“Really?”
“Yup. When you think about it, it makes sense. An awful lot of the natural world is green. For a predator, it would be a distraction.”
“That’s fascinating. I had no idea.”
“Most people don’t. Another myth is that dogs can’t process two-dimensional images. Kato loves animal shows on TV. He prefers bears, horses, deer…and most especially other dogs. Sometimes I put on movies that have dogs in them just for him.”
Declan smiled. “I like that.”
She shrugged. “On the other hand, people generally bore him. He’ll sit on the recliner through a full hour show about bears, but the commercials bore him.”
“He has good taste.” He shook his head, still smiling.
“If you take a look at my TV screen, you can see how many times he’s poked his nose at it in the last few days.”
Now Declan laughed, and his uneasiness began fading. “Trying to smell?”
“Yes.” She was totally ignoring her dinner now, wrapped up in a favorite subject. “That’s a dog’s most important sense. I think they read entire novels with their noses. When I’m out walking him and he stops to sniff a tree…well, I call it pee-mail.”
He laughed again. “I like that.”
“We know dogs can discern sex in each other’s urine, and whether a female is in heat. Some studies suggest they can also sense the dog’s emotional state—fear, pain, joy—although we’ve really no idea how much they can read. It might be far more than we can imagine.”
“Our noses certainly don’t come close.”
“No, they don’t. But there are some things we do know. A dog can follow a scent that’s weeks old, despite overlaying scents. We’re talking about a nose that’s sensitive to a few parts per billion.”
“I’ll be the first to admit I can’t imagine that.”
“None of us can. It’s a whole different world. And we can’t begin to guess how they process that information. We know they react to it, but we don’t know how they piece it together into their view of the world.”
Declan looked at Kato with new respect. “I wish I could find out.”
“Me, too.” Finally she forked a piece of fish and put it in her mouth. After she swallowed, she added, “Pascal justified vivisection by claiming that dogs were nothing but a bundle of hard-wired responses without any real consciousness, that everything a dog does is instinct, that they’re not self-aware, that they have no ability to reason. That view was widely held for a long time.”
Markie shook her head. “I defy anyone to truly pay attention to a canine and believe that. They feel guilt and shame, they feel jealous, and they make decisions. And they love.” She trailed off and suddenly blushed, a very charming blush. “Sorry. I’m on my soapbox again.”
“That’s okay. I’m enjoying it. Unfortunately, I’ve never owned a dog, so I don’t know any of this.”
He looked at Kato, who was still waiting patiently for a tidbit from Markie, and all of a sudden felt the acute intelligence in the animal’s gaze, sensed that he was being weighed, measured and judged.
“So,” he said, still looking at Kato, “when he gets upset about something, it’s natural for it to unnerve you.”
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? We allied with dogs a hundred thousand years ago because they have better senses than we do. Because we can rely on them to alert us and protect us.”
“True. He alerted. I was going out to check on it.”
She looked at him again, and her eyes held something almost as unnerving as what was in Kato’s. “But don’t you see, Dec? That wasn’t just an alert.”
“But…”
“No, wait. Kato doesn’t bark like other dogs. His way of alerting me is to stare out a window in silence. A trespasser wouldn’t raise his hackles. This was something a hell of a lot more threatening.”
At that instant, for some utterly unknown reason, Declan felt his own hackles rise and a chill pour down his spine.
His gaze drifted from Markie back to Kato. Golden wolf eyes were heavy-lidded now, as if to convey that the threat had passed, that it was okay to relax.
Declan flaked off a bit of fish, twirled some pasta with it, and finally ate. “It’s delicious.”
The flavors melded perfectly, each bite a bright taste explosion that very nearly drew an ecstatic moan from him. Markie smiled at his obvious enjoyment and joined in the feast. For a few minutes they ate silently.
“Wow,” Declan said, looking at the empty plate. “Just…wow.”
“Thank you,” Markie said, a wide smile creasing her delicate features. “I’m honored.”
“The pleasure was entirely mine, I assure you.”
Markie put the plates on the floor, allowing Kato to satisfy his palate. But the dog gave them barely a sniff. His golden eyes were still fixed on the window.
Declan stayed to help with the cleanup and was just about to leave when his cell phone chirped a chorus of Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville.”
“Dr. Quinn, it’s Tom Little.”
Declan felt his hand tighten on the tiny phone.
“I’m at the Shippey house. You need to get over here. Now. And bring your friends from Atlanta.”
“On my way.”
“What’s going on?” Markie asked.
He looked into Kato’s eyes before turning to her. The dog seemed to know already. “I think somebody just died.”
5
Declan called Marshall Wilcox from Markie’s driveway, then climbed on his bike, waved a distracted goodbye to Kato and headed back to the Shippey house. What could have happened? he asked himself. After all, she’d been fine just a couple of hours ago. It didn’t make sense.
He parked his bike across the street and strode over to where Tom Little was interviewing a middle-aged woman and her husband.
“Kathy and Larry Bridges,” Tom said, by way of introduction. “They were bringing her dinner.”
“She’s still inside?”
“Yes.”
Declan nodded. “Okay. They don’t leave. You don’t leave. CDC will be here in a few minutes. We need to lock this scene down. Nobody in or out.”
“What’s happening?” Kathy Bridges asked, fear evident in her eyes.
Declan considered how to answer. He decided on the truth.
“Ma’am, I honestly don’t know. And until I have a better idea, we need to do things right.”
“When can we go home?” Larry asked.
“Soon, I hope. But that’s up to the doctors from Atlanta. They’ll know what to do.”
As if on cue, the CDC van rolled up the street and parked in the Shippeys’ driveway. Declan nodded to Wilcox and summarized what little he knew.
Wilcox turned to the Bridges. “Did you touch her?”
“I…I might have,” Kathy said. “I thought she was asleep at first. I don’t remember.”
“You didn’t,” Larry cut in. “We called to her, remember? She didn’t answer. Then her dog nosed at her hand, and it fell