Gaits of Heaven (25 page)

I never lie to dogs. I believed, which is to say hoped,
that Anita had gone flying off far away. She had not. While I was still on the sidewalk on my way back to the house, I heard banging and looked up to see her on Ted’s porch. I’d had more than enough of her and intended to avoid the front door by using the gate to the yard and then the entrance to the family room. That was before I saw what she was doing. Her action was so bizarre that it froze me in place: having removed one of her spike-heeled shoes, she was vigorously whacking at the door frame with a three-inch heel. Approaching, I saw that she was pounding on the mezuzah mounted by the door. A mezuzah is a sacred object. I couldn’t stand by and watch her commit desecration.

“Stop that!” I yelled as I ran up the steps.

As I reached the porch, Anita succeeded in removing the mezuzah. At the same time, the door opened, and there stood Kevin Dennehy, who’d undoubtedly been attracted by the hammering. Without hesitation and without apparent effort, the willowy Anita rammed him aside—and that’s saying something. It was like watching a gazelle slam a full-grown male gorilla out of its path.

“Kevin,” I said, “that’s Anita Fairley, Steve’s ex-wife. There’s something radically wrong with her.”

He rolled his eyes. “So you’ve said once or twice.”

“No, not…I’m serious. She’s having some kind of episode.”

Anita spared me the need to elaborate. Having charged into the living room, she began to berate Ted Green. “You’re going to lose your license, you son of a bitch! Kickbacks! You got kickbacks for sending me and a lot of other people to that goddamned CHIRP, and that’s unethical!”

This from Anita, who was a disbarred lawyer? I had to suppress nervous laughter. Kevin and I had followed Anita, but we were lingering near the door, whereas she had positioned herself close to Ted, Rita, Johanna, Monty, and the hospital social worker, all of whom were seated on the couches near the fireplace. In armchairs in a corner of the room were the participants in the meeting who hadn’t been assigned to any of the subgroups: the Reiki woman, the acupuncturist, the massage therapist, the herbalist, and George McBane’s lawyer, Oona Sundquist. Anita had startled everyone into silence. Tall and thin, dressed entirely in white, her long blond hair disheveled, she’d have stood out if she’d done nothing more than stroll quietly into the room. Like everyone else, I was staring at her. Weirdly enough, she’d respected the custom of the house by removing both shoes, not just the one she’d used as a hammer. In her right hand was the mezuzah. In her left, she still held the sheaf of papers that Sammy had snatched.

“Anita,” said Ted Green, “you need to get control of yourself. You’re not feeling well.”

“I have never felt better in my life!” she shrieked. “No thanks to you! I’m going to sue you! You misdiagnosed me, and you mistreated me, and you duped me into making apologies for things I didn’t do! You and your goddamned trauma! I have never been traumatized in my life! I have been depressed! And I want my money back!”

While my attention had been focused on Anita, Kevin had slipped out of the room and returned with all the physicians who’d been meeting in the kitchen. Although I only glanced at them, I noticed that Vee Foote looked asleep on her feet. Her eyes were heavy, and her head was almost lolling.

“That wonderful doctor,” said Anita, pointing to Dr. Foote, “understands my depth and my strength and my creativity!”

Dr. Foote summoned the energy to mumble something.

“What did she say?” I whispered to Kevin.

“She said, ‘Oh, shit’,” he informed me.

“What have you done to my client?” Ted demanded. “What did you give her?”

“Pills!” replied Anita. “Beautiful pills! Who thought they’d work so fast?” Stretching out the syllables, she almost sang, “Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. See-lec-tive! See? See Dick run! Dick!”

As Anita was elaborating in an obscene fashion that there is no need to report in detail, I finally realized that we were witnessing a psychiatric emergency and that someone, damn it, should do something about it. Rita must have had the same thought. She stood up. At the same time, the door to the family room opened, and in came Caprice, Wyeth, Missy Zinn, and Peter York, followed by Barbara, George, and Dolfo.

In a moment of sanity, Anita said, “Christ, what an ugly dog!”

“Dolfo,” said Ted. “My beautiful boychick! Come to Daddy!”

“Cut the Yiddish,” Anita ordered him. “You phony!” She frantically waved the papers. “You’re as Jewish as I am.”

Ted shook his head sadly. “You? Anita, I don’t think so. Now, Dolfo? We talked about having a bark mitzvah, Eumie and I did, but…Anita, listen to me. You’re having a reaction to your medication.” He shrugged elaborately. “These wonder drugs? They do this now and then.”

“I know everything about you!” Anita hollered. “Arkansas!” She brandished the papers. “My PI got the dirt on you! And you’re a big fat liar! You’re from Arkansas, you dick! Dickhead!
Gentile
Arkansas dickhead!”

Since Barbara and George had been in my dog group rather than in the doctors’ group, I’d almost forgotten that they were both psychiatrists. Fortunately, Rita remembered, as did they. Rita, who was ordinarily too much of a lady ever to point at anyone, now pointed directly at them. They nodded. Barbara handed Dolfo’s leash to Ted and moved slowly and calmly toward Anita. George followed her. The other psychiatrists, I might note, were standing uselessly around or, in Dr. Foote’s case, snoozing around. She had dropped into a chair and fallen asleep. If Dolfo had hung around or gone to sleep, or if Ted Green had maintained control of his dog, Barbara and George might have succeeded in leading Anita away or persuading her to go to a hospital, which was where, as I now realized, she belonged.

But that’s not what happened. As Ted was explaining that his was the only Jewish family in their little town in Arkansas and that his mother’s maiden name was Epstein, for God’s sake, and as Anita was saying that
O’Flaherty
was a funny was to pronounce
Epstein
, Dolfo acted exactly as Sammy had done: when Anita shook the papers in her hand, Dolfo was so tantalized that he shot up, grabbed them, tore his leash from Ted’s hand, and dashed out of his reach. Caprice, I recalled, had once remarked that mail was Dolfo’s favorite food. And mail was made of paper.

Ted made the mistake of hauling himself up on his crutches and trying to chase Dolfo. Run after a dog, and guess what? He’ll run away. My supply of dog treats was low, but my pocket held enough bits and crumbs to provide bargaining power. Dolfo had taken refuge behind the armchair occupied by the Reiki healer, who cooperatively moved when I approached.

“Dolfo, trade,” I said casually. “Give.” The trick is to avoid asking the dog a question. Don’t invite resistance by making a rough demand, either. Your voice has to sound as if you’re stating a happy fact that both of you take for granted. I kneeled on the floor and slipped my hand behind the chair. “Here you go! Trade.” I scattered the bits and crumbs. The second Dolfo went for the goodies, I picked up the papers he’d dropped. “Good boy,” I said.

As I’ve just said, don’t invite resistance. If Ted Green had done nothing, I might have handed him the papers. As it was, he lunged toward me and, balancing precariously on his crutches, grabbed for them. It’s vital not to reinforce undesired behavior. I considered Ted’s behavior highly undesirable. I moved the papers behind my back and, in what was probably doglike fashion, scurried out of the living room, into the front hall, and up the stairs. When I reached the landing at the top, I sat down and read the papers that Anita had prized so highly and that Ted had been so determined to capture. They were exactly what Anita had said: a private investigator’s written report about Ted Green. As he’d said, he’d grown up in a small town in Arkansas. According to the report, he’d spent his high school years as a social misfit and an academic achiever. His father died when he was sixteen. In part because he’d somehow come across the work of a Brandeis University psychologist named Abraham Maslow, he’d then gone to Brandeis, where, for the first time, he’d found himself among others who read avidly and who discussed ideas. At Brandeis, he told his friends that he’d been born in New York City and that his parents had left for political reasons. His mother died during spring break of his senior year.

Activity in the hall below drew my attention. Barbara and George were escorting Anita out the door. George was in the lead. I’ll say tactfully that Anita was following him. She was still talking a million words a minute, mainly to and about George, who was, as I’ve mentioned, known in the psychiatric community as Gorgeous George. Barbara was, of course, a dog person and was thus familiar with the use of lures. The usual lure is a tasty tidbit rather than a handsome husband, but Anita wouldn’t have been all that interested in liver treats. Barbara was using what worked. Good dog trainers are flexible pragmatists. So, I suppose, are good psychotherapists.

Before descending the stairs, I took a moment to revisit the bedroom where I’d found Eumie Brainard-Green’s body. The same multicolored duvet and matching pillows were still on the bed. They must have been laundered. I was surprised that Ted had kept them at all. Perhaps they reminded him of Eumie. I, at least, found them evocative. “Eumie, thank you,” I said softly. “Thank you for your gift. I am listening to the imagery. It is helping. You were selfish, greedy, vain, pretentious, and incredibly kind. You cared about my trouble. If you were still alive, I would thank you by helping you to train your dog. I have faith that you could have learned. I know that you deserved the chance. Good-bye.”

With that, I folded the PI’s report, stowed it in my pocket, ran down the stairs, paused briefly in the hall to say a few words to Kevin Dennehy, and walked boldly into the living room, where Rita was struggling to reconvene the meeting, presumably so that she could bring it to an end. I did not take my dog trainer’s seat on the periphery, but marched to the front of the room.

“Rita believes in dreams,” I said to everyone. “She explains them to me. Among other things, she distinguishes between their manifest content and their latent content.” Dr. Needleman’s eyes opened wide. She opened her mouth, but before she had a chance to speak, I went on. “If I dream about dogs, as I always do, Rita makes me ask what the dogs mean, what they symbolize, what message the dream dogs are conveying to me, and what message I am sending to myself. I think that besides the manifest content of our meeting tonight, there’s also latent content. And the latent content is about who murdered Eumie Brainard-Green. I now know who murdered her. And I know why.”

My heart was pounding exactly as it did when I was entering the ring. My palms were drenched. But in the back of my mind, I could hear echoes of Eumie’s gift to me. I took a strong, deep breath and went on.

“The woman who has just left, Anita Fairley, was a disgruntled client of yours, Ted, as well as a more recent client of Dr. Foote’s. It was Dr. Foote who prescribed the antidepressants that are causing what I’ve heard Rita call a hypomanic reaction. Anita wasn’t making a lot of sense about quite a few things, but she did, in fact, hire a private investigator. The papers that Ted was so eager to get his hands on are the PI’s report.”

It’s possible that if I ever somehow get stuck handling Rowdy or Sammy all the way to the competition for Best in Show, or if we’re ever in a runoff for High in Trial, I’ll overcome my ring nerves well enough to do a decent job. If it happens, though, I’ll have a calming presence at my side: a dog. As it was, I had my imagination, which I put to good use by conjuring the image of Rowdy at my left side, India to his left, Sammy at my right, Lady beyond him, and Kimi in front of me, her fearless eyes on my face. I smiled at Kimi and summarized: Arkansas, Brandeis, psychology.

“Public knowledge,” Ted commented.

“O’Flaherty,” I said. “Anita was raving, but she didn’t make that up.”

“Epstein,” Ted insisted.

“When you got to Brandeis, you got mistaken for a Jew. Why not? Green.”

“Shortened from Greenberg.”

“Is that what you said? Why not? There must’ve been other people there whose families had shortened their names. Or changed them. You probably never even lied outright, Ted. You just didn’t correct people’s assumptions. And you picked up the Yinglish. Yiddish phrases. That’s not hard. I mean, I’m a shikse, and I can understand your Yiddish expressions. I know what a mezuzah is. I can recognize a menorah. It couldn’t have taken you too long, and plenty of the Jewish students at Brandeis must’ve come from assimilated families. Why not you? You belonged! You fit in. And your parents weren’t around to set people straight. Your father died when you were in high school. Your mother died just before you graduated. Who was to know? So, no one did.”

“My mother,” said Caprice.

“Did Eumie tell you?” I asked.

Caprice shook her head. “Mommy knew everything.”

Awakening briefly from her stupor, Dr. Foote mumbled, “A Jewish profession.”

“Not exclusively,” said Dr. Needleman. “Look at Dr. Zinn.”

“My father is Jewish,” said Missy Zinn.

“In Israel,” Wyeth said unexpectedly, “if your mother’s not Jewish, you’re not.”

“Freud!” exclaimed Dr. Needleman.

“Wasn’t his mother Jewish?” asked Dr. Tortorello.

“Of course she was,” said Dr. Needleman. “No one knows anything anymore.”

“But how did Eumie find out?” I asked rhetorically. “The sad part is, really, that Dolfo told on you, Ted. Or he might as well have. We just saw a demonstration. Dolfo steals things. He especially steals paper. As Caprice once told me, mail is his favorite food.”

“Your passport, Ted,” said Caprice. “Dolfo ate it. You had to get a new one for the trip to Russia. And you had to send in your birth certificate. And Mommy saw it. Was your mother’s name really O’Flaherty?”

“Have you ever heard of a Jew named O’Flaherty?” Ted’s voice, however, had lost its strength, and tears were running down his face.