Liz walked toward the door. “Listen, when you see Frank, tell him I’m sorry, okay? I never thought the whole thing would cause this much trouble for him. Honest.”
“I’ll tell him,” I said tightly. The phone was ringing again and a glance at my watch confirmed that I had barely twenty minutes to get back to school before my next class. “Are you going to tell Detective Petrie about this, or am I?”
“I will,” Liz said. “Don’t worry, I’ll call him as soon as you leave. Actually, it’ll be a relief. I’ve been kind of worried about lying to the police. As for Ben, that snake, he can take his chances.”
We walked out of the office together. Whoever had been calling had given up. For once, the phone was silent.
“Speaking of Ben,” I said. “Do you think he knew about Rattigan’s will? That he’d never gotten around to changing it after the divorce?”
“I doubt it. I can’t imagine it’s the kind of thing they’d have ever discussed.”
“Did Marcus keep a copy of his will here in the office?”
“Sure. I remember the last time he updated it about five years ago. The damn document went back and forth to the lawyer’s office a dozen times before everyone was satisfied. Then Marcus had four copies made up. One stayed with the lawyer, one went into his safe-deposit box, one he took home, and the other was put with all his legal papers here.”
“Do you mind if I have a look at it?”
“It’s confidential,” said Liz.
“I won’t tell, if you won’t.”
She thought for a moment, then shrugged. She opened a drawer in her desk and took out a small key. I followed her to a cubicle down the hall. The tiny room had a whole wall of file cabinets, but only one was locked. She took the key, fitted it to the lock, and slid the drawer open.
Liz thumbed through the folders from front to back, then frowned and started over. “It isn’t here.”
“Could it have gotten misfiled?”
The look Liz gave me could have charred stone.
“Maybe the police have it?”
“No, they don’t. I kept a record of everything they took, and I know I would have remembered.” She shut the drawer and relocked it.
“What about Ben? Does he have a key to these files?”
“Of course he does. Ben has access to everything. Marcus trusted him implicitly.”
We were both silent then, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. That trust could have cost Marcus Rattigan his life.
I made it back to Howard Academy with only moments to spare. As I flew across the parking lot and in the back door, I could hear the bell ringing. Shedding my coat as I ran, I rounded a corner and didn’t see Russell Hanover until I’d nearly plowed right into him.
“Well, hello!” He reached out with both hands, grasping my shoulders to steady me. “Running late, are we?” His deep voice placed heavy emphasis on the word running.
“Just a bit.” I raked back my hair and tried out a smile.
“We’ve missed you at lunch the last two days. You do understand we feel quite strongly about our teachers taking the opportunity to interact with their students outside of class?”
“Yes, of course. It’s an excellent idea.” And would be even better if we weren’t expected to monitor their table manners at the same time.
“There’s nothing amiss, is there?”
“No, I just had some business to take care of.” Somehow I couldn’t see trying to explain to Russell Hanover that my brother was a suspect in a murder investigation. He’d probably be shocked to his well-bred, New England core. “It won’t happen again.”
“Quite right,” Russell agreed, continuing down the hall.
The rest of the afternoon sped by. My students were prompt, well prepared, and eager to learn. One boy proudly displayed a written report we’d worked on together that had earned him a B, the highest grade he’d ever achieved. I hugged him briefly, then let him do a victory dance around the room while I ran the title page of the report through the copier. I hung it, grade prominently displayed, on the bulletin board behind my desk.
It’s good to have a day like that every so often to remind me why I became a teacher in the first place.
Promptly at 3:15 P.M., I arrived at Hunting Ridge to pick up the boys. With Halloween a week away, they were arguing over who had the better costume planned. The year before, Davey had been a fireman in a big yellow slicker and red rubber boots. This year he was aiming for a more macho look.
“Batman’s no big deal,” Joey scoffed at my son’s costume. “I’m going to be Dracula. I’ll have a cape and fangs that drip blood.”
“I’ll have a cape, too,” Davey defended his choice. “And a cowl and my very own Batmobile.”
That got Joey’s attention. “You don’t drive.”
“No, but I have a model. My mom said I could carry it.”
“I’m sure you’re both going to look great,” I said. “What are the other kids going to be?”
The discussion of costumes, and the parade that would take place at their school on that day, carried us the rest of the way home. As I turned onto our road, I glanced automatically toward the house. There was a car parked in the driveway. Not Frank’s black sports car, thank God, this was a blue Ford Blazer.
Sam’s car.
“Hey!” Davey cried from the backseat. “Sam’s here!”
Joey sat up and craned his neck to look.
“I hope he brought Tar!”
As the car rolled to a stop, Davey was already unfastening his seat belt. He and Joey spilled out of the car and hit the ground running. Sam opened his door and got out. He had indeed brought Tar with him and the puppy joined the boys in the yard.
For a moment I hung back, feeling uncertain. Then I realized Sam was doing the same thing.
He was wearing faded corduroy pants, with a wheat colored roll-neck sweater and a denim jacket thrown on top. The wind had ruffled through his blond hair and when he looked in my direction, I noticed the squint lines that fanned out around his eyes. He was everything I’d hoped for, and more than I’d ever expected to find.
I resisted the impulse to throw myself into his arms and opted for the mature approach instead. After all, there were children present. “I was going to call you.”
“I was going to call you, too,” Sam said. “Then I realized I couldn’t say what I needed to say over the phone. So here I am. I’m sorry. I was stupid.”
“Yeah, you were. So was I.”
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“Kiss and make up?” I suggested.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Two long strides and I was in his arms. “God, you smell good,” he murmured.
“Hey, Sam.” Joey tugged on Sam’s jacket.
He had to give a second yank before Sam paid any attention. Let’s just say I had him distracted. When Sam finally glanced down, Joey waved a hand toward the street. “Isn’t that your puppy?”
While we’d been occupied, Tar had spotted a pair of neighborhood dogs running loose at the end of the block and decided to join them. Now he was galloping down the sidewalk with Davey racing in pursuit. Though he was only four months old, the puppy’s legs were long and he was covering a surprising amount of ground.
“Damn!” Sam thrust me away. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly.
Tar’s stride never even wavered. Davey’s did, though. He turned to look back at us, tripped over a seam in the sidewalk, and went down in a heap.
I was already running, but Sam passed me as though I were standing still. He reached Davey first, paused briefly, then raced on to scoop up his puppy, who was now cavorting in the street with his newfound friends. Luckily, there were no cars coming.
When I reached Davey, he’d already pushed himself up into a sitting position. His palms were scraped, and there was a new hole in the knee of his jeans.
“Cool!” he said, hopefully inspecting the opening for signs of blood. There w
asn’t any. He reexamined his palms and held them up so I could see. “Do you think I’ll get a scar?”
I started to shake my head, but Sam came up behind me with Tar cradled happily in his arms, and poked me before I could respond. “Could be,” he said. “Those are some awesome scratches.”
Awesome? Once I cleaned the sand off we’d be lucky to even see them.
Sam held out a hand and pulled Davey to his feet. “Thanks for trying to catch him for me.”
“Sure. I didn’t want him to get run over or anything.”
“Good thought,” Sam agreed seriously.
They headed down the sidewalk together, leaving me to follow along behind. When we got back to the house, Joey was sitting on the steps. Faith was barking and throwing herself against the front door, a breach of manners meant to illustrate her displeasure at missing out on the fun.
Joey turned to Davey. “So are we going to play, or what?”
My son looked back and forth between Sam and his friend, clearly torn.
“You’re going to play,” I said. “Sam’s going to be here awhile, right?”
He nodded.
“The two of you can hang out later after Joey goes home.”
We went inside; me to console Faith with a belly rub and several extra biscuits, the boys racing upstairs to check out Davey’s Batmobile model, and Tar to drink half a bowl of water, then flop over on his side on the kitchen floor.
I opened the back door and let Faith into the fenced yard, and turned around to find Sam pulling something out of the mail I’d thrown on the counter. “Look what came.” He held up a flat, white, cardboard envelope.
“What is it?”
“Your win picture from the dog show.”
“Great!” I snatched it from him and ripped open the flap.
“It might not be great,” he said, peering over my shoulder. “Lots of them aren’t. It’s hard to photograph a black dog indoors and get the lighting just right.”
Slowly I withdrew the picture from the inner sleeve. Faith looked good, her silhouette outlined by the blue skirt I’d worn specifically to contrast with her inky coat. Her head and tail were up, and her gaze was fixed alertly on the squeaky toy the photographer had thrown, just out of range, a moment before he snapped the photo. The judge was holding out the ribbons Faith had won and smiling proudly.
Then I saw myself, wearing a goofy grin and looking stunned to be there. “Oh.” My shoulders slumped.
“What’s the matter?” Sam took the picture. “I think it’s good.”
“I look like I’m in shock.”
“As I recall, you were. Don’t worry, nobody looks at the person. The dog’s what matters in these pictures and Faith looks terrific.”
Maybe there was a compliment in there. If so, I couldn’t find it.
Dinner was hot dogs. As I told Sam, people who want gourmet meals shouldn’t drop in unexpectedly. He ate three hot dogs and two helpings of baked beans and insisted they were the best he’d ever had. I doubted that, but I was in much too good a mood to argue.
After dinner Davey asked Sam to bring Tar up to his bedroom. Curious, Faith and I went along, too. Davey opened the top drawer in his desk and took out a dog biscuit.
“I’ve been saving this,” he said. “The tooth fairy brought it and I was going to give it to Tar since it was his tooth. But when I got up the next morning, you were gone.”
Sam and I exchanged a glance over my son’s head.
“I’m back now.”
“Are you going to stay?” Davey’s tone was strident. Another time I might have corrected him. Now I was too busy waiting to hear what Sam would answer.
“Yes,” he promised. “I’m going to stay.”
Nineteen
I should have known a mood like that would be too good to last. The next morning when I got to school, I found out just how short-lived it could be. I had Kate and Lucia for third period and when the two of them entered the classroom, Kate was skipping in place and ginning broadly.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I hope she tells you,” said Lucia. “She won’t say a word to me.”
“That’s because it has nothing to do with you.” Kate put her books down and turned to me. “I did what you told me to.”
I thought back quickly. “You reread those short stories Miss Scott assigned?” Could redoing an English assignment be the cause for this much excitement?
“No!” Kate squealed, then quickly lowered her voice. “I found out about Winter’s puppies!”
With everything else that had been going on recently, I’d forgotten all about that. “You talked to John?”
Kate nodded. “I just casually brought it up the other day after school. John was showing me how to strip a terrier. The dog he was working on was one of Winter’s great-grandchildren, so it was easy to get the conversation started.”
Lucia was still listening in. “What do you mean he stripped it? He cut off all its hair?”
“No. Well, kind of. But not really.” Kate frowned and gave up.
I’d never seen the grooming procedure done, but I knew enough to offer a layman’s explanation. “Wire Fox Terriers are supposed to have a very harsh outer coat. If you clipped them or scissored the hair like you do with Poodles, it would ruin the texture. So instead the coat is hand plucked, with the groomer pulling out very small amounts of hair each time. The process is called stripping.”
“Big deal,” said Lucia.
“You asked,” Kate pointed out.
“I thought it was going to be something interesting.”
“It is interesting.”
If I didn’t intercede now, they’d spend the next fifteen minutes arguing. “Lucia, do you have your book report ready for me to look at?”
“Almost.”
I pointed toward the table. “Why don’t you work on it while Kate and I finish this up?”
“How come I have to work and she doesn’t?”
“How come her book report is done and yours isn’t?”
No dummy, Lucia quickly saw the wisdom in not trying to answer that question. She took her backpack over to the table and sat down.
So that we wouldn’t disturb her, Kate and I crossed the room to stand by the windows. “So what did John say?” I asked.
“It was really weird. I figured he’d tell me that he’d sold one of the puppies, or that I was mixed up, or that ten years later, who cared anyway? But he didn’t. He got this really strange look on his face and he said it was none of my business. Then he told me he thought I should go home.”
Uh oh. “And did you?”
“Well, yeah, sure. I mean, what choice did I have? It’s his kennel. Usually John likes having me around because he says that I’m a big help, but if he wants me to leave . . .”
“I’m really sorry, Kate. I never meant to cause trouble for you.”
“Don’t worry. Everything turned out okay. Maybe even better than okay, because I got the information you wanted. It was really cool!”
Kate looked smug. I hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. I flipped the latch and opened the window to let in some fresh air. “What do you mean?”
“Yesterday when I got home from school, John had left a message with my mom. He had to go into the city for the day so he wanted me to check on the dogs in the afternoon. You know, make sure everyone had fresh water and pick up the runs?”
I knew how that went. I’d been pressed into service a few times at Aunt Peg’s myself.
“So, of course, I went over and everything was fine.”
“How did you get into the kennel? Do you have a key?”
“No,” said Kate. “That’s the cool part. John keeps a spare key to the kennel hidden in his garage. I’ve used it plenty of times before, so I knew just where to look. He keeps an extra key to the house in the same place.”
She stood there and smiled, waiting for me to make the connection. It didn’t take long.
“You didn’t!” I cried, horr
ified.
“Why not? Like I said, John was acting really strange, and all I could think was, maybe he had something to hide. So I went in and looked.”
Oh, lordy. I winced slightly, half afraid that lightning was about to strike me dead for corrupting the youth of America.
“It was great!” Kate giggled. “Sneaking around, opening up drawers, and trying not to leave any fingerprints. I felt like Nancy Drew.”
“You’re not Nancy Drew,” I said sternly. “And you shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not? John asked me to look after the dogs. For all I know, he might have left one in the house.”
“You’re justifying.”
“And you’re curious.” Kate grinned. “You want to know what I found out, don’t you?”
“Of course I want to know. I just don’t want you to think that I approve of your methods. Good God, what would Mr. Hanover say?”
“About what?” asked Lucia, tuning back into the conversation from her seat on the other side of the room.
“Nothing!” Kate and I said in emphatic unison.
She was still smiling. I didn’t know whether to kiss the girl or yell at her some more. Then again, the yelling didn’t seem to be having much effect.
“Okay,” I said in a lower tone. “What did you find out?”
“For one thing, John is about the most organized man in the whole world. He keeps all his papers in a cabinet in his library and everything was labeled so I could see just where to look. He had two whole drawers just for his dog stuff. One was filled with a stack of notebooks that said Dog Ownership and Breeding Records on the front.”
“I’ve seen those,” I said. “My Aunt Peg breeds Standard Poodles and she has the same ones. The American Kennel Club hands them out. The AKC is very particular about how records are maintained because they need to know that pedigrees are correct and that dogs that are supposed to be purebred, actually are.”
Kate nodded. “John had everything filled out and up to date. He even had the book covers labeled by year so all I had to do was flip back through until I found the one that had Winter’s litter in it.”
That was all. If you didn’t count entering the house illegally, that is. I held my tongue and let her continue.
Watchdog Page 18