The Wicked Flea (22 page)

Master Recipe for Garbage

Toss on floor. Turn dog loose.

Smorgasbord

Open refrigerator door. Forget to close.

Lapin Tartare

Turn loose in confined area:

1 live rabbit

Turn loose in same confined area:

1 live malamute

Yield: I live malamute

Revolting! You can see why I’d never publish so-called recipes like those. Having subjected you to dog recipes, I feel compelled to compensate by offering a real one. My basic recipe for the liver used to bait show dogs came from Charlene LaBelle, a comrade in malamutes and the author of the classic book about backpacking with dogs.

Charlene’s Famous Liver Bait

Put liver in a big pot, cover with water, and add one clove of garlic for every pound of liver. Boil for twenty minutes. Drain. Remove accumulated gunk by rinsing liver under running lukewarm water. Towel it dry. Bake it at 250 degrees for two to three hours, depending on its thickness.

It’s done when it’s dry.

A few hints. Unless you have truly nauseating food preferences, discard the garlic as soon as possible. You can freeze liver and probably should, because liver contains lots of vitamin A and therefore should be doled out in small amounts to prevent an overdose. Oh, and if you can’t stand the stink of liver, substitute beef heart, not that it smells fabulous. If it did, would dogs like it? And the very idea of eating
heart
!

As in eating your heart out?

Anyway, I was preparing to test the brownie recipe. The oven was preheating, and a mess of chicken liver was defrosting in the microwave when the phone rang again. The second I answered, Private Call Number Blocked hung up, but called again ten minutes later and then ten minutes after that, each time cutting the connection as soon as I’d said hello. By that time, the brownies were baking, and the house reeked, so I opened a lot of windows and took refuge in my study, which is the home of my computer and my cat, Tracker, and is off limits to the dogs. A short-haired black cat, Tracker was attractive if you couldn’t see her face, which was disfigured by a white splotch, a squiggly birthmark, and the remains of a tom ear. She was as ill tempered as she was homely. Steve Delaney was the only person she’d ever liked. She purred for him. So far, my efforts to befriend her hadn’t been reciprocated, and the behavior-modification program I was following to train the dogs to accept her was moving much more slowly than I had hoped. I still had to be careful to keep the study door closed, with Tracker on one side and the dogs on the other. Life in the confines of one room was less than ideal for Tracker, but she got food, water, shelter, clean litter, and offers of human companionship, and I continued to feel hopeful about convincing the dogs that she was a member of our pack.

After slipping dogless into my study, I closed the door, dislodged Tracker from the mouse pad, checked my E-mail, and worked on organizing the recipes into chapters. I’d just finished inserting Liver Baba au Rhum in the dessert chapter when, to my surprise, the doorbell rang—and the bell for the front door at that. My friends use the back door. The front bell means a delivery from UPS or FedEx, or a visit from a stranger. On Saturday night?

Taking care to shut Tracker in my study, I headed for the front door. The dogs were more interested in our unexpected visitor than they were in the cat, anyway. Malamute interest in visitors is usually inaudible. Rowdy and Kimi ran ahead of me, tails happily wagging, and waited 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 herself tightly in her simulated malamute coat, and marched out my front door.

Good riddance! But when Anita left, the house felt empty. Steve wasn’t, of course, hiding in a closet or under the bed. Still, I couldn’t help wishing she’d been right.

Chapter 30

I was a fan of Sherlock Holmes even before I met Althea Battlefield, but my friendship with her renewed my interest and pleasure in the adventures of the Great Detective. Not that I’m exactly eligible for membership in the Baker Street Irregulars or the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes. But my admiration and enthusiasm pleased Althea, in part because my attitude contrasted sharply with Ceci’s refusal to share the absorbing passion of Althea’s life. Ceci’s late husband was also an ardent Sherlockian, as were Althea’s closest friends, Hugh and Robert, and Ceci maintained that she had endured all that one person could be expected to tolerate of Holmes, Watson, Greek interpreters, and the like. Although Althea never said so outright, in her heart she believed that Ceci was too stupid to appreciate the brilliance of Holmes. On that point, I disagreed with Althea; Ceci was silly, I thought, but not stupid. Still, I valued Althea’s good opinion of me and took pains not to be lumped with the Sherlock-ignorant likes of Ceci. As Rita once remarked, “Althea is one of your good mothers.” I pointed out that the original, my own mother, had been a good one, but Rita said that all of us could use all the good mothers we could get. Consequently, my feelings about Althea were nothing to be ashamed of. Wise Rita! Had Dr. Foote ever said anything half so insightful? Not in my hearing.

On Sunday morning, with the presumed blessing of at least one of my good mothers—Althea—I phoned Steve’s clinic and played Sherlock Holmes by cleverly disguising my voice. On Sunday? Steve kept the clinic open on Sundays, albeit only from nine to one and with a small staff. Even so, that’s a committed vet for you. But I digress. Anita had probably stopped Steve from working on Sundays himself except in emergencies, but I felt confident that someone other than Steve’s answering service would pick up the phone. I didn’t intend to talk to Steve, anyway. I just wanted to find out where he was. Indeed, where
was
he? His wife might not know, but his staff would.

I recognized the voice of the person who answered, an assistant named Mary Kelly. Whenever Holmes went undercover, so complete was his success in assuming his new identity that even Watson was taken in. Feeling wonderfully self-confident, I spoke in the low, gravelly, and sophisticated tones I’d practiced. Hurling myself into the role, I said, “Hello! I wonder whether you could tell me which veterinarians you have there today?” I regretted the phrase as soon as it left my lips.
Which veterinarians you have...?
It sounded as if they were for sale!
Which brands of dog food do you carry?
But my verbal clumsiness turned out not to matter.

With no hesitation, Mary said, to my disappointment, “Holly, you sound terrible! Do you have the flu or something? Oh, no! It’s one of your animals! You’re crying. I’m so sorry. Which one is it? Steve isn’t here. He’s at a conference in Cleveland. But Dr. Greenberg can see you right away. It’s not Rowdy, is it?”

Ignoring the slight to Kimi and Tracker, I assured Mary that my animals were fine. Stammering a little, I said, “I, uh, just had a question. It can wait. When did he leave for Cleveland? I, uh, happened to see Anita yesterday, so I assumed...”

“You won’t catch her at a veterinary conference,” Mary said sharply. “For God’s sake, there just might be an animal there! I don’t know if you’ve seen Steve lately, but he looks terrible. His skin is kind of gray, and you can hardly get a word out of him, not that he used to be exactly talkative, but we’re all worried about him. That bitch is driving him crazy. She’s totally paranoid! I mean, Holly, you know him, he doesn’t even complain about her, for God’s sake, and Friday she decided he wasn’t really at the conference, and she must’ve called here ten times. He’s in Cleveland! I talked to him yesterday. And
I
called him. I
placed
the call. He’s
there.
But I think he must be avoiding her, so she’s decided he’s up to something. I hope he is! But he’s not. I think he must just be avoiding her. Who could blame him? You know she’s trying to make him move to Newton? Whoops. Someone’s here. Gotta go. Bye.”

If Mary was going to gossip like that, it was a good thing for her that Steve was, in fact, in Cleveland. If he’d overheard her talking like that about anyone, he’d have fired her instantly. But Mary had answered my question about where Steve was. So Steve looked terrible, did he? He might look ashen, but to my eyes, he’d still look pretty good. It cheered me to hear that he was probably just avoiding his horrible wife. What buoyed my spirits even more than that news was Mary’s confirmation, more or less, of Anita’s claim that she was buying Sylvia Metzner’s house. Or had bought it? Just in case I haven’t mentioned it recently, let me say that Anita was a crook. I’m not joking. Or exaggerating. She was under indictment, admittedly for the nonviolent crime of embezzlement. Still, Sylvia
had
been murdered. And Anita the criminal
had
been involved with Sylvia.