Evil Breeding

I’ve ever met. Then I scribbled a note to my cousin Leah, who handles Kimi in breed and obedience. Leah was due at my house at four to train Kimi. She wouldn’t need my help, and she had a key. I’d probably be back soon after she arrived. My note said so. I signed it in the manner of a real dog person, which is to say, someone who has a hard time remembering not to add the names of her dogs when she endorses a check. I wrote, “Love, Holly and Rowdy.”
    When I pulled up in front of Ceci’s big white colonial, I left the engine running and didn’t take Rowdy with me as I dashed to the front door. Unfortunately, it was Ceci who answered the bell. Even more unfortunately, instead of listening to what I’d said on the phone, namely, that I was popping in for a few seconds, she’d not only decided that I was coming for tea, but had announced my visit to Althea. Ten years younger than Althea, Ceci looks like a tiny, pretty version of her rawboned older sister, but has spent her whole life cultivating an air of scatterbrained girlishness that contrasts radically with Althea’s rationality.
    “Althea was so thrilled to hear that you were coming for tea,” Ceci gushed. “She simply loves to entertain.” Lowering her voice, she confided, “It’s such a welcome change from that institution she was in, where she was unable to offer her visitors anything even remotely like hospitality. I should never, ever have left her in that place, so it gives her particular pleasure, as it does me, too, of course, I’m always delighted to see you, and your beautiful dogs, too, as goes without saying, doesn’t it? Speaking of which, where are they? Would they like a nice run in the yard while we have our tea? Mary has fixed us a strawberry shortcake, she left ten minutes ago, I do wish she’d live in, but she refuses, and the water is boiling. You do like Earl Grey, don’t you? Oh they are perfectly welcome to join us. As you know, dogs are always more than welcome in my home....” Ceci continued in this fashion for what felt like an hour before drifting back to the topic of her sister, who, she said, “was dying, simply dying, well, not dying, of course, in the literal sense, there’s nothing wrong with her health except the usual, but filled with ideas she is eager to share with you”—she made ideas sound like foreign entities —“ideas about all these bewildering documents she’s had me reading to her until I practically have no voice left!”
    If only, I thought. Althea claimed that as an infant, Ceci had gone by the baby name Leather Lungs. I should add that I have always liked Ceci. Her blather is heartfelt. And she really wants to make reparation for having left Althea in a nursing home, even an excellent one. Today, the coffee table in front of the fireplace in the living room held a silver tea service, delicate cups and saucers, and the promised strawberry shortcake, as well as an elaborate cut-glass contraption that suggested a three-story apartment building inhabited by tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off. From her wheelchair next to the coffee table, Althea gave me a little wave. “Two visits in one day! We are honored.”
    What could I do? I went back to the old Bronco, killed the engine, and got Rowdy, to whom I delivered a brief, stem talking-to about shortcake, sandwiches, and the social graces expected of a civilized dog. It was now four-fifteen. I absolutely, positively had to be on my way back to Cambridge by five o’clock, as I immediately and apologetically warned Ceci and Althea.
    “I have an appointment with Jocelyn,” I explained to Althea. “At five-thirty. If I’m a minute late, she may take off.”
    “We understand completely,” said Althea, directing an authoritative look at Ceci.
    Responding perhaps to Althea’s schoolmistress tone, Rowdy remained on a down-stay at my feet, and Ceci devoted herself to pouring tea and passing plates of goodies. The strawberry shortcake was made with real shortcake, not store-bought sponge cake, and had a generous ratio of fresh berries and whipped cream to carbohydrates. Consequently, I had something better to do with my mouth than interrupt Althea, who went directly and enthusiastically to the point.
    “The final packet you received,” Althea pronounced, “consists of the following items: a photograph of a black male German shepherd, a newspaper clipping about the murder of Peter Motherway, a second clipping, this one about the death