Gaits of Heaven

there.”
    “I haven’t been. Except for the memorial service. And Sunday morning, but not for long. Leah and Caprice went to get Caprice’s things. Otherwise—”
    “This is homicide we’re talking about.”
    “Kevin, I know that, but it’s not my homicide. I’m alive, obviously. It had nothing to do with me. Eumie wasn’t killed because I was training her dog.”
    “Her daughter’s living with you.”
    “Visiting us,” I corrected.
    “Get him to bring the dog here.”
    “It won’t work. For one thing, I said I’d be there. And for another, I need to work on restructuring the dog’s environment. I can’t do that here.”
    “Get Steve to go with you.”
    “No. Absolutely not. Kevin, you know how hard Steve works. I’m not asking him to put in time as my bodyguard. I don’t need one. If I did, I’d take a dog.”
    “Look, do me a favor. Don’t eat or drink anything. You or the kid. As a personal favor.”
    “I’m going there to train a dog. If I swallow anything, it’ll be liver out of my own pockets, and that’ll be by accident. Okay? And I’ll tell Caprice. Am I excused now?” Kevin nodded. He waved to Caprice and walked off looking glum.
    On the short drive to Ted Green’s, I passed along Kevin’s order, which I explained to Caprice by saying that Kevin was given to fits of paranoia and that the malady was an occupational hazard of being a cop.
    “He’s not being paranoid,” she said. “I hate walking into that house. If I could go in there and not breathe the air, I’d do it.”
    When we’d parked in Ted’s driveway and were heading for the steps to the front door, I caught sight of George McBane, who was emerging from his driveway on an expensive-looking racing bike. I expected him to stop and say hello, but he whizzed past and sped away without even nodding to us. He looked horrible. His face was pale, and his expression was sad and almost dazed.
    “George looks ghastly,” I said to Caprice. “I wonder if he’s sick." We’d reached the porch and were dutifully removing our shoes.
    “He was probably the one who poisoned the squirrels,” Caprice said. “I saw him in one of those trees between their house and ours. He had a ladder. He probably got caught.”
    I was stunned. Only a few days earlier, I’d been looking through a large glossy mailing that Steve and I had received from the MSPCA-Angelí when I’d spotted a photo of George McBane and Barbara Leibowitz, who were spotlighted because of a gift to the Boston Capital Campaign. The official slogan of the MSPCA-Angell was Kindness and Care of Animals. And George had been poisoning squirrels? Did Kevin know? Had Barbara found out and confronted him?
    Before I’d composed myself, the door opened, and Ted tried to give Caprice a welcoming hug. “Home at last,” he said.
    “I’ve come to get my winter clothes.” Caprice held up a box of trash bags she’d brought with her. “Holly, I’ll meet you in the car.”
    I handed her the keys. “You’ll need these. And you might want to listen to the radio.”
    “That girl,” Ted said with a dramatic shrug.
    Eager to get to the point, I said, “I have some fresh thoughts about Dolfo. Ted, who really knows what happened before you got him? It’s occurred to me that he may not feel safely grounded and that what he needs is a clear sense of boundaries. I’m worried that in the absence of them, he’s experiencing anxiety. It’s even possible that he’s having flashbacks.” As I was wondering whether I’d gone too far, I glanced around in search of the dog. “Where is he?”
    “Dolfo, here! Dolfo!” To me, Ted said, “He was here a minute ago when I came up from my office. Maybe I forgot to close the door, and he’s downstairs.”
    Ted headed for the kitchen, but before reaching it, he vanished through an open door. I followed him down a flight of carpeted stairs to an attractive waiting room with a couch, two upholstered chairs, and end tables that held magazines and boxes of tissues. Everything was off-white and had remained so. In other words, the waiting room appeared to be a Dolfo-free zone. From an open door, however, there emerged a soft thump. Cursing in what I took to be Yiddish, Ted dashed into what proved to be a small, win-dowless business office rather than the spacious psychotherapy office I expected. Crammed into the room, which had an ugly fluorescent ceiling light, were a desk that held a computer and printer, an office chair, and three