Raining Cats & Dogs (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

by Laurien Berenson

  “Besides,” said Sam, “I already talked to her about it.”

  “And?”

  “She didn’t realize there was a problem. Now she does. She’s going to treat all the cats and get rid of the fleas.”

  “And maybe try keeping them home once in a while?”

  Sam shook his head sadly, as if he were dealing with someone who was a little slow on the uptake. “I don’t think she’ll go that far.”

  “Her cats are trespassing.”

  “I don’t believe there’s a law against that.”

  “There are leash laws for dogs.”

  “Cats are different,” said Sam.

  “Tell me about it,” I snapped, but my anger was beginning to fade.

  In my absence, Sam had not only found the problem, he’d dealt with it. Maybe that was why I was so anxious to complain, I hadn’t had to do any of the work. I ought to be grateful, not snapping at him.

  “Thank you,” I said belatedly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And she’s really going to treat those cats so this doesn’t happen again?”

  “Already done,” said Sam. “I picked up some products for her when I got ours.”

  I gazed up at him. My smile was luminous. “My hero.”

  “Don’t you forget it,” said Sam.

  As if.

  Sunday afternoon I loaded Faith in the car and headed down to Greenwich for the weekly visit to Winston Pumpernill.

  It was a beautiful spring afternoon; I had the car windows open and the radio volume cranked up for the drive. Any responsible person will tell you that it’s not safe for a dog to ride with its head sticking out of a car. Faith and I both knew that as well as anybody. But she was having so much fun—her mouth open, tongue lolling, black-fringed ears flapping in the breeze—that I didn’t have the heart to stop her. In fact, if I hadn’t had to steer, I might have been tempted to join her.

  Now that two weeks had passed since Mary Livingston’s death, things seemed to have quieted down once again at the facility. Loss was not, after all, an entirely unexpected occurrence there. And if the circumstances surrounding Mary’s demise had been somewhat unusual, it looked as though the staff and administration would just as soon forget all about that small aberration and move on.

  Our group assembled out front as usual. Lynn, the Director of Volunteers, greeted us at the door. Any reservations she might have harbored the previous week about our group’s visit had since been set aside. She thanked us for coming, walked us through the wide corridors to the sunroom, and left us at the door.

  Jay, the orderly who’d been manning the entrance during our last visit, was inside the room this time. He was chatting with Sandy Sandstrum and several other patients whom I hadn’t yet met. Our group dispersed and headed in different directions. I spied Mrs. Ellis sitting in the sun that slanted in through the long windows, just as she’d been during Faith and my first visit.

  Windows and French doors, I thought. Faith and I headed that way.

  Mrs. Ellis had been staring out the window, but she turned slightly as we approached. Most of the patients smiled when they saw Faith coming their way. The big Poodle certainly did her part to look appealing; she wagged her tail and tipped her head winningly to one side.

  The effect was lost on Mrs. Ellis, however. Her stern expression didn’t change when I pulled up a chair and sat down. Faith’s offer of a front paw was pointedly ignored. Being a big believer in positive reinforcement, I shook the paw myself, then placed it back on the ground and patted the Poodle for making the effort.

  “Well?” Mrs. Ellis barked.

  “Well what?” Not the best comeback I’d ever delivered, but she’d caught me by surprise.

  “Why are you back?”

  “The group comes every Sunday.” I tried not to sound defensive. “Most of the residents seem to enjoy it.”

  “That’s their business. Maybe you should go entertain them.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, starting to rise.

  “Quitter.” Her lip curled. “Pansy.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “For starters, you can stop being sorry for every damn thing.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her brow lifted, but she didn’t comment. Instead, after a minute, she said, instead, “Sit.”

  I sat. Faith did, too. Mrs. Ellis looked pleased by our obedience.

  “You’re Melanie,” she said, pointing a gnarled finger, “and that’s Faith.”

  “That’s right,” I agreed, then shut up. It seemed safer to let her lead the conversation.

  “Most people learn their lesson on the first try. Nobody ever comes back to see me a second time. Yet here you are again. So, which are you, brave or stupid?”

  “I guess I’d have to say I’ve been known to be both.”

  “Hopefully the former more than the latter.” Mrs. Ellis stared down at Faith. “I still don’t like dogs, you know. At least yours isn’t all touchy-feely. There’s nothing worse than a dog that wants to lick your face.”

  Faith was a pretty accomplished face licker. But she knew better than to press unwanted attention upon strangers. Sitting upright beside my knee, she was the very model of Poodle decorum. How anyone could prefer a cat to that, I had no idea.

  “You want to talk about Mary Livingston,” Mrs. Ellis said.

  She was right, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit it. “What makes you say that?”

  “I’ve got eyes and ears, don’t I? What do you think? When you youngsters go home we old folks go into limbo until your return? Well, guess again. We sit around and talk about you. It’s not as if we have a million other things to do.”

  I supposed not.

  “Sandy told me what you were up to last week. Asking questions about Mary and that long-lost son of hers. You aren’t some sort of police detective, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” Mrs. Ellis thumped the arm of her chair with satisfaction. “The staff’s been pretty careful about keeping them out. Though you might have slipped through anyway, seeing as how you look pretty innocent.”

  “I do?”

  The older woman nodded. “Like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. Trust me, you can use a look like that to fool a lot of people. I sure did in my day. So what have you got to tell me about Mary’s murder?”

  This wasn’t a conversation; it was more like a runaway train. And I was no more than an unwitting passenger clinging to the side of a careening car.

  “I thought I was going to be the one asking the questions,” I said.

  “You thought wrong.”

  Case closed.

  “There’s a reason why the administration has been trying to keep information from you. Nobody wants the residents here to be unduly alarmed.”

  The thought made Mrs. Ellis sneer. Or maybe she was smiling. It was hard to tell. “Do I look like the kind of person who’s apt to become unduly alarmed?” she demanded. “Well?”

  “No.”

  “At my age, what have I got left to be frightened of? Death? It’s already staring me right in the face. It may be coming, but it hasn’t gotten here yet. And until that happens, I fully intend to use what little time I have left. Now go on ahead and tell me what happened to Mary.”

  “She was smothered by a pillow while she was asleep in her room.”

  Mrs. Ellis waved a hand in the air. “That’s old news. Grapevine around here has had that for ten days. Tell me what else you know.”

  So I did. I laid out the facts as I knew them and watched Mrs. Ellis puzzle over each new revelation. At the end, I said, “I was hoping that since you were sitting over here by the doors that day, you might have noticed if anyone went in and out.”

  “You mean sneaked in and out?” She didn’t miss much.

  “Precisely.”

  “There’s a problem with that.”

  “What is it?”

  “The reason I sit over here when your group shows up
is that I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want to pay attention to the silly antics and goings-on. So I don’t. Plus…”

  I waited, and after a minute, she continued.

  “It’s a sad fact that I’m more likely to remember what I wore to a ball sixty years ago than I am to remember what I had for breakfast this morning. You’re asking me about people I don’t know, who were doing things I didn’t care about at the time.”

  Entirely too true. I should have realized this probably wasn’t going to work out.

  “If you want to investigate something, I’ll tell you what you ought to be asking questions about.”

  “What’s that?” I asked. Even Faith pricked her ears.

  “Things have been going missing around here lately. Even more so than usual.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Big stuff, little stuff. You name it. I lost some money myself. Not a huge amount, just something I had tucked away in my jewelry box for a rainy day. I went looking for it the other day and it was gone. Now where did it go, can you tell me that?”

  “Did you report the theft to anyone on the staff?”

  “Not much point, is there? In the first place, cash is cash, and I’ll never see it again. Second, at my age they’ll probably think I just misplaced it. And third, the way the whole administration’s been acting so skittish, I’m not about to be the one who adds to their worries.”

  “If you like,” I said, “I’d be happy to talk to someone about it.”

  “Talk is cheap,” Mrs. Ellis snapped. “I’d rather see some action.”

  “I’ll try,” I said.

  Just one more thing to add to the list.

  24

  I left Mrs. Ellis and went to stand beside Jay. He’d positioned himself in a back corner of the room to observe the proceedings unobtrusively. Security might have been downgraded at Winston Pumpernill since my last visit, but it hadn’t disappeared entirely.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.

  “Sure thing.” The big man leaned down and greeted Faith. One hand stroked the top of her head; the other shook her paw solemnly. Then he straightened and looked me in the eye. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve heard some things…”

  “Uh-oh, bad sign,” Jay said, but his dark eyes were twinkling. He didn’t look like a man who had anything to hide.

  “I was told that if someone wanted to smuggle something into Winston Pumpernill, you’d be the person to see.”

  “You were, were you?” He still didn’t look unduly dismayed. Jay gazed around the room. “Got to say something for these old folks. They mean well, but not a single one of them can keep a secret worth a damn.”

  “So then it’s true?”

  “I guess it might be under certain circumstances. But let’s be clear on what we’re talking about here. In my whole life, I’ve never done anything that would cause somebody harm, and I’m not about to start now. The fact that an eighty-five-year-old man wants to enjoy a smoke every now and again? Frankly, I can’t see how that hurts. And those Twinkies for Mrs. Boardman? They may not have been on the approved diet plan, but they made her as happy as I’ve ever seen her all year.”

  “I hadn’t heard about the Twinkies,” I said.

  “Did Mr. Beamish tell you about his stash of girlie magazines?”

  I shook my head, and Jay grinned.

  “Maybe I better just shut up then before I incriminate myself any further.”

  “Actually, the only thing I’m interested in is a note.”

  “You want me to pass someone a piece of paper?” Jay sounded incredulous, and with good reason. He was probably wondering why I couldn’t manage that feat myself.

  “No. I’m talking about a note you already delivered. Probably about three weeks ago. It went to Mary Livingston.”

  He thought for a minute, then slowly shook his head. “Nope. Didn’t happen.”

  “It was from her son, Michael,” I prompted.

  “Sorry. Never met the man.”

  “Maybe he had someone else give it to you?”

  “But I would have delivered it to Mrs. Livingston?”

  “Right.”

  Jay was still shaking his head. “I’d have remembered something like that, especially in light of what happened and all. Nobody ever gave me anything and asked me to take it to her. And she never asked me to bring anything in to her. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Well, that rearranged things, didn’t it? I’d assumed Jay knew about the note. I’d been hoping he might have been there when Mary had opened and read it. I knew it was a long shot, but I’d wondered if he might have had some idea of its contents.

  Now I was back to square one and faced with a whole new set of questions. If Jay hadn’t delivered Michael’s note to Mary, then who had?

  “Thanks for your time,” I said.

  “No problem. I guess I wasn’t much help. Seems to me, if you want to know something about Mrs. Livingston, you ought to try talking to Mr. Grey and Mrs. Reeves. Those were the two people she was tightest with. Near as I could tell, those three were great friends.”

  He’d directed me to Borden and Madeline, the two people Mary had been sitting with the first time we’d met. Borden had been among the group that had pointed me toward Jay, but he’d also freely admitted that he never remembered much of what happened from one minute to the next. Maybe Madeline would have a lead for me. At any rate, it couldn’t hurt to talk to both of them again.

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  I scanned the room and located the older woman among a cluster of people gathered around Mark and Reggie. There was no point in interrupting her, so I looked for Borden. For a minute, I didn’t see him at all. Then the door to the sunroom opened and he came shuffling through. With Faith by my side, I moved quickly to intercept him before he could join a group of friends.

  “Hi, Borden,” I said brightly. “I’m Melanie. Remember me?”

  “I never forget a pretty lady,” Borden said with a practiced smile. He reached out and patted my arm in greeting, but his eyes remained frustratingly blank.

  “We met a couple of weeks ago. Mary Livingston introduced us. Then we spoke again last week when you were playing bridge with Sandy and Harry.”

  “I know who you are.” The light was slowly beginning to dawn, and Borden, accustomed to covering for his faulty memory, was loathe to admit that things had ever been dark. “You’re the lady from the obedience group who has the big Poodle.” He glanced down at Faith and was pleased to see his guess confirmed.

  “Exactly.”

  “So this must be Sunday,” Borden said happily. “I knew there was a reason why Nurse Sims sent me to the sunroom.”

  “It was to enjoy a visit from the dogs.” I placed my hand on top of his and led him to a plump, overstuffed chair.

  Borden sank down into the cushion and patted his knee. “Here, girl,” he said to Faith. “Come on up and say hello.”

  The Poodle obliged him by hopping up and placing her front legs across his lap. Gently, he fingered the silky hair on her ears. “Like down from a pillow,” he said. “I never saw a dog this soft in all my life.”

  I settled in a chair opposite him. “Her hair gets blown dry after she has a bath. That’s why it’s so plush and smooth.”

  “Blown dry?” Borden looked startled. “Like with a hair dryer?”

  I nodded. “A really big one, on a four-legged stand. It takes a really long time to do. Faith usually lies down on the grooming table and goes to sleep.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work to me.”

  “It is.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  I thought for a minute. “So she can be beautiful, I guess. Once you get used to seeing a Poodle look this way, it’s hard to let them go back to being scruffy.”

  “I never had anything but scruffy dogs myself,” Borden said. He leaned down and inhaled Faith’s clean scent. “Mutts and retriev
ers and the like. I always heard Poodles were supposed to be the smartest dogs.”

  “They are.”

  That answer was easy. Anyone who’d ever lived with a Poodle would tell you the same. Lots of dogs are smart, however, so it wasn’t just the innate intelligence of the breed that made them a joy to live with. It was their desire to please and to communicate with people that set Poodles apart.

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good thing.” Borden’s hand continued to stroke Faith’s neck, and she leaned into the caress. “I wouldn’t want to have a dog that was smarter than I was. She know any tricks?”

  “Just the basics: sit, stay, come, shake.”

  “Seems to me—though maybe I’m mistaken, that happens to me a lot these days—that somebody brought a dog to visit us once that could do all sorts of things. Jump through hoops and the like.”

  “That was Minnie.” I gestured toward a nearby couch where she and her Standard Schnauzer were holding court. “She and Coach gave a demonstration a couple of weeks ago.”

  Borden nodded, but I got the impression that he was being polite rather than actually recalling the incident.

  “As it happens, I wanted to ask you a question about something that happened around the same time,” I said.

  “Same time as what?”

  I’d expected this to be slow going, and it looked like I’d been right. I took a deep breath, moderated my impatience, and backed up a couple of steps.

  “You remember your friend, Mary Livingston?”

  Borden sat up straight, shifting Faith abruptly to one side. “Of course I remember Mary! Nicest lady you’d ever want to meet. Known her for years. How could anyone forget someone like that?”

  “Do you remember when we spoke about a note she’d received from her son, Michael, shortly before she died?”

  “Mary’s passed on?” Borden thought about that for a minute, processing the information. Then finally he nodded. “That’s right, I remember. Maddy and I went to her memorial service.”

  “Yes, you did. And then last week when you were playing bridge with Sandy, the two of you told me about a note Mary had received from her son who wanted to come and visit her. Whatever the note said made her very upset.”