Ruffly Speaking

So who...? The son could’ve, in theory. He lives there; he has access to the animal. And the owner. She does.”
    “And if Ruffly ran loose, Alice Savery, too. But I don’t believe her; I don’t think he’s ever loose. Ivan? Steve, I really don’t think he’d hit a dog. He gets himself in a lot of trouble, and, admittedly, he does hang around Alice Savery’s, but probably not as much as she thinks he does.”
    “Enough to become background noise?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Me, neither,” Steve said.
    “If we cut down here on Reservoir, we’ll go right by there,” I suggested. “You want to see the house?”
    Neither of us expected Morris Lamb’s house to tell us anything, and, in fact, it didn’t. When we reached the little path that led to the backyard, the motion sensor detected us, and the floodlights came on. If Ruffly barked, I didn’t hear him. Alice Savery’s house was entirely dark, and, except in one upstairs room—Matthew’s, I guess—so was Stephanie’s. Even so, Steve and I lingered for a few minutes to ponder the question of whether a dog writer and a veterinarian could find happiness in a neighborhood that neither could afford, even pooling resources, i In front of Alice Savery’s, I deliberately edged Rowdy toward the famous fence. “Rowdy, lift your leg!” I urged him. All he did was sniff.
    Class traitor.
     

23
     
     “Fyodor! Not with your fingers! And if you’d stop wiggling, the avocado garnish wouldn’t slip, would it?” Doug’s distant scolding was barely audible over the lunchtime clatter in what must have been the kitchen at Winer & Lamb. His voice suddenly boomed in my ear: “Doug Winer. How may I help you?”
    “Doug, it’s Holly Winter. I’m sorry to bother you.”
    “It’s bedlam here,” Doug exclaimed happily, “and the decorators are insisting on closing us down so the painters can get in, and, well, it’s a perfect madhouse!” Doug’s elation in the face of self-created chaos was weirdly and uniquely Morris Lamb’s.
    “You’re redecorating?”
    “ Long, long overdue.” Doug sounded like an especially grim bill collector. “The competition is ferocious. If We neglect the café, we’ll go under.”
    As I’d done dozens of times before, I assured Doug that everything at Winer & Lamb was always wonderful.
    Then I got to the point. Had Morris’s Bedlingtons shown any behavior that even remotely resembled Ruffly’s episodes? Had Morris’s dogs had any mysterious ailments? Had there ever been anything...?
    Nelson, Doug promptly reported, had once eaten forty-three dollars in cash, but it hadn’t done him any harm. Was that what I meant?
    No, not really, I said. I thanked Doug, anyway. While I had him on the phone, I asked about Ivan, but Doug didn’t recognize the name. He certainly knew that the neighborhood children plagued Alice Savery, but, according to Doug, Morris had never had a problem with them, and they never bothered the other neighbors, either.
    “Good God! They’re not after Stephanie, are they?” Doug sounded serious and alarmed.
    “No, I really don’t think so. It’s just that we’re trying to find some explanation of what’s going on with Ruffly.” I used a phrase of Steve’s. “We’re casting a wide net.”
    “She’s not making herself interesting, is she?”
    “Stephanie?”
    “Because that’s positively the worst thing to do. Morris kept trying to persuade Miss Savery that if she’d stop making herself interesting, then the children would find someone else to torment, but, of course, Miss Savery wouldn’t listen.”
    Morris seemed a wildly improbable source of that good advice. Making himself interesting was one of Morris Lamb’s great pleasures. With me, at least, he’d always succeeded. The reflection and, in fact, my entire conversation with Doug Winer, left me in a peculiar mood that interfered with my work. Even at my most productive, I’d have found it difficult to get serious about a talking dog collar (“Pat me! Pat me!” “Clip my nails? Just try it!”) or a kitchen utensil specially designed to get every last glob of pet food out of the can, and the prospect of advising the readers of Dog’s Life to buy an aerosol pet repeller was ludicrous.
    My mail didn’t help. In addition to the electric bill and a bunch of dog magazines, it brought an envelope from Dog’s Life containing a letter from some guy who must have read my column without understanding a word I’d ever written.