“I’m glad,” I said.
The questions I’d lined up to ask Helen would be tough. So it seemed like a good idea to start the conversation by making an effort to put her at ease.
“Is Bradley a good swimmer?”
“For his age group, he’s great,” Helen replied. “He’s ten, and he swims in the twelve and unders. He’s fast enough to beat some of the older kids, too.”
“Good for him.”
“It is for now,” she said with a small laugh. “But I’m not kidding myself. I can’t do much more than flail around in the water, so I doubt that my son is going to be Olympic material. Or even college scholarship material, unfortunately. But he’s an only child so I like to keep him involved in as many activities as I can.”
“Been there,” I agreed.
“Really? Didn’t you just get married a couple of years ago?”
Once again I was reminded just how close-knit a community Howard Academy truly was. The fact that everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business made it all the more remarkable that—if my hunch was correct—Helen and Jim had been able to carry on a relationship right under everybody’s noses.
“Second marriage,” I told her. “I have a twelve-year-old son, Davey, with my first husband.”
“I’ve met quite a few kids at the school,” Helen said thoughtfully. “But I don’t think I know Davey.”
“You wouldn’t have met him,” I said. “He doesn’t go to Howard Academy.”
She peered at me over the rim of her cup. “How come?”
“When I first started teaching at HA, I was a single mother. I couldn’t have dreamed of affording the tuition. Davey started out in the public school system and he’s been thriving there. Plus that’s where all his friends are now. So I haven’t felt the need to make any changes.”
“I know what you mean about the tuition,” Helen replied. “There’s no way I could afford that on what I make. But for all his faults, Bradley’s father has at least managed to do one thing right. He’s determined that his son should have the best education money can buy. And Howard Academy fits the bill.”
“I take it you’re divorced,” I said.
Helen’s expression was wry. “Does it show?”
“Little bit.”
“It’s been three years. I’m supposed to be over it by now.”
“Says who?”
“Oh, you know.” Helen shrugged. “Best friends, self-help books, lifestyle gurus.”
“It sounds like you’ve gotten plenty of advice,” I said with a smile.
“I’ve listened to what they all have to say, anyway. But unfortunately, none of the practical wisdom I’ve been bombarded with seems to stick.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to worry about anybody’s time table but your own,” I said. “I hated my ex-husband for years.”
“And now?”
“Now we’re finally friends again. Go figure. He’s getting married on New Year’s Eve. His fiancée’s great. I’m helping her plan the wedding.”
Helen chuckled at the idea. “Doug and I will never reach that state of equanimity. I’m absolutely sure of that.”
“That’s all right,” I replied. “It’s different for everyone. Finding someone new helps.”
“I’m working on that part,” Helen admitted.
“I thought you might be.”
I watched Helen’s brows lift in surprise. Her eyes narrowed fractionally. For a long moment, she didn’t say a thing. Instead, her movements slow and measured, she paused for an extended drink.
On the other side of the booth, I sat in silence and waited her out.
“So that’s why we’re here,” she said finally. “I don’t know whether I should be annoyed or relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“You know . . . that’s it’s not about Bradley. When you asked to meet with me, my first thought was that something might be wrong at school. That was why I agreed to see you.”
“I thought it was because you didn’t want to go home with your hair smelling like chlorine,” I said.
Helen smiled reluctantly. “That, too, I suppose. So . . . how much do you know?”
“Enough to connect you to Jim McEvoy.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.” She tipped her head to one side. “You’re Sondra’s buddy.”
“No,” I said deliberately. “I’m not.”
“Then why are we here?”
“It’s about Sondra’s dog, Kiltie—”
“Oh good grief.” Helen snorted. “Seriously?”
I nodded.
“Sondra and her dogs. It’s always about those damn dogs. If she spent less time worrying about those yappy little animals and more time worrying about taking care of her family, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
“I guess that’s what Jim told you,” I said.
“And what I saw with my own eyes. Sondra’s always been involved with her own interests. She neglected Jim. She didn’t deserve him.”
Nothing original there, I thought. Those rationalizations sounded like the same ones used to excuse away just about every illicit relationship ever undertaken.
“Trust me,” I said. “You don’t deserve that kind of trouble either.”
“What does that mean?”
“After the Christmas bazaar last Saturday, a man died in Union Cemetery.”
“I know,” Helen replied shortly. “I read about it in the paper. So what?”
“His name was Jerry Platt. And he’d spent that day playing Santa Claus at our school. When he died, he had a picture of a West Highland White Terrier with him in his car. A dog just like Kiltie. It looks as though Sondra’s dog didn’t just disappear from the bazaar, he was purposely taken away. By Jerry Platt.”
Helen sat back in her seat, pressing her slender shoulders into the cushion behind her. All at once she looked as though she wanted to put as much distance between us as possible.
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“Actually,” I said gently, “I think it does. Because when Kiltie wasn’t with Poppy last Saturday, he was supposed to be locked inside his crate behind the raffle booth. You remember the raffle booth.”
Helen’s lips thinned. She didn’t speak.
“That was your concession, Helen. You were the person in charge.”
“You have that wrong,” she said firmly. “Sondra and I were both selling raffle tickets, but she was the one running the concession. Do you think that if it had been up to me, that booth would have been filled with dog crates? Absolutely not. I don’t even like dogs.”
So she and Jim McEvoy apparently had at least one thing in common.
“Where were you when Kiltie went missing?” I asked.
“How would I know that?” Helen countered. “Sondra and I were in and out of that booth all day. Maybe she was keeping an eye on those crates, but I wasn’t paying any attention to them at all. The first time I realized that something might be amiss was when you came by with Coco Silly.”
“Lily,” I corrected automatically. Then frowned. “If you weren’t paying any attention to the dogs, how did you know the Cockapoo’s name?”
Helen’s cheeks flushed. “Someone must have mentioned it. You know, one of the girls.”
“Which girls?”
“Poppy and . . . the other one.”
“The one whose name you don’t know. And yet somehow you seem to know the name of her dog.” I stared hard at Helen. “Even though you don’t like dogs.”
“It’s a memorable name—”
“Not really,” I said. “Not unless someone had made a point of telling it to you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Helen sputtered.
Good try, I thought. The stammer was a nice touch. But I wasn’t buying her denial for a minute. I was pretty sure that Helen knew exactly what I was talking about.
“I’m thinking that someone told you Coco Lily’s name becaus
e you were going to be interacting with the dog yourself,” I said.
“What kind of a crazy notion—”
“You’re the one who opened Coco Lily’s crate and turned her loose, aren’t you?”
Helen pulled in a sharp breath. I could see her considering her options. She squared her shoulders and her gaze sharpened to a steely glare. When she spoke again, it was obvious she’d realigned her defense.
“So what if I did?” she asked. “Big deal. A little dog got out of its crate and ran a few laps around the auditorium. No harm done.”
“Not to Coco Lily,” I agreed. “But what matters is not that she got loose—but rather why it happened.”
Helen lifted her coffee cup to her lips. The drink must have been nearly cold by now. She look a long swallow anyway.
“I have nothing to say about that,” she said primly.
“That’s fine,” I told her. “I can’t compel you to answer my questions if you don’t want to. I imagine you’ll be happier explaining what happened to the police.”
Helen’s mug landed back down on the tabletop so hard that our silverware rattled. “Why would I want to talk to the police?”
“I don’t think it matters whether you want to talk to them or not. After I take this information to Detective Young, I’m pretty sure he’ll be the one who wants to talk to you.”
All right, maybe I was bluffing about that. Truthfully I had no idea whether or not the detective would be interested in hearing new details about Kiltie’s theft. Or whether my information might be related to his own, much more important, investigation. But it was clear to me that Helen knew a great deal more about what had transpired that day than she was willing to share. And I was growing tired of our fencing match.
“Detective Young?” she repeated, frowning.
“He’s the officer who’s investigating Jerry Platt’s murder.”
“That had nothing to do with me.”
“So you said.” I made no attempt to hide my irritation. “All you did was open a dog crate, right?”
Glumly Helen nodded.
“And look the other way,” I added.
“It was just supposed to be a small diversion.”
“And it succeeded,” I said. “Because while people were running around the auditorium chasing Coco Lily, Jerry Platt was able to slip Kiltie out of the bazaar.”
“Why do you keep talking about this Platt character? Even if he was at the bazaar as you say, I never met him. I don’t know the first thing about him or what he was up to. And I certainly had nothing to do with Sondra’s little dog.”
That last part I believed. Helen wasn’t stupid. No doubt she’d made sure to give her lover’s wife’s dog a very wide berth.
“Who did?” I asked.
“Who did what?”
As if that evasion was going to work. It didn’t even slow me down. I rephrased the question and tried again.
“Who arranged for Kiltie’s theft?”
This time I hadn’t even finished speaking before Helen began to shake her head. Her mouth was clamped firmly shut.
“All right, I’ll make it easier for you,” I said. “Forget about Kiltie altogether. Who asked you to open Coco Lily’s crate?”
Again, only silence.
“Who asked you to create a diversion?”
“Nobody,” Helen snapped. At least she’d gotten her voice back.
“Really?” I asked skeptically. “It was all your own idea?”
“You can’t prove differently. No matter how many times you repeat the same thing.”
Helen gathered up her coat and purse and slid out of the booth. I could see that I’d only have time for one more question. I needed to make it count.
“I know that Jim McEvoy must have asked you to open that crate,” I said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. But here’s what I don’t understand. What did he hope to gain?”
Helen’s motions were tight and jerky as she wound her scarf around her neck and yanked on her coat. “I’ll be lodging a complaint with Mr. Hanover about your behavior here today,” she said. “It was entirely out of line.”
The warning was meant to intimidate me, to make me back off. Instead it had the opposite effect. Helen’s threat made me mad.
“What happened last Saturday wasn’t just about a dog or an unhappy marriage,” I said. “A man lost his life. Surely that must mean something to you.”
Helen had taken the first, hurried, step toward the door. But now she surprised me by pausing and turning back. For the first time, she looked uncertain. She glanced around the mostly empty café as if she was afraid of being overheard, then leaned down close to where I was still sitting.
“Ask your friend, Sondra, about the prenup,” she hissed in my ear. “See what she has to say about that.”
On the way to my car, I called the nonemergency number for the Greenwich Police Department and asked to speak with Detective Young. The desk sergeant informed me that he wasn’t in and offered to connect me to the detective’s voice mail. Instead I asked the sergeant if he knew when Detective Young would be back in, then waited while he checked the roster.
“He’s off this weekend, but he’ll be here bright and early Monday morning. If you want, you can leave a message with me and I’ll make sure that he gets it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That would be great. Could you tell him that Melanie Travis has some new information about the theft of Kiltie, the dog that Jerry Platt stole from the Howard Academy Christmas Bazaar?”
“Dog?” the sergeant repeated. “This is about a missing dog?”
“No,” I replied. “It’s about Detective Young’s investigation into Jerry Platt’s death. You know, last weekend?”
“Sure. I know about that. What’s the information?”
Belatedly it occurred to me that both the new details I’d learned, and their significance to what had later befallen Jerry Platt, were probably too convoluted to explain in a short message. I didn’t want the account’s import to be lost in translation.
“It would probably be better if I talk to Detective Young in person,” I said. “Maybe you could ask him to call me?”
“Sure. I can do that.”
I spelled my name twice and left both my home and cell phone numbers with the desk sergeant before hanging up. On this hectic last weekend before Christmas, I could only hope that he wouldn’t file the message in a lost dog folder and leave it at that.
Chapter 24
“What have you done now?” Aunt Peg demanded.
I stared at the telephone I held nestled in my palm. My index finger hovered over the off button. I was tempted. Actually I was more than tempted; I was itching to sever the connection.
Unfortunately I doubted that that would deter Aunt Peg. She’d simply keep calling back until I answered the question and told her what I’d done. Which could be just about anything. I had no idea what transgression I was being blamed for at the moment.
It was barely eight o’clock on Sunday morning. Second week in a row, in case you’re keeping track. At least this time, Aunt Peg had had the decency to call rather than simply showing up at my house unannounced.
I sighed and fitted the phone back to my ear. I supposed I might as well find out what the problem was this time.
“What are you talking about, Aunt Peg?”
“Sondra just called. She told me you’ve ruined everything.”
Well, all righty then. I allowed myself a small smile. Apparently all my poking around had finally managed to hit a nerve. It was about time.
“What precisely have I ruined?” I asked.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be calling. But whatever it is you’ve done, Sondra is mad enough to spit nails. She was so upset that I could hardly understand what she was saying. I think it has something to do with Jim.”
“Indeed,” I muttered.
“What’s that?” Aunt Peg doesn’t miss a thing.
“When I talked to Sondra on Friday, I a
sked her how I could get in touch with Jim. I told her I wanted to speak to him. Instead of helping, Sondra warned me off. She told me she didn’t want me talking to her husband and that I was absolutely not to contact him.”
“Apparently you didn’t listen.” Aunt Peg sounded pleased. There was nothing that made her happier than nurturing her relatives’ subversive tendencies.
“Actually I haven’t spoken to Jim yet. I didn’t have time to get around to it.”
“You didn’t have time?” she repeated indignantly. “What about all day yesterday? Surely you couldn’t have been busy the entire day.”
I hoped that Santa Claus left a lump of coal in Aunt Peg’s stocking. It would truly serve her right.
“As it happens I was tied up,” I told her. I waited a beat, then added, “I was busy talking to Jim’s mistress instead.”
Luckily Aunt Peg couldn’t see the satisfied smirk on my face.
“Oh?” she said with interest. “That’s news.”
“And there’s more,” I said. “Helen—that’s the mistress—was also working at the raffle booth during the bazaar. She admitted that she was one who opened Coco Lily’s crate and let her loose in the auditorium. She did it to create a diversion.”
Anyone who knowingly puts a dog at risk is definitely not in Aunt Peg’s good graces. I knew she would be annoyed by that and she was. “And under whose orders did she do such a thing?”
“That’s the sixty-four dollar question,” I told her. “But I can only come up with one name that makes sense. Especially since my questions upset Helen enough to make her threaten to file a complaint against me with Russell Hanover.”
“Harrumph.” Aunt Peg snorted into the phone. When it comes to Howard Academy, she’s not without connections herself. “I’d just like to see her try.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “Before she went storming off, Helen told me that I should ask Sondra about her prenup.”
“Indeed?” Aunt Peg mused. “How very interesting. That might put a whole different complexion on things.”
“In what way?”
“The reason Sondra called this morning was to demand that I tell you to back off and leave her family alone. She said the questions you’d been asking weren’t helping. They were only stirring up more trouble instead.”
The Bark Before Christmas Page 23