Ruff Justice

by Laurien Berenson

  Faith and I would be up and on our way to Howard Academy, a private school in Greenwich where I worked as a special needs tutor. Situated on the former estate of an early twentieth century robber baron, the K-through-8 academy catered to the needs of a wealthy and sophisticated clientele. School parents shared the conviction that nothing was too good for their children, and they were willing to pay handsomely for the best educational opportunities.

  Howard Academy was governed by headmaster Russell Hanover II. Early in my tenure there, the man’s stern demeanor and adherence to exacting standards had intimidated me to near silence when I chanced to be in his presence. But over time, I’d come to admire Mr. Hanover for his absolute refusal to compromise in any aspect of student life relating to the children’s education or well-being.

  A firm belief that the headmaster would choose to do the right thing—coupled with a healthy dose of self-interest—had led me to present Mr. Hanover with an interesting proposition. Midway through my second semester at Howard Academy, I’d asked for permission to bring Faith to school with me.

  The classroom where I held my tutoring sessions was a large, bright, airy space dedicated solely to my use. Students who needed my help were often those struggling with Howard Academy’s rigorous curriculum. I’d argued that Faith’s presence would have a soothing effect on children who’d been sent to remedial classes. I also hoped that the Poodle’s innate charm and lively appeal would transform my classroom from a place where students were assigned to one they visited eagerly.

  Mr. Hanover had given my plea due consideration and agreed to give Faith a one week trial. To our mutual satisfaction, the big Poodle had fit into HA’s educational program seamlessly.

  Now, six years later, Faith was the unofficial school mascot and my classroom had become a popular gathering spot. And if I sometimes felt as though I’d been relegated to a supporting role in my own space, that was okay too. Whatever worked was fine by me.

  Chapter 4

  After Faith and I dropped Kevin at preschool, we hit traffic on the Merritt Parkway, so we were running late. The Howard Academy grounds were extensive and I often took Faith for a walk around the hockey field upon our arrival. Now there wasn’t time to do anything but run inside, grab a cup of coffee from the nearly empty teachers’ lounge, and hurry to my classroom.

  I switched on the lights and cracked open a window. I filled Faith’s water dish and took a rawhide bone out of a desk drawer. The Poodle’s cedar-stuffed bed was tucked in a corner. She lay down and got settled.

  When Kev had started preschool in January, Mr. Hanover had been amenable to adjusting my schedule to match. Now I was working five mornings a week too. I was grateful for the change as it had made family life much easier. But it also meant that from eight-thirty to one p.m. every day, my tutoring sessions were lined up virtually back to back.

  My first student of the morning was a sixth-grade girl who was new to my program. Howard Academy teachers were encouraged to play a very active role in the school community. We took turns eating lunch with the students and we officiated over their clubs. We volunteered to chair fund-raisers and helped out with school plays. So although Francesca Della Cimino wasn’t a regular student of mine, I wasn’t unfamiliar with her.

  Francesca’s mother was noted opera singer Arianna Della Cimino. Her father was a talented violinist. Francesca was an only child and the family had recently moved to Greenwich from Vienna. According to the buzz I’d heard in the teachers’ lounge, Arianna would soon be starring in a production at the Metropolitan Opera House.

  Francesca had transferred in at the start of the new semester and for the first few months it had appeared that all was well. She was a bright and lively child who’d had a more cosmopolitan upbringing than many of her classmates. Her knowledge of American history and English literature was behind that of her peers, but she excelled in math and science. So I’d been surprised that the referral to my program had come from Louisa Delgado, who taught middle school math.

  Promptly at eight-thirty, the door to my classroom opened. Francesca stood in the doorway, but made no move to enter the room.

  She was tall for her age and plump enough to already possess the coveted curves that most of her classmates lacked. From her arched brows to her wide mouth, the girl had strong features that she had yet to grow into. Someday Francesca would be every bit as arresting as her famous mother. Today, however, with her shoulders hunched downward over her books and her gaze trained on the floor, the sixth-grader looked as though she wished she could disappear.

  Surely I wasn’t that scary?

  I could hear the rustle and rumble of students hurrying to classes in the hallway behind her, but Francesca seemed oblivious. When she finally lifted her eyes, they skittered around the room. I wondered what she was looking for. I also wondered what had happened to turn the giggling, loquacious girl I remembered from a previous lunch table into the uncertain child I now saw before me.

  I rose from my seat beside one of two round tables in the room. “Please come in. And close the door behind you. It’s noisy out there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Francesca’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. After a brief pause, she took a step forward and pulled the door shut.

  I expected her to come and join me at the table. Instead, Francesca looked at the Poodle lying on her bed in the corner. “Your dog is very pretty. Her name is Faith, right?”

  Faith cocked an ear, then lifted her head. Her tail began to thump up and down.

  “Yes, that’s right. She’s a Standard Poodle. Would you like to say hello to her?”

  Finally, I got a positive response. The question elicited a smile that lit up Francesca’s whole face. “May I?”

  “Sure. Faith loves attention.” I beckoned with my fingers and the Poodle stood up and trotted across the room to my side.

  Francesca quickly followed suit. Reaching the table, she dropped her armload of books with a loud thump. Faith winced at the sound and Francesca grimaced.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried, addressing the Poodle. “I should have known better. Of course you have sensitive ears. My father does too.”

  Faith was wonderfully adept at sensing the emotions of my students. Boisterous children, she greeted with equal exuberance. Shy ones, she held back and let them make the first move. Now she nudged her head forward and pushed her nose into Francesca’s palm.

  “I’m pretty sure that means you’re forgiven,” I said. “Faith likes to be scratched behind her ears.”

  Francesca crouched down in front of the Poodle and lifted a hand tentatively. When her fingers brushed the side of Faith’s topknot, she smiled with delight. “Her hair is so soft!”

  “She just had a bath a couple of days ago.”

  Francesca smiled. “Does she like that?”

  “Not really. But she’s used to it. Faith used to be a show dog. And Standard Poodles are shown with a lot of hair, so they get bathed and clipped all the time.”

  “Can I sit on the floor and talk to her?”

  Some kids arrived in my room full of bluster and ego. They were convinced they didn’t need my help. Others felt embarrassed by the fact that they’d fallen behind. So before the topics of school work or grades even came up, my first job was to build a rapport with each student. To make them feel comfortable about being tutored and to encourage them to accept the guidance I could provide. More often than not, Faith was an invaluable partner in the process.

  “You can sit anywhere you like,” I told her. “Faith might even climb into your lap.”

  Francesca was surprised. “Is that allowed?”

  “Only if you want her to. Otherwise, I can tell her to stay where she is. She’s pretty big, after all.”

  The girl’s head dipped downward. I couldn’t see her face when she said, “I’m pretty big too.” Then quickly, as if she was afraid I might change my mind, Francesca sank down to the floor and crossed her legs. When she patted her lap, Faith delicately d
raped her front end across the girl’s knees.

  “It looks like you’re an old hand at this,” I said. “Do you have a dog of your own?”

  “No. I wish I did. I’ve always wanted one, but my father says we move around too much. He says a pet needs stability to feel safe and know where it belongs.”

  Children need stability too, I thought. I wondered if that was why Francesca was here. It couldn’t have been easy for her to have her whole life uprooted in the middle of a school year, moving four thousand miles away to a new country and a new school.

  Although, thinking back, I was quite certain that the sixth-grader had appeared happy when she’d first started at Howard Academy. Unless perhaps she’d been putting on an act, attempting to bluff her way through an uncomfortable situation until she found her footing.

  I decided to join the pair on the floor. Reaching over to give Faith a pat, I said, “Francesca is a beautiful name.”

  The girl’s eyes darted toward me, then left again. I got the impression she wasn’t sure whether she was being complimented or ridiculed.

  “Really,” I said. “I mean it.”

  Francesca still didn’t look convinced.

  Without stopping to think, I opened my mouth and sang out the syllables, letting each one linger in the air. “Fran—chesss—kaaa . . . See how pretty it sounds?”

  The last note of my impromptu song had barely trailed away when I realized what I’d done. My face grew red. My mouth snapped shut. What a total idiot I must have appeared.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “I just remembered your mother is a professional singer. That was terrible, wasn’t it?”

  “No, it was nice,” Francesca replied kindly, even though we both knew otherwise. “Sometimes my mother sings my name too.”

  “I bet it doesn’t sound like that.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  A child who didn’t think twice about telling the truth to a teacher. How refreshing.

  I started to laugh. After a moment, Francesca joined in. Faith tipped her head back and stared at the two of us like we were members of an alien species. She didn’t appreciate my singing either. Ask me how I know.

  “Are we going to conduct this entire session sitting on the floor?” I shifted to get comfortable.

  Francesca’s fingers were still tangled in Faith’s coat. Both appeared to be enjoying the interaction. The girl hesitated, then nodded shyly.

  “In that case, you’d better reach up and get your notebooks so we can start looking at your work. Are there any subjects you’re particularly concerned about?”

  “No.” Now that we’d moved on to the reason for our meeting, Francesca was once again speaking so softly I could hardly hear her.

  “Mrs. Delgado tells me that you’re a star in math.”

  “Yes.” Her gaze dropped. “I like numbers.”

  “She said you used to be the first one to raise your hand with an answer. And that you liked going to the board to solve equations.”

  “Sometimes.”

  I opened her math notebook and had a look at the previous night’s homework. Francesca’s writing was neat and precise. A page filled with figures was written in a firm, dark hand. At first glance everything looked fine.

  “But now maybe you’re struggling a little?” I asked.

  “I guess.”

  “Then let’s start by going over this week’s lesson to see if we can identify the parts that are giving you trouble. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Francesca agreed.

  She reached for her notebook, turned to the previous page, then handed it back to me. Once we began working together the remainder of the forty minute session flew by. It seemed like no time at all before I was walking Francesca to the door and inviting the next pair of students to come in and take a seat.

  I was happy to see the sixth-grader leave the room with her head held higher than it had been when she entered. We were just getting started, but I was satisfied with how our initial meeting had progressed. Even better, Faith wasn’t the only one who felt as though she’d made a new friend.

  Promptly at one o’clock, Faith and I were out the door. I had asked Sam to pick up Kev at preschool because I had another stop I wanted to make on the way home.

  There was nothing Aunt Peg enjoyed more than a good puzzle. Her curiosity was legendary. With her wide network of friends and associates, she had just about the best connections in the dog show world. While I’d been at work that morning, I was quite certain Aunt Peg had been busy too.

  When we’d left the show ground the previous afternoon, the news of Jasmine Crane’s murder was shocking and all too immediate. People had needed time to come to grips with what’d happened. But I knew that overnight the dog show grapevine would have begun to hum. The news would be shared, pondered, and dissected. Now, if anyone was on top of all the latest developments in the story, it would be Aunt Peg.

  She lived in back country Greenwich in a charming old farmhouse that had once been the nucleus of a working farm. Only five acres still remained with the house, but that was enough to accommodate the needs of Aunt Peg’s beloved Cedar Crest Kennel. When her husband, Max, was alive the two of them had bred a litter every year and cared for as many as a dozen Standard Poodles at a time. Now, however, the demands of her busy judging career meant she was often away from home, and her current Poodle population had dwindled to only a handful.

  I’d called ahead, so Aunt Peg was expecting us. The door to her house drew open and her Poodles came streaming down the front steps as I hopped Faith out of the car. Not even two weeks had passed since all these dogs had last seen each other. Even so, each of Aunt Peg’s Poodles had to check out Faith and pass approval on her visit.

  Like Sam’s and my Standard Poodles, every one of Aunt Peg’s dogs was black. Not only that, but all our Poodles were interrelated.

  Older bitch, Hope, was Faith’s litter sister. The two of them greeted each other like long-lost friends. Zeke was Eve’s litter brother. Willow was Tar’s sister. She was also the dam of Coral, who was leaping and bobbing around the outskirts of the activity.

  Slower down the stairs and last to join the party was Aunt Peg’s elderly retiree, Beau. Years earlier, his theft had been the catalyst that had introduced me to the dog show world. Beau’s muzzle was gray now and his once fluid gait was stiffened by arthritis, but he was still top dog at Aunt Peg’s house. When he came over to sniff my pants, I leaned down to ruffle my hands through his ears.

  “What a good old boy you are,” I crooned.

  Beau’s tail swished slowly back and forth. He knew that. Aunt Peg told him the same thing all the time.

  “Well?” Aunt Peg stood on her porch with her hands on her hips. “Are you coming inside or not?”

  “Coming,” I replied.

  No surprise, the Poodles beat me to it. At a word from Aunt Peg they spun around and went scrambling up the steps, parting only briefly to eddy around her legs as they raced into the house.

  I followed, closed the door behind us, and walked straight to the kitchen. Aunt Peg loved sweets and she always had cake from the St. Moritz Bakery on hand. I couldn’t wait to see what kind we’d be having today.

  “So,” I said, “what have you heard?”

  I didn’t even have to mention Jasmine Crane’s name. We both knew why I was there.

  “Nothing,” Aunt Peg replied flatly as she poured herself a cup of Earl Grey tea. “Not a blessed thing. Even my stop at the police department after the show didn’t turn up anything new. They simply took down my statement and told me I was free to go.”

  A kettle sat on the stove top. I filled it with water and turned on the burner. There was a jar of instant coffee in the cupboard. Beyond that meager concession, coffee drinkers were on their own in Aunt Peg’s house.

  “That’s disappointing,” I said.

  “I agree. The problem appears to be that although everyone knew who Jasmine was, nobody was close to her. I can’t find a single person who tho
ught of her as a friend.”

  “How very odd.”

  Friendships sprouted like weeds in the dog show world, and it wasn’t hard to see why. People traveled together week after week and worked together in close proximity. They shared common goals and spent their downtime socializing.

  Jasmine Crane had been part of the dog show community longer than I had. So the fact that nobody had much to say about her was indeed unusual.

  The kettle whistled. I poured the hot water into my mug, added milk, then sat down at the butcher block table. Aunt Peg had her head in the refrigerator. I hoped she was looking for cake.

  “There they are,” she said.

  They?

  She brought a bakery box over to the table. I lifted the top and saw scones. Cranberry, unless I missed my guess. They looked perfectly nice. But they weren’t cake.

  Aunt Peg returned with plates and silverware. After another trip to the refrigerator, she added butter and a jar of clotted cream. Then she took a seat opposite me.

  “Don’t frown so,” she said. “They came from St. Moritz. They’re lovely.”

  Well, sure, I thought mulishly. For scones.

  “You know I’m supposed to be watching my weight. Scones are less fattening than cake.”

  “Maybe in their virgin state,” I said. “But not by the time you get done adding butter and clotted cream.”

  “Oh pish. I can’t abstain from everything. Besides, they have cranberries in them. That makes them healthy.”

  Perhaps in an alternative universe. One inhabited solely by six-foot-tall women who made their own rules.

  “Dig in,” said Aunt Peg. “Otherwise I shall be forced to eat them all by myself.”

  I reached into the box, took out a scone, and put it on my plate. I had to admit, it did smell wonderful.

  I had just broken off a piece and covered it liberally with butter when a chorus of canine voices erupted in ragged harmony. The Poodles had gone on the alert. A moment later, the doorbell rang.