Gone With the Woof

by Laurien Berenson

  The room I entered was lit only by the weak sunlight filtering in through the windows, but I could see that it was comfortably furnished. Two plump love seats faced each other in front of a stone fireplace, and a rough-hewn coffee table sat between them. There was a dining area on one side of the room. An arched doorway beyond that appeared to lead to the kitchen. One wall was lined with bookshelves; another held an enormous flat-screen TV.

  A fine layer of dust covered every visible surface, and there was a faintly musty smell in the air. The temperature inside the cottage wasn’t much warmer than that outside. I knew that the police had been there and had performed a search; it looked as though the place had simply been closed up and left alone ever since.

  “Charlotte?” I called out. “It’s Melanie. Are you here?”

  “Coming! I’ll be right down.”

  A narrow stairway led to an upper floor. Even as Charlotte replied, she was already running down the steps. I stared at her as she approached; I couldn’t seem to help it. Even knowing her bond with Edward March, I still couldn’t see any trace of him within her.

  “That was quick.” Charlotte’s cheeks were flushed, and her gaze quickly shifted away. “You made good time.”

  “You said it was important. What were you doing upstairs?”

  “Just looking around.”

  The cottage had belonged to Charlotte’s half brother. Not that she’d ever known that. Under other circumstances—in a more normal family—she might have been a frequent visitor.

  “Have you been here before?” I asked.

  “Only when I let the police in. I waited outside until they were finished. I’d never been upstairs.”

  Charlotte’s eyes were bright. Like me, she still had her coat on and fastened shut. Her hands were bare; she was twisting and untwisting her fingers together in front of her. I hadn’t imagined her agitation on the phone; she still seemed ill at ease.

  Something didn’t feel quite right. I just couldn’t figure out why. I nodded toward the stairway. “What’s up there?”

  “Andrew’s bedroom. And another room, that he turned into a home office. I asked Mr. March last week if he wanted me to start packing things up, but he said to just leave it alone. He didn’t even want to think about it.”

  “So why are we here?” I asked.

  “I wanted someplace where we could talk in private. I have something to show you.”

  Charlotte reached into her pocket and withdrew a cell phone. She held out her hand and offered it to me. I took the phone and pushed a few buttons, trying to turn it on. Nothing happened. The battery was dead.

  Charlotte was watching me closely, as if something momentous had happened and I was supposed to form an appropriate response. I had no idea what that might be. Without access to what the device contained, I might as well have been holding a lump of lead.

  “Whose phone is this?” I asked.

  Charlotte dropped her voice to a whisper, even though we were the only two people there. “It’s Andrew’s.”

  It took a moment for the information to register. When it did, I drew a sharp breath.

  “This is the missing phone?” I said, wanting to be absolutely clear. “The one that was supposed to have been with him when he died?”

  Charlotte dipped her head in a nod.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  A frisson of shock rippled through me. This changed everything.

  “Where did you find it?” I asked. “Was it upstairs? You have to tell the police.”

  “I can’t,” said Charlotte.

  “Of course you can. This is huge. They need to know right away.”

  My thoughts pinballed in several directions at once. If the phone was still in the cottage, why hadn’t the police found it during their search? And why had Julia told me that Andrew had been talking on the phone when he left to go running?

  “That’s why I asked you to come,” said Charlotte. “I want you to take it to Detective Wygod.”

  “I’m not the one who found the phone,” I told her. “The detective will want to talk to you, not me.”

  “That’s the problem. I have nothing to say.”

  “Charlotte, think for a minute. One of the reasons the police assumed that Andrew’s death wasn’t an accident was because his phone—which should have been with him—was missing. But if it was never there to begin with—”

  “I can’t,” she said again. She looked like she might be on the verge of tears.

  I slowed down and tried to summon more patience than I felt. “All you have to do is tell Detective Wygod how you came to have Andrew’s cell phone in your possession.”

  She shook her head stubbornly.

  What was going on? What was Charlotte so afraid of?

  “How about this?” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

  She looked up hopefully. “You’ll tell them that you found the phone?”

  “No, I can’t do that.” My tone was absolutely firm. “I’m not going to lie to the police.”

  “But they know that you’ve been asking questions. So now you can tell them that you found something.”

  I blew out a long breath. In the cold, the vapor floated in front of me like a cloud. “Charlotte, what is this all about? Is this really Andrew’s phone?”

  “Of course it is. Just like I told you.”

  “Then why won’t you take it to the police? This is information they’re looking for. Detective Wygod will be happy to hear from you.”

  “Maybe I can explain things better.”

  I whipped around at the unexpected sound of another voice, this one coming from behind me. Charlotte’s mother, Maribeth, was standing at the top of the stairs.

  So much for thinking that we were alone. And for believing that Charlotte had wanted to talk in private.

  “I’m the one who found Andrew’s phone.” Maribeth’s hand trailed along the banister as she walked down the steps to join us. “But given my past history with Edward, I have no intention of getting involved. That’s why I asked Charlotte to deliver it to you.”

  I held out my hand, the cell phone nestled in my palm. “Then you’re the one who needs to talk to Detective Wygod.”

  Maribeth glanced down at my outstretched hand. She made no move to take the phone from me.

  Charlotte was staring hard at her mother. “What past history?” she asked. “I thought you and Mr. March used to be friends.”

  “It’s nothing you need to worry about, sweetie. Melanie spoke with a friend of mine this morning. I’m afraid she was given information that should have been kept private.”

  “What information are you talking about?”

  “Really, Charlotte, don’t be tiresome. It’s none of your concern.” Maribeth stepped over to her daughter’s side, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and squeezed gently. “It’s time for you to go now. I’m sure Edward must be wondering where you are. Melanie and I have a few things to discuss, and then I’ll be on my way, too.”

  Maribeth walked Charlotte past me to the door. She stood in the doorway and watched as her daughter began to walk away, tramping through the snow up the incline, toward the meadow that led to March’s house.

  So the car belonged to Maribeth, I thought. And she was the one who had had the missing cell phone. Seeing the device in Charlotte’s hand, I’d assumed that she had found it in the cottage earlier.

  Idly, I flipped the phone end over end in my palm. For a minute it felt as though my thoughts were tumbling and resetting, as well. The picture I thought I’d been looking at disappeared. A new one emerged in its place.

  Abruptly, my breath caught in my throat as I realized how wrong that earlier assumption had been. Julia wasn’t the one who had lied to me. Andrew had taken his phone with him when he left that morning. And the person who had picked it up on the road outside and had taken it away with her was right here with me now in Andrew’s cottage.

  Maribeth waited until Charlotte had disappear
ed over the top of the rise. Then she came inside and shut the door.

  “It was you,” I said.

  “Pardon me?” Maribeth inclined her head to one side. Her expression was one of polite bafflement. I wasn’t buying it for a minute.

  “It was your car that hit Andrew. That was why you had his cell phone. You’ve had it all along.”

  I half expected Maribeth to tell me I was wrong, but she didn’t. Instead she sighed. “Ah, Melanie, things would have been so much easier if you could have just done what Charlotte asked you to do.”

  “Take the phone and lie to the police? I don’t think so.”

  “That’s your problem. You think too much.”

  She walked past me toward the fireplace and sat down on one of the love seats. Her hand gestured toward the second sofa opposite. “Have a seat. Let’s see what we can do to fix this.”

  Fix this? I thought incredulously. How was that even remotely possible? Could Maribeth seriously think that murder was an event that could be mended, like a broken bicycle chain or a lost electric bill?

  Apparently she did. Maribeth was looking very relaxed, settled in the far corner of the love seat. Her shoulders reclined against the sofa’s cushioned back; her hand was draped casually over its high-curved arm.

  Judging by her demeanor, she truly seemed to believe that we were going to discuss the problem and come up with a solution. And if Maribeth wanted to talk, I was game. I had questions that needed answers.

  She watched with a small smile as I sidled in her direction and took a seat in the near corner of the other love seat. Maribeth might have been relaxed, but I was not. I sat up straight and kept my feet on the floor. I perched on the edge of the cushion and rested my hands in my lap.

  There was a coffee table and several feet of distance between us. That seemed like a safe enough margin.

  “I know why you were angry at Edward,” I said. “But what was your grievance with Andrew? Why would you want to harm him?”

  “I didn’t,” Maribeth replied. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. All I wanted to do was talk to Andrew.”

  I lifted a brow skeptically. “Outside, on the road? In the middle of winter?”

  “That’s where he was when I arrived,” Maribeth said with a small shrug. “I can hardly be blamed for that. I was on my way here, to this cottage. I had hoped to catch him before he left for work. And then, suddenly, there he was, running along the road.”

  I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I asked, anyway. “What did you want to talk to Andrew about?”

  “Julia, of course. Her situation was shameful.”

  “It was the same situation you’d found yourself in twenty-some years earlier. Was that why you were upset?”

  Maribeth’s eyes narrowed. “India shouldn’t have talked to you behind my back.”

  “But she told me the truth, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” she admitted quietly. “Edward is Charlotte’s father.”

  “Why did you never tell her that?”

  “How could I?” Maribeth demanded. She paused for a minute, then asked, “Do you have children?”

  “Yes, two.”

  “Then you know that you’d do anything in the world to keep them from being hurt.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “How could I tell my little girl that her father was alive and well, and living nearby—and that the only reason that we had no contact with him was because he had no interest in her?” Maribeth’s expression was pained. “Edward didn’t want anything to do with my baby when I was pregnant, and nothing changed after she was born. What purpose would it have served for Charlotte to know that her own father would have been happier if she’d never existed?”

  I’m not in the habit of agreeing with murderers. But put that way, I could see her point. “So what did you say to Andrew?”

  “Almost nothing,” Maribeth replied grimly. “I had a speech all worked out in my mind, but he didn’t want to hear any of it. Maybe I was naive. I thought I could make Andrew understand that his decisions impacted others besides himself and Julia—that there was a child’s life at stake, as well. When I saw him on the road, I pulled over, rolled down my window, and asked him to get in the car so we could talk.”

  “I take it he didn’t do that?”

  “He barely even paused. Even when he spoke to me, he was still jogging up and down in place. Like I wasn’t even important enough for him to interrupt his run.”

  “He had just had another fight with Julia,” I told her. “Andrew was already angry before you even got there.”

  “That’s not my fault,” Maribeth replied sharply. “He asked what I wanted to talk to him about, and when I started to tell him, he just smirked and ran away. I couldn’t believe Andrew would turn his back on me like that. So I drove after him. I never meant to hurt him. I only wanted to get his attention.”

  “But you hit him with your car,” I said.

  “That was an accident. I only meant to tap him, just something hard enough to make him turn around. But then the car skidded on the snow, and I lost control.”

  I didn’t know if Maribeth’s story was the truth or whether it was a more palatable version of events that she’d concocted after the fact. Or maybe it was simply what she wanted to believe.

  In any case, the supposedly innocent tap Maribeth had intended to deliver had resulted in serious injury. And rather than seeking help, she had left Andrew bleeding and unconscious by the side of the road. Maribeth was going to have a difficult time explaining all of that away as an unfortunate accident.

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not really sure. I must have been in shock. I got out of the car to see if Andrew was all right.”

  “But he wasn’t.”

  “No. He was unconscious and . . .” She spread her hands helplessly, unable to convey the horror of what she’d seen.

  “Why didn’t you call for help?”

  “I was going to. . . .”

  I waited a few seconds for her to continue. When she remained silent, I said, “But you didn’t.”

  “No,” Maribeth said softly. “I looked down at Andrew, and my vision blurred for a few seconds. Suddenly, instead of Andrew’s face, all I could see was Charlotte. In that moment, the two of them seemed so very much alike. Except that Andrew was the sibling who had been given everything, while my little girl had nothing. Andrew was running his father’s company. Charlotte was nothing more than his glorified gofer.”

  A position that she herself had placed her daughter in, I thought. It didn’t seem like the right time to remind Maribeth of that.

  “All at once I realized that if Andrew was gone, Charlotte would be the only child. She would be all that Edward had left. Even he couldn’t continue to turn his back on her then.”

  “So you took Andrew’s phone and left him lying there.”

  “The sins of the father . . . ,” Maribeth said softly. Her voice trailed away. Then she gave her head a sharp, angry shake and added firmly, “He got what he deserved.”

  Chapter 26

  Was she talking about the father or the son? I wondered. Or maybe it didn’t matter which one. Both had suffered from Maribeth’s revenge.

  I looked at her across the expanse of the table between us. “You must know we can’t fix this. You’re going to have to tell the police what happened.”

  “No,” she replied calmly. “I’m not.”

  Later I thought about that: how composed she had sounded, when I might have expected a display of anger or fear. But Maribeth was a better actress than I gave her credit for. Or maybe my instincts were rusty. Because the fact that she remained so unruffled meant that I wasn’t nearly as apprehensive about the situation as I should have been.

  Since I was sitting across from someone who’d done what she had, my reflexes should have been on high alert. Instead, in the midst of this oddly civilized conversation, they were a beat slow.

>   “It would be better if you told them,” I said. “But if you don’t, I will.”

  We were finished here, I thought. I glanced down to check the position of the coffee table, braced my hands on my knees, and started to rise. Unbalanced for only a few seconds, I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and felt a whisper’s breath of air brush against my cheek.

  And suddenly realized the magnitude of my mistake.

  Maribeth hadn’t relaxed in the far corner of the love seat to be comfortable. She’d done it because that gave the hand she’d hung so casually over the side of the sofa access to the supply of dried wood stacked beside the fireplace.

  Now she capitalized on my brief moment of inattention and came up swinging. Maribeth’s crimson-tipped fingers looked incongruous wrapped around a thick, bark-covered log. Momentum carried the sturdy piece of wood toward my head with bruising force.

  I ducked quickly to one side, tangled a leg in the table, and stumbled sideways. Reflexively, I threw up an arm. It was too late and not enough. The blow landed just behind my ear. I felt it as both a lacerating source of pain and also a heavy weight that sent me sprawling.

  My knees began to crumple, as if my bones had melted away and there was nothing left to support my weight. Spots danced before my eyes. I wanted to brush them away. I wanted the searing pain to stop. I wanted to kick myself for allowing this to happen.

  Then none of that mattered. Everything went black.

  Cold. So cold.

  I think it was the shivering that woke me up. My teeth were chattering so hard that my jaw hurt. My body was shaking in place. The force of that involuntary movement was bouncing my head on the hardwood floor.

  If I hadn’t felt like I was going to throw up, I might have smiled at the irony. One blow to the head had knocked me out. Another brought me back.

  Damn, it was freezing. Gingerly, I rolled onto my side. The small rotation was enough to make bile rise in my throat. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I retched on the floor, then wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my sweater.

  Sweater? I thought, my brain processing information sluggishly as the rough wool scraped at my lips. That wasn’t right. Where was my parka?