Page 16 of A Matter of Pedigree
“Okay,” said Tom, who didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
“Anyway, like I was saying, Frank would not kill Hosea Browne because Hosea Browne was controlling the cash for the Factory. He was the goose, you see, and Frank is way too smart to kill a goose.”
Everyone in the waiting room was fascinated; they were hanging on every word Carole said. A couple of people were even chuckling, and Carole looked up. Eyes were quickly averted; smiles were covered.
“Well, hey, I’m at the vet’s. I can’t talk anymore. But keep what I said in mind, okay? And give my love to your mom.” Carole sat, staring at the phone in her hand. What the heck, she thought, scrolling through her contacts to Susan Weaver’s name. She still had her number from the time when they were trying to buy the apartment at Prospect Place. It wouldn’t hurt, she thought, to get together with her and have a little chat, see if she had some information about the other residents, that blond couple and the professors. And the other applicants, too. If she was really as hard up as Sonia thought, she’d probably appreciate a free meal. But Susan didn’t answer, and she got the recorded voice telling her to leave a message. She did, proposing they meet for lunch, soon.
She pocketed the phone and reached for a magazine, unwilling to meet the eyes of the other people in the waiting room. She flipped through the pages; it was some wordy news magazine, and she really couldn’t get interested; her mind was going a mile a minute. What the heck were they doing in there, anyway? How long was this going to be? How much veterinary care did a parakeet really require, or a cat? And how could she get information about the Prospect Place residents if Susan Weaver didn’t accept her lunch invitation? After all, she might be leery of getting involved with the wife of an accused murderer. No, thought Carole, she’d probably sell a condo to Satan himself if it was a cash offer. She smiled grimly to herself. How, she wondered, was she going to investigate, like Frank wanted? How do you get to know people you don’t know? Hang around and accidentally bump into them? They had a name for that: stalking. No good. She didn’t want to get into trouble, especially trouble that would make things worse for Frank. But there had to be a way …
“Mrs. Capobianco?” She looked up. It was the veterinary assistant, and not the one that Poopsie bit on her last visit. Small mercies, thought Carole.
“I’ll just run out and get the dog,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
The girl smiled at her as Carole dashed for the door, her heels clattering on the vinyl floor. Out in the parking lot, Carole yanked the car door open and found the seat empty. What happened to Poopsie? Come to think of it, she hadn’t been barking for a while. Had somebody dognapped her? It seemed unlikely, considering her personality, but she was a pedigreed pooch. Somebody might just be crazy enough, she thought, frantically yanking open the other doors, until she reached the driver’s door. That’s where she found the little dog, curled up in a tight ball, sound asleep in the driver’s seat.
Chapter Six
Carole cooed to the dog as she gently lifted her up. Poopsie had that glassy-eyed stare she knew was trouble, and Carole handled her gingerly, fearing she might snap at her. Poopsie just closed her eyes, however, and resumed her nap, resting her chin on Carole’s shoulder. The dog wasn’t very big, small for a Brittany at about twenty-five pounds, but what with those killer heels and all, Carole was out of breath when she finally got into the examining room and set Poopsie on the stainless-steel table. She continued to coo softly and stroked her head, hoping to prolong her nap as long as possible, but Poopsie was definitely waking up.
“Give her a minute,” Carole warned the vet, a plain young woman in a white coat and thick eyeglasses with round black frames. “She’s just waking up, and it takes her a min ute or two …”
“I thought you said she was barking hysterically,” said the vet, reaching for Poopsie’s neck.
Predictably, Poopsie snarled and snapped at her, but thanks to divine intervention or maybe just grogginess, she didn’t connect. Carole exhaled a grateful sigh and looked upward, at the ceiling.
“Whoa,” exclaimed the vet, jumping back. “She is skittish, isn’t she.”
“The trainer says it’s fear aggression,” said Carole, who was now struggling to keep a wriggling and protesting Poopsie on the table now that her fight-or-flight reflexes had kicked in.
“Yeah, well, I think you can let her down,” said the vet, checking the chart. “My colleague examined her recently …”
“Only a month or so ago.”
“Right. And she seems quite healthy. I have no problem prescribing something to relax her,” continued the vet, scribbling away while keeping a nervous eye on the dog.
Poopsie was at the door, scratching furiously. “Why don’t you take her out to the car? She’ll be more comfortable there,” suggested the vet. “I’ll meet you at the front desk.”
“Righto,” said Carole, relieved, picking up the leash, which was trailing on the floor. She opened the door, Poopsie charged out, pulling her across the waiting room to the exit, where she again began her frantic pawing and scratching at the door. The same scene was repeated in the parking lot as the small dog dragged the grown woman to the car and waited, shivering, with her tail tucked between her legs, until Carole opened the door and she jumped inside. Carole marched back inside to face the music.
“I have to tell you,” said the vet, peering through those glasses, “that unless you undertake an intensive program to train that dog, you are looking at trouble down the line.”
Carole nodded obediently while groping in her bag for her checkbook. Been there, done that, she was thinking, but she didn’t say it. Instead, she dutifully took the name of the trainer the vet suggested, wrote the check, and left holding tight to the vial of magic pills. Back at the car, she climbed into the back seat next to Poopsie and gently embraced her with one arm while tickling her chin with the other hand. Slipping a finger between her jaws, she gently pried her mouth open and poked one of the tablets down her throat. Quickly wrapping her hand around the dog’s muzzle, she stroked her throat until she felt Poopsie swallow. “Better living through chemistry,” she muttered, climbing behind the wheel.
She carefully maneuvered the big SUV out of the tight parking lot and headed back toward Providence, mentally checking her collected to-do lists. She needed salad for supper. She had to drop off the check for Frank-O. And she really ought to see how Mom and Big Frank were doing now that yesterday’s jubilant celebration was over and the grim reality of Frank’s situation was setting in, kind of like cold, bleak January coming right after Christmas.
Traffic was light on Route 95, and she was making good time, so she decided to zip along Valley Street and on to Federal Hill to Venda for a prepared salad and some more stuff for Frank-O, since he was a bottomless pit and always needed more nourishment, taking advantage of the fact that Poopsie was now sleeping like a dream in the back seat.
She was heading back home with a couple of bags of groceries in the rear when a rag-tag procession of people carrying signs caught her eye, walking along the sidewalk in a straggly line. She’d seen other processions like this before, usually organized by a parish priest agitating for the homeless or the hungry or the unborn, but this group was a lot more flamboyant than those faithful souls. These folks were dressed in colorful clothes; they were banging drums and tooting horns; they even had a huge puppet that several of the marchers were carrying on poles. She smiled, watching the show pass by, until she spotted a familiar head of spiky blue hair. Frank-O!
“Hey, Frank-O!” she called, steering the car alongside and lowering the window. “Way to go!”
Frank-O didn’t notice her at first, but one of his companions did and pointed her out to him. Smiling, he left the group and ambled toward her parked car, still carrying his sign. “Gentrification kills art!” it read, above a sketch of a smocked artist complete with beret and paint palette facing a wrecking ball.
“What’s with the demonstration?” she asked.
Frank-O bent down and stuck his head through the open window, and she had a déjà vu moment, remembering him doing the same thing as a scrawny Little Leaguer. Now he was so big that his broad shoulders filled the whole window opening, and it was hard to believe she had actually given birth to him as a tiny, seven-pound baby.
“It’s about the Factory, the way it’s displacing all these artists and small tradesmen,” he explained. “Where are they going to go?”
