Paws before dying

family were all anti-Semites, but apparently Dale—not when he was a little kid, but later—when he heard about the concentration camps and everything, he got sort of obsessed. But wouldn’t you think he’d have taken the side of the victims?” Rita shook her head. “Identification with the aggressor, it’s called,” she said. “The ones who did the gassing. The ones in control. The ones who cause pain. So he’s one of them. It’s the oldest story in the world, really. The abused become the abusers.”
    “Well, he got his revenge,” I said. “I guess the miracle is that he didn’t shoot Edna, too. Anyway, about Leah?”
    “She’s relieved that Jeff’s okay. She’s very angry at Willie, of course. She feels betrayed. She doesn’t understand that the nature of that family was such that he had to tell Dale. In that family, the alliances were just as strong as the antagonisms. They were so enmeshed that a threat to one of them was a personal threat to everyone. So when Willie heard you asking about shock collars, and then he heard Leah say something about having the pictures, he put it together and went home to tell Dale. Only, of course, instead of taking off or turning himself in, Dale found out where Leah was. Willie was in that class with Leah and Jeff, and he was there when they left. And I’m sure Dale had no trouble getting that out of him, and Willie knew where Jeff lived. It’s right on that list from your dog club. So all Dale had to do was wait at Jeff’s. Then he followed them.”
    “If I’d listened to Steve, I’d’ve—”
    “Speaking of whom,” Rita interrupted.
    “Yeah. It’s okay now,” I said. “But it did take him an awfully long time to get the police to the Johnsons’, although it wasn’t as long as it seemed then. But they wasted a whole lot of time in the woods.”
    “Holly, if you didn’t know where you were going, how was Steve supposed to know where you were?”
    “Because he’s a vet,” I said, “which means he’s supposed to know everything. It’s one of the burdens of high priesthood. Anyway, he was right, about stopping at the woods, even though he was wrong about whose idea it was. It was Leah’s, and it never occurred to me, because I thought, well, she knows they can come here! And I knew about the Eliot Woods. I’m even the one who told Steve it was a lovers’ lane. It never crossed my mind that they’d be so stupid. You know, they weren’t even in the car when he smashed the window? He was after the pictures, and I guess that’s where he thought they’d be. And Kimi was with them, not that she would’ve tried to protect the car or anything. And she might’ve done something when he attacked Jeff, but when Jeff went to see what was going on, he made Leah keep Kimi with her. And after that, there was nothing Leah could do, because he slapped that collar on Kimi, so all she did was try to spare Kimi.”
    “Speaking of which,” Rita said, “she must’ve got some jolt. Is she all right?”
    “Yeah, I think so. Malamutes are tough, and she’s tough even for a malamute. She probably wouldn’t want to walk into that cellar again, but obviously she won’t have to. The dogs’ ears are probably still ringing—mine are—but I think their hearing is okay.”
    “So, look,” Rita said. “There’s one other thing. Did he actually plan to kill Rose? How could he have known...?”
    “Did he know about the pacemaker? Probably not. But one thing he did know about was electricity, because, it turns out, he took electronics in high school. When I thought about who’d know about electricity, mostly I thought about Dr. Zager, you know, drills and stuff. And it never occurred to me that if he got off on beating the dog, he’d really, really get off on a shock collar. I didn’t put it together until I saw the deer rifle.”
    Rita looked puzzled.
    “Hunters,” I explained. “Really, obedience people don’t use those things that much. Hunters do. They’re the big market for shock collars. I should’ve known. Right on their coffee table, they had Outdoor Life, for God’s sake. Anyway, I’ve thought a lot about whether he planned to kill her. One thing is, I don’t see how he could’ve known about the pacemaker. But, on the other hand, one thing he’d’ve learned about in school is electrical safety. And hazards. So he’d know about water, that it’s a great conductor, and he’d know that some people can survive gigantic shocks, and