Watchdog (13 page)

“Daddy went away and he didn't come back for years.”

Of course, I thought belatedly. If I hadn't been so tired, I'd have realized where the questions were coming from.

“Sam and Daddy are very different people,” I said firmly. “You know that, right?”

“I guess so.” He didn't sound entirely convinced.

Faith reached out a front paw and laid it gently on top of Davey's hand. She could see the biscuit and she could smell it, but she was much too polite to snatch. That didn't stop her from pointing out the obvious, however.

“Are you going to give Faith that biscuit?” I asked.

Davey looked at his dog and shook his head. “It was Tar's tooth, so I guess the tooth fairy left it for him. Faith can have another biscuit. I'm going to save this one for Tar. That way, Sam will have to bring him back real soon.”

“Fine by me,” I said.

Even six year olds are entitled to a little insurance.

According to an item I'd read in the paper, Marcus Rattigan's funeral was scheduled to be held that morning while I was meeting with Roger Nye. I guessed that meant Rattigan's neighbor wasn't planning on paying his last respects. Hopefully, that boded well for our interview. The way Frank was managing his defense, the more suspects I could come up with, the better.

After breakfast Davey and I got in the Volvo and headed to Belle Haven. My son adores cars: talking about them, watching them, riding in them. Any trip that involves a stint on the highway immediately gains his favor. You don't need to take I-95 to get from Stamford to southern Greenwich, but we did anyway.

By the time we reached Belle Haven, Davey was in a great mood. I'd cautioned him that he was to stay out of trouble and let me do most of the talking, but I knew from past experience that these pep talks I often feel bound to deliver don't necessarily do any good. Nor was I reassured when, as soon as I parked the car in Roger Nye's driveway, Davey jumped out and ran ahead.

The house in front of me wasn't quite as large as Gloria's, but it was still three times the size of anything in my neighborhood. Situated beyond the Rattigan home and slightly down a rise, the red brick colonial sat on several acres of terraced and landscaped lawn. Low brick gateposts topped by a pair of plaster lions guarded the end of the short driveway.

I might have taken a moment to marvel at the excess, but Davey had already climbed the wide steps and rung the doorbell. As I crossed the driveway, I could hear the deep chimes that sounded within. The heavy wooden front door drew open just as I reached it.

Roger Nye was a portly man with ruddy skin and a pair of deep lines etched on either side of his mouth. He smelled faintly of cigar smoke and immediately frowned at the sight of us.

“I've bought wrapping paper to support the elementary school, magazine subscriptions from the middle school, and I know the Girl Scouts are going to be coming by soon with those damn cookies. What are you two selling?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly as Davey took a step back and angled himself behind my legs. “My name is Melanie Travis. Gloria Rattigan said you were expecting me?”

“Oh, yeah, right.” His frown softened but didn't entirely disappear. “She told me you'd be by. I guess I didn't think you'd bring a kid. Sorry about that.” He peered at Davey, then squatted down and held out a hand. “What's your name?”

“Davey Travis.” My son looked half afraid that shaking hands might cost him his own, but after a moment the manners I'd drilled into him won out and he allowed his fingers to be briefly touched.

“Hey, come on, I'm not as bad as all that.”

“Mr. Nye—”

“Roger. Call me Roger. I've got three kids of my own, but they're mostly all grown up now. I guess I must be losing my touch. Come on inside. Gloria said you wanted to talk about Marcus. Fair warning, you won't hear anything good from me.”

“That's okay. I—”

“Wait a minute, I've got an idea.” Roger ushered us in and shut the door. He swung around and faced Davey. “Do you like trains?”

“Trains?” Davey screwed up his face like he'd never heard the word before.

“You know, model trains. Lionels. I've got a whole set downstairs. Nobody plays with them much anymore. Maybe you'd like to have a look while your mom and I talk.”

“Sure,” said Davey.

A door off the hallway led down a flight of carpeted steps. Roger led the way, flipping on light switches as we went. At the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves in an expansive playroom.

Davey's gaze went immediately to a large platform that filled nearly a third of the room and held an elaborate display of model trains. Tracks circled the table in several configurations, winding in and out of model towns and tunneling through a snow capped mountain. There were roads and bridges and signal lights galore. The train itself seemed to be at least twenty cars long and had a locomotive that looked fully capable of belching smoke.

“Wow!” he cried. “Cool!”

Roger grinned. “Kids always get a kick out of this. Just let me get it turned on for you.” Judging by the look on his face, kids weren't the only ones who got a kick out of Roger's model trains.

While he fiddled with the controls and showed Davey how to operate the switches, I walked over to a sliding glass door on the other end of the room. As the house had been built on a slope, we were still above ground even though we'd come down a flight of stairs. From where I stood I could see Long Island Sound, the water bright blue and peacefully calm in the morning light.

The engine whistled behind me. I turned and saw that Roger had plopped an engineer's cap on Davey's head. My son was enchanted; he worked the controls and the train began to move. Roger left him to it and came to join me.

“He can't break anything, can he?” I asked cautiously.

“No, it's pretty well kid-proof.”

The whistle shrieked again. It was followed by the soft patter of footsteps on the stairs and a moment later a small, squarely built dog came trotting into the room. Her coat was mostly light brown with a black saddle and splashes of white on her chest and feet. The hair was long and curly, and looked as though it hadn't been brushed in a while. She had vee-shaped ears that folded over above her head and a muzzle that was gray with age.

“That's Asta,” said Roger, patting his leg to call the dog to him. “My wife named her after that terrier in the movies. You know,
The Thin Man?
She's getting on now, doesn't get around as well as she once did, but oh, does Asta loves those trains. Doesn't matter where in the house she's sleeping, when she hears that whistle, she comes and finds me.”

“She's a Fox Terrier, then?” I had another look. Accustomed to the sharply chiseled trims I'd seen in the show ring, I hadn't recognized her breed.

“She sure is.” Roger sat down and helped the dog up into his lap. Immediately she lay down and snuggled her head on his arm. “That reminds me. I guess I do have one good thing to say about Marcus, after all. He's the one who gave me Asta. She was only a tiny pup at the time, but she grew up into a wonderful pet.”

I glanced over to check on Davey, then sat down, too. “I know Mr. Rattigan owned a Fox Terrier but I'd been told that he wasn't a breeder. I didn't realize he ever had any puppies.”

Roger nodded. “This goes back awhile. Probably nine or ten years. Back then, he and I were pretty friendly. I know he showed some dogs, because whenever they won I had to hear all about it whether I was interested or not. But I never saw any dogs over at his house. As far as puppies went, this was the only one.”

I held out my hand and Asta opened her eyes long enough to see if I was offering any food. Seeing only fingers, she turned her head away. “Do you know where she came from?”

“Some hotshot litter he had. I remember Marcus made a big fuss about it at the time. The dam had done a whole lot of winning, more than any other dog in the country, he said. That was supposed to make the puppies something special. Huh!” Roger snorted softly. “He never even gave us the papers so we could register her with the American Kennel Club.”

His stubby fingers stoked the top of the terrier's head and she leaned into the caress. “Didn't matter to Millie and me, though. We didn't have any interest in that dog show nonsense, and with or without papers, Asta was still a great pet.”

“You've known Marcus Rattigan a long time then?”

Roger nodded. “Nearly a dozen years, I guess. That's how long ago it was he moved next door. Gloria told me your brother got mixed up in some sort of business deal with him. I must say you have my sympathy.”

“I understand you and he had a disagreement . . . ?”

“That would be a polite way of putting it. What we had was a knockdown, drag out fight. I'm just sorry I didn't try and sue the pants off him. Problem was, Marcus was clever. I knew what he did, and he knew it, too, but I didn't have any proof.”

“Proof of what?”

“The man was a killer. Some might not have seen it that way, but I did. He killed my trees.” Roger's skin mottled with anger at the memory.

“Your trees?”

He rose and set Asta on the ground at his feet. “Do you mind a walk outside? It's a nice enough day. Come on, and I'll show you what I mean.”

I glanced over at Davey. He was totally absorbed in the trains. “We're going outside for a few minutes. Are you going to be okay?”

“Sure,” my son said blithely. “Go ahead.”

I followed Roger and Asta out the sliding glass door. The backyard was large and sloped downhill to the right, trailing off in a patch of woods at the end of the property. To the left, visible above some low foliage, was Gloria Rattigan's house.

“Right here,” said Roger. He stopped next to a graceful looking tree whose leaves were painted with vivid autumn colors. There was a wooden bench beneath it and a concrete birdbath off to one side. “Look at this.” He scuffed at a pile of fallen leaves with his foot and uncovered a tree stump that had been cut off at ground level. “This too.” Roger pushed the leaves around some more and revealed another. “Both of those are Marcus's doing.”

I stared at the stumps and decided I really wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. “What exactly did Rattigan do?”

“Just like I told you before. He killed my trees! Flowering dogwoods they were, three of them planted on the days that each of my three children was born. Jeff was first.” Roger pointed to one stump. “His was white. Then came Susan. Hers was pink. After that was Fred, another white. The trees had been here for years before Marcus even moved in. Beautiful. In the spring you never saw anything so pretty.”

Wind whipped up the hill and scattered the leaves at our feet. I gathered my jacket more tightly around me. “Why did he want to kill them?”

Roger waved an angry hand toward the house up the rise. “He said they were spoiling his view. Can you believe that? I guess it didn't matter when they were small but after they grew some, he decided they were in his way.

“Marcus came marching over here one day and demanded that I cut the trees way back. He said they were devaluing his property. As if that was my problem. If he'd wanted a house on the Sound he should have bought one. It wasn't up to me to supply him with a view.”

I could see his point. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. Not a damn thing. The dogwood trees were on my property and I had every right to have them there. I figured that would be the end of it.”

Asta had been sniffing around the yard. Now she came ambling back with an old tennis ball in her mouth. Roger took it from her absently and tossed it down the hill. The terrier ran off in pursuit.

“She'll be stiff tomorrow,” he said, gazing after her. “I should know better than to throw that ball. Hell, I do know better. It's just that she enjoys chasing it so much.”

We both watched as Asta lay down with the toy between her front paws and began to chew. “Where was I?” asked Roger. “Oh right, the trees. The following spring all three started doing poorly. I thought maybe they needed some fertilizer so I had a guy from the gardening center come out and take a look. He said the trees were already dying by the time he got here. It was too late for two of them, and he barely managed to save the third.”

“What makes you think Rattigan had anything to do with it?”

“Because we found the evidence right down in the roots. Someone had taken some of those tree spikes, you know, the kind people use to help trees grow? He'd emptied out the vitamins and nutrients, filled them up with turpentine and lodged them in the soil under the trees. It was plain as day that's what killed my dogwoods.”

“I assume you confronted him?”

“I damn sure did!” Roger's voice rose. “Marcus didn't admit what he'd done, but he sure didn't deny it, either. All he said was, it didn't matter what I thought because I'd never be able to prove a thing.

“Those dogwoods were special to me and Millie. I'd told him that, but he just didn't give a damn. That's the way he was. It's probably wrong of me to say so, but I'm glad he's dead. The world's a much better place without Marcus Rattigan in it.”

Trees, even special trees, didn't necessarily seem like a motive to me. Then again, one thing I've learned is that almost everyone will go to great lengths to protect what's important to them. “Have you seen Rattigan lately?”

“Just last month, as a matter of fact. I ran into him in the Town Center. I would have walked right by, but he was the one who stopped me. He asked how the Sound was looking these days. Of course, I didn't answer.”

Roger's hand clenched at his side. “Marcus just laughed and said if he'd known at the time that all he was doing was increasing the value of a house that would go to Gloria in the divorce, he wouldn't have gone to so much trouble. He made me so angry I couldn't even see straight. The only thing I wish is that whoever murdered Marcus could have gotten to him sooner.”

Asta returned with the tennis ball and we headed back inside. Gloria had characterized her neighbor as a mild-mannered person, but based on what I'd seen that morning, I wasn't ready to agree. There was definitely something about Marcus Rattigan that seemed to bring out the worst in everyone around him.

Inside, Davey was right where we'd left him. When he was younger he used to disappear whenever I wasn't watching. This time he'd been so enthralled he hadn't moved. The train came chugging through the tunnel, rounded a turn, and pulled to a smooth stop in front of the station.