Doggie Day Care Murder (19 page)

Authors: Laurien Berenson

BOOK: Doggie Day Care Murder

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“Yup. I was here at the time. It was all a big fat fuss over nothing. Some snooty lady's hussy fur ball came in for grooming and got herself bred instead. The bitch should have been spayed and she wasn't. I don't see how that made it Shannon's fault.”

“It does sound like she wasn't to blame,” I said sympathetically.

I wasn't the best actress, but Larry wouldn't notice. He wanted me to take his side.

“It sounds like Steve's reaction was way out of line,” I said. “How come he got so mad?”

“That was Steve's way. Everybody thought he was Mr. Sweetness-and-Light because that's what he wanted people to think. But that was only as long as everything was going according to planâhis plan. Believe me, that guy had a temper on him. And when something came up that he didn't like, he wasn't afraid to use it.”

Looking at Larry, who'd polished off his beer and was now easily crushing the can with his big hand, I wondered if the same could be said about him.

“I guess you've probably known Steve for a while.”

“You could say that. He and I grew up together. We met in middle school.”

“And all these years later you ended up working together? What a coincidence.”

“Not really. We'd stayed in touch over the years. Steve went away to some fancy college in New York, but we still saw each other whenever he was here. I started at UConn but found out pretty quickly that higher learning wasn't going to be my thing. I wanted to be out in the workforce earning money, you know what I mean?”

“Sure.” Right then, I'd have agreed to anything that would keep Larry talking.

“When Steve got the idea to open this place, I was the first guy to come on board.”

“What about Candy?”

“She was family, that was different. Steve had to let her be a part of things. But he brought me in because he knew I could be a big help with what he was trying to accomplish here.”

Larry's version of events didn't jibe with what I'd heard from other people. That didn't particularly surprise me. It did, however, make me want to hear more.

“It must have been hard the way things turned out,” I said. “You and Steve being old friends, and then you ended up working for him.”

“It wasn't like that,” Larry said quickly. Then he stopped and reconsidered. “Well, maybe it was a little. Steve was the hometown boy who went away and made good. I was the hometown boy who just . . . stayed home. But when we had a chance to partner up on this dealâ”

I stopped and stared. “You and the Pines are partners? I didn't realize that.”

Larry looked uncomfortable. “Things didn't exactly work out. We talked about going in together, but this land and all the improvements? That stuff doesn't come cheap. Steve was looking for another investor, but . . .”

“You didn't have the money,” I guessed.

“You got it. I told Steve I'd provide my share in sweat equity, you know what that is?”

I nodded.

“But that wasn't good enough for Mr. Bigshot. He wanted some classy businessman with a big wallet. Some guy who could be convinced to hand over the dough and keep his opinions to himself.”

“And did he find that guy?”

“This place is here, isn't it? It's not like Steve and Candy had the start-up money to do this on their own.”

So Pine Ridge has a silent partner, I thought. Yet another pertinent fact Candy had neglected to mention.

“Who'd they bring in?” I asked. “Does the investor ever stop by to see how things are going?”

“Sure. He comes by just about every day. Twice even. Once to drop off his dog and once to pick it up. His name is Roger Cavanaugh. Look down there at the last pen. See the big red-and-black dog? That's his.”

The big red-and-black dog was Logan, the Airedale who'd nearly bowled me over on my second visit to Pine Ridge. I remembered his owner too. He'd driven a Hummer and looked like a man with money. Score one for first impressions.

I wondered if Steve had been annoyed at the way things turned out. Whether he'd resented the fact that the guy he'd brought in merely to shore up his finances was now around all the timeâand maybe looking over his shoulder and second-guessing his decisions.

In his stroller by the fence, Kevin was beginning to get restless. It was time for me to move on. I threw out one last question.

“Are you sorry Steve Pine is dead?”

Larry scowled. “What kind of thing is that to ask?”

“Considering how he treated you and your girlfriend, it seems pretty fair.”

“Fair? Give me a break. I'll tell you the same thing I told the police. Steve and I were pals, buddies. Sure we had our differences at times, but we would have been friends to the end. And that's the way it was.”

It was a nice little speech. Pat, convincing even.

And yet somehow I didn't believe a word of it.

L
arry's mention of the police got me thinking. I wondered what Detective Minton and his cohorts were up to.

Along with the rest of Stamford's residents, I'd read about the aftermath of the murder in the local newspaper. I'd devoured articles written about the early stages of the investigation when the police had been filled with confidence that they would bring Steve's murderer to justice within the week.

But since then, nothing.

Both the media and the authorities were being curiously silent. I couldn't even find so much as a single update on how the investigation was progressing.

I wondered whether Detective Minton was following the same trails I was. If he wasn't, it would make sense for us to pool our information.

I considered picking up the phone and calling him, but I hesitated. There was a good reason for that. The authorities and I have what might politely be called a checkered history.

The problemâas I've learned from past experienceâis that the police aren't happy when other, nonauthorized people do their job for them. They're especially annoyed when those people occasionally beat them to the punch.

But here's the thing. Peopleâsuspects, witnesses, interested bystandersâtalk to me. People who wouldn't dream of opening up to the authorities seem to find me much less threatening.

Maybe it's because I look like somebody's mother. (Check.) Or maybe they think I look too dumb to put all the pieces together. (Go figure.) Or maybe they think that the things they say to me won't get them into trouble. (Sometimes, but not always.)

I'm not exactly sure why what I do works, but it does.

Try explaining that to a police detective, however. In the past, my conversations with the authorities have tended to include phrases like “obstruction of justice” and “interfering with police business.” Which is why now I mostly try to keep a low profile.

Still, it would be nice to know what they were doing to solve Steve's murderâif only so that we didn't have to cover all the same ground twice. Now that I have a new baby, I'm into all the timesaving measures I can find. Which left me conflicted about what to do.

So I did what I always do in times of confusionâI called Aunt Peg.

“Good morning!” she sang cheerfully into the phone.

“You're in a good mood.”

“Why wouldn't I be? The sun is shining, the birds are singing . . .”

Good Lord, I was talking to Pollyanna.

“I need your advice,” I said.

I figured that would put a halt to the flow of sugar-coated imagery, and it did.

“Of course you do, dear. That's what I'm here for. Where are you?”

“I'm in the car,” I said. “I just left Pine Ridge and we're heading home.”

“We who? Is Kevin with you?”

“He's in the backseat.”

“Put him on.”

As you might imagine, that was a problem. Bear in mind, I've been known to put Poodles on the phone, so the fact that Kevin didn't talk wasn't the issue. Simultaneously accomplishing that maneuver and keeping my eyes on the road, however, was.

“I'm driving,” I said, just in case she'd missed that fact earlier.

“My, my, you are in a snit today, aren't you? No wonder you need my advice.”

“I am not in a snit.” Though the longer this conversation continued, the closer to snittiness I was beginning to feel. “I'm trying to figure out who killed Steve Pine.”

“Still? I'd have thought you'd be done with that by now.”

I sighed. Then counted to ten. After that, I figured I might pray for patience.

I never got that far. By the time I reached the number eight Aunt Peg was back.

“Are you still there?” she chirped.

“I'm counting.”

“How does that help?”

“It keeps me calm,” I said.

“Calm? What good is that? I thought you said you were trying to solve a murder. What you need is motivation, zip, get-up-and-go.”

A pep talk, Aunt Peg style. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.

“That isn't what I called for advice about.”

“Oh well then, carry on. I'm all ears.”

Rather than trying to navigate the Volvo while I laid out the details for Aunt Peg, I pulled off the road into a nearby garden shop. There was an empty parking space in front of a tiered row of shelves that were filled with brightly colored impatiens.

As the car rolled to a stop, I opened all the windows. Now Kevin could look at the flowers while Aunt Peg and I talked.

“As you can probably imagine, I've been talking to a lot of different people,” I began.

“Suspects,” Aunt Peg said happily. She likes to get right to the point and there's nothing she enjoys more than a good puzzle.

“Well, yes . . . but mostly I'm still just gathering information.”

“Such as?”

“For one thing, Steve Pine was apparently quite a womanizer including having had flings with members of the staff and some clients.”

“Any disastrous breakups?”

“None that I've heard about so far.”

“You might want to keep digging in that direction. Go on.”

“Apparently Steve and Candy had a third partner in the business. A money man named Roger Cavanaugh. What's interesting about that is that Candy never mentioned anything about him to me.”

“Is this Mr. Cavanaugh happy with their partnership arrangement?”

“I haven't spoken to him yet. I'm hoping to do that this evening.”

Before leaving the day care center earlier, I'd stopped back in the office and gotten Cavanaugh's home address and phone number from the files. Jason had still been on duty, and luckily it hadn't occurred to the teenager to question my request. He'd simply looked up the information and handed it over.

“Another thing Candy never mentioned is that she and Steve had been arguing a lot recently. There were disagreements over money, as well as whose vision the facility should conform to.”

“A rather intriguing omission,” said Aunt Peg. “I assume she stood to inherit the business from her brother. Does Candy possess a gun?”

“She says no.”

“Do you believe her?”

I paused and thought. “Mostly. I guess so.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement but as much as I wanted to offer for the time being. “Speaking of guns, Madison, the receptionist at Pine Ridge, is an enthusiast.”

“And you know this how?”

“The first time I was there, she was sitting at her desk flipping through a gun magazine.”

“Not the kind of employee likely to make the best first impression on incoming clientele.” Aunt Peg sniffed.

“Agreed. Also there are other employees at Pine Ridge who are unhappy for one reason or another. One is Larry, the guy who does maintenance. He was a lifelong buddy of Steve'sâ”

“Who now finds himself in a subordinate position?”

“Precisely. Not only that, but his live-in girlfriend was fired by Steve earlier in the year for letting a client's Shih Tzu bitch get bred by accident, when she had been dropped off at Pine Ridge for grooming.”

“Ouch,” said Aunt Peg. “Who was the other partner in crime? Not a Shih Tzu, I take it?”

“Buster, the Beagle mix.”

“Oh my. That does complicate things.”

“And here's another complication. The owner of the Shih Tzu in question had threatened retaliation. She blames Steve and Candy for ruining her lovely pet.”

“She ought to blame herself for not getting the bitch spayed.” Aunt Peg has little patience with dog owners who don't live up to their responsibilities. “Anyone else?”

“Adam Busch, a disgruntled neighbor, and owner of one of the few residential properties remaining in the area. He's convinced that the Pines are to blame for the downfall of his neighborhood.”

“That's quite a list.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So who's the guilty party?”

In Aunt Peg's world, things were always just that simple.

“If I knew that,” I said, “I'd be talking to Detective Minton instead of you. Which brings me to my question.”

“There's a question? You should have started with that.”

“I did. I told you I needed advice.”

“So you did. Well, I'm all warmed up now. Shoot.”

“Does any of this sound convincing enough to you that you think I should march myself down to the police station and have a chat with the guy in charge of the case?”

Aunt Peg thought about that. I used the time to lean around and check on Kevin. He'd pulled off one of his socks and was entertaining himself by stuffing it into his mouth. It wouldn't have been my first choice for oral gratification, but he seemed happy.

“Let's recap, shall we?” Aunt Peg said after a minute. “Steve and his sister didn't always agree on the direction the business should be heading. Not all the employees at Pine Ridge are happy campers. Several clients appear to have had their differences with the Pines too. A neighbor, who should be angry at the zoning board, has instead directed his ire toward a more accessible target in his own backyard. That's the sum total of the information you want to trot down to the police?”

Put that way, it didn't sound all that impressive. Aunt Peg's sarcasm didn't help either.

“Umm . . . right.”

“Do yourself a favor,” she said. “Don't bother.”

Well, that put me in my place. As I was sure it had been intended to.

“Anything else?” Peg asked cheerfully.

“No.”

“Then put my new nephew on. I've been waiting long enough.”

I reached around and handed Kevin the phone. He stared at it for a moment, then spit out the sock and aimed the new prize toward his mouth. I rescued it just in time and pressed the receiver to his ear.

Aunt Peg was talking. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but Kevin gurgled happily in reply.

After a minute, I took the phone back.

“Still there?” I asked.

“Kevin says he wants a Poodle of his very own,” Aunt Peg told me.

“No, he didn't. I was sitting right here.”

“Do you understand everything he says?”

“No, butâ”

“Trust me,” said Aunt Peg. “He wants a dog.”

“We already have five.”

“Then one more will hardly matter, will it?”

I was so undone by that leap of logic that, for a moment, I couldn't think of anything at all to say. Which gave Aunt Peg the last word.

As usual.

I spent the afternoon puttering around. Really, there's no other word for it.

I looked after Kevin and did some work in the garden. I went grocery shopping and stopped to pick up Davey from camp on the way home. While Sam put dinner together on the barbeque, I groomed Faith.

Sad to say, my Poodles were looking pretty scruffy. Keeping up a Standard Poodle coat is a labor-intensive endeavor, but I'd always taken pride in my dogs' appearances. As retired show champions, I figured they'd earned the right to be comfortable while still looking neat and well cared for. And that meant regular groomingâclipping, scissoring, and a bath and blow-dryâat least once a month.

But Kevin's arrival had changed all that. Any schedule I'd formerly adhered to had quickly been thrown out the window. My “spare time” now consisted of minutes grabbed here and there. Long enough to sit down with a cup of coffee maybe, but not nearly enough time to do a Poodle coat justice.

As it was, Faith got her face, her feet, and the base of her tail clipped. I brushed through her coat and did some minor reshaping. The bath would simply have to wait.

After dinner, I told Sam I was going out for a little while.

He lifted a brow. “Anywhere in particular?”

“Faith and I are taking a walk. Can you watch the kids?”

“Sure. Unless you want company. Then we'll come along.”

“Not this time. There's a guy I have to see.”

Sam cleared his throat. Tipped his head. Considered the situation. “Should I be worried?”