A Pedigree to Die For (26 page)
Then Davey, in his own inimitable way, took the whole thing out of my hands. Jack and I heard the thin, high-pitched scream at the same time. It was followed by a loud splash.
“Mommy!” Davey wailed as only he could. “Mommy, help!”
Twenty-seven
Davey, of course, had gone head over heels into the pool. What else would a four-year-old boy do for entertainment on a rainy afternoon? I was across the room and out the door in two steps. But despite my haste, I fully expected to see him paddling around happily. Davey makes his share of outrageous claims, but he does know how to swim.
Unfortunately, I saw as I sprinted across the lawn, that knowledge wasn't doing him any good. His arms had become entangled in the slicker's wide sleeves, and now the cumbersome coat was filling with water, dragging him down. The water rolled around him as he thrashed in vain, trying to free himself. He wasn't panicking yet, but it wouldn't be long.
I hit the water with a clean, flat racing dive which shot me straight across the surface and into my son's arms. Judging by the look on his face, he was very glad to see me. He opened his mouth to speak, took in water, and began to cough.
“Hang on,” I said, grasping him under the armpits. Not satisfied with that hold, Davey wrapped his short arms tightly around my neck and nearly took us both under. I kicked hard to keep us on the surface and hugged him to me. It wasn't the best life-saving technique, but it was good enough to get the job done. With Davey clinging like a leech, I gave two good kicks to bring us within range of the pool's concrete lip.
Jack was pacing back and forth on the tiles, and I hoisted Davey up into his arms. “Are you okay?” he cried.
“He's fine.” I gasped, still lying half in and half out of the water as bursts of unused adrenaline shot through my body.
“I held my breath,” said Davey, looking rather pleased with himself. “Just like Uncle Frank taught me.” He took off his slicker and dropped it on the ground, then began to check through the ample contents of his pockets.
Looking at the two of us, Jack shook his head in bewilderment. It was easy to see he'd never had any children of his own. Compared to some of the stunts Davey had pulled in the past, this was a relatively minor incident.
“You're sure you're both all right?”
“Positive,” I said firmly.
I sat up and hauled my feet out of the water. We were wet, but at least it wasn't cold. Davey and I were in for an uncomfortable ride home, but I doubted we'd catch pneumonia. I pulled off my flats and dumped them out. Davey followed suit with the red sneakers.
It was all too much for Jack Berglund. Clearly our little adventure had violated his notion of proper etiquette for social occasions. Visibly upset, he tried to salvage the situation by hovering over us solicitously.
“What can I do to help?” he asked as I picked up Davey's slicker and shook it out.
“How about a towel?” I suggested, mostly just to give him something to do.
“A towel, of course. Two towels even.” Still brimming with agitation, he strode over to the pool house and yanked open the door. My attention was on Davey, so it was a moment before I realized that a black Standard
Poodle had shot out through the open doorway and into the yard. Jack's yelling, however, was hard to miss.
“Hey there! Come back!”
The dog ignored him and galloped away. Shrugging, Jack continued after the towels. The Poodle danced around the yard, delighted.
“Come back! Come back!” yelled Davey, getting into the spirit of things. The Poodle ignored him also.
I stood and stared, but I didn't say a word. I didn't have to. It was Beau; it had to be. Who else would Berglund have stashed away inside the pool house? The Poodle's coat was long and shaggy, and his face was unclipped; but there was something about him that was immediately arrestingâthe way he carried himself, perhaps, or the assurance with which he moved.
Quickly I tried to remember everything Aunt Peg had told me to look for. It was no use. I'd gone totally blank. The Poodle skidded past us, racing around the pool. As he galloped by, so close that I could have reached out and touched him, I realized with a small sense of shock that he looked familiar. But that was impossible, wasn't it?
The kennel dogs, hearing the commotion in the yard, burst out into their runs and began to bark. The Poodle skidded to a stop and stiffened. His head and tail snapped up at attention; and suddenly I had my answer. It wasn't one dog he reminded me of, but rather a whole group. Standing alertly with his neck arched and his tail high, this dog was the very image of a Cedar Crest Poodle.
The hair on the back of my neck began to tingle, and the sensation worked its way down my spine. After three long months, I'd finally found the dog I was looking for.
“Beau?” I called the name as loudly as I dared, but the Poodle was too far away to hear me. Then Jack emerged from the pool house, towels in hand, and the dog took off toward the kennel.
“There he goes!” Davey cried gleefully.
Jack tossed the towels to me, then went after the Poodle. I wrapped Davey up warmly in plush yellow terry cloth and went to join in the chase. Unfortunately by the time I reached the kennel, Jack had already caught the collarless dog and was leading him inside by the muzzle. Davey flopped into a chair in the front room, but I followed them on inside.
“What Poodle is that?” I asked as he released the dog into an empty pen.
“His name's Scotty. He belongs to the neighbors.”
“What's he doing here?”
Jack reached in to ruffle the dog's topknot. “They dropped him off yesterday before they left on vacation. I'm looking after him while they're gone.”
He had to be lying. But how could he have come up with a story like that so quickly? And why didn't he look even the tiniest bit nervous?
Unsure now, I moved in for a closer look. Deftly, Jack angled me away. Outmaneuvered, I gave ground and asked casually, “Is he a stud dog, too?”
Bad question, if the look on Berglund's face was anything to go by. “No, he's not. The problem is, he thinks he is. He and Ranger have been driving each other crazy. That's why I had to put him in the pool house.”
Standing as we were in a room full of strong, high-walled pens, that sounded like a terrible reason for locking a dog in a pool house; but I nodded as though it made perfect sense. “He seems to have a good temperament. Was he one of your puppies originally?”
Even as Jack answered, we were already moving away from the pen and back to the outer room. “No, they bought him before they moved in. I never asked where he came from and they never said. He's just the children's pet.”
I guess Davey had had enough excitement for one day, because for once he was actually waiting where I'd left him. Thoroughly damp and grinning happily about it, he jumped up when we appeared. Jack escorted us out to our car.
“I'll be in touch,” I said, and he nodded.
We parted the best of friends.
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Davey napped on the ride home, and I spent the time back trying to decide how I was going to present what I had seen to Aunt Peg. Though I was just about certain that I'd found Beau, I had no proof. The farther away I got, the more I began to worry. What if the visit had been nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe the reason that Poodle had looked like Beau to me was because I'd expected him to.
By the time we reached Greenwich, I'd decided to aim for cautious optimismâI would describe the visit as it had gone and see if a recital of the facts brought her to the same conclusion I'd reached.
Davey was still asleep when we arrived, so I parked in the shade and left him in the backseat. I'd barely climbed the steps when the front door flew open. The herd of Poodles surged out, but I barely spared them a glance. One look at Aunt Peg's face and I knew how anxiously she'd awaited my arrival. Everything she was feeling was right there: impatience, frustration, but most of all, a naked yearning for wonderful news.
“Well?” she demanded, and I couldn't disappoint her.
“He's there.”
For a moment I almost thought she was going to cry. But of course, she didn't. Instead she practically ran me into the living room and shoved me down on the couch, damp clothes and all. She wanted news, and she wanted it fast. Quickly I told her about our visit, glossing over the details until I came to the part about the mysterious Poodle in the pool house.
Aunt Peg listened with remarkable patience as I described the scene down to the last detail.
“Of course I asked who the Poodle was,” I told her.
“But Jack had a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything.”
“So what makes you think that the dog was Beau?”
“He didn't look like someone's pet, for one thing. No matter what Jack said. And besides, he reminded me of your dogs.”
Her brow lifted. “You mean he resembled them?”
“Yes.” I wished desperately that I had more to offer. “The way he held himself made me think of them.”
“Well, I suppose that's something,” Aunt Peg said. “Did he look like the pictures I showed you?”
I honestly didn't know, and I admitted as much. “When you come right down to it, there's not all that much difference between one black Standard Poodle and another.”
At least not to me, I thought. Aunt Peg could sort out a dozen or more at twenty paces. How she managed it, I had no idea. My damp clothing was itching like crazy, and I sat back on the couch with a frown. Aunt Peg had spent the whole summer coaching me on how to develop an eye for a dog. I hated having to tell her that just when I'd needed it most, my knowledge had proven inadequate.
“I suppose the hair was different, too,” she said with a sigh.
I nodded.
“You didn't get a chance to call him by name, did you?”
“I tried, but outside I was too far away. And then once we went into the kennel, Jack was all over me.”
We sat in silence for several moments, considering.
Finally Aunt Peg spoke. “Give me your gut reaction.”
She'd already had it, earlier. But now that she'd heard how nebulous my evidence was, I couldn't blame her for asking again.
“It was Beau.”
Unexpectedly, she grinned. “I think so, too.”
“So now what?”
“I'm not sure.”
That was hardly the decisive response I'd been hoping for. “Shouldn't we call the police?”
“It's not that simple,” Aunt Peg said slowly. “Don't forget, I spoke with them before. In order to get a search warrant, they're going to need proofâsomething nice and solidâwhich is precisely what we don't have. The problem is not in proving Beau's ownership once we get our hands on him. It's in getting the police to go out there in the first place.”
I had thought that the hard part would be finding Beau. It had never even occurred to me that once that happened, we might be stymied all over again by the process of trying to reclaim him.
“Tell me about the puppies you saw,” said Aunt Peg. “Was there anything worth discussing there?”
I related what little there was to tell. They were ten black, furry little balls, as indistinguishable from each other as if they'd been made from a mold.
Aunt Peg nodded as though she hadn't expected anything else. She had to be feeling just as frustrated as I was, but she was doing her best not to let it show. “Never mind,” she said. “Let me work on it overnight. I'll think of something.”
I could only hope she was right.
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