Raining Cats & Dogs (A Melanie Travis Mystery) (14 page)

“I heard that!” said Borden. “Why do people keep saying things right in front of me like they think I’m not even here?”

“Because they know how bad your memory is,” Harry chortled. “Even if you get mad, you wind up forgiving us because you always forget what you were mad about in the first place.”

“I guess that’s true,” Borden admitted.

“Back to the cigars,” I said firmly. Monitoring this crew was like trying to herd cats.

“What was the question again?” Sandy asked.

“How did Mary find out that her son was back in town?”

“Somebody passed her a note,” said Harry. “That’s where the news came from.”

“Who?”

Sandy glanced toward the orderly who was still standing by the door. “We figure Jay must have given it to her. You want something brought in under the table, he’s the one to see.”

Harry nodded in agreement. “It was a note from her son, Michael, all right. And it made her mad as blazes.”

“I remember that,” Borden said. “I’d never seen Mary lose her temper like that. She was such a gentle person. Hard to imagine that something could set her off that way.”

“Do you know what the note said?” I asked.

The three men looked at each other. “I never saw it,” said Sandy. “You guys?” The other two shook their heads.

“So you don’t actually know whether she was angry about Michael’s presence being kept from her, or whether it was something he’d written that upset her?”

“I guess not,” Harry admitted.

“She was planning to see him, though,” said Sandy. “Said there were some things that needed to be set straight between them.”

“What things?” I asked, but nobody answered.

For once, not one of them had anything to say.

A
n hour later, as Faith and I were leaving Winston Pumpernill, Minnie and Coach caught up to us on the front steps.

“I saw what you were doing in there,” she said.

I stopped and turned to face her. Faith, who’d bounded a couple of steps ahead of me, hit the end of the leash, spun a quick circle on her hindquarter, and came trotting back. She hates it when I do something she hasn’t anticipated.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. The other members of the obedience group filed around us and continued on to their cars. There was something in Minnie’s tone that I hadn’t liked at all. “I was doing the same thing you were.”

“You were asking questions.”

The administrators of the facility had a right to an opinion about my behavior. And perhaps Steve and Paul, too, since I was there under their aegis. But what I did or didn’t do was none of Minnie’s business.

Keeping my voice purposely mild, I stared her down, “So?”

“So I guess that means you really are a detective, like Steve said at class.”

“Not a detective,” I corrected, “more like an interested bystander. Someone who would really like to see Mary Livingston’s murderer found and brought to justice.”

“Geez, are you for real? I thought we were just fooling around the other night. You mean you actually investigate things?”

“Sometimes.”

“And you, like, solve crimes?”

“Occasionally.”

“And you’re going to solve this one?”

With each question, Minnie’s tone had grown more incredulous. Now she was staring at me like I had suddenly grown a pair of spiked horns. Being the object of that much scrutiny was somewhat unnerving.

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “We’ll see.”

I glanced down at Faith. Having been caught flatfooted a minute earlier, she was at my side, nose tipped upward, watching to see what I was going to do next. What a good dog.

I cued her with my hand and hopped down the last step. The Volvo was parked at the near end of the row. All that stood between me and the opportunity to escape was one very annoyed-looking woman. And a large Standard Schnauzer.

“But you’re working on it,” Minnie persisted, not allowing herself to be left behind.

“Yes, I suppose I am. Does that bother you?”

“Should it?”

I stopped again, exasperated. My key was out and in my hand. I’d already beeped the locks.

“I have no idea,” I said. “Is there something you’d like to talk about?”

“Oh, like what? Like you think I should confess to you?”

“That depends.” This conversation was growing stranger by the moment. “Do you have something you want to confess?”

I had a cell phone. And although I didn’t happen to know the number of the Greenwich police station, I could press nine-one-one. If Minnie wanted to confess to Mary Livingston’s murder, she could do so directly. I wouldn’t even have to be involved.

Except that Minnie didn’t answer my question.

So much for the possibility of an easy solution, I thought.

I opened the car door and loaded Faith into the backseat. The Volvo had been sitting in the sun, and the interior was warm. I rolled down both windows on the passenger side.

“Look,” Minnie said finally, “it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Until you followed me out here,” I told her, “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Don’t try to play dumb. I know you heard what Steve said the other night.”

I thought back. Had Steve said something incriminating? My mind was a blank. “Steve said lots of things. I’m not sure I know—”

“Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“Sure,” I agreed. The way things were going, she probably would have followed me home if I hadn’t.

The manicured grounds of the nursing home spread out around us like a verdant blanket. At various places around the lawn, hardwood benches had been placed beneath trees that were not yet in bloom. It was still early enough in the year, however, that feeling the sun on our backs was preferable to the shade that would come later.

“How about out there?” I said, gesturing. “We could take the dogs and go sit on a bench.”

“Fine by me.”

I retrieved Faith from the car, and the four of us walked across the lawn. I wondered whether we were being watched from inside the building. Considering the extra security precautions that were now in place, it seemed likely. Good reason, I decided, not to unhook Faith’s leash and let her run free.

Minnie must have felt the same way, because when we sat, she gave Coach the “down” command. The Schnauzer lay at her feet and cradled his head between his paws.

“Everybody has things in their past they’re not proud of,” Minnie said before Faith and I had even gotten settled. “I guess I’m no exception.”

“Let me stop you right there. There’s no reason you have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m not an official detective. I don’t work with the police. Maybe this is none of my business.”

That sounded pretty good, right? Still, I’d be the first to admit I was hoping like crazy that she wouldn’t take me up on it. So what if what she was about to confess had nothing to do with me? By now she had me curious as hell. In fact, if Minnie changed her mind and walked away, I’d probably have to go digging around in her past and find out this stuff for myself.

“Steve and I had an affair,” Minnie blurted out.

I waited, hoping she would add something more. She didn’t.

That was it? I thought.
That
was the big secret? Based on the way they behaved around one another, I’d suspected as much already. I also couldn’t see why the news made any difference.

“People have affairs all the time,” I said.

“Steve’s an idiot.”

That surprised a laugh out of me. “You wouldn’t be the first woman to say that after the fact.”

“Yes, well, it took me a while to figure it out. And before I did, we were pretty close.”

“How long were you together?”

“Fifteen months. At one point, I even thought we might be heading toward getting married.”

“Did Steve think so, too?”

“Apparently not,” Minnie said with a frown. “We had a bit of a blowup over the subject. That was the beginning of the end.”

The slats of the bench felt warm against my back. I leaned back and rested my arm along the top. Faith and Coach were lying nose to nose at our feet, both of them snoozing in the sun. There were worse ways to spend a sunny spring afternoon.

“So how come you still train with him?”

“Why not?” asked Minnie. “He’s good; the best in Fairfield County, anyway. Why should I give that up just because we’re not sleeping together anymore?”

“Maybe because it’s obvious that the two of you don’t get along very well?”

“If we don’t get along, that’s Steve’s problem, not mine.”

I sat in silence and enjoyed the view.

“Besides,” she added after a minute, “maybe I enjoy needling him a bit every now and then.”

Yes, I thought, remembering back to the first class Faith and I had attended. She did.

On the other hand, if an educated guess on my part would have told me that Steve and Minnie had a past, a second conjecture might have brought me to the conclusion that Steve and Kelly Marx were sharing a present. Right under Minnie’s nose.

“And maybe he enjoys needling you, too,” I said.

“You mean Kelly?”

I nodded.

“I told you he was an idiot.”

That was a cheap shot.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Kelly seems nice enough.”

“I imagine she
is
nice enough,” Minnie said in a dismissive tone. “Why wouldn’t she be? It’s that dog of hers that’s ridiculous. Steve would never put up with behavior like that from one of his own dogs. Or from Coach, for that matter. That’s how I know he isn’t serious about her. He’s just biding his time with Kelly, waiting for something better to come along.”

“And do you think she’s biding her time with him?”

Minnie shrugged. “How should I know? Why should I even care?”

Good question. If I knew the answer to that, I might even have known why the two of us were sitting on a bench in the sun discussing the topic in the first place. Since Minnie didn’t seem inclined to enlighten me, I decided to prod her along.

“What does all this have to do with Mary Livingston?”

“I’m getting to that,” Minnie said. “I just wanted to give you some background first. You know, so you’ll understand the context.”

I nodded in what I hoped was an encouraging way. Minnie folded and unfolded her hands in her lap.

“When I was with Steve,” she said, “I told him some things about my past. Things that I assumed he’d keep in confidence. But now we’re obviously not together anymore, and it’s beginning to look like my secrets are fair game.”

“So we’re back to what he said the other night?” In the interim, I’d been replaying the scene in my mind. “Steve was talking about how any one of us could be a suspect. And he implied that the police might want to take a closer look at some of us than others.”

Minnie nodded. “That was his not-so-subtle way of taking a jab at me. The main thing you need to know about Steve is that he’s a control freak. He has to have everything exactly his own way or he gets all bent out of shape. That’s probably why he and Kelly get along. She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who’s capable of much independent thought.”

That was cheap shot number two, in case you’re keeping track. And as it happened, I was. For a woman who was supposedly over her past love, Minnie sure enjoyed slipping in a few jabs of her own.

“And you refused to let Steve control you,” I guessed.

“You have to understand, he starts out like this really nice guy. The whole ‘I’m in charge’ thing doesn’t happen overnight. But little by little things happen that eat away at you. In the beginning, I didn’t even realize what was going on. When I did, of course, I stood up to him. I had to stand up to him….”

When her voice trailed away, I turned to look at her. Minnie wouldn’t meet my gaze. Her lower lip was trembling, as though she might be on the verge of tears. Deliberately, I looked away again, giving her time to collect herself and her thoughts.

“I was involved in an abusive relationship once before,” Minnie said when she was ready. “I knew the signs, damn it. I was stupid enough to ignore them the first time, but I certainly wasn’t about to let it happen again.”

“Was Steve physically abusive to you?” I asked gently.

“No.” She gave her head a firm shake. “Never. And seeing the way he handles the dogs, I doubt that he ever would have been. In fact, that was one of the things that attracted me to him in the first place, his gentleness. With Steve, it’s more of a mind game. He likes to believe he can outthink people, outplay them, if you will. That’s what he’s trying to do now, manipulate me with the threat of revealing something I told him about my past.”

“About the other relationship you were involved in before him?”

Minnie gazed out over the lawn. “I was married when I was very young.”

“And now you’re divorced?”

“Widowed.”

That was a surprise. I’d assumed Minnie was only a couple of years older than me. She was young to have lost a husband.

When I didn’t comment right away, she drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then, for the first time since we’d sat down, Minnie shifted around to look me straight in the eye.

“I killed him,” she said.

I guess I’m not very good at hiding my emotions. Because not only did I start in my seat, I also managed to inadvertently kick Faith. The Poodle leaped up in response. For some reason, that made Minnie laugh.

“Don’t rush off,” she said. “Despite some evidence to the contrary, I’m not actually dangerous.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, settling Faith back down at my feet. “I didn’t think you were. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

“Shocked is more like it.” Minnie looked satisfied by the reaction her words had produced.

Since she didn’t mind discussing the event, there didn’t seem to be any need for reticence on my part. “How did your husband die?”

“I shot him. The bastard deserved it.”

“The earlier, abusive relationship?”

Minnie nodded. “Except with Dan, when the time came that I realized I needed to get out, he refused to let me go. Like it was his choice, instead of mine. I packed my bags and filed for divorce. That’s when he started stalking me. I reported him to the police; I took out a restraining order. None of it did a damn bit of good. The authorities didn’t do a thing to help.”

“So you took matters into your own hands.”

“Damn straight. And trust me, in my shoes you would have done the same thing. I went out and bought a gun for protection. I took some lessons and learned how to use it. The next time Dan came after me, I was ready. It was time he learned how it felt to be on the receiving end for a change.”

Ready for revenge, I thought. And holding a loaded gun.

While I would like to think that I would never let a man walk all over me, I wasn’t at all sure that in her position I would have reacted the same way. “You shot him in self-defense.”

“Exactly. There was only one problem.”

I lifted a brow.

“As it happened, I shot him in the back.”

Oh.

“I was arrested,” said Minnie, “but never arraigned. I had a good lawyer, the gun was legal, and there was plenty of supporting evidence that Dan had been harassing me. My lawyer made it clear that if the police wanted to pursue a case against me, we would feel obliged to go to the press and make it known how little they’d done to protect me, when they’d been aware for months that I was in danger. Eventually, they decided to simply drop the investigation and move on.”

“And you moved on as well.”

“To Steve. How’s that for history repeating itself?”

“Not your best choice,” I admitted.

“It could be worse,” Minnie said matter-of-factly. “At least he’s not stalking me. In fact, up until last week, I thought we were managing pretty well.”

In a thoroughly dysfunctional way. Then again, considering some of the things my family had been up to, who was I to throw stones?