Paws before dying

Rose was a threat, she really was. And for all I know, there was other stuff, too, old stuff. I’ve thought a whole lot about it. Competition is one thing I understand.”
    We were climbing up a steep, rough trail. Lady, Steve’s pointer bitch, was following a yard or two behind us, India had temporarily vanished, and Rowdy and Kimi were ahead of us. Rowdy’d reached the top of the hill and was surveying it as his domain while Kimi made wild dashes through piles of leaves and brush.
    “I know, I know,” I added, pointing to my dogs. “They aren’t exactly Gaines Top Dog material, but...”
    Most of the time, Steve is a serious guy. He approaches people, dogs, cats, and all other creatures with an attitude of grave interest. His smile is never automatic—it always means something—and when he laughs, as he did then, his eyes crinkle and radiate glee.
    “Well, okay,” I conceded, “but I didn’t always have malamutes, and I do know how it feels. And I have mixed feelings about it. But Heather doesn’t. A couple of days after Rose died, she was proposing a memorial trophy designed for her to win herself, and she was totally unabashed about it. And they double handle, Heather and Abbey. She probably tapes liver to her thigh, for all I know.” That’s the left thigh, at dog-nose level, right where his head goes when he’s heeling perfectly. Food is, of course, prohibited in the ring, but the stewards don’t do a strip search. “People are always saying that she’d do anything.”
    “That doesn’t mean a thing,” he said. “People are always saying that about top handlers.”
    “I know! But maybe it’s no joke. And she does have a shock collar. Abbey told me so. I’m sure she hardly ever uses it, and when she does, she knows exactly what she’s doing, but she has one. And she’d have known Rose would be there. Rose always talked about training at the tennis courts. Not just there, of course, but it was her regular place. It was no secret. That’s how Nonantum happened to get the park, because Rose always trained there, so she knew about it. Heather and Abbey must’ve known. But I don’t know if the competition was actually cutthroat, and I have no idea whether she was really there. Or whether both of them were, Heather and Abbey, because if they had something to do with this, that’s how I see it: double handling, the old mother and daughter act.”
    “They go way back? Did Rose leave anything to Heather? Was there money?”
    I shook my head. “Not that I’ve heard, though she did have money of her own. She started some kind of scholarship, but apparently, the rest went to Jack. That’s another thing. You want to know who benefited? Not that Jack did, exactly, but if you go there now, it’s a kind of family reunion. You remember, I told you, when he married Rose, his family sat shiva for him? Now all of a sudden, he’s back in the family. Or they’re back with him. And maybe this is totally off base, but his sister, Charlotte Zager? She’s a dentist, right? In Newton. And her son, what’s his name, Don, is a vet. Also in Newton. You know him?”
    “Only that he’s, uh, he’s a holistic veterinarian. He does acupuncture. Homeopathy. It’s real trendy now, acupuncture, all that. Most of it’s harmless. Maybe it helps.”
    “If it’s so trendy, you’d think his clinic would show it, and it doesn’t. It makes yours look like Mass. General, at least from the outside. And that’s the point. No, actually, that’s the question. What we have is, Charlotte Zager’s a dentist, okay? Now, who knows more about electricity and water? That’s what dentists do all day. They use electrical equipment in wet places. And her son? He happens to be a veterinarian. So maybe people who use shock collars don’t come to you, but he’d know these things exist, and he’d know where to buy one. If he subscribes to Dog’s Life for the waiting room, he’s on a million mailing lists, and he gets armloads of catalogs, and most of them sell these damned things. At a minimum, he’d see the ads. And the point is, with Rose dead, Jack inherits her money, not that he needed it, I think, but his sister and his nephew inherit a rich relative. If Don needs money to fix up his clinic—and it looks as if he does—Jack is probably going to come through. He’s kind. He’s generous. He’s exactly the kind of person you could count on to give you what he had. The nephew wouldn’t necessarily know that,