Stud Rites

forced her to abandon the parka—she’d have died of hyperthermia—but she compensated for the loss by adorning herself with numerous bracelets and necklaces fashioned from claws, fangs, bones, and strips of rawhide. Lisa often talked about moving to Fairbanks. She probably wouldn’t have been happy there. I think she’d have had social problems. The locals, I’m afraid, would have found her eccentric. We, however, were used to her and saw her as odd only through the startled eyes of strangers who wandered into dog shows, didn’t really belong, and after catching sight of Lisa, didn’t want to.
    Freida Reilly agreed that when it came to the gene pool, it certainly was best to take no chances. ”I’m still not sold,” she told Lisa. ”You know what makes me nervous?”
    Sherri Ann Printz, I longed to say. Wedding cake. Murder. Freida did not, however, look nervous. On the contrary, venting her pent-up rage on Sherri Ann seemed to have had a beneficially cathartic effect.
    Echoing my reflections about extinction, Freida went on: ”Frozen semen is forever! It’s not like owning a dog. It’s a totally separate asset! Among other things, how do you take responsibility for puppies whelped ten thousand years after you’re dead?”
    My eyes were on Mikki Muldoon’s right hand, which swept across a black-and-white bitch’s faulty rear. I was so focused on the judging that even when the hullabaloo broke out nearby, I ignored it until Lisa Tainter’s skin-draped arm brushed my shoulder. ”Holly? Holly, there’s a problem here that maybe you rescue people...”
    Turning, I saw that whatever the problem was, it centered on Crystal. The bride’s blond hair was elaborately done up in rows of intricate little braids, twists, and ringlets intertwined with strings of tiny pearls, and she wore a voluminous hot-pink maternity sweat suit decorated with sequins and sparkles that took the form of firecracker explosions on her belly, as if the fetuses inside were igniting Roman candles. Her head looked as though it had gotten accidentally, maybe even maliciously, switched with the one from a Just-My-Size Bride Barbie I’d recently seen at F.A.O. Schwarz. There was, however, nothing doll-like or radiant about this bride’s expression, which was one of enraged petulance. Crystal had drawn a crowd: Lisa, Freida Reilly, Karl, and a lot of other people. Stamping one foot on the floor, Crystal made what I think was a deliberate effort to project her voice. ”When I said I wanted a puppy,” she complained somewhat shrilly, ”I meant a little puppy! I did not mean a big dog, and the one out there that he wants to sell me is big, and it’s dirty, and it’s not even all that cute! That man took my two hundred dollars! He took it yesterday!” Punctuating her delivery with stomps of her feet, she added: ”And I” (stomp!) ”want” (stomp!) ”you” (stomp!) ”to” (stomp!) ”MAKE HIM GIVE IT BACK!” (Stomp, stomp, stomp!!!)
    Freida Reilly cleared her throat. To no one in particular, she said quietly, ”This should not be happening.” She fingered a team of tiny gold sled dogs that pranced across her breast. Then she took charge. ”Karl,” she told her son, ”go and find Timmy Oliver for me, and if he’s doing something else, you tell him from me that, no, he isn’t, because I want to see him this minute.” Seizing the opportunity to exert her authority over Sherri Ann Printz, she pointed a finger: ”Sherri Ann, find Elaine for me.” Elaine was the president of our breed club. Sherri Ann’s lips formed what looked like a fleeting obscenity, but she silently departed in apparent compliance. Freida turned to Crystal. ”Was the dog in question in poor condition? Is that what you said?”
    ”Dirty,” Crystal agreed. ”All of them are. And locked up in little, tiny cages. And with nothing to eat or drink, either.”
    Motivated, I thought, more by a desire to get Crystal out of the exhibition hall than by alarm about the dogs, Freida said, ”Holly, see what you can do. Explain things to her, would you? And maybe you or Betty or someone...? If the dogs really are...”
    By now, Mikki Muldoon must’ve been halfway through judging American-Bred. Open was next— Kimi’s class—and I desperately did not want to miss seeing Leah and Kimi in the ring. Like everyone else, however, I obeyed Freida. ”I’m Holly,” I told Crystal, taking her arm. ”Show me where the camper is, and tell me what