I’d missed some of the conversation, but the next thing I heard was Peggy saying, “Bitch!” and the sound of bodies colliding.
Despite what Rick had told me I had to jump in. I unlatched the gate, and as I did I let go of Rochester’s leash, and he rushed forward.
Peggy was on the ground wrestling with Rita. Two other women stood there watching them, telling them to stop, but Peggy and Rita continued to go at it, rolling around on the ground, scratching and punching each other in what looked like an episode from one of the Real Housewives shows.
Rochester jumped in, as if this was the most fun he’d seen anywhere. He got between the two women, licking Rita on the face. “Yuck! Get this dog off me!”
She grabbed a hunk of his fur and pulled, and Rochester yelped. That was all it took to get me in there, too. Nobody hurts my dog while I’m there.
“Get your hands of him, you lousy tramp.” I pulled her by the hair and she turned to me.
“You’re that guy who came in for financial aid advice. What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, as Peggy got away and scrambled to her feet.
“He’s my friend,” Peggy said. Rochester went over to her and she petted him. “And his dog’s my friend, too.”
In the distance I heard a police siren. The two other sisters clustered around Peggy, comforting her, while I faced off against Rita. “You’re not as smart as you think you are,” I said. “You admitted to killing Carl Landsea in front of four witnesses. You’re the one who’s going to jail, not Peggy.”
“I didn’t admit to anything,” Rita said defiantly. Her blonde bouffant had come loose and she’d lost two buttons on her blouse. Fortunately she wasn’t as well-endowed as Peggy was after her surgery so it didn’t matter.
She looked over at Rochester, who was digging for something under the boxwood hedge. “Get your dog out of there!”
“Rochester, come to me,” I said, and as he did, I noticed a gold chain dangling from his mouth.
“That’s Carl’s St. Christopher medal,” Peggy said. “The only time he ever took it off was to have sex, because he said he didn’t want the saint watching him. He told me he lost it just before he died. What’s it doing here?”
“I told you, Carl and I had meetings. He was over here one day and, you know how it is.”
“You knew he was my husband and you still slept with him,” Peggy said. “You’re lower than dog turds, RJ.”
“He thought you were a hot number, swinging around on poles at that miserable club, but then he figured out you were lousy in bed so he gave up on you and went looking for a woman who could really satisfy him.”
“Girls!” Catherine said impotently. The other sister, Anne, stood there with her arms crossed, as if she was totally over the drama caused by her oldest and youngest sisters.
A Newtown police cruiser pulled up and the poor cop was overwhelmed by all four of the sisters trying to talk at once. I stood in the background with Rochester until Rick arrived, followed soon after by a detective from the Tullytown police department.
It took a while to get everything organized. The detective took the sisters into the house one by one to take statements from them, while Rick, the Newtown cop and I waited outside.
Eventually it was my turn, and I repeated everything I had heard that day. “What brought you over here?” he asked, when I was finished.
“Peggy called me. She was frightened by the way her sister was behaving, and at the same time she didn’t want to leave because she was worried Rita would go back to you guys and make up more stuff that would implicate her in Carl’s death.”
“Not exactly a happy family reunion,” the detective said, and left it at that.
* * *
Lili, Rochester and I left the next morning in a caravan with Rick, Tamsen, Justin and Rascal and drove down the shore. As we approached, I loved the sense that the land was so flat, that the horizon ahead of us stretched off toward the coast of Portugal.
While we were in Wildwood Crest, I got an email from Hunter Thirkell, thanking me for my help and letting me know that the police had dropped all charges against Peggy once they had assembled all the evidence against Rita. He reiterated his offer to hire me as an investigator in the future.
Peggy called to thank me for all my help. “Did you see that article in the Courier-Times?” she asked. “The reporter who called me the Black Widow had to add an apology to me in his story.”
“I’ll have to check it out.” I hesitated. “Don’t be a stranger again, okay, Peggy? We’ll have to have you over for dinner soon. I want you to meet Lili, because you guys have a lot in common.”
“I’d like that, Steve. I don’t have many friends anymore, so I need to keep the ones I have. Like Hunter. He’s been really good to me, and with the notoriety of my case, he’s starting to get more business, so he’s going to hire me as his legal secretary.”
“That’s awesome, Peggy.”
“And I might even go back to college part-time and finish my bachelor’s. I only need about another year. Who knows, I might even end up going on to law school myself.”
It was terrific to see the old Peggy coming through, returning to her earliest hopes and dreams.
I checked out the Courier-Time story after I hung up with Peggy. It wasn’t as much of an apology as Peggy thought, more an exploration of the way the blame had shifted to Peggy’s sister, with a hint of more revelations to come.
Rochester came over and nuzzled his head against my knee. I had long since come to trust his instincts when it came to people. He knew who was good and who wasn’t. He’d liked Peggy Doyle from the start, and hadn’t liked her sister Rita.
Over the next week, I taught Justin how to play gin rummy, and Lili took him out on a couple of photographic excursions. Rick and I hung out, drinking beer and talking about everything from our dogs to old classmates. Tamsen and Lili continued to bond, and Rochester and Rascal had a great time romping and then sleeping against each other.
There was a lot of love in that house, and I hoped that love like that would be out there for Peggy Landsea, too.
The Golden Retriever Mysteries, in order, are:
1: In Dog We Trust
2: The Kingdom of Dog
3: Dog Helps Those
4: Dog Bless You
5: Whom Dog Hath Joined
6: Dog Have Mercy
7: Honest to Dog
8: Dog is in the Details
9: Dog Knows
10: Dog’s Green Earth
All are available in print and e-book format, wherever books are sold.
Several short stories have also been published in the following anthologies:
"Dog Forbid," is featured in Happy Homicides. Interesting fact: the story in the e-book edition is set at Thanksgiving, but the editors wanted only Christmas stories for the paperback, so voila! the holiday was changed. Steve, Lili and Rochester accompany Mark, Joey and Brody to Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and suddenly Brody disappears. Can Rochester find him in time for a happy holiday?
Happy Homicides 2 is set at Valentine's Day and includes my story "For the Love of Dog." While Gail's cafe, The Chocolate Ear, is being expanded into the space next door, a young woman's body is discovered there. It's up to Steve and Rochester to keep the opening on schedule and find out whodunnit.
The stories in Happy Homicides 5 involve cats and crime—so a feline leads Rochester into an investigation of kidnapping and bitcoin fraud in “Riding the Tiger.”
Another Three Dogs in a Row Page 56