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The man who opened the door had to have been descended from one of the blue-eyed Irish-Hispanic clan who’d prospered in Peephole since the mid-1800s. His hair was the color of new bricks, clipped short and threaded with gray. He was tall and thin, broad-shouldered, with ropy muscles and a weathered nut-brown complexion that suggested hours in the sun. His jeans were well worn and rode low on his hips, and his blue denim shirt had a rip in one sleeve. I placed him at the north end of sixty.
“Yes?”
I said, “Sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for P. F. Sanchez.”
“That’s me. Who are you?”
“Kinsey Millhone,” I said. My impulse was to shake his hand, but that would have necessitated his opening the screen and I could tell he was already wondering if I was selling soap products door-to-door, while I was wondering if he was married. The Polk and the Haines hadn’t mentioned a spouse, and he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. The cornflower blue of his eyes was the same shade as Henry’s.
“Mind if I ask what the P. F. stands for?”
“Placido Fla
“So you’re Harry Fla
“Let me guess. You’re an amateur genealogist. That’s usually the story I get when a stranger asks about Harry.”
“Actually, I’m a private detective.”
He scratched his chin. “That’s a new one. What brings you to my door?”
“I found your telephone number on an ID tag, buried with a dog. I was curious about the circumstances. In case you’re wondering, you’re listed in Peephole in two crisscross directories, which is how I came up with your address.”
“A dog.”
“A dead one.”
His mouth pulled down with skepticism. “Woofer’s the only pooch I own and you’re looking at him. He may be old, but as nearly as I can tell, he’s not dead yet. You sure about this?”
“Pretty sure,” I said. “The dog’s name was Ulf.”
He stood stock still for a moment and then squinted at me. “What did you say your name was?”
“Kinsey.”
He opened the door. “You better come in.”
I entered the house, stepping directly into the main room with Woofer at my heels. The dog padded the perimeter with his nose down, following the scent of an unseen creature, very possibly himself. The place was old. The thick walls were stucco and the ceiling was exposed timber, dark with age. The fireplace itself was a half-round of stucco tucked into one corner. The mantel was a curve of raw wood with a pair of antlers mounted above it. The furniture was Victorian, four chairs and two sofas lined up against the walls as though the center had been cleared for dancing. Three dingy rag rugs had been tossed on the floor and Woofer chose the biggest for the next phase of his nap. The room smelled like damp ash, the lingering scent of last winter’s fires.
Fla
Fla
“I know. If my information’s correct, he was buried in Horton Ravine in July of 1967.”
Fla
“According to the best guess, he was a German shepherd.” I reached into my jacket pocket and removed the blue leather collar with the tag attached. I handed it to him. He studied the disk, front and back, and then ran his thumb across the dog’s name.
“Shit.”
“I take it you know the dog.”
“He belonged to my son. Liam died in a motorcycle accident in 1964. Eighteen years old. He laid his Harley down in a patch of gravel on the 101 and skidded into the path of an oncoming car.”
I watched him without a word, letting him tell it his way.
He tilted his head this way and that to loosen tension, which created muffled pops. His blue eyes met mine. “Ulf wasn’t a shepherd. He was a wolfdog. You know anything about the breed?”
“Wolfdogs? No clue.”
“Ulf was what they call a high-content hybrid, meaning genetically he was more Canis lupus than Canis lupus familiaris. A hybrid is usually the result of a female wolf mated to a male domestic dog. I’m generalizing here, but as a rule, they don’t make good pets. They’re too high-spirited and demanding. Smart as all get-out, but they’re difficult to housebreak. Chain ’em up in the yard and they go berserk.”
“How long did your son have the dog?”
“Not much more than a year. Liam was in his biker phase and probably sold dope, though I never pressed him on the subject. He would have lied if I had so what’s the point? He bought the dog from a guy who had a litter of six in the back of his pickup truck. I guess if you deal drugs, owning a wolfdog lends you a certain dangerous air. They’re aggressive and predatory and they have those eerie gold eyes that look straight into your soul. Hold on. I’ll show you something.”
He got up and crossed the room to a carved oak breakfront he was using as a catchall-keys, junk mail, tools, paperbacks, a silver tea set with the creamer missing. He picked up a framed color photograph, looking at it for a moment before he crossed the room again and handed it to me. “That’s the two of them.”
I angled the photo to eliminate the glare. Liam must have inherited his mother’s coloring. Unlike his father, he was dark-haired and dark-eyed. He did have his father’s physique in a lighter body style. He wore a black leather jacket, jeans, and black boots. He was hunkered beside the young dog, which stood facing the camera with a wary air of intelligence. He looked like a German shepherd except that his torso was slimmer and his legs were longer. His coat was medium length and appeared rough, a grizzled black with layers of gray near his head. The mask of white across his face attested to the strong genetic presence of wolf.
“He’s beautiful. The name, Ulf, as in ‘wolf’?”
Fla
“So he reverted to you?”
“That’s about the size of it. Wolves are pack animals. They have a clear social structure. There’s only room for one leader, and it better be you. You want alpha status with a dog like that; you have to teach him he’s subordinate. You don’t play tug-of-war with him. He doesn’t sleep on your bed. You go through the door first and he eats when you say so and not a minute before. With Liam gone and me stepping in after the fact, there was no way the dog would accept me as dominant. I tried to treat him as Liam had, but he wasn’t impressed. He put up with me. Beyond that, he obeyed if he felt like it, and the rest was my problem.”
“Must have been a strange relationship.”
“I’m not sure he ever felt much for me, but I admired him and I was grateful for his tolerance. My biggest problem was finding a vet willing to treat him. A lot of vets won’t do it. There’s no approved rabies vaccine for the breed so if the dog bites someone, the county will insist on putting him down, no ifs, ands, or buts. In some states it’s illegal to own a wolfdog. I’m not sure what the California law was back then, but I remember Liam saying when you take a wolfdog to a new vet, to be on the safe side, you claim he’s a husky or half malamute.