Hounded to Death

by Laurien Berenson

  “Remember that judging scandal you were worried about? Tubby Mathis is the guy who’s in trouble.”

  “Oh, please,” Margo snapped. “Who even cares? So Tubby got caught doing a few illegal favors. Is anybody here talking about it?”

  “No, but—”

  “You see? It isn’t important. Keep your eye on the ball, Melanie. Because I can assure you that I am.”

  Margo leaned close. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You know, I heard some unfortunate gossip this morning. A tidbit concerning someone near and dear to us both.”

  Rats, I thought. Aunt Peg had only just gotten Walter stashed away in her room. How had word gotten out so quickly?

  “There are people here who are under the impression that Peg and Florence had a bit of a contretemps in the garden last night.”

  Oh, that problem.

  “You, of course,” I said, “would know better.”

  The first person Aunt Peg had spoken to when we’d reentered the inn the previous evening had been Margo. If anyone knew the truth, it was the program director.

  “I thought I did, but now maybe I’m not so sure.”

  Margo’s gaze dropped. Her eyes shifted from side to side.

  “The court of public opinion can be a very volatile forum. Sometimes even innocent people find themselves tried and found wanting. It would be a real shame if such a thing were to happen to Peg, don’t you think?”

  “Aunt Peg had nothing to do with what happened to Florence. We were the ones who found her. She was unconscious when we arrived on the scene.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  “Then people are spreading unfounded rumors. I would think you’d want to put a stop to that.”

  Margo gave my arm a small jerk. Her nails bit into my skin.

  “Just as I would think that you’d want to find out what really happened. And to let me know when you do.”

  Tit for tat. I got it now. I’d give Margo what she wanted, and she’d go to bat for Aunt Peg.

  The rules of engagement had been set.

  21

  “Caroline’s in the library,” said Margo. “She’s not entirely comfortable with public speaking. She likes to gather her thoughts ahead of time and do some positive visualization. I told her I’d make sure she wasn’t disturbed.”

  “Then I should wait—”

  She dropped my arm and gave me a firm nudge. “Go. The sooner you finish talking to her, the sooner you can move on to something more productive.”

  I could either stay and continue to be lectured, or else go and bother Caroline. So I went.

  The door to the library was closed, but not locked. I knocked, then pushed it open.

  Caroline was sitting curled up on the couch, her shoes kicked off, her feet tucked up beneath her on the plump cushion. Sunlight slanted through the tall windows and fell across her face. She’d applied her makeup with care, but the strong morning light revealed the fine web of lines she’d worked to conceal.

  A cup of coffee, full and fragrant, sat on the table beside her. I inhaled the aroma like a junkie in need of a fix. I was trying to keep my caffeine intake down, and of all the things I’d given up for pregnancy, morning coffee was the one I missed the most.

  A sheaf of papers rested in her lap, but Caroline was staring out the window. As I closed the door behind me, she slowly turned to see who had invaded her privacy.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I should have known. Once other people have offered their condolences, they mostly make a point of avoiding me. I think my presence makes them uncomfortable. I remind them of the random nature of life. And death.”

  I picked up a chair and carried it closer to the couch before sitting.

  “You don’t scare me,” I said.

  Caroline offered a wan smile. “Perhaps I should.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. How are you feeling?”

  “Empty.”

  A single word, so forlorn. I swallowed and didn’t reply.

  “Funny thing,” said Caroline. “Before this week, I would have told you that I led a very full life. I was always going from dawn till dusk, running all day with a million different things to keep me occupied. There were so many obligations that I had to keep lists so I wouldn’t lose track. Take one away and I’d have thought that was a blessing. And now look at me. Sitting here, staring out a window, and feeling as though I have absolutely no idea what to do next.”

  I wondered if I should interpret that to mean that Charles had been just another of her many obligations.

  “I guess you go and talk about genetic anomalies,” I said lightly.

  “There is that.” Caroline fingered the papers in her lap. “Have you come to tell me that you’ve discovered something important? A clue that will point the way to the solution and allow me to get on with the rest of my life?”

  “No,” I said regretfully. “I’ve come to ask more questions.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t see how that will help.”

  “Sometimes I don’t either,” I replied.

  Caroline’s blunt honesty seemed to demand the same of me. I shifted in my seat, leaning forward, bracing my elbows on my thighs, and diminishing the space between us.

  “Sometimes solving mysteries is like unraveling a quilt from a dozen different directions. I follow the course of one thread for a while and then switch and pull another. Some of them lead to dead ends, others take me to places I never expected to go. I don’t know in advance which ones are going to work and which ones aren’t. So I just keep asking questions and see what turns up.”

  “So now you’ve come to see what else I might tell you that I haven’t already.”

  “Something like that.”

  Caroline nodded thoughtfully. I took that as an invitation to continue.

  “Where were you on Tuesday night when Charles went out to spend time in the hot tub? Did you know what his plans were?”

  “Of course I knew. We were in our room together shortly before he went outside. I knew his schedule and he knew mine.”

  That statement sounded rather cut-and-dried when applied to the activities of a couple who, to all appearances, had been happily married. Despite what Alana had said, I still wasn’t sure I believed that Caroline had known everything her husband had been up to.

  “Did you consider accompanying Charles outside to the hot tub?”

  “No, it wasn’t an option. Charles was free, but I had work to do. Preparation, in fact, for this morning’s seminar. I was meeting with the other panelists to discuss the details of our presentation.”

  Handy that Caroline had an alibi. I wondered how solid it was.

  “So that’s where you were Tuesday night when Charles was killed? Meeting with…”

  I looked down at the papers she’d placed on the table between us. A symposium schedule was lying on top. It listed the names of the participants in each event.

  “That’s where I expected to be,” Caroline corrected, following the direction of my gaze. “But when I got to the room where we were supposed to be meeting, I found that only two of us had shown up. Rosalyn Arnold was off gallivanting somewhere and Wanda Swanson simply never appeared. It hardly seemed worthwhile for only half the group to compare notes, so I left.”

  “And went where?”

  “Back to my room. You might remember that I hadn’t had the best day thus far. By that time I had a splitting headache.”

  “I assume your bad day had something to do with the speech Charles had given earlier?”

  “Among other things,” Caroline said, sounding weary. “All I wanted at that point was to be alone.”

  So much for the alibi.

  “So you didn’t think of going outside to join your husband?”

  Caroline stared at me across the table. “That’s the second time you’ve asked that particular question. I imagine you must be fishing around for something that I haven’t yet answered.”

  “Well…yes.”

 
“And that would be what precisely?”

  There had to be a way to phrase this delicately. If Alana was wrong and Caroline didn’t already know about her husband’s infidelity, I hated to have to be the one to bring it to her attention. Especially now, after the fact, when she had nothing to gain by the knowledge.

  I cleared my throat and said, “Did you expect that Charles was going to be using the hot tub alone?”

  Caroline went very still. I watched her nostrils pinch together as she drew in a breath.

  “Alana,” she said softly.

  I didn’t confirm. I didn’t deny. I just waited.

  “I didn’t know,” Caroline said, then stopped. “Well…that is…I didn’t know she was with him that evening. Other times…”

  She paused again and shrugged. “I suppose I knew that Charles and Alana had some sort of relationship. Is that what you’re trying to ask?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “And you’re telling me that Alana was with Charles when he was killed?”

  “Not when he was killed, obviously. But just before.”

  “You’ll have to pardon me,” Caroline said sharply, “if I don’t see what’s so obvious about that. Of all people capable of playing the innocent, I should think that Alana Bennett might find herself at the bottom of just about anyone’s list.”

  Good, I thought. Now the gloves were off and we were getting somewhere.

  “You must have resented their relationship.”

  Caroline drew herself up. “Don’t you dare presume to tell me how I felt.”

  “Then you tell me.”

  “Alana Bennett fancies herself as something special, but she isn’t. Charles and I were married for a very long time. We knew each other’s strengths and each other’s weaknesses. We also knew how to give one another what we needed. Sometimes what Charles needed was a loose rein and a forgiving partner.”

  I was amazed by how coolly she was able to discuss the topic. In her position, I’d have been ready to throttle Sam. Was Caroline really that dispassionate? Or was she instead an accomplished actress, intent on leading me away from the facts?

  “So Alana wasn’t the first woman he’d had an affair with?”

  “No, and she wouldn’t have been the last.”

  “That must have made you angry. Maybe angry enough to do something about his fooling around.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” said Caroline.

  “Explain it to me, then.”

  I settled back in my chair as if I had all the time in the world to listen. Which, as it happened, I did. I wasn’t the one whose seminar was fast approaching. But if Caroline wasn’t worried about her upcoming obligation, neither was I.

  “Something needed to be done,” she said, “but killing Charles certainly wasn’t the answer. After he gave his speech, I sat him down and gave him a good talking to. He needed to be made to see the error of his ways. Alana was making a fool out of him.”

  I shook my head. “There are those who would have said that Charles was getting what he wanted and that Alana was making a fool out of you.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? This has nothing to do with sex. Alana was using him, plain and simple. Make no mistake about it; Charles was very good in bed and I’m sure she saw that as one of the fringe benefits of her quest. But what that twit really wanted was to win him over to her cause.”

  “The animal rights platform.”

  “Precisely. On her own, Alana Bennett is powerless. She’s nothing more than an empty-headed party girl and everybody knows it.

  “But hooking up with those odious animal rights people gave her a network of support and a sense of purpose. Alana had an agenda to promote and she needed someone to help her do it. Someone who had the respect of his peers, someone people would listen to and pay attention.”

  “And that person was Charles.”

  “Quite right. She pursued him shamelessly.”

  “You watched that?” I said incredulously. “And never stepped in to put a stop to it?”

  “As I said a moment ago, Charles and I have been married a very long time. You might say that we had an arrangement about such things. I never questioned his taste in extracurricular companions, and in exchange he agreed to manage his affairs very discreetly. Neither one of us had any desire to court scandal. As long as he and Alana had kept their business to themselves, I wouldn’t have said a thing.”

  Amazing, I thought again. The palm of my hand was resting against my stomach. I felt a slight flutter within. A promise for the future, growing within me. And a hope that Sam and I never became this complacent about our relationship.

  “All that changed Tuesday afternoon when Charles delivered that deplorable speech. Such is the vanity of a middle-aged man that he was able to delude himself into believing that a woman young enough to be his daughter wanted him solely for himself. He fell for her act hook, line, and sinker. And so he stepped up to that podium and embarrassed both of us.”

  “After which you spoke with him about their affair.”

  “What choice did I have? It was clear that he’d allowed his libido to overcome his common sense. I told Charles that he was to break things off with Alana immediately and spend the rest of the symposium undoing the damage he’d done.”

  “And he agreed?”

  “Of course he agreed,” said Caroline. “After all, I didn’t give him any choice. Alana was a fling and nothing more. I was his wife. Like it or not, Charles was going to knuckle down and do as I said.”

  A man accustomed to a loose leash being suddenly brought to heel? I doubted that Charles had proven to be that obedient. Indeed, the fact that he’d gone to meet Alana in the hot tub that evening lent credence to the notion that Caroline hadn’t succeeded nearly as well as she thought she had.

  “So you see,” she continued, “if anyone had cause to be angry with Charles that night, it was Alana, not I. She was the one who was about to taste defeat, while I would emerge victorious.”

  “And yet,” I said, “as soon as you left, he went to meet with her.”

  “He went to break up with her,” Caroline corrected me. “After that, he would have come back to me.”

  She was either lying or else missing a few pertinent facts. Because if Alana and Charles had indeed been severing their relationship, they’d been doing so outside, under the stars, in a hot tub. Naked.

  Not the most likely setting for the scene Caroline had imagined was taking place.

  “Are we through here?” she said abruptly. “It’s almost time for my seminar. I need to head over to the conference room.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”

  Caroline gathered her notes into a tidy pile, then stood.

  As she leaned down to brush the creases from her skirt, I said, “Florence Donner told me that Derek Ryan was rather desperate to meet with your husband. You wouldn’t have any idea what that was about, would you?”

  “Derek Ryan?” Caroline straightened. Her brow lowered in a frown. “I don’t even know who he is. I do know that Charles had several important matters he meant to attend to while he was here. Perhaps that was one of them.”

  “Do you know if the meeting took place?” I asked.

  She walked to the door, turned the knob, and drew it open. “If it did, I never heard about it. That was the thing, of course. Charles thought he’d have more time.”

  Charles wasn’t the only one who’d thought that. We all had.

  22

  Wonder of wonders, the next thing I did was take in a lecture. My first in two days, in case you’re keeping count.

  No, I didn’t follow Caroline into her seminar on genetic anomalies. Not that it wouldn’t have been interesting, but it seemed to me that we’d seen enough of one another for a while.

  Upstairs in Conference Room C, three judges and breeders I didn’t know were giving a talk on Rhodesian Ridgebacks. A discussion of the sleek, lion-hunting hounds from Africa seemed like
just the thing to take my mind off everything else that was going on; and the diversion worked like a charm.

  I emerged from the seminar feeling thoroughly rejuvenated. And also starving. About that time it occurred to me that I’d skipped breakfast.

  Or, more precisely, watched as “my” breakfast was fed to a hungry German Shepherd.

  It was early for lunch, but the dining room had already opened its doors and people were beginning to wander in. I pulled out my phone and called Aunt Peg.

  “Where are you?” I asked when she picked up.

  “Shopping for kibble and rawhide bones in downtown Mountain View.”

  We’d passed through the small town on our way to the inn. The shopping possibilities hadn’t looked promising.

  “I didn’t know Mountain View had a downtown,” I said.

  “It’s a figure of speech, and in this case not a very accurate one. It seems to consist of two strip malls and a mini-mart. So far, all I’ve managed to locate are two boxes of stale biscuits and a pink plastic leash. What are you up to?”

  “Looking for someone to eat lunch with. Hear that rumble in the background? It isn’t approaching thunder, it’s my stomach.”

  “You’d best feed it, then.” Aunt Peg was ever practical. “I wouldn’t want my niece or nephew to be going hungry. Try Bertie. I bet she’ll be happy to join you.”

  Bertie might have been, but she wasn’t picking up her phone. I hadn’t seen her since we’d parted company earlier, and I was willing to bet that in the intervening time she’d found her way back to the health club. She was probably stretched out on a slab somewhere, enjoying Gunther’s expertise.

  Which left me on my own. I walked into the dining room and stood by the hostess station. “Table for one” sounded pathetic but a quick scan of the room didn’t reveal anyone I knew well enough to foist myself upon.

  Then Rosalyn came striding through the double doors like a woman on a mission. “Melanie! Perfect. You’re just the person I’ve been looking for. Do you have a minute?”

  “As many minutes as you like, as long as they involve food.”