Read Online Gaits of Heaven by Susan Conant - Free Book Online Page A

Portia’s roots did interest Barbara, who guessed that the little dog was half West Highland white terrier and half Heinz 57. In any case, Portia was entirely adorable. She had a pale, wiry coat, intelligent, snapping eyes, and a delightful habit of cocking her head when someone spoke her name.
    Barbara greeted me warmly and said, “I was so glad when Eumie told me you were helping with Dolfo! It’s about time someone did, and ‘Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner’ and all that, but if you have any success with Dolfo, maybe you could tackle the son while you’re at it.” She gestured to a big yellow house next door to the Greens’. “That’s our house, so we have something of a personal interest.”
    I had no idea what Barbara meant in saying with regard to Wyeth that to understand all was to forgive all. In ordinary circumstances, I’d probably have asked her, but as it was, I told her about Eumie’s death and the imminent arrival of cruisers and medical vehicles.
    “Are the children there?” she asked.
    “Yes. Unfortunately. It’s a horrible scene. I was the one who found Eumie. She was in bed. She apparently took an accidental overdose of something. If I’d known that the children were there, I’d have closed the bedroom door and kept them out, but it never occurred to me, and Caprice came in. It was terrible. She was screaming and screaming, and the son must’ve been asleep, and he came in and started yelling at her for waking him up. And Ted somehow has this crazy idea that Eumie may still be alive, and for God’s sake, rigor has set in. Dolfo jumped on the bed and…it was more than I could take. I’ve called nine-one-one. They should be here any second. I am so glad to see you. I feel as if you’re restoring my sanity.”
    “At the best of times, Ted and Eumie can be a little disorienting, and this sounds like the worst of times. Maybe we can get the children out of there. Not that they’re little children, but they are, uh, vulnerable. Wyeth could go to his mother’s. He splits his time between his parents. You might know his mother. Johanna Green? She lives somewhere near you. She has a papillon she walks a lot. Dainty little blond woman.”
    “I think I’ve seen her, but I don’t know her.”
    “Let me go try to reach her. And Caprice. Let’s mull that one over.”
    “Her father?”
    “Monty Brainard lives in New York. She’ll be lucky if he bothers to show up at all, but don’t tell her I said that. It’s not her view of him, and she’s better off with the one she cultivates. Sad situation all around.”
    “Monty,” I repeated. Say it ain’t so! At the risk of leaving myself vulnerable to psychiatric insinuations, I have to confess that my immediate reaction to Barbara’s negative assessment of Monty Brainard was that Barbara just had to be wrong. That’s not exactly a confession, is it? The confession part has to do with the grounds for my skepticism, which were—here’s the confession—not just religious but somewhat peculiarly religious, at least in the eyes of those who consider the faith handed down to me by my dog-worshiping parents to be odd, strange, weird, mentally unhealthy, or outright heretical, as it certainly is not. That being said, I was inclined on religious grounds to form a favorable opinion of Monty Brainard or, in fact, anyone else named Monty, because of the elevated position in the Malamute Pantheon occupied by a certain legendary Monty, namely, Ch. Benchmark Captain Montague, a justifiably famous Alaskan malamute bred and owned by my friend Phyllis Hamilton. Not that I imagined, of course, that every canine and human creature who shared the name Monty with the prototypic Monty simply had to possess the beauty, power, and strength of character so notable in Phyllis’s dog. Well, not that I exactly believed that Monty Brainard absolutely had to be a good guy. Still, let’s say that I was biased in his favor. And if my take seems irrational,