A Hell of a Dog (27 page)

My cell phone rang, and I took it out of my pocket and flipped it open.

“Hello?”

“It's me, Sam. I've been looking all over for you. Detective Flowers called.” I grabbed Chip's arm and pulled him closer, holding the phone away from my ear so that he could hear. “The ME has results on Rick. He didn't choke, Rachel. He died from anaphylactic shock, from an aspirin allergy. Flowers said she'd spoken to his wife, and she said Rick knew he was highly allergic to aspirin. It's not uncommon for asthmatics. She said he was very careful—he only took Tylenol, brand-name stuff, none of that generic stuff, because he figured, you never know for sure that way.”

“There was Tylenol on his nightstand,” I told her. “But I didn't find a bee sting kit. The only other meds were those asthma inhalers he used, two besides the one he had with him.”

“Flowers said something about a bee sting kit. They took it, she said, when they checked his room. I don't get it. Was he worried about bees in Central Park? What does that have to do—”

“It's for any allergy that causes severe anaphylaxis. It's got injectable epinephrine in it,” I said, keenly aware that one of the men who'd tried to rescue him was standing next to me, “which would have saved his life. But, of course, none of us knew about his allergy.”

And as I said it, I realized that it wasn't true. Anyone of us could have known, with all the times aspirin had been passed around the table to alleviate hangovers after a night of heavy drinking. Anyone could have noticed Rick turning it down and taking two Tylenol instead. In fact, he might easily have explained why he was doing that.

And what about the person who had stood by so patiently while Rick spread out a towel to prevent soiling the hotel sheets? Couldn't she know, too? She might have even seen the anaphylaxis emergency treatment kit. She might have asked what it was he'd been so allergic to.

“What are the detectives going to do about this, did Flowers say?”

“They'll be here in the morning, early, and they want to talk to everyone. They want to rule out foul play.”

“I'm not so sure they're going to be able to do that, Sam. You ought to prepare yourself for another possibility.”

“You mean that someone did this on purpose?”

“Yes. But the big question is—”

“Who?” she asked.

I didn't say anything.

“And the others?”

“I don't think any of them were accidents, Sam.”

Now she didn't say anything.

“I'm working on this. I don't have it yet, but I will. I wish it were neater. I wish it were easier. I wish I could have—”

Chip stepped back and shook his head.

“I'll see you in the morning, Sam. I'll talk to you then.”

“It's not your fault.” He put his warm hand on my face for a second. “These things always get solved
after
people have lost their lives. Think of all those interviews with the neighbors of serial killers, people who saw them every day, watched them grow up, and never had a clue. ‘He was the nicest boy,' they say, ‘quiet, polite, and good to his mother. We had no idea.' It's the same way people are with their aggressive dogs, saying that the biting started out of the blue, because they'd missed a year and a half of warning signs.”

“Thanks for saying that.”

I put the phone back into my pocket.

“Listen to me,” I told him. “There's something I've got to do. I'm going to put you in a cab now.” I ignored the amazed look on his face. “I need you to take the dogs and go to the cottage.”

“Rachel, it's late. Everyone's gone to bed by now. The hotel is only three blocks from here. I'll have a German shepherd and a pit bull with me. What could possibly—?”

“Electrocution. Anaphylaxis. A lethal push from a high place. We were guessing before. Now we know. It's not safe at the hotel.” I was holding his arms now, looking into his eyes. “Please do this. Do it for yourself. Do it for your kids. Do it for me, Chip. I don't care why, just do it.”

“This is ridiculous. Where will you be?”

“I can't say just yet. But it's some place I thought I could get to tomorrow morning. I no longer think it can wait.”

“I'm going with you.”

“You can't,” I told him. “It's too overwhelming if two people show up. She'll feel outnumbered. She'll never talk.”

“She? She who?”

“The missing link we've been looking for.” I reached into my pocket for my keys. “Please,” I said, handing them to Chip. “I'll be home as soon as I can.”

“But—”

I put my fingers over his mouth.

“I have to go.”

I put my hand up for a cab. When one pulled up to the curb, I opened the door, and the dogs jumped in.

“I'll grab the next one,” I said, practically shoving Chip inside. I tossed the bag of chips onto his lap. “Change of plans. You
can
have these after all. Beer's in the fridge. And wait up for me, okay? Otherwise I'll be locked out.”

I told the driver where to go and slammed the door.

We could have shared a cab. I could have dropped him off in the Village and continued on alone. But I needed to think about what I was going to say. And I didn't want to give Chip a chance to reconsider letting me go on alone.

Once inside the second cab, I pulled out my cell phone again, punching in the number, then listening to the lonely sound that told me the phone was ringing on the other end. Unless she'd shut it off.

“Please be there,” I whispered. “Please pick up.”

“Hello?”

I was so startled when she answered that I didn't respond immediately.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

I took a breath before answering.

“It's Rachel Alexander,” I said. “I don't know if you remember me. We met at a dog show, a few years ago. I'm at the symposium that Sam Lewis organized, and—”

“What do you want? Why are you calling so late?”

“I'm sorry about that. But it's really important that I see you, as soon as possible. Tonight, if I can.”

“Tonight? Why? What is it?”

“Something's wrong,” I said. “I need your help.”

There was silence on the line as the cab sped across the Brooklyn Bridge. I was almost there, and she hadn't agreed to see me yet.

“Something's wrong?” she repeated.

“Yes, very wrong.”

“What does it have to do with me?” she asked.

“I'm not sure. That's what I need to find out.”

The cab took the first right off the bridge and then veered left.

“Can't you tell me on the phone?”

“No, I can't. Look, I'm five minutes away. Will you see me, please?”

“Rachel, do you know what time it is?”

“I do.”

“Well then, can't it wait until morning?”

“I'm sorry. It's already waited much too long.”

There was another silence. I thought perhaps she'd put the phone down.

“Do you know where I am?” she asked at last.

“I do,” I told her as the cab turned the corner onto Cranberry Street.

“Are you coming straightaway, then?”

“I'm nearly there.”

Literally, I thought, as the cab stopped in front of her house.

But I had the feeling it was figuratively so as well.

28

YOU CAN SEE HOW LUCKY I WAS

She stood in the doorway in a long, pink nightgown, her bare feet sticking out at the hem, looking more like a child than a grown woman. The same dark curls framed her face, but her clear blue eyes no longer looked as innocent as they did when she'd been a child.

“What's this all about?” she asked.

“May I come in?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Then she stepped back inside to allow me in.

She turned and walked into the living room, taking the place where she'd been before I came, her half-finished cup of tea waiting for her. I looked around the room and then back at her. It was too late in every way to start beating about the bush, something I had little patience for anyway. I took a breath and, standing in the middle of the room, began.

“How did Beryl come to take your place at the symposium?” I asked.

“Mummy's
here?
”

I nodded and pulled a chair closer to the couch, sitting across from where she sat, her legs curled under her, her cheeks pale, her eyes red, as if before I'd come she had been crying.

She stared at me for a few seconds before speaking. “She never said she was here.” I could see her struggling with more than she was saying. “I thought she was calling from England.”

She hadn't talked at all on the tape. It seemed she'd never wanted to appear on camera. After all, she'd only been five or six, a pretty thing, but too shy for all the hoopla that must have accompanied the filming of her mum's training classes for the BBC.

“Come here, Christine,” Beryl had said, looking off to the side, at the child who wasn't coming. “Come and wave good-bye to everyone. Christina, darling, come to Mummy.”

Beryl looked straight into the camera. “Wouldn't it be lovely if our little ones were as obedient as our dogs?”

She'd disappeared for a moment, the camera not following her. Instead it showed the dogs, all their heads turned to watch the teacher. And there she was again, carrying a serious-faced little girl of five or six with thick, dark, curly hair and startling blue eyes, quite a big child to be carried, but Beryl didn't seem to be having any difficulty at all. She seemed not to notice the weight as she kissed the little girl repeatedly, then whispered something into her ear.

After that, Tina and her mother were all smiles, waving at the camera until the screen went dark.

“You didn't say why Beryl is teaching instead of you, Tina.”

“Well, I don't know what to say,” she said, sitting straighter, trying to keep it all together now. “I was talking to Mummy and I told her I'd made this commitment but I simply couldn't keep it. I felt awful about it, because Sam's always been so good to me. I just told Mummy how difficult a time I was having calling Sam and disappointing her with the news. Well, then she said she'd take care of it. Naturally I thought she meant she'd call Sam and apologize for me. I even gave her the number. I had no idea she'd offered to come and speak in my place.”

“And why was it that you couldn't speak at the symposium?” I asked.

“I don't see that that's any of your business, Rachel. Is that it?” She stood, ready to dismiss me.

“I was wondering why you changed your name, Tina?”

She sighed and sat down again. “Rachel, I don't see—”

“Please. It's important.”

“Mummy throws a big shadow. You've met her now, haven't you?”

I nodded.

“Well, then.”

I waited.

“When Daddy was gone, she moved us back to England. I was only three at the time, so mostly I lived there. But I knew I'd been born here and that my father was an American, and I was curious, do you know what I mean? When it came time for college, I decided to come back to the States. After I graduated, I went home again. But living with your mother after you've been on your own—” She shrugged. “Anyway, by then I knew I wanted to work with dogs, and there isn't business enough in Chipping Camden for
two
dog trainers. There really isn't enough work for one, but Mummy can make a living anyway because she's so famous. People come to her from miles and miles away.

“Mummy said if I stayed, I could help her. There was enough work for both of us. But I didn't want to be thought of as Beryl Potter's little kid. I wanted to make it on my own. So I came back here. And I changed my name. Is that so difficult to understand?”

“Not at all. So Sam doesn't know that it was your mother calling to take—”

“My stepmother,” she said. “My mother died when I was very little. I don't remember her. But Beryl always used to tell me that she must have been both beautiful and sweet, else I wouldn't be. She was a wonderful mother to me—please don't think otherwise, I mean, because of the name change. Actually, it's what she always called me.”

“I know,” I said.

“And Mummy never minded. She kept my secret for me. She thought it was the right way to do things, to soldier on, she'd say, manage on your own. It's what she did, after all, when Daddy died.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“A couple of years after my mother died.”

“His heart?”

She nodded.

“And your mother? She must have been very young.”

“She was. She was only twenty. She committed suicide. So you can see how lucky I was that Beryl kept me, can't you?”

I nodded.

“Another woman, someone less strong, someone selfish, might have passed me on to any of my parents' relatives to raise. After all, I wasn't hers. But she didn't feel that way. She felt I was. You can't imagine how good she is, how fiercely loyal. Even coming here, taking my place. It was simply brilliant of her to do that. But does that mean—”

“No, she never told Sam about the relationship. It all seemed a happy coincidence, the deus ex machina saving the day.”

She clapped her hands together.

“Oh, good for Mummy, she didn't tell.”

“Yes, she's full of surprises,” I said, thinking about Cecilia and looking around the neat little room for what seemed like the first time, looking and seeing now what wasn't there.

Frank was right. People will tell you the most astonishing things if you give them half a chance. It was late—it was nearly one by now. But we'd only just begun. And what I was going to ask next was going to get those tears flowing again. I was starting to be sure about several things, none more than that.

“Tina, I'm sorry to cause you more pain,” I said, “but I have to ask you a few more questions. I have to ask you to tell me about Martyn.”