Her phone rang. It was Officer Keene. Edith had finally agreed to speak, but only if Mara was absent. The older woman had admitted receiving instructions to dump the trash. She would not identify the person who issued them. Keene had asked her whether she understood that the distraction might have helped an intruder enter the home. Edith had begun crying and requested that the interview end.
“Can you ask her about the silver sedan?” Mara said.
“Already did. She said she doesn’t know who owns it.”
“She looked at it while I spoke to her.”
“That doesn’t make her able to identify it. Mara, I need you not to approach her again.”
Mara knew the officer was right. A frightened woman could still be responsible for a cruel act. But fear changed the questions Mara wanted answered. It might also explain why Edith had stared directly at the camera. She hadn’t merely wanted Mara outside. She’d wanted an unmistakable recording of herself doing exactly what she had been ordered to do. Someone else might have demanded that proof.
Back home, Owen met them at the door with his school notebook. He had drawn the wooden block, the dog, and a series of arrows. Frances had taught him a simple game while Mara was away, placing three identical cardboard cups on the floor. Cedar chose the right-hand cup each time when Owen used the word “ready,” even when the treat was under another cup.
“He isn’t finding the treat,” Owen announced. “He’s obeying a signal.”
Mara asked him to show her. He knelt, put the cups in a row, and made a theatrical show of hiding a biscuit beneath the left one. Then he said, “Ready?”
Cedar moved to the right cup and touched it with his nose.
Owen looked proud, but Mara felt a chill. The choice was fixed before the dog heard the question. Someone had taken an animal’s trust and built an expensive lie around it.
“What if the signal changes?” Mara asked.
Owen snapped his fingers twice. Cedar turned toward the middle cup. The boy explained he’d discovered it accidentally while closing a drawer. Three distinct sounds produced three distinct choices. The dog had been taught to respond to an invisible operator, not a questioner.
Mara filmed one short practice for Nisha’s trainers, then stopped. She had no wish to make Cedar perform another trick for strangers. But she finally understood why Victor needed these seven particular greyhounds. They were an entire act, already trained to give predetermined answers while appearing to make independent choices. Retraining replacements would take time Victor evidently didn’t have.
On the kitchen counter, the newspaper carried an advertisement for a private fundraising gala at the Mercer Exhibition Pavilion on Tuesday night. Its headline celebrated intuition, kindness, and the wisdom of animals. At the bottom sat a small, familiar black silhouette of a greyhound.
