The Barker Street Regulars

The Barker Street Regulars by Susan Conant Page B

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Authors: Susan Conant
were found on the body. Preliminary reports indicate that death resulted from head trauma.
    New England News Briefs: not just underwear, but skimpy underwear, practically a g-string. For example, there was no mention of the paw prints of the gigantic dog. Or had Hugh and Robert imagined them? In spite of the scantiness of the newspaper account, I drew the obvious conclusion that this cocaine-dusted grand-nephew, Jonathan, had used his elderly great-aunts as an excuse to come to Boston for a drug deal and that he’d been murdered when it had gone wrong. Althea and Ceci had both deserved better than what this Jonathan had inflicted on them. Althea had been eager to welcome the only relative she and Ceci had left. For Ceci, too, the impending visit had probably been a major occasion. I could almost see her fussing around planning special meals and rearranging the pillows and the knickknacks in her guest room. And if this damned grandnephew had to do drugs and get murdered, couldn’t he have been considerate enough of Althea’s reverence for the Canon to pick an abusable substance other than Sherlock Holmes’s very own cocaine?
    The phone interrupted my work. I’m always afraid not to answer it. I’m on the list of Alaskan Malamute Rescue people who get calls about dogs in trouble. If I don’t pick up, a malamute owner who wants to dump a dog may not bother to leave a message or may have the dog euthanized before I can return the call. Alternatively, the owner may give the dog away free to thekind of “good home” that beats him, sells him to a research laboratory, uses him in the so-called sport of dog fighting, or simply dooms him to years of neglect tied outside on a rope or cable.
    This call, however, was from one of Steve’s vet techs, Rowena, who cheerfully informed me that my cat was ready to go home.
    “It’s not
my
cat.” A call about
any
Alaskan malamute is a call about
my
dog.
    “There must be some mix-up,” Rowena replied. “We have her here under your name.”
    “It’s like Winnie the Pooh,” I said, “living under the name Sanders. Remember? Pooh had a sign over his door that said Sanders. Well, that cat is living under the name Winter.”
Living
under my name. Instead of dying underwater. “I’ll pick it up this afternoon,” I said grudgingly.
    “If you don’t pick her up by noon,” Rowena said apologetically, “we’ll have to charge you for another day.”
    Twenty minutes later I was standing at the tall counter in Steve’s waiting room as Rowena entered my name in the computer, found the cat’s file, and asked whether I’d come up with a name for her yet. Three or four people with cats in carriers or dogs on leash waited on the benches. I felt ashamed to have them hear me admit that I was the kind of heartless person who doesn’t name a pet.
    “It’s not my cat,” I said. Suddenly inspired, I gave Rowena a big smile. “Maybe
you’d
like it.”
    Shaking her dark curls, she returned the smile. “Sorry, but I’ve got three already. The doctor wants to talk to you before you leave. He’s with a patient now. Could you wait a couple of minutes?”
    Instead of taking a seat, talking to the human andanimal clients in the waiting room, or gritting my teeth at Steve’s mother’s embroidered and framed depictions of what are supposed to be terriers, I paced around, looked behind the counter, craned my neck, and scanned the notice board near the phone. Posted on it were business cards of dog trainers, contact information for humane societies and animal shelters, a list of obedience clubs, and notes and fliers about lost and found pets. Could I take the cat to an animal shelter? Every no-kill shelter I’d ever heard of avoided euthanasia by accepting young, healthy, adoptable animals while rejecting the old, the needy, and the difficult. The cat would never pass the screening. If I handed it over to one of the other facilities, it would probably be dead before I drove out of the

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