Evil Breeding

shifted to the middle of my chest, where it kicked hard in an alarming effort to escape captivity. I leaned my weight on the Bronco and peered through the windows. Rowdy’s crate was there. It looked empty.
    Then his tags jingled. I gave myself a second to recover before I opened the door. Flopping into the driver’s seat and jamming the key in the ignition, I said, “Rowdy, I am always glad to see you. The mall it is. I think it’s a minute or two closer than Mount Auburn Street.”
    In response, he stirred. Again, I heard his tags. I heard them clearly. Why? Because the damned Bronco made not a sound. The engine didn’t even try to start. The battery didn’t whine. It didn’t whir. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from turning the key. I removed it from the ignition, reinserted it, and tried again. Nothing. I held my foot on the gas pedal and again turned the key. Nothing. I waited thirty seconds. Then I turned the key ten times in a row. At a minimum, the battery was dead. Possibly, the whole car was.
    Damn, damn, damn! Should I go to the lobby of the condo building and plead with someone to call the police? But I’d need to talk to the police myself. Among other things, I’d need to make it clear that sirens were taboo. If wailing cruisers zoomed into Mount Auburn, Mr. Motherway would abandon the plan to fake a suicide. Instead of holding the silent gun to Jocelyn’s head, he’d shoot her, wouldn’t he? Could I convince someone in the condo complex to let me use a phone? I was covered with dirt I’d picked up crawling on the ground. My face was stinging where the hedge’s branches had scratched me. Did I look persuasively desperate? Or just disreputable?
    Damn it! Mount Auburn Cemetery simply had to be patrolled at night. It was a sculpture garden! Every museum had security guards. Mount Auburn was an outdoor museum. There had to be security guards who prevented theft and vandalism. As soon as Peter Motherway’s body had been found at the Gardner vault, the security precautions had probably been doubled. At no distance from me, just over the Mount Auburn fence, were trained professionals whose principal task was to protect the cemetery from intruders. I’d seen no sign of them because I’d stuck to the wrong side of Coolidge Avenue. Did the guards carry guns? I hoped so. But they certainly had walkie-talkies of some kind. Who’d hire guards without providing a means for them to summon help? And that rumor about the keys given to top birders? The idea was pure Cambridge; it had to be true.
    At the back of my mind lurked memories of the Gardner heist. The thieves had succeeded for one reason: Contrary to explicit orders never to admit anyone to Fenway Court, the museum guards had opened the door to robbers who’d masqueraded as members of the Boston police. Then there was the matter of Peter Motherway’s body. The night he’d been garroted, the night his corpse had been taken to Mount Auburn and transported to the Gardner vault, there’d been guards on duty, hadn’t there? Fewer than there must be now, I told myself. Now there’d be plenty of guards. Now they’d be hypervigilant. For all I knew, B. Robert Motherway and his lackey were already in custody. For all I knew, Jocelyn had already been saved by a courageous key-carrying birder. Still, purely as a matter of form, I assured myself, as little more than a courtesy, I had to make sure, didn’t I? And whatever I did, wherever I went, I had to go on foot. But not alone.
    “Come on, buddy!” I said inspiringly to Rowdy, who, of course, would’ve been perfectly comfortable walking alone through the middle of a cemetery crowded with the newly risen ghosts of everyone ever interred there. “We’re going for a nice little stroll by the graveyard at night. And we’re not going to be afraid, are we? Not us! And you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to whistle past that graveyard! We’re going to whistle a song that says you never walk alone. Because you don’t, do you, chum? Not when I’m around.”
    Thus did the bold alpha leader of our two-creature pack boost the confidence of her trembling subordinate. So successful was her pep talk that within half a minute, she was trotting along behind him, his leather leash clutched in her sweaty palm. “The bit about whistling,” I confessed in a whisper, “was strictly metaphorical. I’m not actually going to whistle aloud, okay? Especially after we cross the street and get to