Watchdog (19 page)

For a moment I hung back, feeling uncertain. Then I realized Sam was doing the same thing.

He was wearing faded corduroy pants, with a wheat colored roll-neck sweater and a denim jacket thrown on top. The wind had ruffled through his blond hair and when he looked in my direction, I noticed the squint lines that fanned out around his eyes. He was everything I'd hoped for, and more than I'd ever expected to find.

I resisted the impulse to throw myself into his arms and opted for the mature approach instead. After all, there were children present. “I was going to call you.”

“I was going to call you, too,” Sam said. “Then I realized I couldn't say what I needed to say over the phone. So here I am. I'm sorry. I was stupid.”

“Yeah, you were. So was I.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

“Kiss and make up?” I suggested.

“I was hoping you'd say that.” Two long strides and I was in his arms. “God, you smell good,” he murmured.

“Hey, Sam.” Joey tugged on Sam's jacket.

He had to give a second yank before Sam paid any attention. Let's just say I had him distracted. When Sam finally glanced down, Joey waved a hand toward the street. “Isn't that your puppy?”

While we'd been occupied, Tar had spotted a pair of neighborhood dogs running loose at the end of the block and decided to join them. Now he was galloping down the sidewalk with Davey racing in pursuit. Though he was only four months old, the puppy's legs were long and he was covering a surprising amount of ground.

“Damn!” Sam thrust me away. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly.

Tar's stride never even wavered. Davey's did, though. He turned to look back at us, tripped over a seam in the sidewalk, and went down in a heap.

I was already running, but Sam passed me as though I were standing still. He reached Davey first, paused briefly, then raced on to scoop up his puppy, who was now cavorting in the street with his newfound friends. Luckily, there were no cars coming.

When I reached Davey, he'd already pushed himself up into a sitting position. His palms were scraped, and there was a new hole in the knee of his jeans.

“Cool!” he said, hopefully inspecting the opening for signs of blood. There wasn't any. He reexamined his palms and held them up so I could see. “Do you think I'll get a scar?”

I started to shake my head, but Sam came up behind me with Tar cradled happily in his arms, and poked me before I could respond. “Could be,” he said. “Those are some awesome scratches.”

Awesome? Once I cleaned the sand off we'd be lucky to even see them.

Sam held out a hand and pulled Davey to his feet. “Thanks for trying to catch him for me.”

“Sure. I didn't want him to get run over or anything.”

“Good thought,” Sam agreed seriously.

They headed down the sidewalk together, leaving me to follow along behind. When we got back to the house, Joey was sitting on the steps. Faith was barking and throwing herself against the front door, a breach of manners meant to illustrate her displeasure at missing out on the fun.

Joey turned to Davey. “So are we going to play, or what?”

My son looked back and forth between Sam and his friend, clearly torn.

“You're going to play,” I said. “Sam's going to be here awhile, right?”

He nodded.

“The two of you can hang out later after Joey goes home.”

We went inside; me to console Faith with a belly rub and several extra biscuits, the boys racing upstairs to check out Davey's Batmobile model, and Tar to drink half a bowl of water, then flop over on his side on the kitchen floor.

I opened the back door and let Faith into the fenced yard, and turned around to find Sam pulling something out of the mail I'd thrown on the counter. “Look what came.” He held up a flat, white, cardboard envelope.

“What is it?”

“Your win picture from the dog show.”

“Great!” I snatched it from him and ripped open the flap.

“It might not be great,” he said, peering over my shoulder. “Lots of them aren't. It's hard to photograph a black dog indoors and get the lighting just right.”

Slowly I withdrew the picture from the inner sleeve. Faith looked good, her silhouette outlined by the blue skirt I'd worn specifically to contrast with her inky coat. Her head and tail were up, and her gaze was fixed alertly on the squeaky toy the photographer had thrown, just out of range, a moment before he snapped the photo. The judge was holding out the ribbons Faith had won and smiling proudly.

Then I saw myself, wearing a goofy grin and looking stunned to be there. “Oh.” My shoulders slumped.

“What's the matter?” Sam took the picture. “I think it's good.”

“I look like I'm in shock.”

“As I recall, you were. Don't worry, nobody looks at the person. The dog's what matters in these pictures and Faith looks terrific.”

Maybe there was a compliment in there. If so, I couldn't find it.

Dinner was hot dogs. As I told Sam, people who want gourmet meals shouldn't drop in unexpectedly. He ate three hot dogs and two helpings of baked beans and insisted they were the best he'd ever had. I doubted that, but I was in much too good a mood to argue.

After dinner Davey asked Sam to bring Tar up to his bedroom. Curious, Faith and I went along, too. Davey opened the top drawer in his desk and took out a dog biscuit.

“I've been saving this,” he said. “The tooth fairy brought it and I was going to give it to Tar since it was his tooth. But when I got up the next morning, you were gone.”

Sam and I exchanged a glance over my son's head.

“I'm back now.”

“Are you going to stay?” Davey's tone was strident. Another time I might have corrected him. Now I was too busy waiting to hear what Sam would answer.

“Yes,” he promised. “I'm going to stay.”

I should have known a mood like that would be too good to last. The next morning when I got to school, I found out just how short-lived it could be. I had Kate and Lucia for third period and when the two of them entered the classroom, Kate was skipping in place and ginning broadly.

“What's up?” I asked.

“I hope she tells you,” said Lucia. “She won't say a word to me.”

“That's because it has nothing to do with you.” Kate put her books down and turned to me. “I did what you told me to.”

I thought back quickly. “You reread those short stories Miss Scott assigned?” Could redoing an English assignment be the cause for this much excitement?

“No!” Kate squealed, then quickly lowered her voice. “I found out about Winter's puppies!”

With everything else that had been going on recently, I'd forgotten all about that. “You talked to John?”

Kate nodded. “I just casually brought it up the other day after school. John was showing me how to strip a terrier. The dog he was working on was one of Winter's great-grandchildren, so it was easy to get the conversation started.”

Lucia was still listening in. “What do you mean he stripped it? He cut off all its hair?”

“No. Well, kind of. But not really.” Kate frowned and gave up.

I'd never seen the grooming procedure done, but I knew enough to offer a layman's explanation. “Wire Fox Terriers are supposed to have a very harsh outer coat. If you clipped them or scissored the hair like you do with Poodles, it would ruin the texture. So instead the coat is hand plucked, with the groomer pulling out very small amounts of hair each time. The process is called stripping.”

“Big deal,” said Lucia.

“You asked,” Kate pointed out.

“I thought it was going to be something interesting.”

“It is interesting.”

If I didn't intercede now, they'd spend the next fifteen minutes arguing. “Lucia, do you have your book report ready for me to look at?”

“Almost.”

I pointed toward the table. “Why don't you work on it while Kate and I finish this up?”

“How come I have to work and she doesn't?”

“How come her book report is done and yours isn't?”

No dummy, Lucia quickly saw the wisdom in not trying to answer that question. She took her backpack over to the table and sat down.

So that we wouldn't disturb her, Kate and I crossed the room to stand by the windows. “So what did John say?” I asked.

“It was really weird. I figured he'd tell me that he'd sold one of the puppies, or that I was mixed up, or that ten years later, who cared anyway? But he didn't. He got this really strange look on his face and he said it was none of my business. Then he told me he thought I should go home.”

Uh oh. “And did you?”

“Well, yeah, sure. I mean, what choice did I have? It's his kennel. Usually John likes having me around because he says that I'm a big help, but if he wants me to leave . . .”

“I'm really sorry, Kate. I never meant to cause trouble for you.”

“Don't worry. Everything turned out okay. Maybe even better than okay, because I got the information you wanted. It was really cool!”

Kate looked smug. I hoped that wasn't a bad sign. I flipped the latch and opened the window to let in some fresh air. “What do you mean?”

“Yesterday when I got home from school, John had left a message with my mom. He had to go into the city for the day so he wanted me to check on the dogs in the afternoon. You know, make sure everyone had fresh water and pick up the runs?”

I knew how that went. I'd been pressed into service a few times at Aunt Peg's myself.

“So, of course, I went over and everything was fine.”

“How did you get into the kennel? Do you have a key?”

“No,” said Kate. “That's the cool part. John keeps a spare key to the kennel hidden in his garage. I've used it plenty of times before, so I knew just where to look. He keeps an extra key to the house in the same place.”

She stood there and smiled, waiting for me to make the connection. It didn't take long.

“You didn't!” I cried, horrified.

“Why not? Like I said, John was acting really strange, and all I could think was, maybe he had something to hide. So I went in and looked.”

Oh, lordy. I winced slightly, half afraid that lightning was about to strike me dead for corrupting the youth of America.

“It was great!” Kate giggled. “Sneaking around, opening up drawers, and trying not to leave any fingerprints. I felt like Nancy Drew.”

“You're not Nancy Drew,” I said sternly. “And you shouldn't have done that.”

“Why not? John asked me to look after the dogs. For all I know, he might have left one in the house.”

“You're justifying.”

“And you're curious.” Kate grinned. “You want to know what I found out, don't you?”

“Of course I want to know. I just don't want you to think that I approve of your methods. Good God, what would Mr. Hanover say?”

“About what?” asked Lucia, tuning back into the conversation from her seat on the other side of the room.

“Nothing!” Kate and I said in emphatic unison.

She was still smiling. I didn't know whether to kiss the girl or yell at her some more. Then again, the yelling didn't seem to be having much effect.

“Okay,” I said in a lower tone. “What did you find out?”

“For one thing, John is about the most organized man in the whole world. He keeps all his papers in a cabinet in his library and everything was labeled so I could see just where to look. He had two whole drawers just for his dog stuff. One was filled with a stack of notebooks that said Dog Ownership and Breeding Records on the front.”

“I've seen those,” I said. “My Aunt Peg breeds Standard Poodles and she has the same ones. The American Kennel Club hands them out. The AKC is very particular about how records are maintained because they need to know that pedigrees are correct and that dogs that are supposed to be purebred, actually are.”

Kate nodded. “John had everything filled out and up to date. He even had the book covers labeled by year so all I had to do was flip back through until I found the one that had Winter's litter in it.”

That was all. If you didn't count entering the house illegally, that is. I held my tongue and let her continue.

“There's a separate page in the back for each litter,” said Kate. “And then an individual listing for each puppy down below. On the page for Winter's litter, the names of three puppies were written in, and John had checked off the column saying he'd kept each one.”

“Then Roger Nye was wrong,” I mused aloud.

“Who's he?”

“A man I met who thought he had one of Winter's puppies. He'd gotten her from Marcus Rattigan, Winter's co-owner.”

“The man who was murdered in your brother's building.”

I looked at her sharply. “How do you know that?”

“I read about it in the paper.”

“The papers mentioned Frank's name, but none of the articles identified him as my brother. How did you know about that?”

“Jeez.” Kate sighed loudly. “It's not like you're the only one who can figure things out, you know.”

Apparently not. The realization came with a bit of a jolt. It wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on this girl.

“You didn't let me finish,” she said.

“There's more?”

“Lots more. And it gets even stranger.”

“I'm all done.” Lucia pushed back her chair and stood up. “Do you want to look at my book report now?”

“In one minute, okay?”

Lucia cocked her hip and propped her hand on it. She was being ignored, and there was only so long she'd stand for that. “What do you want me to do in the meantime?”

“Write a short descriptive piece,” I said off the top of my head. “Use lots of adjectives and similes.”

“What do you want me to describe?”

“Anything you want.”

“Okay.” She sat back down. “I'll do Mark.”

A detailed description of her horse. That was just what the world needed.

“Quick,” I said to Kate, feeling like a co-conspirator. “Tell me the rest.”

“Remember I said that there were two drawers with kennel records? The other one was filled with big manila envelopes, one for each dog. Mostly they held things like pedigrees, registration slips, health records. But Winter's had some other things. There were a couple of Best in Show pictures and a certificate from when she won the Quaker Oats award. And there was something else, too—an unused blue slip with her name listed as dam.”

Blue slips are the forms that the American Kennel Club returns to a breeder after a litter is registered. The breeder reports how many puppies of each sex have been born and the AKC sends a blue slip for each one. These slips are then given to the puppies' new owners, who fill them out and send them in to complete the individual registration process.

“When Winter's litter was born, John must have originally told the AKC there were four puppies, so they sent him four slips,” I said, thinking aloud. “Then later, for some reason, he decided to only register three of them.”

“Pretty weird, huh?” said Kate.

“Really weird,” I agreed.

I wondered what the hell it meant.

 

After school I picked up Davey and Faith and we went to see Aunt Peg. I wish I could say that the visit was my idea, prompted by familial loyalty and a sense of devotion to aging relatives; but the truth of the matter was Aunt Peg had left a message on my answering machine telling me to get my butt over to her house that afternoon, or else. When we arrived, Frank was there. His car was in the driveway and I parked beside it.

“It's about time,” said Peg, opening the door and releasing the tidal wave of black Standard Poodles. Faith was swept down the steps with them and the group raced around the yard, all flying legs and ears.

“I just got home from school.”

“That explains earlier today. What about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday?”

“I was busy.”

“As if that's an excuse.” She looked down at Davey. “Who's this fine young man?”

“It's me, Aunt Peg.” My son giggled. “Davey!”

“You're not Davey. You're much too tall.”

“No, really!” Davey shrieked. “It's me.”

Aunt Peg pretended to consider. “Have you been growing? Soon you'll be as big as I am.”

My son's eyes opened wide. “Nobody's as big as you—”

I jabbed him in the shoulder, but I wasn't quick enough.

“What?” asked Davey, looking injured. “Nobody is.”

“Hey, gang.” Frank appeared in the hallway. “Why didn't you tell me the meeting was taking place outside?”

“What meeting?” I asked as Aunt Peg called the dogs and ushered everybody in. Davey and the Poodles ran on ahead to the kitchen.

“Frank brought me a cake from the St. Moritz bakery,” she said. Sweets always distract her. Maybe she was hoping I wouldn't notice the change in subject. “Wasn't that nice of him?”

“That depends. What did he want in return?”

“Mel.” Frank groaned. “Don't be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like a big sister—”

“Quit squabbling,” Peg said sternly. “We have bigger things to worry about than the fact you two don't like each other.”

That brought me up short. “Who said we don't like each other?” I demanded, glaring at my brother.

“Not me.” He held out his hands innocently. “Who just called me a user?”

“That would be me,” I informed him. “The usee.”

“Very funny,” said Frank. “Nobody asked you to get involved.”

The enormity of
that
lie left me gasping. Even Aunt Peg looked a bit nonplused.

“That's quite enough from both of you,” she said. “I asked you here because I thought it was high time we got together and hashed things out.

“Now you have two choices. Either we're going into the kitchen to have a piece of cake and discuss this problem calmly and rationally, or you can stand here and continue to argue in which case I'll probably feel compelled to knock your two heads together. As Davey so recently pointed out, I'm big enough to do it. Which will it be?”

Well, that let us know where we stood.

“Cake for me,” said Frank, grinning devilishly. He hooked his arm through mine. “How about you, sis? It's mocha.”

Luckily, we're not the kind of siblings that hold grudges. Tempers fade as quickly as they tend to flare. Besides, Frank knew darn well that mocha cake was my favorite.

“Cake, it is,” I agreed.

With cake and milk on a tray in front of him, Davey was happy to be banished to the family room. We adults sat at the kitchen table. With a thick wedge of St. Moritz's wonderful mocha cake in front of me, I brought Frank and Aunt Peg up to date about what was going on.

“I can't believe it,” said Frank. “Marcus was really planning to cut out and leave me holding the bag?”

“It looks that way. And I doubt if Ben Welch is any more trustworthy. Or Gloria Rattigan, for that matter. If I were you, I'd watch my step with those two.”

“I sure don't see them as a couple.” Frank was skeptical. “She's got to be ten years older than he is. If you ask me, Ben and Liz make more sense.”