Bride & Groom (25 page)

“We’d have to hire a bookkeeper. Forget it. It’s a socialist marriage. To each according to need. That’s all. It’s easy.”

“Yes, but what’s really a need? As opposed to a want? Or a whim?”

He laughed. “Dogs are a need. All the rest is extravagance. Let’s eat.”

As we set the kitchen table and spread out the food, we both kept an eye on Sammy, who had never been fed at the table, except possibly by Kevin, but who hadn’t given up hope, either. When Steve and I sat down opposite each other, Sammy eased his nose onto the table and rested his chin.

“Leave it,” Steve told him and then finally said to me, “So, what’s up?”

“Judith Esterhazy,” I said. “She was a patient of Rita’s. Yes, no big deal, except that I think I know more about her than I’m supposed to. The day that Rita and I went shopping and had dinner at the mall, Rita had two margaritas and some wine. I was driving. Anyway, she started telling me about a patient of hers. No names, of course. And Rita wasn’t gossiping. She was talking about a dilemma she was in. She couldn’t tell what reality was. The patient was a woman who thought her husband was cheating on her. The husband said that the wife was paranoid. The woman had stopped treatment. That’s the gist of it. And later, when I asked Rita, she said that she should never have said anything. What I think is that the woman was Judith.”

“Rita didn’t make any connections?”

“Why would she? I knew something was up yesterday, at the shower, because Rita was being her social self. She wants to keep up a brave front. She was valiant. She was talking to everyone. And then all of a sudden, she stopped. She had that look that she gets when one of her patients shows up. You’ve seen it.”

He dipped a piece of sushi in soy sauce. “Yeah, it’s unmistakable.”

“And Judith was the last person to arrive at Ceci’s. Judith arrived. Rita got quiet. And she got that look. And what I’ve realized is that Rita has heard all about Mac, and she’s seen his book here, but I never call him anything but Mac, and his last name is McCloud. Judith is the only person who calls him Bruce, and it’s all she ever calls him. Everyone else calls him Mac. And Judith’s last name is Esterhazy. I’ve probably mentioned Judith to her, but it’s a common first name. Rita had no reason to see a connection.”

“I want you to try to remember exactly what Rita said.”

“She said that the husband had sent the wife to therapy because the wife thought he was repeatedly unfaithful to her. He claimed she was imagining things. Rita said his infidelity was the wife’s truth. From the patient’s point of view, she was telling the truth. Something like that. And that her patient’s reality was the only reality that she, Rita, had available. The husband wouldn’t see Rita. Oh, one other thing. The wife had a dog, and Rita said that one issue was that the woman loved the dog more than she loved her husband.”

“We could ask Rita to listen to us. And not say anything.”

“Not now! Cheating and lying are the last things she needs to think about. I saw her for a second today. Steve, she looks as if she’s lost five pounds since Saturday. We just cannot put any pressure on her about anything. She trusted Artie. The only one of us who didn’t was you.”

“Veterinary reflex. Nice guy. But if he’d been a dog, I’d’ve known to muzzle him before I got close.”

“Well, I wish Rita had had the same intuition. And I wish we’d warned her.”

“We went over that. It could’ve been some other guy.”

“We were fooling ourselves. We wanted to be wrong.” One piece of seaweed-wrapped rice remained. “Do you want that?”

“It’s yours. I got ice cream.”

As he dished out Ben & Jerry’s, I asked, “So what does it mean? Mac sent Judith to therapy because she thought he was unfaithful. He told her she was imagining things. She told Rita she wasn’t. And then she stopped therapy.”

“She knew. And then something convinced her she was wrong? Or she just didn’t like therapy. But, look, Holly, what we’re doing here is leaping to conclusions. One conclusion. Mac. That’s illogical.”

“We’ve been over the murders. So has everyone else.”

“One more time. All women. All killed in the evening. Not in the middle of the night. Killed at times when people go places or are on their way home. All killed right near where they lived. Or were staying. All except the first one owned dogs, and the dog or dogs were nearby. All except the first did some kind of work that had to do with dogs. All except the first were people you’d met. And Mac knew. Who else knew them?”

“You met Elspeth. So did Judith and Ian, at the talk at the bookstore. If Mac and I knew all of them, except Laura Skipcliff, there are probably other people who did, too. Other dog writers. Vets. Dog trainers. Vet techs. Veterinary assistants. And so on.”

“You see? The value of taking a fresh look. Techs. Assistants. Think about it. Laura Skipcliff doesn’t fit the pattern. Or doesn’t appear to. But someone else does. At your launch party. The woman who’d died?”

“Nina Kerkel. But she died a natural death.”

“She worked with Mac. Veterinary receptionist?”

“Yes. I remember because Judith said that she was all too receptive. Yes! Judith was muttering about her. Venomously, too. And according to Ceci, who knows Greta Kerkel, her ex-husband’s mother, Nina Kerkel, was, quote, no better than she should’ve been, unquote. But Nina Kerkel wasn’t murdered.”

“She died,” Steve said. “If you look at it systematically, Laura Skipcliff was the first victim, but Nina Kerkel was the first in the series.”

CHAPTER 32

The dog lover’s hymn: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” The melody ran through my head as I sat at a card table at the front of the mall bookstore on Tuesday evening. I obviously wasn’t walking, and I certainly wasn’t alone. With me were the two most fanatical fans any author could desire. One pressed his body against my left thigh, the other pressed hers against my right. The behavior was intimate, but when a signing draws only two attendees, the author welcomes almost any demonstration of high regard, even if, as in this case, the demonstrative individuals don’t buy her book. Gazing into the adoring eyes of my worshipful public, I realized that I should have brought Sammy the pup along, too. Sammy, having eaten several copies of
101 Ways to Cook Liver,
knew it inside out, and if he’d disliked it to begin with, he’d hardly have gone back for second helpings. The dog writer’s hymn: “You’ll Never Sign Alone.”

Mac had warned me about the signing and had himself declined the invitation on the grounds that no one would come. He had, however, advised me to accept. According to Mac, chain bookstores in downscale strip malls were always devoid of shoppers during a signing, but the autographed books did, in fact, sell once the downcast author had gone home. He’d said that such signings could be depressing, but that he knew the events coordinator at this place and that she’d probably keep me company. He’d ended by saying that I should do as I pleased about the invitation.
Pleased
wasn’t exactly how I felt at the moment, but it consoled me to observe that no one else’s books were selling, either. Indeed, the warm-blooded mammals in the store consisted of a clerk, the events coordinator, Rowdy, Kimi, and me. So much for never taking both dogs!

I felt sorrier for the events coordinator, Irene, than I did for myself. I’d written the book and had it published. The reviews had been good. In other bookstores, people were buying it. But how was Irene supposed to coordinate a non-event that, as such, required no coordination?

As it turned out, Irene evidently had considerable experience in meeting this challenge. She did so by getting out a second folding chair and sitting with us. She was a little, fined-boned woman in her mid or late fifties. Her short white hair flowed backward and upward from her delicate face. The pitch of her voice, too, headed upward as she spoke, and she had a habit of lifting her gaze to the ceiling,

“It’s always like this,” she said, “and these days, women are afraid to leave home after dark. Or in daylight, for that matter, some women, anyway. A lot of our customers are women. They’ll buy the signed books later.”

“It’s fine.” It was, too. As a dog writer living in Cambridge, I was chronically plagued by the awareness that my neighbors were writing academic articles about verb forms in Aramaic, recent economic shifts in Argentina, the existence of thermonuclear something-or-others, and the role of women in the American colonies, whereas I was yet again discoursing on the methodology of the reliable recall. The publication of
101 Ways to Cook Liver
had made me feel slightly less marginal than I had before. But now, all of a sudden, I was doing a book signing to which no one had come. At last, I was undeniably a
real
author! Hurrah!

“It’s too bad Mac wasn’t free to come, too. You weren’t nervous about driving alone?”

I smiled. “I’m not alone.”

“Some of those women had dogs. That woman in Brookline had her dog in her car.”

“Bonny Carr. Her dog was in a crate. She apparently got out of the car first. That’s what I’d normally do. But now I’ve arranged the crates so I can open Kimi’s from inside the car. She and I get out, and then we get Rowdy.”

In a startling demonstration of his fearsome nature, Rowdy responded to the sound of his name by dropping to the floor, rolling onto his back, and imitating a giant bunny rabbit.

Irene laughed and then bent down to stroke his tummy. “He is so cute! It’s funny that such a big dog can be so adorable.”

Kimi, who misses nothing, decided that Rowdy was getting more than his fair share of the attention. Worse, she’d evidently taken a liking to Irene, into whose lap she suddenly tried to leap. Kimi weighed exactly seventy-five pounds. At a guess, Irene weighed a hundred and five. My first—and horrifying—thought was that the tiny Irene was at high risk for osteoporosis: a thin, fine-boned Caucasian woman in late middle age. If Kimi had to hurl herself into people’s laps, couldn’t she pick hefty, heavy-boned African-American men of twenty? I gave Kimi a full body shove. “Sit! Irene, are you all right?”

Luckily, she was. What saved her from being crushed was, I think, her small lap; Kimi simply hadn’t had room for a solid landing. Still, I was mortified. I offered a heartfelt apology. I also put Kimi on a down-stay and put my foot on the section of her leash right near her collar in case she decided to break. Irene was lovely about Kimi’s misbehavior. She laughed it off and said, “It’s always the minister’s children, isn’t it! Please don’t worry about it.”

The incident, which could’ve broken Irene’s pelvis, broke the ice between us. Its absurdity somehow made one of us mention Barbara Pym, who turned out to be one of Irene’s favorite novelists as well as one of mine. We drifted into an enthusiastic discussion about Jane Austen and Penelope Lively. Kimi remained in a solid down-stay. Eventually, Irene asked me to sign the copies of my book that were stacked on the card table. I considered the signing a success. As I got ready to leave, Irene again raised the question of my safety.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll crate Rowdy. Then Kimi and I will get into the car together. Besides, I’m parked right outside. There’s plenty of light.”

“These women were murdered right near where they lived. Or were staying.”

“I’ve made an arrangement at home. When I get there, I’ll use the horn, and my fiancé will come out. I live in Cambridge. I’m used to being careful.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being pushy. It’s just that I knew the first victim. Victim! I can’t think of her that way. Laura Skipcliff. I hadn’t seen her for ages. Decades. But she and Mac and I went to college together. I always liked the two of them. Mac was crazy about her, but she left him for someone else. And then she went off to medical school. I haven’t seen Laura since we graduated. But I always liked her. What a terrible way for her life to end.”

I was too surprised to do anything except echo Irene. “Terrible,” I said inadequately. “Terrible.”

CHAPTER 33

“The rest was speculation,” Steve said. “What you’re doing now is withholding information.”

“What
I’m
doing? What
we’re
doing. But it's got to stop."

The second I’d arrived home from the bookstore, I’d told Steve about Mac McCloud and Laura Skipcliff. We were now in the yard sitting at our wedding-present picnic table sipping wine from wedding-present glasses. The wine bottle was on the table. Next to it, a fat candle burned in a glass-sided lantern cleverly designed to prevent breezes from blowing out the flame. Wedding present. Good one. It’s easy to see why some couples get married for the gifts.

“We’re victims of dog osmosis.” Steve gestured toward our five dogs, who were in the yard with us. “We’ve absorbed an attitude of unconditional loyalty. It’s like that thing you’ve got framed in your office. Senator Vest’s Eulogy on the Dog. ‘Faithful and true even to death.’ Only here, what’s at issue is the death of other people, these women. Mac has been helpful to you, and in some ways, he seems like a nice guy, but he doesn’t own you.” Having left a crucial point for last, he said, “Besides, we’re not dogs.”

“You’re right. When you’ve spent as much time with dogs as we have, it’s easy to get the idea that the only kind of loyalty worth having is unconditional loyalty. Perfect fidelity.”