Black Ribbon
Authors: Susan Conant
SUSAN CONANT’S
DOG LOVER’S MYSTERIES!
“TOSS MS. CONANT A BISCUIT. IF THERE’S A CLASS CALLED ‘DOG MYSTERIES,’ SHE’S GOT A BEST OF BREED.”
—Rendezvous
“COME. SIT. STAY.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“PUREBRED ENTERTAINMENT. WITH PAPERS.”
—Clarion-Ledger,
Jackson
“IF YOU’VE SUSPECTED MYSTERIES ARE GOING TO THE DOGS, SUSAN CONANT’S LATEST COULD WELL CONFIRM THAT THEORY.”
—Greenwich Time/Stamford Advocate
“THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THE DOG-LOVER WITH EVERYTHING.”
—The Globe and Mail,
Toronto
“PAWS FOR A MOMENT, IF YOU LIKE DOGS.”
—Cox News Service
BLACK RIBBON
“A FASCINATING MURDER MYSTERY AND A VERY, VERY FUNNY BOOK … WRITTEN WITH A FAIRNESS THAT EVEN DOROTHY SAYERS OR AGATHA CHRISTIE WOULD ADMIRE.”
—Mobile Register
RUFFLY SPEAKING
“A REAL TAIL-WAGGER.”
—The Washington Post
“YOU’D BETTER GO FETCH THIS.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A FINE READ, A STORY THAT IS AS FASCINATING FOR ITS DOG LORE AS FOR ITS MYSTERY PLOT.”
—Romantic Times
“Ms. Conant has the ability to make her characters (both canine and human) come alive.”
—Mystery News
BLOODLINES
“Conant’s dog-centered mystery is LIVELY, FUNNY, AND ABSOLUTE PREMIUM.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“IF YOU’RE A ‘DOG PERSON’ … THIS BOOK IS DEFINITELY FOR YOU.”
—Rendezvous
“Susan Conant gives new meaning to the phrase ‘sniffing out clues.’ ”
—
Dog Fancy
magazine
“HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR LOVERS OF DOGS, PEOPLE, AND ALL-AROUND GOOD STORYTELLING!”
—Mystery News
“Engrossing … unique!”
—
Mystery Forum
GONE TO THE DOGS
“AN ABSOLUTELY FIRST-RATE MYSTERY … and a fascinating look at the world of dogs … I loved it.”
—Diane Mott Davidson
“Conant’s dogs are real, true, and recognizable. BOTH DOG AND MYSTERY LOVERS KNOW A CHAMPION WHEN THEY SEE ONE.
GONE TO THE DOGS
DEFINITELY WINS BEST OF BREED.”
—Carolyn G. Hart
“Conant infuses her writing with a healthy dose of humor about Holly’s Fido-loving friends and other Cambridge clichés; the target of her considerable wit clearly emerges as human nature.”
—Publishers Weekly
“AN ENJOYABLE READ FOR ANIMAL LOVERS OF ALL KINDS.”
—Mystery Lovers Bookshop News
“Holly Winter is a friendly, funny, salty, boundlessly enthusiastic guide to the noble and nefarious in the world of dogs. And the dogs are real enough to pat!”
—P. M. Carlson
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
*Ruffly Speaking
*Bloodlines
*Gone to the Dogs
Paws Before Dying
A Bite of Death
Dead and Doggone
A New Leash on Death
*Available From Bantam Books
AND COMING SOON IN
PAPERBACK FROM BANTAM BOOKS
Stud Rites
All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
Black Ribbon
A Bantam Book/in association with
Doubleday
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Doubleday edition published January 1995
Bantam edition/December 1995
Excerpts from American Kennel Club rules, regulations, guidelines, and official breed standards reprinted by permission of the American Kennel Club.
Excerpt from
Surviving Your Dog’s Adolescence
(New York: Howell Book House), Copyright © 1993 by Carol Lea Benjamin, reprinted by permission of the author.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995 by Susan Conant.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94-19547.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Doubleday, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.
eISBN: 978-0-307-78552-7
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
v3.1
BLACK RIBBON
Frostfield Arctic Natasha, CD, TT, CGC, VCC
February 9, 1986-March 31, 1993
Radiant spirit, joyful noise
Stay with me, my good girl. I loved you every minute
of your life.
MANY THANKS to Sally Jean Alexander; Susan Bulanda, Coventry Canine Search and Rescue; Debra Goodie; Officer Warren F. Harnden, Rangeley Police Department, Rangeley, Maine; Ted Sprague; and Jan Thomas, Chesrite Kennel, all of whom expertly answered my questions. Thanks also to Roseann Mandell, Geoff Stern, and Margherita Walker, who read my manuscript when they could have been training Duchess, Kody, Audrey Rose, Basil, and Blossom, to whom I apologize for time stolen and points lost. I am also grateful to Jean Berman, Judy Bocock, Dorothy Donohue, and Tracy Katz. Wayne Morie’s wonderful Chesapeake Bay retrievers, CH Brackenwood Spartan, UD and Chesrite’s Tyme To Heel, CGC (Sparty and Elsa) taught me to love the breed. Special thanks to Elsa for the use of her name; my fictional Chessie would answer to no other. Vanderval’s Tundra Eagle, CDX, one of the great obedience malamutes of all times, appears with the blessing of her breeder, owner, and handler, Anna Morelli. For the title of Holly’s canine romance, I am indebted
to P.J. (Pam) Richardson. Best of Breed among editors once again goes to perfection itself, my beloved Kate Miciak.
Many thanks also to William Walker, D.V.M.; to his skilled and compassionate staff at the Rotherwood Animal Clinic, Newton, Massachusetts; to a great and caring veterinary surgeon, Joel Woolfson, D.V.M.; to Theresa Hawley and Corinne Zipps; and to everyone else who helped to save the rescue malamute now called Kashina. For kindness to Kashina, special thanks to my husband, Carter Umbarger, who finds himself at ever-increasing risk of becoming a dog person.
Without an Alaskan malamute to guide me through the bleak landscapes of the soul, I would wander forever without finding Holly’s voice. I am deeply grateful to my new lead dog, Frostfield Firestar’s Kobuk, CGC, in whose unerring path I humbly follow, and to his baby half-sister, Frostfield Perfect Crime, called Rowdy.
CONSIDER THE ETERNAL QUEST for Order.
Loyal Order of Moose, Fraternal Order of Eagles, Patriotic and Protective Order of Stags, Order of the Blue Goose, Ancient Order of Foresters, Modern Woodmen of America, Knights of Pythias, Tall Cedars of Lebanon, Order of DeMolay, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Malta, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Constellation of Junior Stars, Red Cross of Constantine, Supreme Conclave True Kindred, Grand Order of Galilian Fishermen, Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm …
Or so it once was. No longer the Loyal and multitudinous Order of yesteryear, Moose International, Inc., recently substituted bright-colored blazers for the traditional black satin cape. No more
tah
, either; no more backward spelling at all. Modernization is paying off: 168,000 new Moose last year. Progress. Or so the poor Moose suppose. Total membership; 1.27 million. Pitiful. Masons: 4.1 million in 1959. Today? 2.5 million. Elks, too. Eagles. Decline, decline. Thus
falters the quest for Order: The Lodge dislodges; the fez falls apart; the conclave cannot hold. Snippets of rite drift from the aeries where Eagles soared. Bits of regalia lie scattered where once roamed droves of Patriotic and Protective Stags. Tall Cedars of Lebanon petrify to dead wood.
But hark! Is that a yelp I hear? A yip, a ruff, a bold, resounding
woo-woo-woo?
It is all these things and more. Read the numbers: in the United States of America, 54 million dogs, 2.5 million Masons, thus 21.6 dogs for every Mason; and 4.1 million Masons in 1959, peak membership, but only 2.5 million Masons today, 1.6 million fewer members. And remember that number, because American Kennel Club individual dog registrations last year alone equaled exactly 1,528,392, a figure that rounds off to … Well, work it out for yourselves! Indeed! For every member lost to Freemasonry since 1959, the American Kennel Club has registered a new canine in the past year alone. Out of order, chaos; and out of chaos, the Ancient, Benevolent, and Protective Order of Mystic Stalwarts of the Highborn Pooch.