The Wicked Flea

silently at the door. I had to push past them to ease it open.
    Standing there all by herself on my porch at my door on Saturday night was Anita Fairley, also known as Anita Fairley-Delaney, the wife of Steve Delaney, and not a person who was in the habit of paying me visits. The porch light shone on her coat, which I told myself must be raccoon, even though its thick, dark gray fur was conspicuously reminiscent of the glorious coats of my own dogs. On Anita’s otherwise beautiful face was an expression of distaste. If I hadn’t known her, I’d have assumed she was responding to the stench of liver that emanated from the oven. But I knew Anita and recognized her characteristic expression.
    Before I had time to think of something unwelcoming to say to Anita, she barged in. Turning her perfectly coiffed head left and right to make her long blond hair sway, she demanded with her usual arrogance, “Where is he?”
    Kimi and Tracker are female. Anita obviously didn’t mean Rowdy. For one thing, his presence at my left side was impossible to miss. For another, Anita hated dogs. I didn’t answer the question.
    “Has something died here?”
    Once again, I didn’t answer. Why bother? Literary endeavor such as mine was far beyond the comprehension of philistines like Anita.
    Striding ahead of me, Anita entered my living room. Finding no one there, she surveyed the kitchen, where she peered at the open windows. The brownies were obviously beginning to scorch, but I left them in the hot oven. The burning liver provided the perfect olfactory equivalent to a sound track. The thought crossed my mind that this stinking situation was beyond the understanding of the dogs and that it was a shame to subject them to all the bad feeling without being able to explain its cause. Stupid thought. As if dogs didn’t understand territory, possession, rivalry, loyalty, and rage.
    Tossing her head and picking a door at random, Anita abruptly threw open the one to my bedroom. Kimi followed her in. Then out. It was clear to me by now that Rowdy had placed himself in charge of me and my safety and that Kimi had assigned herself the task of monitoring Anita. Under Kimi’s gaze, Anita checked out the bathroom. Then the guest room. Each time she entered a room, I nodded lightly to the dogs, who understood perfectly that I was tolerating this search of the premises, but could bring it to a halt whenever I chose.
    When Anita reached toward the door of my study, I made that choice. “No,” I said in my dog-training voice. “My cat’s in there. She can’t be loose with the dogs.”
    Anita made eye contact with me. She said nothing.
    “Steve isn’t the kind of man who’d cheat on his wife,” I told her. “Any wife. He just wouldn’t. No matter what.”
    With a nasty smile, Anita exclaimed, “Ever the little moralist!”
    I didn’t know whether she meant Steve or me, and I didn’t ask.
    “I saw you at the house,” Anita said. “Spying on me.”
    Spying? By getting there first? Still, I didn’t challenge the interpretation. I just said, “At the Metzners’.”
    Anita corrected me. “The Delaneys’.” Then she laughed. “The Metzners! Horrible little people! Mommy couldn’t get the kiddies to move, so she decided to sell the house out from under them! Pitiful!”
    “Sylvia Metzner is dead,” I pointed out. “She was murdered.”
    “Yes, wasn’t she.” With that, Anita darted her hand to the study door and threw it open. Her purpose? By now, she must’ve realized that Steve wasn’t hiding in a closet in the manner of a cuckold in some French farce. Among other things, if I’d been harboring a secret lover, would I have chosen the time of the tryst to char liver? Anita’s purpose, then, could only have been senseless malice: she was deliberately trying to expose my poor Tracker to my predatory dogs.
    “Rowdy! Kimi!” I reached into a pocket and grabbed what were by now the ubiquitous liver treats. “This way!” I bounded toward my bedroom. The dogs followed. I shoved the goodies into their mouths and shut them in. Then I returned to Anita. “You fooled Steve,” I told her, “and you’ve fooled a lot of other people, but you don’t fool me. You just tried to kill my cat, and what’s worse, you tried to use my dogs to do it. I don’t know where Steve is, but if he’s avoiding you, I don’t blame him one bit. Get out of my house, and get out now!”
    With a sneer, Anita put her nose in the air, wrapped