Hounded to Death (30 page)

“The police have no reason to detain me,” said Derek. “I don't care what you tell them, I'll deny everything.”

“Good idea,” said Aunt Peg. “Although you're going to have a hard time denying this.”

She held up her cell phone and showed us the screen. Derek's face appeared center stage. Aunt Peg had recorded our entire conversation.

Derek swore vehemently. He glared at Florence.

“I'm going to press charges for assault,” he said.

Florence smiled back at him. “Me too,” she replied.

“Would somebody
please
tell me what's going on?” Richard pleaded.

The sound of sirens silenced all of us. I could see flashing lights heading our way through the trees.

“I told them it was an emergency,” said Aunt Peg. “After all, we still have to round up Tubby.”

“That's not all,” I said.

All eyes looked my way.

“There's one last question we haven't answered. Derek says he came here to ally himself with Charles against Tubby. Yet when Charles died, Derek didn't go to the police. He didn't turn Tubby in—”

“I didn't know what he'd done—”

“Not only that,” I continued, “but Florence overheard Derek telling Tubby that he'd been planning to make everything all right.”

I nailed Derek with a hard glare. “You changed your mind about which side you were on, didn't you?”

“No, I—”

“Tubby offered you something for your silence, didn't he? Money maybe, it doesn't matter what. You were going to go back to Charles and recant your story.”

Derek looked sullen. “Not money, who cares about that? Tubby had the Hound group assignment at the Bedminster show this year. He told me I could have the win, and we'd call it even. Of course I was tempted, anyone would have been.”

Sadly, he was right.

“Charles and I were supposed to meet Tuesday night after he gave the keynote address. That's when I was going to tell him I'd been mistaken. But then he stepped up to the podium and gave that crazy speech. Who expected him to do something like that? Then everything seemed to go wrong. First Charles canceled our appointment. He said something had come up.”

Alana, I thought. And her offer to give him his reward in the hot tub.

“Then Tubby and Charles ran into each other later that night. Tubby thought I'd already spoken to Charles. He was feeling pretty good and he started heckling Charles about his speech. He called him a fool.

“Well, Charles wasn't having any of that. He said to Tubby, ‘By the time I'm through with you, I won't be the only one who looks foolish.' I guess Tubby just lost it then. He thought his problem had been solved and when he found out it hadn't, he took matters into his own hands.”

Derek looked around at all of us beseechingly. “It's like I've been trying to tell you. None of this was my fault.”

Maybe the police would buy that line. I certainly wasn't.

Two patrol cars pulled up next to us. Several policemen piled out. Their guns weren't drawn but their hands rested on the tops of their holsters.

Detective Wayne arrived in a third, unmarked car. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd and went directly to Aunt Peg. “Do you want to tell me what's going on here?”

“I'd be happy to,” she said.

“I'll help,” Florence announced.

They both seemed to have the matter well in hand.

Which was good because all at once I wasn't feeling very well. Usually I deal pretty well with excitement but I was, after all,
pregnant
.

“If nobody needs me,” I said, “I'm going to bed.”

“Go.” Aunt Peg shooed me away with her hands. “I'll fill you in later.”

For once in my life, it felt nice to be expendable.

S
o we dumped the whole mess in Detective Wayne's capable hands. As I found out later, he coped admirably.

While Derek had been in a hurry to get away, Tubby remained brazen to the end. When the police found him, he was sitting in the bar among a circle of friends, enjoying his last night at the symposium like a man without a care in the world. Arm draped casually over Alana's shoulder, Tubby was drinking whiskey and pontificating about the joys of judging.

All that came to an abrupt stop when Detective Wayne strode over and asked him to step outside. Tubby sputtered, and protested, and proclaimed his innocence, but in the end both he and Derek were taken down to the police station for questioning.

Thanks to the evidence on Aunt Peg's cell phone, Derek didn't require much convincing to tell the detective everything he knew. Last I heard, he and Tubby were busy implicating one another as fast as they could.

Of course that wasn't the only matter that needed to be wrapped up before we left Pennsylvania. While I'd been running around chasing a killer, Aunt Peg had been hard at work looking for a home for Walter.

Along with investigating various other options, she'd also gotten in touch with the local German Shepherd affiliate club. Their rescue program had pointed her toward a young couple who'd been waiting for some time to adopt.

Aunt Peg has stringent requirements for anyone who expects to acquire one of her dogs, and having spent the previous two nights on Peg's bed, Walter now qualified as an honorary Cedar Crest canine. Accordingly, the prospective owners were subjected to a home visit.

Aunt Peg checked out every aspect of his new situation thoroughly. In the end, she was delighted to give passing grades to the spacious fenced yard and the sensible, dog-savvy husband and wife whom she found to be well equipped to deal with a large dog who had been living on his own for longer than any of us wanted to think about.

Friday afternoon on our way out of town, Aunt Peg delivered Walter to his new family. Any regrets she might have felt about leaving the German Shepherd behind were quickly dispelled by the eagerness and enthusiasm with which the young couple and the homeless dog greeted one another. Clearly this was a match that was going to endure.

Still, Aunt Peg carefully wrote down her contact information and obtained a promise from the new owners that if they were ever unable to care for Walter, she would be the first person they called. I doubted that she'd hear from them, but it never hurt to cover all the bases.

So Aunt Peg returned to Connecticut without a new dog.

She also returned home without a new boyfriend.

It took Bertie and me half an hour to pry her away from Walter. Richard, she left behind without a second glance.

Aunt Peg succinctly summed up her recent dating experience for us in the car on the way home. “It wasn't a total failure, after all. Richard became annoying after a while; but as things turned out, I found I quite liked his mother.”

She and Florence have pledged to keep in touch by e-mail.

I have to confess, I never saw that one coming.

As you might imagine, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about mothers and children myself these days. After five days away, it was utterly wonderful to be home again, surrounded by my family, both human and canine.

In my absence, Davey and Sam had painted the nursery a gorgeous shade of aquamarine. White and yellow sailboats skimmed across the walls. Clouds drifted lazily over the ceiling. If there was meant to be a message in the colors they'd chosen, I declined to make an issue of it. Little girls look good in blue too.

Now that I'm back, I'll be sticking close to home for a while. Five or six months at least. I think I've had enough excitement recently and it's time to take things a little slower. At least until the baby arrives anyway.

I wouldn't be surprised if that stirs things up again.

In fact, I'm pretty much counting on it.

Melanie Travis thought her sleuthing days were behind her. She has a new baby to take care of‚ not to mention five Standard Poodles—and Aunt Peg is getting Davey ready for his debut as a junior showman. These days, the closest Melanie gets to detective work is scoping out the scene at the local doggie day center for her friend Alice Brickman.

 

As Melanie learns, it's a dog's life at the Pine Ridge Canine Care Center—and life is good. The dogs are living large with a team of groomers and handlers at their bark and call. Everyone seems blissfully happy. Everyone canine, that is. For Melanie soon discovers there are some simmering resentments among the Pine Ridge staff and when Steve Pine, the center's charming, good-looking co-owner, is found shot to death on the floor of his office, there's no shortage of suspects. His sister, Candy, stands to inherit their lucrative doggie day care operation. His neighbor, Adam Busch, still blames Steve for paving the way for the other businesses that now exist in the once quiet, all-residential town. And then there's Lila Bennington, the disgruntled client who wanted to sue Steve following an embarrassing “incident” involving a Shih Tzu and a Beagle mix. And lastly, the string of female customers Steve bedded and jilted. But which of these suspects was desperate enough to commit murder?

 

With the police at a loss for leads, it's now up to Melanie to go undercover and sniff out a killer whose secrets lie buried in a dog's paradise that's proving to be anything but…

 

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek at
DOGGIE DAY CARE MURDER
coming next month from Kensington Publishing!

A
baby changes everything. Don't ever let anyone tell you that it doesn't.

Once upon a time when I was younger and more foolish, I thought that new puppies and new babies had a lot in common. I must have been deluded, or maybe just oversimplifying. Because now it's clear to me that I was insanely wrong.

For one thing, when a puppy doesn't sleep through the night, nobody has to get up and feed him and rock him back to sleep. For another, puppies are happy to entertain themselves for a while if you need your hands free to do something else. But perhaps the biggest difference is that new puppies, wonderful as they are, don't turn your whole world upside down in that mystical, magical way that somehow simultaneously reconnects you to the cosmos and to that vast well of human experience, while at the same time making you feel that if your heart expands any more it might possibly explode.

Trust me, it takes a baby to wreak that kind of havoc.

Having been through this once before, you'd think I might have remembered how it went. But that was nine years ago when I was in my early twenties. I was young enough then to bounce back from almost anything: stretch marks, ten hours of labor, or the aggravation of a mostly absent husband.

In the intervening years, my life had changed dramatically. Now I had friends and relatives I could depend on, a terrific son in fourth grade, and a second marriage that was eons better than my first. In short, when my second son was born on a wintry March night, my world was complete.

The doctor placed him in my arms while my husband, Sam, dashed out of the delivery room. He returned moments later with our son Davey. The two of them stood on either side of the bed, and Davey stared at the new arrival in awe. Or maybe consternation.

“I didn't think he'd be so red,” he said.

“Don't worry,” said a nurse, passing by, “that goes away.”

Busy cleaning up, she took time to lean in for a closer look. Snuggled tight in his receiving blanket, the infant's face was the only part of him that was visible. His eyes were closed, his expression peaceful. Oblivious to all the activity around him, he was enjoying a brief, post-delivery nap.

“He's a cute one,” she said. “What's his name?”

Davey, Sam, and I looked at each other. We'd been working on this for months. Boys' names, girls' names, unisex names, we'd had them all. But right that moment, in the magnitude of him actually
being
there, my mind was utterly blank.

“Kevin,” said Sam.

“Kevin,” Davey echoed. “He's my little brother.”

“And aren't you the lucky one?” asked the nurse. “You be sure to take good care of him now.”

Davey reached up and placed his hand on the tiny, sleeping form. He looked like he was taking a vow. “I will,” he said firmly.

Now, three months later, Kevin was no longer a newborn. He was a member of the family, his presence so entrenched in our lives and our hearts that it was hard to remember what life had been like without him.

With everything going so well, I knew I shouldn't complain. But there was just one thing I desperately needed. Six hours of blissful uninterrupted sleep. Did that seem like too much to ask?

 

“I have a problem,” said Alice Brickman. She was standing in my kitchen doorway and looked like a woman with a lot on her mind.

“Welcome to the club,” I replied. “My hormones are bouncing around like a Ping-Pong ball, Kevin's decided he prefers bottles to breast feeding, and just about every piece of clothing I own has spit-up on it. Have a seat and let's compare notes.”

Sam and Davey were off running errands. Kevin had just been fed. A couple of our Standard Poodles had gone along on the car ride, the other three were snoozing contentedly at my feet. Alice's timing was perfect, which is no small feat in a home that has a new baby.

But then, right from the start, Alice and I had been on the same wavelength. We'd met at a play group right after the birth of our first children and been best friends for nearly a decade. I'd married Sam the previous year and moved to a different Stamford, Connecticut, neighborhood. Before that, Alice and I had lived right down the road from one another.

The shared experience of motherhood is a powerful bonding tool. Through car pools, PTA meetings, and soccer games, we'd compared notes, juggled juice boxes, and covered one another's backs.

Davey and Alice's son, Joey, had finished fourth grade together the previous week. Alice also had a seven-year-old daughter named Carly, who was a budding ballerina. Her husband, Joe, was a partner in a prestigious law firm in Greenwich.

Alice was every bit as comfortable in my house as she would have been in her own. And since my dogs were equally comfortable with her, none of them had bothered to get up for her arrival. Three big black Standard Poodles were asleep on the kitchen floor. Alice navigated her way through the recumbent canine bodies and headed directly for the play pen in the corner.

Kevin was lying on his back, kicking his feet in the air and eying a spinning, pinwheel-colored mobile I'd just fastened above him. Alice leaned down over the side bar, inhaled his baby smell, and sighed deeply.

“Aren't babies the best?” she said.

I'd been on my way to the refrigerator. Alice and I always seem to talk better when our mouths are full. Now I stopped and turned.

“You're not,” I said.

“Not what?”

“Pregnant.”

“Oh that.” She laughed. “No way. I'll amend my earlier statement.
Other
people's babies are the best.”

I opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of diet sodas.

“Believe me,” I grumbled, “there are times when I feel the same way.”

“And then you get over it,” Alice said practically.

No whining allowed around here.

I nodded in agreement and handed her a drink. We both found seats at the kitchen table. Kevin gurgled, and cooed, and looked cuter than anybody had a right to, as he tried valiantly to insert his toes into his mouth. At moments like that, it was hard to remember why I was feeling grumpy.

Alice popped the top on the soda can, tipped back her head, and took a long swallow. “When did you start drinking diet?”

“Guess.”

“How much baby weight do you have left?”

After Carly was born, Alice had struggled with the last ten pounds for years. Finally she'd given up the struggle and simply resigned herself to buying clothes in a larger size. By any standards, except those promoted by celebrities and fashion magazines, she wasn't plump, just pleasantly rounded.

But still, I noticed, she hadn't given up drinking diet soda. For every woman who accepts herself as she is, there's another who's angling to raise the bar ever higher. Sisterhood indeed.

“Five pounds,” I said. “But it's not the weight, it's the shape. None of my clothes fit the way they used to.”

Alice stared at me over the top of her soda can and lifted a brow, a small gesture every bit as telling as the words it replaced.

“I know, but this didn't happen last time.”

“Right. And how old were you when you had Davey, seventeen?”

“Twenty-five,” I corrected primly.

“Same thing,” Alice sniffed.

She was five years older than me. As if
that
made a huge difference.

“And now you're thirty-five,” she said. “Things change.”

“So I've noticed. I thought gravity wasn't supposed to start having its way with me until I turned forty.”

“Good luck with that.”

Alice got up, walked over to the pantry and had a look around.

“Oreos on the left,” I said.

She grabbed the bag and brought them back to the table. This wasn't going to help anyone's diet. We each fished one out, twisted them open, and ate the cream filling first.

“Have we talked about your problems long enough?” she asked. “I don't want to seem insensitive here, but I haven't got all day.”

Newly fortified by sugar, I was good to go.

“Your turn,” I said. “Have at it.”

“This part isn't a problem, exactly. It's an announcement.”

I sat up straight and paid attention. In my experience, announcements don't always augur well.

“I'm done with being a stay at home mom,” said Alice. “I'm going back to work.”

This was momentous. And very exciting, as news went. In this one particular aspect of our lives, Alice and I had always been opposites.

I'd been a working mother, and a single mother, for most of Davey's life. Alice, meanwhile, had a husband who went to work and supported the family, which gave her the luxury of staying home to take care of the kids.

Now it looked as though our roles were reversing. At the end of the previous semester, when my pregnancy had reached the six month mark, I'd taken a leave of absence from my job at a private school in Greenwich. While I'd be staying home for the near future, Alice was gearing up to rejoin the workforce.

“Congratulations,” I said, tipping my cookie in salute.

“Not so fast.” Alice laughed. “It's been years since anyone offered to pay me for what I can do. Let's see if I can make this thing work first.”

“What kind of job are you looking for?”

“That's the good part.” Her laughter faded. “At least I hope it is. I already have a job.”

“Wow, that was fast. Am I totally out of the loop or did that happen overnight?”

“Kind of the latter,” Alice admitted. “I'm going to work for Joe's law firm.”

“Plummer, Wilkes, and Hornby?” I said, even though we both knew the name. I was buying time and thinking fast, wondering what she'd be doing there. Finally I gave up and just asked.

“You know, the usual paralegal stuff.”

That brought me up short. I even put down my cookie.

“What usual paralegal stuff? When did you become a paralegal?”

“Right out of college. That's what I did before I met Joe.”

Utterly amazing, I thought. “How can I have known you for ten years and not known that?”

Alice shrugged. “With the kids around all the time, I guess it never came up. But now Joey and Carly are both in school full time for most of the year. And even their summers are filled with activities. Joey will be at soccer camp for eight weeks.”

I nodded. Davey was doing the same thing.

“While Carly's doing a ballet program over at the Silvermine Guild. So I've been thinking about this for a while. Neither one of them needs me to be home all the time anymore. Which makes me feel kind of superfluous—like all I do is sit at home and wait for the people who are out doing interesting things to come back. So enough of that. It's time for me to see what else I can be besides just a mother.”

Just a mother
. The phrase made us both wince, but neither of us bothered to comment on it. I knew what she meant.

“Congratulations,” I said again, applauding the decision as much as its execution.

“Yeah, well. It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. The good thing was that I got a job without having to apply to a million places, go through some huge interview process, and then justify what I'd been doing for the ten years that are missing on my resume. The bad news is, I'll be working for Joe.”

I liked Joe. He was a good father and a nice guy. But even so, I could see how all that togetherness might strain things around the house.

“What does Joe think of the idea?” I asked.

“He's the one who came up with it. At first he wasn't crazy about the notion of me going back to work, but eventually I managed to convince him that the kids wouldn't miss me when they weren't even around to know that I was gone. Oh yeah, and that I'd still make sure that the dry cleaner put the right amount of starch in his shirts.”

She paused, rolled her eyes, and grabbed another Oreo. “Then he thought of this. I think somehow it made the whole thing seem more palatable to him, like maybe he thought he could keep an eye on me or something. Plus, as he said, think of all the gas money we'll save!”

Alice and I laughed together. I could just hear Joe saying that. He was the kind of guy who liked to keep his eye on the bottom line.

“So give it a try,” I said. “If it works, great. If it doesn't, quit and go somewhere else.”

“That's what I'm thinking,” Alice agreed. “Flexibility's a good thing. There's just one problem with the plan. In fact, that's why I'm here.”

Sad to say, that's the story of my life. People always seem to bring their problems to me.

“I need to find something to do with Berkley. If I'm going to be gone all day, I can't just leave him sitting home by himself.”