Live and Let Growl

by Laurien Berenson

  “Is that so?” Daniel sounded perplexed by my comment. That made him easy to categorize: not a dog person.

  “Gatewood Standard Poodles,” Aunt Peg told him. “In their day, Ellie’s Poodles were famous, and justly so. Any student of the breed is well aware of her contribution to it.”

  “Aunt Peg and Miss Ellie used to compete against each other at the big dog shows on the East Coast,” I added.

  “Then I must have misunderstood.” Daniel turned back to Peg. “I was under the impression that you had horses.”

  “Just the one, I’m afraid,” Aunt Peg admitted. “I unexpectedly inherited Lucky Luna last month. She lives at Six Oaks Farm. Last week when we ran across each other at the training track, I had just come from visiting her for the very first time.”

  “Yes, I remember that day,” Daniel said with a frown. “I had no idea who you were, but I overheard some of what you said.”

  “Aunt Peg has never been shy about expressing her opinions,” I told him. “I hope you weren’t offended.”

  “Not in the least. In fact, I would have been interested in hearing more. But Billy was pulling me in one direction and you disappeared in the other and the moment was lost.”

  The waiter came to take our dinner order and offer us refills on our drinks. Aunt Peg and Daniel accepted. Mindful of my recent misadventure, I switched to sweet tea instead.

  “So you don’t have a background in horses,” Daniel continued when the waiter had left, “and yet you had a clear preference for one of those two-year-olds over the other. Even more interesting to me, you didn’t pick the bigger, more visually impressive horse. Why is that?”

  “The bay was a better mover,” Aunt Peg told him. “And isn’t that what it’s all about? Which horse can get around the track the fastest?”

  “Simply speaking, yes. Although Billy Gates has been educating me to understand that other factors come into play as well. Things like a horse’s ancestors and its preference for one racing surface over another. Not to mention correct conformation which helps promote long-term soundness.”

  “It sounds like you’ve learned quite a lot in your short time here,” Peg said.

  “I’m trying. Although I’m still very much aware of my limitations. That’s why I hired Billy to guide me through the sales process.”

  “And why you were wondering how well we were acquainted with his family?” I asked.

  “It never hurts to seek a second expert opinion.”

  “I’m hardly that,” Aunt Peg said. “I wish I were. I’m every bit the newcomer to this business that you are. So if you discover a way to avoid making mistakes, I hope you’ll pass that knowledge along to me.”

  The two of them smiled at each other as if they were already complicit in furthering each other’s goals. I stopped just short of rolling my eyes.

  Our food arrived and conversation waned as we began to eat. Daniel and Aunt Peg had both chosen the lamb steak. I was eating a restaurant specialty, bourbon fried chicken, so all was right with my world.

  “You asked about our connection to the Gates family,” Aunt Peg said between bites. “Now I’d like to hear about yours.”

  “That won’t take long,” Daniel replied. He ate like a man who wanted to fuel his body rather than one who wished to savor the dining experience. “I was in need of a bloodstock agent and Billy Gates was recommended to me. We plan to do business together at the upcoming Keeneland sale.”

  Aunt Peg and I exchanged a look.

  “I heard you say at the funeral that you’d only met Miss Ellie briefly,” I mentioned.

  “That’s right. I attended the event solely as a gesture of support for Billy. If I’d realized ahead of time what a crush it would be, I might not have bothered. I’m sure my presence wouldn’t have been missed.”

  Aunt Peg tipped her head to one side. She gazed at him as if considering something. “When you were a young man, did you go by the name of Danny?” she asked.

  Daniel smiled. “Only occasionally. And only then among very good friends.”

  “High school friends,” I said. “Like Miss Ellie?”

  “No, as I just told you . . .” Daniel’s voice trailed away. He set down his knife and fork. “I get the feeling this conversation has taken a turn that I don’t entirely understand. What are you trying to say?”

  “We think you’ve been lying to us,” Aunt Peg informed him.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “If you were a better liar, that protest might be more convincing.” Aunt Peg sounded almost disappointed. “As it is, I think you might as well save us all some time and come clean.”

  “We found Miss Ellie’s high school yearbook,” I told him. “You know, from Foxcroft?”

  “As you mentioned earlier, you prepped at Randolph-Macon Academy,” Aunt Peg added. “Which, as you know, is also in Virginia.”

  “Virginia’s a big state,” Daniel said easily. He appeared to have regrouped. He began to eat again with a studied air of nonchalance. “Of course I’ve heard of Foxcroft. But I dated a Madeira girl myself.”

  “Did she write you love letters, too?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Miss Ellie mentioned you in her yearbook.”

  “She did not.” The denial was swift, but not entirely convincing.

  “She did,” Aunt Peg corrected him. “Did you really not know that?”

  “No.” Daniel ran his hand over his chin. “She talked about love letters?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We have the yearbook back at our hotel.”

  He looked away and I got the impression that Daniel had briefly forgotten all about us. I would have given him a minute. Not Aunt Peg. She doesn’t have a sentimental bone in her body.

  “We know that you’ve been lying to us about your friendship with Ellie Gates Wanamaker,” she announced. “What we’d like to know is why.”

  Daniel turned in his seat. “How could that possibly be any business of yours?”

  I debated the best way to answer that question. It didn’t seem wise to divulge our suspicions regarding Miss Ellie’s death just yet. So far, we’d learned very little about Daniel Nash. And I was pretty sure he’d be more inclined to share if he wasn’t aware that we doubted his good intentions.

  But as usual, Aunt Peg was three steps ahead of me. And heading in an entirely different direction.

  “The thing is, Daniel, we don’t believe that Miss Ellie’s death was an accident,” she said. “So Melanie and I find ourselves wondering what it was that really brought you to Kentucky. And what else you might be hiding.”

  I half expected Daniel to snap out a quick insult. And maybe to shove back his chair and leave the restaurant. He didn’t do either of those things. In fact, for what seemed like a very long time he didn’t do anything at all except sit and stare at us across the table. He seemed to be working something out in his mind.

  And then he finally spoke. His answer was the last thing I expected to hear.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m hiding,” he told us. “I don’t think Miss Ellie’s death was an accident either. And I have every intention of finding out who killed her.”

  Chapter 22

  I was momentarily speechless.

  Aunt Peg recovered more quickly. Indeed she barely looked perturbed by the magnitude of that bombshell.

  “I think you’d better start at the beginning,” she said briskly.

  Daniel did no such thing. Instead, on the heels of his unexpected pronouncement, he ceded us the floor. “Ladies first, please.”

  “I’m not sure I even know where to begin,” Aunt Peg said.

  “I’d advise you to start by telling me about your real connection with Miss Ellie,” Daniel replied. “And please try to make it sound more convincing than that silly story about you both owning the same kind of dog.”

  That got Aunt Peg’s hackles up. No surprise there. Funny thing though, Daniel wasn’t put off by the scowl that settled on her face.
Instead he seemed rather pleased by the effect his words had had.

  “Obviously you’re not a dog person,” I said.

  “I like dogs just fine,” he replied mildly. “I even have one.”

  “What kind?” asked Aunt Peg.

  “A Scottish Terrier.”

  “It figures.”

  “Oh?” Daniel looked amused. “And what does my choice of dog tell you?”

  “Scotties tend to be opinionated and scrappy,” Aunt Peg said. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”

  “Several people.” Daniel looked around the table with a grin. “Some of them new acquaintances. What personality traits do Standard Poodles have?”

  “They’re very smart. They’re loyal. They’re eager to please.”

  “That sounds like my first wife.”

  “Poodles also enjoy a good joke,” I said.

  “Oh, then they’re definitely not for Emily. She had no sense of humor at all.”

  “We seem to have gotten sidetracked.” Aunt Peg’s tone was a bit sharp. “Miss Ellie didn’t just have a dog. She developed and maintained a premier line of Standard Poodles. Her dogs were a hugely important part of her life and she traveled over much of the country to exhibit them at dog shows.”

  “And that’s how the two of you met,” Daniel confirmed.

  “Yes, it was. At first we were competitors, but as time went on we became good friends. Miss Ellie and I spoke often back then. We compared notes on our respective breeding programs, on judges, and on the genetic research that was being done at that time.”

  Aunt Peg stopped speaking. She glanced down at her plate as if she was surprised to see it still sitting there. Though her dinner was only half-finished, she appeared to have lost her appetite.

  “Unfortunately Miss Ellie and I lost touch when she stopped showing Poodles,” she said after a moment. “I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen but it was an unsettled time in both our lives. And with half the country between us, our relationship simply faded away.”

  “What about you?” Daniel turned in my direction. “Where do you fit in?”

  Good question. I’d often wondered about that myself.

  “I teach school,” I told him. “Married, two kids, six dogs. I came to Kentucky for spring break.”

  “Most people head farther south,” Daniel said. Once again, he looked amused.

  “I’m not the bikini and tequila type. Kentucky seemed like a fine idea until . . .”

  I didn’t need to complete the sentence. We all knew what I meant.

  “Some people seem to think I have a suspicious mind,” Aunt Peg said into the silence that followed.

  “Some people would be right,” I muttered.

  Aunt Peg ignored me. Nothing new about that.

  “Melanie and I spent time with Miss Ellie on the two days before her death,” she said. “She seemed to be in good spirits and in good health. With regard to her family’s farm, we were told that Miss Ellie knew every foot of that land intimately. So the thought that she took a tumble that led to her death seems patently inconceivable.”

  “Perhaps I share your suspicious nature then. Because the same thought seems obvious to me,” Daniel agreed.

  Our waiter approached the table. Daniel lifted a hand and waved the man away.

  “The two of you were acquainted with a side of Miss Ellie that I knew nothing about,” he said. “Did she have enemies in the dog world? Is it possible that someone might have wanted to harm her?”

  “I asked around at the dog show on Sunday,” I told him. “Eventually I was directed to a man named Arthur Ludwig.”

  “Miss Ellie was involved in a serious car accident with Ludwig a number of years ago.” Aunt Peg took up the story. “Her son, Gates, was badly injured in the crash. Ludwig’s wife died several days later.”

  “And he blamed Miss Ellie for that?”

  “Yes, and apparently with good reason,” I said. “According to Ludwig, she was drunk when the accident occurred.”

  Daniel frowned. “But if that’s true, there would have been legal repercussions—”

  “There was no investigation,” Aunt Peg told him. “Instead, a settlement was offered and accepted and the matter was dropped. The entire incident was hushed up by the family.”

  “Ah, yes, the almighty Gates family,” Daniel said knowingly. “I can picture that happening.”

  “It sounds as though you’re better acquainted with them than you’ve previously let on,” I said.

  Daniel nodded. “As you’ve already surmised, Miss Ellie and I met when we were in school in Virginia. We were teenagers. We thought we were in love. Hell, we thought we invented love.”

  “And the Gates family put a stop to that?” Aunt Peg guessed.

  “We were no Romeo and Juliet if that’s what you’re thinking. As with most things, the truth is more complicated than that. Miss Ellie had been raised from birth to conform to a set of expectations that were as archaic as they were inflexible. Her parents viewed Foxcroft as a finishing school, a place where Ellie could be exposed to the outside world but within the confines of a rigorously controlled environment. Diploma in hand, she was meant to return to Kentucky, marry a nice boy from a pre-approved family, and pop out the next generation of horse farmers.”

  “That sounds rather constricting,” I said.

  “I totally agree. But that was the kind of life Miss Ellie knew—and what she thought she wanted. Of course I wasn’t aware of all that when we met. It wasn’t until the end of senior year that she told me that there could never be anything serious between us because her family wouldn’t approve.”

  “That must have stung,” Aunt Peg said.

  “It did. And all the more so because I thought we already had something serious.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “What could I do? It wasn’t as if Miss Ellie had left me any choice. She went home to Kentucky and I went on to Yale. For a while I held out hope that she would change her mind but she never did. We continued to keep in touch over the years. Miss Ellie got married. I did, too. Three times.”

  “Three?” Aunt Peg inquired with interest. “You must be an optimist.”

  “Either that or an idiot,” Daniel muttered.

  This time when the waiter reappeared, we let him clear our plates. Aunt Peg and Daniel ordered the chocolate torte for dessert. I slipped a finger beneath the unforgiving waistband of my pants and settled for a cappuccino.

  “So here we are,” Aunt Peg said when he’d left. She stared hard at Daniel. “Two people who once knew Miss Ellie well—one old friend and one jilted lover. After everything you’ve said, tell me why I shouldn’t be suspicious of your motives in coming to Kentucky. You reappeared and now Miss Ellie is dead. That seems like a terrible coincidence to me.”

  “Except for two things,” Daniel said. “First, I’m not the only one who reappeared in Miss Ellie’s life shortly before she died. The same could be said of you.”

  He paused to let that sink in. “And second, the only reason I’m here is because Miss Ellie invited me to come.”

  The man had a flair for lobbing bombshells. You had to give him that. Which didn’t mean that I believed this new information Daniel had suddenly presented us with. Not even for a minute.

  “That’s not true,” I said. “You came to Kentucky to get a horse. You talked about it at the funeral. You hired Billy. You told everyone that you were shopping at Keeneland for a racehorse.”

  “That’s what you were supposed to think. That’s what Miss Ellie wanted everyone to think.”

  I blinked several times. It didn’t help. Nothing became clearer at all. I hoped my cappuccino arrived soon. I could definitely use a jolt of caffeine.

  “So you’re not going to buy a racehorse?” I asked in a small voice.

  “Not if I can help it. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a totally irrational business. Someone would have to be crazy to want to invest money in it.”

 
Aunt Peg was more on point than I was. She started with the question I should have asked. “You said that Miss Ellie invited you here. After all these years, why would she do that?”

  “She needed my help.”

  “I see.” Aunt Peg didn’t sound convinced. “And despite the history the two of you shared, you still dropped everything and came halfway across the country at her behest?”

  “Truthfully, there wasn’t much to drop,” Daniel said. “My children are grown. My last divorce is final. I retired last year. I’d never been to Kentucky before. This seemed like as good a time as any.”

  “And you were hoping that the two of you would reconnect romantically,” I said.

  Daniel shrugged. “Let’s just say that I was open to the possibility. Times change. Miss Ellie was obviously no longer connected with her family—and their mandates—in the way she’d once been. I figured, why not? I’ve had three unsuccessful marriages. It occurred to me that maybe it was time to go back to the beginning and start over.”

  “And is that what happened?” I asked.

  “No,” he admitted. “But I’ve only been in Kentucky a week and we had other business to attend to first. Sad to say, when I arrived, neither one of us suspected that time to leisurely explore something else between us was the one thing we didn’t have.”

  “Tell us about your other business,” Aunt Peg prompted.

  We all paused as the waiter served dessert and the after-dinner drinks.

  The chocolate torte featured rich, dark cake and vanilla ice cream sitting atop a pool of melted chocolate. It looked divine. Aunt Peg is territorial where sweets are concerned. But she also appeared to be very interested in what Daniel had to say. With luck, I thought I might be able to snag a bite when she wasn’t looking.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Aunt Peg said sharply.

  Seriously? Was she reading my mind now?

  “What seems to be the problem?” asked Daniel.

  “Melanie, who didn’t have the forethought to order her own dessert, is now coveting mine,” Peg informed him.

  “Just one bite,” I said in my own defense. “Maybe two.”

  “You may share mine,” said Daniel. He handed over a spare spoon and nudged the dessert plate into position between us. “This portion is entirely too large for me.”