Once Bitten (A Melanie Travis Mystery) (10 page)

“Is that unusual?”

“Well . . . not impossible, certainly. It’s just that for the most part, he’s with Sara. Of course, I had him placed in the kennel for safekeeping. Only for some reason, Sara hasn’t been by to pick him up.”

S
ome reason indeed, I thought. If my staring had been impolite, the snort I was tempted to offer now would have come across as positively barbaric. Controlling my baser instincts, I asked instead, “Has anything like that ever happened before?”

“Well, no. Although as I mentioned, Sara can be somewhat . . . unpredictable in her choices. I should think the very fact that she’s gone off and left her dog unattended would be enough to tell you that.”

“Unless she didn’t have any choice.”

“Delsy? I’m on my way out.” Grant Waring pushed the door open and stuck his head into the library. Seeing me, he abruptly straightened and entered the room. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.” He strode over and offered his hand. “Hello. We met last weekend, didn’t we?”

“Yes, at the dog show in Hartford. I’m a friend of Sara’s.”

“Another dog fancier.” Grant rolled his eyes, but he managed to infuse the gesture with good humor. He turned to his wife. “Enough, darling. I find myself outnumbered already.”

“Actually, the visit was my idea,” I explained. “I’ve been looking for Sara. No one has seen her since last Sunday.”

“Really?” Grant didn’t sound any more alarmed by my news than his wife had been. He turned to Delilah for confirmation. “Is that true?”

“Apparently so. But you know Sara. She’s always flitting off somewhere.”

“This time she left Titus behind,” I mentioned. “All by himself, in her cottage.”

Not a dog person, Grant only shrugged at that information. “Sorry to rush off. I’m afraid I have a pressing engagement. Pleasure to see you again.”

Frowning slightly, I watched him walk out. No wonder Sara was always flitting off. With parents like these, I could see why she wouldn’t want to hang around home much.

“I should be going, too,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”

“Not at all.” Delilah rose from her chair to see me out. “You will remember me to your aunt, won’t you? Tell her I expect her to sit beside me at the Belle Haven Kennel Club meeting next month. It’s been too long since Peg and I had a chance to catch up.”

“I’ll be sure to do that. Aunt Peg tells me you have beautiful Shetland Sheepdogs. How did you do at the shows last weekend?”

“Oh, we weren’t entered.” Too discreet to take a jab at the judge—usually the only reason a hard-core exhibitor would have for missing a nearby show—Delilah only said, “One can’t go
every
time, you know. Were you showing?”

Even a week later, the memory brought a huge grin and a rush of pleasure. “I won a major and finished my first Standard Poodle. Totally owner-handled.”

“Now that
is
something.” Delilah smiled with me, understanding and sharing the source of my happiness. “Congratulations. Peg is lucky to have someone like you coming along to follow in her footsteps. I only wish Sara had felt the same way about my hobby.”

“She has a Sheltie,” I felt obliged to point out. “And she shows in obedience.”

“It’s not the same, is it? What a comfort it would be for me to know that there was someone to carry on the Scotchglen name. Sadly, Sara has made it very clear that it’s not going to happen.”

Any sympathy I might have felt for the woman’s plight was tempered by the realization that, for Delilah, the fact that her line of dogs wouldn’t survive her held a deeper emotional significance than did her daughter’s disappearance.

Dog people. No wonder regular folks thought we were nuts.

Having run out of excuses, I got in my car and drove home to Stamford. It looked as though Bob was going to get his wish: he and I would finally be spending some time together. I was pretty sure, however, that things weren’t going to turn out the way he was hoping.

Driving down the parkway, I rehearsed what I was going to say.
We’re different people than we were then. You can’t
’t
turn back the clock. . . .

That’s right, I thought irritably. Hit him with clichés. See if that helps.

I thought for a moment and tried again.
Just because you’ve lost Jennifer and I’ve lost Sam . . .

I winced, shoulders shifting beneath my sweater. I was
not
going there.

Ouch! Definitely the wrong tack to take.

Maybe I should just wing it, I decided. Go with my gut. Run with the ball. Or something like that.

Then, unexpectedly, Bob saved me the trouble. At least for the time being. When I got home, the house was empty. No humans, no canines.

Instead, there was a note on the kitchen counter. Bob had taken Davey, Eve, and Faith and gone to Frank’s place where the “men” (my quotes, not Bob’s) were planning to eat pizza, watch a football game, and teach Davey to belch. All right, I’m editorializing here, but you get the idea.

Which meant that I had some more free time. First I fixed a sandwich, turkey on rye, and reveled in the unaccustomed luxury of eating an uninterrupted meal. Then I got back to work.

As Maris had predicted, Debra Silver was indeed listed in the Greenwich phone book. Not only that, but the fact that she had no idea who I was didn’t seem to matter. Once I mentioned Sara Bentley’s name, our conversation was off and running.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re a friend of Sara’s?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Good, then we have something in common.” Debra’s speech was fast and forceful. She shot out words like bullets. “Do you play tennis?”

Since I was having trouble keeping up anyway, the non sequitur didn’t bother me as much as it might have. “No, not in years.”

“Do you know where Shippan Point is?”

“Down by the water in Stamford?”

“Right. I’ve got a round-robin at the indoor tennis place there at three. Women’s league. Why don’t you meet me there? I’ll be rotating in and out all afternoon. You can tell me all the awful things you know about Sara and I’ll do the same.”

“Deal,” I said.

As I hung up the phone, I decided it was curious that, having spoken so far to Sara’s friends and family, I had yet to find a single person who was genuinely, without reservation, on Sara’s side. For a variety of reasons, the woman simply didn’t engender unqualified support. It would be interesting to hear what someone who called herself Sara’s enemy would have to say about her.

Shippan Point is a navigator’s nightmare. I got lost twice on the way to the tennis facility; and the round-robin had already started when I arrived. I walked up the carpeted steps, passed the sign-in desk, and stopped in the viewing area overlooking the tennis courts. There were eight courts, all surfaced in Har-Tru. The competition looked pretty cutthroat.

After a minute, I turned my attention to the lounge area. Comfy couches and chairs had been grouped in front of the large windows. The courts were full, and an additional half dozen women were sitting out. Most were sipping bottled water and watching the play. As I approached, one stood up and came to meet me.

“Are you Melanie?” she asked. “I’ve been watching for you.”

Debra’s face was flushed and her bangs curled in damp ringlets across her forehead. She wore sweatbands around each wrist, and a flexible brace supported her elbow. Her tennis dress was short and tight. Not that Debra didn’t have the figure for it, just that the effort seemed wasted in a women’s league match.

“I just came off,” she said. “It’ll be at least twenty minutes until it’s my turn again. Let’s go sit down and you can tell me what this is about.”

We found a pair of chairs on the other side of the lounge. We could still see the tennis courts, but the other women wouldn’t overhear what we were saying. Debra unscrewed the top of her water bottle, tilted back her head, and took a long, deep drink. Her throat, damp with sweat, pulsed with the effort of swallowing.

“We play hard,” she said, sinking down into her chair with a sigh. “But don’t worry, I’ll catch my breath in a minute.”

While she did, I told her why I had come. Debra was briefly surprised, then utterly delighted, by the news that Sara Bentley was missing.

“Well, what do you know? Someone finally managed to drive the bitch away. More power to them, whoever they are.”

“I guess you wouldn’t have any ideas?”

“Me? What makes you ask that?”

“I was told that you and she didn’t get along. That there was a problem with a dog when you were both showing in Junior Showmanship.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake.” Debra sniffed. “That was
such
a long time ago. I don’t know how people still have the nerve to bring it up.” Despite her words, she didn’t look displeased by the thought that people might have been talking about her.

“Would you mind telling me the story?”

“Of course not. Do you show dogs?”

I nodded.

“Then you know what junior handling is.”

“More or less.”

“Briefly, it’s a competition where the handler’s ability is judged, rather than the dog they’re showing. The classes are open to juniors under the age of eighteen, and they can be pretty competitive.” Debra stopped and corrected herself. “Make that very competitive. Winning at the big shows really matters, and of course, everyone is trying like crazy to qualify for the all-important Junior Showmanship class at Westminster.”

“So you and Sara competed against each other.”

“Yes, for several years. We were the same age, and we tended to enter the same shows in the area. Though Sara would never admit it, we were pretty well matched in talent, too.”

Debra pursed her lips, thinking back. “Sara always thought she was something special because her mother was Delilah Waring with Scotchglen Shelties, and I was just some high-school kid with an okay Afghan Hound and a mother who didn’t mind driving her around to dog shows.”

Maris had been right, I thought. Though Debra had to be at least a decade older than eighteen, it didn’t sound as though any of her bitterness had faded.

“I heard that Sara may have poisoned your dog.”

“May have?” Her eyes flashed. “There was no question about it. Something happened to him and I know she was responsible. It was the Monday of Westminster, the day of the preliminaries for junior show. They hold them in the late afternoon, but we’d been there since morning. Kadu was on his bench in a big wire crate. He was fine when we arrived. My mother and I got him settled, then went out to the rings to watch the show.

“A couple hours later, it was Sara who came and told me that I’d better go check on my dog. She said he didn’t look very good. Of course, my mother and I went straight back to see. Kadu was in terrible shape. He had uncontrollable diarrhea. We got a vet right away but there was nothing he could do.”

“Did the dog die?” I asked, shocked.

“No,” Debra snapped. “Kadu didn’t die. But I couldn’t show him, could I? I missed the preliminary judging which meant I had no shot at the finals the next night. I’m telling you, Sara got to Kadu. She wanted me out of her way and she accomplished that by taking out my dog.”

“Did Sara win?”

Debra’s shrug was unconvincingly elaborate. “I don’t remember.”

Like hell she didn’t.

“That happened quite a while ago.”

“So?”

“I’m sure there have been plenty of successes in your life since.”

“Of course. And I know what you’re thinking. That maybe I should have put this behind me by now. Trust me, I have. The only reason I tell that story is to show people what kind of person Sara is. Sometimes people meeting her don’t understand.... Let’s just say she makes a good first impression. And she uses that to her advantage.”

That didn’t sound so unusual to me.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Sara uses it to her advantage with men.” Debra spoke slowly, enunciating each word as if she were speaking to a not-very-bright child. “She collects trophies. She likes other women’s boyfriends.”

Ahhh.

“Yours, too?”

“Only one. That was enough. After that, I made sure she never met any of my male friends. Of course, he came running right back as soon as she lost interest. And believe me, Sara
always
loses interest. Sometimes overnight. She enjoys proving how attractive she is to other women’s men a whole lot more than she likes having relationships with them.”

Debra took another slug of water. She used the back of her wristband to wipe a thin sheen of sweat from her brow. The temperature in the tennis facility was purposely kept cool. The other women who had come off the courts with her were beginning to pull on jackets and cover-ups. I wondered why Debra was still sweating.

“When was the last time you and Sara were in touch?” I asked.

“Let me think.” Her gaze wandered out to the courts. She didn’t seem to be trying to remember, as much as deciding what to say. “I guess we spoke briefly last week. She called me.”

“About what?”

“My husband, Jeff, is a lawyer in Greenwich. He’s in litigation, and let’s just say that he has a reputation for getting the job done. Sara was looking for a referral. She thought he might know someone. She told me she wanted a real shark.”

“Did she say what for?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. Frankly the thought that someone else Sara screwed was planning to drag her through the courts didn’t bother me one bit. I told her to try Jeff at his office.”

“Do you know if she did?”

“No, but if so, I doubt that they spoke. Jeff ’s never met Sara, but he’s heard me mention her. I don’t think he’d have taken her call.”

The ladies at the other end of the lounge were beginning to stir. One by one, the matches on the courts were ending.