Stud Rites

my plate. I Wondered, of course, whether she’d found out about the insult to our rescue dogs that had caused Jeanine such grief.
    ”Is that all you’re having?” I asked. ”Are you all right?”
    Betty didn’t look sick or tired. Her dark eyes weren’t bloodshot or droopy, and her face was as animated as Kimi’s. ”I didn’t sleep very well.” Her tone suggested that her insomnia was my fault. ”I was fretting about Sherri Ann and Freida and that miserable lamp. It has occurred to me that inflicting it on us was an act of hostility.”
    Except in practical matters like moving dog-shaped lamps, I am incapable of dealing with dog politics until a few hours after breakfast. I ate and listened.
    Betty said that Sherri Ann Printz had never done a thing to support Rescue and that Victor Printz hadn’t either. Betty was incensed. ”How I detest being the object of political machinations!”
    In neutral tones, I remarked that to Sherri Ann’s credit she was fussy about who used her dogs at stud.
    ”Freida! Hah! In that instance, Sherri Ann was not being particular. She was deliberately trying to slight Freida! And nothing more!”
    To divert Betty, I told her about finding the lamp. She was indignant. ”Under?”
    ”Resting on its side. Under. Underneath.” As if there’d been some ambiguity, I said, ”Beneath the rear of your van.”
    She sat back in her chair and scowled. ”Well, what on earth was it doing there?”
    ”Betty, I assumed that you—”
    ”Oh, I got it from the booth. Of course I did. I remembered. Well, I finally did. I’d already got into bed, and when I finally remembered, I was sorely tempted to stay there, but all I could think was, ’Well, if you don’t go and get those things, everyone’s going to know what an old fool you are!’ ”
    As I’d guessed, instead of asking for help, Betty had moved her van from its spot next to my Bronco to the unloading area near the exhibition hall.
    ”It took me three trips,” she reported. ”I got my tote bag and that damned lamp first. Then I went back for the prints. Then I packed the rest in a cardboard box. And I covered the tables with bed sheets—the things for the silent auction. Now I know that that’s not perfectly secure, with us only one booth away from that great big door, but—”
    ”We can’t move all of it every night,” I assured her. ”And then I drove back, and I parked right in the same place, next to you.” She hesitated. In a low voice, she added, ”And then I was a lazy old fool after all.”
    ”Betty—”
    ”I carried the box up to my room. And I didn’t go back. But that van was locked, and the windows were up. Every door was locked! I checked every one.” Involuntarily, it seemed, Betty had grabbed a fork and was now pounding her armed fist on the table. ”This is Freida’s doing!” she whispered venomously. ”I can feel it in my bones! That woman cannot bear to watch Sherri Ann get the edge on her, and she’s delighted to make us look bad, too.” Midthump, she dropped the fork, grabbed her purse and her tote bag, rose, and said, ”Damn! The wolf prints! The frames alone are worth... I’ll be right back!” Coming to a halt, she interrupted herself. ”In the meantime,” she whispered in my ear, ”this is best left—”
    ”Not a word,” I vowed. ”Do you want me to go with you?”
    ”No! The less fuss, the better.”
    Before Betty had taken a step, though, Freida Reilly came stomping up to the table to demand whether either of us had seen James Hunnewell. As befits a show chair, Freida wore a well-tailored CEO-style gray wool suit with a medium-length knife-pleated skirt. Her silky-looking white blouse had a built-in scarf that wrapped itself around her neck before slithering into her bosom. Her makeup was careful, if a bit heavy; her red nails matched her mouth; and her overall look was so perfectly lacquered that I wondered whether, having devoted great effort to her appearance, she’d closed her eyes and preserved her perfection by misting herself right down to her spiked heels and pointy toes with an entire can of ultra-hold hair spray. Her show chair badge was pinned to one lapel, a big pewter malamute to the other. Two of the big fellow’s just-like-Daddy pups bit so deeply into Freida’s earlobes that I hoped she was up on her tetanus shots.
    Betty checked her watch. With not a hint of the accusation she’d just voiced about Freida’s role in the lamp’s odd appearance