Hair of the Dog (22 page)

An afternoon at the beach goes a long way toward wearing my son out. His energy began to flag over dinner, and by the time he finished his first brownie, his eyelids were drooping. Telling myself that a swim in the Sound was almost the same as a bath, I let him get away with only brushing his teeth before bundling him into his sleeping bag.

While Davey had been among us, nobody had brought up the subject of Bill's murder. Now that he was gone, it didn't take Peg long.

“What will you do now?” she asked Alicia.

“I don't know. I have to think ... I guess I have to make plans.”

I shot Peg a warning look. “Not tonight you don't. Just relax.”

Alicia stood. “I'm a little tired. If you don't mind, I think I'll go to bed too.”

Peg glanced at her watch. “But it's barely—”

I kicked her under the table. Hard.

“Barely dark out,” she said, recovering quickly. “Are you sure you'll be able to sleep?”

“I'll be fine,” said Alicia. She left the room.

Peg got up and poured herself another cup of tea. “Shame on you. What if I had brittle bones?”

“Shame on you,” I replied. “Her husband died this morning. I can't believe you wanted to grill her for information.”

“Ex-husband,” Aunt Peg corrected me, choosing another brownie and sliding it onto her plate. “She wasn't in love with the man, she told you that herself. Going back to Bill was a matter of convenience. Under the circumstances, it seemed perfectly natural to ask about her future plans.”

“Two men are dead,” I said grimly. “And for what? I just don't see what anybody had to gain.”

“Alicia, maybe.”

“What?”

“I was just thinking,” said Peg. “It's obvious that she's the common thread.”

“Yes, but why? Who would want to hurt her?”

“What about Viv? She certainly has good reason.”

I shook my head quickly. “If Viv wanted to punish Alicia for sleeping with her husband, she'd have killed Alicia, not the people around her.”

“True,” Peg allowed, frowning. “Well then, what about Ron? Alicia had Barry to take care of her, and now he's gone. Then she thought she had Bill, and he's gone too. Alicia's carrying Ron's baby. Maybe he's trying to clear the way so that she'll go to him.”

Interesting thought. What about Ron?

I asked Alicia that question the next morning after I took Davey to camp.

Unexpectedly, when I got back I found her brushing through Faith's coat. I keep my portable grooming table in the basement along with the rest of Faith's grooming supplies. The light down there isn't very good, however, and when I need to work on Faith, I set things up in the kitchen. We'd talked about that the day before. I'd also admitted that my care of Faith's growing coat was nowhere near as steadfast as it should have been. Still, I hadn't expected Alicia to volunteer for the job.

Faith was lying calmly on her side as Alicia line brushed her mane coat. Biff and Tucker were outside in the yard. “Hey,” I said. “You don't have to do that.”

“I don't mind.” She reached for a spray bottle and spritzed a section of flyaway hair. “I like being useful. Besides, I find brushing relaxing.”

“You do?” I found it annoying.

“Sure. It's all hands and no brains. Very soothing.”

If you had the time. My problem was that I always seemed to find myself trying to fit coat care into a schedule that was already too full.

“You know,” said Alicia. “If you kept her in oil, you wouldn't have to bother brushing. That's what we did with most of the Poodles at the kennel.”

Oil is the term used for very heavy conditioners that are applied to the hair after a bath and not rinsed out. The slick, greasy coating protects the hair from damage and allows it to grow without matting. The downside is that the dog always looks dirty, and that subsequent baths, where the oil needs to be washed out and replaced with a fresh coating, take forever. For groups of dogs living in kennels, it's an efficient method of dealing with hair; but for my one dog, I wanted no part of it.

“Yuk,” I said eloquently.

Alicia smiled. “It was just a thought.”

Faith glanced in my direction. Since I'm the one who usually brushes her, I knew she was wondering what I was doing standing on the other side of the room. “Do you want me to finish that?”

“No, sit. I'm almost done with this side anyway. Aside from a few tangles, it's been a breeze. For her age, this coat's in really good shape.”

“Thanks.” I perched on a stool by the counter. “Try telling that to my Aunt Peg.”

“Not me. I wouldn't presume to tell anything to Margaret Turnbull.”

My brow rose.

“She doesn't intimidate you?” Alicia asked.

“No.” At least not anymore, I added silently.

“Then you're probably in the minority. One glance at that disapproving look of hers can scare the starch right out of me. Even Barry used to power-down when she was around.”

“Is that why you didn't tell her to mind her own business last night?”

“Not really. She was curious. Hell, who wouldn't be? I'm wondering what comes next myself.” She picked up a slicker brush and ran it quickly through Faith's bracelets.

Faith knew what that meant. One side was done and it was time to turn over. When I'd first seen Aunt Peg's Standard Poodles do that, I'd reacted with amazement. Now Faith knew the routine so well, she could all but brush herself. Casual observers tended to credit me with great feats of training. In reality, Faith had pretty much figured things out on her own.

“Last night, after you went to bed, Peg and I were talking. Two men have been murdered, and the most obvious thing they had in common was you.”

Alicia looked up. “I know. I've thought about that too.”

“Two of the three men you were involved with are gone. That leaves only Ron.”

“Surely you don't think that Ron had any reason to kill Bill?”

“The reason could have been you, Alicia. You and your baby.”

Faith reacted to our rising voices by lifting her head. Automatically, Alicia placed a hand on her neck, soothing her back down. “That's not possible.”

Sam had told me that Viv couldn't have committed murder. Now Alicia was saying the same thing about Ron. Everyone wants to believe that the people they know aren't capable of killing another person. The problem was, someone
had
killed, and they'd done it twice.

“Think about it,” said Alicia. “Ron didn't have to kill anyone to get to me. If he'd asked, I'd have gone with him in a minute. But Ron has Viv. That's who he really wants.”

“Maybe,” I said, thinking aloud. “But Ron already
has
Viv. Maybe he wants more. Maybe he wants both of you. Ron strikes me as pretty arrogant. It's like Bertie said about Austin the other night. Both those men are very determined when it comes to getting what they want.”

Alicia was shaking her head. “Arrogance, I'll grant you. Determination too. But not the rest of it. As far as Ron was concerned, I was just a fling. Maybe subconsciously I was wishing for something more, but I always knew it wasn't going to happen.”

“If you don't go to Ron,” I said, “what will you do?”

“That's the sixty-four-dollar question isn't it? All I can say is, I wish I knew.”

 

As the day passed, Alicia made some decisions, at least for the short term. She completed the arrangements for Bill's funeral, which was to be held on Thursday. Then she called Beth and told her that she'd be moving back into Barry's house the next day.

I heard only Alicia's side of the conversation, but Beth seemed to take the news pretty well. Apparently she'd had hopes of making enough money handling to buy the house, but obviously that hadn't happened yet. In the meantime, the place still belonged to Alicia, and there wasn't much Beth could do about any decisions that were made.

Davey decided that he enjoyed sleeping on the floor so much that it more than made up for not having his own room. He was sorry to see Alicia and the Labrador Retrievers go, and he offered to come along and help with the moving. I've had Davey's help before. It doesn't always hasten a job along. Instead, I called Joey Brickman's mom and arranged for him to go to their house after camp, freeing up most of the next day.

As Alicia hadn't been at Bill's long enough to unpack, our stop in Patterson the next morning was a short one. Between my station wagon and her Toyota, which she'd left in the barn, we managed to fit almost everything of hers into one car or the other. As I carried out the last load, Alicia lingered upstairs in the master bedroom.

Outside, Biff and Tucker were waiting patiently on the backseat of her car, doors open on either side so they'd stay cool. Upon our arrival, the two Labs had leapt from the car excitedly, racing around the familiar yard and waiting for Bill to appear. Now, an hour later, they seemed resigned to his absence.

While I waited for Alicia to come out, I wandered over to the vegetable garden Bill had planted near the barn. The area was small, but obviously well tended. Plants were lined up in meticulous rows, and I didn't see a bug or a weed anywhere. The tomatoes were large and heavy, vines sagging beneath their weight.

Sometimes it's the little, unexpected details that blindside you and make you see the injustice of life. For Alicia, it had been fresh-squeezed orange juice. For me, it was vines filled with plump, red tomatoes and the two Labrador Retrievers waiting patiently for the return of a master they'd never see again.

A door slammed behind me, and I turned as Alicia walked over and looked into the garden. “Bill would hate the thought of all his hard work going to waste,” she said. “Come on, let's take them with us.”

She went into the barn and emerged a moment later with a pair of burlap sacks. Twenty minutes later, we'd picked every tomato in the garden. When we were done, I felt a little better. It wasn't much, but it was something.

From Patterson, it was only a short drive to Poughkeepsie. When we pulled in and parked, Beth stuck her head out of the kennel and waved, then went back to what she was doing. Alicia got out of her car and went into the house. That left me standing in the driveway between the two buildings and feeling very much like a fifth wheel.

I sauntered over to the kennel and opened the door. Beth was sitting at Barry's desk, doing paperwork. A shaft of sunlight poured through the window behind her, adding to the heat in the already stuffy room. She glanced up but didn't stop writing.

“Alicia and I have some stuff to unload,” I said. “Do you feel like helping?”

Beth's hand stilled. “I guess.”

“It's not much. With three of us working, it shouldn't take very long.”

She pushed back her chair and stood. When we walked outside, Alicia hadn't yet returned.

“I thought you said there were going to be three of us,” Beth said, looking at the cars. There was no mistaking the edge to her tone.

I opened the back door of the Camry and Biff and Tucker came spilling out. “There will be. Just give her a minute.”

“What about the dogs? House or kennel?”

“I don't know.” Biff was sniffing the bushes by the side of the driveway. Tucker was eyeing a loose Beagle down the block. I hooked my fingers through his collar before he got any ideas. “Why don't we put them in the kennel for now? Is there room?”

“If that's a joke, I'm not laughing.” Beth got Biff and led the way back into the building.

“I wasn't trying to be funny. I guess your numbers are down?”

“Almost nonexistent. At the moment I have three clients' dogs and four local boarders. Thank God it's summer, or we'd be just about empty. I've spent the last week calling around, trying to line up an assistant's job somewhere else, but so far it's not happening.”

We walked through the office and out the other door into a cool, dark room filled with crates and pens. Most weren't in use. At the end of the row was a large double pen.

“How about here?” Beth said. “Then they can be together.” We released both Labs into the pen and she closed and locked the gate behind them.

“What are your chances of lining up any more clients?” I asked as we walked back outside.

Beth shook her head. “At this point, I'm pretty much out of business. If Alicia were charging me the rent this place is worth, I would have had to move out already. Even a couple of small clients wouldn't be enough. What I need is some really serious exhibitors, the kind who finish three or four dogs a year and always have new puppies coming along.”

“Like the Pullmans?” I asked, remembering the Chow puppy of theirs Crawford had been showing at Elm City.

“They'd do great.” Beth frowned, glancing in the direction of the house. “Not that there's any chance of them coming back here. Too bad.”

I opened the back of the Volvo and hauled out a box. “So Barry handled other dogs for the Pullmans before Leo?”

“Sure.” Beth reached for a box as well. “We had a bunch. Ron and Barry got along pretty well. Ron always thought of himself as Mr. Important Client, and Barry always treated him that way, so the relationship worked.”

We grinned at each other and walked up to the house. Alicia had left the front door unlocked. I used a rock to prop the screen door open, then carried my box just inside the living room and left it. Beth followed suit. There was still no sign of Alicia. I wondered where she'd gone off to.

“Does Ron finish a lot of dogs?” I asked as Beth and I walked back out.

“Tons. He likes going for all those top breeder awards, so if he isn't going to show a puppy, lots of times he sells it to people who will. Back when he and Barry were getting along, he'd send us new clients with puppies of his all the time. It was great for business. In the last couple of years, we finished Chows for Alison Chu, Robert Sturgess, and Austin Beamish.”

“Austin?” I repeated, surprised to hear his name. “What was he doing with one of Ron Pullman's Chows?”

Beth shrugged. We'd come to the car and she reached inside to pull out another box. “Austin's the type of guy who buys a lot of dogs. I seem to remember something about Viv recommending this one to him. It wasn't a great one, but Barry finished it pretty easily.”

“Sorry about that!” Alicia strode out the open door and down the walk. “Bathroom break.”

“That's okay.” I pulled out a box that didn't feel too heavy and handed it to her. “There's still plenty to do.”

With all us working together, it didn't take long to finish unloading the two cars. Beth and Alicia barely spoke to each other. I gathered neither was pleased with the way things had turned out. Not that I could blame them.

Alicia had thought she'd be living with Bill in comfort and security. Beth had thought she was gaining her independence. In Alicia's short absence, she'd moved her things out of the kennel and into the house. Now they would have to reestablish who was in charge. I doubted the process would be easy or comfortable.

When we'd finished getting everything out of the cars, Alicia offered to fix lunch. Beth's expression set stormily. Even if I hadn't had to get back for Davey, that was enough to make me decline. The sooner I got out of their way, the sooner these two could start working things out.

Alicia walked me to the door and gave me a quick hug. “Thanks for everything,” she said. “I don't know what I would have done without you.”

“It was no problem. You have my number. Call if you need anything else.”

“I will. And, Melanie?”

I paused on the step.

“You will be coming to Bill's funeral, won't you?”

Until that moment, I hadn't thought about it.

“It's in Patterson on Thursday afternoon,” Alicia said when I didn't answer right away. “I'd really like it if you'd come.”