Underdog

by Laurien Berenson

Watching him pop one in his mouth whole, it didn’t take much imagination to figure out who they were stocked for. But when Dirk offered one to me, I didn’t decline. While Davey sidled closer to the counter, fascinated by the characters on the TV speaking in a language he couldn’t understand, I followed Dirk over to the gleaming sub-zero refrigerator.

  “My aunt and I came here today to talk to Mrs. Byrd about Jenny Maguire.”

  Dirk opened the refrigerator and got out a carton of milk. “That’s really none of my business.”

  “I understand you were a friend of Jenny’s, too.”

  “Not really.”

  “But you saw her all the time at the dog shows.”

  He opened a glass fronted cabinet, took out a faceted tumbler that looked as though it should have been holding Chivas Regal and poured milk up to the brim. “My job is to look out for Mrs. Byrd. I go where she wants me to go. I see what she wants me to see.”

  “I’d imagine you see a lot more than that.”

  The flattery didn’t help. Dirk drained half his milk in one long draught and went back for another Mallomar without making any response.

  “And of course she was here some days working in the kennel, too,” I prodded.

  “I don’t do dogs.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Dirk’s lips parted in a toothy smile. “Everybody’s got their limits. Marie, she doesn’t do any climbing or heavy lifting when she’s cleaning. Someone’s gotta come in special for that. Me, I don’t do dogs. Not these dogs, anyway. Other people want to go crazy over a bunch of spaniels too in-bred to earn their keep in the hunting field, that’s their business. Not mine. I keep out of it.”

  That was a long speech for him. Dirk had to refuel with another swig of milk and an additional cookie.

  “It must be hard for you then, having to spend so much time at dog shows when you’re not that interested in what’s going on.”

  “I’m getting paid.” Dirk shrugged. “I find enough to do.”

  “And enough to look at?”

  His fleshy brow drew downward though he stopped just short of frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Angie Peterson told me you were interested in her sister. She said you were always watching her.”

  “That’s a crock.”

  “Jenny was very pretty.”

  “So what if she was?”

  “There’s no harm in watching, Dirk. I was just curious why, that’s all.”

  “She worked for Mrs. Byrd, didn’t she? That’s my job, keeping an eye out.”

  “I guess you got to talk to her, too.”

  “Sometimes, not very often.”

  “Not as often as you would have liked?”

  His voice lowered to a growl. “Jenny was a nice girl. Real nice. It wasn’t my fault what happened to her. If I could have kept bad things away from Jenny, I would have.”

  “Nobody’s saying it was your fault—”

  “I want you to listen.” Dirk leaned down over me, his size and sheer physical presence trapping me against the counter. “And listen good. No matter what anybody thinks, I never had anything but Jenny’s best interests at heart.”

  “Mom, hey!” Davey was staring at the two of us with a bewildered look on his face. Distracted, Dirk straightened and I slithered out from behind him. “You said it was time to go.”

  “It is.” I crossed the room and took Davey’s hand in mine. “Say good-bye and thank you.”

  “Good-bye,” said Davey. “You’re not a very good checkers player.”

  Under the circumstances, it was close enough.

  Aunt Peg was saying good-bye to Florence Byrd when we got back to the library, and Davey and I did the same. The older woman shook Davey’s hand gravely. “Did Dirk take good care of you?” she inquired.

  “Unhn. He gave me Mallomars.”

  She nodded crisply. “He’s good at looking out for people.”

  An interesting thought occurred to me. “Did you ever ask him to keep an eye on Jenny?”

  “Jenny Maguire?” One thin, arched brow rose. “Why would I have done that?”

  “No reason. I was just wondering.”

  As we left I couldn’t help but think that a lot of people seemed to think they knew what was best for Jenny. With everybody so concerned about her welfare, how had she ended up dead?

  Twenty-two

  The visit with Florence Byrd had answered some questions, but it had also posed others. Luckily Faith seemed to have developed a taste for peanut butter biscuits, so the next afternoon when I piled her and Davey in the car and set off for Stratford, the trip came with a ready-made excuse.

  Now that I actually knew where I was going, it didn’t take that long to get to North Moon kennel. For late November the day was unseasonably warm. As we neared the end of the long, rutted driveway we passed Sarah on a pink two-wheeler bike. She wore faded jeans, torn across one knee, and a hooded jacket that flapped loose behind her. Her dark hair was ruffled by the breeze. As I parked the car, she rode up beside us, hopped off her bike and waved.

  “Hey!” cried Davey. “Who’s that?”

  “Her name is Sarah. She’s Crystal’s daughter.”

  My son, whose patience with running errands was notoriously short, was waving back enthusiastically. “Do you think she wants to play?”

  “Why don’t you get out and ask her?”

  Faith and Davey spilled from the car together, converging on Sarah, who seemed delighted by the prospect of visitors. When Faith jumped up and licked her face, she cupped the puppy’s head in her hands and giggled out loud.

  “Her name’s Faith,” Davey said importantly. “She likes to play hide and seek.”

  “So do I,” said Sarah.

  I went inside when they began laying down the ground rules. Crystal was up on a small step ladder, tacking new posters to a section of wall. She had her back to the door, but turned as the chimes tinkled.

  “Is this straight?” she mumbled around a mouthful of push pins.

  I walked to the center of the room to view the poster head on. It featured a shot of a Shih Tzu with a pink bow in its hair. “Life’s short,” it read. “Bite hard.”

  “Looks good to me.”

  One corner had already been tacked to the wall. Crystal smoothed the poster flat and quickly attached the rest. “Thanks,” she said, hopping down. “What can I get for you?”

  “More biscuits?”

  “Sure.” Crystal grinned. “I knew your puppy’d go for the peanut butter. They always do.” She walked into the other room and emerged with a five-pound bag.

  “How’s Ziggy doing?”

  “Fine. Better every day. That be all?” She was already punching numbers into the cash register.

  So much for that topic. There didn’t seem to be any way to lead gracefully into the questions I wanted to ask. On the other hand, if I didn’t get started soon she’d have me out the door before I’d learned a thing.

  “I know this is really none of my business, but I’ve been talking to a lot of people since Jenny died. I’ve been trying to make sense of what happened to her.”

  Crystal’s hand stilled above the register’s keys. She looked at me and waited.

  “I’ve heard that you and Jenny’s father were . . . in volved.”

  “Roger Peterson was involves with a lot of women.” She sneered over the euphemism I’d chosen. “It didn’t mean much.”

  “Maybe not to you, but how about Jenny?”

  “I wasn’t the first, you know.” Crystal’s rough laugh held no humor. “Nor the last.”

  “But still, the fact that you would become friends afterward seems . . . unlikely.”

  “Hell, all of life’s unlikely. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” She fished beneath the counter and came up with a pack of cigarettes. “Jenny wasn’t happy about what happened, but she’d seen a few women come and go. She blamed her father for what went on, not me.”

  The rationalization didn’t ring
entirely true. Yet Jenny had kept in touch with Crystal and she obviously trusted her enough to leave her most cherished possession in the woman’s care. Why?

  “Four ninety-five.” With one hand, Crystal punched out the numbers hard. The other was shaking a cigarette loose from the pack.

  “But why did—?”

  “Four ninety-five,” she said firmly. “And no more questions. You were right about what you said before. None of this is any of your business. So just stay out of it, okay?”

  There didn’t seem to be much I could say to that. I opened my purse, pulled out my wallet, and handed over a five-dollar bill. The conversation must have really upset her. She didn’t even try to sell me a tee shirt.

  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year. There’s a four-day weekend, you don’t have to buy presents, and you get to cook the way everybody used to before words like high-fiber and cholesterol became part of our everyday vocabulary. Davey was already looking forward to Thanksgiving because I’d promised to invite the whole family. When he heard that I’d added Sam to the guest list, he was overjoyed.

  My brother, Frank, arrived early. He’s taller than me by more than half a foot, and has the same straight brown hair that he cuts short and mousses upward. At twenty-six, he’s still in the buddy stage. He and his friends are into hanging out and drinking beer; and family holidays tend to leave them at a loss. The parade’s for kids, and football doesn’t start until the afternoon. Having left the invitation open-ended, I figured Frank would roll out of bed by eleven and be at my house around noon. He beat my estimate by fifteen minutes.

  “Anybody home?” he yelled, letting himself in the front door.

  “Uncle Frank!”

  Davey was in the living room watching the Macy’s parade on TV. He jumped up but Faith who’d been lying at his side was faster. She raced out into the hall, barking furiously.

  If Frank had just held his ground he would have been all right. But I came out of the kitchen in time to see him step back as the Poodle puppy launched her affectionate attack. Her front paws bounced off his chest as he grabbed for the newel post and came up empty. The two of them went down in a heap.

  “Call her off!” he cried, his voice muffled by forty pounds of hairy puppy. “I think she’s killing me.”

  “Only if you can be licked to death.” I looped both arms around Faith’s neck and hauled her back. “Stand up quick. Now’s your chance.”

  “This is getting to be as bad as going to Aunt Peg’s.”

  “Bite your tongue. She’s only one puppy. A bit overly exuberant, perhaps—”

  “My turn!”

  My brother had barely regained his feet when Davey launched the second offensive of the day. Luckily Frank handled this one better. Arms wrapped tightly around Frank’s legs, Davey eyed the bag in his uncle’s hands.

  “What did you bring me?”

  “Chocolate eclairs from St. Moritz. Enough for everybody. That is, if the hound from hell didn’t just crush them.”

  “Can I have mine now?”

  “Not a chance.” I slipped in and snagged the bag of goodies. “That’s dessert. I hope you brought plenty. I’ve added another guest.”

  As Davey and Faith went back to the TV, Frank pulled off his coat and hung it up, then followed me out to the kitchen. “Anyone I know?”

  “Sam Driver,” I said casually. “He’s a friend.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t you dare, Frank.”

  “Don’t what?”

  I’d seen that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth look before. He’d used it to great effect on our parents when we were younger, and I couldn’t count the number of times I’d taken the rap for his misdeeds. “Don’t you dare embarrass me.”

  “Me?” He opened the fridge and zeroed in on a hunk of Swiss cheese. “I’ll be the least of your worries. You must be serious about this guy if you’re letting him brave the Turnbull dragons.”

  With unerring instinct, Frank had gone straight for what worried me most. “Maybe marriage has softened Aunt Rose,” I ventured.

  “Not likely! But hey, it’s your funeral.”

  I certainly hoped not. Just to get back at my brother, I asked about his job. Frank’s resume—if he had one—would read like a textbook example of how not to plan a career. Unemployed more often than not, he was currently selling men’s wear at a department store in the mall. He hated it and I knew it.

  That’s the problem with being siblings. You may grow up, but you never get past the petty squabbles of your childhood.

  After that, Frank took Davey and a football outside and taught him how to throw as much of a long bomb as our small backyard could manage. I finished stuffing the turkey and got it in the oven. Then we all took Faith for a long walk around the neighborhood. By two o’clock, when everyone else began to arrive, Faith and Davey were pleasantly tired, most of the preparations were complete, and the house smelled deliciously of roast turkey.

  Aunt Rose and Peter brought a pan of homemade cornbread. Aunt Peg arrived with a sweet potato and marshmallow casserole—representing the sugar food group, I supposed. Sam pulled in last and brought flowers; a pot of live tulips. In November, no less. The man was a marvel.

  Most of the rest of the family was settled in the living room when Sam got there. Frank was serving drinks, but he took time out from his duties to come into the kitchen and size Sam up. The two of them circled each other like a pair of male dogs staking out virgin territory.

  I was tempted to remind them it was my turf, and that both of them were there at my sufferance, but I was too busy stirring the cranberries and dribbling in sugar to dive into the middle of that testosterone fest. Instead I let them work things out for themselves. Even wolves get along once they’ve established dominance.

  “So you’re Mel’s new boyfriend,” said Frank. Well, that set the tone.

  “I suppose I am.” Sam opened the refrigerator and helped himself to a beer. So that Frank could see how comfortable he was in my kitchen, no doubt.

  “You two known each other long?”

  “Not yet, but we’re working on it.”

  “Mel doesn’t invite many . . . friends . . . to family gatherings.”

  Sam popped the top on his beer and had a sip. Over the top of the can, he gave me a look. “I guess I should be flattered.”

  “Not necessarily.” Frank was enjoying himself now. “Did she tell you much about the family?”

  “She did everything but make me sign a waiver of liability. I hear Peg and Rose don’t get along.” Sam had been introduced on the way in.

  “Never have.”

  “I’ll tell you what. Any trouble starts, I’ll go for Peg and you take the scrawny one.”

  Frank grinned. “What about Peter?”

  “He’ll have to fend for himself.”

  “Deal.”

  They shook on it, finished putting the rest of the drinks on the tray, and headed into the living room, already halfway to being friends.

  When the cranberry sauce was ready, I turned off the heat and moved the pot to a back burner. I got out a platter of chopped veggies and dip that I’d prepared earlier and carried it into the living room. To my amazement, everything seemed to be going smoothly. Peter, who was teaching his first semester of political science at Connecticut College, was holding court.

  Though he and Aunt Rose had been married only a few months, they already had that comfortable look of long married couples about them. Peter was in his mid-fifties, a few years older than Rose. His ginger brown hair had receded back from his temples and was thinning seriously on top. The buttons of his cardigan sweater gapped over the beginnings of a new paunch. Perhaps Aunt Rose was feeding him better than the seminary had, although after thirty years in the convent, I couldn’t imagine where she might have learned to cook.

  She, too, had changed in the short amount of time since I’d seen her last. Though her face was still thin and angular, her expression had softened. Rose
was a woman who had taken her duties as an emissary of God very seriously. Now she was on her own time, and appeared to be enjoying the change.

  Her graying hair, kept short for so many years to combat the wages of vanity and to fit beneath a cowl, had now grown long enough to curl around her ears. She was wearing pale peach lipstick and just a hint of blush. A slim gold wedding band was her only jewelry.

  Rose and Peter were holding hands and I found the sight unexpectedly touching. It was a simple gesture, almost old-fashioned in a way; a silent communication of affection and support.

  “It sounds as though you’ve been keeping yourself busy,” Aunt Peg said when Peter had finished. She turned to her sister-in-law. “What about you, Rose? Now that you’ve put prayer and good works behind you, what do you do all day?”

  Peg had disapproved when Rose left the convent. That was nothing new. Peg disapproved of nearly everything Rose did; and the two of them had been at each other’s throats for years.

  “I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve put them behind me,” Rose said complacently. I saw Peter give her fingers a squeeze. “Actually I’ve been doing volunteer work at a shelter in New London. As I’m sure you know, the secular world has no shortage of worthwhile projects that need attending to.”

  “And of course you’d be just the one to set them straight on how things should be done.”

  “I do my best.” Aunt Rose actually smiled this time.

  I could see Aunt Peg’s frustration level rising. What good did it do to toss barbs at someone who refused to rise to the bait? Before she could try another insult, I stood between them and offered the vegetable platter.

  “Here, Aunt Peg. Have a carrot.”

  “I’m not hungry, dear.”

  “Have one anyway.”

  “My, we have gotten pushy, haven’t we?” She looked past my shoulder to the couch where Rose was sitting. “I guess we know which side of the family that comes from.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want,” Rose said firmly. “I’d say that’s a sign of intelligence, wouldn’t you?” She directed the question to Sam, who looked as though he’d just been lobbed a flaming howitzer.