Evil Breeding

shoulders as if she expected to see a knife-wielding hand poised to stab her in the back. Finding none, she bolted inside, only to flatten herself against the wall in a futile attempt to evade Rowdy and Kimi.
    I launched briefly into my usual reassurances. The dogs were friendly, I showed them in obedience, they were Canine Good Citizens, Rowdy was a certified therapy dog, we visited a nursing home, yak, yak, yak. I abandoned the tactic when it became obvious that Jocelyn was about to faint. The little color she had in her face drained visibly. Even with the support of the wall, she wobbled.
    “Bend over!” I ordered her. “Get your head between your knees! I’ll put the dogs away. I’ll be right back.”
    Five minutes later, the dogs were behind the closed door of my bedroom and Jocelyn was seated at my kitchen table drinking a mug of heavily sugared microwave tea. After making sure that she wasn’t going to pass out, I’d calmly issued instructions about taking slow, deep breaths and exhaling completely. It’s thanks to my extensive experience in the relaxing, devil-may-care sport of dog obedience that I’ve become such an expert at recognizing and treating panic and associated symptoms such as trembling, sweating, violent gastrointestinal attacks, tachycardia, hyperventilation, and loss of consciousness. Every form of athletic recreation puts participants at risk of certain injuries. Runners get Achilles tendinitis. Weight trainers strain muscles. Downhill skiers break bones. After decades of nursing myself and other equally happy-go-lucky dog-obedience competitors through bouts of our very own sport-induced affliction, I could run an anxiety-disorders clinic.
    “Maybe you should try breathing in and out of a paper bag,” I suggested to Jocelyn. “If you’re hyperventilating, it helps a lot. And go easy on the tea. Too much caffeine isn’t a good idea.”
    The temperature in my house was a comfortable seventy degrees or so. The June day was sunny and mild. My kitchen windows were open to admit a warm breeze. Jocelyn wore a thick, shabby, cowl-necked gray cardigan over a light-blue, threadbare, button-down oxford-cloth shirt and a long blue-denim skirt. Although she was a tall, heavy-boned woman, the clothing was too big for her. The sweater and shirt looked like a man’s discards. I wondered whether they were hand-me-downs from her late husband, Peter, or from B. Robert or Christopher. Inside the wool sweater, she shivered, but her face had gone from greenish-white to flushed red. Beads of moisture had formed on her forehead and nose. If I’m ever actually in charge of a panic clinic, I’m going to make sure that we stock a product I’ve needed now and then myself in the obedience ring, namely, a facial antiperspirant.
    My ministrations had, I regret to say, done nothing more than prevent Jocelyn from collapsing. “I have to go,” she insisted, warming her hands on the mug of tea. “I have to get back. Just give me the things. It was a terrible mistake. I must have been out of my mind. If he finds out, he’ll kill me! I have to get back! You have to pretend it never happened!” With a hint of resolution, she repeated, “It never happened. Promise me! It never happened!” Seized by a new bout of panic, she demanded, “You didn’t show anything to anyone, did you? You didn’t tell anyone?”
    The woman, I swear, was frantic.
    “Of course not.” I dismissed the possibility as calmly as I’d have done if I’d been telling the truth. “Why would I have shown it to anyone?”
    “I need all of it back right now. Everything. I have to get back. I have to leave right now.”
    “Unfortunately,” I said, “I took it all to my office. I left it there.” The closest I have to an office is my study, in other words, Tracker’s room.
    The pupils of Jocelyn’s eyes shrank in alarm. “Where? Where’s your office?”
    I hate to lie. “In another part of Cambridge.” True! A nearby room wasn’t exactly a distant part of Cambridge, but it certainly was another part. What was I supposed to say? The police have everything ? “I’ll run over and get it, and I’ll return it to you. I’ll drive out with it.”
    “NO!” So much for my future at the clinic. I was afraid she’d have a heart attack. “They’ll see you. They’ll find out.
    I, uh, have to get back. Christ! Meet me at... Can you meet me later? Meet me at... You know where Mount Auburn Cemetery is?”
    I said that I