The Collected Stories of Amanda Cross (7 page)

Kate was in her office at the university, about to conclude that her office hour was over and the thought of a martini with Reed could be realistically contemplated, when she
heard a timid knock. Kate looked through the glass in the top half of her door and saw a silhouette reaching only a few inches above where the glass began. A midget, she thought. Well, midgets have problems too. But do they have academic problems, and with me? She opened the door to find herself confronting a girl child wearing a school uniform, glasses, braces, and a frown. Kate stared at the child so long, she asked if she might come in. Kate apologized and ushered her in, closing the door.

“Forgive me,” Kate said. “I was just a bit startled. You look rather young for graduate school. Or even for college, if it comes to that. Are you lost?”

“I’ve come to hire you as a detective,” the child said. “I have money. My father says you probably couldn’t find a herd of buffalo in a field covered with snow, but I figure if he doesn’t like you, you must be good.”

“My dear young woman,” Kate said, dropping back into the chair behind her desk, “I don’t know which misapprehension to confront first. But, in the order in which you offered them: I’m not a detective, either private or police; they work at that job a lot harder than I do; I have detected from time to time, but I never take money, it might cloud the fine, careless rapture of the adventure; I don’t know who your father is; and I am somewhat concerned that you hold his opinion in such low regard.”

You might think all this verbiage would have frightened the kid, but she held her ground admirably. “I hope I didn’t offend you about the money,” she said, returning her wallet to her pocket. “I would be very glad of your help.”

“It doesn’t sound to me as though your father would approve of your seeking my help, nor of my offering it. Who is your father? Someone I know?”

“His name is Professor Witherspoon,” the child said, assured that his name was sufficient to establish his identity and credentials in Kate’s eyes. She was quite right. Witherspoon was a member of Kate’s department, and to say that he and Kate never saw eye to eye on anything was to put their relationship in its least emotional terms. Kate was frank to admit that she could never decide if he was a monster or a lunatic; the best that could be said on her side was that most of the department agreed with her. Kate eyed his progeny with some dismay.

“It sounds to me as though I’m the last person you should come to. Am I to gather that your dislike of your father is sufficient to recommend to you someone he despises?”

The kid had no trouble with this one either, merely nodding. “I think he’s the most awful man I know,” she added. “I didn’t come to you just for that reason, though. My sister took a class with you, and she considered you worthy of recommendation.”

“Well,” Kate said with some relief, “I’m glad to hear there is one member of your family that you like. But I can’t say I ever remember having a Witherspoon in my class. I don’t remember all my students’ names, but I have a feeling I would have noticed hers.”

“Roxanna has taken our mother’s name: Albright. I’m going to do the same as soon as I can. I’ll have to wait at least until I leave high school. My sister is a lot older than me; she’s very smart and very beautiful, not like me.”

“You look fine to me,” Kate said. She meant it. Kate is the best disregarder of beauty in any conventional sense I’ve ever met, and if a person is glamorous or studiously well-dressed, they have to go a long way to gain her trust.

“I don’t look like my mother,” the child said with evident regret. “Also, I’m strabismic and have an overbite.
Put differently,” she added, “my eyes have difficulty focusing on the same object, and my upper and lower jaws fail to meet properly. I think it’s because I was such a disappointment. I was unexpected, you see, but they hoped–that is, my father hoped–that at least I would be a boy. I wasn’t,” she added sadly, in case Kate had any doubt.

Had the kid but known it, she had picked the quickest way to Kate’s sympathies. I think Kate asked her what she wanted in order to get her off the topic of her drawbacks.

“I want you to find my dog,” the kid said.

About this time, I’m sure, Kate was beginning to think of that martini with something close to passion. “I wouldn’t know how to begin to look for a lost dog in this city,” she said. “I’m afraid it may have been snatched by someone, or else wandered off and was hit by a car. Have you tried the ASPCA?”

“He wasn’t lost; he was stolen. And not on the streets, out of the apartment. The doorman saw someone leaving with Jasper under his arm. And the apartment wasn’t broken into. Which means it was an inside job.”

Kate took the bull by the horns (the same bull Witherspoon no doubt would think her capable of overlooking in a china shop). “Do you suspect your father?” she asked.

“I don’t know who to suspect.” The kid sighed. Kate said later if the kid had said “whom” she’d have thrown her out. “But Jasper meant, means, an awful lot to me.” And she began to cry, the tears falling from her eyes as of their own accord. She raised her glasses and wiped her eyes on her other sleeve.

“What kind of dog was he?” Kate asked for something to say. “I gather not a mastiff if someone could carry him out.”

“He was, is, a Jack Russell terrier. The breed isn’t yet accepted by the American Kennel Club, though it is by the
English. Jack Russell terriers are small, very low to the ground, white with brown faces and ears, and tough as anything. Don’t you see, it had to be someone Jasper knew, someone he thought was taking him out. He loves to go out,” she added, sniffing, “but he’s a fierce watchdog with anyone he doesn’t know.”

“You haven’t told me
your
name,” Kate said.

“Arabella. It was my father’s mother’s name. She was a suffragette who chained herself to fences. My father hated her. People like my sister call me Arrie.”

Of course it occurred to Kate that the kid needed a therapist, not a detective, and she also probably needed a new father and a new dog. “What about your mother?” she asked. “You haven’t mentioned her.”

“She’s away trying to stop drinking. She’s much younger than my father. She was a graduate student. She’s his second wife. Roxanna and I have two much older stepsisters from his first marriage. My father has never been able to produce a son, to his sorrow. I hope my mother gets better. The man where she is says the whole family ought to help, but my father hasn’t the time. My sister and I went down there once.…” She trailed off.

Poor Kate didn’t really know what to do. She wanted to help the kid, but there didn’t seem to be any evident practical course of assistance. Arrie seemed to understand her dilemma. “You could think about it,” she said. “My sister says you’re very good at thinking about things. Only try not to think too long because I’m very worried about poor Jasper. He can be very trying to people who don’t understand him.”

“And with that,” Kate said, relating the whole scene to Reed over her second martini, her first having been required simply to calm her down and stop her babbling,
“the kid left with a lot more dignity than I was exhibiting. What the hell am I to do? Could you call some old pal from the DA’s office to undertake a dog search on the side?”

Kate’s husband answered her real question. “The doorman saw someone leave with the dog under his arm, as I understand it. The dog wasn’t struggling, indicating that it wasn’t being nabbed by a stranger, but by someone it knew. You better find out more about the family.”

“It doesn’t sound like a family I want to know much more about. Perhaps we should offer to adopt Arrie and get her another Jasper.”

“You have got to begin drinking less,” Reed said with asperity. “We are a happy, adult couple, let me remind you; you have no trouble remembering it when you’re sober. You aren’t going to turn maternal on me after all these years?”

“Fear not. Just wait till
you
meet Arrie, not to mention her father, the esteemed Professor Witherspoon.”

“What is he a professor of, exactly?”

“Exactly is the word. He deals in manuscripts, the older the better, and in a foreign tongue. There is nothing about them he doesn’t know, to do him justice; the trouble is, he doesn’t know anything else. Confront him with an idea, and he turns into a dangerous, oversized porcupine with a very loud voice. He detests every new discipline or theory or concept of teaching, and if he had his way he would never have hired the first woman faculty member. He’s done his best to keep our numbers down. Women students, needless to say, are a different matter. He carries on with them in a manner designed to give sexual harassment a bad name. Women students should be grateful to sit at his feet and submit themselves in other suitable poses;
he doesn’t want them as colleagues. He is also pompous and leering, but we might as well keep this discussion on an impersonal basis, as is my wont.”

“That fills out the picture without getting us anywhere, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’ve
been
saying, ever since I got home. What, dear man, is my next move?”

“Something will occur to you,” Reed said with confidence.

The next day, Arrie’s sister Roxanna Albright phoned Kate’s office for an appointment. With enormous relief, Kate agreed to see her. Roxanna, being beautiful and older, could be counted on not to get to Kate in the same way Arrie had. No doubt they could arrive at a practical conclusion to the whole problem, insofar as it allowed of one. Perhaps it would be best to begin by advertising for Jasper, hanging plaintive signs on lampposts, that kind of thing.

Roxanna, whom Kate had unsuccessfully attempted to call to mind from some years back, exceeded all expectations. She was gorgeous, there was no other word. She must, Kate thought, have undergone some sort of transformation in the intervening years; not to have noticed her would have been like overlooking Garbo.

“I don’t know whether to apologize or implore,” Roxanna said, when they had both sat down. “Arrie didn’t consult me before coming; we’d talked about you once at dinner and I’d expressed my admiration. The fact that you had successfully undertaken some detective commissions was mentioned.”

“As well as the opinion that I couldn’t find a herd of buffalo in a white field; I know. But does the fact that your father despises me really qualify me to help Arrie? If so, I hope you’ll tell me how.”

“Oh dear. Tact is something Arrie doesn’t so much scorn as ignore.”

“I quite agree with her,” Kate said. “Tact should never interfere with one’s getting at the facts. Your father, for example, lacks not tact, but any concept of what the facts are.”

“How well you put it.” Roxanna paused as though considering how to go on. “I think the world of Arrie,” she said. “Arrie’s convinced she’s an ugly duckling; I talk of a swan, which in time she will become. Arrie’s going to do just fine. But for me, she doesn’t get much undemanding affection, or really, any affection at all. Except from Jasper, of course, which is what made this so awful. Jasper is a very responsive dog; he and Arrie have a relationship I can only call passionate. That’s why I wanted to come in person to tell you that he’s back, and apparently no worse for his strange adventure. We got a note, printed in capitals on plain paper, saying he could be found at five
P.M
. tied to the gate of the playground at Seventy-second Street and Fifth Avenue. Of course, Arrie was there on the dot, and so was Jasper. I’ve really only come to thank you for your kindness, not throwing her out, listening to her. It was a horrible three days; even my father’s glad the dog’s back, and that’s saying a good deal. You’ve been very kind.”

“There was no ransom asked, no demand at all?”

“None. My father pointed out to Arrie that if she went ahead of time, as she wanted to do, the kidnapper might see her and not return Jasper. It’s the only helpful thing he’s said in living memory, so I suppose this whole affair is remarkable for that alone.” Roxanna rose. “I know,” she said, “that Arrie will write to you and thank you for your sympathy and kindness. I thank you too.”

The next day, however, brought not a letter from Arrie,
but Arrie herself. She had waited patiently during Kate’s office hour until the last of the students had gone. She had Jasper with her, hidden in a very large sack. She let him out in Kate’s office, explaining that she had brought him because she hardly dared leave him alone if she didn’t absolutely have to, and because she thought Kate might like to meet him, having been so kind about his disappearance.

Jasper was a bundle of energy, perhaps ten inches high and eighteen inches long; he looked as though he could have taken on with ease anything five times his size. Having dashed about with relief at being out of the sack (necessitated by the university’s
NO DOGS
signs), Jasper sat down at Arrie’s feet and looked up at her adoringly. Kate began to feel she was being forced to watch a Disney movie that threatened never to end. Arrie, perhaps sensing this, became very businesslike.

“Jasper and I are not here only to thank you,” she said. “We wish to engage your services to find out who took him. Unless I know, you see,” she added, “I’ll never be able to feel safe in leaving him again. I’m sure you can understand that.”

Kate was silent–which wasn’t, as she was the first to admit, her usual part in a conversation. She had to recognize a clear reluctance to abandon this child to an additional unknown: her father was clearly as reliable as a lottery, her sister affectionate but hardly able, and certainly not obliged, to provide parental attentions. The dog seemed to be the only steady factor, and Kate understood that Arrie’s desire for assurance was certainly justified. How, on the other hand, to provide it?

“I have come with a suggestion,” Arrie said, reaching over to stroke Jasper, who sat expectantly–Kate doubted if the dog ever sat any other way–at her side. “My father is
relieved that I have Jasper back; so is my sister. I think they would be willing to agree if I invited you to dinner.”

“To case the joint?” Kate asked. Dinner with Professor Witherspoon, Roxanna, and Arrie, to name only the minimum cast of characters, struck Kate as likely to be bizarre. Apart from everything else, Witherspoon was the sort of man who, alone with three females, becomes either autocratic or flirtatious, neither of them a mode dear to Kate’s heart. On the other hand …