Changing of the Guard Dog

by Lane Stone

  “Hell, no,” his friend answered. “We just had to make an appearance.” I ran my eyes down the arms of his cashmere turtleneck sweater. Before I could check out his hands, he’d turned and collided with Charles Andrews.

  Andrews wheeled around. “Watch out for the dogs!”

  The more expensively dressed man thrust his face forward. “Look here, old man….”

  The two glared at each other. My overtaxed brain tried to make sense of the scene playing out a few feet away from me but it stalled out. How could he or anyone speak to a man of Charles Andrews’s advanced age like that? The two Dachshunds sensed something wasn’t right and backtracked. The high-pitched barking started before they had come to a full stop.

  John moved forward. “I better get out there.”

  “What’s your hurry?” Shelby whispered, making Dana giggle.

  “Those dogs had better not go for my ankles,” he said.

  While it was true that every encounter with Mr. Andrews was unpleasant, I didn’t like what I’d seen and didn’t want that kind of animosity in the middle of Buckingham’s lobby. Not today.

  John slid in between the scowling men and growling dogs without looking at any of them. They had no choice but to move along. As he stood there his phone rang and he nonchalantly took the call. When the miscreants were out the door he walked back to the reception desk. “It should be down by Monday afternoon,” he told the caller and hung up. “Just somebody complaining about the crime scene tape on the beach. She wants to hold a press conference and finds it unsightly.” The curl of his upper lip told me what he thought of the caller’s word choice. “I wanted to tell her I was sorry someone inconvenienced her by getting himself murdered.” He shook his head.

  “Charles Andrews probably would’ve said worse than that,” Dana said.

  I looked down the hallway. The teacher hadn’t been last out of the puppy room. “We’re missing someone. Lady Anthea?” I called. I didn’t get a response, so I left the footdraggers in the lobby and went to the puppy room. My nose detected a top note of floor cleaner, then the odor of eau de puppy. I couldn’t help but smile.

  She was calmly folding the rented chairs and placing them on the trolley we’d been provided.

  “What happened? Why did everybody run out like that?” I asked.

  “It seems she mentioned her great-grandchildren one too many times and there was a rebellion.” I stared at her as she walked to the table where snacks and drinks had been left out.

  “Are you all right, Lady Anthea?”

  She turned back to me and gave me a weak smile. “Of course, why do you ask?”

  “You seem, well, not yourself.” Had the occasional Lewes craziness finally worn her down?

  “Oh, I’m fine.” I knew what it meant when I gave that answer and decided to ask again later.

  “Well, I have a bit of news,” a baritone voice behind me said. “Sue, you’re right about the first victim, the one in the tuxedo; he was with the symphony orchestra. His name was Georg Nielsen.”

  “Are there two Georg Nielsens?” Lady Anthea asked, then answered her own question. “I guess there could be many. The famous Georg Nielsen certainly isn’t dead.”

  “The victim was a composer and a sometime symphony conductor,” John said.

  Lady Anthea’s head jerked back. “No, no. He’s too, well, alive to be dead. I mean, he’s young.”

  John and I slowly nodded our heads. “The victim was young,” he said. His tone was gentle, but not patronizing.

  “And Georg Nielsen is a genius, a prodigy,” Lady Anthea continued.

  I shrugged. Having met him, you might say, late in life, I had no idea what his IQ was. John and I stood and waited. She’d get there when she was able. When she was ready.

  Lady Anthea raised one eyebrow. “The musical world cannot possibly be without Georg Nielsen!”

  Chapter 4

  Lady Anthea and I finished straightening the room to get it ready for its usual occupants, four-legged and twice as civilized as today’s, who would begin arriving at seven o’clock Monday morning. She looked around the room and smiled. The walls were painted burgundy and, as in all our rooms, we had decorated with a few pieces of dark wood furniture. Two rocking chairs and a table sat at the far end of the room. Bins of training aids and water bowls were placed along the walls. The floor was washable for practicality.

  When we went back to the lobby, Dana had gone home. In the morning she’d return to her campus in Manhattan. She was a freshman at City College of New York. She’d chosen that school so she could continue to model.

  John had gone, saying he’d see me later. He promised he’d let us know the identity of the second victim when he learned it.

  “Damn,” I said before noticing that Shelby was on the phone. I turned to Lady Anthea and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I forgot to ask him about the cell phone we got from Bernice’s mouth.” The lapse made me feel like I was slipping, but I consoled myself with the thought that the attack had happened only hours ago. Mental images were popping up at strange times but were never far away. Like when I looked at the water dispenser and thought about how we’d argued over flavoring it with coconut water—Shelby and me—or strawberries and basil—Mason and Joey. We had settled on the latter since it seemed more British. Now it seemed not only unimportant, but downright silly. Was it normal to divide my life between before and after, the way I was doing? Surely not.

  Shelby was giving her caller our email address, so it must not be one of our current pet parents. She rolled her eyes and hung up. “I can’t believe that,” she said with a grimace. “She’s staying with someone and didn’t ask in advance if she could bring her dog. Who does that?”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Lady Anthea said with a huff.

  “If she’s calling us on a Sunday, I guess her friends told her no,” I said.

  Shelby nodded. “She’s already filled out the online registration form. Her vet is in Washington, DC and she’ll have the dog’s medical records sent to us.”

  “What breed?” Lady Anthea said.

  “Pekingese. And her name is Cordy Galligan. She’ll be here tomorrow—”

  “Cordy Galligan!” Lady Anthea cried.

  Shelby nodded. “Yeah. Do you know her?”

  Lady Anthea clapped her hands. “Cordy Galligan’s dog is coming to Buckingham Pet Palace!”

  “Uh, yeah. Assuming the dog passes the temperament evaluation,” I said. I had no idea who this Cordy person was but the mention of her name had brightened my business partner’s mood considerably.

  “Should we know who that is?” Shelby rested her elbows on the counter, all ears.

  “She’s the concertmaster of the Potomac Symphony Orchestra!” She looked up at the ceiling. “Hopefully this town won’t kill her, too.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Lady Anthea said, patting my shoulder. “I’m just so terribly relieved you weren’t seriously hurt, or worse, this morning. When Kate Carter came in with the two dogs and told us what had happened, we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. Then we learned that Georg Nielsen was dead. And you must admit we’ve had our share of—” Lady Anthea stopped talking and stared straight ahead. “Oh, noooo.”

  “What is it?” Shelby asked.

  “My brother.”

  “He’s coming tomorrow. We know,” I said.

  “I didn’t exactly tell him about the last murder. I couldn’t after his reaction to my very slight involvement in the investigation into Henry Cannon’s death.”

  “Uh, let me stop you there,” I said. “Very slight involvement? We were almost killed solving it.”

  She raised her hand in a stop signal, and nodded in agreement. “I hate to ask, but would you not mention the last one to him?”

  “No problem,” I said. I remembe
red how annoyed he’d been when he saw the family name on Google Alerts and demanded that Lady Anthea come back to England. He was worried that the royal family would be told about it. Their grandmother had been lady-in-waiting to the queen, meaning their lives were governed by a different set of rules than mine, assuming I had any.

  “I won’t say a word,” Shelby assured her, “but what about the rest of the town? Are you hoping gossip about Georg Nielsen will knock it off the rumor mill?”

  “I’m hoping for more than that,” she answered.

  “You want to keep news of this murder, I mean these murders, from him?” I ventured.

  She nodded, and Shelby and I stared in disbelief. “He never reads a newspaper and I’m the only person he knows here. I doubt he’ll meet anyone other than those of us at Buckingham’s.”

  I didn’t dare look at Shelby, my partner in google-stalking Lady Anthea’s brother, the duke. There seemed to be no limit to his snobbishness. He was pompous and conceited, and he was as dumb as an overbred brick. Tricking someone who was too proud to speak to the lowly citizens and too dumb to catch on if he overheard anything about the two dead men was like the opposite of a perfect storm. Everything was in our favor. As Elvis would sing, “I Got Lucky.” We might just have a shot at this.

  Now Shelby was smiling, too. “Chief Turner said the crime scene tape would come down tomorrow. What time is his flight?”

  Chapter 5

  After a satisfying dinner of Grottos pizza, John, Lady Anthea and I took our wineglasses into the family room. The night air was chilly, so we’d eaten in the dining room instead of the screened porch.

  “Any luck finding that car?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “But I’m getting closer. It was an electric car. A Kia Soul or a Chevrolet Bolt or something like that. It was bright blue with a Virginia license plate.”

  “Abby, look what a mess you’ve made,” Lady Anthea said to my Standard Schnauzer. Stuffed animals, training aids, and chew toys were scattered around her bone-shaped wicker basket. My dog was rooting for something in the very bottom of the toy box. Suddenly she raised her head and looked straight at me with a stuffed blue bear covered in gold stars in her mouth. She looked pleased with herself. She gave her pretend prey a quick shake and walked off with it. Lady Anthea came around gathering up the discarded toys and tossing them back into the basket. “So, you found what you were looking for? None of these would do?” she asked Abby, with feigned sternness.

  The lightness of the moment helped dispel the tension from our dinner conversation, but it was short-lived.

  Thanks to technology, we had a fire in the fireplace as soon as I flipped the switch. I sat on the couch and pulled the cashmere throw that I kept draped over the back onto my lap. John joined me and watched as I tucked the blanket under my legs, crafting a cocoon. He had a scowl on his face. After studying the fire for a minute, he said, “Lady Anthea, can you tell me more about Georg Nielsen? He was here to be the guest conductor, right? The regular guy recently retired?”

  I looked up with a start. “Perhaps Daniel Laurent was the intended victim?”

  “Only in those books you read,” she said. Lady Anthea patted the strand of pearls around her neck before speaking again. “Georg Nielsen is, uh, was the darling of the classical music world. I still can’t believe he’s dead. The world debut of his symphony was to be in Lewes and rumor in the music community says it’s because it has an ocean theme. This symphony was to have sealed his coronation as the emerging talent of the decade!” She shook her head at the loss. “At first I was disappointed that Maestro Daniel Laurent had changed his mind about coming to Lewes, but to hear a never-before-performed piece by Georg Nielsen was like winning the lottery.” She giggled. “Though Laurent wouldn’t be keen to hear that. He was the music director and conductor of the orchestra.” She took a sip of wine. “Now Georg Nielsen is dead.”

  “The Potomac Symphony Orchestra is still coming. We have a boarding reservation for someone’s dog,” I said.

  “Cordy Galligan, the concertmaster,” Lady Anthea said, dreamily.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “The concertmaster is the instrument-playing leader of an orchestra. She’s the leader of the first violin section. In this country, the position is sometimes referred to as first chair.”

  “Why are they still coming?” I asked. “Don’t they know he’s dead?”

  “I reached Nielsen’s agent and told him. It’s up to him to tell whoever needs to know. He was going to try to reach the family in Denmark. I hope he beats the press to it,” John said.

  “How did this happen?” Lady Anthea asked.

  “Until I learn something to the contrary, I’m going on the assumption that Mr. Nielsen drowned,” he said, back to our conversation from dinner. “His blood alcohol was high. I think he passed out and fell in the water.”

  I shook my head. “I still say there was something wrong about the crime scene.”

  Lady Anthea, now seated in the overstuffed chair across from us, leaned forward. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. John huffed in exasperation. “I can’t put my finger on it, but—” I looked at Abby. She had been chewing on the bear, but now she picked it up and tossed it.

  “And after all that work to get exactly the toy you wanted,” Lady Anthea said. Abby walked over to the bear and lay down to chew on it again.

  “That’s it. She was looking for a particular toy,” I said. “The second victim wasn’t just some sicko going through a dead person’s pockets to find something to steal; he was looking for something specific. Don’t you see?” I looked from John to Lady Anthea. “He knew the body was there! It didn’t just wash up! Remember I told that you can’t predict where a body will come to shore?”

  John ran a hand over his head. He kept his hair short, almost a military cut. “The preliminary report says he drowned. And why are you looking at my hair?”

  “I think someone helped him drown, like they tried to do to me. And your hair is short, but without what they call the fade. The man that was shot had the fade.”

  “I know what his hair looks like. We have his body.”

  “He was looking for something he thought Nielsen had on him and it had to be the thumb drive,” I said.

  “At the risk of stating the obvious, that means there’s something important on it,” Lady Anthea said.

  “I’m waiting to get the report on that and to find out who the phone belonged to,” he said.

  His own phone pinged and he stood to read the text message. When he looked at the screen he said, “I’m going to have to get back to work,” as he placed a call.

  I stood, too. “Well, good night. See you tomorrow.” The look on John’s face made me regret my abruptness. Lady Anthea seemed to be caught by surprise, too. She jumped up but stayed next to her chair. She was unsure of what was going on between John and me, but then so was I. I walked past him to the living room. He followed me to the front door, now talking on his phone. We stood there and I waited for him to finish his conversation, looking at the floor, then the walls. At anything but him, though we were standing inches from one another.

  “I’ll be damned.” It sounded like at least some of what he had heard came as news. He would file it where it belonged. I, however, left clues where I found them, since that made it easier to see what didn’t fit.

  He hung up and said, “We have the identity of the second victim. Name’s Nicholas Knightley, goes by Nick. He was in the system because until three months ago he was in prison.”

  “He had a record? For what? Maybe for murder? That’s what Elvis did in Jailhouse Rock, you know. Could he have killed the conductor?”

  John shook his head. “I don’t know yet. I have to go back to the station to call his parole officer.” We were still standing by the front door. “There’s more.” He look
ed back to the family room. “He worked for the Potomac Symphony Orchestra.”

  “Whaaat?” Lady Anthea cried out in shock. I had wondered if she could hear us and now I had my answer.

  We chuckled and I opened the door for him. “The classical music industry is rougher than I would have guessed,” I said. “Who knew?”

  He leaned closer and took my arms in his big hands. “Why am I back in the friend zone?” he whispered.

  Chapter 6

  At fifteen minutes after five on Monday morning, most of the town was asleep but I was parking my Jeep at Lewes Beach. I woke up knowing with a certainty usually reserved for Elvis and Grottos Pizza that I needed to go back there. Admittedly, I was counting on my attacker not being an early riser. I would make peace with the ocean since so much of my nonwork life was spent surfing and SUP, stand-up paddle boarding. I walked to the waterline, stretched and began a slow jog. I could make out the yellow crime tape up ahead, waiting in the moonlight for me to get there. To break its hold over me, I looked away and focused on the silver clouds reflected off the water of the Delaware Bay. The sand dunes stood guard on my left. They provided protection from coastal storms by absorbing wave energy and were sand storage areas ready to replenish eroded beaches after storm events. Without them, storm waves could blast inland and flood properties like those I’d thought about sending John to yesterday. Now I imagined myself shielded by them.

  “Oh!” a woman screamed.

  “Oh!” another woman—me—screamed back. She had been sitting on the beach and I had run over her. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you.” From her lotus position, my logical sleuth brain deduced she’d been meditating.

  Because her legs were crossed with the soles of her feet facing up, it took a bit of untangling before she could stand. I saw she was a good half foot shorter than my five-foot-seven inches, and compact. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had thick bangs.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “That was all on me. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”