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Terry ran inside and called the Carleton Health Department, where a woman named Helen Burdick identified herself as the animal inspector. In a guarded tone the woman said she recognized Terry's name from her editorials in the Patriot Chronicle. |
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"It might be rabies-related, ma'am, and it might not be. No way of telling from this end. It's doubtful, though." |
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"I'm telling you, he went at her like Jack the Ripper." |
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"I understand that," Burdick said. "But occasionally animals do such things. Have breakdowns, just flip out like people. What we call an anomaly" |
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"This was more than an anomaly." |
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"Well, I once saw a mother duck peck to death one of her ducklings, but it wasn't rabid or suffering any known syndrome. These things happen." |
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"Mrs. Burdick, I'm not the expert that you are, but for ten years I have lived at the edge of Magog Woods, and for ten years I have become familiar with raccoons to the point of recognizing individual family members, including the female spread out on my lawn and the male who ravaged her. This is not familiar raccoon activity nor anything we can chalk up to an anomaly. It was monstrous behaviorand barring demonic possession, my best guess is rabies." |
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"Well, ma'am, it would be a first, since there hasn't been a case of rabies in Middlesex County in seventy-seven years." |
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The smugness in her voice made Terry want to smash the phone against the wall. No doubt the woman chalked her up as some kind of shrub-hugging rabble-rouser, dashing off an outraged editorial |
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