Hair of the Dog

by Laurien Berenson

  “That’s all right. I’m not in a hurry.”

  By then I had my back against the counter. If Barry took one more step, I was going to give him the shove he deserved.

  “Everything all right in here?” The door opened again and Sam let himself in. “You’ve been gone so long, Peg sent me to look for you.” His gaze lingered on Barry, and there was nothing friendly about it.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said firmly. “I was just getting Davey a glass of milk.”

  “And I was on my way out,” said Barry, beating a retreat.

  Sam watched him leave, then turned back to me. “I hear you haven’t had a chance to eat yet. If you’re hungry now, I thought I’d join you.”

  “You’re a man after my own heart.”

  “I should hope so.”

  We found the milk, poured Davey a glass, then went outside and pigged out on ribs and corn on the cob. I didn’t see Barry again for the rest of the evening, and luckily for Aunt Peg, he didn’t cause any problems. She told me later that he and Alicia hadn’t stayed long.

  Considering it was Saturday night, the party broke up early. The rest of the world takes Sundays off. Not dog show people. Most of the judges and exhibitors would be at the Wallkill dog show the next day.

  I stayed home from the show myself and went to the beach with Davey. I hadn’t given the competition the slightest thought when Sam called mid-morning Monday.

  “Barry Turk won the group yesterday with his Poodle,” he said. “He beat Ron Pullman’s Chow.”

  “That must have made him happy.”

  “Probably so, but not for long. When he got home last night, somebody shot him.”

  Three

  “Shot him?” I gasped in disbelief. “What do you mean, somebody shot him? Is he dead?”

  “That’s what I heard from Crawford. He’d spoken to Bill Devane, who’d been called by Alicia from the hospital. Apparently she was pretty hysterical.”

  “I don’t blame her,” I said, feeling somewhat queasy myself. I carried the phone over to the kitchen table and sat down.

  If Davey’d been home, Faith would have been with him. Since he was at camp, the big black Poodle was in the kitchen, keeping me company. Faith has an unerring instinct for sensing my mood. She came over, sat down beside me, and rested her head in my lap, offering what comfort she could. I ran my fingers into her neck hair and scratched behind her ear.

  “Did Crawford say how it happened?”

  “He had only sketchy details. Apparently they’d been in the mood to celebrate, so they stopped and had dinner on the way home from the show.”

  “They who?”

  “Barry and Alicia and Beth. She’s Barry’s assistant. You’ve probably seen her at the shows.”

  “Right.” I’d met Beth Wycowski the summer before. A young woman who really liked animals, she’d struck me as eager to learn and ambitious to move up.

  At the time, Alicia hadn’t been in the picture. I’d once been told that the Chinese symbol for discord was two women under one roof. I wondered how smoothly things had been running at Barry’s kennel lately.

  “According to Crawford, Barry was high as a kite over beating Ron’s Chow, Leo, in the group.”

  “I can imagine. Aunt Peg was just telling me at the barbecue that Barry used to show that dog himself, and I can certainly picture him holding a grudge.”

  “Me too,” said Sam. “Anyway, the three of them arrived home after dark. They were all riding together in the van, along with the string of dogs they’d taken to the show. Alicia got out at the house, then Barry pulled over and parked beside the kennel. He hopped out and turned on the outside lights. That’s when he was shot, as soon as the lights came on.”

  “Then what happened?” I was caught up in the story as though it were an item on the news. It hadn’t really sunk in yet that it had happened to someone I knew.

  “Alicia ran outside and stayed with him. Beth went in the kennel and called 911. An ambulance came and took him to the hospital, but he was already dead by the time they got there.”

  Faith nudged her body closer. I’d slumped so far down in my chair that she could reach up and lick me on the chin. “Do they have any idea who did it?”

  “None that Crawford mentioned. The police are involved, of course, but I don’t know if they have any leads. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.”

  I disconnected with Sam and immediately called Aunt Peg. For once I had news she didn’t already know.

  “Dead?” she cried. “How can Barry Turk be dead? Good Lord, all I did was give one simple party. Don’t tell me he died of food poisoning.”

  “He didn’t. Somebody shot him.”

  “That’s a relief.” There was silence as Aunt Peg reconsidered what she’d said. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes,” I agreed mildly.

  “This is unbelievable,” said Peg. “How could he have been shot? If memory serves correctly, Barry lives up near Poughkeepsie, hardly what you’d call the inner city. What was somebody doing running around there with a gun?”

  “Looking for Barry, apparently. It didn’t sound like an accident. He was shot when he returned home from the Wallkill show.”

  Aunt Peg harrumphed loudly into the phone. “I heard that his Poodle beat Ron’s good Chow.”

  “Don’t tell me you think the two things are connected.”

  “I’m willing to consider the possibility.”

  “Come on,” I scoffed. Dog show people tend to take winning very seriously but, as far as I was concerned, the notion that the two events might have been connected strained credibility. “So Barry beat the Chow. It was one time, under one judge. That’s hardly a motive for murder. Like you say to me when I lose with Faith, there’s always another dog show coming along next week.”

  “True. But I still wouldn’t strike Ron Pullman off the list.”

  “Really? Which list is that?”

  “I’m just thinking aloud,” Aunt Peg said innocently. “What about Bill Devane?”

  Good old Aunt Peg. Curious, yes. Subtle, no. Now we were checking alibis. I decided to humor her.

  “According to Crawford, he was the first person Alicia contacted. Presumably he was home to get the call. Where does he live?”

  “Just a minute, let me look in my judges’ book.”

  Left hanging on the line, I used the time to walk over to the cabinet and get out a peanut butter biscuit for Faith. She stood up and cocked her head inquiringly.

  “Sit,” I said firmly.

  Faith wagged her tail and settled her haunches on the ground. Lots of people will tell you that you should never teach a dog basic obedience while it’s still showing in the breed classes. The requirements for the two sports are very different—for example, while sitting on command is integral to an obedience performance, you never want your dog to sit while it’s being judged in the breed ring.

  Like all Poodles, however, Faith is very intelligent. She doesn’t seem to be having any trouble figuring out the difference between the two routines. Besides, now that she was older and bigger, it seemed like a good idea for her to understand that I was the one in charge. Lord knew, Davey was still having trouble with that concept.

  “Bill lives in Patterson,” said Aunt Peg, coming back on the phone. “Melanie, are you there?”

  “Right here. Patterson isn’t that far from Poughkeepsie. Of course, we don’t know how long it was after Barry was shot that Alicia made the call.”

  Peg and I both considered that.

  “I wonder if the police have any ideas?” she mused.

  “Sam didn’t know. He’s going to keep me posted.”

  “I might make a few calls myself,” Aunt Peg said, surprising nobody in the vicinity. “You know how people love to talk.”

  I considered it a sign of maturity on my part that I didn’t utter the remark that comment called for.

  The call ended moments later. Aunt Peg didn’t exactly give me the bum’
s rush, but now that she’d gotten what little information I had, I could tell she was eager to find someone who could fill in the details. It was just as well as it was almost time for me to go pick up Davey.

  He goes to Graceland Summer Camp, which is held at the same facility where he attended preschool when he was younger. The summer before, I’d worked at the camp as a part-time counselor to pick up some extra money. Now, however, with my child support payments from Davey’s father finally back on schedule after a lengthy hiatus, I was enjoying having some time off.

  Winters, I work in the Stamford public school system as a special education teacher. The job takes a lot out of me. By the end of June, when school gets out, I’m always ready for a break. And not having to work all summer too? The prospect seemed positively luxurious.

  I dug a tennis ball and a Frisbee out of the closet and loaded Faith into the Volvo. Like most dogs, she loves to ride in cars. She knows better than to bark at passing attractions, but that doesn’t stop her from having an opinion. The third time the pom-pom on the end of her tail whacked me across the face, I banished her to the backseat.

  At Graceland, we joined the line of cars that snaked down the long driveway, inching slowly forward to the pickup zone. Faith had her nose pressed against the window and was whining softly under her breath. She loves kids, and I knew she was dying to get out and play.

  Finally I relented and put down the window. Tail wagging happily, Faith climbed up and hung her front legs out over the door. It says in our breed standard that Poodles are supposed to be elegant and dignified, but I was quite sure that the people who put that thing together had never met Faith.

  Enthusiastic, irrepressible, certainly. Maybe even charming. But elegant and dignified? Not on a bet.

  With the puffs on her legs, the big coat of mane hair, the tiny colored rubber bands that gathered her topknot hair into ponytails to hold it out of the way, and the ear hair that was wrapped and similarly banded, even I had to admit my dog was quite a sight. Certainly enough of the mothers stared. The children, being more accepting of something different, seemed to find her entertaining. Faith managed to lick at least a dozen faces before she finally found her own child.

  From the way Davey and Faith greeted each other, rolling end over end in a tangle of legs and hair on the backseat, you’d have thought they’d been separated for months rather than a matter of hours. There are times when I’m doing the seemingly never-ending job of looking after Faith’s coat, and I think back to the day Aunt Peg dropped her off and wonder whatever made me take on such a responsibility. Then there are moments like these, when I realize how quickly and completely the Poodle had become a part of our family, and I know how truly lucky we were to find such a wonderful companion.

  The three of us spent the rest of the afternoon at the park. I threw the Frisbee with Davey and the tennis ball for Faith; and when the two of them entertained each other, I sat in the shade and thought about Barry Turk. I hadn’t known him well, and I hadn’t much liked what I had known. I couldn’t mourn his passing, but I could feel a sense of regret for a life needlessly cut short. Even Barry Turk deserved better than that.

  I found myself wondering what would become of Barry’s operation. Would Beth try to carry on by herself, or would she find another position elsewhere? The dogs could, of course, be sent to other handlers. But what about Alicia? Where would she go?

  As things turned out, I got a chance to ask her. Aunt Peg called Friday morning and requested a favor.

  “Sure,” I said without thinking, then immediately regretted it. With Aunt Peg, it’s much wiser to ask questions first. “What?”

  “Davey’s at camp, right? I need you to drive up to Poughkeepsie and pick up a Standard Poodle for me. I think I mentioned her at the barbecue. She’s booked to be bred to Joker and apparently she’s just come in season. Her owner lives in Maryland, so I told Rona I’d take care of things.”

  Joker was Aunt Peg’s new stud dog, a youngster she was bringing along slowly. I knew she was eager for him to be bred to some nice bitches.

  “I figure it will take you an hour to get there and an hour to get back,” she was saying. “You don’t need to pick up Davey until one. There should be plenty of time.”

  That was the danger in letting Aunt Peg know too much about my schedule. Wherever she saw empty blocks of time, she couldn’t resist trying to fill them up for me.

  “Why don’t you go get her?” I asked reasonably.

  “I’m not the one whose Poodle is sitting home growing coat,” Aunt Peg replied tartly. “Tory’s entered this weekend in New Jersey. She needs a bath, and a blow-dry, not to mention scissoring. I’ll be busy all day.”

  Preparing a Standard Poodle to be shown takes time, lots of it. First the dog must be clipped into the trim that’s appropriate for its age. Puppies are clipped on the face, the feet, and the base of the tail. The rest of the hair on the body is carefully shaped—longer in front, shorter behind—to form a harmonious outline.

  For an adult Poodle, there are two choices, continental or English saddle. Both trims involve leaving a long mane of hair in the front of the body, and removing the majority of the hair on the hindquarter. In the continental, the hair that remains in back is shaped into pom-poms. In English saddle, a short “pack” covers the back and loins, and there are pom-poms on the legs.

  After clipping comes bathing, and with all that hair, a proper bath and blow-dry can easily take three to four hours. Dry and brushed through, the coat is ready to be scissored, which sets the trim into fresh lines. Aunt Peg was right, she would be busy.

  All of which did nothing to explain why she couldn’t pick up Rona Peters’s bitch on Monday. If the Poodle had just come in season, timing wasn’t critical yet. I didn’t even bother to ask the question. Somehow I just knew Aunt Peg would have a good answer. There are times when it’s easier to give in before you’ve argued yourself blue in the face.

  It’s a pretty trip by car from Stamford to Poughkeepsie. Heading north, you start by driving through the horse country of New York’s Westchester County and end in the farms of lower Duchess County. These days I’m driving a brand new Volvo station wagon, courtesy of my ex-husband. Having spent the last five years nursing my previous car well into old age and beyond, I was sorely tempted to push my foot down on the gas pedal and fly. Unfortunately, the Taconic Parkway is famous for its speed traps. Bearing that in mind, I traveled a sedate fifty-five and enjoyed the scenery.

  With so much open land in the area, you’d have thought Barry Turk would have lived out in the country, but he didn’t. His kennel was in a residential zone, house and outbuildings wedged together tightly on a half acre of land that had been meant to hold lawn and trees. I assumed his right to be there was grandfathered, but still, considering the amount of noise the dogs in his kennel generated, it was hard to understand why the neighbors didn’t complain.

  The last time I’d been at Turk’s kennel, it had looked pretty run-down. The buildings had been in need of paint, and weeds had sprouted along the flagstone walk. Two scraggly bushes by the front door had sported more bare twigs than leaves.

  Now as I pulled in and parked, however, I saw that the painting had been seen to, and a row of colorful impatiens had been planted along the driveway. The kennel runs were still too small for the dogs they housed, but the roof had been fixed. There was a new, hand-carved sign out front, announcing that I had arrived at Winmore Kennel. All in all, the place had an air of respectable, if modest, prosperity. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that it was Alicia’s presence that had made the difference.

  I got out of my car, then paused. The driveway was short but wide. A maroon Chevy van had been pulled up in front of the kennel building and was parked off to one side. I wondered if that was where it had been the night Barry was shot.

  There were houses and trees in all directions, plenty of cover, lots of places for a gunman to hide. Two large floodlights were positioned just beneath the eaves of the bu
ilding. Once Barry had turned those on, he would have been standing in a circle of light.

  An easy target.

  Even in the morning sunshine, the thought made me shiver. I turned and walked to the house. Rona’s Poodle was undoubtedly in the kennel, but I wanted to offer my condolences to Alicia first.

  I had to knock twice before the front door was drawn open. Alicia answered it wearing shorts and a ratty T-shirt. Her feet were bare and her eyes were red-rimmed. Up close, in the bright sunlight, she looked older than I’d guessed the week before.

  “Yes?” she said, her voice soft and quivery.

  I held out my hand and introduced myself. “I’m here to pick up a dog. I believe Peg Turnbull called about her?”

  Alicia nodded. Even that small movement seemed to require more strength than she had. “You need to see Beth. She’s back in the kennel.”

  “I know. I just wanted to stop in and tell you how sorry I was about what happened to Barry.”

  “Thank you,” Alicia whispered. She held up a hand to brace herself as she sagged against the door frame.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. Dumb question. Anyone could see just by looking at her that Alicia Devane was nowhere near all right.

  “I’ll be—” She stopped and swallowed. She brought her other hand up and placed it, palm flat, against her stomach.

  “Why don’t you sit down? Here, let me help you.”

  She didn’t protest as I took her arm, so I took that as acquiescence. The front door opened directly into the living room. Two chairs were piled high with newspapers and magazines, but there was a couch on the opposite wall. Slowly we made our way there. I’d thought she was slender, but Alicia felt frail, almost weightless, beneath my hands.

  “Is there anything I can get you?” I asked. “Maybe some coffee?”

  “Not coffee. Here.” She patted the seat beside her. “Sit for a minute.”

  I was glad she’d asked. She certainly didn’t look like she was in any shape to be left alone. For a full five minutes she didn’t say a word, so we sat in silence. I’m not very good at offering comfort. I know women who are naturally empathetic. Not me. I never seem to know the right thing to say.