The Wicked Flea

discover another corpse. I liked the improbability of the big, awkward, nose-driven dog and tried to see Douglas as a whimsical, imaginative man who’d gone to a shelter and fallen for the funny-looking hound. When animal shelters fill up, the big, hairy dogs like Ulysses (and Rowdy, too) are the first to die. Douglas had probably saved the hound’s life.
    “Not that Sylvia went out and decided to get murdered,” Noah conceded. “But you have to admit that Sylvia did cause trouble. Her and that damned Zsa Zsa. And the police! Honest to God! First, there was the exhibitionist. That’s crime! A sick crime. Repeated. Cops ignored it. What’d they do instead? Who’d they go after? Us! Dogs. All of us. Our dogs.For what? For the crime of having fun! And then Pasquarelli waltzes in, and she’s a whole new problem, her and her fascist tactics. And who gets blamed? Dogs! So, now the new problem’s murder, and who would you think was to blame? Dogs! Us again.”
    On the contrary, Ceci had shown me a letter that had just appeared in the Newton Pulse :
     
More Dogs!
“Faithful and True Even to Death.” The noble phrase from Senator Vest’s famous Eulogy on the Dog sums up the compelling reasons why our City and our Parks need to shape up regarding Man’s Best Friend by making our City and our Parks welcoming places for dogs and owners. The horrible Murder in one of our Parks and preceding terrorization of women by a PERVERT in that same Park happened only because there were not MORE dogs around. Dogs and dog walkers try and keep our Parks safe for everyone! Let’s stop harassing the good guys!
–ALVIN WILLETTE
NEWTON UPPER FALLS
     
    “Who’s blaming dogs for the murder?” I asked. “I haven’t heard anyone do that. Rowdy, leave it! Stop! That is disgusting!”
    To my horror, he was scarfing down poisonous-looking mud. While I’m eating marked-down Brand X noodles, Rowdy and Kimi are dining on premium dog chow. Lately, the dogs had been feasting on homemade treats. So what delicacy did the big boy take it into his head to gobble up? Mud. I ask you!
    Returning to the previous topic, I said, “If anything, dogs are the heroes. Or one dog.” I smiled at Douglas. “Ulysses found her body. Well, you did, too, Douglas, but I’m sure you won’t mind giving Ulysses all the credit.”
    “He’s welcome to it,” Douglas replied, “unless it means that suspicion automatically falls on him. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? The one who finds the body is the obvious suspect?”
    “Not with Officer Pasquarelli around,” I said, “although I can’t imagine that the police are going to focus on one of their own.”
    Unconvinced, Noah said, “If someone comes along with an assault rifle and shoots everyone in the park, you know what the police are going to do? Hey, they’re going to keep doing the same thing they’ve been doing—get tough about the leash law and really enforce the pooper-scooper law. Newton’s the Garden City, you know, meaning that crime doesn’t happen here.”
    Here, at that moment, bore no resemblance to a garden. Leafless branches of trashy-looking trees overhung the trail. The sludge oozing its way between the muddy banks of the stream gave off a vaguely petrochemical reek.
    “It does seem as though no one’s done much about the exhibitionist,” I said.
    “Maybe now that attention is turning in the direction it’s turning,” Ceci said incomprehensibly, “there’ll finally be some long overdue progress, assuming that the police have the sense to put two and two together, and realize that it’s a dirty sort of person who’s driven to do dirty, dirty things!”
    Noah, Douglas, and I exchanged glances. In unison, we shrugged our shoulders.
    With no prompting, Ceci went on to clarify her point. In hushed tones, she said, “I could not help noticing, among other things, that he was not fully zipped!”
    Taking pity on Noah and Douglas, I explained. “Ceci made a cake for Sylvia’s children. We just delivered it. They really weren’t prepared for visitors.” At the risk of shocking Ceci, I added, “Eric’s fly was open.”
    “That Eric,” Ceci sputtered, “could charitably be described as a slob. Pia was asleep on the living room couch, of all places, and Oona was... well, times change, but in my day, girls made an effort of some sort, even my sister Althea, not that Althea was an unattractive girl, but she’s very tall and broad shouldered, and have you ever