All Shots by Susan Conant Page B

happened? The trash people rejected my recycling for some reason, and…?” Cambridge trash and recycling regulations are fierce and are fiercely enforced. You can be ticketed for putting out improperly prepared recyclables. The city doesn’t yet respond to violations of the trash rules by hauling away our bins and barrels, but I fully expect it to happen. But photocopying the offending papers and turning the matter over to the police? Too much even for Cambridge. “What’s going on?”
    Kevin was on his second plate of mozzarella sticks. He swallowed, wiped his hands, and again reached into the briefcase.
    “Kevin, if you intend to show me one of those horrible death photos, I don’t want to see it. I saw that poor woman once. That was more than enough.” I ate a little salad and added, “But, okay, I didn’t see her face. Apparently she’s not the other Holly Winter. Someone told me she was unidentified. If you really need to know whether I recognize her, I can do it.”
    What the photograph showed wasn’t a woman at all. I studied it closely. It was an eight-by-ten print with sharp focus and excellent detail.
    “Tell me about him,” Kevin said.
    “Her. Female. I’m all but positive. She’s a malamute. You knew that.”
    “I figured.”
    “She’s a breeder dog. Show lines.” A breeder dog : a dog from a reputable kennel rather than from a backyard breeder, a pet shop, or one of those ghastly Web sites that are nothing more than cyber pet shops. “Where did you get this?”
    “All this stuff,” Kevin said. “All of it was in Dr. Ho’s house.”
    “My utility bills? And a picture of a blue malamute? That’s what she is. Blue. The color is rare. It’s the rarest malamute color. It’s distinctive and unusual. I know she doesn’t look sky blue, but that’s what this color is called.”
    “Gray.”
    “This shade of gray is called blue. Like Russian blue cats, okay? It’s called blue. Take a look at the pigment on her nose. In my dogs, it’s black. Hers is slate gray. Or blueberry, except that it’s more gray than blueberries really are. And her eyes are light. It’s a little hard to see in the picture, but they’re not the dark brown you’re used to seeing. She’s a blue malamute. I’ve never seen her before. And I’d remember. I’ve seen pictures of blue malamutes, but I’ve actually seen only a few of them. The first one I ever saw belonged to a really nice man named Jim Hamilton. Jim died a few years ago. His wife, Phyllis, is a top breeder, and she has blue in her lines. Anyway, Jim had a dog called Steely Dan, and at shows, people always wanted to see the blue malamute, and Jim was always good about going out of his way to—”
    The server removed Kevin’s empty plate, left my half-eaten salad, and presented us with our main courses. I belatedly realized that my fettuccine Alfredo would contain the same flavorless cheese granules that were in the salad, as proved to be the case, but melting had improved the cheese, and the pasta was less mushy than I expected. Kevin’s steak looked big enough to feed six people. It was served on a platter and accompanied by a bushel or two of french fries.
    “You want some?” he asked.
    “Far be it from me to take food away from a growing boy. Anyway, this is a blue malamute, but I don’t think that Phyllis Hamilton bred her. She doesn’t quite have the look of Phyllis’s dogs. Phyllis’s dogs have small ears, not that these are all that big, and Phyllis’s dogs have plenty of facial markings, more than this. Do you know anything about her?”
    “Nope.”
    “And my utility bills? My bank statement? These are recent. I’m not sure when I threw this stuff out. Just before Labor Day? Kevin, I don’t like that.”
    “That was what made ’em think she was you.”
    “Who is she? You must know by now. What’s all the secrecy about?”
    “We don’t know much yet, but, yeah, she’s unidentified. There was a purse there, but it’d been