“What did you think she meant by that?” Rory asked.
“That he was married, and she was going to tell his wife what was going on, but I’m just guessing.”
“You should definitely call Detective Russell and tell her about this,” Rory said.
“I will. I’ll call this afternoon.” Jill’s voice was stronger, more poised now that she wasn’t concerned about being locked up for her little lapse in judgment. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask about?”
“Actually there is one more thing. I know you take care of dogs while their owners are away. Have any of your clients’ dogs been stolen?”
“None of my regulars. I do sit for others that I only see once or twice a year, though. If I hear anything in the future I’d be happy to let you know.”
Rory tucked her notepad and pen back in her pocketbook and thanked the sisters for their time. Jill accompanied her to the front door. Answering the door and escorting guests in and out appeared to be her job, probably one of many she’d taken on so she could feel that she was earning her keep.
Rory drove home thinking about her conversation with the twins. She was glad she hadn’t bailed on the interview. There was a good chance that Jill had just handed her the last piece in the puzzle of Brenda’s murder.
Chapter 25
B
y the time Rory arrived home, she’d made two important decisions. Decision one: she and Hobo were going to pay Larry Sugarman an impromptu visit. Her meeting with the Feeny sisters was instrumental in helping her reach that decision. According to Jill, Brenda intended to even the score with her boyfriend for leaving her. Then, out of the blue and after years of not speaking, she’d called Marti Sugarman and invited her over. If two plus two didn’t equal four in this situation, they never did. Marti may have thought Brenda called to apologize and revive their friendship over a cup of coffee, but what Brenda planned on serving her ex-friend was a mixed grill of betrayal, adultery and revenge. Unfortunately Brenda made one huge tactical error. Probably because she wanted to enjoy Larry’s misery, and because she didn’t think he was capable of violence, she’d told him what she planned to do. Afraid that his whole world was about to collapse around him, Larry had gone straight to Brenda’s house to talk, plead or threaten her into dropping that plan, and when she proved intractable, he’d killed her. As certain as Rory was about this scenario, she wanted some corroboration. If Hobo went for Larry’s throat, she’d have exactly that.
Decision two: she wasn’t going to tell Zeke about her plan. He would either demand to accompany her or he’d preempt her by sending Leah an e-mail, prematurely spilling the proverbial beans. He might not be able to manage phone calls, but she’d seen for herself that he’d developed quite an aptitude for working the computer keyboard and mouse.
W
hen Leah called the next morning to let her know that a beagle puppy had been reported stolen from a pet shop in Bay Shore, Rory didn’t bother mentioning the plan to her either. Of course it would have been difficult to talk about, since Zeke was there with her. Who was she kidding? She’d had no intentions of telling Leah anyway.
“The pet shop was able to give us a photo of the puppy,” Leah said. “They post photos of their inventory on their website.”
“A photo—that should come in handy.”
“It’ll definitely make it easier to prove that the thieves are trying to resell a stolen dog. I’ll e-mail it to you right now.”
Then Leah had to run, and Rory was happy to end the conversation. She didn’t like deceiving her friend even by the sin of omission.
“From your conversation, I take it that things are finally startin’ to percolate along,” Zeke said once she’d hung up the phone.
You have no idea just how much, Rory thought, as she rummaged through the pantry. She came away with a cereal bar and resumed her seat at the table where she’d left her coffee when the phone had rung.
“Do you ever eat food that requires cookin’?” Zeke asked, frowning at her.
“Don’t knock what you haven’t tried,” she said, tearing off the wrapper and taking a bite.
“Eggs or a hot bowl of oatmeal, now, that’s a breakfast that’ll stick with you.”
Rory nodded and chewed, sure that any other response would have earned her a lecture on the merits of “honestto-goodness food” back in the day. She washed the bar down with a swallow of coffee and, before he could say anything else, launched into a report on her meeting with the Feeny sisters.
Zeke agreed with her that Brenda’s killer was most likely her boyfriend. He went on to say that while that was interesting, the murder case was not the one they were investigating. Since he hadn’t posed a question, Rory didn’t bother commenting. Nor did she share her epiphany with regard to Hobo and Larry or the fact that she was convinced Larry was the boyfriend in question. With that much information there was a good chance the marshal would figure out what she planned to do next, and he’d never understand why she wanted to be more certain of her theory before she took it to the police.
In the early afternoon, Zeke bid her good day, citing the need for further recuperation from his last traveling session. That worked for Rory. At five thirty she put her plan in motion. She grabbed Hobo’s leash from the bench, along with the jacket she’d left there when she’d planned their escape. They were out the door and into the car in seconds. Indy 500 pit crews had nothing on her.
Rory found the side streets clogged with commuters eager to get home to dinner and their favorite programs. She was banking on Larry being a typical nine-to-fiver who was out the office door as soon as the workday ended, but when she reached the Sugarman house at five forty there were no cars in the driveway. There was no way to tell if Marti’s car was in the garage or not, but Rory suspected she was home at this hour, busily whipping up dinner. She would have preferred confronting Larry alone, but that would have been difficult to arrange.
She drove around the block and parked at the curb two houses down from the Sugarmans’ to wait for Larry’s homecoming. She left the engine running, because Hobo got antsy when she shut it off and remained in the car. They didn’t have long to wait. At five fifty Larry drove past them and swung into his driveway. Rory gave him another ten to put down his briefcase and unknot his tie. A relaxed suspect was preferable. She didn’t pull into the driveway, since that would immediately have set Falcon off. Instead she and Hobo walked up to the front door, so the Maltese wouldn’t alert his humans until he heard the bell. The less prepared the suspect, the safer the PI. Rory pressed the bell, and Falcon started his high-pitched yapping on cue, which set Hobo to do some woofing of his own. She tried to hush him, worried that Larry might not open the door if he had a chance to think about who was waiting on the other side of it and why.
After several moments, it was Marti she heard telling Falcon to be quiet, to no effect.
When the door opened, Marti stood in the doorway with the Maltese still barking from her arms. Hobo fell silent, more interested in sniffing the air that wafted out redolent of something roasting.
“Ms. McCain,” Marti said, looking from her to Hobo and back again. “Why are you here?” It wasn’t the most gracious of greetings, but then Rory had caught her by surprise again.
“Actually I was hoping to speak to your husband briefly, if I may,” she said, pouring on the syrup.
“About what?” Marti asked warily.
“It would just be quicker if I could talk to him,” Rory tried. She had to get Hobo into the same room with Larry, or the visit would be pointless. “Of course you’re welcome to be there.”
Marti bristled. “I should hope so! This is my house too.”
Rory gave her a sweetly innocent smile. Then a timer rang back in the kitchen, and Marti’s attention was sorely divided between Rory and her need to get back to the roast.
“Well, all right,” she said, backing up so Rory would have room to enter. “Can’t Hobo wait in . . . ?” It finally occurred to Marti that she hadn’t seen an extra car in her driveway or parked at the curb. “Where is your car?”
“We’ll only be a minute,” Rory promised, entering the house with Hobo before Marti could start quizzing her further.
The timer beeped again, causing Marti to adjust her priorities. “Just keep him away from my Falcon,” she said as she toddled off in the direction of the kitchen with the Maltese peering over her shoulder and growling at Hobo.
As far as Rory could tell, Falcon was the one with issues. Hobo padded quietly along beside her, no longer showing any interest in the little dog.
“You can have a seat,” Marti said grudgingly as she went to the oven to baste what looked like a rib roast. “Larry’s just changing his clothes. He’ll be down in a minute.” Falcon was still in her arms, trying to dive headfirst into the pan with the roast.
Rory sat down at the kitchen table. Hobo lay down next to her, intoxicated by the smells, strands of drool hanging from his mouth. When Rory heard Larry on the staircase she stood up, ready for action. He came around the bend into the kitchen as Marti shut the oven door.
When he saw Rory and Hobo some of the color drained from his face, but he did his best to act normally. “Hi, it’s Rory, right?” He held out his hand to her, at which point all hell broke loose in the Sugarman kitchen.
No longer anesthetized by the smells, Hobo jumped up snarling, ears flattened back against his skull. Rory had never actually seen him this way. If she didn’t know him better she would have been scared even on her end of the leash. She tightened her grip on him just before he lunged for Larry and nearly pulled her off her feet.
Marti shrieked, crushing Falcon against her chest to protect him as Larry stumbled backward. “Get that dog out of my house!” He screamed in a voice approaching falsetto range. “Get him out of my house now! What the hell are they doing here, Marti?”
Marti uttered some syllables that never quite made up a whole word.
“What have you done to make him hate you so?” Rory demanded. As soon as the words left her mouth she knew she probably shouldn’t have said them. The plan had been simple. She was just going to see if Hobo reacted badly to Larry a second time. Well, mission accomplished. And exactly why was she still standing there?
“How dare you come into my house and let your dog attack me? I’m calling the police.” Without taking his eyes off Hobo, Larry started edging over to the phone that was hanging on the wall just inside the kitchen entrance. “You and that mutt belong in prison or in a mental ward.”
“When you get the police on the line you might want to save them some time and tell them why you killed Brenda Hartley.” Okay, she
definitely
shouldn’t have said that, but her temper had gotten the better of her.
Marti went from looking terrified to looking bewildered and terrified. “What . . . what’s she talking about?” she sputtered.
“Get out of here, Marti,” Larry ordered. “Get out of here before you and Falcon get hurt.”
Marti didn’t move. She seemed rooted to the floor, as incapable of motion as a potted plant.
Larry bypassed the phone to grab the knife that Marti had left on the counter for cutting the roast.
Things were escalating rapidly. Rory regretted her decision to stow the new .45 in her handbag instead of in a holster on her hip. It had made sense at the time. Of course that was before she’d accused him of murder and more or less asked to be silenced.
“Marti!” Rory shouted to get the woman’s attention. She needed to neutralize her to help balance the odds. “Do you know what Brenda wanted to tell you the day she was murdered?”
Larry was circling to Rory’s right. With the knife in his hand he sounded almost jaunty. “Open your mouth again, bitch, and you’re going to be saying your last words.”
“What’s she talking about? What’s she talking about?” Marti repeated like a one-trick parrot.
Rory pivoted to keep Larry in full sight. “She wanted to tell you that she and Larry were having an affair.”
Marti’s eyes popped to twice their normal size. Then her lower lip quivered like a child’s, and tears started pumping out of her eyes. Rory had been hoping for anger, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. What mattered was that Marti wouldn’t be helping her husband anytime soon.
Larry must have come to the same conclusion. His eyes narrowed and jaw hard with purpose, he came at Rory and Hobo, the knife tight in his fist. Hobo strained at the leash, growling like a thunder roll. Rory released him so he’d be able to maneuver and protect himself. But defense wasn’t on his agenda. The first thing he did was lunge at Larry, who managed to step aside at the last moment, although with somewhat less grace than a matador. Hobo kept going on his original trajectory, obeying the law of inertia until he slammed into the lower cabinets. He picked himself right up without a whimper. He was accustomed to hard landings courtesy of a certain deceased federal marshal. Marti was screaming again, but it had lost its initial impact and was fast becoming as tedious as elevator music.
Rory ordered Hobo to go, to run, to leave the room, but either Hobo didn’t understand the words or he was playing deaf and dumb. While she was still trying to shoo the dog out of danger, Larry saw his opportunity. He covered the distance to Rory in a couple of long strides. Rory grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and held it before her like a lion tamer under the big top. After several hectic seconds, Larry managed to wrench it out of her grasp with his free hand.
Rory backed away from him until she was up against the refrigerator, her future dependent on how well she’d learned to feint and parry back on her high school fencing team. At that critical moment Hobo launched himself at Larry from a point just beyond the man’s peripheral vision. The unexpected, ninety-pound dog missile knocked him off his feet. His head hit the ceramic tile floor with a sickening crack, and the knife skittered to a landing near Marti’s feet.
As Rory ran to retrieve her purse from the kitchen table, she warned Marti not to touch the knife, not to even think of trying to help her husband, or she’d be facing jail time as well. She needn’t have worried. Marti’s face was nearly as white as Falcon’s fur, and both woman and dog were absolutely silent, probably for the first time in either of their lives.
By the time Larry came out of his stupor, Rory had her gun trained on him and her cell phone in hand. Ordering him to stay where he was, she called 911 and then Leah at police headquarters. Hobo, who had appointed himself to guard the prisoner, paced back and forth in front of him, snapping at the slightest twitch.
Police from the local precinct pulled up to the house within minutes, along with an ambulance for Marti, who had screamed her way into palpitations. Leah and her partner arrived from Yaphank half an hour later. Larry was read his rights and loaded into a police cruiser. Marti was carted off to the hospital, still clutching Falcon and threatening anyone who tried to pry him away from her. Then Leah pulled Rory aside and calmly inquired when it was that she’d completely lost her mind.