Evil Breeding

Rowdy and I would crawl, slither, or dash, as needed, parallel to the trail that ran above the tiny lake. We’d stay uphill, above the path. That course should land us right near the gate to Coolidge Avenue.
    All went well until a minor miscalculation of mine led us a bit too far above the trail. Taking one tentative step behind a massive monument, I came close to bumping into a police cruiser. I backstepped so rapidly that I bumped into Rowdy, but luckily managed not to step on a paw. To give myself a minute to regain my composure, I huddled behind the monument with my arms wrapped around Rowdy and my face buried in the warm comfort of his thick coat. As my heart slowed, I realized that the sight of the cruiser, far from alarming me, should have allayed my fears by offering visual confirmation of the conclusion I’d already reached. Yes, the police were indeed here, and in force, too. The cruiser I’d almost smacked into had been the middle car in a row of three. I’d heard more than that. There must be similar clusters of police vehicles throughout the area. Before long, I told myself, a Cambridge-cop voice with a heavy Boston accent would boom down through a loudspeaker into the little valley that contained the tiny lake and the Gardner vault. For all I knew, it might be Kevin Dennehy’s voice that issued the warning and the order you always hear in movies: It’s the police. We’ve got you surrounded! Put down your weapons!
    The vision of Kevin Dennehy and his uniformed and plainclothes associates deployed all around the valley buoyed my confidence. With renewed determination, I rose to my feet, and Rowdy and I set off toward the Coolidge Avenue gate. Despite detours around low iron fences surrounding family plots and a few near tumbles on footstones, we soon found ourselves maddeningly close to our goal. At this point, the path forked. Virtually no distance ahead, both forks ended at blacktop. Somewhere to our right was the intersection where we had come upon the body of the guard. There’d be cops there, as well as at least one ambulance, and who knew what else. Straight ahead was the high boundary fence and, inches beyond it, Coolidge Avenue. If we went straight, then cut right, we’d be at the gate.
    Just as I filled my lungs with oxygen, preparing to make the bold move out of the shelter of the trees and monuments and onto the exposed asphalt, I heard footsteps and then muted talk. It proved to be two large uniformed men heading onto the path, which is to say, directly toward us. Damn! Paths and roads converged so thickly here that there was almost no space between them. Immediately to my left, however, was a long rectangular monument with a flat top, the kind of memorial that’s unhappily shaped like a coffin. It took no effort to lure Rowdy onto it. With a quick hand signal, I had him posed in a perfect down-stay. A second later, I was on a down-stay myself, flattened on the grass behind the monument, squeezing myself against its cold stone. Unable to speak aloud, I issued silent commands. Stay! Good boy! Hold it right there! Freeeeeeze!
    As I heard the two men pass quickly by, I decided with relief that we’d entirely eluded their attention. Then a young man’s voice said softly, “Hey, sergeant? Hey, wait up! There’s a dog back there.” The footfalls stopped. “There’s a great big dog on one of the—”
    The sergeant guffawed softly. “This place is full of nutty statues. Statues of dogs all over! What you saw was—”
    The footfalls resumed. The young officer was trailing after his sergeant. As they departed, I heard the young voice say plaintively, “But, Sergeant? Sergeant! It was wagging its tail! The dog was—”
    “It was a stone dog, kid. It didn’t wag its tail.” The sergeant’s voice faded as the men disappeared. “Kid, you must’ve been smoking something you shouldn’t. You been doing that? Huh? What you been smoking? Wagging its tail! Wagging its tail! Jesus, what I gotta put up with!”
    Once they were out of sight, I instantly got to my feet, brushed myself off, ran my fingers through my hair, and adopted the supremely self-confident air of utter obliviousness that is the hallmark of Cambridge eccentricity. I pretended to be an updated version of the parrot-walking Miss Whitehead, the near kin of a Cambridge personage so eminent that one could expect almost anything from me... and not be disappointed. The Cambridge attitude: Within the city limits, I am