Evil Breeding

extremely inconsiderate missive from the electric company and the premium list for a show I couldn’t afford to enter, the litterer had left yet another of what I had come to think of as my Soloxine packets. This time, instead of mulling over its contents, I did the sensible thing: I called the police. Literally. I stuck my head out the back door of my house and called to Kevin Dennehy, who had pulled into his driveway and was just getting out of his car.
    Is everything in neat, linear, chronological order now? It’s Monday. I have finished my column, sent it to my editor, fed my animals, walked the dogs, belatedly taken in my mail, opened what proved to be the last of the mysterious Soloxine packets, and called out to Kevin Dennehy, who has made a fast-food run and is now sitting at my kitchen table. Kevin has devoured one of three quarter-pound cheeseburgers with bacon and half of a large order of fries that he has painted with squiggles of ketchup. Idly wondering whether the Jackson Pollock effect is deliberate, I am chewing a bite of what is supposed to be a fish sandwich, but is obviously a fried fillet of rawhide chew toy. I am suctioning a chocolate milk shake through a straw. Kevin is drinking beer out of a can. Rowdy and Kimi are stationed on either side of Kevin. A droplet of saliva plummets from Kimi’s mouth and hits the floor. A string of drool as fine as a spider web hangs from Rowdy’s lips. Instead of answering my reasonable question about the identity of the tattooed art student I’d first seen at the Gardner Museum and lately noticed at Peter Motherway’s funeral, Kevin has just asked whether I saw a crazy letter to the editor evidently published in today’s paper.
    “Lunatic,” pronounces Kevin. When it comes to diagnosing mental illness, he always speaks with clinical authority that Rita, the psychologist, would envy. For good reason. As a cop, he probably has more experience with the extremes of looniness than she does. Rita’s clients, after all, have voluntarily sought psychotherapy. In contrast, a lot of the people who end up in Kevin’s office haven’t exactly made appointments in the hope of finding help and understanding. Of course, his services are free, more or less. Except to the taxpayers.
    “What was it about?” I asked, meaning the letter.
    “You still got the paper?”
    I obediently retrieved it and found the editorial page. “The one about Mrs. Gardner?” I skimmed the letter. “Honestly, this is ridiculous! They must have printed it because it’s so foolish. I’m surprised they published it at all.”
    The letter was a response to a short article about the Gardner heist published during the previous week. Both Boston papers were always issuing optimistic updates about hopes for the recovery of the stolen art. The latest one had caught my eye mainly because it had described the FBI as “confident.” The word had tickled me. As I understood matters, a lack of self-confidence wasn’t the Bureau’s most notable problem, or so Kevin always said. The letter in today’s paper, however, had nothing to do with the FBI. In a sentence or two I’d forgotten, the article had apparently provided readers with background on the robbery, the museum, and its founder. The irate writer of the letter objected to two phrases the Globe had used to sum up Isabella Stewart Gardner. According to everything I’d ever read, the Globe was justified in calling her “an eccentric.” Furthermore, there was universal agreement that she had been “no beauty.” Or so I had supposed.
    Just who do you think you are, demanded the writer, to go around insulting the lady Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner who did more for the City of Boston and the World of Art than all of the rest of you combined? You think you know what she looked like better than the great artist John S. Sargent? If she and him was alive today, you wouldn’t have the nerve!!! From now on keep your ignorant opinions to yourself. Some people don’t want to hear them. Me for example. If I ever pick up your paper and read that garbage again I’m not subscribing which I don’t anyway.
    The letter was unsigned. A sentence stated that the name was being withheld at the request of the writer. “ ‘Which I don’t anyway!’ ” I exclaimed. “It must be here for comic relief. Anyway, you’re right. People do go nuts about Isabella Stewart Gardner.”
    “Half the City of Boston.”
    “Especially about the robbery. You know,