The Wicked Flea

can’t expect them to take it like you would, Holly. They’re normal. That’s the difference.”
    “I’m not abnormal. And these people, the Trasks, were not afraid of Kimi. They have a dog themselves. Their own dog is with them in the picture in the paper. A golden. These are not people who are afraid of dogs, and Kevin, I swear to you that their response was all out of proportion to what happened. And don’t forget that they supposedly found the rat tail at the same place. S & I’s Burgerhaven.”
    Kevin smiled. “They’re regular customers.” He shrugged “Let it go.”
    “Maybe they need the money,” I said, trying to talk myself into taking Kevin’s advice. “Maybe they were desperate, and that’s why they concocted this business. Kevin, the little girls were so sad. They were dressed in these threadbare old party clothes. Their teeth were all brown. Baby teeth, rotting away. And they were very sweet kids. Shy, but nice. Still, you’d think there’d be some better way for the parents to take care of them than coming up with this idea of suing Burgerhaven.”
    “That’d be a funny target, anyway. Where’s the payoff? A guy goes to the trouble of planting evidence so’s he can sue McDonald’s, Burger King, whatever. Yeah, you can understand that. Deep pockets. But Bur-gerhaven?”
    “I see what you mean. Maybe you’re right,” I conceded. “Maybe they’re loyal customers who honestly were served filth. It does happen. Like that pasta factory? Remember? It was in Waltham or Medford or someplace like that. It got closed down because there were mouse droppings in the dough, and the owners resisted the order to throw out all the pasta they had on hand, five thousand pounds. Maybe they thought they’d invented a new flavor.”
    Let’s step back a second. Here we have Lieutenant Kevin Dennehy of the Cambridge Police, who is involved in what is, to the best of my knowledge, the first serious romance of his adult life. The object of Kevin’s affection, Officer Jennifer Pasquarelli of the Newton Police, is not on active duty at the moment because she engaged in a physical altercation with a woman who is charging her with brutality, violation of civil rights, and so forth. Now, of course, the woman, Sylvia Metzner, has been murdered in the very same park where the dispute took place. And the best Kevin and I can find to talk about is revoltingly contaminated food? Come on! I’d thought about pursuing the subject of the murder. But how? The possibilities felt impossible. Did your girlfriend shoot Sylvia? No wonder I write about dogs. They’re easy. If you want to direct a dog’s attention to a target, you put a delectable tidbit of cheese or meat on it, and what you get is rapt canine attention. Simple! Beautiful! You know all those books that promise to reveal the mystical secrets of communicating with your dog? Go into a trance, merge minds, read body language, tune into ESP, or pay hundreds of dollars for the services of the joker who wrote the book? Hah! I, Holly Winter, will now, free of charge, reveal the true secrets of communicating with dogs. There are two secrets. One is meat. The other is cheese. Ah, but the secrets of communicating with people? If I knew them, I’d tell.
    “Another beer, Kevin?” I asked.
    He accepted. After sipping it, he suddenly blurted out, “In case you wondered, Holly, Jennie had nothing to do with shooting Sylvia Metzner.” Before I could reply, he said, “It was a small-caliber weapon.”
    Not a cop’s gun. That was what Kevin meant. I nodded.
    “Jennie can be hot tempered,” Kevin informed me, “but she’s a professional.” As if I might have misunderstood, he added, “Law enforcement. That’s what she does. Law enforcement,” he repeated.
    “Kevin, I never said otherwise.”
    “Handguns are all over. You might not expect it in Newton, but half the people at that park’ve got registered handguns.”
    “Half? Kevin, I really doubt—”
    “Including the victim’s deceased husband.”
    “Kevin, I know you’re obsessed with family violence, but you can hardly suspect Sylvia’s dead husband of shooting her. Do you think he came back from the grave?”
    Kevin shook his big head. “Cremated. Ian Metzner was cremated.”.
    “You checked? This is ridiculous! Sylvia was not murdered by a ghost! Kevin, this is totally unlike you.” Kevin had a sly expression. “The guy was there. In the park.”
    “Stop it!”
    “Gotcha!” he