Putting on the Dog

by Cynthia Baxter

  Even though Emily and I dealt with a steady stream of visitors to our booth, I managed to steal away for a few minutes. Leaving her in charge of both the booth and my dogs, I hurried over to the Yellow Tent, where the Group judging was underway. According to the schedule, I was just in time to catch the end of the Toy Group.

  While I’ve treated my share of the miniature breeds that fell under this classification, I couldn’t help melting over the spectacle of so many cute little animals in the ring. Seeing them together instead of one at a time, cheerfully parading around the circle with their handlers, was as much fun as peering into the window of a toy store.

  Yet while they all had the same small size in common, that was about the only characteristic they shared. The frisky black-white-and-tan cavalier King Charles spaniel with the shaggy fur and long ears of all spaniels bore no resemblance to the sleek black-and-white Italian Greyhound that barely stood a foot high. The fluffy Pekingese that reminded me of one of those woolly bedroom slippers was light-years away from the toy Manchester terrier that looked like a tiny Doberman.

  Still, each one was already a winner, having captured Best of Breed in the event’s earlier competitions. They were all beautiful dogs, groomed to perfection and well-versed in dog show etiquette. How a judge would ever manage to choose just one as the group winner, I couldn’t imagine.

  “Every one of them is absolutely darling, don’t you think?”

  I turned, curious about who had been reading my thoughts. Glancing over, I saw that Kara Liebling had joined me.

  “Hello, Kara,” I said. Sincerely, I added, “Running into you like this is certainly a nice surprise.”

  “I’m glad I ran into you, too, Jessie.”

  For today’s event, Kara was dressed casually, her pale blond hair piled on top of her head and fastened with a clip that left soft tendrils curling around her face. She wore white capris, a sky-blue tank top, and canvas tennis shoes, with a white sweater tied loosely around her shoulders. Every article of clothing looked expensive, with handstitching and unusual detailing. Even on a day like today, she managed to look radiant. I reminded myself what Chess had said: that Kara was simply another human being, just like the rest of us.

  Another dog-lover, as well. I reached down to pet Anastasia, who stood regally at Kara’s side, wagging her tail and gazing up at me with her clear, brown eyes.

  “And how about you, Anastasia?” I asked, caressing the silky white fur of the Borzoi’s small folded ears. “Are you having fun?”

  “She’s doing more than that,” Kara said, beaming. “She competed in the Hound Group event this morning—and won second prize.”

  “That’s great! You must be so—”

  My thought trailed off as the Pekingese that had been gliding around the ring in a spirited manner suddenly stopped, turned, and let out an indignant yip. His owner, a middle-aged man in green golf pants and a loud plaid shirt, instantly looked panicked. At the same moment, the dog right behind him, the greyhound, skittered forward, growling angrily. The two canines appeared to be after the same booty—whatever it was. The greyhound’s owner, a gaunt-faced woman with the same spindly build, let out a shriek, snapping the leash and pulling her dog back.

  Misbehaving in the ring was the ultimate no-no. Just like everyone else who’d witnessed the scene, my eyes automatically traveled to the judge. I recognized him as the same man who’d judged the wirehaired terriers on Monday. He was wearing another seersucker suit, this time white with narrow green stripes, and the same straw hat. But this time, the expression on his face was one of pure displeasure.

  Almost immediately, he pointed to the cavalier, identifying him as the winner. The dog’s handler, a fit young man in shorts and a tight white T-shirt, broke into a huge, triumphant smile.

  Instead of the polite applause I expected, I cringed at the sound of the greyhound owner’s shrill voice piercing through the din.

  “This competition was sabotaged!” she shrieked. “Someone threw something—food, probably—into the ring! Someone cheated !”

  As for the Pekingese’s owner, he just looked confused. I couldn’t help examining the faces of all the other dog owners who’d been competing—especially the cavalier’s handler. I wasn’t certain, but I thought that for just a fraction of a second, I saw a smug look flicker across his face.

  “Just like show business,” Kara commented, smiling slyly. “The best actor for a particular role isn’t necessarily the one who gets it!”

  I laughed. “I guess it really is a dog-eat-dog world.”

  “Which brings me to the real reason I’m glad I ran into you. I owe you an apology.” In response to my blank look, she added, “For the way I acted at the screening the other night.”

  I waved my hand in the air. “It was nothing, Kara. Not even worth mentioning.”

  “It wasn’t ‘nothing’ to me,” she insisted. “I’m sorry I sounded so catty. I’m afraid Shawn Elliot is a bit of a sore spot.”

  “I don’t blame you for being upset. But I meant it when I said that he and I are just friends.”

  “I know, and I hope you can forget about how I acted.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good.” She smiled sincerely. “There’s another reason I’m glad I ran into you. I keep meaning to invite you over. I’d love the chance to just sit and chat. Even though the whole point of coming to the Bromptons for the summer is to relax and ‘get away from it all,’ it’s much too easy to get involved with all the same people that I see at home. It’s really refreshing to get to know somebody who’s not in the business. How about stopping over for a drink this evening around seven?”

  “That sounds great,” I told her sincerely.

  “Here, let me just jot down my address. . . .”

  I had to admit, I was surprised by her invitation. After our encounter at the Pulverizer screening, I thought my friendship with Kara was over. Yet I genuinely liked her. Aside from that surprising encounter, she had always seemed like such a warm, sincere person.

  But as much as I hated to admit it, I had an ulterior motive, as well. Kara was one of Chess’s closest friends, and I hoped she might be able to provide me with some clues about the life he shared with Devon Barnett.

  Then there was Shawn’s puzzling claim that appearances aside, Kara Liebling was actually a “nut case.” Tonight, maybe I’d have a chance to find out for myself.

  By the time noon rolled around, I was more than ready for a break. I was wondering how to spend my long lunch hour when Emily said, “Could I ask you a favor?”

  “Anything, Em.”

  “Would it be okay if I brought Max and Lou home with me during lunch? My dad’s picking me up in a couple of minutes, and I want him to see how great they are to have around. That way, maybe he’ll let me get a dog.”

  “Be my guest.”

  Her face lit up. “Thanks! I’ll take real good care of them. I promise!”

  Her expression grew serious. “But what should I feed them? We don’t have any dog food at home.”

  “They eat once a day, at dinnertime,” I told her. “Just make sure they have plenty of water and they’ll be fine.”

  I watched Emily skip across the field happily with her two charges in tow. Lou loped beside her on his long, spindly legs, while Max scurried along in fourth gear, his short legs moving so quickly they were a blur. I couldn’t tell who was the most excited.

  I decided to take advantage of my free time to drop in at 145 Beach Street. Between my meeting with Sizzle and Hugo Fontana’s contention that Dev’s current heartthrob had some interesting skeletons in his closet, I was anxious to scrutinize Chess a little more closely.

  I stood on the steps of the pastel-colored mansion, ringing the doorbell repeatedly and hearing it echo through the cavernous first floor. Even though Chess’s car was in the driveway, there was no response.

  Just for the heck of it, I tried the door. Surprisingly, the knob turned easily in my hand.

  “He
llo?” I called, stepping inside. “Anybody home?”

  Nothing. I ventured a little farther inside the house. I moved cautiously, afraid of suddenly finding myself face-to-face with a bucket-wielding Hilda—or something worse.

  I jumped at least three feet into the air when I felt something brush against my leg. Letting out a yelp, I looked down—and was instantly relieved to see that my attacker was nobody more threatening than Zsa Zsa.

  “Hey, Zsa Zsa,” I crooned, picking up the little ball of fur. My face was immediately drenched in dog kisses, her postage stamp-sized tongue working overtime to cover the expanse of my left cheek. Despite the fluffed fur and the faux leopard-skin bow perched atop her tiny head, the sweet-faced Havanese was just another puppy dog, looking for affection. “Where’s your daddy, huh? Where’s Chess?”

  While the soft bundle in my arms didn’t answer, the sound of a crash somewhere on the second floor gave me a clue. Zsa Zsa and I both jumped.

  “Go find Chess,” I instructed, depositing her gently on the ground.

  Dutifully, the dog trotted toward the dramatic round staircase. I followed her upstairs, calling, “Chess? Are you up here?”

  If he was, he still didn’t seem to have heard me. I continued trailing after my guide, turning a corner and following Zsa Zsa into the master bedroom. It was a large, sunny space with trendy toile wall coverings. The white silk was printed with deep red renderings of horse-drawn carriages attended by footmen, and refined ladies who looked as if they spent way too much time in front of a mirror. I’d learned all about toile by watching the Home and Garden Channel. Very expensive stuff, as were the coordinated drapes, bedspread, carpets, and every other element that picked up the same deep tones and Marie Antoinette ambiance.

  While I’d been impressed when Chess had first shown it to me, I was even more bowled over this time. But the sudden lump in my throat had nothing to do with the décor. Instead, it was the tableau I found in the walk-in closet.

  Chess was standing amid the linen shirts and Armani suits and Gucci loafers, holding a shoebox in his hand. It was white, printed in green with what I figured was probably some hotshot designer’s name, Emilio Fratelli.

  But it wasn’t only the lettering on the box that was green. So were the bundles of cash that had clearly just spilled out of it and were now lying haphazardly all over the closet floor.

  “Chess?” I asked quizzically. Searching his face, I saw an expression of astonishment.

  “Look at this, Jessie!” he cried. “They’re all twenties and fifties. There are thousands and thousands of dollars here!”

  Zsa Zsa hovered outside the closet, eyeing the pile of greenery suspiciously. She looked just as confused as the rest of us. She tried barking at it, and when it didn’t respond by either attacking her or running away, she eased a little closer, sniffed it a few times, and immediately lost interest.

  Not so with Chess and me.

  “Where did all this money come from?” I asked.

  “Jessie, I have no idea. I was just scrounging around on the closet shelf, looking for a pair of sandals I remember buying last year when Dev and I were at the Cannes Film Festival.” Defensively, he added, “Well, with him snapping pictures all day, what else was I supposed to do but shop? Anyway, I couldn’t find them anywhere, so I thought I’d check the shelves on his side of the closet— and the next thing I knew, this came tumbling down on my head!”

  “Gee,” I muttered, “the only surprises I ever find in my closet are pants that don’t fit anymore.”

  Zsa Zsa leaped onto the bed with amazing ease, flopping down and resting her head on the soft fabric as she watched Chess and me gather up the neat packets of bills, each one bound with a strip of cream-colored paper. Chess placed them neatly in the shoebox, probably putting them right back where he’d found them because he didn’t know what else to do with them.

  “Maybe this was just cash Dev kept around the house for incidental expenses,” he mused.

  “Sure, we all need pocket money,” I said. “Two thousand dollars here, another thousand there . . .”

  He stopped. “You’re right. This looks very suspicious, doesn’t it?”

  “Do you know how long that box has been there?”

  Chess shook his head. “I never paid attention to Dev’s side of the closet. I mean, my feeling was always what’s his is his and what’s mine is mine. Besides, we didn’t exactly have the same taste. He dressed so conservatively. Of course, being a bit older than me, he was starting to put on a little weight around the middle, if you catch my drift.”

  “What about this shoebox? Do you remember Devon bringing home a new pair of shoes by this designer?” I checked the box again, having already forgotten his name. “Emilio Fratelli?”

  “I never heard of Emilio Fratelli.”

  I didn’t mention that I hadn’t, either. Personally, my favorite designers were L.L. Bean and J.C. Penney.

  When all the money had been put back into place, Chess sank onto the bed, still cradling the shoebox in his arms. Looking at me helplessly, he asked, “Now what should I do? With all this money, I mean?”

  A few possibilities immediately came to mind. Then I realized that Chess probably wasn’t in the market for a better X-ray machine or a new set of snow tires. But it only took me a few seconds to come up with an even more practical idea.

  “Chess,” I said tentatively, “would you consider having that money fingerprinted?”

  He blinked. “What on earth for?”

  “To help us find out where all that money came from.”

  He still looked baffled. “What do you mean, where it came from? It must have come from a bank, right?”

  “Not necessarily. Someone could have given it to Devon.”

  “But who would...” I could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. And then the muscles in his face loosened. “Oh, I get it. You think whoever gave him this money might have had something to do with his death.”

  “Exactly. At the very least, tracing it to a particular person might give us some idea of what Dev was involved in. Aside from taking pictures of celebrities for the tabloids, I mean.”

  “What makes you so sure that he was involved in something bad?” Chess’s tone was suddenly defensive. Icy, even. I realized I’d gone too far.

  “I’m not sure at all, Chess,” I said gently. “But it’s something we have to at least consider if we want to find out the real reason that Dev is dead.”

  Chess frowned. “You know, Jessie, I’ve been thinking about what you said. About the possibility that Nettie was murdered, I mean. And I’m not so sure you’re right. I mean, how do you know that ice sculpture guy wasn’t just lying to cover his own butt? You don’t know anything about him!”

  The vehemence of his reaction surprised me, especially since there was no longer any doubt in my mind that Devon Barnett had died under extremely suspicious circumstances. The more I learned about the photographer, the more convinced I became that the man had too many enemies to assume that the “freak accident” that had killed him had been an accident at all.

  Besides, I’d heard the argument between Gary Frye and Phyllis Beckwith, and I’d talked to Gary myself the day after the incident. I wasn’t exactly Dr. Phil, but I thought I had a pretty good sense of what people were about. And at the time, I’d been completely convinced of his sincerity. Of course, I’d also seen someone lurking in the shadows of the gazebo just before the ice sculpture had fallen, then found the piece of wire at the crime scene, which backed up Gary’s story.

  But what really piqued my interest was Chess’s sudden interest in steering me away from investigating Barnett’s murder.

  After all, what did I really know about Chess? There were certainly enough indications that he wasn’t quite as sweet and easygoing as he pretended to be to make me wary. For one thing, there was that anonymous note about him not being “who I thought he was.” Then there was Gus’s report that he’d physically attacked his lover in the
restaurant. True, he hadn’t exactly used a machete, and I was pretty sure the statistics would bear out my hunch that very few people were actually killed by butter knives every year. But the point was, that Chess had gotten angry enough to become violent—and that Devon had been the target of his outburst. And just minutes before, I’d walked in on him and found him holding a box of cold, hard cash that he swore he knew nothing about, even though it had been stashed right there in his closet.

  My head was spinning. That, combined with Chess’s fervent rejection of the idea that Devon’s death had been anything but the result of an inept ice sculptor and a clumsy bulldog, motivated me to abandon any discussions of Devon Barnett’s murder, at least for now.

  Still, I was dying to get my hands on some of that money. And buying new toys for my van had nothing to do with it.

  I watched mournfully as Dev put the cover on the green-and-white shoebox and stepped back inside the closet. Standing on his toes, he slid it back onto the top shelf, between the Kenneth Coles and the Giorgio Armanis. It seemed like the ideal time to change the subject.

  “How about some of that fabulous iced tea of yours?” I suggested cheerfully.

  Chess brightened. “I told you it was good. People have told me I should go into business. Become the Mrs. Fields of iced tea.”

  We sat at the kitchen table amid Andy Warhol’s cookie jars, a big icy pitcher of iced tea between us. Zsa Zsa lay sprawled across Chess’s lap, sighing as if she were in doggie heaven as he distractedly played with her ears.

  “I had an interesting day yesterday,” I said in what I hoped was a casual tone. “I went to Cuttituck to meet Devon’s wife.”

  Chess froze. The steeliness that came into his eyes made me recoil.

  “What on earth did you do that for?”

  “Just curious, I guess. I have to admit, I was pretty surprised when I read Devon’s obituary in the local paper and learned that he had a wife.”

  He sniffed disapprovingly. “I bet that witch with a ‘B’ gave you an earful.”

  “She certainly didn’t have a lot of positive things to say about him.”