Hounded to Death

by Laurien Berenson

  “So,” said Bertie, “you’re going to Pennsylvania to meet up with a hot date. Tell us everything.”

  “His name is Richard Donner.”

  “We already have that much,” I said impatiently. “Where did you meet him?”

  “Over the Internet.”

  The comment was delivered with total nonchalance. As if she thought that feigned indifference on her part might ward off the anticipated outcry. It didn’t.

  “You must be joking!”

  “Perfect.” Bertie giggled. “Did you go to one of those sites like match dot com? Have you met your perfect match? This is so romantic—”

  “It is not romantic,” I said sternly. “In fact it might be only one step away from lunacy. What do you know about this man aside from the fact that he owns a computer?”

  Peg was unruffled. “I know he likes dogs.”

  “Everybody likes dogs.”

  “Bob’s next door neighbor doesn’t.”

  Bob was my ex-husband, and Amber was a cat person. All of which was beside the point.

  “Have you met him in person? Do you even know what he looks like?”

  “I’ve seen his picture. To borrow a word from Bertie, he’s hot.”

  “If what he showed you was the right picture,” Bertie mentioned.

  Peg’s gaze swung her way. “What do you mean?”

  “Plenty of people misrepresent themselves on the Internet. Child molesters go to chat rooms and pretend to be twelve-year-old girls—”

  “You think I’ve gotten myself mixed up with a child molester?” Aunt Peg sounded incredulous. Also annoyed.

  “I’m just using that as an example. You have to be really careful when you use those Internet dating sites—”

  “How would you know?” I asked.

  Bertie ignored me. “Of course everyone wants to present themselves in the best light. So you add a couple inches to your height, shave off twenty pounds, say you have a master’s degree when you barely graduated from high school.”

  “People do that?” Aunt Peg, a woman who had never felt inadequate in her life, still sounded incredulous.

  “That and more,” I confirmed. “For all you know, you might have seen a picture of what this Richard person looked like ten years ago.”

  “Or maybe one of his next door neighbor,” Bertie said.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Aunt Peg scoffed.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “You’re mad, both of you.”

  “We’re being cautious.”

  “And realistic.”

  “Cynical,” Peg said firmly. “With very little faith in the goodness of human nature apparently.”

  “When it comes to the Internet, buyer beware.”

  “I think you’re both missing the point. I’m not trying to buy anything.”

  Aunt Peg took a moment to lift her foot from the gas pedal and study some approaching road signs. She didn’t want to miss the turn onto 80 West. And maybe she was hoping a pause in the conversation would result in a change of subject.

  Not a chance.

  “So you haven’t actually met this guy in person yet?” I said once we were on the new highway.

  I was beginning to relax a little. If all they had done was exchange a few e-mails, maybe there was still time to ward off impending disaster.

  “Believe me, it isn’t from lack of desire on either of our parts. But unfortunately we’re geographically incompatible. Richard lives in Ohio.”

  Thank goodness for small favors.

  “So you’re meeting halfway in Pennsylvania?” said Bertie. “Great idea. How did you ever convince him to sign up for a dog judges’ symposium?”

  “It required no convincing on my part at all. Richard had received a brochure and was already planning to attend.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “But that means—”

  “That Richard is a judge too?” Aunt Peg’s tone was smug. Once again she’d managed to pull one over on her younger relations. “Quite so.”

  “For real?” asked Bertie. “You actually met a dog show judge on an Internet dating site?”

  “No, dear. I met him on a message board on a web site dedicated to the betterment of purebred dogs.”

  My stomach rolled. Maybe it was the baby. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t eaten yet that morning. Or maybe it was simply proximity to my ever-exasperating Aunt Peg.

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” I asked.

  “What, and deny the two of you the opportunity to make perfect fools of yourselves? Trust me, driving in a mostly straight line for three hours isn’t that entertaining. Listening to you two flap and flounder in outrage is the most fun I’ve had all day.”

  “Even so,” I said.

  “She has a point,” Bertie added.

  “How can she have a point?” Aunt Peg demanded. “She hasn’t said anything yet. In most places where people speak English even so isn’t a point.”

  “Just because Richard Donner is a dog show judge doesn’t mean he’s a good person.”

  “Of course not,” Peg agreed. “You and I have both met our share of idiots who think that a small amount of knowledge coupled with the ability to look good in a plastic rain hat and a pair of rubber boots qualifies them to define breed type. But how am I ever going to find out what kind of person he is if we don’t get together?

  “For all I know, Richard might be the man I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with. And wouldn’t it be a shame if I passed up a chance like that simply because our first contact happened to have taken place over the Internet?”

  “Well…” I said grudgingly.

  “Well, what?”

  “You may be right.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  Like that was anything new.

  We drove in silence for several minutes.

  I stared out the window at the passing landscape, thought about home, and wondered what everyone was doing in my absence. Davey was likewise out of school this week. He and Sam had a number of outings planned, but right now I was willing to bet that they were simply out in the backyard, enjoying the crisp fall weather.

  I imagined Davey was probably playing in his tree house. Sam would be raking leaves. Sooner or later, one of them would pick up a tennis ball and start a game of fetch with the Poodles.

  Gone less than two hours, I felt a pang of homesickness. Probably latent nesting instincts coming to the fore.

  Having expected to sail through this pregnancy the same way I’d done nine years earlier, I’d been in for a rude awakening. This time I felt as though I was on an emotional roller coaster. No wonder Sam had been so happy to send me away for a week.

  “Funny thing,” Aunt Peg mused in the front seat. “I had thought it would be Richard’s age the two of you would object to.”

  I gulped. His age?

  What about his age?

  Life with Aunt Peg; it was a constant round of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “How old is he?” I asked.

  “Forty-nine.”

  Bertie laughed out loud. “No wonder you thought he was hot,” she said.

  The Rockwall Mountain Inn turned out to be a rustic retreat, located at the end of a long, winding driveway that carried us up the side of a small mountain.

  “Smell the fresh air,” Aunt Peg said happily as the road began to climb. “Look at the views!”

  A nice thought, but since the driveway was surrounded on either side by a dense wall of very tall fir trees, the view consisted mostly of pine needles and bark.

  Then we reached the top and the trees fell away. The dark road opened out into a wide parking lot with sweeping mountain vistas and miles of blue sky.

  “Wow.” Bertie exhaled. “Whoever chose this place really knew what they were doing.”

  “That would be Margo Deline, the symposium director,” Peg said crisply. “The woman is one of life’s great organizers. She always does a bang-up job.”
<
br />   The hotel consisted of a cluster of four low buildings, each one fashioned to look like a large log cabin. Wraparound porches lined with rows of Adirondack chairs invited guests to sit and enjoy the dramatic views. The inn was billed as a resort and spa, and signs outside the main building pointed us toward the swimming pool, tennis courts, hot tub, and health club.

  “Damn,” said Bertie as she pulled her suitcase out of the back of the van. “I didn’t bring my tennis racquet.”

  “You don’t play tennis.”

  “I would if I had time.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, you’d just sleep.”

  “Well,” she admitted, “there is that.”

  “Stop squabbling, you two.” Aunt Peg paused in front of a set of wide double doors that led into reception.

  The handle was fashioned from what looked like a large tusk. Boar? Elephant? Water buffalo? Aunt Peg tapped the appendage with her fingernail.

  “Plastic,” she said with satisfaction and threw it open.

  The lobby was a two-story great room with an enormous stone fireplace on one end and a wide, bending staircase on the other. Between the two, a gallery opened out into the upper hallway, giving strolling guests a vantage from which to watch the action below. The reception desk was located beneath the overhang, the wall behind it decorated with various pieces of artwork, most of them attributed to local artisans.

  Within minutes, Aunt Peg, Bertie, and I had been registered and delivered to our rooms. Bertie and I were sharing; Aunt Peg had her own, adjoining room next door. Upon entering, we found information packets waiting for us on the desk, describing the week’s activities.

  I set down my suitcase, opened the packet, and pulled out the top sheet.

  “Tonight the only thing on the schedule is an informal opening reception.” I read the invitations aloud. “Come and join us in the Elk Room. Rally round the blazing fire to greet old friends and make new ones. Cash bar.”

  Bertie hooted. She lifted her hands, let her body fall backward onto one of the double beds, and landed with a gentle plop.

  “You know what that translates to. Let’s get everybody roaring drunk on the first night and set the tone for the rest of this shindig. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to watch. I always wondered what kind of wild and crazy people dog show judges turn into when no one else is around.”

  “Very funny. Next you’ll be imagining them howling at the moon.”

  “Who’s howling?” Aunt Peg asked. She stuck her head through the door between the two rooms. “I don’t hear a thing. And if somebody has a dog here, I am not going to be amused.”

  “Nobody’s howling yet,” said Bertie. “Give them time. Maybe after dark.”

  “Oh, I see. You were talking about people. More’s the pity.”

  Aunt Peg, I noted, didn’t deny the possibility. I supposed that, being both older and wiser, not to mention a judge herself, she had more experience in dealing with her peers than Bertie and I did.

  I grabbed my suitcase and hefted it onto a nearby rack. If I didn’t unpack first, Bertie would nab all the drawer space and I’d spend the rest of the trip with my clothing piled in inconvenient spots around the room.

  Aunt Peg sighed and sank down in an upholstered chair. It didn’t look very comfortable but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “This is never going to work,” she announced. “I don’t see how it can.”

  “What won’t work?”

  “Me, you, all of us. A hundred avowed dog lovers here for a week and none of us allowed to bring along a single dog for companionship.”

  Bertie blinked and sat up. “I think you’re meant to enjoy the companionship of your fellow judges.”

  “Pish,” said Peg. “Can a person gaze up at you adoringly? Rest his head in your lap? Laugh at all your jokes, even the bad ones?”

  Well…yes, I thought. Maybe it had been too long since she’d had a relationship.

  “I’ll never be able to sleep a wink.” Peg sounded grumpy. “Do you know how many years it’s been since I slept in an empty bed without a single Poodle to snuggle up to? Honestly, aside from the fact that I miss their company, I feel naked without my dogs. I don’t even know what to do with my hands.”

  “You could bunk in here with us,” said Bertie.

  “Don’t be silly. That’s not even remotely the same.”

  “There’s always Richard,” I said without thinking. As soon as the words were out, I could have kicked myself.

  Aunt Peg arched a brow. “That’s putting the cart before the horse, don’t you think?”

  “Or maybe giving the milk away for free?” said Bertie.

  “Nobody’s going to be giving anything away.” Peg was firm. “For free or otherwise. At least not until we test the waters a bit and see how compatible we are in person. That is supposed to be the purpose of dating another person, isn’t it? Things can’t have changed that much since the last time I was out and about.”

  “Don’t look to us for dating information,” Bertie said. “Melanie and I are just a couple of old married ladies. If there’s any excitement to be had this week, you’re the one who’s going to have to supply it.”

  “How very depressing for you, as I intend to have a rather peaceful week myself. I’m simply going to give my Poodle lecture, attend a few judiciously chosen seminars, and maybe enjoy a quiet dinner or two with Richard if time permits.”

  “Right,” I snorted.

  Like most things, Aunt Peg seemed able to manipulate time to suit her will. And unless I missed my guess, Richard was going to find himself being rushed off his feet.

  I snapped my suitcase shut. The small noise was enough to draw Bertie’s attention.

  She surveyed the results of my efforts, then looked at her own, still-full suitcase sitting on the floor by the door. Immediately she rolled off the bed, grabbed her bag, and dragged it over to the room’s single dresser where I had already staked out two of the three drawers.

  “Don’t you have to, like, pee or something?” she asked.

  Actually I did. But we had traveled together before and I knew perfectly well that Bertie had no honor when it came to her wardrobe and the concept of first dibs. There was no way I was letting her unpack unsupervised.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking.” I shoved the middle drawer shut with my knee. “You snooze, you lose.”

  Aunt Peg looked at us. “Are you two going to be like this all week?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  Bertie nodded.

  “I was afraid of that,” said Peg.

  3

  The reception was supposed to start at six-thirty, but even before the appointed time people began to gather in a cozy bar area off the lobby. When that room was full, partygoers spilled out into the great room where a roaring fire crackled in the fireplace.

  The idea of being fashionably late is a concept entirely unknown to Aunt Peg. Immediate gratification is more her style. And since Bertie and I had accompanied her downstairs, that meant we were among the first to arrive. By the time a crowd had begun to gather, we already had our drinks and had staked out a prime location near the door.

  Aunt Peg watched that portal like a hawk, alternately greeting or commenting on the new arrivals. While I was busy reading the name badges that most people had affixed to their lapels, Aunt Peg seemed to know just about everyone on sight.

  “Tubby Mathis,” she said, when a portly man with bushy eyebrows and thinning hair entered the room. “He judges hounds, after a fashion. I can’t imagine what he’s doing here. His mind is a closed book. I don’t think he’s learned a single new thing in the last decade.”

  “Maybe he’s hoping to get laid,” Bertie said.

  I choked on my Shirley Temple.

  “Then he must be an optimist,” Peg said, dismissing him.

  A well-matched, middle-aged couple came through the door next. If it’s a truism that longtime dog owners often look like their dogs, it’s equa
lly true that longtime spouses also tend to acquire a similar veneer. Both members of this pair were fit and tan, as if they’d just returned from a vacation on some exotic beach.

  They were holding hands as they entered the room, but almost immediately both were hailed by friends and pulled in different directions. They exchanged a brief look—shorthand between people who knew each other very well—and went their separate ways.

  “Charles and Caroline Evans,” said Aunt Peg. “They belong to several kennel clubs, principally Windemere in northern Maryland. Both of them judge all over the country and Charles is a well-regarded speaker as well. He’s scheduled to give the keynote address tomorrow on ‘The Future of Dog Shows.’”

  “I’ve shown under Caroline,” said Bertie. “She does sporting dogs and hounds. She can be tough, but she’s fair.”

  “The same is true of Charles,” Aunt Peg replied. “He’s got the Working, Herding, and Terrier groups. One of the reasons they’re so much in demand is that between them they can cover so many breeds.”

  “How long have they been married?” I asked.

  Peg gave me an odd look. Anything that doesn’t pertain to dogs is immaterial, or at least of lesser importance, in her view.

  “Forever. What difference does that make?”

  None really, I thought. And the question was out of character for me. Or at the least usual me, the one I had known before I became pregnant. But now, along with rocketing emotions, I seemed to have lost my usual air of cynicism. Instead I was filled with a dreamy sort of optimism that looked for the good in everyone.

  “I just thought it was sweet that they were holding hands.”

  Aunt Peg snorted. “There’s nothing sweet about those two. Smart, driven, eminently respectable? Yes. Sweet, no. Not even on a good day.”

  “Hey, look,” Bertie said as a pale, lithe beauty swept through the doorway. The woman had the practiced strut of a supermodel and a look of disdain on her face. “There’s Alana Bennett. I’m going to go say hi.”

  Bertie was no slouch herself when it came to looking good. She was probably the only woman in the room who didn’t feel even the slightest bit threatened by Alana’s arrival. When the two of them joined up and walked to the bar together—silky blonde and fiery redhead, heads dipped toward each other as they talked and laughed—there wasn’t a man at the gathering who didn’t take notice.