Death and resurrection, p.31
Death and Resurrection, page 31
“Yes, but not what he thought. He worried unproductively. He worried that when she said she was at the library researching old Newsweeks that she was actually out somewhere in the back seat of a Chevy. He would call the library, with excuse after excuse, to make sure she was actually there doing strategy with her debate team partner.”
“And she was? In the library, I mean?”
“Oh yeah. Or at a friend’s house where the computer ran faster. But whatever she was and whatever he did, he embarrassed her. He was a BASIC programmer, which is sort of like being a manual laborer in Redmond or Bellevue. Worse, a BASIC programmer is almost extinct, like a mammoth.”
“And that made him an ‘untouchable?’ ” asked Ewen, who spoke no computer languages and was mediocre at using Windows. Other than a certain skill with Photoshop, he was not very technical.
Lynn nodded and cleaned her lips with a paper towel. “None of that matters, really. But what I’m leading to is that Ellie had learned to keep secrets. By the time she got sent to me she had become very good at it. Would have made a damn fine lawyer, some day.”
Lynn made louder noises with her tea and dunked the last fragment of gingersnap. “The worst thing about a kid who is more intelligent than her family is that she assumes she knows more than any other adult, too. That included me. She made it clear she didn’t think much of my brain.”
Ewen made the inevitable brotherly sarcastic remark and got the inevitable sisterly punch in the upper arm.
“But I let her get away with that,” Lynn continued. “When I should have called her on it. Because it was that kind of attitude that made her a sitting duck. It doesn’t take an adult genius to hoodwink a genius thirteen-year-old.”
“And that’s what you think happened to Ellie Frankel? She was ‘hoodwinked?’ ”
Lynn slammed her mug down between stacks of files. “I’m sure of it. She . . . she had older friends, she said. She was very proud that most of her friends were older.”
“Like ‘dirty old man’ older?”
“Naw. Anything over twenty-five would be in the geriatric category with her. But I remember some stories about a friend old enough to buy liquor. Ellie was also in one of my group classes. She met a lot of other kids that way. That was my goal. None old enough to buy liquor though.”
Ewen reflected on the matter. “Your group classes . . . ? Wasn’t Jacob doing that for a while?”
Lynn nodded. She stared at her tea.
“You . . . gave up that idea after a while, as I recall?”
She grinned at Ewen, becoming his twin sister for a moment again. “Yeah. The kids started to gang up on me. Think of Jacob and what he did to you! And I was pretty young myself, when I first thought of that. Full of ideas.”
“You still are,” he said. “Young and full of ideas.” He rose, balancing all the tea dishes on one arm. Ewen left his sister to ruminate over her old records.
Chapter Thirty-six
Susan finished her paperwork with the police, and went out to look at a litter of pups that had been recommended to her third-hand. No one knew she was doing this, Ewen least of all, because she knew it would lead to more acrimony. She needed to be looking for Rez’s replacement. She wouldn’t have to be replaced today, and Susan hoped not this year, but dog’s lives were pitifully short and she was going to need another partner. Another very special tracking dog.
She had already been disappointed by one Redbone Coonhound pup that had been built up to her as a very promising nose. Hounds—except for bloodhounds—don’t usually make the best search and rescue dogs, but this bitch had been touted as an exception.
In person, the young bitch pup they were looking at had just impressed Susan as a fool. Susan was probably biased in that, because she was famous as Rez’s handler, and no dog on God’s green Earth could have looked or acted less like Rez than this fawning russet stripling with its oversized ears and soft brown eyes. But Susan had known from the beginning that she must not even try to find the equal of her bitter, loyal wolf-dog. It was Rez herself who let her know the hound pup wouldn’t cut it. Although the dog was tolerant of the pup, as she was of most babies, she had made her lack of interest clear. Some dogs are simply dull dogs, however good the nose, and there’s not much search and recovery use for a dull dog. Rez had made it clear she thought the pup stupid. That had been two weeks ago, and since then Susan had been doing only telephone research.
She had called a friend who had a well-known tracking Golden Retriever bitch. He was the best man she knew at starting the blind and deaf little newborns and socializing them. His pups were all they could be by the time he had placed them, and she had heard he had an up-and-coming litter. After the events of this terrible day she wanted to see something young and alive, so she was now standing the man’s doorway with no appointment and the fog creeping in around her as though she was being pushed forward by the dark.
She knocked, and after some barking and scuffling noises the door was opened. “We hear you got some pups,” Susan said to Lenny Boatman. The squeals in the background and the general milky smell of old Boatman’s living room verified her statement. “I’ve been looking for a pup, because my girl here is getting a little stiff, and . . . are they all spoken for?”
Boatman was wearing a worn plaid bathrobe and he had a bag of frozen raw scraps in his hand. “Spoken for? No, Susan, they’re not spoken for, but I’m not sure you’d be interested. You’d be looking for a male tracking dog, preferably a recovery dog, right? All I got is puppies.” He realized he was standing in the doorway and backed off to let Susan in. Rez moved to follow, but Susan signed her to wait on the concrete front patio.
“Yes. But I’ll have time to start my own now. I think.” For a moment she stopped and looked worried. “Yes. I think so. And as for tracking skill, well, your Zelda’s found more lost hikers in the Seattle Area than any other local dog. As well as a few bodies.”
Boathouse beamed at the praise. He was a stocky Muckleshoot-tribe man standing in a house that looked from within as though it was made up of the spare parts and pieces of other people’s houses. The room was thoroughly puppy-chewed, even parts of the tabletops. “Yes, she has, good old girl. But these pups aren’t Zelda’s. They’re my new dog’s. They might not be your cup of tea, Susie.”
“Why not, Lenny? You know I don’t care about the AKC thing.”
He grinned, slightly embarrassed. “Well, they’re certainly not AKC. They’re Oz doodles.”
Susan stood motionless on the torn linoleum flooring, staring at the rumpled Indian man in front of her. “Oz doodles?”
“Yeah. ‘Oz’ as in Australia. They were bred out of Labs and poodles. Starting in the eighties. Added other breeds since—I don’t know what all. They’re good for lots of things, though they started out to be guide dogs. I’ve had great luck with tracking, though. And one of my Lily’s earlier pups is doing epilepsy assistance. One of her grandparents is doing research at cancer-sniffing. Have you heard of that? Can’t say how that’s working out; medicine’s not my thing.” He furrowed his brow for a moment. “Only thing I wouldn’t use them for is arson detection, really, because of all the hair.” He snickered and prodded Susan with a spare elbow. “All that hair. Get it?”
She kept staring at him.
He added nervously “Lily, the mother, is a good dog: out of Rutland lines, very healthy. Good temperament. Good nose. Wait’ll you see the size of her nose, actually. Wow.”
When Susan still said nothing, he babbled on, gesturing with the bag of dog meat. “Don’t look at me like that. Aussie Labradoodles are actually very practical dogs. They can be clipped short if you want and of course they don’t shed. People like that. And they’ve kept the breeding very clean.”
Susan shook herself. Cleared her head. “I know about Labradoodles, Lenny. I treat a few. I just never thought that you . . . ”
Rumpled Muckleshoot man that he was, Lenny Boatman hung his head, but only for a moment. Like all good breeders, he was proud of his dogs. “You should at least take a gander at them before giving me that—that look!”
She became aware she had been giving Lenny “that look.” “I’m sorry. Of course: show me your pups,” said Susan.
They were seven weeks old, and in the time Lenny had been in the front of the house they had knocked the puppy-pen over on its side and spread themselves across the kitchen. Mother was lying on her furry chocolate side, not quite relaxed in the presence of this human but not concerned enough to rise up. Her coat was light and fleecy. Angora. Around the legs of the table lurched, pounced, and tottered six unlikely balls of fluff and color, marked with round eyes like raisins. Two were brown, one light gold, one cream and one solid black.
Carefully Susan sat herself down on a clean spot on the kitchen vinyl. She watched the puppies watch her, and out of long experience felt the personalities of each of them display themselves to her. The cream guy was the biggest of the litter. By his lolloping movement he seemed slowest to develop, which was to be expected. He fixed his eyes on her and made her into the goal of his travels. His pencil tail wagged, held straight over his back.
“He’ll be a real go-getter,” said Lenny, blandly. “He’s got some growth comin’ in him.” He watched the woman watching his puppies. He knew at least as much about puppy maturation as the veterinarian did, and knew much more about these special ones he was selling, but he was a salesman and also knew when to keep his trap shut.
One of the browns also made for Susan, and being of a lighter build, she made it to Susan’s lap first, where she made a puddle. Susan took an offered sheet of Bounty, sopped up the mess and didn’t otherwise react. The other brown—a male—looked at her, yelped once and sat down hard on his tail. The dark gold bitch puppy stayed under the kitchen table.
The dark one came halfway from his mother to the stranger, sat down and gazed at her. He tilted his head left, and then adjusted it to the right. He took another step forward, made a half-hearted play-bow at Susan and sat again, examining her some more.
I wish Ewen were here, she found herself thinking, though she had not forgotten for a moment how he’d reacted to her talk of puppies. She put her hand out for the puppy to sniff. He stuck his cold nose into the palm of it and gave her one lick. Then he examined her some more.
Old Boatman watched all this out of the corner of his eye. “He’ll be a wise dog, that one,” he said, looking in the opposite direction as he spoke. Looking completely unconcerned. “Of course, he’s the most expensive one, too. Because he’s the best. I bet he’ll be a body recovery dog, if you still are looking for one to do that. He could be a rescue dog, too. He’ll have the muscle. And of course he’ll swim.” Boatman made a wide sweep of his hand. “And then, these’re all bred to be service dogs.” Lenny sucked on his lower lip. “A lot of market for service dogs, these days.”
She ran her hand through the puppy’s soft pelt of curls. “I can just see the briars in this,” she said.
“Not so much the fleecy ones like him. The wooly ones do collect ’em, though. You clip the coat short. They look like whatever you want them to. Underneath they look like a sporting dog.” He cleared his throat and said, “Even if you’re not interested in what many people call a mutt, you can still . . . ”
“Oh, Lenny, shut up about the ‘mutt’ business,” she said. She was looking at the puppy with her head tilted much as it was looking at her. “Can I take him to the window for just a moment for Rez to see? And can I do the usual tests? I mean, if you’ve got the time.”
Very, very casually Lenny Boatman said, “I got the time. And it’s good experience for the pup. New person. Even a new dog. If Lily doesn’t mind, I don’t.” Lily lay there and seemed not to mind as Susan picked up her puppy.
Boatman walked behind, saying. “And I understand has to have some say in this. By the way, you are going to keep . . . ”
“Rez has a home with me as long as she lives,” Susan said coldly.
Together they took the blocky puppy out into the cooler front room, where the wolf-dog sat waiting by the picture window. She got up when Susan came toward her, and the puppy was carefully and slowly extended in front of the glass. Rez was very polite and waited for an invitation to come closer. At last she leaned forward and sniffed courteously at the puppy’s side, as though the layers of glass between made no difference The sniffing went on a long time as she pretended to sample the pup, and it was punctuated by a few appreciative snorts.
The mime was so good that Susan had to wonder whether her dog could get some scent through the double-paned window. If so, that wasn’t good, because the little thing hadn’t had its last vaccinations and wasn’t supposed to meet strange dogs. But maybe Rez was receiving something else from the pup that wasn’t smell. Perhaps the connection between Ewen and Rez wasn’t simply on Ewen’s side.
The puppy looked through the glass at Rez as he had at her owner, with its little head cocked. Susan saw that Resurrection’s eyes were soft, and her tail slowly brushing from side to side. The old dog was feeling contentment from the pup, just as Susan herself had received, as she felt the soft, wiggling, black thing in her hands.
“Bitch takes to a boy pup quicker,” commented Lenny, standing behind them, one dark eyebrow wisely raised. “Male dogs like the little bitches. It’s just nature.”
“Maybe you’re right. She sure didn’t like the coonhound bitch pup I showed her last week,” Susan remarked.
Lenny shrugged. “That don’t really prove nothing. I don’t like coon dogs much myself. But then, lots o’ folks do.”
***
Susan stood on the porch fifteen minutes later, an uncertain smile on her face. She had just put down five hundred deposit on a puppy, which seemed to be the opposite of every dog she had ever had. How unlike her! She hardly understood her own reactions this past month. If things continued in this direction, she might be buying the little thing a rhinestone collar in a week or so. Buying Prada shoes. (Was it shoes Prada made? She scarcely knew.) She looked down at Rez for reassurance, and the old dog was grinning up at her through her gray muzzle and despite her sore joints and the weather throbbing in every elderly inch of her, Susan knew that Rez would have been content to take the pup home that very evening. So maybe she’d done the right thing by buying what was so often called a “designer dog.” If only for Rez.
Either the creature would be a tracker or it wouldn’t, and the designer dog appellation would have nothing to do with that. You couldn’t be sure about any dog, not even a bloodhound.
The real problem coming up in the future, she thought, was Ewen. He’d made his attitude about a new dog clear. About a new anything. She remembered him hanging up the phone last time she called without even a “goodbye.” Was this a sign of the future? Susan thought about this future and tried to blow it away by blowing frost-rings with her breath under the light of the porch. As always, the frost-rings didn’t come out right.
Ewen just didn’t want things to change. Oh, when they first got together he had, or had claimed to. He had wanted her to leave her practice and come down to Redmond with him. But that idea had faded after a few disagreements—really very minor disagreements, in her opinion—and he had told her he took her career seriously and would push no more. And, admittedly, he did take her career seriously—maybe more seriously than she did herself. It’s what she’d always wanted in a man and she’d gotten it. Whoopee for her.
But if he didn’t want even a new puppy, how was he going to feel about any really big change? She thought of his placid, balanced life, with paints and kung fu and meditation each keeping its place, and of his house, which despite all the oil paint was on the verge of being neat. Strange house for a man.
Susan’s own life had never been so perfectly balanced. Things happened around her in great surges. Gains and losses. She feared her surging life would soon find itself losing Ewen Young. She wished he had shown more gumption about wanting her to move down the mountains.
But still there were some good times coming up, whether or no . . . There would be the puppy for them to train through the dark winter: Not her and Ewen, maybe, but at least her and Rez. To train and to be silly with. That would be better than nothing. And then would come spring and summer, with long, bright days and other changes.
Susan stepped off the porch, thinking about new names.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Ewen had pulled the seat cushion from Lynn’s living room couch and placed it across the head of the upstairs hall by the stairs. Behind him Teddy slept in one of the rooms and Lynn in the other. Ewen had had to re-insert the boy’s floppy limbs under the covers, one by one, because Teddy had had a hard time falling asleep. (It must have taken him eight minutes.) He hadn’t seemed upset; it was just the excitement of the detectives being there, and of course part of it was just that Uncle Ewen was sleeping over, and Daddy was not.
Behind the other bedroom door he could still hear the shuffling of papers. He wondered if it was his responsibility to barge in and tell Lynn that it was past time to put those away and go to sleep. That such an act was foredoomed to failure didn’t make it any less stuck amidst his nagging thoughts.
He closed his eyes and let those thoughts go. Immediately his mind was filled with the image of Rez. Rez flinching as she put weight on that leg.
The winter had not really begun, and already he felt covered with winter darkness. Darkness and aching bones. How could they all make it through until spring—especially old Rez? He thought of Susan’s prospect of a puppy and wished he had not snapped at her as he had done. A puppy, at least, would be alive. A new living being amidst their lives. And if Rez didn’t like it—if she felt displaced—she could move to his house and live with him. He’d take her everywhere with him, as Susan did now. He’d take her to the school and she could sit by the side of the mat. She could almost be his dog.
