Tom’s brow furrowed like a worried hound’s. “Honest people think money laundering doesn’t have anything to do with them, but drug sales finance terrorism. It affects all of us.”
I said, “I wonder why they didn’t arrest Brossi.”
“Guess he wasn’t there when they made the bust. But somebody infiltrated the operation and taped conversations. They’ve got weeks and weeks of proof. I don’t think Brossi will be able to wiggle out of this one, not even with all his political connections.”
I felt a tingle of pride. I knew who had infiltrated that ring and got the tapes. I wondered if Michael had known all along that last night was bust night, and if he had lain awake all night worrying about what might happen to Paco when the bust was made.
I left Tom and Billy Elliot in the kitchen and let myself out. Downstairs in the parking lot, more people had come out to exercise their dogs. The horizon was beginning to go blue around the edges, and steam was crawling off all the wet vegetation. Across town, Paco was probably doing high fives with the other officers who’d been in on the operation. I hoped he was feeling as much pride as he deserved.
To make up for the abbreviated time I’d given them yesterday, I spent a few extra minutes with each of the other dogs on my schedule. They all got fed and brushed and exercised. They all got smooched and petted and told how brilliant and beautiful they were. They all beamed and stretched and agreed with me. That’s the great thing about animals. No false modesty with them. They don’t puff themselves up with snooty grandiosity, but they don’t turn down compliments either.
The morning sky was shading from coconut to apricot when I got to Mame’s house. It was going to be a beautiful day. Mame wasn’t watching for me at the glass by the front door, and when I went inside and called to her, she didn’t come.
I found her in Judge Powell’s study, her back legs splayed out in an awkward flattened way. A large oval on the rug beneath her was wet, and an acrid odor of urine filled the room. She raised her head and looked up at me with shamed eyes.
I knelt beside her and stroked her head. “What’s wrong, Mame?”
She licked my hand and sighed. Her eyes said that I knew perfectly well what was wrong and not to play games. It was time, and we both knew it.
I got my client book from my backpack and looked up her vet’s number. The difference between animal doctors and human doctors is that animal doctors assume you really need them when you call, so they talk to you.
I said, “I’m Dixie Hemingway. I’m taking care of Judge and Mrs. Powell’s dog while they’re in Europe, and—”
“I know. I’ve been expecting your call. Bring her to the office.”
I scooped Mame into my arms and carried her to the padded cage in the back of my Bronco, wedging rolled towels around her so she wouldn’t slide with the car’s movement. She put her head down and closed her eyes. At the vet’s office, there were only two other cars in the parking lot. Mame raised her head and smiled at me when I went to the back to pick her up, and I took a second to stroke her head and tell her what a beautiful girl she was.
The vet’s assistant saw me coming and ran to hold the glass door open for me. She motioned to the door leading to the examining rooms. “You can take her on back. Dr. Layton is waiting for you.”
The vet, a comfortably plump African-American woman with a mass of glossy black curls, got my immediate respect by ignoring me. When I put Mame on the examining table, the vet greeted her like an old friend.
“Hello, my lovely Mame. What a beautiful girl you are. But you’re in pain, aren’t you?” She was stroking Mame as she spoke, listening to her body through her fingers.
She said, “I tried to get the Powells to take care of this before they left, but they just couldn’t.”
“They knew?”
“Mame has several malignant tumors that are growing larger every day. They’re pressing on her spine, and now it looks as if they’ve affected nerves to her legs.”
I felt a flash of anger. How dare the Powells go off at a time like this and leave Mame with somebody who wasn’t family? After a lifetime of love and devotion, Mame deserved better.
As if she read my mind, the vet said, “No two people handle death the same way. They just couldn’t face it.”
“It won’t be any easier for them when they come back.”
Softly, she said, “I’m not sure they’re coming back. Before they left, they made a point of telling me they were members of the Hemlock Society, and that they’d always wanted to end their days in Italy. I think they were telling me they’d made plans to die there.”
Our eyes met, and then we quickly looked away, both of us too young to want to dwell on the question we would ultimately face. Personally, I plan on dying the way my grandparents did. Both of them dropped dead in the midst of active lives, vital one minute and gone the next. But back in some forbidden recess of my mind is the awful knowledge that not everybody is so lucky. If I’m not one of the lucky ones, will I try to hang on to youth like the man who killed Todd and Christy because he refused to quit driving, or will I take the way of the Powells? I don’t know. Like Scarlett O’Hara, I’ll think about that tomorrow.
I looked at Mame again. I thought of the fatal drug in Conrad’s body. I thought of Mame chewing on Conrad’s finger. Guilt tightened its fingers around my throat and made my voice tight.
“Just a few days ago, Mame went for a walk and ran into the woods. She was frisky as a pup.”
The vet smiled down at Mame and stroked her neck. “Had a good last run, did you? Good for you.”
“Could it have been too much for her?”
She looked up at me and shook her head. “This has been coming for a long time.”
“Can I stay with her while … ?”
“Of course. You can hold her and talk to her while she goes to sleep.”
She unbuckled Mame’s collar and handed it to me. I sat on the examining table with Mame cradled in my arms, while the vet slipped a needle into a vein. The vet stepped out of the room, and Mame looked into my face with clear eyes, unafraid and perhaps relieved.
Softly, I sang, “Put the blame on Mame, boys, put the blame on Mame.”
I sang the same words over and over until Mame’s eyes closed. Then I sang them a few more times just in case her spirit was hovering around listening.
The vet came in and took Mame from me. “The Powells made arrangements before they left,” she said. “You don’t have to do anything else.”
I slid off the table, tears streaming down my face. “She was a sweet little dog.”
“She was.”
I stopped at the receptionist’s counter long enough to fill out one of the blank checks Judge Powell had signed for emergencies. I knew he had loved Mame dearly, and so had Mrs. Powell, but I didn’t think they had been fair to her at the end.
I was still leaking tears when I opened the front door and collided blindly with a man coming in with a cat. I muttered a quick apology and slipped past him to the parking lot. As I opened the Bronco’s door, Ethan Crane’s voice sounded behind me.
“Dixie? Sorry I didn’t recognize you back there, I was concentrating on my cat. Had to leave her to get her toenails clipped.”
I wiped ineffectually at my streaming eyes. “I didn’t recognize you either. Had something in my eye.”
He touched my shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
The next thing I knew I was bawling and babbling while Ethan had an arm around my shoulder and was patting me and making soothing noises.
“The vet said she would have died anyway but she doesn’t know about her chewing on Conrad’s finger … it had that drug in it that kills in just seconds, and maybe Mame broke the skin … I don’t know, she could have … I didn’t look, I should have looked … maybe she got some of the drug in her system, maybe that’s what really killed her … I shouldn’t have left her at home alone … the Powells were going to go off and kill themselves anyway … I should have paid somebody to stay with her and they would never have known … it’s just plain mean and selfish to do that, you know?”