Paws before dying

about them on the telephone.
    As I was poking in the freezer for an ice pack or, failing that, something to eat, Kimi bounced into the kitchen followed by Leah, who was dressed for bed—or so I assumed—in my red Malamute Power T-shirt, yellow neon running shorts, and a loose white belted top designed for karate practice.
    “We have to talk,” she announced.
    My left ear throbbed, but Rita had recently given me a lecture on the importance of open communication with adolescents. “Sure. Of course,” I chirped. My voice shifts smoothly into happy gear. What lubricates my vocal transmission is an Open obedience exercise called the Drop on Recall. You call the dog, tell him “Down,” and he drops on the spot. Simple? It’s inexplicably difficult for dogs, but worse for handlers, because you absolutely must keep that “Down!” light and sunny for all those hundreds of times it takes the dog to catch on. Sweet and soft is how you want your voice; cheerful, without a hint of exasperation or impatience. The secret is honesty: Feel happy that the dog’s trying and that the sixteen-year-old is still speaking to anyone over the age of seventeen. “About?”
    Please, not safe sex again. Rita made me raise the topic with Leah. “What do you know about safe sex?” I’d asked. I’m not sure whether Leah’s answer was comforting or terrifying: “Everything,” said Leah.
    But this time Leah held a sheaf of little multicolored booklets in her hand, premium lists and entry blanks for dog shows. “These,” she said. “Are you trying to put this off or something? We don’t have forever. Is there, uh...”
    “Not at all,” I interrupted, shutting the freezer door.
    “You think we’re not ready?”
    “No, of course not. You’re ready. You’re both ready. And Kimi’s a lot more ready than Rowdy was for his first trial.” With Leah handling her, Kimi was ready. If I’d been handling her?
    “Look, is there some problem here? Is it because she’s your dog? You’d rather—?”
    “No,” insisted my better self. “Not at all. Let’s plan it out.” I went on: “What we’re after is who’s judging Novice B. Okay? Any AKC trial is going to have Novice B. So we’ll just look through for the Novice B judge, and then we’ll decide, because judges aren’t all the same. In theory, they are, but they aren’t.” Leah thumbed through a pale green premium list while I checked one for an upcoming trial in Vermont.
    “This is Mr. Fish,” she said.
    “Good! He’s okay. He isn’t too friendly. He won’t go out of his way to make you feel relaxed. But he’s very fair. He’s a good Judge. He’d be fine. Let’s see. There’s more than one Mr. Fish, hut I think the other one retired. Let me check.”
    She handed me the premium list folded open to the page that showed the obedience classes. I flipped the page to find the judges’ full names and addresses. “It’s the right Mr. Fish,” I assured her. Also on the list was Samuel Martori. “What show is this?”
    “Guilford,” Leah said.
    “Damn, I think that’s already... Some of these are old. I should’ve thrown them out. Yeah, this one’s already been held. Look, sort through them, will you? Get rid of the ones we’ve missed. Fish might be judging somewhere else, and there are plenty of other good judges.”
    Then the date of the Guilford show and trial hit me. It was one of a cluster of three shows, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Guilford had been the first, the Friday show. All the shows in the cluster had taken place at the same 4-H grounds in western New York State. Martori had been judging Utility B. And I remembered Heather Ross’s brag at class one night: Panache had been high in trial at Guilford.
    How far was it from Boston? Vinnie and I had been there more than once, but that had been years ago. Five hours? Maybe more. And one piece of information that’s maddeningly absent from the premium lists is the time the judging begins for each class. They do announce dates, of course. On the Friday that Rose Engleman died, Sam Martori had been judging at Guilford, and Heather had been there, too, handling Panache. What time had Utility B been judged? Had Heather and Abbey had enough time to drive back to Newton? And had they driven all that way for one trial? Heather would’ve entered Saturday, too, I was willing to bet, and probably Sunday. Yet she’d been at Jack’s house on Sunday. Why?
    But if she’d finished late on Friday