Underdog

by Laurien Berenson

  “Bunny? You busy?” The voice, coming out of the back room, was loud enough to make Faith look up inquiringly. I gave the caller the benefit of the doubt and decided she was probably trying to make herself heard over the dryers.

  “Yeah. Whatsa matter?”

  Of course that didn’t explain why Bunny shrieked right back.

  “Jackie’s goin’ out on lunch. You want anything?”

  Faith whined softly under her breath. I scratched her poor ears for reassurance. Maybe their mamas had taken them to too many rock concerts when they were babies. Or maybe they were just dumb. From the decibel level of the conversation, you’d have thought they were trying to make themselves heard through a solid oak door rather than a flimsy curtain.

  “Send her out here first, wouldja?”

  A moment later the curtain parted. Jackie was a chunky girl in her mid-twenties with a prominent chin and wiry blond hair. She was wearing jeans and a tee shirt with the words, “If you can read this, you’re too dose” stenciled across her breasts. She had a flannel-lined denim jacket in one hand and was counting the money in her wallet with the other.

  “What?”

  Bunny waved in my direction. “Lady here wants to talk to you about getting her dog done.”

  Jackie’s gaze slid over me and went straight to Faith. She dropped her jacket on the counter, shoved her wallet in the back pocket of her jeans, crouched down, and extended a hand. “Hey, pretty girl.”

  Faith sniffed the fingers with polite reserve.

  “I understand you used to work for a show kennel.”

  “Yeah, Shamrock in Ridgefield. They didn’t show any Poodles though.” Jackie frowned suddenly, regretting her honesty. “But of course I know how to groom them. I can do all the breeds. What you’ve got here is called a puppy trim.”

  “And you think you could maintain it for showing?”

  “Sure. Make an appointment and I’ll show you. I’ve got some time open at the end of the week.”

  Considering Aunt Peg had just devoted several hours to scissoring Faith’s trim, I couldn’t imagine what Jackie thought she might possibly do to improve upon it. Nor did I have any intention of finding out.

  “I don’t know.” I pretended to consider. “Ridgefield’s not that far away. Maybe I should take her to this Shamrock place instead.”

  “Bad idea. Real bad idea.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The people that own the place, they’re a little crazy.”

  “They are?” I leaned in closer and injected just the right amount of shock into my tone.

  “That’s the truth. I’ll tell you, the things that went on there. . .”

  “Like what?”

  “Well it was a husband-wife team, see? And when they had fights, you’d think the roof was going to come off the kennel, it was that bad. Even the dogs would hide in the backs of their pens.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  “Nah, I just got fed up. I don’t like to stay in one place for too long, you know? Besides, at the Maguires there was another girl, Jenny’s sister. I was too far down the totem pole. I needed to get away and get to a place where I’d have a chance to move up.”

  “Jenny Maguire? I’ve heard that name at the shows. Isn’t she the woman who died?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you there then?”

  “Nah, I was already gone. Doesn’t mean I didn’t cheer when I heard, though.”

  “I guess you didn’t like her much.”

  “You can say that again. Little Miss Priss, when the clients were around. Like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But when they were gone, watch out! Mostly Angie and I just tried to stay out of her way.”

  “I heard she was murdered,” I mentioned casually.

  Jackie’s eyes lit up. “Really? Go on.”

  “It’s true.” Just to see what would happen, I threw out another name. “Crystal Mars told me.”

  “Is that the lady with the kennel in Stratford? The dog food lady?”

  I nodded. “Do you know her?”

  “We never met, but I heard about her. Angle—that’s Jenny’s sister—her and me were friends. She and Jenny got into an argument once and I asked her about it later. Seems the dog food lady had had an affair with their father, can you beat that?”

  No, I thought, I certainly couldn’t. “Did it happen recently?”

  “Nah, it was old stuff. Something that was going on back when Jenny and Angie first moved out on their own. Angie didn’t want anything to do with Crystal Mars and she hated it that Jenny did. But once Jenny got an idea in her head, good or bad, nobody could change her mind.”

  Crystal Mars and Roger Peterson? If that had been the precipitating factor in Jenny and Angie’s leaving home, then frankly Angie’s attitude made more sense to me than Jenny’s did. Why would Jenny have wanted to keep up with the woman who’d rivaled her own mother for her father’s affections?

  “Hey, listen,” said Jackie. “I gotta get going. Bunny, write this lady down an appointment, would you? End of the week.”

  Bunny pulled out an appointment book, picked up a pen, and stared at me blankly.

  “Janet Reno,” I said. “R-E-N-O.”

  Neither one of them batted an eye. I guess current events weren’t a strong suit.

  I got to handling class early on Thursday evening and managed to snag Rick for a few minutes of conversation. I started by congratulating him on Charlie’s recent successes. He accepted the praise modestly and like a true dog man, gave the Cocker all the credit.

  “Harry Flynn didn’t look too pleased on Sunday,” I ventured.

  Rick was setting up a card table near the door to hold the cash box and attendance list. “Good.”

  “He didn’t like Jenny much, did he?”

  “He doesn’t like anyone at Shamrock. Flynn’s lost two big clients to us since the beginning of the year. If you’ve met him, you know that public relations isn’t his strong suit. And he can be just as surly with the people who are paying his bills. But Flynn never saw himself as being at fault. As far as he was concerned, Jenny stole his dogs.”

  The outer door to the building opened and an eager black Lab dragged its owner inside. A Borzoi followed, and the line to check in began to form. When Aunt Peg showed up, late as usual, I motioned her over to the space I’d saved beside me on the mat.

  By the time she got Hope settled, Rick was already calling the class to order. He walked to the front of the line and began making his way slowly from dog to dog, looking at each, but not yet touching, like a judge taking a first impression of his entry.

  I made a quick inspection of Faith’s stance. Her front feet were facing forward and were set properly underneath her. Her rear feet were stretched just enough to highlight her hindquarter angulation. I balled the narrow show leash inside my fist out of the way and used the same hand to lift her head up and back over her shoulders. The other reached to hold her tail. When Rick passed by, she looked alert and ready. I relaxed and let her droop a little after he’d passed.

  In a carefully modulated whisper, I brought Aunt Peg up to speed on what I had learned. She shrugged over Rick’s opinion of Harry Flynn as if that was old news, but the information Jackie had given me made her smile.

  “Roger Peterson and Crystal Mars?” Her eyebrows waggled at the thought. I hoped that meant ideas were percolating.

  Rick finished his opening perusal and set the line in motion. The week before he and Angie had seemed to be making an effort to handle things smoothly in Jenny’s absence. Now only one class later, the transition from one sister to the other was just about taken for granted. As Aunt Peg moved off to the side to chat with the woman handling the Borzoi, I played tug-of-war with Faith and her squeaky and listened to a conversation between two women holding Airedales behind me.

  “What’s the difference?” one was saying. “One sister’s pretty much the same as the other.”

  The second woman was a redhead, just like
her dog. “I disagree. Jenny always gave me good tips. She told me I was gaiting Rufus too fast and when I tried it her way, I realized I was. Angie has nice hands on a dog, I’ll give her that. She’s great at socializing puppies, but not nearly as good at picking up on my mistakes.”

  “She’s young, that’s all. Maybe she’s a little intimidated.”

  “If that’s the problem I hope she gets over it, or I may start looking for another class. It would be one thing if Angie were only filling in every now and again. . .”

  Their two big terriers, who’d been sparring playfully, suddenly decided to take each other seriously. There was a throaty rumble from one and a snap of teeth from the other and the two handlers hastily moved apart. I brought Faith forward several steps where she’d be well out of the fray and thought about what the woman had said.

  It would be one thing if Angie were only filling in every now and again . . .

  The last time I’d seen Jenny she’d mentioned that Angie would be taking her place at class that week because she was planning to be away. I hadn’t asked her where she was going; at the time, it hadn’t seemed important. Then Jenny had died and class had been canceled and I’d forgotten all about it.

  Up ahead Rick was going over Hope, which meant that my turn was next. As Aunt Peg completed her exercises, gaiting the puppy in the several different patterns while Rick watched critically, I moved Faith up and stacked her. When he finished with Hope and turned to her sister, we were ready.

  “She’s really improving.” Rick approached Faith in the quiet and efficient manner used by the best judges. He held out his fingers for her to smell.

  “Thanks. We’ve been working on it.” Faith held her stance and wagged her tail.

  Rick studied the puppy’s head briefly, then lifted her lips to check the correctness of her bite. “Good girl,” he murmured softly, and moved on to feel the shoulder.

  “You know, I was wondering about something.”

  “Hmmm?” He was running his hands down Faith’s front leg, checking the amount of bone, and didn’t look up.

  “Just before Jenny died, she told me she was planning to be away for a bit. Where was she going?”

  “What?”

  I repeated the question as Rick felt for spring of rib. He stopped then, and straightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jenny wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

  “But she told me she’d be missing class that week.”

  “You must be mistaken.” He skimmed a hand quickly over Faith’s hindquarter then stepped back, signaling that the examination was over.

  “I’m not. Jenny told me she was going to be away.”

  “That’s not possible,” Rick said shortly. “I don’t know anything about Jenny taking a trip and she never would have planned one without telling me. You must have misunderstood.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly. “I guess I did.”

  He waved a hand toward the outside mat. “Down and back. And be sure to keep her straight.”

  We managed to complete the rest of the exercise without saying one more word to each other than was absolutely necessary. In no time at all, I was back at the end of the line. It would be a good ten minutes before Faith and I were called upon to do anything else. That was fine because it gave me time to think.

  Jenny had told me she was going away, I was sure of it. At the time I’d assumed she meant a short trip, but what if she hadn’t? By then, Ziggy had gone away; with Jenny concocting an elaborate lie to cover his disappearance.

  I’d speculated that Jenny might have been thinking about divorcing Rick, but maybe I hadn’t considered all the possibilities. I thought back to the times I’d seen Rick and Jenny together; the way he’d always been watching her, touching her, speaking on her behalf. At his kennel, when he’d told me that Jenny was his whole life, I’d assumed he was merely waxing poetic; but what if he wasn’t?

  Maybe Jenny had found her husband’s constant attention smothering. Maybe she’d been looking for a way out.

  According to her sister, Jenny had thought of divorcing Rick once. Angie said he had changed her mind. How? By convincing her to stay? Or by forbidding her to go?

  The talk I’d had with Timmy Doane’s parents was fresh enough in my mind to still rankle. Timmy was handling a manipulative relationship by running away emotionally. What if Jenny had decided to solve her problems with Rick by running away physically?

  Trapped with a husband who loved her too much to let her go willingly, she’d concocted a plan to get away that didn’t need his consent. I knew she’d faked Ziggy’s death. It didn’t take much of a leap of logic to see that she could also have been planning to fake her own. Was that why she had written the phony suicide note? Had the missing jewelry Angie had told me about been intended to finance her run?

  It all made a terrible kind of sense. Poor Jenny. Before she could get away, someone had stopped her from ever running again.

  Nineteen

  It’s a good thing class was almost over because I was dying to run my theory past Aunt Peg. The moment Rick dismissed us, I pushed her out the door and informed her I was following her home. She accepted that pronouncement with a lifted brow and a heavy foot on the gas pedal.

  Aunt Peg’s herd of house Poodles met us at the door. There were six of them, all retired champions and all bitches except for Beau, who was definitely king of his domain. Their chorus of barking and leaping went on for several minutes and was clearly meant to make Aunt Peg feel guilty for having left them. While she passed out biscuits, then let the troupe out the back door, I went and called Joanie the baby-sitter and asked her to hang on for another hour.

  Aunt Peg was brewing tea when I returned to the kitchen. A box containing an all-butter crumb cake sat open on the counter. The woman has a sweet tooth like you would not believe. Obviously she was hoping to tempt me too, because she’d set out two plates. It was too late at night for coffee. I poured myself a glass of water from the faucet, pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “Listen to this.” I led her back through what we had learned so far, about Jenny hiding Ziggy away and claiming he was dead, the fact that she’d written a suicide note and then been murdered. I reiterated what Jackie the kennel girl had told me—mat Rick and Jenny had been fighting long enough and loud enough that they apparently didn’t care who overheard.

  “Then tonight at class I remembered something Jenny told me the last time I saw her. She said she wouldn’t be at class the following week because she was going away.”

  Aunt Peg lifted the crumb cake down from the counter and made the first cut. “So?”

  “When I asked Rick about it he said I must have been mistaken, that Jenny didn’t have any trips planned.”

  “At least not any trips that he knew about,” Aunt Peg said thoughtfully.

  “Precisely. I think Jenny was planning on leaving him. According to Angie, she’d tried once before. She’d even gone as far as filing for divorce, but Rick had convinced her to stay. Rick says she was happy and that everything between them was hunky-dory. But Angie and Crystal Mars and Jackie have a different story to tell. And then there’s the note.”

  When she saw I wasn’t going to help myself, Aunt Peg cut a large square of cake and slipped it onto my plate. I eyed it unhappily, but didn’t push it away. “Not to mention the missing jewelry.”

  “You think she was going to fake her own suicide and then disappear?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “But what about the business? It was as much hers as Rick’s. She couldn’t just walk out on that.”

  “Why not, if it was what she wanted? Angie said once that Jenny didn’t get into handling because she loved it so much, but rather because she was young and it was the only thing she knew how to do. According to Angie, Jenny would have been happy to leave it all behind.”

  Aunt Peg lifted a piece of cake to her mouth, chewed and swallowed slowly. She was halfway through a square twice the size o
f mine. With her metabolism, she was probably burning calories by chewing. “Suppose Jenny did fake her own death, how would she have explained that to Crystal Mars when she showed up alive to get Ziggy?”

  “Ridgefield and Stratford are nearly forty miles apart,” I pointed out. “It’s possible that Crystal might not have heard what had happened for weeks. Neither Angie nor Rick have anything to do with the woman, so they wouldn’t have told her. When Jenny did die, Crystal only found out by accident, and then not until after the funeral.

  “Suppose Jenny staged a suicide then went directly to Stratford to pick up Ziggy. By the time Crystal got the news, she probably would have assumed that it happened sometime after she saw Jenny. There wouldn’t have been any reason to be suspicious.”

  There was a rumble outside as the Poodles came bounding up the steps onto the back porch. Aunt Peg opened the door and let them in. Beau immediately went over and sat down beside her chair. She ruffled his top-knot and ears fondly. “Of course she’d have had to arrange her death in such a way that no body was ever found.”

  I plucked a round, sugar-coated crumb from the top of my cake and popped it in my mouth. “I’d have made it look like I jumped off a bridge. The Tappan Zee is popular for that.”

  “So she leaves her car there, presumably with the note inside. How does she get to Stratford?”

  “Hitch-hike?”

  “And you don’t think Crystal would have found that a little odd?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. I sighed and dug into my cake. “Maybe she had an accomplice.”

  “Who?”

  “Angie?” I offered, then quickly shook my head. “I doubt she’s a good enough actress. Besides, Angie’s still angry about the missing jewelry.”

  “How about Crystal?”

  “Possibly. She certainly was the only one who knew that Ziggy was still alive. But if she was in on the plan, why didn’t she admit it?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t sure whose side you were on.”

  “Could be.” I thought back to the show the previous weekend. “And then there’s Florence Byrd.”

  “What about her?”