Stud Rites

myself by setting a personal best (maybe a world record) for dog talk. Detective Kariotis showed almost no reaction. When I said the words ”stud book,” however, even those death-light fluorescents couldn’t wash out the red that abruptly coursed into the man’s cheeks. Flashing him an innocent smile, I said, ”Relax! It’s dogs. It’s not for eligible bachelors.” The second time he looked interested was when I explained that the stud book listing of Pawprintz Attic Emprer meant that the dog had been bred by S. A. and V. Printz and owned by G. H. Thacker. The pedigree I’d run showed Gladys Thacker’s full name at the bottom of the page and the notation ”MO A,” my shorthand for a USDA Class A dealer, a puppy farmer rather than a broker, in the puppy-mill capital of the United States, Missouri. (Shorthand, indeed! Have I lost you? The USDA, United States Department of Agriculture, licenses operators of wholesale commercial kennels. The Class A dealers, the puppy farmers, breed puppies that they sell to the Class B dealers, the brokers, who resell the puppies to pet shops. And Missouri? According to the USDA’s reports, the Show-Me State had 1,084 licensed dealers. Kansas, by comparison, came in a distant second with a mere 448. Why such small numbers? Two reasons. First, at least half of the puppy farmers don’t have licenses. Second, lots of the brokers are big time. What does big time mean? There’s one broker who’s reported to ship 24,000 puppies a year. That’s twenty-four thousand. And that’s big time.)
    Fingering the pedigree, I said, ”I guess that all this has something to do with Mr. Hunnewell’s murder.” I meant Cubby’s ancestry, the Printzes, and Gladys Thacker, of course, not the business about smoking. One thing I knew for sure was that James Hunnewell hadn’t lived to die of lung cancer.
    Detective Kariotis’s face remained blank. ”The originals of these were found with the body. You got any idea about why?”
    I answered truthfully: ”No.”
    Kariotis stared at a spot over my left shoulder. ”Gladys Thacker,” he said. ”She usually comes to these, uh, shows?”
    A puppy-mill operator at a national specialty dog show? Like a prostitute at a nuns’ convention. Except that good sisters would presumably refrain from casting stones.
    ”Not that I know of,” I replied. ”But this is the first malamute national I’ve been to myself.”
    ”Most of you people here know each other, is that right?”
    ”Not all. But a lot of people do. And one of the things about a national is that it’s a chance to meet people—people you’ve just heard of, people you’ve talked to on the phone and haven’t met in person before.”
    ”One thing I’ve observed today,” Kariotis remarked impassively, ”is that you people talk a lot.”
    ”Really!” I exclaimed. ”Do you think so?”
    He finally cracked a hint of a smile. ”You ever hear any talk,” he said, ”of any hard feelings here?” He started tapping the pedigree.
    I looked at his finger. ”Where?” I asked.
    ”Here,” he said, tapping Gladys Thacker’s name. ”Between Mr. Hunnewell and his sister here. Between him and Gladys Thacker.”
    My jaw must have dropped.
    ”The lady’ll be here tomorrow,” Kariotis continued. ”Says she wants to take her brother home with her to Missouri for a Christian burial.”
     

 
     
    BEFORE MY INTERVIEW with Detective Kariotis, I’d instructed Leah to return Rowdy to our room and to turn herself over to Faith Barlow, who was handling a number of dogs today (besides Rowdy tomorrow) and could probably use help. After the interview, I considered seeking Faith out to beg her to minister to me instead. From the moment I’d spotted that cursed lamp under Betty’s van, I’d botched everything. Now I was furious at Betty, disappointed in Finn, ashamed of myself, and enraged at my dead mother’s high-handedness. Leah had sized up Finn in a second. At about her age, why hadn’t I? Tomorrow, Steve Delaney, my lover and my vet, would be here. I’d told him all about the fascinating Finn who’d abandoned me. If they met? I consoled myself with the thought that I hadn’t spoken to Steve today and thus hadn’t had the opportunity to foul things up between us. Tomorrow, reformed, I’d speak the simple truth. Better, I’d quote Shakespeare. ”I feel like Titania,” I’d say, ” ’Methought I was enamor’d of an ass.’ ” For all I knew, though, Steve and Finn would