All Shots by Susan Conant Read Free Book Online Page A

puppies and the beginner dogs at home for the first meeting. The first day of school can be as exciting and stressful for dogs as it is for children, but dogs, of course, respond by barking, and if they’re present, it can be almost impossible to communicate basic information to the handlers. Still, I had a good time and even managed to find a couple of people who knew Mellie. Both of them said that she was a sweet person who genuinely loved animals and who did some informal pet-sitting, dog walking, and boarding. One of the people knew Mellie from St. Peter’s Parish, which is a Roman Catholic church on Concord Avenue, a few blocks from my house as you head toward Harvard Square. It seemed to me that there had to be a church closer to Mellie’s house than St. Peter’s, but when I said just that, I learned that although Mellie sometimes attended Mass elsewhere, she remained a regular at St. Peter’s, in part because she was used to it, and in part because one of the priests there, Father McArdle, had promised her parents that he’d look out for her and had kept his promise. Mellie, I remembered, had mentioned the name.
    I got home to find a message from Steve on the machine. “I know you’re at dog training,” he said in that deep, calm voice I adore, “but my cell’s not working much here, and I managed to get through, so I thought I’d tell you that we’re okay. We’re fine. We’re great. I love you.” My effort to return the call was useless, but I did leave a message. I said nothing about the murder. If Steve knew that a woman named Holly Winter had been shot to death in Cambridge, he’d inevitably worry. He worked tremendously hard and deserved this vacation. I’d tell him everything when he got home.
    I could not, of course, protect myself from knowledge of the murder, but the remembered sound of Steve’s voice soothed me to sleep, as did the thought that Leah would return in an hour or two and that I wouldn’t be alone in the house. Not that I was. All three dogs were in the bedroom with me, Sammy in his crate, Kimi the bed hog jammed next to me, and my ever-hopeful Rowdy curled up on the floor beneath the silent air conditioner. In the morning, I awakened with the thought that Holly Winter wasn’t all that unusual a name and that people with really popular names must get used to having their namesakes murdered all the time. If I were Mary Kelly or Lisa Johnson, it would still have been eerie to come upon the body of a woman with the same name, much weirder than merely reading about her death in the newspaper, but the principle was identical, and meaningless coincidences did occur, that is, coincidences that were just that and not dog-meaningful reminders to hunt for hidden patterns and obscure interconnections. Furthermore, I had a busy day and, indeed, a busy weekend ahead, with no time to reread Conrad’s The Secret Sharer or otherwise to dwell on the creepy matter of doppelgangers.
    By the time Leah got up, I had fed the dogs, done my morning chores, taken a shower, and called Mellie. Strike had not returned. Consequently, I’d posted messages about her to all of my malamute e-mail lists and the lists for dog writers, with the request that my posts be forwarded to other lists. I'd also prepared and printed copies of a lost-dog flyer that gave my phone number and promised a reward. Leah got up at nine and arrived in the kitchen with her curly red-gold hair damp from the shower and piled on top of her head in a sort of bohemian beehive. She looked perfectly lovely and entirely innocent of such crimes as giving Harley-riding strangers the run of my house. I toasted an English muffin for her and gave her a cup of coffee. Then I told her about the previous day.
    “You were looking for a lost dog and you found a dead body?”
    “Bodies are dead bodies,” I said.
    “And her name was Holly Winter? That’s... after the guy on the Harley was looking for her?”
    “I told Kevin about that. But