher, looks exactly like him. Christopher struck me as sort of arrogant. ‘Entitled,’ Rita would say. And Peter was definitely unpleasant. Sullen. But the strange thing was that it was as if Christopher, the grandson, was Mr. Motherway’s son, and Peter was some serf who worked for both of them. Except that Peter didn’t exactly play that role gracefully. He obviously didn’t get along with his father or his son, and he sort of went around radiating resentment. His wife, Jocelyn, is the original doormat. They have this dog, this big black shepherd, Wagner, that tags along with Mr. Motherway, and even the dog realizes that Jocelyn is at the bottom of the hierarchy. The dog growls at her, and no one interferes, and she just kind of takes it as her due. It’s pitiful. But there’s something likable about Jocelyn. I offered to help her with the dog, but I guess she wasn’t interested.”
    Kevin was sipping his beer from the can. Although I knew he was listening, his eyes were on Rowdy and Kimi. Rowdy lay in almost comatose bliss on his side as Kimi leaned over him and energetically scoured his face with her maternal pink tongue. She licked repeatedly at one of his ears, moved to the other,