The Dogfather

contributed articles to them. Rita had met Artie when she’d joined a birding group he led at a local avian hot spot, Mount Auburn Cemetery. Mary’s story actually began as a tale about fish. When Mary had moved to a new house, she’d transported not only her furniture and her dogs, but her fish pond and its resident koi and goldfish. Koi, as I had to ask, are big fancy Japanese carp. Anyway, after installing the pond and its inhabitants, Mary found one of her koi dead at the water’s edge. The cause of death was obvious: a wound in the big fish’s head. Equally obvious was the murder weapon: the canine tooth of an Alaskan malamute. Mary blamed her dogs, especially Miss Pooh, who had a fishy look in her eye, so to speak. Meanwhile, Mary was vaguely aware of occasionally hearing a loud whoosh in her new yard, a noise she dismissed because she was paying attention to the continuing disappearance of the koi and goldfish from her pond. Miss Pooh and Mr. Wookie remained the obvious culprits until one day when Mary returned home to find that yet another koi had vanished while the dogs had been in their kennels and nowhere near the pond. The malamutes having been exonerated, the fish murders remained a mystery until Mary, Miss Pooh, and Mr. Wookie not only heard the startling whoosh, but saw its source: A great blue heron was rising from the pond with a koi impaled on its beak. “It had been there all along,” Mary said. “I just didn’t know. I blamed my innocent dogs.”
    When we’d finished eating, my guests pitched in to load the dishwasher and clean up. Mr. Wookie was brought out to make friends, snack on steak, and receive congratulatory toasts, and then Rowdy and Kimi had their turn. On my own, I’d have been hard pressed to provide beer and hot dogs for this gathering. I loved being able to offer choice steak and good wine. In my contacts with Guarini and his men, I’d seen ample evidence of Guarini’s wealth and no sign of anyone else’s. Joey Cortiniglia’s widow, Carla, hadn’t had her dream of a flower shop fulfilled until after her husband’s death. The bodyguards, the horrible twins, Al Favuzza, and Zap the Driver wore hideous gold jewelry, but their heavy rings and such were the only indication I’d seen of affluence. But maybe crime did pay after all. Now that I was tasting corruption for myself, I found it mouth-watering.
    Guilt held off its attack until the next morning; it waited until Mary and Mr. Wookie drove away. Then it pounced. I felt horrible. Evidence of my contamination was everywhere: in the packets of leftover steak in the refrigerator, in the empty wine bottles neatly aligned on the kitchen counter, in the unopened bottles still in the box, and most of all in the ribbons that Harry Howland had presented to Leah. Leah and I are first cousins—our mothers were sisters—but our family resemblance is limited to our love of dogs; we don’t look alike. Rowdy and Kimi, too, are cousins. Their radically different facial markings mean that at first glance, they’re anything but ringers. Harry Howland had been pressured to put up my dog: Rowdy. Howland had resisted, or so he’d told me; he’d certainly given Best of Breed to the dog he preferred, Mr. Wookie. But Kimi was also mine, and she’d won the points and gone Best of Opposite. Sipping my third cup of coffee, I sat at the kitchen table and watched Kimi, who was in a sphinx pose on the floor watching me. Had she deserved the ribbons? Yes. Ah, but was that why she’d won them? Exactly how had Guarini’s thugs tried to influence the judge? I’d seen Favuzza speak to Harry. Had Favuzza given Howland Rowdy’s number, the number on my armband? That number alone? Or the number on Leah’s armband, too? What had the damned vampire said? Was that the Mob’s first contact with the judge? Or a follow-up? I could hardly phone Howland to ask, and I was equally reluctant to raise the matter with Guarini. As to Favuzza, I didn’t have his phone number, didn’t even know where he lived, and didn’t want to talk to him. The corpse-shifting twins would know, as would Zap the Driver. Zap seemed the most likely of the four to give me the details without necessarily reporting back to Guarini. And I’d see Zap the next time he delivered Frey to me. Maybe I’d have the guts to interrogate him. Maybe I wouldn’t.
    In the meantime, I could make a token effort to decontaminate my house. I couldn’t return the steak we’d eaten or the