The Wicked Flea

Sylvia?”
    “Is there something that makes you think it isn’t?”
    “No, no, it’s Sylvia. That’s her coat, Lord and Taylor, but she got it at Filene’s Basement, and the shoes are Joan and David, from Frugal Fannie’s, the scarf, too, she was wearing that outfit, and I said, how pretty, but Holly, she’s face down.”
    “Yes?”
    With a hint of panic in her voice, Ceci said, “You can’t see her face!”
    Calmly, I said, “No, you can’t.” Thank heaven!
    “So how did Douglas know? Holly, I recognize her hair and her coat and her shoes and her scarf, but there’s nothing special about her hair, it could be anyone’s, and men don’t notice clothes, do they? So how did Douglas know?”
    “Maybe he moved her. To see who it was.”
    “He touched her?”
    Sirens sounded in the distance and approached with what felt like impossible speed.
    “The Newton police are—” Ceci started to say. With unintended disrespect for the dead, Rowdy drowned her out by taking up the call of emergency vehicles. Planting himself in a solid sit, he raised his handsome head and emitted prolonged, responsive howls. The dog has a great voice, tremendous tone, extraordinary range, basso profundo to high falsetto, and in most circumstances, his singing hits me as a magical incantation so powerful that I expect to see the aurora borealis light up the Massachusetts sky. If he’d actually been howling a dirge for Sylvia, I’d have let him go on. In fact, he’d barely known Sylvia. He wasn’t mourning her; he was just howling in reply to the malamute-like sirens. Wrapping my hands around his muzzle, I said, “Not now! Rowdy, quiet!” And then, “Good boy!” Heralded by the sound of voices and footsteps, uniformed police officers and EMTs arrived in astonishingly large numbers. The initial influx consisted of six police officers and four EMTs. In a lot of big cities, you’d be lucky to get that much help for a bank heist where the robbers had shot ten people dead and were threatening to kill ten more. Now, far from bothering my political conscience, the unfair privilege of wealthy suburbs made me sigh aloud in relief. I’d pressured Douglas to run and call the police, and I’d prevented Ceci from contaminating the scene with footprints, paw prints, Quest’s hair, and who knew what else. Otherwise, I’d done nothing. Still, it felt wonderful to be free of the responsibility I hadn’t assumed. Two of the officers were the handsome men who’d removed Sylvia from the park once before. The other four, three men and a woman, were also incredibly attractive. The unnatural good looks of all six cops created a sense of playacting. For a moment, the shattered pottery seemed to be a prop arranged by a stagehand, and the lifeless body looked ready to rise, brush the dirt off her coat, and take a coffee break.
    Douglas, who’d led the way for the police and the EMTs, was flushed with what I suspected was pride in his starring, although hardly heroic, role. Ulysses was still with him. Of the three dogs, Quest, Ulysses, and Rowdy, mine was the only one who displayed an active interest in the sudden arrival of ten keyed-up strangers who talked softly to one another and loudly into cell phones, trampled the ground I’d kept Ceci from contaminating, and shooed us back up the narrow track and away from the clearing. Quest, as usual, sank to the ground and took a nap, and Ulysses sniffed dead leaves, bushes, earth, and Douglas’s shoes. Rowdy, in contrast, joined me in studying the EMTs, all four of whom hovered around the body, and the cops, who unintentionally irked me by continuing to look more like movie stars than like the agents of law enforcement. Rowdy, I felt certain, was intent on discovering whether any of these newcomers happened to be carrying food that might somehow be induced to make its way from human pocket to malamute mouth. Being a mere human being, I watched just to see what would happen.
    As I understood matters, the first cop who arrived was supposed to have the honor of officially deciding whether a crime had occurred. Since the six cops had reached the clearing almost simultaneously, I frivolously wondered whether they might quarrel among themselves about who had gotten there first. Somewhat to my disappointment, not a single spat broke out. Four cops now stood at the edge of the clearing. Another had run back up the track, presumably to lead reinforcements to the scene. The sixth, a tall, unbelievably