Ruffly Speaking (30 page)

To avoid embarrassing Rita, I withheld an apology and changed the subject. I’d called Steve earlier to outline the ultrasound explanation of Ruffly’s episodes. As we walked down Appleton Street, I began to fill in the details. Rita joined me. My ideas about the no-force method, though, I kept entirely to myself. Why, I’m not sure, except that I’d started to wonder whether I might be suffering from a psychiatric ailment that I’d previously dismissed as one of Rita’s therapist jokes: reverse paranoia, the delusion that you’re following someone. Sorry, but that’s a direct quote.

As we crossed Huron Avenue, Steve said, “But you didn’t find the source of the ultrasound.”

“I checked outside and around the kitchen,” I said, “but I couldn’t go poking in Stephanie’s closets, and, of course, I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. If it’s one of the zappers meant for kennels, it would be a fairly big black box, I think. Or it could be a small one that Morris bought and tucked away somewhere.”

Steve and I stride along at about the same big-dog pace. We kept glancing at Rita to make sure that we weren’t going too fast for her. When she spoke, she sounded a little out of breath. “Holly, was Morris the kind of person who might have used one of those on his dogs?” She cleared her throat. “As we both have reason to know, and maybe the less said the better, not everyone feels comfortable...”

“Doug says no, but I’m not so sure. If the neighbors complained, Morris might have gotten all apologetic and ordered a Yap Zapper or something from one of the catalogs, and then never used it. He probably ordered chew toys and dog beds and stuff anyway, so it’s possible that, while he was at it, he ordered some kind of ultrasound gadget, too. But Morris used professional handlers. Groomers. If he’d really decided that the dogs needed training, he’d probably have hired a trainer, although it’s also possible that he would’ve been afraid that a trainer would be too hard on them.” I avoided Rita’s eyes. “I really don’t know.” What I knew for sure was that Morris Lamb would never deliberately have poisoned himself. Also, he couldn’t have tampered with the valve of the gas grill; he died in early May, long before Stephanie’s near accident.

“Could be a neighbor,” Steve suggested. “That ad’s in the catalogs. ‘The ultimate solution to your neighbor’s barking dog.’ ”

“There
is
this woman who lives next door,” I said. “Alice Savery.”

“Savery’s sister,” Rita said.

“Steve, you and I looked at her house. The really big run-down one next to Stephanie’s. But the thing is, Alice Savery’s very antidog, so she’s not exactly likely to be on R.C. Steele’s mailing list. And, besides, what really gets to her is dogs in her yard, digging or leaving urine spots on the lawn, that kind of thing. If she uses any kind of dog repellant, it’s probably... what’s it called? That stuff that you sprinkle around.”

Steve supplied the brand name: “Get Off My Garden.”

“Yes. And
that’s
in R.C. Steele, but it’s in the gardening catalogs, too, which is probably what Miss Savery gets, and they also carry, oh, netting to keep birds off your fruit trees and maybe electric fences. But wait a minute. There
is
something to get rid of gophers, I think. I saw it in a catalog at my father’s.” Buck is no gardener. He stays on the mailing lists because every few years, he orders a couple of apple trees to replace the ones killed by deer. “I’m not sure, but I think maybe it uses sound. Would Miss Savery... Steve, are there even any gophers
in
Cambridge?”

“Not in my practice.”

“Seriously.”

“No. The only animal around here that’s going to do any real damage to lawns is a skunk. They dig. But that’s not what’s going on. Those pest repellers run constantly, or they’re on a fixed schedule. Ruffly’s only reacting every once in a while. Whatever the device is, it’s malfunctioning and going off by itself every now and then, or something’s triggering it. Barking. Someone pressing a button. Something.”

“I didn’t think of that.” I shook my head. “But speaking of Miss Savery, I have wondered whether she might’ve noticed something. She must spend half her life outside in the yard, plus she’s paranoid about kids touching her precious fence or running through her yard.”

“Phobic,” Rita said.

“Phobic. So if someone’s been sneaking around Stephanie’s using a Yap Zapper or something, it’s not likely to have escaped Miss Savery.”

“Someone like that’s going to be the first person to call the cops,” Steve said. “She isn’t going to keep it to herself.”

“Not necessarily,” said Rita, trotting along breathlessly.

“Miss Savery calls them all the time,” I said as we rounded the corner and started up Highland. “Kevin told
_ro
e about her. She calls them about everything. So, damn, if she has called about someone hanging around Stephanie’s house, they wouldn’t’ve paid any attention, because she’s cried wolf a million times. I should’ve asked Kevin to find out if she’d made any recent calls about anyone lurking around. Those nine-one-one calls
are
recorded. He ought to be able to look it up.” As I talked, I found myself scanning the lush green yards. No matter how hard I stared, ultrasound wouldn’t become visible, and a neighbor with a powerful, wide-range anti-bark machine wasn’t apt to set it on a pedestal like a sundial or a birdbath. I looked, anyway.

“But even if she has called, what’s that going to mean?” Rita gripped the bottle of wine. “It’s going to mean that she called because she saw, (a) something that was there or (b) something she imagined was there, so—”

“Good point,” Steve said.

“Damn!” I said softly.

“What?” Rita asked.

“Damn!”

“I
heard
you, I just—”

I caught Rita’s eye, dipped my head, and stared pointedly.
“That,"
I said, “is Alice Savery, the grayhaired woman in the khaki dress, and she’s coming straight down her front walk. Damn it, it never occurred to me, but it would be just like Stephanie to feel sorry for her and invite her tonight. She is
the
nastiest woman. If you didn’t go to Harvard, she treats you like a dog that just messed on her rug, and she doesn’t even like—”

“Class,” Rita muttered, “the issue of the decade. She Probably has a social mode that she switches into for occasions like this. Little anecdotes about her brother, that kind of thing.”

“Right,” I said sourly. “She’ll keep us in stitches. If we have to spend an entire evening—”

“We don’t,” Steve said. “She’s carrying a trowel and a bucket. She’s weeding.”

After marching down her front walk and peering up and down Highland Street without giving me even a nod of acknowledgment, Alice Savery headed back into her yard and then fell to her knees before a bed of what I thought were King Arthur delphiniums, the tall purple ones with little bits of white in the middle of the blossoms, white bees. Relieved as I was to be spared Alice Savery’s condescension, something in the bend of her wiry spine and the sharp angle of her elbow aroused my sympathy. Cultivating the soil around her delphiniums, Alice Savery couldn’t fail to see the arrival of guests next door. Alone with her flowers, she’d hear the greetings and the small talk, and, later, in her gracious, shabby house, the windows open to let in the night air, she’d have to smell the food cooking and listen to the ring of our wine bottles on the rims of glasses, the clatter of plates and silverware, the sounds of the party amplified by her own exclusion.

30

 If I’d been allowed to choose my own spot on the deck, I’d have plunked myself down between Steve Delaney and the platter of jumbo shrimp. Stephanie, alas, was the kind of organized hostess who graciously prevents a guest from committing such transgressions as nuzzling up to her lover while stuffing herself with the premium appetizer and thereby weaseling out of the obligation to make polite conversation with people who have nothing to say. As it was, I found myself marooned on the opposite side of the deck from Steve and the shrimp, and right next to Matthew Benson and the equally voluble and charming gas grill. A low table in front of me held a round wooden cheese board with a dozen water biscuits and a fat rectangular chunk of what looked like the same cheddar I use to train the dogs.

Desperate for a topic, I asked Matthew how things
^w
ere going at the Avon Hill Summer Program.

“Fine,” he replied.

I waited for him to expand. He didn’t. I reminded myself that he was a perfectly nice boy who probably froze up in the presence of adults. I should sympathize with him. His mother had probably raised him the way she did everything else: politely and efficiently. He’d been accepted at Stanford, his first choice, but Stephanie had insisted that he stay on the east coast. Then, when he’d turned down Stanford for Harvard, Stephanie had promptly accepted the job in Cambridge and ended up with exactly what she wanted: a son at Harvard, a prestigious parish, a house just off Brattle Street. I wondered precisely when she’d been offered the job at St. Margaret’s and whether she’d kept her plans to herself until her son committed himself to Harvard. I tried to think out a rough schedule. Morris Lamb died on the night of May 8 or in the early hours of May 9. Stephanie had moved to Cambridge before then; she’d told me about visiting Morris. She’d been the rector of St. Margaret’s when Morris died; she’d conducted his funeral service. When did college acceptances go out? The middle of April, I thought. By then, Stephanie must at least have applied to St. Margaret’s. She probably knew that the job was hers. When Matthew turned Stanford down, he hadn’t known that his mother would be in Cambridge; I was willing to bet that she had. The house on Highland, Morris’s house? Here she was, her dark hair imperially swept back, the silver-and-turquoise Navajo necklace spread like a breastplate across the bodice of another robelike dress, white linen, spotless. Morris Lamb’s death? Assistance-dog organizations don’t hand over meticulously and expensively educated dogs to untrained applicants. Anyone with a hearing dog has been through an intensive crash course on all aspects of responsible ownership. Stephanie knew not to let her dog eat houseplants, shrubs, or flowers. Any book on basic dog care would have given her a list of common poisonous plants: mountain laurel, azalea, fox-glove, dozens of others that Stephanie could have bought
_a
t a local nursery. If she’d mixed the leaves of any one of those plants'with real
mesclun
greens from our fancy local greengrocer and shown up at Morris’s with a surprise gift? Morris would never have mistrusted her. Alternatively, she could have planted something directly in the raised bed…

“Holly, are you with us?” Stephanie was cheerful and censorious.

“Yes! Sorry. The heat gets to me. I was daydreaming.”

Doug stood up. “I’m proposing a toast to Stephanie and Ruffly.” Doug must have shaved within the last hour; for once, his beard didn’t show at all. He wore a blue-and-white pin-striped shirt that flattered his tennis-court tan, and a pair of navy trousers on which I was happy to observe a few white hairs. Bedlingtons don’t blow coat, but all breeds shed at least a few hairs, thus loyally endowing their owners with the masonic rings of dog fancy. Doug raised his glass. “To Stephanie and Ruffly! Happy Birthday! Happy Independence Day!”

Ruffly had been reclining at Stephanie’s feet, eyes open, ears up. At the sound of his name, or perhaps Stephanie’s, he bounced to a sit.

We drank.

Stephanie lifted her glass. “And to Doug...” Her voice trailed off.

All of us waited for her to finish. Our wineglasses up, our mouths half open, our expressions increasingly puzzled, we must have looked awkward and silly. I finally spoke: “To Doug!”

What had Stephanie almost added? A tribute to Morris? Something about buying the house? In either case, it was a good thing she’d swallowed her words. Doug looked more relaxed than he had only a few hours earlier, but any mention of Morris would have thrown him into another panic, I thought.

I wished it weren’t ill-bred to raise the question of what Stephanie was paying for Morris’s house. Better yet I wished that Doug and Stephanie were vulgar enough to answer it before it was asked. Steve and Rita didn’t even know she was buying the house. Matthew, I decided, either knew the purchase price, could find out, or didn’t care. I tried to work it out. The small size and passé-modern style of Morris’s house made it worth less than the colonials, Victorians, and gigantic twentieth-century hodgepodges that surrounded it. For Off Brattle, the house must have been a bargain. Even so, a vacant lot in that location would have sold for enough to ease Doug’s worries about the competition from the mammoth new bookstores. My thoughts wandered. The raised bed had been Doug’s gift; Doug had built it. Having inherited Morris’s estate, Doug had mourned his partner by immediately redecorating the café, instituting the Sunday teas, and expanding the mail-order business.