Paws before dying

but his own sister would. And she’d’ve known he wouldn’t refuse to see them or anything, too. I mean, he didn’t. There they are.”
    “The family kicked him out? There was no contact?”
    “None, I think.”
    “Then tell me something. How are they supposed to have known who Rose was? How would they recognize her?”
    “They all live here, in Newton. Sometime or other, they must’ve seen each other, on the street, in a store. Charlotte would recognize Jack, obviously, and if she kept seeing the same woman with him? But there is one sort of related hitch, which is about the tennis courts. I just don’t see how they would’ve known Rose went there, that she always trained there. But it’s possible. Speaking of which, we’re almost back there, I think. I’m pretty sure the field’s over this hill. I’d better get the dogs. Okay, so when we get to the tennis courts, we take a look at the door. And if the border collie, Rascal, is out, across the street, I want you to take a look at him and tell me what you think. And there’s also... Well, there’s more.”
    “With you, there always is,” he said.
     

Chapter 19

     
    “THAT’S the original,” I told Steve. Pale pink-red showed through the scrubbed, whitened blotch on the wall as if someone had scoured Bon Ami into dried blood. “Mine’s a mere reproduction.”
    “The house backs onto the woods?” He tilted his head toward the maze of trails and trees.
    “Faces them. It’s across the street. But there isn’t a house across from it, just the woods and sort of a low fieldstone wall, not like this. The whole block across from the Englemans’ is woods, no houses.”
    “But it’d be easy enough...”
    “Cross the street and jump over the wall. Step over it. And there’d hardly be any objection from home, if they even knew about it. Well, from the mother, anyway.” I narrowed my eyes, hunched my shoulders, and mimicked Edna’s smug, bigoted whine: “What kind of a name is ‘Winter,’ anyway?”
    “That doesn’t have to mean Jewish or not,” said Steve, rubbing a hand up and down Lady’s shoulder. Of our four dogs, she was the only clingy one, an insatiably love-hungry but endlessly lovable pointer.
    “No. It just usually does because it’s usually anti-Semites who want to know. So the question’s neutral, but the people aren’t. You haven’t met Edna Johnson.”
    “Maybe. Yeah. It’s true I never get asked what kind of name ‘Delaney’ is.”
    “Of course not, but ‘Winter’ really can be Jewish. Or lots of things, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t care. But I do get asked, and, yeah, once in a while, it’s probably just curiosity, like ‘What kind of dog is that?’ But you know what? That doesn’t sound neutral if you’ve got any kind of bull terrier.”
    “Yeah. Then it’s not curiosity. Most of the time.”
    “Right, because some people are dying to see a real, live pit bull attack someone, and they’re disappointed when the dog just stands there acting like any other dog. Some of the time, though, people just want to know what kind of dog it is. Period. But how do you tell?”
    Kimi suddenly raced out of the woods, down a hill, and across the field. Her target was one she’d hit before: my left knee. I made for the wall and flattened myself against it. At the last second, she veered, fled back to the center of the field, and flew around and around in narrowing, frenetic circles.
    “Jesus,” I said. “But you see? In places where people are keeping lots of wolves and hybrids, I’d have to worry. What if the wrong person strolls into the park and sees her like that?” We decided to take a look at the gate before it got too dark. The high chain link fence enclosed six courts, one row of three in the area we entered through the gate, then beyond it, another three in a second area separated from the first by yet more chain link. Steve bent down and peered at the gate and the handle, and I took my first inside look at the courts.
    “Hey, Steve, watch it,” I said. “Keep the dogs out. There are nails all over the place. We better put the dogs in the van. If they get in here, their feet’ll be filled with punctures.”
    Once we’d crated the dogs, we returned to the courts. They were red clay, but I can’t imagine that anyone could have played tennis on that powdery, sandy surface. Maybe what’s luxurious about clay courts is that they need maintenance. These hadn’t had any. The nets were