Hot Dog (19 page)

“Tuna?” I suggested weakly. I figured there had to be at least a can or two in the cupboard.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Aunt Peg snapped. “We don't need food. What we need is to figure out what's going on around here. Pardon me for being blunt, but is
everything
in your life going haywire?”

“Since you asked,” I said, equally blunt. “Pretty much so, yes.”

“Tell me what's happened since I saw you last.”

Ten minutes of talking brought her up to speed. During that time, Eve and Faith wandered by to say hello. Davey dribbled through the kitchen with his basketball and got sent outside. And Aunt Peg helped herself to a kitchen chair and began to eat the tuna sandwiches I'd made because I didn't have anything else to do with my hands.

“George Firth,” she said when I was finished. “It had to be.”

“Or Marian.”

Aunt Peg shook her head. “Marian's a dog person. She never would have left your Poodles at risk like that. While from what I've heard of George, he wouldn't have given it a moment's thought.”

“Maybe the Poodles were turned loose as a diversion. Something to keep me busy so I wouldn't have time to go looking for Dox right away. By the way, George left a message on my answering machine last night demanding that I give Dox back.”

“There you go, then,” Aunt Peg said, as if that settled things to her satisfaction. “He must have decided to take matters into his own hands.”

I wasn't so sure. “Why would he? I'd told him that I thought the donation was a bad idea. As far as he knew, I might have been happy to return Dox to him. Whereas your friend Marian struck me as someone who's not terribly patient, maybe just the kind of person who might be capable of doing something desperate.”

Aunt Peg sat and thought for a minute. Her fingers drummed idly on the table. “Marian didn't have to do anything desperate,” she said finally. “She had a plan.”

Ah yes, the plan. Aunt Peg had mentioned it the other day.

“I'm not saying it was a good plan.”

My eyes narrowed. “Did it involve any felonious activities?”

“Not that I'm aware of,” Peg said blithely.

As if that were reassuring.

I dumped our empty plates in the sink and rejoined her at the table. There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

“You might as well tell me about it,” I said.

“Y
ou needn't look so huffy,” Aunt Peg said sharply.

“It's not as if I was expecting something like this to happen. Marian's plan was quite innocent and really rather clever.”

“Did it have anything to do with her wanting to reconcile with George?”

“Not at all.” Aunt Peg looked surprised. “What would make you think that?”

“When I saw George yesterday, he seemed to be under the impression that she wanted him back.”

“Oh, pish,” said Peg. “That's nothing but George's ego speaking. Marian is better off without him and she knows it. Since their separation, he has apparently filled his need for female companionship by dating several acquaintances of Marian's, women he already knew, through her, during the course of his marriage. The divorce rate being as high as it is, and single women always seeming to outnumber single men . . .”

I pictured the luxurious condominium and hazarded a guess. “Good old George is probably doing pretty well for himself.”

“Just so. As you might imagine, Marian has not been exactly thrilled by this turn of events. Recently, however, she came up with a way to make the situation work to her advantage. George's current lady friend is a woman named Lynda French, another friend of Marian's who is also recently divorced. She and Marian are in firm agreement that neither one's relationship with George will be allowed to break up their friendship.”

“Good for them.” I thought I had a pretty good idea where she was going. “Is Lynda a dog lover, by any chance?”

Aunt Peg nodded as though that was a given. Perhaps in her world it was.

“Marian's plan is really very simple and it hinges on George getting Dox back. Once that happens, Lynda is going to arrange to see the puppy and fall head over heels in love. George, Marian thinks, will be persuaded to give Dox to Lynda as a present. She, of course, will then be happy to pass the puppy back to Marian.”

I lifted a brow. “And they think George will fall for that?”

“George doesn't have to fall for anything. He only has to close his eyes and cooperate. Men have been willing to “fall for” things for centuries where a pretty woman is concerned.”

Sad, but true. Not only that, but we all knew that George didn't want Dox. He'd tried to get rid of the puppy once; there was probably no reason to think he wouldn't jump at the chance to do so again.

“However,” Aunt Peg continued, “just because George and Marian have been arguing over Dox doesn't mean we should narrow our options. Perhaps neither one of them took him. You told me just this morning there was a possibility your wallet had been lifted by some disgruntled clients of Bertie's. Maybe they were your mysterious visitors.”

“To what end?” I asked. “Dox wouldn't mean anything to them.”

“How do you know?” Aunt Peg snorted. “Cute as he is, we have yet to come across anyone who thinks of that poor little puppy as anything other than a means to an end. In the Azarias' case, I suppose we're still talking about revenge. They are dog people, after all. Who better to think of taking a dog? On one level, it makes perfect sense.”

Right. The dog level. Aunt Peg's preferred context for almost any situation.

I, however, had other ideas, including the one I'd tried out earlier. Perhaps I'd find a more receptive audience in Aunt Peg. “What about that reporter, Jill Prescott?”

“What about her?”

“She's been following me around for days, hoping something horrible would happen that she could turn into a story for the evening news. Well now something has. Maybe it's not as exciting as she was hoping for, but it's better than nothing. She and Rich were here earlier asking questions and trying to shoot some footage. I have to say I found it awfully convenient that she just happened to be on the spot when the break-in occurred, yet somehow managed not to see a thing.”

“I suppose we shouldn't rule her out,” Aunt Peg agreed. “It's a pity that woman thinks you're going to be the one to earn her her fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Jill isn't looking for fifteen minutes. She wants a whole career. And she's in a great tearing hurry to get started. It wouldn't bother her one bit to get her big break at my expense.”

“What do you suppose Jill Prescott would do with a Dachshund puppy?” Peg mused.

“I haven't a clue. She doesn't strike me as someone who's terribly savvy about dogs. Hopefully, if Jill does have Dox, she'll keep him somewhere safe until we get this whole mess sorted out. Ditto for Jean and Mike. Also Marian and/or George. Beyond that, I'm pretty well stumped. So if you have any bright ideas about what to do next, feel free to speak up.”

The last time Aunt Peg and I had needed to find a missing dog, she'd been brimming with good suggestions. My aunt thrived on problems like this. Surely she wouldn't disappoint me.

I held on to that thought—rather desperately—as the silence between us lengthened.

“If Dox were simply lost,” she said finally. “I'd tell you to make flyers, offer a reward, call the local vets and obedience classes, and visit all the pounds in the area. But presumably whoever has the puppy took him on purpose and will take pains to keep him out of sight.”

“Rather like Beau,” I mentioned, just in case her memory needed jogging.

Beau was one of Aunt Peg's champion Poodles. At one time, he'd been her premier stud dog, the kingpin of the Cedar Crest line. Three years earlier, he'd been taken from her kennel in the middle of the night. The search we'd launched to find him had brought Aunt Peg and me together and ended up changing both our lives.

“Quite so,” Aunt Peg said dryly. “However, as you may recall, it did take me more than ten minutes' notice to devise a proper plan. Let me think about it. I'm sure between the two of us we'll come up with something. Now in the meantime, about Sam . . .”

The alacrity with which she changed subjects was enough to give a listener whiplash. What meantime? What
about
Sam? Wasn't Dox the one we were supposed to be helping? And how was it that we were seemingly incapable of holding a conversation that didn't include my one-time fiancé?

“What does he think of this rather incredible run of bad luck you seem to be having?”

“He doesn't,” I said firmly. “We haven't spoken about it.”

“Whyever not?”

“In case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of things Sam and I don't talk about.” Like why he'd felt it was all right to pick up and leave for five months in the midst of the wedding plans that I, his intended bride, had been making.

“In case I haven't noticed?” Aunt Peg repeated incredulously. “Everyone around you would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to notice that. You may not like what Sam did, but eventually you're going to have to unbend enough to forgive him. You know how much he cares about you—”

Somewhere in the front of the house the Poodles began to bark. The interruption was a godsend. When the front door banged open and shut and Davey came racing into the kitchen, I was already on my feet. His face was pink with excitement.

“Hey, Mom, there's a policeman outside! He came in a real patrol car and everything. He let me sit in the front seat and he even showed me the button that makes the siren work.” My son smiled blissfully. “Oh yeah, he wants to talk to you.”

“Did you ask him to come inside?”

“Why would he want to come in here when he can sit outside in his car?”

Sometimes you just have to love the way a seven-year-old boy's mind works. I hurried outside to remedy my son's rudeness. Aunt Peg left while I was talking to Officer Collins, saving me from the rest of her lecture. Unfortunately, that was the only good that came of the officer's visit. He took some notes, exhibited sympathy for my loss, and offered the name of a glass man who might be willing to come on Sunday, albeit at overtime rates.

As Peg and I had discovered in the past, missing dogs, even ones that have been stolen, don't rank very high on the police priority list. Indeed, Officer Collins seemed to think I should be grateful that nothing else had been taken. Since evidence of the break-in—the shattered window in back door—hadn't impressed him much, I declined to mention my earlier problems, with the exception of the missing wallet, which he dutifully noted.

“I'll write out a report,” he said. “You can come down and pick up a copy at the station. You'll need it if you want to file an insurance claim.”

I thanked him for his time and watched him drive away. Then I went inside and called the glass man. At least he might be able to make himself useful.

As it turned out, Joey Brickman was home, and Davey spent Sunday afternoon playing at his friend's house. I used the time to try to get my life back in order: repairing the broken window on the back door, closing my credit card accounts, and going back to the supermarket to shop for the week's food.

I also left a message on the answering machine of a local locksmith, saying I was in need of a consultation. The notion that a stranger could come into my house at will was more than a little unnerving. If my current locks weren't up to the job of keeping people out, then I'd better find a new system that was.

Before leaving, Aunt Peg had promised to contact Rose and tell her what had happened—sparing me, at least until the following evening, the necessity of making what was sure to be a painful explanation. Rose had entrusted me with Dox. All I'd had to do was keep an eye on the puppy for a month. Hardly an arduous task. So what did it say for the state of my life that I hadn't even been able to manage that?

The two people I didn't call were George and Marian Firth, and you may feel free to file that omission under the heading of “Taking the Coward's Way Out.” If either one of them had Dox, then the puppy was probably in good hands. If neither did—and consider that I had no other particularly hot leads on where else to look for him—well, think about it, what did we really have to discuss?

Davey came home just in time for dinner. I'd made his favorite meal, hamburgers and macaroni and cheese, and we ate together in the kitchen as the sun set outside. Before it was fully dark, I'd already leapt up twice to check the locks and turn on more lights. By Davey's bedtime, I had every room in the house brightly lit. All the outdoor floodlights were on as well.

From the road, I was sure the house looked much the same as it had a week earlier when we'd returned from the dog show in Rhode Island. I wondered if that fact was significant or simply ironic. There was always the slight possibility that I was being stalked by someone who worked for the power company.

After Davey was in bed, I sat in the living room and tried to read. Usually that's a favorite pastime; that night, nothing could hold my attention for long. Every noise, from a car driving by on the road outside to the wind rattling against a shutter, had me leaping to my feet and looking out the window.

I am not by nature a jumpy person. That night I couldn't seem to sit still. Even the Poodles felt my uneasiness. Faith, who most evenings would have been asleep on Davey's bed, kept prowling around the house. The faint click of her toenails on the hardwood floors was a reassuring sound when the quiet began to feel oppressive.

Though I'd been involved in solving several mysteries, this was the first time trouble had followed me home. In the past, finding a murderer had been an intellectual exercise. I'd followed the leads, put the clues together, and eventually come up with an answer.

The problems I'd investigated had belonged to other people. And much as I might have cared about the outcome, I had not, for the most part, felt personally threatened. I had not become a target. Now, for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom, that had changed. Someone was coming after me, and I had no idea why.

The sudden ring of the telephone sounded like a clarion call in the silent house. I shot up off the couch. The phone was only one room away, sitting on the kitchen counter. Even so, my breathing was short and jerky when I picked it up and heard Sam's voice.

“Melanie? I was just talking to Peg. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I said brightly. Models use that same tone to sell laundry detergent.

“I see.” No doubt he did. His next words confirmed it. “Do you want me to come over?”

Now there was a loaded question. Of course the answer was yes . . . and no. Would I have felt more comfortable if Davey and I weren't alone in the house? Yes, definitely. Did I want Sam feeling that he had to rush to my side out of some misplaced sense of duty? Unequivocally no.

“Davey and I are fine. Really. You don't have to worry about us.”

“I
do
worry about you.” Sam sounded frustrated. “Peg said someone broke into your house this morning.”

“I've already had the back door repaired. And I'll get a locksmith out in the morning. There's nothing more you could do. . . .”

Except perhaps keep the nightmares at bay, I added silently.

Sam didn't say anything. For a long moment—wavering—neither did I. Then he spoke again, and my chance slipped away.

“If you don't want me to come, I won't. But you know you can call me any time. I'll be here. I'll answer. Even if you just feel like talking in the middle of the night. Call me, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered. It was all the sound I could seem to manage. “I will.”

Unexpectedly, tears stung the corners of my eyes as I replaced the phone. I wondered if I'd made the wrong decision, given the wrong answer. Why did things always have to be so complicated? Would a little simplicity in my love life be too much to ask?