Hounded to Death

by Laurien Berenson

  “I guess this means you’re not placing much faith in the detective,” I said.

  “Hard to, these days, isn’t it? The only good police seem to be the ones on television and they have their plots written for them. In real life, nothing ever gets solved so easily, or so quickly. It’s already been almost twenty-four hours. What do you think they’ve done so far?”

  “Mostly ask questions, I guess.”

  “So they’re busy detecting, big deal. What about solving? That’s what I’d like to see.”

  Another woman who knew just what she wanted. Caroline had spoken earlier of fate and this was apparently mine. To always be surrounded by strong women.

  I’d been sitting long enough that my legs had begun to go to sleep. I stood up and stretched. Then I began to rock, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

  Caroline eyed me curiously.

  “Pregnant,” I said.

  “Still early, I assume?”

  I nodded.

  “Boy or girl?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “That’s the good thing with dogs. You get both.”

  I laughed. “Thanks, but I don’t want a litter.”

  “Dogs and people,” said Caroline. “In some ways, they’re not that different. Dogs attack when they feel threatened.”

  “Or when they’re hungry,” I said, thinking of the stray I was supposed to be looking for.

  “Murder for profit? It’s a possibility.” Caroline stood up and brushed off her skirt. “But I’ll tell you what I think. Somebody here felt threatened by Charles. Now all you have to do is figure out why.”

  “I’ll give it some thought,” I said.

  “You do that. Somebody took my husband away from me. I’d like to know who was responsible.”

  Caroline looked as though she was ready to leave. I forestalled her departure by asking a question. One I’d been wondering about since the day before.

  “When Charles delivered his keynote speech…did you know ahead of time what he was planning to say?”

  “No,” Caroline replied quickly. “I didn’t have a clue. My husband gave many such talks. He spoke to kennel clubs, to judges’ groups. He tended to compose his speeches at the last moment. It would have driven me crazy to leave things so late, but that was just his way.”

  “So he didn’t run anything past you? Maybe practice ahead of time?”

  “There was never a chance to do something like that. The first time I heard the speech was in the lecture hall along with everyone else.”

  Caroline began to walk away. Once again I stopped her.

  “Were you surprised?”

  “Of course.”

  “Maybe annoyed?”

  She spun around to face me. “What would have been the point? The damage was already done.”

  “Did that worry you?”

  “Worry me?” She sounded perplexed.

  “Were you concerned about the effect his talk might have on your career?”

  “Not in the slightest.” Now her tone was firm. “Charles would have found a way to fix things. He was good at that. Given the chance, he’d have made everything right again. I’m sure of it.”

  I’d spent so long with Caroline that after she left I ended up merely doing a quick walk around the back of the inn. There was nothing notable to be seen: no kitchen workers, no stray dog, just a couple of garbage cans with their lids firmly closed.

  Completing my circle of the building, I met up with Bertie in the parking lot. She’d walked the driveway from top to bottom, then back again, and hadn’t seen anything either.

  “Where do you suppose Peg is?” she asked.

  We both turned and looked toward the woods. The trail I’d followed the day before had been no more than a mile long and very well marked. If Aunt Peg hadn’t returned yet, it was probably because something was holding her up.

  Of one accord, we headed toward the hiking path.

  I’m not usually a big worrier, but like so many other things, that had also changed recently. When a vision of Charles, floating face down in the hot tub, teased its way into my subconscious, I pulled out my phone and pressed Aunt Peg’s number.

  She picked up on the first ring and snapped, “Don’t bother me, I’m busy.” Before I could say a single word, the connection was severed.

  So much for my concern. Aunt Peg was not only fine; she was busy.

  “I guess that means she’s okay,” Bertie said with a laugh as she watched me tuck the phone away.

  “How much do you want to bet she found our missing dog?”

  We were already hurrying, but we quickened our footsteps anyway. As soon as the woods enveloped us, it grew both cooler and darker. The ground felt damp beneath my feet and I gathered my jacket more tightly around me. The smell of pine was everywhere.

  “I can see why a stray dog would want to hide out in here,” said Bertie. She peered into the dense wall of tree trunks that surrounded us. “Step six feet off this path and you’d disappear entirely.”

  Up ahead through the trees, I saw a flash of blue, down low near the ground. Aunt Peg’s coat. I held up a hand. Bertie and I both slowed.

  Creeping along quietly, we could hear Aunt Peg talking. Or crooning really, as the utterance was more sounds than words: a comforting murmur meant to put a skittish animal at ease.

  We rounded the next turn and Peg came into view. She was sitting quietly in the middle of the path. The German Shepherd was another ten feet farther away.

  The dog had been lying down. His ears were cocked, his head tipping slowly from one side to the other as he listened to what Aunt Peg had to say. Seeing us, however, he leapt to his feet. His body was motionless but only for the moment; the Shepherd was poised for flight.

  “Stop right there!” she said. “You’ll ruin everything.”

  We had but it was already too late.

  Still half crouched, the Shepherd darted a last, wary glance in our direction. Then he spun around and slunk away into the underbrush.

  “Damn,” Peg muttered.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “As well you should be. I think I was finally beginning to gain his confidence.”

  Bertie reached down a hand and helped Aunt Peg to her feet. “And then we came along and spoiled things for you.”

  “Never mind.” Peg stared off into the trees for a moment, before turning back to us. “There’ll be another day. He’s a good boy, or at least he wants to be. It looks like he was somebody’s pet at one time. He knew how to trust humans once. All we have to do is make him remember how that felt.”

  “Poor guy,” said Bertie. “He’s a nice looking dog. I wonder what he’s doing out here all by himself.”

  “He’s probably wondering that too.” Peg reached around and brushed off the seat of her pants. “He’s cold, lonely, and hungry. And I’d be willing to bet that none of it is his fault.”

  “You’d think he’d want us to help him,” I said.

  Both Aunt Peg and Bertie shook their heads. Their experience with dogs far outweighs mine. The Poodles I’d left back in Connecticut with Sam and Davey were the first pets I’d ever owned.

  “His last experience with people can’t have been good,” said Bertie. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “He’s afraid of people now,” Peg added. “And probably with good reason. So it’s up to us to change his mind.”

  “At least he seems to stay around the inn,” I pointed out. “So he hasn’t gone completely wild.”

  Aunt Peg nodded. “If we take things slowly and give him enough time, I believe eventually he’ll be willing to meet us halfway. And of course the half pound of ground meat I just fed him won’t hurt our case a bit.”

  Trust Aunt Peg to have a plan. Boy Scouts had nothing on her.

  “Now he’ll go back to his den with a full stomach and think about that for a while. And tomorrow when we come looking for him again, I suspect he might not be as hard to find.” />
  As we walked back to the inn, I told them about my conversation with Caroline.

  “She wants Charles’s killer found,” I said at the end.

  “Of course she does,” Peg agreed. “We all do.”

  “But the police aren’t looking at all of us as potential suspects.”

  Aunt Peg thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t say that I knew either of them particularly well. But at least from the outside, their marriage always seemed as solid as most.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement.”

  “No, but it’s the best I can do. The older I get the more I wonder if human beings are really meant to live together in monogamous bliss for twenty or thirty years. Even the best marriages aren’t necessarily smooth sailing all the time. Caroline’s a rather forceful presence. She likes to have her own way. And Charles was very much the same. I could see how that might lead them to butt heads once in a while.”

  “So you think the police are right not to discount her as a suspect?”

  “I think they’re right not to discount anyone,” Aunt Peg said firmly. “Did you think to ask her if Charles had any enemies?”

  “No, unfortunately.”

  “Not to worry,” said Peg. “I’m sure you’ll have another opportunity.”

  We reached the end of the hiking trail, exited the woods, and came out onto the edge of the parking lot. It was nice to feel the sun on our faces again.

  “Caroline seems to think I’m going to figure out who’s responsible for Charles’s death,” I admitted as we headed back toward the inn.

  Bertie looked surprised. “You told her you’d do that?”

  “Not exactly. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “First Alana, and now Caroline,” Aunt Peg mused. “I wonder who’ll be trying to enlist your services next.”

  “I’d give it a try if I was innocent,” said Bertie.

  “Or if I was guilty.” Peg opened the door and held it as we all filed through. “In fact perhaps more importantly if I was guilty. You know what they say: keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  13

  It didn’t take long for me to discover the answer to Aunt Peg’s question.

  Having had only a small breakfast and then missed lunch entirely, I was on my way to the dining room in search of a snack that I could take into the lecture hall when I was waylaid by Margo.

  “Perfect,” she said, twining her arm through mine. “You’re just the person I was looking for.”

  Why did I suspect our meeting was going to work out to be more perfect for her than it was for me?

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Food.”

  I would have said more, but my stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly. I figured that was punctuation enough.

  “At this hour? Are you sure? You need to be careful when you’re pregnant, those pounds will sneak right up on you. Next thing you know, none of your clothes fit and you look like the Goodyear blimp.”

  “Food,” I repeated firmly. If she protested again, I was going to take my arm back and chart my own course. “I was thinking maybe a milk shake. Chocolate, double thick.”

  “Oh my.” Margo sighed. “How youth is wasted on the young. A milk shake it is then. I suppose I could do with a cup of tea. It is, tea time, isn’t it? Maybe the bartender would be so kind as to lace it with whiskey for me. Or perhaps I’ll just skip the tea and go straight for the hard stuff.”

  Next thing I knew, we were seated in the bar. The first and, so far, only customers of the day. Margo was sipping a whiskey and soda. My milk shake was on the way.

  “So,” she said companionably, “how are you enjoying the symposium so far?”

  “I’ve seen so little of it I can hardly tell,” I said, filled with the unhappy suspicion that I was about to miss yet another lecture. “Is that what you steered me in here to ask?”

  “Actually no. That was small talk, meant to put us both at ease.”

  At least she was honest. That always scores extra points in my book.

  “I’m not sure it’s working,” I said.

  “Too bad.” Margo looked past me and waved to a waiter who was heading our way. “Maybe this will help.”

  The milk shake helped a lot. The glass it came in was frosted and nearly a foot tall. The shake itself was rich and dark, and so thick that I had to eat it with a spoon. If there’s a better way to take your calcium, I have yet to find it.

  “Happy now?” Margo asked.

  “I was happy before. You were the one who looked like you had something on your mind.”

  “I did. And I still do. What have you learned so far?”

  I paused to lift the spoon to my mouth and skim off a generous portion of ice cream. The cold went straight to my forehead. I winced and blinked, then said, “About what?”

  “Don’t be dense. About Charles, of course. You’ve had all day.”

  “To do what?”

  “Melanie. Sweetheart.” Margo braced her arms on the table and stared hard. “Let’s not be coy, okay? Your reputation precedes you. Things go wrong when you’re around and then you find out why. All I’m asking is what you’ve found out so far.”

  “Today I took a nap,” I said. “Since breakfast, the only person I’ve spent any time with aside from Peg and Bertie is Caroline.”

  “Caroline, good. That’s a start. You can build from there.”

  “I wasn’t trying to start. Or build. I ran into her by accident.”

  “Naturally that’s what you would want her to think.”

  “No, I really did.”

  “Don’t worry.” She reached across the table and patted my hand reassuringly. “I won’t blow your cover.”

  “I don’t have a cover.”

  “Your mission will be our little secret.”

  Sure, I thought. Why not? Since I didn’t have a mission, it would be easy enough to have a secret about it. The cover thing, however, had me confused. Had I been pretending to be someone else?

  “I just want you to do one thing for me,” Margo said. “It’s simple really.”

  Nothing about this conversation was turning out to be simple. Maybe that was my fault. Maybe the milk shake had given me brain freeze.

  Margo leaned toward me. Her voice dropped. “Whatever you find out, I want you to bring the information to me first.”

  Interesting request.

  “Why would I do that?” I asked.

  “Because I’m in charge. I’m the one who brought everybody here and now all these people are my responsibility. Everything that happens here reflects upon me.”

  “Even murder?”

  “Everything,” Margo repeated. She drained her glass and stood. “Do we understand each other?”

  No, I thought. I’d never been able to understand how some people were able to treat death as an inconvenience in their otherwise orderly schedule.

  But that wasn’t what she was asking.

  “I’m sure we do,” I said.

  I was holding my spoon in one hand. The other was beneath the table, fingers crossed. Because hell would freeze over before I felt the need to report back to Margo Deline about Charles’s murder or anything else.

  After Margo left the bartender was kind enough to transfer what remained of my milk shake into a paper cup. I carried it out into the lobby, where I consulted the afternoon’s schedule.

  Currently two lectures were in progress. The first was titled Junior Showmanship: Fun for the Whole Family. The second, Plucking the Terrier Coat, Is It a Lost Art?

  I stood. And sighed. Then read the offerings again just to make sure that I hadn’t missed something. I finally had the opportunity to attend another seminar and neither of the topics was even remotely interesting to me.

  Poodles are clipped, not hand-plucked. And Junior Showmanship is a class for children, judged on their handling skills and presentation. While Davey could compete if he wa
nted to, so far he hadn’t shown even the slightest inclination.

  I was considering my options when Florence Donner emerged from the library with several friends. Spotting me, she excused herself from the group and headed my way.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this popular.

  “I’m just going outside to give Button a walk,” she said. “Perhaps if you’re not busy, you’d like to accompany me?”

  It was hard to plead that I was otherwise engaged when she’d just found me standing there, doing nothing more important than sipping a milk shake and staring off into space.

  “Sure,” I said and we walked outside together.

  Florence waited until we’d reached a grassy strip on the other side of the parking lot before leaning down to tip her large purse over onto the ground. Button popped out, looked around, and gave himself a good shake.

  “Doesn’t he mind being confined like that?” I asked, as the Chihuahua began to sniff around the grass.

  “Not in the slightest. Button’s a very companionable little dog. The thing that pleases him most is being wherever I am. He’d mind being left behind more.”

  We watched as the Chihuahua found a patch of lawn to his liking. He lifted his leg and peed, then scratched furiously with both hind feet to cover the evidence. His efforts barely disturbed the grass around him but he looked very pleased with what he’d accomplished.

  When he was done, Florence bent down and held out her hands. Button trotted right into them and she placed him back in her purse.

  The bag bobbled and rolled as the Chihuahua maneuvered himself around within. A moment later his head emerged from the opening. Button’s ears were pricked; his large dark eyes looked around curiously. Despite my reservations, I had to admit that he seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement.

  “I didn’t ask you out here to talk about dogs,” said Florence.

  I’d figured that.

  I was assuming that Florence—like just about everyone else I’d spoken to that day—was going to request that I apply myself to finding Charles’s killer. I wondered what her stake in the outcome of the investigation might be.

  “It’s your aunt we need to discuss. I want to know what her intentions are toward my son.”