LITMIR.BIZ

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to her roommate, yakking faster than an over-caffeinated monkey, they were pulling an all-nighter for a wicked math exam. “Rosie! Get your butt in here!” Belle heard, before she saved her ear drum by muffling the receiver.

      She related the gist of the tragedy with as many encouraging notes as she could fabricate. “You’re sure she’s OK? I could get a bus in a couple of hours,” the girl said, her voice faltering, a tiny sniff revealing her distress.

      “I know you want to help, but mostly she needs time, Rosanne. The doctor advises no visitors . . . just for a while,” she explained in off-hand tones. “It’s shock mostly. The death of a good friend.” Somehow she couldn’t mention that Miriam faced arrest when she left the dubious sanctuary of the hospital.

      “I was away all summer on an exchange program in France, then skiing in Quebec over Christmas. I only saw her for a weekend when I came home in September to pack. Who is this guy? Mom doesn’t date.”

      Belle forced a laugh to deflate the growing tension. “Listen to you, sounding like a parent. Maybe she was afraid you’d tease her.” After providing a home for her daughter through her undergraduate work at Shield University, Miriam had been only too glad to cut the apron strings and reclaim her personal life. There had been arguments over some pot found in the girl’s room, the usual debate about recreational drugs as well as Rosanne’s occasional use of uppers to stay awake studying.

      Her duties over, to momentary relief, Belle climbed into the cozy king-sized waterbed which fuelled her dreams. The patio doors and the window were rimed with frosty curlicues. The room was heated by the stove downstairs, with only a wall louvre to the cathedral ceilings of the living room. She poked a cigarette into her Adolph Menjou (another moustached man, the lovable rogue) jewelled holder, her father’s present from Universal Studios Park in Florida, and poured scotch into a deceptive antique bar glass, heavy on the bottom and tapering, an illusion opposite to the murder, holding less than it appeared. The talented Nevada Barr’s mystery, Deep South, hot and humid on the Natchez Trace in Mississippi, warmed her along with Whyte and Mackay’s best.

      Feeling an annoying tickle, she snagged another pumpkin-coloured ladybug from her shoulder, getting up to flick it outside onto the Papal-blessing token balcony instead of nestling it on the Dieffenbachia to winter over. The warm fall had brought a deluge, thousands of tiny rosy bodies trying to muscle in for the duration. A Japanese invader brought to fight aphids, hybrid colours and every combination of dots including none. “Too long at the fair, my dear.”

      As she turned out the light, chapters later, to the soft snore of Freya on the sheepskin rug at her feet, she drifted into half-sleep, smiling to think about Jesse, then when Miriam’s hollow-faced shade appeared, shifting restlessly. The dog scrabbled after elusive rabbits in her carefree sleep. Belle’s weary eyes snapped open as a poodle scampered across the busy blackboard of her mind. Where was the creature?

       Five

      Those teeth. The dog had been at Petville for the extractions. Belle called the vet as coffee perked the next morning. Shana Coolidge lived on the premises, woke by five, and let recovering dogs with manners roam her apartment at will. That wouldn’t include the poodle.

      “It’s been days. I was wondering why Miriam didn’t answer the phone,” Shana said. “What’s up?”

      Belle resisted babbling, even to someone as trustworthy as the vet. “She’s not well. Nothing serious. How is her dog?” Miriam had been worried about the risky effects of anaesthetics on the small animal.

      “A whirling dervish. And don’t let those pathetic pink gums upset you. Grinders do the job. Soft food for a few days. Animals have incredible resources for quick recovery since they don’t drink, smoke or eat Aero bars. When are you coming to—”

      “I? Me? Can’t you . . .” Then two images struck her. Freya alone in a kennel, Miriam in another strange and sterile place. The personal touches Evelyn had mentioned did not include a pet. Belle would have to play nursemaid, an onerous chore. At least, it wasn’t a child. Dogs she knew.

      After work, the last person in the Petville waiting room, she collected the poodle, whining minorly, tiny black nose poking through the wire of the small plastic cage. “Call it her little house, like Miriam does. Pop her in at mealtimes when you can’t eyeball her, and at night, of course, unless you want to share your bed,” Shana advised.

      “Share my—”

      “It’s the fastest way. A pup won’t soil the place it lies,” Shana said, flicking back a long, black ponytail streaked with silver. Around Miriam’s age, she jogged an hour with her two comical bull terriers, keeping herself lean and trim. Then she disappeared for a moment and returned with a small yellow bottle and what looked like a horse doctor’s syringe.

      “Don’t tell me she’s diabetic already,” Belle said in rising horror. At the nursing home, she’d performed many routine medical tasks for her father, but never given a shot. The very concept was like chalk on a blackboard.

      Shana roared with laughter. “This is a puddingy antibiotic for pups. Shove it down her throat twice a day. After any operation, infections are a danger.” Then from her pocket she pulled a medicine bottle with ten needle-like teeth, the roots half an inch long. “Some ‘parents’ like to keep these as mementos.”

      First the cage, now this complex assignment. Juggling the ridiculous paraphernalia, Belle felt doubly preyed upon by responsibilities. With a bill smoking her Visa, she bundled the dog to the van, the “house” banging against her legs. At the Garson Foodmart, she assembled an armload of pop-top hockey puck tins of gourmet delights, pâté de foie gras, beef bourguignon, chicken à la king. A buck a shot plus a small bag of puppy chow. Five times Freya’s expense for one-twentieth the weight.

      That evening, the shepherd seemed to tolerate the pup, though confused that it arrived sans mistress and didn’t depart after dinner. From the poodle’s well-scoured food dish, no problem wolfing the plat du jour, Belle observed as she filled and squeezed the plastic apparatus. The little dog smacked dark red lips and sucked like a weanling.

      Later Belle hustled the dogs to the yard for ablutions, checking her watch. She’d have to take the pup out once or even twice during the night. For easy access, she opted for the pullout couch in the walk-out basement rec room, newly appointed with carpet and ceramic tile. Grudgingly, she arranged her down comforter, pillows, Freya’s sheepskin, the omnipresent cage, and turned on the baseboard heaters, missing the warm woodstove. Five minutes later, outside at the patio doors, Freya waited patiently, her queenly head gazing off into the darkness.

      “Where is that . . .” She snatched a robe and pushed into the cold, veering to the side yard, following tiny prints in the new snow. A brutal north wind assaulted her ears and tossed icy waves, forming a white bank ten feet wide against the shore. In the reflected yellow light from the windows, the pup was cowering, frozen at the bulk of an upturned ash bucket, a darkling monster. Reassured by the human, it squatted promptly, shuffled off for a more critical deposit and pranced back inside.

      “Get in your little house,” she said, mustering a firm voice. The dog obeyed with a whimper which turned to a weep, then shrill barks that blasted her skull. “How did Miriam ever stand this?” She tossed her book aside and switched off the lamp, waiting another eternity while Freya circled the cage in concern. With a snort, she hauled the brat into bed, set her alarm for two and hoped for the best. Freya would never forgive this indulgence, but a piqued pet was the least of her worries.

      She made a mental note to beg for an ad hoc arrangement with the DesRosiers, Ed and Hélène, to stop on their noon walk to let the dogs out. Freya’s talented bladder was good for ten to twelve hours, but the poodle needed intensive care. The last sensations she recorded were the burble of a snout under her chin and a baby’s sigh.

      Hoping to welcome Jesse home during a hasty lunch hour, Belle opened the office next morning with guarded optimism. Her answering machine had two messages from people who had declined to renew their contracts and chosen a cut-rate firm. Palmer Realty was becoming a fly-by-night,

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