Hot Dog (17 page)

“Phooey,” I said.

“Care to tell me the story, or are you just going to sit there looking disgusted with yourself?”

So I told her the story. Aunt Peg has handled her share of fractious puppies in the ring. She's also been around the dog show world long enough to know the ins and outs of handler contracts, broken majors, and days when all the good luck simply falls someone else's way.

“Good riddance,” she said when I was done. “Bertie's better off without clients like that.”

No matter, I was still feeling guilty about the way things had turned out. “Well, yes, except that they helped to pay her bills.”

“That's not as big a concern as it might have been once. Bertie has Frank to help with that now.”

Aunt Peg can be rather old-fashioned about such things. On the other hand, I thought, reconsidering, maybe I was the one who hadn't kept up with the times. My little brother had been a liability for so long that it was hard for me to think of him as an adult who was capable of pulling his own weight. I had to admit his continuing success with the Bean Counter was steadily proving me wrong.

“Okay, so the Azarias are another possibility,” I said. It seemed extreme to think that the couple might have resorted to theft in retaliation for a missed major, but I'd long since learned not to dismiss any possibility, however outlandish, where exhibitors and their dogs were concerned.

“What came next?” Aunt Peg asked. “Where did you go after the show? And by the way, Sam was wondering about that too.”

“Sam was
not
wondering.” Annoyed, I slid off my stool and walked over to the window. “He knew where I was going because I told him. I stopped at Bob's to pick up Davey. Not that Sam seemed even remotely interested in my plans.”

“Maybe he didn't want you to think that he cared about the fact that you were spending time with your ex-husband.”

How had my love life—muddled as it was—become such a source of interest and discussion for my two aunts? And why did I get the impression that Sam had been lobbying to get both those conniving old ladies on his side?

“I wasn't spending time with Bob. I was in and out in ten minutes. The only person who spent time with Bob last night was Davey's riding teacher, Pam. She was there cooking him dinner.”

“Isn't that nice?” said Peg. “The cowboy has found himself a cowgirl, leaving you perfectly free to—”

“To do what?” I snapped, spinning around to face her. Of course, the fact that I stand five six to Aunt Peg's six feet meant I didn't look nearly as intimidating as I might have hoped.

Instead of backing down, Aunt Peg came at me with both barrels. “To pull your head out of your rear end, stop dancing around what you know you both want, and go make things right with Sam. I swear, Melanie, if you don't get this mess sorted out soon I'm going to find a pair of handcuffs and shackle the two of you together until you do. Am I making myself clear?”

Was there ever a moment, however brief, when she didn't?

Advice, Aunt Peg style. You had to love it.

Either that or slit your wrists.

M
y son had not only helped himself to one piece of coffee cake, he'd helped himself to two. Or possibly three. At any rate, all the remaining crumb cake had vanished. The box was sitting empty on the kitchen table.

I figured there was an outside chance that the Poodles might have played a part in its disappearance.

“First things first,” said Aunt Peg, unperturbed by the fact that, between them, one child and four Standard Poodles had disposed of more than a pound of coffee cake. “Let me give you some cash to tide you over until you can get things sorted out. How many credit cards were you carrying?”

“Only two or three, thankfully. I'll call and cancel them as soon as I get home. They all have limits on how much I'm at risk for. Plus I had about forty dollars in cash. It's not so much the financial loss as the inconvenience. I'll be standing in lines and making phone calls all week, trying to get everything replaced.”

“Are you going to file a police report?”

“Where?” I asked. “Greenwich? Stamford? New Jersey? I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to tell them. Besides, you know as well as I do, this stuff is gone for good.”

“I suppose you're right.” Aunt Peg left the room briefly. Upon her return, she handed me a more than generous sum of money.

“Aunt Peg, what are you doing keeping this much cash around the house?”

“Preparing for emergencies, what do you think?”

Sad to say, the biggest emergencies in my aunt's life were probably due to the misadventures of her chronically unpredictable relatives.

“Are we going back to the supermarket now?” Davey asked when we were once again in the car.

“No, we'll go later. I have some phone calls I need to make first.” I glanced at him across the seat. “You're not still hungry, are you?”

My son's cheeks colored slightly, but he didn't answer. Considering the amount of starch that had crept into his diet lately, I was lucky he burned calories with the dispatch of a Whippet.

Davey was gazing out the window when we turned onto our road. I figured he was probably looking for Joey Brickman. Maybe I'd try to get the two of them together for a couple of hours that afternoon.

“Hey!” he said, pointing. “Why is that lady waving at you?”

The lady in question was Jill Prescott. She'd jumped out of her car when she saw us coming and was now standing in the street, waving her arms above her head. As if the sight of a woman in the middle of the road wasn't arresting enough.

“Melanie, stop!” she called. “I have to talk to you.”

I knew Jill was desperate for a scoop, but this was carrying things way too far. What could possibly be so important that she had to flag us down in the street? I rolled to a stop beside her and opened my window.

“What's up?” Maybe my tone wasn't as friendly as it might have been. So sue me for wanting a private life.

“Look.” Jill gestured toward her car.

The blue Mazda was parked in the shade. It took me a minute to figure out what I was seeing in the car's semi-dark interior. When I did, I gasped.

Two black noses were pressed up against the mostly closed windows. Two black, pom-ponned tails were wagging furiously. Faith and Eve were hopping up and down on the back seat of Jill's car.

My stomach plummeted, even as I went cold all over. Quickly I shifted the Volvo into park. “Davey, stay right here. Don't move.”

“Right, Mom.” He was staring too.

Luckily our road gets little traffic. I didn't bother pulling over. I simply got out of the Volvo and left it where it was. “What are my dogs doing in your car? What happened? Where did you get them from?”

In two quick strides, I reached the door and yanked it open. The Poodles came tumbling out. Eve's greeting was unrestrained; she twirled in place, delighted to see me.

Faith's reaction was more reserved. Her tail was up, but she pressed her nose into my hand and whined softly. The older Poodle knew what the puppy hadn't grasped yet: that the two of them were never supposed to be loose when I wasn't with them. Somehow Faith had broken a cardinal rule; this was her way of apologizing. Too bad she couldn't offer an explanation.

I gave my Poodle a reassuring pat, then spun around to face Jill. “What the hell is going on?”

“Hey, don't yell at me. I was just trying to help.”

“Help what? How did you get my dogs?” I walked back to the Volvo and put both Poodles inside. “When I left this morning, they were locked in my house.”

“Well when I got here, they were running in the road.”

My heart sputtered at the thought. “That's not possible.”

“Ask your neighbors if you don't believe me,” Jill said. “Instead of yelling at me, you ought to be thanking me. If I hadn't caught them, who knows where they might be by now.”

The answer to that was chilling, horrifying. Even faced with unexpected freedom, I was almost positive that Faith wouldn't have run away. She knew better. But Eve? With a puppy her age anything was possible. Not only that, but neither one of the Poodles knew the first thing about cars. Their survival skills in traffic were nil.

This was every responsible dog owner's worst nightmare. And somehow—for reasons I couldn't yet begin to fathom—it was happening to me.

“You're right,” I said. “I'm sorry. I'm just . . .”

Just what? I wondered. Confused? Shaken? Scared half to death? All of the above?

Behind the Volvo, a car horn tooted gently, asking for my attention. I was blocking the street and someone needed to get by. I waved to the driver and opened my car door.

“Jill, would you come inside with me so we can talk?”

“Sure. Let me just lock my car.”

In my quiet neighborhood, the thought had probably never occurred to her before. Now it seemed like a very good idea.

I pulled the Volvo into my driveway and parked. Davey reached for his door handle, but I stopped him. “Hang on a minute, okay? I'm still trying to figure out what's going on. Why don't you keep Faith and Eve company out here while I check out the house. As soon as I'm sure everything's okay, I'll be right back out to get you.”

Jill joined me by the front steps. The door was closed and locked, just as I'd left it. The Poodles hadn't gotten out this way.

I hopped down and started around the back.

“You might want to wait,” said Jill. “Rich should be here any minute. He can go inside with us.”

“Rich?”

“I called him when I got here. As soon as I saw that the dogs were loose and realized you weren't home. That's when I began to think maybe something was wrong.”

I frowned. “And you called for a camera so you could document the problem?”

“Sure, why not? I'm a reporter, you know that. That's what I do.” Her gaze shifted past me and down the street, settling on an old Volkswagen Beetle that was going at least twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. “Good, here he comes now.”

Rich pulled the VW along the curb in front of the house and hopped out, camera in tow. “Hey guys, what's up?”

“We don't know,” Jill told him. “We were just about to go inside.”

Leaving them to discuss the issue, I headed around back. I wanted action, not talk. The only way my Poodles could have gotten loose was if someone had been inside my house and let them out. I shuddered at the thought.

What would burglars want with my small Cape? It was just a little house, like all the other little houses in the neighborhood. If anything, I'd have thought that the sight of two big dogs inside would have made it the least attractive target on the block.

The gate to the tall cedar fencing around the back yard was open. That was hardly surprising. If it had been shut, the Poodles would still have been inside.

I walked through the gate and rounded the corner of the house. My back screen door was standing open. The inner door was wood on the bottom, with a multi-paned window on top. One of the small, square panes of glass near the dead bolt was missing. There was no doubt now, if indeed there'd ever been any. Someone had broken in.

Drawn forward on reluctant feet, I climbed the steps and had a closer look. The door had been closed, but it wasn't latched. A shove of my hand pushed it open.

I hesitated a moment, then stepped inside the kitchen. Shards of glass from the missing pane crunched beneath my feet. Other than that, the kitchen looked undisturbed.

“Hey, wait!” Rich came scrambling up the outside steps. “Let me go first.” The camera was up on his shoulder. Presumably he'd turned it on. “You don't know what's in there.”

I reached out and placed my hand over the lens. “Whatever we find, you don't need a picture of it.”

“Yes, he does.” Jill joined Rich on the step. “What if somebody's been murdered in there? The police will want Rich's tape for evidence.” Her eyes were glowing with excitement. No doubt she was already envisioning Rich's footage with her lead-in on the evening news.

As for me, I was beginning to get annoyed. It was one thing to want company walking into a house where I knew an invasion had taken place. It was another for Jill to start suggesting all sorts of horrible possibilities in that hopeful, breathy tone. Thank God Davey wasn't there to hear her.

“Nobody's been murdered,” I snapped. “There wasn't anybody home. That's probably why whoever was here thought this looked like a good place to hit. Besides, if there was a dead body in there, the police wouldn't want your tape, they'd want us to wait outside and not contaminate anything.”

“You would know,” Rich said. He lowered the camera.

As if I were the expert. As if I discovered dead bodies every day of the week. What was wrong with these two? Did they actually believe my life was
that
exciting? I wondered if I should tell them I'd picked up most of my expertise watching
Law & Order
.

“Turn that back on.” Jill gave Rich a poke. “We're reporters. We have freedom of the press and First Amendment rights.”

“Not in my house, you don't.” I pulled the door around and began to close it between us.

My initial concern that someone might still be inside was fading. Any burglars foolish enough to hang around until I got home had probably climbed out a window while we'd been arguing. Now I just wanted to look around and assess the damage.

“Jill, cool down.” Rich set the camera on a counter. “If she doesn't want me to film in here I'm not going to.” His gaze shifted over to me. “But you still shouldn't be alone, just in case . . . you know.”

Unfortunately, I did. “Thanks. Let's go have a look.”

I strode through the kitchen and into the hallway, checking the living and dining rooms as I passed. I'd always found the quiet solitude of my little house comforting. Now it seemed eerily still.

I saw no one, and yet someone else's presence seemed to permeate the space. My space. Nothing looked different, but I couldn't help wonder what had been touched, handled. The thought of some unknown person walking through my rooms, going through my things, made my skin crawl.

“Someone messed this place up pretty good,” Rich said, pausing by the living room.

I went back and had another look. A collection of toys—human and canine—were strewn around the floor. Magazines and books were piled haphazardly on tabletops. Two chairs were overturned in one corner. Davey had made them into a fort the night before.

“Nope.” My small smile came as a relief. “That's pretty much normal for us. Try living with two dogs and a seven-year-old—” I broke off suddenly, spun away from the living room and sprinted for the stairs.

“What?” Rich was quick, I had to give him that. Even caught unaware, he didn't lose a step. “What's the matter?”

“I don't have two dogs right now, I have three.”

Poor Dox. In all the excitement of finding Faith and Eve outside, I'd forgotten all about him. When Davey and I had left to go shopping that morning, I'd left the Dachshund puppy locked inside his crate in the corner of my bedroom.

It wasn't the first time he'd been left crated in the four days he'd been living with us. It was, however. the first time he hadn't begun to bark impatiently upon my arrival home. Usually he'd be scratching at the wire-mesh door, clamoring to be let out immediately.

I reached the top step, grabbed the newel post, swung a U-turn, and headed for my bedroom. “Dox?” I called. “Hey buddy, what's up?”

There was no answering whine, no sound of scrambling feet. I reached the door to my bedroom and immediately saw why. The corner was empty. Only a slight indentation in the rug marked the spot where Dox's crate had been.

Now I knew what my intruder had been after.

The Dachshund puppy was gone.