“I remember you mentioning such a thing,” Louis said, nodding. “I thought at the time, that behavior like that was perhaps what had gotten her killed. But I’m afraid I don’t understand what that has to do with us.”
Behind him, Sharon cleared her throat softly. “We got a note from Monica,” she said. “It came with one of the newsletters. I threw it out as soon as it arrived.”
Louis turned and stared. “What are you talking about?”
Aunt Peg and I exchanged a glance. Was it possible he didn’t know?
“Monica was in Maine when Alicia finished,” said Sharon.
“Yes,” Louis snapped impatiently. “So what?”
Sharon’s gaze skittered up, then down. She seemed to want to look anywhere but at her husband. It was warm in the room, but she crossed her arms over her chest and began to rub them as though she was freezing.
“I was afraid this would happen,” Sharon said finally. She addressed her words to Louis, as if Peg and I weren’t even in the room. “She said the plan was easy, that everything would be fine. I should have known she’d be wrong.”
“What are you talking about?” Louis demanded. “She who? For God’s sake, Sharon, what’s going on?”
“You remember how Lucinda got that infected toe nail? And every time we got it cleared up, it came right back? She only needed a single point and should have had it easily, but it seemed like whenever I entered her, she turned up lame. She was due in season in February and I knew how much you were hoping to breed her. . .”
Sharon stopped speaking. For the moment, she seemed incapable of going further. Aunt Peg opened her bag, took out the two snapshots and handed them over to Louis.
“Lucinda,” he said quickly, glancing at the first. He looked at the second. “And that’s Lorelei.”
“Turn it over,” I said.
Louis read the words to himself slowly, then lifted his head and stared at his wife. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Sharon cried. “It was all Bertie’s fault.”
“Bertie?” I said, surprised. “What did she have to do with it?”
“It was her idea.” Sharon turned to me, looking relieved to no longer be facing her husband’s wrath. “Bertie knew about the trouble we were having with Lucinda and suggested that she knew a way to take care of it. All I had to do was supply her with two bitches: one to win the point under Lucinda’s name and the other one to lose. She said she’d take them out of the area where nobody would notice a thing.”
“That’s why you didn’t want me to come with you to the Maine shows,” Louis said in a strangled voice. He seemed to be having trouble taking it all in.
“I knew it was wrong, but Bertie said the plan was foolproof.”
Louis looked at his wife coldly. “If you believed that, then you’re the fool. I can’t believe you’d be so stupid as to get us involved in a shoddy business like this. My God, Sharon, what has gotten into you lately? It was bad enough when you lost the club checks—”
“I lost the checks?” she cried in outrage.
“You know perfectly well I handed them to you to go in the briefcase. Damn it Sharon, there are times when I think you’d lose your nose if it wasn’t fastened on. But this, this is an outrage. This is unconscionable!”
Louis stalked over to a bar behind the door and poured himself a drink. Scotch, straight up. It looked as though he needed it.
“How did Monica find out what you’d done?” I asked Sharon.
“That part was sheer idiocy,” she said, shaking her head. “Lorelei won the breed. I assumed we were done, and went off to get some lunch. I ran into Monica, who asked why I wasn’t watching my dog in the group. Of course, I told her I didn’t have a dog in the group. I was really quite adamant about it. Considering what we’d just done, there was no way I wanted to draw any wider attention to Lorelei by showing her further.”
Sharon glanced over at Louis. “Apparently Bertie had scoped out the rest of the Toys, and thought Lorelei had a chance to do well in the group. It was such a small show, you see. I imagine Bertie figured that if she could get another group win on her record, so much the better. Blind ambition coupled with stupidity, that’s what that woman is.
“I went running right over to the ring, but it was already too late. Once Bertie had Lorelei in the group, I couldn’t get her out. That’s when Monica must have snapped the second picture.”
“Was that what you and Bertie were arguing about at Francisco’s?” I asked.
“Yes.” Sharon sighed unhappily. “By then, I’d gotten the note from Monica. This was Bertie’s mess. She’d gotten me into it, and I was determined she was going to get me out.”
I swallowed heavily and considered the implications of what she’d said.
Aunt Peg wasn’t so reticent. “Are you trying to say you think Bertie was responsible for what happened to Monica?”
From the other side of the room, Louis spoke up. “Bertie couldn’t have done it,” he said quietly. “She was behind us leaving the restaurant. And we’d only just reached our car when the Beagles began to howl. I don’t think there’s any way she could have gotten to Monica so quickly.”
“And you and Sharon were together?” Peg asked.
“Yes, we were,” said Louis, glancing at his wife. “We were together the whole time.”
Which disqualified all three of them. Or then again, maybe not. Judging by Louis’s reaction, this was the first he’d heard of his wife’s reckless disregard for A.K.C. regulations. Now that he knew her actions had placed his own reputation on the line, how willing would he have been to cover up for her? Or for Bertie, who might have tried to fix things on her own?
It was all a hopeless muddle. As Aunt Peg had said earlier, it wasn’t that we didn’t have enough clues; we had too many. The only thing I knew for sure was that trying to get them all sorted out was making my head ache.
Aunt Peg stood. Louis did, too. I glanced down at the two pictures. They were still on the table where Louis had dropped them. Aunt Peg made no move to pick them up.
“What will you do now?” he asked.
“If you’re asking whether I’ll be talking to the A.K.C. about this matter, I won’t,” she said. I knew what she had to be thinking. When it came to indiscretions, her own family’s record was not entirely unblemished. “You’ll have to handle this yourself, Louis. Do what you think is best.”
Sharon stayed behind as Louis walked us to the door. We were almost there when I thought of something. “Can I have the file for a minute?” I asked Aunt Peg.
She handed it over and I fished out the note with Mark and Penny’s name on it. Louis was a lawyer in Greenwich. Maybe he would recognize the letterhead.
“Walter Crispus,” he said, glancing at it. “Of course. I haven’t had occasion to deal with him, but he’s very well known in certain circles.”
“Don’t be coy,” said Peg. “What you’re trying to say is, you don’t really approve but he’s probably making a fortune. What does he do?”
“He’s a go-between,” said Louis. “He arranges private adoptions.”
Thirty-three
“So that’s what Penny meant when she said they were working on it,” I said, when we reached the cars.
“I told you she was too old to be having a baby,” Aunt Peg sniffed.
The point wasn’t worth arguing. But Penny’s age did raise an interesting thought. She and Mark were in their forties, old enough to maybe feel that they were running out of time. I wondered how long they’d been trying to adopt. I wondered if they’d been turned down before.
I knew that finding a healthy baby to adopt wasn’t easy. In private adoptions, birth mothers often had their choice of applicants. Mark and Penny’s ages could be a strike against them. Might they have been worried that two strikes would be too many?
Aunt Peg must have been thinking the same thing, because she said, “Didn’t you tell me Mark and Penny’s note had to do with her drinking
?”
“Yes. And we both said the same thing. Big deal, everybody already knows about that.”
Aunt Peg reached out and opened her car door. “Everybody but Walter Crispus, perhaps.”
Now we were getting somewhere.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Where?”
“To the Romanos’. Do you know where they live?”
“Of course I know where they live. I’m the club secretary, I know where all the club members live. But it won’t do us any good. I saw Mark at the show yesterday and he mentioned that he and Penny were showing today at Riverhead.”
“Oh.”
“Besides, I have to get back and tend to my litter. But later this evening, I know exactly where Penny and Mark will be.”
“Where?”
“Lydia’s holding her reception for Thelma Gooding, remember? Nearly the entire club will turn out. Why don’t you come along as my guest?”
The idea had immediate appeal. I thought about everything Louis and Sharon had said and realized that things were finally beginning to fall into place. It was time to gather all the suspects in Monica’s murder together, and and let the situation bring itself to a head.
“That sounds perfect,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”
In the car on the way home, I thought about Mark’s patience in dealing with Davey, and the dreamy expression on Penny’s face when she’d told him it wouldn’t be long until they had children of their own. Obviously both were very anxious to become parents.
Monica, in her own devious way, had gathered up a treasure trove of secrets. If she’d told what she knew, Cy had stood to lose money; Lydia, her reputation. Joanne had a position on the Board at stake; Louis, possibly his livelihood. On a scale of importance, where did a baby fit into all that? Had the Romanos wanted a child badly enough to feel that the taking of a life was justified in return?
When I got home, Bob and Faith were there, but Davey wasn’t.
“Somebody called,” said Bob. He barely looked up, he was so engrossed in an old rerun of Charlie’s Angels on the TV. “He’s down the street at Joey Bricklayer’s house.”
“Brickman,” I corrected. I gave Faith a pat, then walked around the couch and switched off the set. “The boy’s name is Joey Brickman. Davey’s your son, Bob. How could you let him leave with someone whose name you couldn’t even remember?”
Bob looked up at me and grinned. He patted the couch beside him, inviting me to sit. My heart used to turn over when he looked at me like that. Fortunately, that was a long time ago. I sat in a chair instead.
“You’re not about to run out on me again, are you?”
“No. Why?”
“I want to continue the conversation we started this morning. I think it’s time.”
“Okay,” I said carefully, wondering what was coming.
“I need to go back a bit,” said Bob. “I don’t necessarily expect you to understand, but I do want you to listen. There are two sides to every story. Maybe I should have told you mine five years ago. Maybe I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear it.”
“Go on.”
“You know I loved you, there was never any question of that.”
“No,” I agreed softly. “There wasn’t.”
“I married you because I was afraid I’d lose you otherwise. Even with love, that’s a terrible way to start a marriage.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Bob shrugged. “I thought everyone had doubts. I figured that was just the way it was. The next thing I knew, all the guys I knew were still out cruising and carrying on, and I was stuck with a wife and a house in the suburbs.”
“Stuck?” I repeated.
Bob’s gaze was unapologetic. “I’m just telling you how it felt to me at the time. I made a mistake, I admit it. I was too young to be married, and I was certainly too young to be a father.”
At least we agreed on that.
“I just felt so trapped. I don’t know if you can imagine it. There were days when I’d sit in my office and think I was suffocating. I didn’t want to come home at night. I didn’t want to go to work. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I had to get out.”
A shiver skated through me. I’d never realized how he felt. Maybe I’d never wanted to. Faith poked my hand with her nose. I scratched under her chin, and she pressed against my thigh.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I couldn’t. At the time ... maybe ...” Bob’s gaze slid away. “Maybe I thought you were the problem.”
“So you left.”
“I had to. I didn’t have any choice.”
I slumped back in my chair, feeling defeated. In the end, we all do what we feel we need to do to save our own lives.
“I’ve thought a lot about Davey in the last four years. And you, too,” Bob amended hastily. “I wondered what things would have been like if I’d toughed it out. I knew I owed it to myself to come back and find out.”
What about what you owed your son? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Bob and I were finally talking. I’d let him tell his story his own way.
“And?”
“Being a father isn’t exactly like I imagined.”
That was a news flash. He hadn’t had to drive here all the way from Texas to discover that; I could have told him over the phone. Not that he’d have believed me. Bob always did have a way of seeing only what he wanted to see.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,” he said. “And Peter told me that the most important thing is to do what’s right for Davey. I think he has a point.”
“Of course, he has a point.” I stopped, frowning. “Peter?”
“You know, Rose’s husband?”
“I know Peter. I just didn’t realize that the two of you had met.”
“We got to know each other at Frank’s house. We had dinner together a couple of times.”
“You did?”
“Why not? They invited me, and they seemed like nice people.”
Why not indeed? I wondered what Rose had been up to. Like Aunt Peg, she likes to hover in the background and pull strings. The women are two of the world’s all-time great manipulators. That’s why they make such good adversaries.
“Talking to Peter helped me to clarify some things I was already thinking. I love Davey, he’s a great kid. But I don’t think joint custody is the best idea right now.”
“You don’t?” I strove to keep my voice level.
“Maybe when he’s older, we’ll rethink it. But you know I’m working, and Jennifer has a job, too ...”
As if I didn’t. If he told me children took up too much time, I was going to smack him.
“Davey’s too young for the kind of arrangement I had in mind. But now that we’ve gotten to know one another, we could start out slowly. Maybe he could come to Texas for a visit sometime.”
“Maybe he could,” I allowed, not making any promises.
“And I could come back here. Maybe even bring Jennifer with me.”
“That would be interesting.”
Luckily for him, Bob didn’t comment on my tone.
I was getting what I wanted, I thought. So why wasn’t I happier? Maybe because for the first time, I was seeing what had happened between us from his point of view. For the first time, I was having to consider that maybe it hadn’t all been his fault.
There had to have been signs of his discontent. How had I been so wrapped up in Davey that I’d never even noticed? Why hadn’t we been able to have this talk five years ago?
“He really is a terrific kid,” said Bob.
I smiled. “I know.”
“I was thinking about what you said earlier, about working out a schedule for child support?” He got up, went into the kitchen and returned with some papers. “I put this together. See what you think.”
I skimmed over what he had written. What I thought was that if Bob kept up his end, I could afford to get the house painted and maybe even t
ake Davey on a small vacation over the summer.
I glanced up at him. “The courts worked out a schedule for us that wasn’t as generous as this one, and you didn’t stick to that.”
“I figured you might say that. I even figured maybe I deserved to hear it.” He reached in his pocket and dug out a check. “This is for the first three months. I thought quarterly payments made the most sense.”
He wasn’t kidding. For a moment, I almost thought he might be. But when I reached up and took the check I saw that it was made out to me in the promised amount. I stared at it for a long moment.
“It won’t bounce,” Bob said.
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “No, actually I was thinking how much you’ve changed.”
Bob squatted down in front of my chair. “For the better, I hope.”
“Yes, for the better.” I looked at my ex-husband with his melting eyes and his easy grace. A man I’d once loved to distraction, a man who would always be the father of my child. I sighed softly. “Maybe we were both too young. It’s too bad we didn’t meet later. Maybe we could have made a go of it.”
“Maybe,” Bob agreed. “But now you have Sam.”
“And you have Jennifer.”
And neither one of us could go back in time to where we’d been before.
“I’ll be going home tomorrow,” Bob said. “I figured I’d tell Davey tonight. I’ll leave him my address. He can send me pictures, if he wants. And I’ll send him letters back. Do you think he’ll be okay with that?”
I nodded, pleased. “I think he’ll be just fine.”
Faith jumped up and ran from the room. She knocked Bob slightly and he steadied himself by placing his hands on the sides of my chair.
“How about a hug?” he said softly. “For old time’s sake?”
It was just that easy to slip into his arms. And it felt just that good. For years, I’d been holding tight to the resentment I’d felt, nurturing it like a noxious weed. It wouldn’t all fade away that easily, but I knew the process had been started.
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