by Clea Simon
She shivered. “Yes. They wanted to know about Teddy’s message.”
Enough’s enough. I remembered. “What did they make of that?” I watched her. It could mean a lot of things. Her expensive tastes. Her other boyfriend. Or simply that he was sick of playing cards while she schussed down the slopes.
“I don’t know.” Her voice faded to nothing. Clearly, she had some thoughts on the matter, too. But she wasn’t going to share them. “That’s why I’m so glad you can take care of Pudgy.” Her voice bounced back to its normal perky volume as she turned from me and pulled a leash from inside a fluffy white fur jacket.
“Take care of Pudgy?” I looked around for the dog. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, he’s fine.” She opened the door to the bathroom and the little dog came bounding out. “But I can’t give him the attention he needs right now. So if I can hire you to walk him twice a day, until we can get out of here, that would be wonderful.”
“Wait.” I put my hand up, but not to take the leash. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to walk your—Pudgy. But surely, the investigators wouldn’t begrudge you a stroll twice a day, would they?” Even as I said it, I looked around. If this was lockdown, it was the most luxurious version I could imagine.
“No, I’m sure—they’ve been perfect gentlemen.” I didn’t respond to that. I had a little idea what Cheryl Ginger was used to, and I have a different idea of what constitutes respect. “But I’m a little timid about going out alone.”
She smiled, which only made those fine lines more obvious. It was a nervous smile, as fake as I hoped that fur to be. Submissive. Which seemed quite unlike the woman I was beginning to know. Something had shaken the redhead up.
“You’re afraid of going into the woods?” I knew what wildlife was out there. She didn’t. “You can always walk along the road, you know.”
“Yes, but…” That smile again. Forced and sad. “After all, we don’t know who did this yet. I mean, Teddy…”
Benazi. I nodded. I didn’t know what Cheryl Ginger was up to, but at least she was finally taking my warning seriously.
“Fair enough,” I said, naming my fee. “I can walk Pudgy here once a day for as long as you’re in town. I’ll give him a good long walk and use the time to go over the fundamentals of training.” Not that he needed it, but I prefer to earn my money the honest way. “You’ll have to let him out in the evening, though.”
She nodded her assent and went back to packing. That’s when I it occurred to me I should tell her about the widow.
“You should probably know, I got a call from Theresa Rhinecrest.” She looked over at me but didn’t say anything. “Teddy’s widow.” I said, just to make it clear. “She heard that I was the person who found him, and she has some questions for me.”
“About what happened?” She was fighting to keep her voice calm. Guilty conscience, I figured.
“Not exactly.” It registered then—the grieving widow hadn’t asked me anything about her husband. “She seemed to think that I knew him, or that you and I were acquainted.”
“We are.” She turned. Her big eyes blinked at me.
“Yes, but before.” I was having difficulty explaining. “And she seems to want something. She was asking me about his stay here. About his belongings.”
Cheryl nodded and stared off, looking lost in thought. “Yeah, she would.”
“Excuse me?” That wasn’t the reaction I had expected.
“I think she was planning on divorcing Teddy.” She went back to packing. “I told Teddy, but I think he knew it, too. I think he was probably trying to hide his assets. You know, so she couldn’t claim her share?” As she said this, she folded a blouse. Her face, in profile, looked tired but unruffled, as if none of this mattered anymore. Maybe it didn’t.
“You know she hired someone to look into him? To look into his affairs.” It wasn’t nice, but I thought Cheryl should know. She had, after all, just provided a motive for the widow: Why divorce your cheating husband when you can make a cleaner break? And if I saw it, I was pretty sure the Feds would, too. Still, the widow had sounded like she could defend herself. A flash of something—call it sisterly concern—prompted me to add. “She’s looking into you too, probably.”
“I’m not surprised.” She turned toward me, and I saw that my words had gotten to her. The fatigue was now matched by sadness that she only emphasized as she forced a smile. “Hey, a woman does what she’s got to, right?”
I wanted to ask more. To see if she’d heard anything about the widow—about the Rhinecrests’ relationship, about what the Feds knew, or were asking. But she was handing me the leash, and I let her show us to the door.
“Is he here? Is he coming to meet us?” The spaniel was too well trained to bark, but as we took the service elevator down to the back entrance, I got the query behind that intent tail wagging loud and clear.
“Sorry, Pudg—” I caught myself. I would have to tell him about Rhinecrest, though I suspected that wasn’t who he was missing. “Sorry, Stewie.”
“Huh, been a while.” I was going to try to explain when the door opened. We were on the far side of the lobby, behind the artificial waterfall and its hothouse ferns, and I scooped the spaniel into my arms. I still didn’t know what Cheryl Ginger’s arrangement with the management was—and if it would carry over to the help. All in all, speed and discretion seemed to be called for.
“Ms. Ginger?” The name rang out across the fancy lobby, clear above the burble of water, and I ducked. Ahead of me to the right, a nondescript hallway led to the service entrance, and I made for it, the dog in my arms. “Cheryl Ginger?” With my dark hair, I didn’t look anything like the sun-kissed redhead I’d left upstairs, but for all I knew the desk clerk was colorblind.
“Why, yes, she has been receiving visitors.” Discreet, he wasn’t, but I relaxed and stood a little straighter as I entered that hall. “Shall I ring her room?”
“No, no, don’t.” I stopped. Something about the voice—male, young—had caught my attention. With the dog still in my arms, I turned. From here, the ferns screened the lobby. I could see the desk clerk’s arm, if not his eager face. But even as I peered over and around the fronds, I couldn’t make out who had come calling. Only that he was big and, I thought, light-haired, and then he was gone.
I slipped out the back, but found myself regretting the missed opportunity. “Let’s go around the front, shall we, Stewie?” The spaniel had begun to squirm, and so I put him down. Once he’d emptied his bladder, I led him around the outside of the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who’d been asking about his mistress without making ourselves too obvious. “Maybe you want to, too?”
I looked down to meet those dark eyes. “Meeting?”
It wasn’t a response I could read. I’d wondered, in the brief pause while he’d watered the foundation planting, if the visitor could be Cheryl’s boyfriend. The other man who she met in the woods. But the dog’s response was too vague for me to tell if he’d recognized the stranger. It certainly wasn’t the eager yearning I’d been hearing from the dog since we’d met.
Rather than wait and question the animal, though, I’d try to catch up with the man. But when I reached down to pick up the little dog again, he stepped away.
“Sorry.” I should have known the dog would want to proceed under his own power. Spaniels are work dogs, energetic, smart, and proud. Because of their size, however, they are too often seen as house pets, and I suspected that despite her own athleticism, Cheryl Ginger did not properly respect her canine companion.
I did, and despite the growing fear that the visitor would be long gone by the time we circled the kitchen wing, I let Stewie lead the way. To his credit, he didn’t stop, although I knew from the images passing through my own mind that the grounds were rich with the scents of spring.
Not that it mattered. As we circ
led the cedar fencing that camouflaged a dumpster, I could see that the drive was empty. Although the man who had come to the front desk might have parked in the adjacent lot and might still be lurking around, waiting for the redhead to come out, I thought it more likely that he had left his car in the waiting area out front—and that he had already driven back down the curving drive toward the road.
“You think he’s waiting around here somewhere?” The question was more for myself than for the spaniel. As soon as I formed it, however, I was made aware of the little dog’s interest. I was asking him to track someone, more or less, and that was what he did.
“Follow?” The question came to me as the eager black nose sniffed the air. “Meeting?”
“Maybe.” I didn’t want to mislead the spaniel, and so I tried to empty my mind of my own suspicions. Instead, I tried to replay the query I had heard at the desk. The sound of the visitor’s voice and the impression of a large, light-haired man, seen from the back as he went out through the door. As far as I could tell, there were several possibilities as to who was asking about Cheryl Ginger—and about anyone who might have been visiting her. The fact that he had left rather than talk to the redhead, and that I would be pretty easy to identify as one of those visitors, didn’t make dismissing these thoughts easy.
“Who is he?” I unclipped the lead from the dog’s collar. That’s against protocol for a dog walker, which was what Cheryl Ginger had just hired me to do. And it wasn’t the smartest move to take with an energetic young animal who had recently disappeared into the woods. “Who?” I said the word out loud to give it extra emphasis.
While I waited, I let the possibilities drift through my mind. The man could be a Fed, following up on Ronnie’s information that the redhead had a love interest besides the dead man. I had no doubt that despite his pleas for discretion, Ronnie would have given up everything he had when questioned. If Teddy’s last message meant he was breaking off with the pretty ski bunny, the lovers might have tried to pressure the sugar daddy into one last payment—or to blackmail him.
It was just as likely that he was the boyfriend. I still remembered the blond man at the bar that first night at Hardware—I wouldn’t swear that the stranger at the front desk was the same man, but it was possible. What I did remember was the way he’d stared at Cheryl. That intensity might have indicated fury at how Teddy Rhinecrest was treating her. Or murderous jealousy at the fact that she had left with the older man.
Or, and this was the possibility that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, he could be an associate of Gregor Benazi. Associate being the most polite term I could muster for the kind of younger, bigger colleague who might be sent to do the dirty work that the dapper gangster would prefer to avoid.
I had wondered at her reticence to leave the hotel. Now it made sense. I wasn’t sure the suit at the front desk would offer much protection. Still, better for her to be indoors than out in the woods. Where, it hit me, she was sending me, daily. That realization sent another chill up my spine, and for a moment I longed for the simpler days of the brutal winter we had just survived.
No, I was being silly. A dog-walking gig was just that. Besides, I wasn’t going to downplay myself, but no red-blooded man alive was going to confuse me and Cheryl Ginger.
I had another out. If the blond guy did indeed work for Benazi, I was off the hook. The man himself had asked me to get information. He knew I was meeting with Cheryl Ginger. Knew before I did, in fact. Still, as we stood on the walkway, to the side of the Chateau’s main entrance, I couldn’t help but wish that I hadn’t come here. The redhead was trouble, and I had enough of my own.
“Follow?” The dog had gone ahead of me. Now, although his small, muscular body was on point, his nose into the wind, I heard his request. He wanted me with him, and he was too well-mannered to go off on his own.
“Sure.” I said. Maybe Stewie would have something for me.
“Here.” He was heading toward the lot. Following, I gathered, the scent of the big stranger.
“Good boy.” I followed him down the slight slope. On the far side sat three cars. One late model Honda and two older imports, all silver. If I had to guess, I’d say Cheryl’s was the newest, though I couldn’t remember precisely what she’d driven up in. Otherwise, all those cars look alike. My baby blue GTO was the only distinctive set of wheels here, and I’d left her up by the lot entrance. With a car like mine, you want to avoid any chance of accidental dings, and besides, I’d been running late when I’d pulled in.
At the entrance to the lot, the spaniel paused. The stranger had indeed left, and a wave of relaxation washed over me. As much as I wanted to know who he was, I was content to let the problem be academic. This wasn’t my fight. But then the little dog set off again. And as I stood there, watching, he walked around my car, sniffing, slowly, as if tracing the path of a man who had been examining my vehicle only moments before. Looking for any trace of who I was, or where I might have gone.
Chapter Twenty-five
That spaniel got a workout. By the time I digested what had happened, my fear had turned to anger and I was looking for a way to fight back.
“Find!” I gave the little dog the command, and with one glance up at me, he began, dipping his head to the ground to take the scent. I knew that I would have to groom him before we went back inside: his long locks were already picking up twigs, and I could see leaf detritus hanging from his ears. But he had a good nose and was thrilled to use it: leading me first to the corner of the lot where, I assume, Blondie had parked, and then back to the hotel entrance. While the spaniel seemed a tad disappointed that I wouldn’t let him follow the trail back inside, I could tell he was enjoying this. Spaniels aren’t scent hounds—he wouldn’t be able to find a fugitive who had trampled through the woods, say, or over water. But centuries of breeding have endowed them with hunting skills that haven’t been totally eliminated, even in a so-called toy like this Stewie. He could smell and identify prey, and would point out the subject before I was likely to notice him, which would be useful if, in fact, we ever ran into Blondie again. Plus, he was a gun dog. If I needed someone near me who could keep a cool head in a fight, I’d chose this brown and white fellow. Despite his fancy collar, he was a serious worker.
“He went out…” Even as he tracked, the spaniel was piecing together the man’s activity. “He paused, he walked…”
I got glimpses of what he saw. The big man standing—his feet had made a slightly deeper impression here, in the leaf mold by the parking area. Starting in one direction and then shifting to walk back over to where I had parked.
The man was gone, that much was clear. But Stewie’s actions confirmed my suspicions. Before Blondie had asked for Cheryl Ginger, he’d scoped out the hotel, doing his best to figure out who was visiting. Cheryl was lucky, I thought, that her room was on one of the upper floors. Lucky or smart.
When the spaniel led me to the far side of the lot, I hesitated. Once before, I’d heard a car, starting, beyond a stretch of trees. Despite the scenic setting, we were still in a pretty well-settled area, and it would be entirely possible to park down on the main road—or even beyond a bend of the Chateau’s driveway—and climb back up, through the woods. I knew the little dog’s nerves would hold; I wasn’t sure I wanted to test my own.
“Follow!” For a small animal, he had a strong sense of leadership. Probably the toy breeding, I figured, as I gave in and let him set the pace. With his size and good looks, he probably had the same sense of entitlement as a small child.
For a moment, I imagined the spaniel in Cheryl Ginger’s arms, cuddled like a baby. I saw his tail wagging as she cooed and rocked him, a vision of more warmth than I had yet seen between the two, and for a moment I lost my focus.
“Bunny!” Stewie brought me back. We were about five yards down the path, still within sight of the lot. He had frozen in place, one paw up in the classic pose, and
his long snout held still.
“Rabbit?” I asked under my breath, the thought more disturbing than I’d have liked. A good-sized hare could probably fight off the spaniel, and the breed was used more commonly for game birds. Still, with that nose, that pose…a hunt is a hunt, and I bet Stewie would hold his own with any beagle if the appropriate prey surfaced nearby. It would be more than a sport to him, and I had no business being sentimental. But when I thought of Marnie Lundquist and little Henry, I confess, I felt a twinge of…let’s just call it discomfort.
“Bunny,” he repeated, as I looked around, confused. Then I remembered what Wallis had told me. Although I “hear” what animals are thinking, usually a stream of consciousness consisting of their observations along with fears and desires, what I am really getting is something much more basic. Their take on the world, their basic thoughts—only my paltry human brain translates these impulses into language. My language. And since my exposure to Henry, I’d been thinking of rabbits as “bunnies.” Stewie had no more said “bunny” than he had commanded me to “follow.” He was simply receiving impressions. I was the one who labeled those impressions with words.
Fifteen seconds, then thirty, and we still hadn’t moved. Somewhere out there was a scared animal. It was early for a rabbit—still an hour or so till dusk—but the winter had been hard, and it made sense that one or more were out foraging.
“Family.” The word came to me like an echo of my earlier fancy. Only this time it was accompanied by an impression of a nest, of small creatures cushioned by leaves and fur, that grounded it in the wild—in the forest around us. I wasn’t sure what Stewie was getting, but I trusted that it was real. A hungry mother, perhaps, had emerged from her warren, looking for food. Or maybe the nest was right nearby, its occupants holding so still that my eyes couldn’t make them out on the variegated forest floor.