Crossing the Lion: A Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery

by Cynthia Baxter

  “Is that where you live?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Amherst. Up there I’m surrounded by tons of New England charm, not to mention so many colleges and universities I couldn’t begin to name them all.”

  “So you don’t live in the New York area,” I said, remembering that Betty had mentioned that one of the three Merrywood offspring lived elsewhere.

  “Nope. Missy and Tag both still live in Manhattan, on the Upper East Side not far from our parents’ place. But I’ve been living in Amherst since I was eighteen. I went to college there, then decided to stay after I graduated.”

  “What school?”

  “Hampshire.”

  His choice of colleges seemed like a good match. Hampshire College was as well known for its freestyle atmosphere as it was for its slightly offbeat curriculum. In fact, that entire section of Massachusetts struck me as a place where Brock would fit right in. As he’d mentioned, it was chock-full of first-rate colleges, including Amherst, Smith, and Mount Holyoke, along with an accompanying population of intellectuals ranging from nerds to free spirits.

  “Hampshire turned out to be the perfect place for me, since it truly helped me find myself,” Brock continued, almost as if he’d guessed what I was thinking. “The school specializes in interdisciplinary majors, instead of just offering single-subject majors the way most colleges do. I was in the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies. The students all design their own curriculum, so I was able to take a lot of studio art courses along with classes in philosophy and psychology and a bunch of other fields that interested me.”

  “It must have been great to tailor your courses to your personality,” I observed.

  “It was,” he said. “I really appreciate having had those four years to get to know myself better. And since then I’ve been lucky enough to find a group of similar-minded people to live with.”

  “Other Hampshire graduates?”

  “No,” he replied, “but people who are also motivated more by a search for fulfillment than by chasing the almighty dollar.”

  He hesitated before adding, “I live in kind of an experimental community called Cold Spring Farm.” His tone had suddenly changed. I was pretty sure I detected an edge of defensiveness. “A bunch of us live cooperatively, meaning we split up a lot of the chores. We prepare and eat most of our meals together, we focus on living green, and we generally try to be supportive of one another rather than competitive. Quite a few of the people who live there are also artists, so we can bounce around ideas and just generally feed off one another’s creative processes. All in all, I’m really happy with my living situation.”

  “It sounds as if a lot of that makes sense,” I commented. “Especially the part about sharing dinner every night. It must be fun to eat with a big crowd. Sharing the cleanup isn’t a bad concept, either.”

  Brock smiled, as if he was pleased by my approval of his chosen lifestyle.

  “It’s not only the practical stuff that appeals to me,” he went on. “What matters even more is how good it feels to be part of a community. We’re all pretty like-minded, so we focus on things that matter. The whole place is solar-powered, and we generate hardly any garbage at all, between composting and recycling and just shopping carefully. We also grow a lot of our own fruits and vegetables. That saves energy by cutting down on trips to the store.”

  At this point, Corky wandered back to him, probably because he feared Admiral was getting the bulk of my attention. Reaching down to pet him, Brock added wistfully, “But I’d still love to do something I really care about and make enough money to hire somebody like your assistant. I hate doing all the accounting and the day-to-day business stuff as much as you seem to. It would be so great to be free to spend all my time doing what I care about—which at this point is making jewelry.”

  I hesitated before saying, “This may not be any of my business, but it seems to me that your family is in a position to help you out a bit.” Quickly, I added, “At least during the beginning stages of your new endeavor. I’d think your parents would have been happy to extend a loan—or even become investors.”

  Brock’s lip curled. “You’d think, right? Unfortunately, neither of them ever had much faith in me.”

  “But your mother seems to think the world of you!” I exclaimed.

  Still wearing a look of disdain, he said, “She does—but only in my role as the baby of the family. Since I’m her youngest, Mom seems to think I’m eight years old. But when it comes to believing in my ability to make a go of things … Well, that’s an entirely different story.”

  “What about your father?” I asked gently. “From everything I’ve heard about him, he seems to have been exceptionally generous.”

  “Ha!” Brock cried. “With other people, maybe. Not with his own kids. He believed we should learn to make our own way in the world. He was one of those parents who made us work for every nickel. If one of us wanted to buy a book or a CD—or even go to a movie with a bunch of friends—we had to do extra chores to get the cash.

  “And not simple jobs like taking out the trash, either,” he continued, his tone becoming increasingly bitter. “More like heavy yard work or even construction. One summer, when I was a teenager, I ended up building a new shed all by myself so I could make enough money to buy gas for my car—which of course I’d bought myself. Dad paid for the basics like food, clothing, and shelter. But we had to earn money for everything else we wanted—or needed.” Scornfully, he added, “Dad called it teaching us the value of a dollar.”

  “But didn’t that change once you all grew up?” I was thinking about Missy’s love of designer duds. Since she’d mentioned herself that she was too busy doing charity work to bring in a salary of her own, I’d assumed that her ability to look as if she’d just stepped out of an ad was the result of her father’s indulgence. Then again, it was possible that her husband was the one who footed the bills. He certainly looked the part of someone who was extremely successful.

  As for Tag, I didn’t know where he got the money to subsidize his hobbies. That car, for example.

  “You’d think, right?” Brock replied. “Instead, my parents got even stingier. Especially with me. That was mainly because they never really ‘got’ me.”

  Sneering, he added, “My father used to say, ‘Brock, you may be the youngest, but that doesn’t mean you have to act young for the rest of your life.’ Hearing that always made my blood boil. Even last weekend, when he and I had the same argument, we—”

  He stopped suddenly, all the blood draining from his face.

  “Not that that little fight of ours was any different from the ones we’ve been having since I was a kid,” he said, visibly flustered. “It was nothing more than the two of us going at each other like most fathers and sons, rehashing the same old script.”

  But maybe this time, I thought, you improvised a different ending.

  “The same goes for my brother and sister,” Brock went on, speaking quickly, as if he was anxious to move on to a different topic. “My beloved siblings have the same attitude, in case you haven’t noticed. Missy and Tag both think I’m totally flaky.”

  “I did notice that Missy made a comment or two about your lifestyle,” I agreed.

  “Ha! She thinks everything I do is worthless.” By this point, Brock’s tone was scathing. “She always thought she was better than me, even back when we were kids. Now that we’re adults, she makes fun of the way I eat, the way I dress, the fact that I choose to live in harmony with a bunch of other people of like mind … She doesn’t get that I’m on a quest to find meaning in my life instead of … of frittering away my time shopping or pretending to be a do-gooder or whatever she does all day.

  “And Tag isn’t any better,” he went on, still practically spitting out his words. “His spiritual side is zilch. The only thing he cares about is picking up flashy women and buying the latest car and … and partying, preferably somewhere in the world that’s bursting with yachts and champagne
and who knows what else. Lately he’s been talking about buying his own plane. Do you have any idea how selfish and decadent that is? It would never even occur to the guy to try to minimize his carbon footprint. He acts as if indulging in whatever suits his fancy at the moment is what life is all about.”

  Suddenly Brock leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes and noisily letting out a puff of air. I got the feeling that expounding on the topic of his siblings’ wastefulness had drained him of all energy. In fact, he was pretty much back to the state in which I’d found him.

  Interesting guy, I thought, studying him. Brock clearly has a disdain for money—or at least the ways in which most people choose to spend it, especially those with a lot of it. And that includes his sister and his brother.

  Yet he yearns for money of his own, mainly to subsidize a lifestyle of spending every waking minute doing only what he loves.

  I was certainly sympathetic to that, since I was someone who had also made sure I found a meaningful career. But given all the feeling behind his words, I couldn’t help wondering just how far Brock would go in order to make that happen.

  Chapter 7

  “Even a hare will insult a dead lion.”

  —Latin Proverb

  After Brock dragged himself off the couch and retreated to his bedroom, with Corky and Admiral padding happily after him, I checked my watch. I was surprised to see that it was already mid-afternoon.

  That explained why my stomach was growling. I realized that Nick hadn’t had any lunch, either. So I decided to put together a picnic that he and I could enjoy in the privacy of our own room, without any Merrywoods around.

  I wandered into the kitchen. At first, I was disappointed that Cook was nowhere in sight. While Falcone had already talked to her, I was anxious to do a little questioning of my own.

  But I quickly realized that the fact that no one else was in the kitchen left me free to do some poking around. I opened cabinets and checked both the restaurant-sized stainless-steel refrigerator and the pantry, which was practically a room in itself.

  As I looked for the ingredients for a romantic meal for two, I also tried to get a sense of the room’s layout. After all, since Linus’s demise was believed to have been caused by his own birthday cake, the kitchen had played a key role on the night of his death.

  The kitchen was huge, with lots of assorted counters and cabinets. Even more important, the room had no fewer than four different entrances. The most obvious was the doorway from the main hall, the way I’d come in. The second was the swinging door that led to the dining room. Cook had used that one the night before while serving the family dinner.

  But there were two more ways to enter and exit the kitchen. One was a back door that led outside. Looking out through the glass panels set into it, I saw a walkway that appeared to curve around the house, leading in the direction of the dock. It occurred to me that if someone had switched the birthday cakes, that person could have used any one of these doors, with the one leading outside the house the best bet.

  The fourth was an arched opening that led directly to a staircase. I suspected it connected with the section of the house that contained the servants’ quarters.

  On impulse, I decided this was a good time to find out.

  I quickly piled an assortment of picnic goodies onto a tray: a hunk of cheese, the leftover croissants and fruit salad from breakfast, and, for the main course, the remaining Rock Cornish hens from last night’s dinner. My booty provided me with a good cover. If I ran into anyone, I’d simply say I got lost while looking for a more direct route from the kitchen to my bedroom.

  Clutching my tray, I tromped up the stairs confidently. When I reached a landing, I saw that I’d been correct about the layout of this part of the house. A short carpeted hallway jutted off to one side. Four closed doors led off it, two on each side. Given the fact that these doors were considerably closer to each other than those in the main part of the house, I surmised that these smaller bedrooms were occupied by Jives, Gwennie, and Cook.

  As for the staircase, it kept going up. But it got narrower, as did the walls surrounding it.

  Those walls also became curved, and instead of being made of plaster that was painted white, they were composed of craggy gray stone. I suspected that this particular staircase led up into one of the house’s towers.

  As I continued up the stairs, still clutching my tray, I realized that my palms were damp and my mouth was dry.

  Calm down, I scolded myself. You’ve read too many fairy tales. Chances are there are no ogres locked up in this tower.

  In fact, there’s probably no one up here at all, except maybe some mice. And definitely a few spiders, I thought, as I veered away from a web the size of a café curtain.

  This tower turned out to be much higher than the one Aunt Alvira called home. I was out of breath by the time I reached the top. By this point, the stairs were so tiny that I had to walk up them on tiptoe. And simply holding on to the tray became a challenge, since I would have much preferred to use my hands to brace myself against the cold stone walls.

  A handrail would be nice, I thought grimly. So would a light.

  Once again, I cursed myself for not carrying a flashlight as standard procedure. Of course, like the tray piled with food that was starting to seem more burdensome than tempting, it would have been difficult to hold, anyway.

  Still, at least I’d made it all the way up. In front of me was a wooden door with a curved top, the kind that’s usually featured in gnomes’ huts. It was also only as tall as your usual gnome—without his gnome hat.

  There was probably nothing up here but an empty room, I decided. After all, this place was too inaccessible for anyone to have turned it into living space. It wouldn’t even be useful for storage, since it would be impossible to drag up anything bigger than a shoebox.

  I decided it must have been built as a lookout. Either that or the architect thought it would look cool for his castlelike structure to have a tower. At any rate, I intended to find out, no matter how creepy it was.

  Balancing my tray on my forearm, I placed my free hand on the tarnished metal doorknob. My palm was so sweaty that I was afraid I wouldn’t get enough traction to open it even if it wasn’t locked.

  So I was surprised when it turned easily in my hand.

  I pushed open the door, immediately coughing as a cloud of dust puffed in my face. The hinges creaked loudly, making screeching sounds that were almost eerie enough to send me running back down those stairs.

  But I’d come this far. Besides, by this point I was convinced that I’d find nothing but an empty room.

  Sure enough, that was pretty much what I saw once I stepped inside. But while there was little light in the small round room, there was just enough that I could make out some shadowy shapes along the back wall. While they weren’t readily identifiable, I was glad that none of them appeared to be shaped like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

  But while Quasimodo might not have been up here, I got the feeling someone else was.

  At first I thought I was imagining it. But as I stood inside the doorway, I could definitely hear something that sounded like short, quick breaths.

  There was someone up here.

  Or maybe something.

  My heart was beating as loudly as the telltale version immortalized by Edgar Allan Poe as I squinted in an effort to adjust to the dim light, meanwhile bracing myself for whatever I might see. Some supernatural being, perhaps, or some grotesque soul who for some horrific reason was forced to live his or her life hidden away from the rest of the world.

  And then something moved. One of the shadows rose from the floor and began moving toward me, into the light …

  “Tag?” I cried, blinking.

  As he emerged from the shadows, I could see a look of terror in his eyes. “Jessie?” he asked in a strained voice. “Is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me,” I replied crossly, nearly collapsing as a wave of relief washed over me.
Now that I’d discovered that the ghoul hiding at the top of this tower was only Tag Merrywood, I felt like a complete fool. “What are you doing up here?”

  “Uh, just looking through some old things.”

  By now I was able to see quite well, and I glanced around the small room. I immediately realized that he couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. The entire space was empty, aside from an impressive number of dust bunnies that had grown to the size of tumbleweeds.

  Which could mean only one thing: Tag was hiding out up here.

  “I was so pleased to find that old tennis racket,” he babbled on, “that I figured I’d poke around the house to see if there was anything else I could bring back home with me.”

  “In that case,” I said dryly, “wouldn’t it help to have some light?” Or, even better, something to actually look at?

  Sheepishly, he said, “I thought I might find some stuff from my childhood up here. I was particularly interested in, uh, my old baseball-card collection. But I realize now that nothing’s stored here anymore. I guess somebody cleaned this place out since the last time I came up.”

  “That would explain it,” I agreed, still puzzling over what all this was about.

  “So, uh, who came to the island just now?” Tag’s voice was strangely thick as he added, “I saw someone sneak over here on a little boat a while ago. A man. Who was he?”

  It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what he was referring to.

  “Nick,” I finally replied. “My husband. He’s a busy law student, but he decided he could get just as much studying done here as at home. So he found someone to bring him over.”

  Tag let out a deep, relieved sigh. “Is that all,” he said breathlessly.

  He really is hiding, I thought, startled. And not from his family, either.

  There’s someone out there he’s afraid of.

  That realization led to another: Tag was in some sort of trouble. And from the deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face, I got the feeling it was rooted in something a lot more serious than an angry ex-wife or ex-girlfriend.