The Wicked Flea

owner responded by screaming at her and violently pushing her to the ground.
    What transformed the incident into a political dispute was a column in one of the Boston papers that showed no sign of any effort at professional journalism. Here’s how it began:
     
On a warm, peaceful November afternoon in the Safest City in America, Sylvia Metzner took a few minutes from her busy schedule to walk her beloved golden retriever, Zsa Zsa. The widowed mother of three children, Metzner was crossing the playing field of Clear Creek Park and looking forward to a chat with fellow pooch-proud Newtonians when violence reared its hideous head.
     
    The episode occurred on a cold morning. Zsa Zsa wasn’t exactly beloved, and Sylvia hardly fit the image of a widowed mother of three. The columnist went on to write that a Newton police officer with an Italian name, Pasquarelli, had been ill advised to use totalitarian tactics on an innocent citizen with a Jewish name in a city with a substantial Jewish population as well as large number of residents who’d fled Iron Curtain countries for the land of freedom and justice. The attempt to recast the incident as an act of anti-Semitism was ridiculous. There had been nothing to identify Sylvia as Jewish. What’s more, in addition to a substantial Jewish population, Newton had a substantial Italian population and its own Little Italy, albeit a very little one. A Newton police spokesperson reported that an Internal Affairs investigation of the incident was under way. Although both Officer Pasquarelli and Sylvia Metzner were women, a feminist group hurled itself into the fray on Sylvia’s side by interpreting her arrest as a diversionary tactic that perpetuated violence against women at the park. According to the group’s leader, “If a woman were lurking in the woods and exposing her genitalia to men, she’d have been caught long ago!”
    Ceci’s response to the news of Sylvia’s death was thus no surprise. “Officer Pasquarelli!” she exclaimed. “Rage syndrome! That’s what Sylvia said she had! We should have listened. This is terrible! Sylvia was such a jolly person, wasn’t she! And for all that she let her children take advantage of her, it was done out of love for them, wasn’t it! Douglas, you don’t suppose she’s still around, do you?”
    The shock of finding Sylvia’s body had eroded Douglas’s patience with Ceci. “How could Sylvia still be around? I just told you! She’s dead.”
    “Not Sylvia. That policewoman who shot her. No one else carries a gun here. If she hears us talking, she might—”
    Douglas now looked queasy as well as pale. “Ceci, uh, Sylvia has been dead for, uh, some time. And there’s no reason to think that Jennifer Pasquarelli... I have no idea who shot Sylvia.”
    “We need a phone,” I said. Although Sylvia’s house was nearby, the prospect of going back there on an errand radically §nd gruesomely different from the first felt grotesque. Well, Eric, nice to see you again! This time, it’s not the dog I’m returning, it’s your dead mother!
    “I have a car phone,” Douglas said. His manner irritated me. He was just standing there aimlessly shuffling his feet on the dirt path. His uselessness in a crisis might, I thought, be one reason he was seeing Dr. Foote.
    “Go and use it!” I ordered him.
    Douglas looked offended. “There’s no hurry, really,” he said. “This isn’t something that just happened. That’s what attracted Ulysses—”
    “Ceci doesn’t need to hear the details.” I gave Douglas what I hoped was a meaningful stare. Ceci was owed the deference traditionally shown to elders. Besides, I didn’t want to have to hear about decomposition and its stench, either. I was a dog writer; I could guess what had attracted the attention of a scent hound. “Douglas, if Ulysses found the body, someone else could, too. Children could. Please run and use your car phone. Call the police.”
    As if to second me, Rowdy began issuing impatient, insistent Arctic-dog noises that were halfway between abbreviated growls and prolonged whines. His opinion was clear to me. What’s more, I shared it. For once, Rowdy and I both wanted an authority figure to appear and take control.
    “Douglas,” I said calmly, “where is the body?”
    He pointed in the direction of the parking lot and the field. “Back that way. Down one of those little paths. To the left. Not far. In a clearing.”
    “Fine. We’re going to walk with you