The Wicked Flea (23 page)
Authors: Susan Conant
My spirits soaring, I made a fresh pot of coffee, all the while engaging in wishful thinking about Anita and Sylvia’s murder. There was, I should emphasize, no question in my mind about whether Anita would have committed murder to get what she wanted; my only question—hope?—was whether she’s actually done so. As I poured the coffee into a mug and added milk and sugar, I found myself thinking about the possible reinstatement of the death penalty in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I’d always opposed the death penalty. At the moment, I wavered. Settling at the kitchen table, I did what dog writers do when confronting the typical problems of the profession, such as dreaming up new and fresh ways to tell readers how to win the battle against fleas, except in this case, I was setting out to explain to myself how to win the battle against an evil rival by proving her guilty of homicide. My method was the familiar one. No matter what the nature of the task, it’s a matter of pride with me to take a professional approach, meaning that I overdose on caffeine and talk to my dogs.
“Chronological order,” I said to Rowdy. “Kimi, the dishwasher is securely latched, so don’t bother even trying to open it. Besides, the dishes are clean, so you’re wasting your time. Chronology. Ian Metzner dies. I don’t know when. A few years ago. Sylvia has his body cremated. She puts his ashes in a blue-and-white ceramic urn. And leaves them there. Sylvia breeds Zsa Zsa. The Trasks buy one of the puppies. They name him Charlie. Wilson marries Pia, who is one of Sylvia’s two daughters. Pia and Wilson live with Sylvia in her house in Newton, near the park. Sylvia’s other daughter, Oona, is as crazy about sailing as I am about training and showing dogs, so instead of throwing away her money on rent, she also lives with Sylvia. The son, Eric, graduates from college and moves back home. He gets in minor trouble for drugs. He keeps his stash in the urn with his father’s ashes. That’s the background. Kimi, do not try to open the refrigerator! If you learn to do that, I am going to have to find some drastic and bizarre way to keep it shut, and I am quite eccentric enough already, thank you.”
I poured myself more coffee and again took a seat at the table.
“Rowdy, you are a good boy to sit and listen to me. As I was saying, the Trasks really love Charlie, who has severe hip dysplasia. George Trask, the grandfather, reads up on it. He knows what hip replacements cost. The alternative is euthanasia. So the Trasks do what the books and the web say to do: they call the breeder, Sylvia Metzner. And Sylvia treats the Trasks like dirt. George Trask concocts a plan. Tim and Brianna follow it. They find out that Sylvia owns S & Fs, they get hold of a rat tail, and they plant it in their food. Kimi intervenes. They try again. This time, they succeed. They get a lawyer. The aim: money for surgery and revenge on Sylvia. Rowdy, you are a much better Watson than Kimi is, do you know that? Kimi, there is no liver in the oven, as you can undoubtedly smell for yourself, young lady.”
The better Watson, Rowdy, yawned, sank to the floor, and closed his eyes. Can you imagine Holmes being treated this way? But Kimi took on the role of Watson by leaping over the dozing Rowdy to plant herself next to me. “Strictly between us,” I told her, “although both of you are brilliant, you are, in fact, the more intellectually gifted. Maybe you’re Holmes and I’m Watson.”
Kimi replied by tilting her head up and locking eyes with me.
“Assorted facts,” I said to her. “An exhibitionist starts exposing himself in the park. To Pia, among others. Self-evidently, my dear Kimi, it’s a crime that Anita Fairley couldn’t have committed. Meanwhile, Wilson pours an insane amount of money even by my liberal standards into showing Llio. We all know what that costs, don’t we? All the while Oona is earning little or nothing, and Eric is earning nothing and still spending on stuff that goes up his nose or in his veins. Sylvia wants to get this pack of bloodsuckers, A.K.A. her children, out of the house. In desperation, she sells it out from under them. To Anita. And Steve. I stupidly arm everyone in the park with air horns to drive off Zsa Zsa, who picks fights with the other dogs. Officer Jennifer Pasquarelli picks a fight with another woman, namely Sylvia, and arrests her. Not too long after that, Sylvia takes the urn with Ian’s ashes to the park, presumably to scatter his remains. Someone shoots and kills her with a small-caliber handgun. She drops the urn on a rock. It breaks. That’s on Sunday. On Tuesday her devoted family hasn’t noticed her absence, except to observe that there’s no food in the house. Douglas’s admirable dog, but not half so admirable as you, Kimi, finds the body. And that’s that. Always, Kimi, always start with what you know.”
As if on their own, my eyes wandered in apparent search of knowledge I’d overlooked. My gaze moved from Kimi to Rowdy, then from spot to spot (no pun intended) in my kitchen. On the back door hung dozens of leashes. On top of the refrigerator were the results of my latest recipe research: dog treats. The refrigerator itself held the cheese and roast beef I use to train the dogs. On the floor next to the dogs’ water bowls lay two fleece dog toys: a bear and a dinosaur. In the closet was dog food. Wisps of dog hair loitered near the baseboards. Stacked on the kitchen table were my notes about fatal dog attacks. And so forth. Dogs, dogs, dogs!
“Kimi,” I said, “if it sometimes seems to you that I’m a little dense and slow, I can understand why you might form that opinion. So, let’s start with what we
really
know, meaning malamutes, goldens, spaniels, mastiffs, Yorkies, Dalmatians, Labs, terriers... yes! Jennifer Pasquarelli, the voluptuous terrier. A lot of sparring and yapping. Strong character. Anita Fairley: a slinky, elegant hound, a spoiled house pet. Noah, the mayor of Clear Creek Park: a teddy bear of a dog. Nothing deadly so far. The Trasks? Kimi, you’re the real dog expert here. After all, you’re a dog yourself. What
are
the Trasks?”
I got up to pour myself another hit of caffeine. Regrettably, Kimi did not offer a verbal reply to my question. Instead, she tagged along as I added sugar to my coffee. Then she tried to poke her nose into the refrigerator when I got milk and had another go when I put the milk back. Since the book on urban foxes was lying in plain sight near the answering machine, I would dearly love to report that Kimi rose up, whacked the book with her paw, and sent it scuttling across the floor. Alas,
Urban Foxes
drew my attention with no help from Kimi.
Even so, I said, “Right you are, Kimi. The Trasks are doglike without actually being dogs. They live on the margin in a small family group. They cooperatively scrape by. They are scavengers. They are, in fact, urban foxes, especially that wily old George Trask. Do foxes kill people? They’re too small. A rabid fox might bite someone. Otherwise, foxes don’t even attack people. So, on to the Metzners.”
Before I report what happened next, I must point out that fleas are the flies in the ointment of professional dog writing—not the insects themselves, but the need to write article after article, year after year, about flea control. I am an overpublished authority on the subject. My dogs do
not
have fleas. Nonetheless, Kimi suddenly dropped to the floor and began madly nibbling at her hindquarters exactly as if she had just been bitten.
“A dog with fleas,” I said. “Thank you.
That’s
what Sylvia Metzner was. Her house was infested with her own children. They lived off her. She chewed at them.” When Llio had drenched Wilson’s foot with urine, Sylvia had humiliated him. How had Sylvia responded to Pia’s encounter with the exhibitionist? By ridiculing Pia, by nipping her own daughter.
Kimi was now peacefully sprawled out full length on her back. “And once again, you’re right. I’m a dog expert, not a flea expert, and viewed as a dog, Oona is an open book, as you so graphically suggest. Oona is a sailor. Obsessed with water. A Chesapeake Bay retriever? No, a Portuguese water dog. No harm in that. And Pia? A poorly bred standard poodle. High strung, dependent, yes, but not nippy. We’re down to two, kid. Eric and Wilson.”
I remembered Ceci’s account of the childish quarrel between Eric and Wilson at Newton Police Headquarters. Eric had wanted to use Wilson’s cell phone. Wilson had refused.
I can just see that Eric as a little boy,
Ceci had commented,
and Wilson, too, the pair of them, silly, selfish children fighting over their toy trucks instead of this foolish cell phone, neither one of them wanting to share his toys.
My view differed only slightly from Ceci’s. Being who I emphatically am, I saw Eric and Wilson not as silly, selfish children, but as badly behaved dogs, the kinds of dogs who’ll bite you if you try to take away their toys. I knew more than I wanted to know about dogs that inflicted fatal bites. According to my article-in-progress, the typical fatal-attacker was an intact male, improperly socialized, untrained or harshly trained, given inadequate nutrition and veterinary care, and—rather obviously—allowed loose or tied to a chain, not kept safely confined. Unsocialized dogs. Eric, untrained by his mother. Wilson, harshly treated by his ridiculing mother-in-law. Emotionally malnourished. Both, in effect, chained to Sylvia’s money. Intact males. Dangerous? Fatally so.
Chapter 31
Subj: Update!
From:
[email protected]
----------------------------
Rita, you were right, I do like E-mail! Tired as I am of E-business, E-commerce, and E-everything E-else, it is miraculous to be able to stay in touch with Harvey while he is in the Netherlands without waking him up by mistake. You'd think that they wouldn't have given us our doctorates without making sure that we could remember which way the time zones worked, wouldn't you? Boston is earlier than here in the Bay Area, isn't it? Or is it later? Well, hurrah for E-mail! Now I don't have to struggle to work out the planets spinning, the sun rising in the east, and all the rest of that boring scientific crap.
Sorry you couldn't make it to the Berkeley Countertransference Conference. The only person from your part of the country was Vee Foote, and I have to tell you, I was NOT impressed! Her presentation was banal and IMHO (aren't you impressed by my mastery of the jargon!:) In My Humble Opinion!!) probably unethical. How could any responsible therapist possibly try to justify using (abusing?) a patient to treat her own phobia? I was not really surprised. After all, Vee IS a psychiatrist! Honestly, psychologists are the only people who get any training at all in doing therapy. Thank God we didn't waste our time and creativity by going to medical school. Besides, I never have liked Vee.
Have to fly! Bowlby wants his walkies.
Liz
PS Don't show this to anyone!
Chapter 32
Subj: Re: Update!
From:
[email protected]
---------------------------
Hi Liz,
Could I beg you for details about Vee's presentation? I referred a friend of mine to her—there are possible neurological issues—but I must confess that I'm now having second thoughts.
This may sound odd, but did Vee's case have anything to do with dogs?
Rita
Chapter 33
I see the world through dog-colored glasses. And just exactly what’s
that
supposed to mean? If you have to ask, you’re wearing the wrong spectacles.
Once I looked at Sylvia’s murder from an unabashedly dog-centered perspective, everything fell into place. The profile of the fatal attacker pointed to the solution, and the solution felt right. Or the solutions, I should say. Plural. There obviously remained the trivial question of which of the men, Eric or Wilson, was actually guilty of the murder. Could they have acted together? Considered as dogs, Eric and Wilson did not constitute the kind of affiliated pair that would hunt as a pack.
The phone interrupted my thoughts. The caller was Althea. ‘Tea at four!” she reminded me. I had completely forgotten. “Ceci has splurged on raspberries,” Althea continued. “And she wonders whether you would like to take the dogs to the park first. That’s why I’m calling. She’s run out to the store for cream.” Althea paused. “I want you to know that you should feel entirely free to keep whatever previous engagement you may have made that will prevent you from accepting her suggestion.”
I was tempted to seize on Althea’s tactful offer of an easy way out, but the elderly sisters were my adopted aunts. I succumbed to a sense of family obligation. Also, Ceci knew how crazy I am about raspberries. I owed her one. I told Althea that I’d pick up Ceci and Quest at two o’clock.
And I did. To my surprise, when Ceci, Quest, Rowdy, and I arrived at the park, I felt happy to be there. The freakishly warm weather had returned. A few white clouds decorated the sky, and the grass remained unseasonably green. Better yet, the field had been claimed by a few dozen people who were engaged in an energetic game of baseball, and not a single member of the dog group was in sight, so I wouldn’t be expected to accomplish the paradoxical task of walking Rowdy while both of us stood still.