Evil Breeding

had prayed before Mrs. Gardner’s portrait at Fenway Court. Did he also worship at her grave? If the vault was his destination, he might scramble over the fence soon after turning onto Coolidge. But maybe not. The discovery of Peter Motherway’s corpse had generated lots of media attention. Especially near the Gardner vault, people would be on the alert, wouldn’t they? Cemetery guards, residents of Coolidge Avenue, passersby. As I’d expected, lights were on in the houses along Coolidge, but no children played on the front lawns, and no one sat on the steps or porches by the front doors. There wasn’t a dog in sight. These suburban-style houses had side yards and backyards, many of them fenced. What had I been thinking? This wasn’t an area where neighbors visited back and forth to gossip on front stoops or where children played anywhere near the street. The yards probably had teak benches and those expensive wooden climbing structures that combine swings, ladders, slides, and gymnastics equipment with adorable little tree houses. Cambridge being Cambridge, Mommy and Daddy sat outside congratulating themselves on the papers they’d just had accepted by peer-reviewed journals. Cambridge being Cambridge, the kiddies prepared for adult life by imaginatively scaling the ladder from assistant to associate to lull professor upward, ever upward, toward the tree house, transformed by the infant vision of the future into the ivory tower of academe. The family dog, a black Lab, kept hopefully dropping a tennis ball. No one threw it for him. Why bother? You don’t get tenure by playing with your dog.
    The traffic was lighter than I’d predicted. For a skilled interloper, almost anywhere along here would offer access to Mount Auburn. I began to look for a place to pull over, preferably a place where I could sit in my car and reconnoiter. A row of parked cars would have camouflaged mine; here, not a single car was parked on the street. What’s more, its age and dents made the old Bronco distinctive; the man could have noticed it on the way to Waltham or at the fast-food place. My car was more recognizable than I was, I thought. Bigger, too. On foot, I could become all but invisible in the dark. I could flatten myself against a tree trunk or lurk in a shadow. I had to get rid of the car.
    Just after turning onto Coolidge, along the stretch with the big houses, I’d passed a couple of narrow side streets, one of which dead-ended at the Shady Hill School. Like other elite private grade schools, Shady Hill would have liberated its students at the end of May or the beginning of June; there’d be no parent-teacher meetings or school plays tonight. On the other hand, the school’s parking area might be gated shut for the night, or there might be a security guard who’d have my car towed. The access road undoubtedly had permit-only parking; my Cambridge permit was good for my own neighborhood but not for this one. What’s more, the area around Shady Hill had the kinds of fancy houses that attract burglars; my disreputable Bronco might be mistaken for a getaway car. Feeling outclassed, I ended up leaving the Bronco much farther from Mount Auburn Street than I’d have liked, in the parking lot of the older of two condo complexes near the intersection of Coolidge and Grove. I pulled in, parked, and killed the engine. In his crate, Rowdy stirred. When he shook himself, the tags on his collar jingled. He’s always thrilled to go anywhere.
    “Sorry, boy,” I said. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
    I hated to leave him. I always hate to leave my dogs. Rowdy is, however, a big, flashy showman who knocks himself out to become the center of all eyes. He carries his plumy white tail over his back. Except in a complete blackout, you can see his white face, and it’s hard to miss the watch-me wag of that magnificent tail. Unobtrusive he’s not. Tonight, I wanted to pass unnoticed.
    In the absence of Rowdy and Kimi, I imagined their leashes in my hands and their familiar rear ends surging ahead of me as I set off back down Coolidge Avenue on the side opposite Mount Auburn. A short stretch of sidewalk ended, a guardrail appeared, and I found myself forced into the road. On this side of Coolidge, though, I was free from the irrational fear that the man would vault over the fence from inside the cemetery to plummet on top of me. I always walk fast; ever since I first toddled, my pace has been set by big dogs. Now I almost