Underdog (19 page)
“Hmmm?” He was running his hands down Faith's front leg, checking the amount of bone, and didn't look up.
“Just before Jenny died, she told me she was planning to be away for a bit. Where was she going?”
“What?”
I repeated the question as Rick felt for spring of rib. He stopped then, and straightened. “I don't know what you're talking about. Jenny wasn't planning on going anywhere.”
“But she told me she'd be missing class that week.”
“You must be mistaken.” He skimmed a hand quickly over Faith's hindquarter then stepped back, signaling that the examination was over.
“I'm not. Jenny told me she was going to be away.”
“That's not possible,” Rick said shortly. “I don't know anything about Jenny taking a trip and she never would have planned one without telling me. You must have misunderstood.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I guess I did.”
He waved a hand toward the outside mat. “Down and back. And be sure to keep her straight.”
We managed to complete the rest of the exercise without saying one more word to each other than was absolutely necessary. In no time at all, I was back at the end of the line. It would be a good ten minutes before Faith and I were called upon to do anything else. That was fine because it gave me time to think.
Jenny had told me she was going away, I was sure of it. At the time I'd assumed she meant a short trip, but what if she hadn't? By then, Ziggy
had
gone away; with Jenny concocting an elaborate lie to cover his disappearance.
had
gone away; with Jenny concocting an elaborate lie to cover his disappearance.
I'd speculated that Jenny might have been thinking about divorcing Rick, but maybe I hadn't considered all the possibilities. I thought back to the times I'd seen Rick and Jenny together; the way he'd always been watching her, touching her, speaking on her behalf. At his kennel, when he'd told me that Jenny was his whole life, I'd assumed he was merely waxing poetic; but what if he wasn't?
Maybe Jenny had found her husband's constant attention smothering. Maybe she'd been looking for a way out.
According to her sister, Jenny had thought of divorcing Rick once. Angie said he had changed her mind. How? By convincing her to stay? Or by forbidding her to go?
The talk I'd had with Timmy Doane's parents was fresh enough in my mind to still rankle. Timmy was handling a manipulative relationship by running away emotionally. What if Jenny had decided to solve her problems with Rick by running away physically?
Trapped with a husband who loved her too much to let her go willingly, she'd concocted a plan to get away that didn't need his consent. I knew she'd faked Ziggy's death. It didn't take much of a leap of logic to see that she could also have been planning to fake her own. Was that why she had written the phony suicide note? Had the missing jewelry Angie had told me about been intended to finance her run?
It all made a terrible kind of sense. Poor Jenny. Before she could get away, someone had stopped her from ever running again.
Nineteen
It's a good thing class was almost over because I was dying to run my theory past Aunt Peg. The moment Rick dismissed us, I pushed her out the door and informed her I was following her home. She accepted that pronouncement with a lifted brow and a heavy foot on the gas pedal.
Aunt Peg's herd of house Poodles met us at the door. There were six of them, all retired champions and all bitches except for Beau, who was definitely king of his domain. Their chorus of barking and leaping went on for several minutes and was clearly meant to make Aunt Peg feel guilty for having left them. While she passed out biscuits, then let the troupe out the back door, I went and called Joanie the baby-sitter and asked her to hang on for another hour.
Aunt Peg was brewing tea when I returned to the kitchen. A box containing an all-butter crumb cake sat open on the counter. The woman has a sweet tooth like you would not believe. Obviously she was hoping to tempt me too, because she'd set out two plates. It was too late at night for coffee. I poured myself a glass of water from the faucet, pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Listen to this.” I led her back through what we had learned so far, about Jenny hiding Ziggy away and claiming he was dead, the fact that she'd written a suicide note and then been murdered. I reiterated what Jackie the kennel girl had told meâmat Rick and Jenny had been fighting long enough and loud enough that they apparently didn't care who overheard.
“Then tonight at class I remembered something Jenny told me the last time I saw her. She said she wouldn't be at class the following week because she was going away.”
Aunt Peg lifted the crumb cake down from the counter and made the first cut. “So?”
“When I asked Rick about it he said I must have been mistaken, that Jenny didn't have any trips planned.”
“At least not any trips that he knew about,” Aunt Peg said thoughtfully.
“Precisely. I think Jenny was planning on leaving him. According to Angie, she'd tried once before. She'd even gone as far as filing for divorce, but Rick had convinced her to stay. Rick says she was happy and that everything between them was hunky-dory. But Angie and Crystal Mars and Jackie have a different story to tell. And then there's the note.”
When she saw I wasn't going to help myself, Aunt Peg cut a large square of cake and slipped it onto my plate. I eyed it unhappily, but didn't push it away. “Not to mention the missing jewelry.”
“You think she was going to fake her own suicide and then disappear?”
“That's exactly what I think.”
“But what about the business? It was as much hers as Rick's. She couldn't just walk out on that.”
“Why not, if it was what she wanted? Angie said once that Jenny didn't get into handling because she loved it so much, but rather because she was young and it was the only thing she knew how to do. According to Angie, Jenny would have been happy to leave it all behind.”
Aunt Peg lifted a piece of cake to her mouth, chewed and swallowed slowly. She was halfway through a square twice the size of mine. With her metabolism, she was probably burning calories by chewing. “Suppose Jenny did fake her own death, how would she have explained that to Crystal Mars when she showed up alive to get Ziggy?”
“Ridgefield and Stratford are nearly forty miles apart,” I pointed out. “It's possible that Crystal might not have heard what had happened for weeks. Neither Angie nor Rick have anything to do with the woman, so they wouldn't have told her. When Jenny did die, Crystal only found out by accident, and then not until after the funeral.
“Suppose Jenny staged a suicide then went directly to Stratford to pick up Ziggy. By the time Crystal got the news, she probably would have assumed that it happened sometime after she saw Jenny. There wouldn't have been any reason to be suspicious.”
There was a rumble outside as the Poodles came bounding up the steps onto the back porch. Aunt Peg opened the door and let them in. Beau immediately went over and sat down beside her chair. She ruffled his top-knot and ears fondly. “Of course she'd have had to arrange her death in such a way that no body was ever found.”
I plucked a round, sugar-coated crumb from the top of my cake and popped it in my mouth. “I'd have made it look like I jumped off a bridge. The Tappan Zee is popular for that.”
“So she leaves her car there, presumably with the note inside. How does she get to Stratford?”
“Hitch-hike?”
“And you don't think Crystal would have found that a little odd?”
I hadn't thought about that. I sighed and dug into my cake. “Maybe she had an accomplice.”
“Who?”
“Angie?” I offered, then quickly shook my head. “I doubt she's a good enough actress. Besides, Angie's still angry about the missing jewelry.”
“How about Crystal?”
“Possibly. She certainly was the only one who knew that Ziggy was still alive. But if she was in on the plan, why didn't she admit it?”
“Maybe she wasn't sure whose side you were on.”
“Could be.” I thought back to the show the previous weekend. “And then there's Florence Byrd.”
“What about her?”
“When I told her I was a friend of Jenny's, she said something about Jenny not having enough friends. That maybe if she'd had better people around her, she might still be alive today. Maybe Mrs. Byrd was planning to help Jenny, but she never got the chance.”
“We ought to talk to her and see what she knows.”
Faith came over and laid her muzzle on my lap. I scratched beneath her chin. “I already tried. I didn't get very far.”
“She's a tough old bird, if you'll pardon the pun. I doubt she'd take being questioned lightly.”
“Who do we know that could give us an introduction?”
Aunt Peg thought for a moment. “Maybe Crawford. He knows everybody. I'll bet he could get us together next week at Springfield.”
The following week was Thanksgiving, too, but that wasn't the way dog people thought. They measured the weeks of the year not by the usual calendar but by the dog shows that held those dates, as in “The puppies are due right after Elm City” or “We'll be on vacation the week of Penn Ridge.” Springfield was a four-day weekend of big shows held at the Eastern States Exposition Grounds in Massachusetts over Thanksgiving vacation.
Faith was entered for two days and Peaches all four. According to Aunt Peg, the weekend drew many of the best dogs from all over the country and would be a valuable learning experience for me. She, Davey, and I were planning to share a hotel room.
“Will you talk to him?” I asked and Aunt Peg nodded. “In the meantime, I'll call Detective Petronelli and tell him what we're thinking.”
“Good idea.”
I pushed back my chair and stood up. Between us, we'd finished nearly half the cake. I could just about feel the pounds sliding right down onto my thighs.
“You're coming next Thursday, right?”
Aunt Peg looked up. “Where?”
“To my house, for dinner. It's Thanksgiving. The whole family's coming, remember?”
“Oh. Of course.”
Of course, my foot. Dog people.
On Saturday night, I had a date. For me, that was a big deal. I couldn't remember having had a serious date since high school. In college and graduate school, we'd socialized in groups. After that, I'd married Bob and had Davey. Since Bob left, there'd been only a couple of casual relationships with men who had turned out not to be nearly as interesting as I had hoped.
The problem was between working and motherhood, I had neither extra time nor energy to expend trying to bolster a faltering social life. I also tend to have very high standards. I can't see the point of wasting my time with some mediocre man when I could be home enjoying my own company and that of my son.
And then Sam showed up. I'd tried pushing him away once or twice, but he kept pushing back. I like a man with perseverance. Not to mention sky blue eyes and a tight butt.
He'd called on Wednesday and asked me out for Saturday night. No Poodles, no Aunt Peg, no Davey. In other words, no distractions. Just us. Who knew what might develop? Certainly not me, but I dressed with great care from the skin out, just in case.
Sam was punctual. He arrived right on the dot of seven and since I was still upstairs poking at my hair, Joanie let him in.
“Hey, Mom!” Davey yelled up the stairs. “Sam's here. And he's got flowers and everything. You better hurry up!”
Five-year-olds have no appreciation for romance. I left my hair and went downstairs. If I didn't get there soon, Davey might manage to convince Sam that he needed to tag along.
But as I turned the corner and started down, I realized there was little chance of that. Sam was waiting for me at the foot of the steps. Davey and Faith were playing tag around him, but with notable lack of concern for his own safety, Sam only had eyes for me. He was holding roses, creamy white ones with petals the color of pearls. Their heady fragrance filled the hallway. My heart began to pound.
“You look great,” said Sam.
I was wearing a sleeveless black wool dress with a mandarin collar and a body hugging shape that ended well above my knees. The two inch heels that completed the outfit would have me begging for mercy by midnight but for the moment I felt long and lean and terribly sophisticated.
“Thanks,” I said. “So do you.” His blond hair was wind ruffled; the killer smile was firmly in place. Beneath the camel hair topcoat, I saw a navy blue jacket and a tie whose pattern, on closer inspection, consisted of dozens of intertwined Poodles.
He held out the flowers. I took the bouquet in my arms and inhaled deeply. “They're beautiful. Thank you.”
For a moment I wasn't sure what to do next. I'd known Sam for months, but suddenly everything seemed strange and new.
“Hey!” cried Davey, rounding the corner with Faith hard on his heels. “I thought you were leaving.”
“We are.” I leaned down and brushed a kiss across his curls.
Joanie was right behind him. From the way she kept staring at Sam with her mouth hanging open, I figured he was having the same effect on her that he was on me. “Do you want me to put those in a vase?” she asked.
“That would be great.” I handed over the roses and got my coat out of the closet. “We won't be late.”
“Yes, we will.” Sam looked at Joanie. “Do you have a curfew?”
“I'm sixteen,” she said, trying to sound very grown-up. “I can stay out as late as I want.”
“Good.”
Before I could say another word, Sam had bundled me into my coat, out the door, and into his car. Or maybe I was just speechless. Up until now, our times together had been casual, impromptu: pizza and Poodles. But not tonight. Tonight was a night for white roses and champagne.
“Where are we going?”
“Le Chateau.”
“You're kidding!”
He looked over, amused. “No, I'm not.”
“I've always wanted to go there.”
“Good. Then it will be a special occasion.”
Le Chateau was one of the finest restaurants in the area. Housed in an old stone mansion in the countryside of South Salem, it was a bit of a drive from almost everywhere. The fact that reservations were essential and hard to get was a testament to its excellence.
Oh my.
In the car on the way, Sam talked about his work. He'd started his own business in the spring and was designing a new type of interactive software for a client on the West Coast. Since going out on his own, work had been coming in even more quickly than his most optimistic projections had predicted. Modestly, he ascribed his success to a thriving market; but I knew better. He was just plain good.
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