Stud Rites

eyes. In other words, Celeste’s dogs looked astonishingly like Celeste herself, who didn’t belong at a national any more than they did. And here Celeste was informing the police about highly esteemed Judge Mikki Muldoon’s little quirk, which was that Mrs. Muldoon always carried a handgun and that it was always loaded.
    Perhaps Mikki Muldoon didn’t understand just how strict a handgun law we have here in Massachusetts. The handsome young police officer certainly did, but obviously formed the same opinion of Celeste that everyone held of her dogs—namely, that she was unsound. Glancing at Judge Muldoon, then back at Celeste, the policeman wore the expression you see on the faces of kind, sane people listening to first-person accounts of UFO abductions.
    And, of course, Hunnewell hadn’t been shot.
    The manner of James Hunnewell’s demise, in fact, suggested a copycat crime. Rumor even had it that Hunnewell’s murder had been inspired by the slaying of poor Elsa Van Dine, who’d been bludgeoned on a street in Providence. The precise nature of the blunt instrument was another favored topic of intense speculation. Examined from a murderous point of view, the exhibition hall was packed with bludgeons. The vendors selling sledding equipment were asked to account for all their snow hooks. In viewing the wooden walking sticks, iron weather vanes, and handcrafted wall plaques for sale and on display, the police got a crash course titled Five Thousand and One Ways to Depict Malamutes. In the absence of any one likely weapon, the authorities seized none. Excitement spread when one of the trophies went missing, a big malamute-shaped pewter doorstop on a heavy base, but it was soon returned by its donor, Pam Ritchie, who was offering it in Mrs. Seeley’s memory and who had briefly removed it from the trophy table and taken it outdoors so someone could admire its craftsmanship in good light. I remain convinced that under impossible circumstances the police were as diligent as possible. Elaine Barrasso, the president of our national breed club, told someone who told someone who told me that Greg and Crystal’s wedding presents, which were on display at a sort of nuptial trophy table in a special room of the hotel, also received a thorough going-over.
    And so did we. I gave my name, room number, permanent address, and license-plate number to a state police detective named Peter Kariotis. I told him that, yes, I’d seen James Hunnewell last night. I’d helped him use the Coke machine and get ice. Like the reporters, Detective Kariotis couldn’t seem to grasp that, no, the dog show didn’t exactly have ”a winner,” but that, yes, in a way it did: Best of Breed. Leah and I both donated our fingerprints. One of the two ice buckets found in Hunnewell’s room was from our bathroom. Leah might have touched it. My prints must have been all over it and also on the can of Coke I’d helped Hunnewell to buy. Freida Reilly and her son, Karl, gave their prints, too. Freida had been in Hunnewell’s room. Karl had carried Hunnewell’s luggage when he’d picked him up at the airport.
    To a remarkable extent, however, the atmosphere was disconcertingly normal, at least normal for a posthomicide dog show. In the grooming tent, the powerful dryers roared and blasted away at dogs who weathered the storms of this strange new Arctic. As gregarious and curious as our dogs, we always socialize and speculate; and like show people everywhere, we invariably help the show chair out by making sure that she fulfills her principal responsibility, which is to take the blame for everything. ’7 am fully aware of just how hard it is to manage the millions of little details that go into making a show a success,” Sherri Ann Printz commented to me. ”After all, I did it myself just last year. And last year’s national went off without a hitch. Not that any of this is Freida’s fault! Or that I’m tooting my own horn. Let’s just say that I stand on my record.”
    Not everyone blamed Freida Reilly. On the contrary, instead of blaming Freida, at least one person gave her credit. As I sat watching the judging with Janet Switzer, Rowdy’s breeder and the alpha figure in my life, Janet told me, ”The truth is, the old expletive deleted probably wouldn’t have held up for two days, anyway. He might’ve dropped dead in the ring all on his own. Hunnewell was in no shape to judge. He should’ve resigned; he should’ve removed his name from