A Hell of a Dog (29 page)

“Oh, yes, the wives. I feel such
em
pathy for the wives, alone now, having to cope by themselves. Grieving, but carrying on.” She seemed not to be seeing me, but looking off into the past.

“Detective Flowers called Sam,” I said.

“Oh?”

“They don't think the deaths were accidental.”

“You don't say.”

“I do. I've never thought so myself, Beryl.”

“Is that
so
, dear?” Holding her cup at chest level, she peered at me with unblinking eyes.

“I was thinking that maybe Alan's door hadn't closed all the way when his lady friend left. Then, of course, someone else would have been able to open it without a key, wouldn't they?”

“Well, I suppose that's—”

She turned because Dashiell had opened the door to her room, the door I'd stopped from closing all the way by using my foot to push Dashiell's ball into the corner of the door frame as soon as Beryl had taken the tray of goodies and headed for the dresser, the way the ball Beau had hopefully tossed to the departing Audrey had gotten wedged in Alan's door and had kept it from clicking shut.

“Possible,” she said, finishing her thought.

I saw caution creep into her eyes.

“Oh, look, dear,” she said, a smile as false as a four-pound note spreading across her lips but leaving her eyes unchanged. “It's happened here. The door didn't shut all the way. How careless of me. But something good's come out of it, hasn't it? Now Cecilia has your beautiful boy to play with.”

“Did something good come out of Alan's door being left ajar when his lady friend exited? She was in such a rush, wasn't she?”

We sat there then holding our teacups and looking at each other, sending messages without saying a word. We could hear the dogs wrestling on the other side of the room, but neither of us turned to watch them.

“Audrey? Oh, yes, dear. She was anxious to get back to her room unseen. She never even looked in my direction.”

“Why, Beryl?”

She ignored me, taking a sip of her tea.

“Wonderful,” she said. “I don't understand why you Americans use those silly little bags.”

“It had to do with Tina, didn't it?”

“I see. So that's where you and Chip were last night. Then you understand, of course.”

And just then, I did.

“She never told you
who
. That's it, isn't it? Of course,” I said. “Who would know better than your own daughter what a fuss you would have made. And she was right, wasn't she?”

“It's not what you think,” she said, holding her cup in front of her, balancing the plate with the scone on her lap.

“Then tell me what it was.”

“I'd gotten up early, you see. Well, early isn't the word for it. It was four in the bloody morning. Jet lag, I suppose. I tossed and turned for half an hour, then tried a warm bath. But I couldn't get back to sleep. We had to get up early anyway, I told myself, for the tracking. So I decided I'd take the little one out for a walk. I thought it would calm my nerves, make me feel better, fresh air and all that. That's when I saw her, sneaking out of Alan's room.

“I'd only meant to get cross with him, you see. I know it was foolish of me to think my anger would stop him from hurting other vulnerable young girls.”

“The way he'd hurt Tina.”

Beryl winced.

“At the time,” she said, talking slowly, thinking she shouldn't have to explain all this, “I
thought
it was he. Else I never would have walked in on him when he was in his bath, would I?”

“Of course not.”

“I'd only gone in there to vent, Rachel. You're absolutely right. Tina never told me
who
. ‘You know how you are, Mummy,' she said to me. ‘You'll only make a scene. It's none of your business,' she said. ‘I'll take care of it myself. I'll do whatever has to be done.'”

She pulled a large handkerchief from her jacket pocket and blew her nose.

“I came because I thought she'd need my help, working when she was pregnant. I thought we might take a little place together so that—” She blew her nose a second time. “Well, never mind that, dear. There won't
be
a baby for me to care for now, will there?”

I shook my head.

“I knew it had been one of these men. That's what kept Tina from honoring her commitment to Sam and to the students. And I knew it was a married man. One who didn't think twice about breaking his vows. Well, there I was checking my pocket for the keys, holding the little one under my arm so that she wouldn't start all the other dogs barking and wake the lot of them, and I saw Audrey backing out of Alan's room, disheveled looking. I thought, aha, I have my man. But you must believe me, I only meant to scare him, Rachel, to let him know his hurtful behavior was not going unnoticed.

“It was completely irrational, to think that by walking in on him in the tub and yelling at him I could change his ways, as if he were a dog I were correcting. Once a cocksman, always a cocksman, wouldn't you say? Of course, I wasn't rational. You see, I'd called Tina on Sunday night, to tell her my surprise, but before I'd had the chance to say I was here, I heard she sounded just terrible, that she'd been crying. Well, I knew she'd been abandoned. And that she was pregnant. But as it turns out, the tears were because she'd had an abortion, and it made her feel so awfully blue. So of course I was in a state myself. Not only was Tina so
mis
erable, but I'd lost my—”

Cecilia came over to sit near Beryl, and Dashiell came and stood by my side, his forehead wrinkled, his one-track mind on Beryl now.

“‘It's none of your business,' she said. Imagine thinking that.” Beryl took a sip of tea. “At any rate, dear, I saw this chance to tell this man what a snake I thought he was, and when I showed up in his bathroom, he had the nerve to deny any affair with my daughter. In fact, he said I sounded like a dotty old fool and told me to get the hell out of his bathroom. He stood up. What a sight. He was buck naked, raging at me. But he'd just soaped himself, and as he lifted his leg to get out of the tub, only the good Lord knows what he would have done to me then, probably grab me by the collar, call me a nosy old biddy, and toss me out of his hotel room, well, instead, he slipped. And as he was going down backward, his arms flailing at his sides as if he were trying to fly, he grabbed the towel rack with the radio on it.”

She bent her head and covered her face with her hands.

“Of course it was all my fault. If I hadn't been there, he wouldn't have been in such a rush. He would have paid more attention to what he was doing when he got up out of that slippery tub. But I most certainly didn't go in there with the idea of doing harm. I only thought I might do some good.”

“And how did you find out it wasn't Alan?”

“When I called Tina and told her about the accident. There wasn't the reaction there would have been were he the one. Oh, dear, I thought to myself, you
are
an old fool. But you know what, Rachel? I was glad it had happened. I felt rather satisfied, not at the time of course, at the time it was just gruesome. But afterward. Afterward I felt good about it. Don't you see?”

I tried to keep looking neutral, but Beryl was a dog trainer. She knew body language and saw that I was appalled.

“It
was
an accident, Rachel. But not a mistake. He'd broken his marriage vows.”

“And you were worried about Audrey, how she'd feel afterward, when he had no further interest in her? You were worried she'd suffer, the way Tina was suffering?”

“No, dear. I wasn't thinking about
her
at all. I was thinking about Alan's poor wife. Suppose he had a change of heart and left her after this
fling
with pretty little Audrey? That's what I was thinking.”

“I see,” I told her. But of course, I didn't. Not yet, anyway. “And what about Rick Shelbert?” I asked. “Did he break his marriage vows as well?”

“Why, of course, dear. I certainly wasn't going around the hotel randomly killing people for nothing.”

I felt the hair on my arms standing up. Dashiell knew something was wrong too. He looked at me, then back at Beryl. I could feel his tension rising with my own.

“How did you, uh, focus on Rick next?”

“I'm not much of a sleeper, even without the jet lag. I suppose it's my age. I usually stay up quite late, and then I'm up bright and early anyway—with the birds, my mother used to say. So it wasn't too difficult to know when one of the gentlemen had company. Anyone could have done it, dear.”

She broke off a piece of scone and popped it into her mouth. Then she took a second piece and gave it to Cecilia. “Naughty thing,” she said, “begging like that.”

“Tell me about Rick's accident.”

“Oh, that wasn't an accident, Rachel. When I heard the commotion in
his
room—oh, my dear, the noise could have awakened the dead—I thought,
now
I have my man.”

I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, feeling a tear run down my cheek.

“The sugar bowl.”

“Clever
girl
,” she said.

“You crumbled them up.”

“Powdered them, actually. I put them in a handkerchief and hit them with the heel of my shoe, the same as I do with Cecilia's
vit
amins. She so hates to take a pill. This way I can mix it in her food, can't I, love?” She looked dotingly at the little dog, breaking off another piece of scone for her. Then she poured some of her tea into the saucer and set it down on the floor for Cecilia to lap.

“Convenient, all of us taking the same seats at every meal,” I said. “We apparently pattern-train as readily as our dogs.”

“The aspirin wouldn't have hurt anyone else,” Beryl said. She seemed annoyed that I might think her so careless. “Had I missed, no matter. I would have simply tried again.”

“But then you found you'd made another mistake.”

“Oh, no, dear. Not a mistake.”

“Of course. And who was he with?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Heaven knows, dear. That's not the point, is it?”

“I guess not.”

“But I must confess,” she said, leaning closer, “I did stay long enough to hear some talking. Afterward. Pillow talk, I think it's called. And, well, both voices sounded very deep.” She sat back and fiddled with her shirt, tucking it neatly into her skirt. “It's quite possible Rick's lover was a man. But what earthly difference would that make?

“I must admit that after that, I really badgered Tina. Parents can do that, you know. We know all the buttons to push to get our children raging mad.”

“Did she blurt out Martyn's name at last?”

“No, dear. But when I'd finally gotten her really angry, by naming trainers and nattering away at her, Was it he? Was it he? she said, No, Mummy, it's not any of those. He's foreign. So naturally I thought it was Boris.”

“Did he have a sweetie, too?” I asked.

“Exactly my question, Rachel. So guess what I did,” she said, taking on a conspiratorial tone, as if the two of us were in on this together.

I got up and walked to the door, opened it, and looked out into the hall, nodding to Mercedes, who patted her uniform pocket to show me where the twenty I'd given her had been squirreled away. Then I called to Dashiell. “Keys,” I told him, pointing down the hall to where the supply cart had been parked. A moment later, Dash was back with the passkey. He sat and tossed it in the air for me to catch.

“Brilliant,” she said, the muscles in her cheeks jumping. She looked at Dashiell and then at me, sizing us up anew.

“But what did you do about Sasha?” I asked her.

“Don't be a goose, dear. Do you think I can't handle a Rottweiler? Are you forgetting who I am?”

“Not in the least, Mrs. Potter, but we're discussing a protection-trained Rottweiler here, not a crooked sit.”

“I bloody well know that.”

“What was it you shoved through a crack in the door?” I asked, remembering the dog dead asleep on stage the following morning, “a couple of Valium in a bite of cheese? Halcyon? Then you waited a few minutes before opening the door and having yourself a
good
look.”

“Yes, dear, a good look.” She was glaring now, and I knew she was planning something, too. I had trained enough dogs to recognize escape behavior, no matter if the creature was human, not canine.

“At who?” I asked.

“Whom,” she said. “At Boris, that's who.” She sat back again, smiling now.

“And?”

“He was all alone, lying on his back, snoring. He looked like a beached whale. I thought to myself, Tina
couldn't
have meant Boris.”

She picked up her cup of cold tea and took a sip.

“Of course, I hadn't thought of Martyn
as foreign
. But after this, I knew that that's who it was. Martyn Eliot, of all the ironies.”

“How did you get him to go up to the roof, Beryl?”

“What did you say, dear?” she asked, fiddling with a wisp of hair that had come loose from its combs. “Oh, yes, the roof. Of course, you'd wonder about that. Well, you're such a terribly clever person, you tell me.”

“As you wish. It had to be a test of character, in keeping with your theme.”

She smiled, but her eyes were cold.

“First, you heard me at your door. Cecilia must have been all excited, because Dashiell was with me. Next—”

“I've had quite enough of this, dear. The tea is cold, and I'm afraid I'm getting bored with your company.”

She stood, took her purse from the bureau, and stooped to scoop up her dog. Then she headed for the door.

I watched her reach for the knob, turn it, and pull the door partway open before sending Dashiell. Crossing the room, he didn't seem to touch the ground. When he came up on his hind legs and slammed the door shut with a satisfying thud, the room shook.