Watchdog (8 page)

“No, everything's fine.” The glib answer shot out of my mouth before I'd had a chance to think. I felt my face redden. “I mean, as fine as things can be under the circumstances . . .”

Petrie nodded, letting me off the hook.

He came over and stood beside me, his bearing rigidly erect. I figured that meant either the Marines or Catholic school. In my experience it takes a drill sergeant or an order of nuns to have that effect on posture. But despite Petrie's stance, he looked friendly enough.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

“Get the investigation started. Talk to anyone and everyone who had dealings with Marcus Rattigan. Then we'll try to narrow down how he spent his last few days, where he was, who he was with.”

“Do you know when he died?”

“When did you leave here yesterday?”

“Close to three-thirty.”

“You and your brother left together?”

“Yes.” I hesitated slightly before answering. Surely Frank had been only a step or two behind me.

“All we know now is that he died sometime between then and this morning. The medical examiner will probably be able to fix it closer than that, and we'll check with his home, his office, try to nail down what time he was last seen.”

“I would think there'd be plenty of suspects,” I said.

Petrie's eyes narrowed. “Would you? Why?”

“Judging by what I've read, he sounds like the kind of man who must have made some enemies.”

“Not everyone agreed with what he wanted to do, that's for sure. On the other hand, he knew how to make money. Your brother seemed happy enough to be involved with him.”

Warning bells went off like a siren in my head. So much for friendly. I'd thought I was the one fishing for information. So why was I suddenly standing here with Petrie's hook dangling in front of me?

“I guess he was,” I said, declining to elaborate.

A uniformed officer came out onto the porch and began to unroll a spool of bright yellow crime scene tape around the railing. Obviously the renovations would have to stop. I wondered who Rattigan's heirs were, and who owned the building now.

Detective Petrie reached in his pocket and pulled out a card. “You think of anything I ought to know, you call me, okay?”

“I will,” I said, biting back the things I thought needed saying, and silently cursing my brother.

I didn't like the idea of lying to the police. I hoped I wasn't going to have to make a habit of it.

Since it was barely ten o'clock I briefly considered driving to school, claiming I'd had a miraculous recovery, and working the rest of the day. That notion lasted just about as long as it took me to walk to the Volvo.

The trees around me were brilliant with color. Though there was a chill in the air, the sun was warm on my back. Connecticut is known for its cold, snowy winters and short, humid summers, but October is a month that it handles superbly. I breathed in deeply and acknowledged that it was going to be a gorgeous day.

Faith had been dozing on the seat, but she jumped up as I approached. Tail wagging, hind feet dancing, she pushed her nose through the opening I'd left at the top of the window and wuffled a greeting. To go to school now I would first have to take her home and drop her off.

Faith and I made eye contact and she whined softly. I recorded her vote and added my own. Hooky, it was.

I got in the car, wrestled forty-five pounds of effusive Standard Poodle into the passenger seat, and drove myself to Aunt Peg's. She lives in Greenwich, north of the Merritt Parkway, in a big old farmhouse. There's a small kennel building out back, and enough acreage that the occasional barking dog doesn't usually bother the neighbors.

Now that Max was gone, Aunt Peg had been slowly cutting down on the number of dogs in residence. Poodles are people dogs. They can adapt to almost any situation, but they thrive on human companionship.

Keeping only the best with which to continue her breeding program, Aunt Peg had placed some of her young adults in new homes. As these Poodles went to families who might not have had the time or energy to take on a rambunctious, untrained puppy, the situation worked out well for everybody.

At the moment Peg had three Standard Poodles “in hair” in her kennel, and five house Poodles, all retired champions, and all maintained in sporting trim with short curly hair and rounded topknots and tail pompons. Aunt Peg would have considered the notion heresy, but I thought her house dogs looked a lot more sensible than my show dog did. I couldn't wait until Faith finished her championship and I could cut off all her hair, too.

Nobody bothers to ring the doorbell at Aunt Peg's. As soon as a car turns into the driveway, the Poodles race to the windows and announce that visitors have arrived. By the time Faith and I reached the front door, Peg already had it open.

“Why aren't you in school?” she demanded, angling her body so that her dogs couldn't slip out while Faith and I came in. “Are you sick? Is Faith all right?”

Her gaze slid past me and focused with concern on Faith. Typical.

“We're both fine. Your nephew is the one who's in trouble.”

“Frank?”

As if she had more than one. As if the notion of Frank in trouble should come as any surprise.

“I thought I just bailed that boy out,” said Peg. “What's the matter now?”

I knelt down and let the Poodles swarm over me for a minute. We were old friends and they'd have been highly insulted if I neglected to greet them properly. “Frank's partner, Marcus Rattigan, is dead.”

“Heart attack?” Aunt Peg asked hopefully. “Plane crash?”

“He was crushed by a falling skylight.”

She'd seen the blueprints. “Don't tell me it happened at the coffee bar.”

So I didn't. Instead I stood up and took myself into the kitchen. A conversation like this was going to require fortification.

Aunt Peg's a tea drinker. Her meager concession to those who don't share her preference is to keep a jar of instant coffee in the freezer. I filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove.

“When?” asked Peg.

“The police don't know yet. Sometime between late yesterday and early this morning.”

“I take it this wasn't an accident?” Her voice floated out from the pantry. In Aunt Peg's mind no snack, however small, is complete without sweets. No doubt she had something stashed away for just such an emergency.

“Frank says no. He's sure the skylight was installed properly. The police are investigating it as a murder.”

She emerged carrying a box of cupcakes, strawberry with white icing and orange candy pumpkins on top for decoration. Just looking at them made my teeth hurt. “Don't you have anything healthy to eat?”

“Cupcakes are perfectly healthy. They're made from eggs and flour.” She opened a drawer and took out a bag of rice cakes, holding them away carefully between thumb and forefinger as if their mere presence might contaminate. “You can try these if you want. Douglas brought them by. He claimed they're edible, but I'm not so sure. I think they're made of Styrofoam.”

Douglas Brannigan was Peg's new male companion. He was charming, intelligent, and probably much too tolerant of my aunt's domineering ways. It seemed far more likely that he'd be adding cupcakes to his diet than he'd have her eating rice cakes any time soon.

“Do the police have any suspects?” Aunt Peg asked as we took our mugs and sat down at the kitchen table.

“At least one. Frank.”

“They can't be serious.” Peg sipped at her tea. “Frank wouldn't be my choice for relative of the year, but anyone can see that he's perfectly harmless.”

“He and Rattigan have a business relationship that's falling apart. Rattigan was killed at the building they're arguing over, crushed by a skylight that Frank approved the installation of, and Frank's the one who found the body.

“In case that isn't enough, Frank was up on the roof two days ago fooling around with the skylight, so his fingerprints will probably be all over it. Since he lied about that to the police, he figures it won't be a problem. By the way, Rattigan's death is the third accident at the coffee bar this week. A member of the construction crew fell through the floor yesterday and broke his leg.”

“Is that all?” Peg asked dryly.

“Actually, no. Frank thought the floorboards had been weakened when the pipe burst, but we went down to the cellar and had a look. The support column had been sawed nearly in half. The floor was sabotaged, just like the skylight.”

Plenty of people would have been horrified by such a blunt summation of the facts. Not Aunt Peg. She rose to the occasion like a trouper. To shore up our strength, she started by breaking out the cupcakes.

“I've heard that Marcus Rattigan's ex-wife refers to him as ‘The Rat,'” she mentioned as she passed one my way. “I wouldn't be surprised if it's an accurate assessment.”

I plucked the noxious looking orange candy off the top and set it aside. “Rattigan's divorced?”

Peg nodded. “There was one marriage, quite a long one I believe. No children. The divorce was rather nasty.”

“How do you know?”

“The man showed dogs, Melanie.”

Her tone clearly conveyed the belief that this simple fact explained everything. Actually, it probably did. When exhibitors have finally exhausted all there is to say about their dogs, they talk about each other. Aunt Peg might not have kept up with Marcus Rattigan, but obviously there were other exhibitors who had.

“What else do you know about him?”

She sat back and thought. The pause gave her the per-feet opportunity to finish off her cupcake. When she let her hand drift down below table height, two obliging Poodles licked her fingers clean.

“Mostly just that he had Winter.” The thought of the pretty Wire Fox Terrier bitch made Aunt Peg smile. “She did so much winning that Marcus got himself known rather quickly. The year that she was number one, he came to quite a few shows.”

I nibbled at the icing around the edge of my cupcake. It was definitely too sweet to bite into. “Didn't you say that Winter's breeder was a local man? What was his name?”

“You know, I don't remember. Marcus was such a large presence, always right on hand to take all the credit. The other man, whoever he was, just faded into the background.”

“It seems a shame, considering that he was her breeder.”

“It does, doesn't it?” Aunt Peg stood. “Let's go look it up.”

“How?”

“Winter showed at Westminster several times. The information would have been listed in the catalogue.”

“You keep dog show catalogues going back ten years?”

“From Westminster, I do.” Aunt Peg left the kitchen and started down the hall toward her office.

I placed my cupcake in the center of the table, where it would be less of a target for any long pink tongues in the vicinity, and got up and followed. The shelves of Aunt Peg's office were filled with Poodle books and magazines. Old and new issues of
Poodle Review
and
Poodle Variety
sat side by side with
The New Poodle, The Book of the Poodle
and
Poodles in America,
a multivolume set that listed the pedigrees of every champion Poodle bred in the United States since 1929.

Still, she didn't have any trouble finding what she was looking for. By the time I reached the room, Peg was already thumbing through a thick purple catalogue with the silhouette of a Pointer on the front, and gold lettering on the spine.

“Here it is,” she said. “Champion Wirerock Winter Fantasy. Breeder, John Monaghan. By Champion Galsul Excellence out of Champion Wirerock Ramada. Owner, Marcus Rattigan.”

She flipped to the pages in the back and looked up the address. “Care of Anaconda Properties in Stamford. That's no help. I'm sure Mr. Monaghan lived around here somewhere.”

“I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“At the show last week, I ran into one of my students. A neighbor of hers shows Wire Fox Terriers, and Kate was there to help him out. She said his name was John.”

“That's probably him,” said Peg. “There aren't many Fox Terrier breeders in the area. Why don't you ask her about it tomorrow? If it is the same man, I would imagine there's plenty he could tell us about Marcus Rattigan.”

She left the catalogue on top of a tall stack and we walked back to the kitchen. The cupcake I'd left on the table was gone. All that remained was a long smear of greasy white icing on the floor. The Poodles looked up innocently as we came in. With eyes like that, no jury in the world would ever convict them.

“Another cupcake?” asked Peg, digging a second out of the box for herself.

“No, I'll pass.”

I glanced at the Poodles. Thanks to me, one of them was now courting tooth decay. Since they weren't tempted to confess, I decided to keep mum, too. I sat down and picked up my mug. At least they hadn't finished off my coffee.

“So what are you going to do about this mess?” asked Peg.

“What am I going to do? Why does everyone assume I'm going to do anything?”

“Because you're good at it. And because if your description of your silly, misguided brother's involvement is anywhere near accurate, it looks as though he needs you.”

Family responsibility. That made twice in one day that it had been thrust upon my shoulders. At times like this I could only think it was a damn good thing I didn't have a bigger family.

“I told Frank I might ask a few questions,” I admitted.

“Good.” Peg looked pleased. “If I were you, I'd start with the obvious.”

“Which is?”

“Gloria Rattigan, of course. The bitter ex-wife. I should think she'd make a dandy suspect.”

“I don't suppose you know where she lives?”

“No, but I can find out.” Aunt Peg opened a cupboard and pulled out a Greenwich phone book. “When she and Marcus were together, they lived in Belle Haven. If she kept the house, the address should be listed. Yes, here it is.” She wrote the information on a slip of paper and handed it over.

“Do you think Gloria's heard about what happened?”

“I would imagine so. After all, she is his next of kin.”

“Ex next of kin,” I pointed out.

“All the better,” Peg said briskly. “She won't be in mourning. Let's see if she's home.” She walked to the wall phone, picked up the receiver, and punched out a number. “Mrs. Rattigan? This is Susie Smith calling on behalf of Save the Manatees and we're hoping we can count on you for a generous donation to our cause.”

The click was so loud I could hear it where I was sitting. Aunt Peg grinned. “The generous donation is out, but Gloria Rattigan is in. You've already taken the day off from school. Why don't you go over there now?”

In her rush to manage life to her own satisfaction, Peg has a way of overlooking the small details. “Don't you think it's a little soon? What if she doesn't want to talk to me?”

“Then she'll tell you so. Marcus Rattigan was an important figure in Fairfield County. His death is hardly going to go unnoticed. Ten to one, a reporter will already have beaten you there.”

To nobody's surprise, Faith and I found ourselves being hustled out the door only a few minutes later. Aunt Peg requested frequent updates and gave me another cupcake for the road. Because it seemed easier than arguing, I got in the car and drove to Belle Haven. Faith ate the cupcake on the way.

The town of Greenwich encompasses fifty square miles, bordering New York state in the north and Long Island Sound to the south. Much of the residential area along the coast is an exclusive enclave known as Belle Haven. Waterfront estates routinely fetch prices in the millions, and even a distant water view could increase the value of property significantly. Land values here are impervious to dips and surges in the economy. Like the old saying goes, if you have to ask how much, you probably can't afford it.