Stud Rites

been bludgeoned to death. Busy at the rescue booth, I, however, must have been one of the last to hear the word ”murder.”
    When Betty Burley arrived at the booth bearing the heavy lamp, I knew only what Duke had told me. ”The parking lot is crawling with police,” Betty complained. She sounded like a fastidious homemaker describing a dishwasher invaded by ants. She thrust the lamp at me. ”Here, take this thing, will you? My arms are aching. I had to carry it all the way here. When I saw which way the wind was blowing, instead of moving it to my van, I marched right into the hotel and straight to my room, and then I went back and got the wolf prints.”
    ”Which way is the wind blowing?” I asked.
    ”Well, now they’ve got the whole area cordoned off—that whole end of the parking lot—so if I hadn’t hustled out there and whisked everything away, for all I know, they wouldn’t have let me move it at all! And hideous as this thing is, it’s arousing a lot of interest.” As she spoke, one of our rescue people, a guy named Gary Galvin, arrived with the prints. The heavy antique frames were handsome, but the subjects made me uncomfortable, mainly, I think, because I saw them as rather silly allegories. In one, a lonely looking wolf was howling at a faceless moon: Rescue Lifts a Lone Voice in an Uncaring Wilderness. The other was a grisly depiction of a wolf attempting to disembowel an elk that was kicking and fighting back: Compassion Battles Politics, the Outcome Undecided. Or maybe Freida Reilly and Sherri Ann Printz Do Battle for a Seat on the Board. A woman named Isabelle, who trailed after Gary, was carrying the cardboard box that contained the Inuit sculpture, the jewelry, and the other small valuables. The first to arrive at the rescue booth, I’d gently unshrouded the silent-auction items, made sure they were matched with the correct bid sheets, and otherwise readied the display to present what Betty Burley was always calling ”a positive image of rescue.” I’d felt so much like a Barbara Pym character, an excellent woman making herself useful at a church jumble sale, that I’d half expected someone to come up and offer me the first in a series of endless cups of tea. Now, as Betty rearranged the table I’d tidied up, Gary slipped me two videotapes. ”One’s last night’s showcase,” he said. ”Betty can’t object to that. And the other’s the obedience bloopers.”
    ”Betty will have a fit,” I whispered. ”Gary, Betty says the whole back of the parking lot is cordoned off and... Do you have any idea what’s going on? Someone told me that Hunnewell was dead, but...” Even if no one had informed me of Hunnewell’s demise, the presence of a substitute judge in one of the two baby-gated rings would have alerted me that something was wrong. In one ring, all was as it should have been: Today’s sweepstakes judging—another innocent gambling game—was already under way. In the second ring, the one that should have belonged to Judge James Hunnewell, the competition for championship points— the show—was due to start. In preparation, Judge Mikki Muldoon was dutifully pacing up and down:
    The condition of the ring is the judge’s responsibility. Maybe the Pope, too, is obligated to check the Vatican’s streets for potholes. Within the ring, the judge’s authority is as absolute as his. Authority dies with death. The judge is dead, I thought. Long live the judge.
    Before Gary could answer my query about what was going on, Betty asked me the same question I’d just asked him, but her tone was the one I use to accuse the dogs of crimes I’ve actually watched them commit. ”Holly Winter,” Betty demanded, ”what is going on here?”
    Instead of pointing to the substitute videotapes, however, she banged her tote bag and a photograph album down on the table. We had two albums. One was a big, fat maroon binder overstuffed with snapshots and stories about malamutes rescued all over the country. The other—the one Betty slammed down— was a slim beige volume devoted exclusively to the dogs who’d appeared in last night’s showcase. The separate album for the showcase dogs had been Betty’s idea, and it was Betty who’d put it together. I’d looked through the big album, but I already knew about the showcase dogs. In straightening out the booth, I’d lined the beige album up next to the fat maroon one. Otherwise, I Hadn’t touched it. I reached the obvious conclusion: