Evil Breeding

door to the side yard were locked. I’d also cleared the coffee table of the remains of the drinks and appetizers I’d served to my guests. Rowdy and Kimi, agile creatures that they are, probably wouldn’t have knocked over the drinking glasses or plates, but I didn’t want to risk shards in their stomachs or in the pads of their feet. The cheese board could have triggered a dogfight, and the winner might have gnawed the wood and ended up with splinters requiring canine dentistry. Not to mention knives! I’d washed the cheese board and loaded the dishwasher. But having once read about someone whose dogs had died in a fire caused by a major appliance that she’d left running when she’d gone out, I’d left the dishes dirty. As usual, I’d checked the closet where I keep the dry dog food; if the dogs had found the door unlatched, they’d have torn into each other squabbling over the food and might have gorged themselves and bloated. I had definitely made sure that Tracker was in protective custody behind the firmly closed door of my study.
    But when the four of us returned from the restaurant for what was supposed to be coffee at my place, the cat was perched on top of the refrigerator, and the dogs were prancing gleefully around. My first thought was that one of the dogs, probably Kimi, had opened the study door and gone after Tracker. Artie couldn’t understand my alarm.
    “It’s a miracle she’s alive,” I explained. “These dogs were not raised with cats, and they aren’t good with them.” Actually, Tracker looked fine, at least for Tracker. Everything wrong with her was nothing new. She’d already lost most of one ear when I’d adopted her, and she has a birthmark on her face that’s the shape and color of a festering wound. From the head down, though, she’s a good-looking little plain black cat. I didn’t see any traces of blood. Steve had reached up to the top of the refrigerator and was patting her. She was purring. She hisses at me, but she loves Steve. “Steve, check her for puncture wounds, would you?” I asked. “I’ll get the dogs out of the way.”
    After I shut Rowdy and Kimi in my bedroom, it occurred to me to glance at my study to find out whether Kimi had left evidence of what I was sure was her crime. I did, indeed, find a crime scene. The meaning of the dogs’ happy excitement was suddenly clear. In your absence, they’d exclaimed, we’ve had a visitor! There’s nothing we love more than unexpected company! Hurray!
    My computer was as I’d left it, still on. The printer, too, was as I’d left it: off. Neither piece of equipment had been damaged. A few books that had been shelved lay on the floor. Most of the mess consisted of loose paper pulled from the drawers of my filing cabinets and from plastic file boxes I use to store material on topics of interest to me: the Byrd expeditions, Alaska, Morris and Essex. The floor was also strewn with letters from people who read my column, newspaper and magazine clippings, sheets from a yellow legal pad, hard copy of pages from the World Wide Web, and the contents of my latest mysterious envelope: the letters of reference for Eva Kappe and the old photograph of Mrs. Dodge’s servants.
    The room reeked of Tracker’s litter, which was strewn everywhere. The dogs, I felt sure, had made a postburglary raid on the cat box. The presence of the litter box explained the ease with which the burglar had entered. Although I changed the litter frequently, cat odor built up when the room was sealed. Consequently, I’d left one window half open. It was now open wide. The screen that kept Tracker in and flies out had been cut around its edges. After a few moments of paralyzed silence, I started to swear. Tracker was a disagreeable, ugly cat, goddamn it, but she was my disagreeable, ugly cat, and if she’d escaped through that window, she could’ve been killed within minutes in the traffic on Concord Avenue. If the dogs had followed her through the window? They could have hurt themselves leaping to the ground, but at least they’d have landed in my fenced yard.
    Rita, followed by Artie, came rushing into the study. I pointed to the screen, which hung from the open window. “Damn it!” I kept yelling. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Then I came to my senses. “Oh, God. Rita, maybe there’s more. We’d better check the rest of the building. You have things worth stealing, and so does Cecily.” Cecily and her husband rent my