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Paws before dying

Paws before dying

Titel: Paws before dying Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Susan Conant
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where it is. I reach out and grab it.”
    “And? What do you do if what you grab isn’t what you expect? Instead of the handle, there’s... something else.”
    “Ah, okay. You know what I’d think? I’d think, Oh, someone found something, something someone lost, and put it here. At this time of year, it wouldn’t be a hat or a glove or anything, but it could be—I don’t know—a baseball mitt? Anyway, that’s what you do if you find something in a park: You put it in a prominent place. You hang it somewhere. So if I reach out and grab the handle, but what I feel is something else—you know what? I’m not scared. I’m not suspicious. If I think anything, I just wonder, Huh, what’s this?”
    “And if it feels like leather? If you’re Rose Engleman, and you wonder if it’s something you dropped, and it feels like leather? A leash.”
    “Yeah. A leash. Or even a collar. But was she going to stop and think, I better not touch this? Probably it’s a shock collar? Of course not. That’s the last thing she’d think.”
    “Hey, Holly, cut it out.”
    “What?”
    “The last thing. You know, that’s frivolous. It’s not funny.”
    “Jesus. I didn’t mean... Steve, I didn’t mean it like that.”
     

Chapter 20

     
    “LOOK, Leah, we had an agreement, right? You train her, you groom her. And you also said you’d give me a hand with the vacuuming, and, in fact, you said you’d do it while I was out. I can see that you’ve been working on this SAT stuff, and maybe that’s important, especially to your parents, but I can’t live like this.”
    “I’ll do it! I said I’d do it. See? I’m doing it now.” She headed for the broom closet. “Someone called you!” she added as if the news were unprecedented. “Someone named Ample.”
    “Ample? A man or a woman?”
    “Woman.”
    “Oh.” I spelled it out. “A-M-P-L, not Ample. Alaskan Mala-mute Protection League. Malamute rescue. Did she leave a message?”
    “She’ll call back.”
    And after I managed to take a shower without slashing my feet on the razor Leah had left blade-up on the floor of the tub, she did.
    “Holly?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Tina. AMPL? I’ve got the sweetest little bitch here, and I could use some help.”
    “Tina, I can’t. My male might not be too bad, but not my bitch. Not a chance. But I’d like to help.”
    “Good. Find me a home for her. You want to hear about her?” She didn’t pause. “Four years old, spayed, a little obedience.”
    When someone says that about a rescue dog, it usually means the dog sits once in a while whether you tell him or not. See? He understands sit.
    “Where’s she from?”
    “Found wandering, picked up by the pound here. They called me.”
    “What’s she look like?”
    “Pretty. Nice face, full mask.” That’s what Kimi has, a full mask, black cap, black goggles around her eyes, a black bar down her nose. Just as Tina suspects, the more these rescue dogs sound like my own, the harder I try to locate homes for them. “Small, maybe sixty pounds, but thin. She’s putting on weight, though, and she’s such a sweetheart.”
    Tina had tried and failed to trace the owner and the breeder. The bitch didn’t act as if she’d been abused, but maybe she had. Or maybe she’d been neglected, or maybe she’d simply been too big and rambunctious for the people who’d bought a furry little bearlike puppy on the assumption that she’d stay the same size.
    “Tina, Pm sorry. I can’t think of anyone offhand. But I can ask around.” I was thinking about Groucho, Rita’s dachshund, about the white on his muzzle and the far-off look in his eyes. How much longer did he have? And how long would Rita insist on waiting? You can hardly blame a therapist for being too psychological, but I was sure she’d insist on devoting a year to working through the loss of Groucho. In the meantime, thousands of wonderful dogs would be destroyed because mourning people weren’t yet ready for new dogs. Ask yourself: Would your old dog really mind enough to let my lovely malamutes perish in those gas chambers? Die in agony in research labs? To hell with this sentimental grieving. Your dog just died? Call the American Kennel Club and ask for a referral to Malamute Protection. Save my dogs. Do it now.
    Then a face came to mind. “Actually, there is one possibility, a guy I talked to a while ago. I’ll give him a call.”
    When I phoned Jack Engleman’s to get Jim O’Brian’s phone number, a woman

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