Death of a Dog Whisperer (9780758284570) (5 page)

Abruptly his face fell.

“Crap,” I muttered heartily.

“What?” Sam had just come to join us.

“I don't think Davey has any bait. Did you give him some?”

Sam shook his head. “I forgot all about it. You?” He looked at Peg.

“I was assured that my assistance wasn't needed,” she snapped.

Back in the tack box we had a baggie filled with dried liver that I'd prepared the night before. Davey should have had it with him, but in the rush to get to ringside nobody had thought to dig it out.

Augie didn't
have
to have bait. He would show well enough without it. But the incentive of being rewarded with his favorite treat would have added sparkle to his performance. Not only that, but Davey would be the only handler in the ring who wasn't carrying treats, which would leave Augie at a disadvantage.

There was nothing we could do about that now, however. In the time it would take me to return to the grooming tent, find the liver, and get back to the ring, the class would already be over.

Then Sam touched my shoulder and directed my attention back to the ring. Apparently we weren't the only ones who had noticed Davey's dilemma. As the first handler in line straightened his puppy and prepared to move out, Crawford held back for a moment. He brushed past Davey and dropped a handful of liver into his palm.

“Great,” Davey said with a broad grin. “Thanks!”

“Don't mention it,” I heard Crawford tell him. “Now see if you can beat me fair and square.”

Davey didn't quite manage to do that, but he did come close. Crawford's big white puppy was beautifully made and a natural showman. No one was surprised when Mrs. Hadley quickly moved him to the head of the line. But just as quickly she pulled Augie out and placed him second. For their first time out together as a team, it was a very creditable performance.

Davey was beaming as he left the ring with the red ribbon clutched in his hand. Since he had beaten two other professional handlers, both of whom had shown nice puppies, I could well understand his delight.

“Careful,” Aunt Peg admonished, when we'd all gone around to meet the pair at the gate. Augie, pleased with his performance, was leaping and twirling in place. “Don't let him get messed up. You might have to go back in.”

She was right, of course. Once all the dog classes had been judged, the winners of those classes would return to the ring to compete for the Winners Dog award and the all-important points that came with it. In our excitement, the rest of us had overlooked that fact that if Crawford's puppy went Winners, Augie, who had been second to him, would be eligible to compete for Reserve.

And that was exactly what happened. Crawford's pretty puppy beat the Open class winner handily. Then Davey hustled Augie back into line and proceeded to do the same. Mrs. Hadley smiled as she handed him the purple and white striped ribbon signifying that Augie had taken Reserve Winners Dog in the major entry.

“Well done, young man,” she said. “That's a very nice puppy. You're going to have a lot of fun with him.”

“Thank you.” Davey blushed and ducked his head. “I already am.”

It was the perfect conclusion to their first dog show venture. Davey smiled for the rest of the day. Even Aunt Peg looked pleased.

I love it when a plan comes together.

“
N
ow
what?” I said to Bob. I had read his name on caller ID as I picked up the phone. “I introduced Nick to Aunt Peg just like you wanted. Trust me, they're halfway to being best friends already.”

“Good afternoon to you too,” my ex-husband replied. “I would ask how you're doing on this fine day but judging by your greeting, I guess I already know.”

Let's be clear on something. Bob and I have worked on maintaining our friendship in the years since we got divorced. Davey will always be a bond between us. Not only that, but now Bob is also partners with my brother, Frank, in his North Stamford coffee bar, The Bean Counter. So it's inevitable that there are areas where our lives will overlap.

But I never lose sight of the fact that there are a number of good reasons why Bob and I are no longer married. Among them, his propensity to act first and think about consequences afterward. Just because I had allowed myself to be drawn into my ex-husband's most recent scheme didn't mean that I was willing to become involved in whatever brilliant new idea he had come up with now.

“I'm having a perfectly wonderful day,” I told him.

At least I had been until the phone rang. The Poodles and I had just come in from a long walk. Casey, Raven, and Faith trotted back to the kitchen for a drink of water. Tar picked up a knotted rope and dangled it under Augie's nose. The puppy snatched the other end of the toy and the two of them began to pull.

I carried the phone over to the living room couch and sat down. Eve hopped up and draped herself across my lap. My fingers tangled idly through her hair.

“Sam took the kids to the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk to see the penguin exhibit,” I said to Bob.

“I know. He called this morning and asked if I wanted to go with them. I told him I was too busy working on the house.”

A decade earlier when Bob and I were married, he'd been employed by a major accounting firm in White Plains. Post-separation he had wandered for a while, eventually ending up in Texas. There he'd taken a job doing the books for a small, struggling, oil company engaged in wildcat drilling.

When the company had been unable to make payroll, Bob had accepted a share in several wells in lieu of salary. Six months later, nobody had been more shocked than he was when his new partners had struck oil. Now, aside from his accounting duties at The Bean Counter, Bob was free to devote the rest of his time to his many do-it-yourself projects.

“How's that coming?” I asked. “You're working on something upstairs now, right?”

“Yeah, I'm expanding the bathroom. That's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

That made me laugh. “Sorry, you've called the wrong person. I don't know a thing about plumbing. And even less about construction.”

“That doesn't matter. What I care about is that you lived in this house a lot longer than I have.”

Eve tipped her face up to mine. I blew softly into her nose and rubbed a hand along her muzzle. “So?”

“So I found something interesting. Something you're really going to want to see.”

“What is it?”

“Come over and I'll show you.”

Of course he couldn't tell me over the phone. That would be too easy.

I lifted Eve off my lap and stood up. “If it's Davey's retainer that he lost in fifth grade, we don't want it back. In fact, I don't even want to see it.”

“You'll want to see
this,
” Bob said. “I promise.”

He hung up the phone before I could ask any more questions.

Faith and Raven came trotting down the hallway. Casey followed close behind. While I'd been talking, Tar had managed to tangle the rope toy around both the leg of the coffee table and his ear. Now he was stuck.

Augie backed away, then sat down and stared, his head tipped comically to one side. Faith took in the situation in a glance. She looked as though she was rolling her eyes.

While I considered whether or not I wanted to humor Bob, I lifted the table and unwound the rope, then teased it free from the big dog's ear. Liberated, Tar jumped up and shook his head. He was probably trying to figure out how the table had gotten the better of him.

The phone rang again. I lifted it to my ear.

“Don't sit there and think about it,” said Bob. “Just come.”

Maybe he knew me better than I realized.

“Does this have anything to do with your ghost problem?” I asked.

“Mel, just get in your car.”

“This had better be good,” I told him.

“It's better than good. It's amazing.” Bob hung up again.

I guessed that meant I was going.

I popped Augie—whose show coat needed to be protected—into a crate and left the rest of the Poodles loose to guard the house while I was gone. They didn't look very fierce to me, but sheer numbers probably made them deterrent enough. Ten minutes later, I pulled into Bob's driveway and parked the Volvo in front of his garage.

The small, cape-style home was freshly painted in a soft shade of dove gray, accented by white shutters. Bob had redone the walkway that led to the front door; and a month earlier he'd planted a colorful assortment of spring flowers in the beds that skirted the home's foundation. I had to admit, the place looked great.

I paused on my way to the house and glanced at the neighboring home that belonged to James and Amber Fine. The front door was closed. The shades were drawn against the summer sun. A black and white cat lay on the warm stoop, one hind leg lifted straight up in the air as it arched around nimbly and licked its stomach. Nothing new to see there.

Bob didn't wait for me to knock. Before I could even climb the steps, he already had the front door open. “Finally!” he cried. “Come on in.”

I hurried inside and Bob shut the door behind me.

“What's this all about?” I said. “What could you possibly have, that I would need to see so desperately?”

Instead of answering, Bob dug his hand deep into the pocket of his cargo shorts. When he pulled it out a moment later, his fingers were curled protectively around something. He held out his hand and opened it slowly. Nestled in his palm was a diamond ring.

“This,” he said.

“Holy moley.” I expelled a sharp breath. No wonder he'd been excited.

I bent down for a closer inspection. Bob's find was an ornate, Art Deco-style cocktail ring. In the center was a round cut diamond that was at least a carat in size. Surrounding its high setting were several rows of smaller diamonds. The band appeared to be made of platinum.

“Where did you get that?”

“It was here in the house,” said Bob. “I found it upstairs.”

“May I?” I reached forward tentatively.

He nodded and I skimmed the piece of jewelry up off his palm. It was heavier than I'd expected. Grasping the band, I held the ring up into a shaft of sunlight coming in through a front window. The stones sparkled and a prism of colors shifted and danced on the wall behind us.

“Is it real?” I asked.

“Apparently so. I took it to a jeweler in Greenwich this morning and had it appraised. Judging by the design, they figured it was probably made sometime in the early twentieth century.”

I couldn't resist. I slipped the band onto the tip of my ring finger. It wouldn't slide past the first knuckle.

“It's tiny,” I said.

“People had smaller hands then.”

I tugged the ring off and handed it back. “I want to hear the whole story,” I told him. “I think you'd better start at the beginning.”

“I don't know the whole story,” Bob replied. “That's why I wanted you to see it. I thought maybe you'd have a story for me. I was wondering if the ring was yours.”

“No way.” I laughed. “Where would I have gotten a ring like that? I've never seen it before in my life.”

“Too bad,” said Bob. “That would have made things easy.”

The dining room was just to the right of the front hall. Bob walked that way. We each took a seat and he set the ring down on the table between us.

I'm not usually drawn to sparkly things, but I couldn't seem to take my eyes off the jewel-encrusted bauble. I scooped it up, cradled it in my palm for a moment, then tried sliding the band onto my pinkie. This time, with a little effort, the ring pushed down to the base of my finger.

“”It's beautiful,” I said, holding out my hand to admire the effect. “You'd think that whoever lost this ring would have moved heaven and earth to get it back. Where did you find it?”

“I've been working on the bathroom. I'd imagine you remember how small it was?”

“Oh yeah,” I said with a laugh.

Bathrooms constructed sixty years earlier had been designed for function not luxury. This one contained just a sink, a toilet, and a bathtub, all wedged into the smallest possible amount of space. The only towel rack was on the back of the door and there was barely enough room for a hamper. I could well understand why Bob might want to do some updating.

“I decided to make it bigger. I started last week.”

I pictured the home's compact second storey. There were just two bedrooms, the bathroom, and a couple of small closets. “Where?”

“I took out the linen closet and expanded in that direction. I broke through the wall in between, and that's where I found the ring. When the dust settled, it was just sitting there on the floor. At first I thought it was a piece of broken glass. Then I took a closer look, and here we are.”

“What did the appraiser tell you? Is it worth a lot of money?”

“Probably somewhere between four and five thousand dollars. To get a better estimate, the jeweler said he'd have to remove the center stone from its setting but I told him that wasn't necessary. Aside from the big diamond in the middle, the others are mostly just chips. Apparently the workmanship is pretty special though and that added to its value too.”

“So it's valuable, but not worth a fortune.” I wriggled it off my finger and placed it back on the table. “Even so, a ring that was made nearly a hundred years ago probably has sentimental value too . . . for somebody.”

“I agree,” Bob said with a nod. “Now that I know it isn't yours, it seems to me that we ought to try and figure out who it
does
belong to. I've been thinking about this since I found it. Probably the best place to start is with the people we bought the house from. Do you remember their name?”

He didn't ask for much, did he? That was thirteen years ago.

I frowned, thinking back. “It was Morris, wasn't it? Dan and Emily Morris? I'm pretty sure he worked in New York. They'd just had their second child and needed more room; that was why they were moving. At the closing, Emily Morris told me she hoped that you and I would be as happy in this house as she and Dan had been.”

Abruptly I stopped speaking as the remembered sentiment hit home.

Bob looked at me and sighed. “Well, that didn't happen. But at least we're both in a good place now.”

“Absolutely,” I agreed. I was as eager to put that topic to rest as my ex-husband was. “Why don't you look around online and see if you can find the Morrises? Maybe they still live around here. If that doesn't work, we can go down to the Town Clerk's office and have a look at the property records—”

“Hey, Bob! Are you home?” The question was punctuated by the sound of the back door slamming shut. Footsteps headed in our direction.

James,
Bob mouthed silently to me.
From next door
.

“In the dining room,” he called back.

“Phil and I came by to see if you wanted to come with us to Home Depot . . . whoa!”

Two men appeared in the door. Seeing Bob and me sitting together at the table, the man in front came to an abrupt halt. The one behind bumped into him, then stepped back and righted himself.

The speaker, James, looked nothing like I'd imagined in all those months that he'd remained out of sight. He was older than Amber by at least a decade, with pleasant features and hair that was thinning on the top and sides. His body was sturdy and more than a bit overweight. James's rumpled polo shirt was tucked into an equally creased pair of khakis.

Somehow I'd pictured Amber's world-traveling husband as someone who'd appear more dashing. Or at the very least, less wrinkled.

Compared to his tall, skinny, companion, however, James looked positively dapper. Phil sported a faded T-shirt worn over baggy jeans that drooped at the waist. Round tortoiseshell glasses, frames too big for his face, magnified his watery brown eyes. His wide, friendly, smile revealed a pair of dimples bracketing his slightly uneven teeth.

“Sorry,” said James. “I didn't realize you had company.”

“Not company exactly,” Bob told them. “Melanie is my ex-wife.”

“I think there's a joke in there somewhere.” I stood up and shook hands with the new arrivals. “I used to live here,” I said to James. “Amber and I were neighbors for a while.”

“Is that so? Then that makes you the . . .” James stopped and gulped.

“The what?” I asked.

“Poodle lady.” A flush rose over the man's neck. “Sorry, I shouldn't have blurted that out. Amber used to call you that sometimes. I don't think she meant anything by it.”

“No problem,” I said. “I've been called worse.”

And considering that I'd been known to refer to Amber as the cat lady, I really didn't have room to complain. Not that I intended to tell James that.