Drop Dead on Recall (8 page)

22

I watched Suzette slip
a pearl-handled silver cake server under a too-generous piece of coffee cake and wondered if she included people among the things that had to be broken from time to time in order to live well. She slid the gooey cake onto a plate with a different rose pattern than on the cups, and set it in front of me.
That’ll be way too generous to your butt,
nagged Janet Angel, but her evil twin reminded me that it would be rude to refuse. Especially when saliva
was practically dribbling down my chin. Suzette told Fly to go lie down, which the dog did with a big “You don’t feed me enough” sigh.

“I understand congratulations are in order.”

Suzette had just put a big bite of cake in her mouth. She stopped mid-chew, alarm all over her face. She lifted her linen napkin to her mouth, chewed, dabbed, and asked, “Congratulations? How did you know?”

“Everyone knows.” I meant, of course, everyone who trained at Dog Days. Suzette paled a couple of shades, which I thought odd. “It’s not every day that someone finishes an OTCH or a UDX, let alone both together.”

“Oh, that.” Her face changed colors again, this time to a lovely pale pink.

Oh, that? For two of the toughest, most coveted canine titles?

I plunged ahead. “I hear Fly’s in the lead now for Border Collies?”

Suzette wiped her mouth and regained her composure. “Thanks. Yes, I think she’s probably in first place. For now, anyway. It’s exciting.” Her voice was flat. “Really, I’m thrilled, but somehow it doesn’t mean as much with Abigail and Pip out of the running.”

Janet Demon blew a big fat raspberry in my left ear. She was getting pretty good at them. I ignored her. “Really?”

“Abigail and I were friends, you know.” I didn’t, nor had I realized until then what intriguing violet eyes she had.
Contacts?
“When they said she died … I froze, you know? It sounds crazy, but I was afraid to stop smiling.” I thought back to the big grin on her face when Tony Balthazar announced that Abigail had died. Suzette sniffed and went on. “Like if I kept smiling, maybe it wouldn’t be true, and if I stopped, I’d completely lose it. Which I did when I got in my car. I wasn’t sure I could drive home.” She pulled her braid over her shoulder and brushed her jaw line with the end. “Abigail could be a snot, but she was loyal to her friends and devoted to her dogs.”

Suzette studied her nails for a moment, then went on. “You know what Abigail told me would be the best send-off she could think of? A song of joy sung by dogs.” I thought back to Fly barking on cue during the supposed moment of silence at Dog Dayz. Suzette’s eyes softened and the corners of her lips turned up. “So during Marietta’s moment of silence, I decided to give Abigail what she wanted.”

“Fly barking.”

At the mention of her name, Fly walked over, glanced at me, and laid her satiny chin on Suzette’s lap. Suzette nodded, then bent and kissed the top of her dog’s head.

We sat in silence for a moment. A song of joy sung by dogs certainly beat the socks off a dirge. I began to wish I had known the Abigail beneath the prickly shell. I flashed back to the Malamutes howling along with Abigail’s ambulance, and had the oddest sense that their song lifted the dying woman’s spirit in her final moments.

Suzette brought me back to the moment. “Everyone thinks I was jealous of Abigail, but if it hadn’t been her and Pip, it would have been someone else. In fact, it is someone else by now. Several someones. I mean, if I didn’t like competition, I sure as heck wouldn’t show BCs in obedience.”

“No, I guess not.” Border Collies, with their brains and nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, are among the most successful breeds in obedience and agility competition. They are also far too eager to work to make good pets for most people.

Suzette pushed a bit of coffee cake in circles around the cabbage roses on her plate. “I’m sure people will always think that Fly couldn’t have been number one if Pip were still competing.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I thought you guys sort of flip-flopped back and forth in the standings?”

“Sure, we did, but Abigail and Pip were leading the past couple of weeks. We’ve had a little problem with straight sits.”

“Well, jeez, as you said, it’s not as if there’s no other competition in Border Collies.”

“True. But still. Abigail and I had our conflicts, that’s for sure. But we were friends long before we were rivals, and we did try to keep that in mind.” I was hoping Suzette would spill her guts, but she just waived a vaguely dismissive hand and laid her folded napkin beside her plate. “Whenever you’re ready, we can try for some pictures before the next downpour.”

I carried my plate and cup to the sink. As I set them down, I couldn’t help but notice the ring on top of the canister. Who could miss the exquisite emerald-cut diamond snuggled between two smaller stones? My jewels pretty much come from the sales racks at department stores, so I’m no gem expert, but I’d hazard that the rock on Suzette’s counter was a couple of carats.

I took nearly a hundred photos of Fly over the next three
-quarters of an hour, and wrapped up the session with some terminally sweet candid shots of her smooching Suzette. A menagerie of thoughts had been frolicking through my mind the whole time, and as we were winding down I asked Suzette how well she knew Abigail’s husband, Greg.

“Oh, Greg.” I thought she started to sigh, but if she did, she stifled it. “I love Greg. He’s a really sweet guy.”

Whoa.
Love? I was composing a follow up when Suzette diverted me with a question of her own.

“So, did you get some good ones?”

“I think so. We’ll know for sure when I download them, but I think we even have some calendar-girl shots.” I sell a lot of animal and landscape photos to calendar publishers. I clicked on the review screen and held my camera so that Suzette could see a few of the images.

“Great. When the puppies arrive I’ll have you come take some more.”

“Puppies? She’s expecting?”

“No, not yet. But I’m planning to breed her after Nationals in January.” That would be the obedience national championship, making the puppies ready for their photo shoot in late winter or spring, assuming Fly’s hormones cooperated.

Suzette helped me lug my stuff around the house, through the gate, and into my car.

“So who’s the lucky fella?” I asked her as I slammed the van door.

The high color she’d shown earlier flooded back into her cheeks. “Fellow?”

“Yeah. The stud.”

Her blush deepened a shade before she recovered and gave her head a shake. “Oh, you mean for Fly.”

Hey, there’s your opening, so ask her about that big fat rock
, whispered my little demon, but goody two-shoes on my right shoulder
reined me in with a gentle
Mind your own beeswax
. I settled for a nod.

“A dog in Virginia. Saw him last year at Nationals, and I like him a lot. Conformation champion, OTCH, MACH, working on his herding championship.” Which would make him a champion in the show ring and in the three performance sports of obedience, agility, and herding. I felt tired just thinking about the work that went into earning all those honors.

“Well, let me know when the puppies are ready to model and I’ll be here.” I left her standing in the driveway, rubbing her engagement-ring finger as if it were missing something.

23

I contemplated Connie Stoppenhagan’s
revolting ability to keep her hair and makeup pristine even after her early morning run as I savored my toasted snicker doodle bagel with cinnamon-honey butter. I really do try to keep the calories down, at least for my first breakfast, and I should have in light of the coffeecake Suzette practically force fed me the day before, but Abigail’s sudden departure reminded me that the future is an illusion. If I was destined to choke to death over my breakfast, it wouldn’t be on a whole-grain gluten-free thing with tofu spread. Nope, I want a tasty life. Besides, I had more important things than calories and fat grams on my mind. I swallowed and said, “I feel so bad for Greg.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Connie replied.

I stopped mid-chew. “But he’s always been so devoted, and he put up with all her crap. ‘Greg do this, Greg do that.’ Even if they were separated, do you really think they’d split up for good?”

Connie sipped her tea before answering, and I wondered again how she kept her nails so perfect. “Abigail wanted a divorce. She was waiting until after the Border Collie Nationals in October. She didn’t want her focus diverted since Pip was a serious contender for top national standing again this year.”

“How do you know that?”

“I check the rankings every week.”

That wasn’t really my question, but her comment surprised me. “You do?”

“Sure.” She looked at me. “Not just obedience. All the rankings.”

“Oh.” Of course she did. She was a seriously competitive dog person. “Anyway, I meant how did you know Abigail wanted a divorce?”

“She told me. We were set up next to each other at the Auburn shows.”

“That was March! They’ve been separated that long?”

She shrugged.

“So what was he doing at the trial? He was Johnny-on-the-spot when she collapsed.”

“Must have come to see someone else, ’cause he didn’t come with Abigail. I saw her arrive. Poor thing had to carry her own crate and chair.”

I winced at the sharpness of Connie’s remark, then winced again as I remembered thinking much the same thing on the day of the show. “I guess most people won’t miss Abigail all that much, but I can’t believe anyone wished her dead.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

I gave her a “What are you talking about?” look.

“Greg, for one. He’ll be sitting pretty now, that’s for sure. The money was hers, you know, family money.”

“No, I had no idea.” I’d never thought about it.

“Her grandmother was Eloise Holtz. You know, Aunt Ellie’s pastries …”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, there was an article about her in
Fort Wayne Woman
about a year ago. It said that good old Eloise left her fortune to a son and a
daughter, Abigail’s mother. Abigail told me there were actually three siblings, but the old lady had some sort of falling out with the other daughter and wouldn’t talk about her. That was Tom’s mother …”

That woke me up. “Tom Saunders?”

“Yep. The article didn’t even mention her. Anyway, the brother was killed in an accident of some sort not long before the old lady died, so Abigail’s mother got everything. She ran the business for a while, then sold it for megabucks. When she died a few years ago, Abigail got the money. And now it’s Greg’s.”

“But Greg doesn’t need the money. He makes a decent living.”

“He deserves it, living with that shrew all those years.” The venom in Connie’s voice pushed me back a few inches. “Don’t know why he chose a drill sergeant instead of a wife.”

I thought back to my own marriage. If I’d believed the comments I heard when it ended, instead of my own insider’s view, I’d have thought I’d walked away from heaven on earth. “I don’t think anyone else really knows what goes on between two people. He stuck with her a long time.” Connie didn’t respond. “Anyway, I can’t see him killing her for her money.”

“Who said he killed her?” Connie’s eyes opened wide.

“Sorry. I thought you were suggesting that was a possibility.” I didn’t want to let Detective Jo Stevens’ cat out of the bag, since it wasn’t fully gestated. Still, Connie was always good for bouncing ideas around. “Anyway, I don’t think they have her cause of death yet.” I leaned across the table toward her. “But think about it. Abigail was young and in great shape. How could she drop dead?”

I watched in wonder as Connie wiped her mouth. How was it possible that her lipstick had stayed in place in spite of bagel, coffee, and napkin? “Happens all the time.”

“It could, I guess. But still …” I thought of telling her about Jo Stevens’ reaction to Abigail’s totebag and its contents, but Connie went on before I could begin.

“Abigail thought Greg was having an affair. She hired a private investigator, but he said Greg wasn’t fooling around.” She went to the counter to top off our coffees. When she got back, she continued that line of thought. “Not that he didn’t have opportunities to play around.”

“He is a good-looking guy.”

“Yep,” she echoed, “a good-looking guy with a really snazzy ride.”

I pictured Greg in his sleek red car. I’d only seen it once, and couldn’t remember what it was. What do I know from cars? Something foreign and pricey.

“Actually, though, if anyone was fooling around, my money would be on Abigail,” Connie said.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“As soon as Greg moved out, Abigail got her hair cut and changed her whole look. Seems like new-guy behavior to me.”

“Could be she just wanted a new look.” I knew I wanted a new look. I just had no idea how to go about getting one.

“I suppose.” Connie seemed to ponder the possibility. “Or maybe she thought she was competing with someone else, like she said.”

I sipped my coffee and thought about that. “Did Abigail say who she thought Greg might be fooling around with?”

“She never mentioned a name, but if I had to guess …” She
folded her hands together against the edge of the table. “No, I shouldn’t speculate about such a thing. It will come out soon enough.”

I berated her for holding out on me, but she wouldn’t budge, so I said, “I still can’t believe Greg would kill Abigail.”

“Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Su … uh, his girlfriend got tired of waiting and decided to get rid of the competition.”

The image of a big fat diamond ring sparkled in my mind’s eye. “Suzette?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

But you almost did say
, I thought. “Suzette must be, what, fifteen years younger than Greg?”

“More like twenty. Not that most guys mind hooking up with younger women.” She sounded disgusted. “Abigail knew Greg wasn’t above cheating. That’s how she snagged him in the first place.” I wanted to pursue that little bombshell, but Connie preempted me. “Speaking of attractive men, Ms. MacPhail, what’s up with you and Tom?”

“Tom Saunders? How do you know Tom, anyway?”

“He went to school with my big brother. They had a horrible garage band in high school.” She crinkled her pert little nose in disgust. “Tom was at our house all the time. He making music with you now?”

“Don’t be silly. I barely know him.”

“Why, Janet, I do believe you’re blushing!”

Before I could plead a hot flash, Connie glanced at her watch and started piling wrappers and cups onto her tray. “Gotta run.”

I nodded, already drifting through a tangle of convoluted thoughts. Even if Greg were fooling around, why kill his wife? All those years with her acid words eating at him and he’d never strangled her. Why now? Then again, inheriting from a dead wife might be better than losing a wealthy one through divorce. But we don’t even know that she was murdered. And if she was, it might not have been Greg. What if Connie was right about Suzette? It wouldn’t be the first time a lover waiting in the wings knocked off a spouse who held center stage too long.