Pup Fiction

by Laurien Berenson

  “And Oreos,” Davey added. “We’re out.”

  “Again? I just bought some.”

  Davey shrugged. He gave me a sheepish grin. So I guessed I knew where the Oreos had gone. It was a good thing he was a growing boy.

  Kevin grabbed his backpack from the floor of the car. He slung it over his shoulder and began to run toward the sidewalk. “Hurry up,” he called back to Davey. “It’s time for camp!”

  “Goodbye,” I said to their retreating backs. “Have fun at camp. Eat all your lunch. Don’t forget to use your sunblock.”

  Of course they didn’t answer. My two sons weren’t even listening. It wasn’t nearly as much fun being a mom when no one was paying attention.

  * * *

  The drive to Southbury took just over an hour. After I’d gotten off the phone with Emily the night before, I’d gone on the internet and found out that Owen Grace was an attorney with his own practice. He had an office that was located in the town’s picturesque historic district.

  According to his website, Owen specialized in accidents, personal injury, and wrongful death cases. He promised that potential clients would pay nothing up front to discuss their problems. I hoped the same would hold true for me. Mostly what I knew about lawyers was that even when you were only having a conversation, they liked to bill by the hour.

  Owen’s office was located in a handsome red brick building with square proportions and a small cupola in the middle of its roofline. There were several empty parking spaces out front. Inside, the building had been broken up into three small businesses. Owen’s office shared its residence with a general contractor and a company that bought and sold rare books.

  The center hallway that bisected the building was dimly lit. A bowl of fake flowers sat on an ornate oak credenza that needed dusting. Outside, it was pleasantly warm. Inside, the air wasn’t moving at all.

  Owen’s office was at the end of the hallway. I opened the door and walked into a small reception room. Directly in front of me, a college-age girl was sitting behind a desk, staring down at her phone. Her fingers were busy, tapping on the screen. It looked like this summer job hadn’t been her first choice.

  The girl didn’t look up right away. Instead she finished what she was doing, then cast me a bored glance. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Owen Grace,” I told her. “I believe he’s expecting me.”

  She pulled an appointment book toward her across the desktop. “Name?”

  “Melanie Travis.”

  Her finger ran slowly down the page. From where I was standing, it looked mostly empty. “You don’t have an appointment,” she said.

  “Do I need one?”

  “I don’t know.” She stood up. “I guess I could check.”

  “Please do,” I said.

  When she walked to the door in the back wall of the room, I was right behind her. She knocked, then waited a moment before opening the door a crack and sticking her head inside. I stepped around her and pushed the door the rest of the way open.

  “There’s a lady here to see you,” the girl started to say.

  Owen Grace could already see that for himself since I was standing framed in his office doorway. The attorney rose from his desk, grabbed the sports coat that was hanging over the back of his chair, and quickly pulled it on.

  “Thank you, Randy,” he said with a wide, practiced, smile. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Sure.” Randy withdrew. “Whatever.”

  As I stepped into the room, she closed the door behind me. Owen’s clients must value their privacy.

  In contrast to the hallway and the waiting room, Owen’s office was cool, bright, and cheerful. A wide, multi-paned window filled most of the wall behind his desk and let in plenty of light. A colorful collection of framed travel posters covered his walls, hanging beside his college and law-school diplomas. I noted that Owen had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Good for him.

  He came around his desk to meet me, his hand already extended to shake mine. Owen was in his forties and over six feet tall. He had the trim body of a man who still played pick-up basketball on weekends. Or maybe tennis. His teeth were so white that his smile was almost blinding. His grip was firm enough to be reassuring, but not so strong as to be uncomfortable.

  “Owen Grace,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  That remained to be seen, I thought. I hoped he hadn’t mistaken me for a potential client.

  “I’m Melanie Travis. I believe Emily contacted you about me? I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Owen had started to wave me to a plush leather chair that was situated in front of his desk. “Emily?” He stopped and frowned slightly. “Are you talking about Will’s ex-wife?”

  Damn. She’d told me she would get in touch with Owen and smooth my way. It sounded as though she hadn’t done so.

  “Yes,” I said as I sat down. “She and I are friends. I never had a chance to meet your brother, however.”

  “Emily sent you?” Owen sounded confused. “And this has something to do with Will?”

  “And with his unexpected death,” I said gently.

  “Are you Emily’s attorney?” He moved around to take his own seat behind the desk. “Because you should know that Will named me executor of his estate, such as it is. Frankly, I’m still trying to process what happened. I was planning to get in touch with her next week regarding the will. There was no need for her to send someone here to hassle me.”

  This wasn’t going well at all.

  “I didn’t come to hassle you,” I said quickly. “And I’m not Emily’s attorney.”

  “Then who—?” Owen began, then abruptly stopped. He held up a hand to forestall my response. “No, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Whoever you are, you should know there’s nothing you can say that will convince me that woman didn’t shoot Will herself.”

  Chapter 14

  “I think we’ve gotten started on the wrong foot,” I said.

  “Is there a right one?” Owen arched a brow in my direction.

  Apparently his earlier Mr. Affable act was only for paying customers. Good to know.

  “I was just hoping to ask you a few questions,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I went with the truth. “Emily is my friend—”

  “You already told me that.”

  “She’s afraid the police view her as a suspect in Will’s death—”

  “And you don’t?”

  “No, I—”

  “Interesting. Go on.” Owen braced his elbows on the desktop and steepled his fingers in front of his lower face.

  Now his expression was hidden. Only his dark eyes were visible. And they were staring at me with more than a hint of antipathy. I could feel a palpable challenge shimmering in the space between us.

  Abruptly I realized this wasn’t a man I would want to confront in a courtroom. Or across a poker table.

  “I’ve known Emily for a long time,” I began.

  “As have I,” Owen interjected smoothly.

  His interruptions were really beginning to annoy me. I sat back in my chair and gazed at him in stony silence.

  “Are you waiting for something?” he inquired.

  “Apparently I’m waiting for my turn to talk.”

  Owen frowned. “Please proceed.”

  “Until this week, I had no idea that Emily had ever been married. She and I talk about a lot of things. But in all the years I’ve known her, she’s never mentioned Will. Not even once. He wasn’t part of her life anymore.” I leaned forward to emphasize my point. “Emily didn’t talk about Will because he wasn’t important to her.”

  Owen nodded, but didn’t comment. Maybe he’d taken my censure to heart.

  “You don’t kill someone who means nothing to you,” I said. “Indifference is a horrible motive for murder.”

  Owen continued to remain silent.

  “Now it’s your turn,” I said.

  “I would
argue that the opposite was true,” he replied. “That Emily wasn’t indifferent to Will at all. Maybe the depth of her feelings was so great that she couldn’t bring herself to speak about it.”

  That came as a surprise. “You think Emily was still in love with her ex-husband?”

  “On the contrary, I suspect that she despised him. You said Emily hadn’t previously talked to you about her marriage. Have you discussed it since my brother’s untimely death?”

  Owen placed a particular emphasis on the last few words. As if he’d wanted to say something else entirely. Perhaps something like “since Will was shot dead virtually in Emily’s backyard?”

  “We talked about it a bit,” I told him. “Emily described your brother as impulsive and unreliable. She said that they hadn’t parted on the best of terms.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Owen retorted.

  “But their divorce took place years ago. Emily said that she and Will were barely even in touch anymore.”

  “She probably made it seem as though that was her choice.” It was a statement, not a question.

  I answered it anyway. “Yes. She did.” I stopped, then added, “Of course she did.”

  Because it was true, I thought. Wasn’t it?

  “I take it she didn’t mention Vanessa Morris?”

  “No.” I frowned. “Who’s she?”

  “The woman Will left Emily for. Will drained their joint savings account and ran off to Las Vega with Vanessa. My brother believed he had the golden touch. He intended to double his money at the craps table. As was true of so many of his dubious ventures, Will turned out to be wrong about that.”

  My mouth was hanging open. I snapped it shut. “Wait a minute. Emily divorced Will because he ran off with another woman?”

  That was news. Why was I only hearing about it now?

  “No,” Owen replied slowly. “Will divorced Emily because of another woman. While he and Vanessa were in Las Vegas, he applied for a quickie divorce. At the time, Emily had no idea where he was or what he was doing. She thought he was out of town on a business trip.”

  My breath seemed to be lodged in my throat. I considered how this new information changed everything I’d thought I knew.

  “How did Emily find out the truth?” I asked.

  “I gather that came about when she realized that their savings were missing from their account. She called Will in a panic, and Vanessa answered his phone.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Indeed. Vanessa was only too happy to tell Emily what she and Will had been up to. Including the divorce proceedings he’d initiated.”

  “How horrible,” I murmured.

  Owen nodded. “Will was my brother and I loved him, but we were very different people. I didn’t agree with the way he conducted himself in his personal life. Or in his business dealings, for that matter. There were good reasons I made sure that our professional lives were never intertwined.”

  I sat up straight in my seat. “So then you don’t blame Emily for their divorce.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And you think she was justifiably angry about the money Will stole from her?”

  “Half of it was his money,” Owen pointed out. “But otherwise, yes.”

  “And you would agree that after she and Will parted ways, Emily went on to build a wonderful life for herself, running her own school and rarely giving her ex-husband more than a passing thought?”

  “If you say so,” Owen replied.

  “Then why did you say earlier that you thought Emily might have shot Will?”

  “Because that’s what she said.”

  “Excuse me?” I squeaked.

  “It was a while ago, granted. And maybe Emily had had a drink or two at the time. But that was no excuse. Emily told me she would never forgive Will for what he’d done to her. And that one day, she would hunt him down and make him pay.”

  * * *

  Well, that gave me plenty to think about on my way home.

  Emily and I had been friends for years. But now, after listening to what Owen had to say, I couldn’t help but wonder how well I’d ever really known her.

  Was it possible that our relationship had been built on a foundation of half-truths and omissions? Or was Owen Grace the person whose words I should be doubting? The man had sounded convincing—but persuasion was his stock-in-trade. Maybe he was the one who was bending the facts to suit his own agenda.

  By the time I got home, my head was pounding. Apparently too much thinking in circles wasn’t good for me. Fortunately, I knew a cure for that. It was time to take the dogs for a long walk around the neighborhood.

  I walked into the house and popped my head into Sam’s office. His eyes were on his computer screen and he had his phone pressed to his ear. He sketched me a quick wave with his free hand.

  The gesture was equal parts greeting and dismissal. Ahh, romance.

  I closed Sam’s office door and turned to the Poodles who were crowded around my legs. Bud was there too. He was trying to make himself scarce in that forest of furry black legs. I wondered what the little dog had been up to now.

  Whatever it was, it could wait. Instead, I announced to the canine crew that we were going for a walk. Immediately, six sets of paws went scrambling toward the front door.

  “Just a minute,” I told them. “I have to find Bud’s leash first.”

  The Poodles had been trained since birth to listen and behave. Bud, on the other hand, had his own ideas, most of which didn’t involve paying attention to me when the siren call of freedom beckoned. Where he was concerned, I subscribed to the theory that safe was better than sorry.

  I checked all the usual places first: the hook near the back door where the lead should have been hanging; the side table in the front hall where everybody tossed stuff when they came in the house; even under the couch where Bud stashed all his valuables.

  Still no leash.

  Bud followed me from room to room. His stubby tail wagged energetically. The leash is gone! I don’t need a leash!

  “Yes, you do,” I told him.

  Aside from his other quirks, Bud was also a kleptomaniac. Items he’d pilfered from our neighbors’ yards included everything from a garden hose to a decorative flag. Bud was supposed to be Kevin’s dog. But when he misbehaved, it always fell to me to make things right again.

  As I got up off my hands and knees, I heard something scratching the hardwood floor in the hall. Bud came with me to have a look.

  The front half of Faith’s body was lowered so she could wedge her paws and nose under the side table. The Poodle’s hindquarter was in the air. Her pomponed tail was waving back and forth. As I approached, she began to whine under her breath.

  Slowly Faith inched backward from beneath the table. The end of the lead was in her mouth, the rest dragged along behind. The narrow leather strip must have slithered down behind the table the last time someone used it.

  “Good girl!” I said.

  She grinned at me happily. I know!

  By the time we returned from our walk, Sam had emerged from his office. The dogs headed straight to the kitchen to get some cold water. Sam was there, staring into the pantry.

  “I’m thinking about lunch,” he said.

  “Good. Me too.” I picked the bowl up off the floor and refilled it. “What are you making?”

  “Tuna salad?”

  “Sounds perfect. I think we have celery.”

  “I know we have onions.” Sam plucked two cans of tuna of the shelf.

  I wrinkled my nose.

  “Okay, no onions.”

  I had no idea how he knew. “You weren’t even looking at me.”

  Sam grinned. “I felt the energy in the room shift.”

  “Because of onions?”

  He was still grinning. “Was I right, or was I right?”

  There was no way I was winning this argument. Instead, I went to the refrigerator and got out the mayo and celery. Then I refilled the dogs
’ water bowl again. And mopped up the floor. While I hadn’t been paying attention, Bud must have been swimming.

  Over lunch, I brought Sam up to date on everything. He didn’t share my predilection for solving mysteries, but he did make a thoughtful and engaged listener.

  “This is probably my fault,” Sam said at the end.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “That you’ve become so involved in Emily’s problems. You’ve been at camp every day, dropping the kids off and picking them up. If I’d been doing my share of driving, you wouldn’t have another mystery on your hands.”

  I’m not sure either one of us really believed that.

  “How about if you take a break and I pick up the boys this afternoon?” Sam offered.

  “Umm . . . no, thank you.”

  “You’re sure?” His blue eyes twinkled. Now I knew he was teasing. “Because it’s no problem.”

  “Actually, there are a couple of things I need to talk to Emily about.”

  Sam nodded. He’d seen that coming.

  “But if you’re offering me a break, how about if you do the shopping and cook dinner tonight?”

  His gaze flickered in the direction of the outside deck. Sam’s grill was out there. The one that stoked his primitive urges. Man build fire. Man cook meat for family.

  “It’s a deal,” he agreed.

  Excellent. This way we both got what we wanted.

  * * *

  That afternoon, the pickup line hadn’t yet begun to form when I pulled in the Graceland School driveway. The camp session wouldn’t end for half an hour. I expected I would find Emily either in her office or in one of the classrooms. What I hadn’t expected was to see two people in front of the school buildings, engaged in a loud argument.

  One of those people was Emily. The other was a man I’d never seen before. He was middle-aged, and had a squat body and a shiny bald head. Wearing acid green pants and a bright yellow polo shirt, he was dressed for a game of country club golf. A large pair of aviator sunglasses covered the top half of his face.

  The man was standing much too close to Emily. I watched as he lifted his hand and shook his finger in her face. She didn’t even flinch. Nor did she reply. Her lips were drawn in a thin line of annoyance.