Underdog (6 page)
“What about what happened to Ziggy?”
“Sure that upset her. A thing like that would upset anybody. But Jenny'd been in this business a long time. She grew up in it. You know when you get dogs that you're going to outlive them. It's a fact of life and you either figure out how to deal with it or you don't last very long.”
Angie had thought Jenny was unhappy. Rick didn't. Angie was her sister; Rick, her husband. Which one of them had known her better? And what had Angie meant when she'd said, I never thought she'd go that far?
“So you don't think Jenny could have poisoned herself?”
Rick started to reply, then stopped. His shoulders rose and fell in a weary shrug. “I don't know what to think anymore. My wife is dead. That should be the worst of it, but it's only the beginning. Half the clients are sympathetic, but the other half are in an uproar. The business is going crazy. Jenny fired our only kennel help ten days ago and I haven't had a chance to replace her yet. I had the Petersons to deal with over the weekend, and the police are stopping by every other minute to ask questions. My whole life's shot to hell anyway. What does it matter what I think?”
The door in the far wall pushed open and Angie stuck her head in. She was holding a fluffy white Bichon Frise under one arm. “Rick? Sylvie Dumas called earlier and said she wants to pick Buttons up at five. I think you ought to call her back and try to change her mind, but I gave him a bath anyway so he's ready to go if she comes.”
“Got it, Angel,” said Rick. “Thanks.”
Angie withdrew and the door shut quietly behind her.
“See what I mean?” Rick muttered. “Dog people are cold, don't ever let anyone tell you they're not. Jenny hasn't even been buried a week and there's another client wanting to come and get her dog. Thank God for Angie. With Jackie gone, I don't know how I'd be managing right now without her.”
“Jackie was the kennel girl?”
Rick nodded.
“I think I spoke with her last week.”
“Yeah, she was probably in picking up her things. Jenny was really furious at her. Told her to leave and never come back. I don't think she'd have dared to show her face except. . .”
He didn't finish, but we both knew what he meant. Except that by then, Jenny was gone. He didn't want to talk about it and neither did I. Instead, I went back to something he'd mentioned earlier. “I've seen you at the shows, Rick. You're a good handler. Why can't you show Buttons?”
“He hates men, always has. In time I'm sure I could bring him around, but when Jenny was here to show him, there was no need. Now he only needs three singles to finish and Sylvie figures another woman handler will get the job done faster. That's the name of the game in the dog show world. Win now and win big.” He slumped back and covered his face with his hands. “God, I sound cynical, don't I?”
“You sound like a man who's just gone through the worst week of his life.”
“You can say that again.” He rubbed his eyes roughly and left them red and puffy. “Well, I guess I'd better call Sylvie and see what I can do.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. Listen, about class. . .”
I stopped on my way to the door.
“We'll probably be able to get it going again next week. Angie can take Jenny's place. She's pretty good. She's just about saved my life around here the last few days.”
“Don't rush back to class on my account. And I'm sure everyone else feels the same way. Come back when you're ready. We'll be waiting for you.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
I kept my eyes down on the way out. I couldn't bear to look at the pictures either.
Six
Davey has been best friends with Joey Brickman since the two of them were less than a year old. At that age the two biggest factors in determining a child's friends are proximity and how well the two mothers get along. The Brick-mans live right down the street from us in Flower Estates; and from that first shared cup of coffee, Alice and I had known we were on the same wavelength.
Aside from Joey, Alice has a daughter, Carly, who's sixteen months old. Her husband works long hours as a lawyer in town and he wasn't home yet when I arrived to pick up Davey. I would have rung the doorbell, but the front door was standing ajar. I opened the storm door and let myself in.
“Hello?” I said.
“In here,” Alice called from the back of the house. Joey and Davey were in the living room, totally engrossed in a game of Nintendo. They didn't even turn around as I walked by.
In the kitchen, Alice had Carly in a high chair and was spoonfeeding her dinner. Mother and daughter shared strawberry-blond hair, pale, freckled skin, and pleasingly plump bodies. Alice was still struggling with the last ten pounds from her pregnancy the year before.
“I closed your front door.”
“Thanks. The boys must have left it open. They've been outside most of the afternoon, but once it starts to get dark . . .” She reached for a napkin as pureed banana oozed out of Carly's mouth and down her chin.
“I know. You give up and let them turn on the TV. How come nobody told us ahead of time that motherhood involved so much guilt about all the things you think your children should be doing, but either you can't find the time or else they're totally disinterested?”
“Like chess lessons?”
“Roddy Wade,” Alice and I said in unison and grinned.
“If that child's a prodigy,” I said, “I'm Cindy Crawford.”
“You know his mother has him up to three lessons a week now?”
“It's crazy. It's this area, the whole fast-track, make-it-big, New York metropolitan mentality. The older teachers say that twenty years ago in an average incoming kindergarten class, one or two of the kids would be reading already. Now most are. Either their parents have taught them, or Big Bird has, or the newest wrinkle in all of thisâthey've been tutored in reading readiness programs. Some of these four- and five-year-olds are even doing math.”
“And to think,” said Alice, “I feel like I'm doing well when Joey brushes his teeth after I've only reminded him twice.”
“Hey Mom, we want something to eat!” Joey came tearing into the kitchen with Davey close behind him.
“Dinner's coming soon,” said Alice. “I don't want you to spoil your appetite.”
Davey slid to a halt beside me. “What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you, too.” I reached down to give him a hug.
He glanced at Joey and pulled away. “Is it time to go already?”
“Yup. Faith's outside in the car. Where are your shoes?” Winter or summer, it made no difference to Davey. His goal in life was to be barefoot. I'd tried everything from zip-up boots to slip-on sneakers, but nothing stayed on his feet for long.
“I think they're in the living room. I beat Joey at Nintendo.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
I ignored the squabble and pointed at his feet. “Go look, okay?”
Davey and Joey left the room the same way they'd arrivedâat a dead run. Carly watched them go, then reached out, grabbed a handful of her mother's hair and gave it a good yank.
“Ow!” Alice disentangled the strands from her daughter's chubby fingers. “You left that puppy in the car? Is that a good idea? She's probably eaten your steering wheel by now.”
“She's fine,” I said, hoping it was true. “But I probably shouldn't leave her too long, or she'll start to bark.” I picked up Davey's backpack from the kitchen table. His jacket was slung over a chair. When he reappearedâ sneakers on, but untiedâI dropped it over his shoulders.
“What do you say?” I asked him.
“What's for dinner?”
“Not to me. To Mrs. Brickman.”
“Thanks for having me,” Davey mumbled.
“You're very welcome,” said Alice, eons more gracious than her guest.
Joey walked us to the door. If I hadn't pulled it closed behind us, he probably would have left it open again. In the car, Faith was bouncing up and down with excitement at our reappearance. As soon as Davey got in, she jumped over the back of the seat and landed on his lap. He was giggling as the two of them rolled down on the floor.
“Did you have fun this afternoon?” I asked when he'd stuck his head up for air.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Joey cheated at Nintendo.”
“Really? I thought you said you beat him.”
Davey was silent for a moment, considering the ramifications of trying to have it both ways. I could read his thought processes as clearly as my own. He was wondering which he was more in the mood forâsympathy or gloating. Finally he opted out all together.
“I'm hungry,” he said as we turned in the driveway and coasted to a stop in front of the garage.
“You're always hungry.”
The look he gave me was one of pure exasperation. No doubt about it, kindergarten had matured this kid. I reached out and ruffled his hair.
“Don't grow up too fast, okay?”
“Aw, Mom.” Davey opened the car door and unfastened his seatbelt. Faith was sitting on his lap. He lifted the flap of her ear and whispered, “Last one to the house is a rotten egg!”
No surprise who that turned out to be. “You lose!” Davey cried gleefully. Faith spun in a circle and barked.
Some day I'd beat that team, but I doubted it was going to happen any time soon.
Â
The next day after school, Davey and I drove over to Aunt Peg's. She lives in a rambling old farmhouse in back-country Greenwich which probably has about six times as much living space as she needs. The land surrounding it is beautiful though, and there's enough room so that the fact that she has more than a dozen Standard Poodles usually doesn't bother the neighbors.
Roughly half her Poodles are finished champions that have retired from showing. Most of those live in the house with her. The long, profuse coats that are required for competition have been trimmed back, which means that these Poodles look pretty much like normal dogs. At any given time however, Peg usually has a handful of Poodles that are either currently being shown or else growing hair in anticipation of an upcoming career. Those are housed in the small kennel building out back.
There was no answer at the front door when Davey rang the bell, but Peg's station wagon was in the driveway so Davey, Faith, and I walked around back to the kennel. Aunt Peg was there in her grooming room. She'd just finished bathing an older puppy named Lulu and was using a big, free-standing hair dryer to blow her dry.
Lying on the floor in a shaft of the late afternoon sun was Beau, her top-winning Poodle and beloved pet. He'd been missing for nearly three months over the summer. Now, when Peg was home, he rarely let her out of his sight. As I opened the door, he leapt up and barked sharply.
“It's only us,” I said as Faith bounded into the room. With a puppy's typical lack of caution, she charged over and jumped on Beau who suffered her attentions with dignity and a gently wagging tail. “You know you really ought to hook up your doorbell so that it rings out here.”
“It does.”
“Well?”
“Well what?” Aunt Peg gave me a mild look. “That way I know if someone's come. It doesn't mean I have to drop what I'm doing and go traipsing up to greet them. Anyone who knows me well enough, knows to come and look out here. Anyone who doesn't, I'm probably not interested in seeing anyway.” She turned her attention to Davey. “How's my boy today?”
“Fine.”
She lifted him up and sat him on the edge of the grooming table. “And how are you enjoying your new puppy?”
“She's neat.”
“Better than a frog?” Aunt Peg shot me a disapproving look over my son's head.
“Much better,” Davey said happily.
“I should hope so.”
Urged on by Faith, Beau had decided to play. As the two of them began to chase each other around the room, Lulu stood up on the table and barked. The area wasn't that big. I pressed back against a wall of shelves and narrowly avoided being run over by the onrush of activity.
“Hey!” Aunt Peg said sternly as Beau grabbed one of Faith's ears in his mouth. “You know better.” Then she grabbed the big black dog and gave him a hug, totally negating the effect of her words. “If you're going to be wild, you can take it outside.”
“Me too,” said Davey, hopping down off the table as Aunt Peg opened the door.
“The house isn't locked,” she told him. “If you're hungry, I'll bet you can find yourself a snack in the kitchen.”
“Doughnuts?” Davey's eyes lit up.
“Maybe. Go see.”
Doughnuts. You could tell these two were related.
The door slammed shut behind him. Aunt Peg got Lulu resettled on the table and continued her blow drying. I pulled over a stool and sat down to watch. The nozzle on the dryer was as long as my arm and twice as thick. The stream of hot air emanating from it was strong enough to ruffle the curtains across the room.
“I saw Rick Maguire yesterday,” I said.
Her fingers moved nimbly through the hair, parting and drying it section by section. “Where?”
“At his kennel. I drove up there.”
“All the way to Ridgefield? Whatever for?”
“Jenny lent me a book. I wanted to return it.”
Aunt Peg stopped and looked up. “And you used the excuse to find out what happened to Jenny.”
“I tried. I didn't learn much. She did die of arsenic poisoning. Crawford was right.”
“That doesn't surprise me. Crawford's rarely wrong. How did it happen?”
“Rick said he didn't know. He said they kept rat poison on hand, that for a kennel that wasn't unusual.”
Aunt Peg nodded.
“But he had no idea how Jenny might have gotten herself poisoned with it. He said she must have slipped up somehow.”
“Slipped up?” Aunt Peg said incredulously. “Slipping up involves spilling a little on the ground, not ingesting enough to poison yourself. What have the police had to say about all this?”
“According to Rick, they're still asking questions.”
“I guess that's something. They didn't even do that much when Beau was stolen.”
“Beau's a dog. Jenny's a person. A woman who was relatively young, healthy, and happy only a week ago. Somebody's got to ask questions about that.”
Aunt Peg gave me a long look. “Like you, maybe?”
I pulled in a long breath and let it out slowly, trying to make sense of how I felt. Jenny and I had shared a rapport and the promise of a friendship in the making. Our affinity had been based, at least in part, on our similarities and what we had in common. And that's what was making me so uncomfortable now.
I wanted to know why Jenny was dead while I was alive. What had been the difference between us? What choices had she made that had led to this unexpected ending, and in similar straits would I have done the same? Or did the blame lie somewhere else entirely and it was all only a matter of luck and destiny?
I looked up and saw that Aunt Peg was waiting. I sighed softly, frustrated by all the things I didn't know. “I want to understand what went wrong. Believing that Jenny's death was an accident is too easy. Thinking of it as murder or suicide seems truly bizarre.”
“Suicide?” Her brow lifted. “When did that become a possibility?”
“It was something Angie said at the wake. She was really upset and she mumbled something about knowing Jenny was unhappy but never thinking she'd go that far.”
“Angie? What would she know about anything? The girl's a child.”
“Not really.” I reached out and patted Lulu's long muzzle as she lay patiently on the table. “She's probably only a couple of years younger than Jenny. And she certainly knew her sister better than anyone.”
Aunt Peg thought for a minute. “Jenny wanting to commit suicide? I just don't see it.”
“Neither do I. When I asked Rick about it, he said that he and Jenny were doing great, that she had no reason to be depressed.”
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