A Pedigree to Die For

by Laurien Berenson

  “So?”

  “So I imagine that’s what alerted Max to the fact that there was a problem in the first place. As to myself, when you’ve owned as many dogs for as long as we have, you don’t get up to investigate every little noise they bark at during the night. Instead you stay nice and warm in bed, yell ‘shut up!’ as loudly as you can, and go right back to sleep. I’m so used to them by now that most nights I can sleep through anything.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re curious, aren’t you?” The thought seemed to please her.

  “Of course I’m curious. You can’t just show up, toss around a handful of dreadful ideas, and then expect me to forget all about it. To tell you the truth, I spent a good part of last night thinking about what you’d said.”

  “And?”

  “And . . .” A wry grin slipped out. “It managed to knock Bradley Watermain right out of my mind.”

  “Best place for him.” Their one meeting, at a summer barbecue, had not been a success. “Bradley is a wimp.”

  “As of two days ago, a married wimp.”

  “Not to you, I hope.”

  “A six-foot chorus girl in Las Vegas.”

  “Bless his heart,” Aunt Peg said happily. “Now are you going to help me find this dog or not?”

  There are plenty of reasons why people make decisions. In this case, mine ranged from a latent dose of family loyalty to simple curiosity. But what finally tipped the scales in Aunt Peg’s favor was a niggling feeling, new in the last few days, that somehow my life was simply slipping away.

  In the past ten days, I’d lost an uncle, a job, and a lover. What was worse, I didn’t seem to have anything to say about any of the three. That should have shaken me up, and it had. Enough to make me realize that for the last few years—ever since Bob left me really—I’d been coasting along in neutral, going through the motions without really playing the game.

  I was thirty years old, a mother, a teacher, and an exwife. I’d defined myself in terms of those roles, and for a long time, it had seemed like enough. But now suddenly, there were times late at night when I sat all alone, and the roles slipped away, and I wondered if there was really anyone there at all.

  When I was young, I’d thought I could do anything. Brimming with confidence, I’d leapt into teaching, then marriage, then almost immediately, motherhood. It had been a long time now since I’d felt as though I could conquer the world. The realization made me feel old. It also kindled a determination I hadn’t felt in years.

  “Yes,” I said with a slow smile. “I think I am.”

  In the kitchen, we toasted our new alliance. Aunt Peg poured a steaming cup of tea for herself and, with no apologies, plunked a jar of instant coffee down on the counter for me. I fixed a cup. She filled a plate with scones. Then we sat down to make some plans.

  “You’d rather have had Frank, wouldn’t you?” I said bluntly. Some things are better gotten out of the way. Lord knew, I’d faced the attitude often enough in my own parents. Eventually, I’d put the hurt behind me. All I wanted now was to know where I stood.

  “Frank always seems to have time on his hands,” Aunt Peg pointed out. “You don’t.”

  “You must know what he’s like . . .” I paused, and saw her nod imperceptibly. “He wouldn’t have been much help to you.”

  Aunt Peg shrugged. “I didn’t get to pick my relatives.”

  My response to that was a half laugh, half snort of indignation. “I could be insulted by the way this conversation is shaping up.”

  “Could, but won’t. You’ve got too much sense for that.” She peered at me closely. “In fact, I’d say you’re a lot like me in quite a number of ways.”

  “Then why haven’t we ever been close?”

  “I guess we’ve both just had too much to do—too many commitments and not enough time to sit back and enjoy life. It’s about time you took a little time off for yourself, you know.”

  “Frank could probably give me pointers.”

  “Probably could.” Aunt Peg searched my face and frowned at what she saw. “Forget about him. That boy isn’t my problem, and shouldn’t be yours either. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that we’re better off without him. Now then, where do you think we ought to start?”

  So much for family, and on to the business at hand. “How about checking out the scene of the crime?”

  Aunt Peg looked dubious. “I’ve been in the kennel dozens of times since that night and I didn’t notice anything unusual.”

  “You keep the kennel locked at night, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then how do you suppose the thief got in?”

  “Through the door, I’d imagine. It was standing wide open the next morning.”

  “That doesn’t mean he went in that way, only that it’s probably how he came out. Picture this,” I said, thinking aloud. “Somehow the thief gets into the kennel. He nabs the dog and is on his way out when he sees Uncle Max coming out of the house. He scoots back inside and hides in the dark. They scuffle, the thief runs. Of course he doesn’t stop to check and see if he’s left anything incriminating behind.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Aunt Peg said thoughtfully. “You know, you’re very good at this.” Coming from her, that was all sorts of praise.

  “I read a lot.”

  “Nonfiction?”

  “Dick Francis.”

  “He does horses,” she said as she rose. She put the dishes in the sink and left them.

  I followed her to the back door. “I’ll try to scale down.”

  She stopped at the door and turned. For the first time that I could remember, we shared a smile. “Maybe I did overlook something. Let’s go down and see what we can ” see.

  Four

  The small kennel building where Beau had been housed stood not more than ten yards from the main residence. It was painted to match—white, with a creamy, yellow trim; and on this bright, sunny morning, it looked like the last place where something terrible might have happened. Somewhat like the witch’s gingerbread cottage, I supposed.

  A row of long narrow dog runs stretched out from the side wall into the large field beyond. When we left the house they were empty, but as we approached, the swinging doors that connected them to the kennel burst open. Each held a big, black, hairy Poodle, one to a customer, and all barking a frenzied welcome.

  I glanced their way, then quickly looked again. Most of the Poodles looked like normal dogs. The two on the end, however, were clipped elaborately. The front halves of their bodies were encased in a huge mane of hair, while the hindquarters and legs were shaved down to the skin, leaving only a profusion of pompons to cover their nakedness.

  “Aunt Peg, why exactly are the dogs cut that way?”

  “They’re in show trim. This is the Continental clip,” she said, pausing by the fence of the nearest run. “It’s a traditional trim which, according to legend, was developed for practicality’s sake by the German hunters who originated the breed.”

  “German? I thought Poodles came from France.”

  “Most people do. And the little ones might well have. But the Standard Poodles were first bred in Germany where they were used as retrievers. Because the waters there were so cold, they needed the long thick coats for warmth, but then they got bogged down trying to swim in them. To help out, the hunters clipped away all the hair that wasn’t essential.

  “The mane,” Aunt Peg said, pointing to the big ruff of hair on the front, “serves as protection for the heart and lungs. The bracelets on the legs warm the joints. The hip rosettes cover the kidneys. And the pompon on the tail stood up to mark the dog’s spot when he dove underwater after a bird.”

  “I never knew any of that,” I said, joining her beside the run. I threaded my fingers through the fence to pat a closely clipped, inquisitive muzzle. It felt surprisingly like my ex-husband with a case of five o’clock shadow. Dark intelligent eyes regarded me calmly as, with utmost dignity, the Poodle be
gan to lick my fingers.

  “Now you do,” Aunt Peg said briskly. “Poodles aren’t just any dogs, you know. They’re very special.”

  “Of course,” I murmured, and kept the rest of my thoughts to myself. Every mother thinks her own child is the best.

  Davey came racing around the front of the building as Peg opened the door. He glanced inside, then kept on going. Just as well. No doubt he would get up to less trouble outside the kennel than in.

  The room we entered seemed to be part sitting room and part grooming area. A rubber-matted grooming table was parked in the middle of the floor, and I stepped around it to inspect the well-stocked shelves that filled one side wall. The quantity of equipment she had lined up and ready for use was nothing short of amazing.

  Of course there were brushes and combs, each in several different varieties. But I also saw clippers and nail grinders, three kinds of shampoo with matching conditioners, colored rubber bands, special wrapping papers, and a leather case filled with scissors. And those were only the things I recognized. Obviously the time and effort it took to keep Aunt Peg’s Poodles in top shape had to have been staggering.

  That her efforts had paid off handsomely, however, was apparent from the condition of her trophy cabinet, which overflowed with an assortment of gleaming silverware. It was an impressive display, and I said so.

  Aunt Peg shrugged off the compliment and passed by the hardware without so much as a glance. She stopped at a collection of framed pictures, all eight-by-ten shots, all taken at dog shows. Each one featured Aunt Peg holding one Poodle or another while the judge awarded them a prize.

  “Champion Cedar Crest Salute,” she said, tapping her finger against several of the frames in turn. “My first Best in Show winner, and Beau’s great-grandfather.”

  We moved a bit farther down the wall, and the pictures shifted from black-and-white to color as they became more recent. “These two here are Beau,” Aunt Peg said proudly.

  I leaned over and peered closely at the pictures. Like all the others, they showed Aunt Peg, a judge, and a big black Poodle. How she managed to tell the dogs apart, I had no idea.

  “He’s very pretty,” I said politely.

  Aunt Peg smiled but didn’t comment. I hadn’t fooled her for a minute.

  When we reached the end of the row, she led the way through an arched doorway, and we entered another large rectangular room. This one was lined on both sides with wire pens, most of them taken. As we walked down the aisle, Aunt Peg stopped to greet each dog by name.

  “This is the inside half of the runs you just saw.” She gestured toward an empty pen at the end of the row, then quickly looked away. “That’s where I found Max.”

  I nodded, eyes down, and headed that way. The back wall, with two windows and a door had definite potential, and I bent down to inspect the area. There was nothing unusual about the first window, and its latch was still securely fastened. Aunt Peg leaned down over my shoulder to have a look, too.

  “What are you doing?” asked Davey, sneaking up behind us as we hovered solicitously over the sill.

  Aunt Peg and I both jumped, and I could tell from the look on her face that she felt every bit as foolish as I did. “We’re looking for clues,” she said, mustering a considerable show of dignity. “You can help if you want.”

  “Okay,” Davey agreed, disappearing again.

  Aunt Peg and I went back to our examination, but the second window was no more promising than the first. An inspection of the back door showed that it was bolted as, Aunt Peg maintained, it had been all along.

  “Maybe the windows in the other room?” she suggested, and we went back to look. They yielded nothing of interest either.

  Frustrated, I stood in the archway between the two rooms. We’d checked every entrance to the kennel, and they all looked as though they’d never been disturbed.

  “Mommy! Aunt Peg!” Davey called out. “I’m hiding. Come find me.”

  It was bound to happen sooner or later. Davey has two passions in life: cars and playing hide-and-seek. At any given moment, he’s either involved with one of those two pursuits or plotting how to get that way. Now I knew from experience that he was probably wedged into some impossibly small spot that was the last place I’d think to look. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t leave either one of us alone until he’d been found.

  Aunt Peg and I checked all the obvious places first. None of them panned out. But since I could hear him giggling, he had to be in the kennel. Suddenly I realized that the door to the empty pen at the end, which had been open, was now shut.

  “Aha!” I cried, pouncing on the gate and opening it wide. To my chagrin, the pen was empty. Then I noticed the large dog door that led to the outside run. Aunt Peg had the same idea at the same time. We left through the human door and went around the side of the building.

  Davey was sitting in the outer pen, enclosed in wire mesh fencing, and playing happily in the gravel. “You found me,” he said with a pout, clearly disappointed in the outcome of the game.

  “We sure did. But how do we get you out of there?”

  “Easy enough,” said Aunt Peg. “There’s a gate at the end of each run for getting in to clean up. As you can see, I couldn’t fit through the dog door.”

  “You might,” I said slowly. “If you wanted to badly enough.”

  Aunt Peg looked up. “You know, I might at that. At any rate, it’s not impossible. The gates are locked so that the neighborhood kids can’t come over and let the dogs out, but I suppose it would be easy enough to climb the fence.” She went inside to get the key, and within moments, Davey had been freed.

  “Were any of the runs empty that night?” I asked as she clanged the gate shut.

  “That one there.” Aunt Peg pointed to the third from the end. “It’s been empty for several weeks. I only put Lulu in there yesterday.”

  Lulu was forty pounds of shaggy, playful puppy, and I saw right away that her exuberance had probably destroyed any clues we might have found. All the same, it was worth a look. Aunt Peg went back around into the building again. I heard her call, and Lulu disappeared, whisked inside through the dog door to be moved to another run.

  We covered every inch of the inside pen, then moved to the run outdoors. To be honest, I didn’t know what exactly what we were looking for, or what we’d have done with it if we’d found something. Still, it was hard not to be disappointed when nothing turned up.

  I was just about ready to give up when Davey, who was back in the dirt by the dog door, began to laugh gleefully. “I’m rich!” he cried, tossing a handful of pebbles and small shiny objects into the air.

  “What have you got there, Davey?” I scrambled to my feet. If he’d found marbles, I would have to move fast. For some reason he persisted in thinking that, like olives, they were meant to be eaten.

  “Buried treasure!”

  I went to look and discovered that he had indeed found money, a small pile of coins mixed in with the gravel near the door. I scooped the money into my hand and counted it. Two quarters, three dimes, and a nickel, including three Canadian coins. Hardly a fortune, even by my standards. “You don’t suppose this is the clue we’ve been looking for, do you?”

  “I hope not,” said Aunt Peg. “Because if it is, it’s a damn poor one. All it tells us is that maybe I was robbed by someone who carries change in his pockets. And that includes just about everyone. On the other hand, it could just as easily have been dropped by the workmen who fixed that fence for me last month.”

  I juggled the change in my hand. “Do people show Poodles in Canada, too?”

  “Of course, their system is quite similar to ours. Why?”

  I showed her the Canadian coins. “Do you suppose there’s a chance that someone came down from Canada and took him?”

  “A small one, if that. Good as Beau is, he’s had almost no exposure outside this country. I just can’t imagine that anyone up there could have wanted him that badly. Besides, what’s the big deal about a
few Canadian dimes? You can get those from any supermarket. It happens to me all the time.”

  “Want my money back,” said Davey, tugging at my leg from the ground.

  I handed it over, then stood him up and dusted him off. “So much for easy solutions.”

  Aunt Peg gave me a look. “I don’t know what ever made you think this was going to be easy. If it was easy to find Beau, I’d have done it myself a week ago.”

  As usual, she had a point.

  Five

  Back in the kitchen, I leaned Davey over the sink and lathered his hands and arms with soap. The house Poodles vied among themselves for the best vantage points, then sat down and watched every move. I’d never seen dogs that were so intensely curious about everything that went on around them. Next I’d be expecting them to form an opinion.

  Aunt Peg came upstairs from putting the towels in the dryer and stepped around the lounging black animals with practiced ease. “He keeps you busy, doesn’t he?” she asked.

  Davey grabbed for the soap, narrowly avoiding knocking over a bowl of soaking kibble. I settled for answering with a nod.

  “I guess that’s what children are all about.”

  She was stalling, I realized, and I wondered why. I used the sprayer to rinse Davey off, then dried him with a paper towel. “In another couple weeks, things will get better when he starts summer camp. I can’t wait.”

  “Nine to five?”

  I smiled at her naivete as I hopped Davey down and steered him into the den toward the TV. “Mornings only. When they’re four, you take what you can get, and thank God for it.”

  Thanks to the wonders of syndication, “Father Knows Best” was on. I’d grown up with Marcus Welby. Leaving Davey with Robert Young was like leaving him with a member of the family. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich completed the picture, then Aunt Peg and I were free to go in the living room and talk. The Poodles, seeing the possibility of a handout, elected to remain behind.

  “So,” said Aunt Peg. “You’re the one who reads mysteries. After we’ve checked out the scene of the crime, what are we supposed to do next?”