A Pedigree to Die For

by Laurien Berenson

  He paused for a drink that drained a third of his glass. “Two weeks later she got out of her run and was killed by a car on the road out front. It’s too bad. She was a nice bitch who deserved better. I’m glad I’m finally getting the chance to do right by her son.”

  I folded the pedigree and slipped it into my purse. No way was I going to tell him that the Poodle he obviously adored just wasn’t the right one for me. At least not now. I had another sip of wine instead. Its smooth dry taste didn’t assuage my guilt in the slightest.

  Nineteen

  As silly as it seems, when I started this project I’d thought of it as a few weeks’ diversion during what promised to be a dull summer. Now it was August, and if there’d been one dull moment so far, I’d have liked to have known when it was.

  On the plus side, Davey was doing great at camp and I was making enough money, if barely, to keep our heads above water. I was learning about Poodles and dog shows and enjoying my education. The Volvo was still holding its own and last, but certainly not least, Bradley Watermain had left a message on my answering machine saying he’d made a big mistake.

  With all that going on you’d think I wouldn’t have much to complain about, but I did. In the first place, Aunt Rose wasn’t speaking to me and I was none too pleased with her. In the second, there was Sam Driver, who was making his presence felt among the coterie of northeast Poodle breeders. That didn’t bother me at all. But at the oddest moments I found him floating around the periphery of my imagination. That did.

  And then there was Beau. If we were any closer now to finding the dog than we had been in June, I wasn’t aware of it. In fact if it weren’t for the recent break-in at Aunt Peg’s, I would have been tempted to decide that we were going about things all wrong.

  It’s a sad state of affairs when it takes something like a burglary to cheer you up and let you know you’re moving in the right direction.

  So that’s the frame of mind I was in when Sam called. He’d been to some shows and thought that the three of us should get together and discuss what, if anything, we’d learned. Obviously the man had never heard of a conference call. But Aunt Peg was all for the idea, so who was I to complain?

  We picked a time in the early evening when Sam was finished working for the day and Joanie’s services were available. The more I thought about the idea, the better I liked it. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Sam; just that I didn’t want to follow Aunt Peg’s example and leap into an unquestioning endorsement based on good looks and an agreeable personality. After all, I’d seen pictures of Ted Bundy. He’d fooled a lot of women in his day, too.

  Aunt Peg had said that a man who had something to hide would hardly be likely to invite us to his house. But that made me wonder, too. Because if I wanted to appear innocent, that’s exactly what I’d do. By issuing the invitation, he would control the visit since anything he didn’t want us to see would be tucked neatly out of sight.

  Or maybe I was overanalyzing.

  Maybe I didn’t want to spend several hours with a man who put all my senses on red alert.

  Or maybe I did, and that was precisely the problem.

  I was thirty and a mother with the stretch marks and sweat pants to prove it. I was under employed and my car had last been new when I was in college. Which is not to say that I had nothing to offer a man. Just that someone a little easier than Sam Driver would have been nice. After all, I’d never particularly considered Bradley Watermain a challenge and look what happened there.

  Or maybe I was overanalyzing.

  Sam’s house was in Redding, a community just far enough beyond easy commuting distance to New York to have escaped the hustle and bustle that characterizes much of Fairfield County. The open land was beautiful; the town itself, unapologetically tiny. Sam’s mailbox was made of battered red metal. It sat at the end of his driveway on the stump of a small tree.

  The driveway itself was unpaved and climbed sharply upward through the trees. It was going to be the devil to plow when winter came. I’ve lived in Connecticut all my life; I think of things like that.

  But oh, when I reached the house, the view was worth it. Built of weathered shingles and big windows, it perched on the side of the hill and looked out over a panorama of gorgeous New England countryside. The car parked next to the garage was a four-wheel drive. So at least he was prepared.

  I’d aimed to be a few minutes late, but still I seemed to have beaten Aunt Peg. When Sam let me in, he told me why.

  “She called half an hour ago. Something came up and she isn’t going to be able to make it. She asked me to give you her apologies.”

  Apologies, my foot. “What came up?”

  “I don’t know, she didn’t say.” Sam saw the look on my face. “Is something wrong?”

  “She set us up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You and me,” I told him. “She set us up.”

  “To do what?”

  I threw up my hands. The gesture was as eloquent as any comment I might have made.

  Sam peered around behind me. “Where’s your son? I thought you’d bring him with you.”

  “Aunt Peg asked me to get a baby-sitter. So we could concentrate better, she said.”

  Finally he began to realize what was happening. Sam looked somewhat bemused. “We’ve been had, haven’t we?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that doesn’t have to stop us from putting the evening to good use. Come on in and let’s compare notes. I’ve spoken to a few people, and I’d like to get your input.”

  The living room had a high ceiling where a fan turned lazily, stirring up just enough of a breeze. A Palladian window in the south wall made the most of the view. The room was furnished in muted shades of peach and hunter green. A faded Persian carpet covered the middle of the floor. Two chintz-covered love seats flanked a brass-screened fireplace.

  A Standard Poodle, more gray than black, was draped languidly across one of the love seats. As we entered, she opened her eyes and wagged her tail in greeting, but didn’t get up.

  “This is Charm,” Sam introduced me as I took a seat opposite. He settled himself carefully on the cushion, and she lifted her head just enough for him to slide his lap underneath. “She’s fifteen, which is ancient for a dog this size. She runs the place and always has.”

  Charm’s tail thumped up and down in acknowledgment.

  “Is she related to Casey?”

  “Great-grandmother. Actually they have a good many traits in common. That’s one of the reasons I’m so fond of Casey.” His fingers massaged behind the Poodle’s ears, and she leaned into the caress. “One day she’s going to have to replace Charm around here. It won’t be an easy job to fill.”

  First Jack Berglund, now Sam Driver. Obviously there was something about seeing men with their dogs that placed them in the best light. If Aunt Peg had been here, she’d have been drooling. It was time to get down to business.

  Sam was happy to lead off in sharing the information he had gathered. Maybe that was because he didn’t have much. Like me when I was starting out, he’d already been referred right back to Aunt Peg more times than he liked to think about. But beyond that he’d also managed to meet Will Perkins and make an appointment to see his dogs the following week. When my turn came, I was torn. For all of Aunt Peg’s trust, I simply couldn’t see the point in revealing everything I’d done. In the end, I settled for giving him heavily edited versions of my visits to Barry Turk and Jack Berglund’s kennels and let him draw his own conclusions.

  As we spoke, the light outside faded. By the time I’d finished telling him about Ranger, the living room was almost completely dark. While I’d been speaking, Sam had sat forward in his seat, fingers tangled absentmindedly in Charm’s topknot, but his gaze and his focus centered solely on me. Now as I wrapped up the story, he put Charm gently aside, got up, and turned on some lights.

  “Gut feeling,” he said. “You’ve met most of the people now. You’ve been to some of the
ir kennels. Where’s the dog? Who else wanted him—or needed him—that badly?”

  “I don’t know. In the beginning, it all seemed so straightforward. But now . . .”

  “You’re beginning to doubt that you’ll ever find him.”

  “Yes.” If Aunt Peg had been sitting there, I’m not sure I’d have admitted that. With Sam, it came easier. “I keep wondering if there are things I should be noticing, clues I’ve overlooked. So much about these dogs shows seems foreign to me. Aunt Peg’s taught me a lot, and I know I’m picking up stuff on my own, but at times it still seems like I could be fooled pretty easily.”

  Sam strolled into the kitchen, nudging aside the louvered partition so he could continue to hear. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a couple of beers.

  “At one of the first shows I went to, I saw a Poodle in the ring that I thought was magnificent. He had a huge, profuse coat that was really eye-catching, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t win. Then later after the judging, I was back in the grooming tent and I saw his handler removing pieces of hair from the dog. It wasn’t his own, it was all a fake.”

  “Switches,” said Sam. He brought in the cans and handed one over. “That’s what those hairpieces are called. People make them from the coats of other dogs they’ve cut down.”

  If Sam had offered me a drink, I probably would have refused. But my throat was dry after all the talking I’d been doing and the thought of an ice-cold beer seemed just about perfect. I popped the top and took a long swallow. “Is that allowed?”

  “Not at all. According to A.K.C. rules, it’s totally illegal. But so are half the other tricks that people use, from coloring the dogs to changing their pigment. Bathing, trimming, plucking, clipping, things like that are acceptable. Any artificial additives are not. But when was the last time you saw a Poodle walk into the ring without hair spray?”

  “But if it’s all illegal, why do people do it?”

  “Because they want to win.” While he spoke, Sam never stopped moving. Now he was out on the deck that opened off the living room, fiddling with a gas grill. “In the beginning, everyone’s a purist. Usually they get started in the sport because they truly love their dogs and want to show them off. But then other people whose dogs aren’t any better keep beating them, and they decide that the way to win is to play the game.”

  He passed through the living room on the way to the kitchen. I stood up and went after him. “What are you doing?”

  “Cooking.” Sam opened the refrigerator and pulled out a shrink-wrapped package. “Chicken okay?”

  “Fine,” I said. “But I’m not staying.”

  He tossed the package onto the counter and went after the makings for a salad. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “See?” He came up with two tomatoes and a head of lettuce, then nudged the refrigerator door shut with his hip. “You’re hungry, I’m hungry, it’s dinnertime. You have to admit there’s a certain logic there.”

  “Aunt Peg set us up,” I mentioned again.

  “You told me.” Now he was shredding lettuce into a colander. I’d never seen a man that was so at home in the kitchen. Bob could barely make his own coffee. “Don’t worry, once the grill gets going, it’s a quick meal. Do you need to call your sitter?”

  “No.” Joanie would cope. Probably better than I was, I reflected. “The least I can do is help.”

  “Cutting board,” he said, pointing. “Knife. The tomatoes are all yours.”

  The tomatoes were plump, dark red, and beautifully ripe. Produce like this never passed through my supermarket. “If these are from your garden, I’m leaving.”

  “Nope.” Sam arranged the chicken breasts on a plate and poured a marinade over them. “A farmer near town sets up a stand by the side of the road.”

  Thank God for that. I watched as he carried the chicken out to the grill. It was heartening to know he wasn’t perfect.

  Since it seemed to have come about that I was staying for dinner, I finished putting the salad together while Sam was grilling the chicken. We ate at a small glass-topped table outside on the deck. The moon was huge above us and there was a bowl filled with peonies in the center of the table.

  Charm stirred enough to get herself outside, and Sam made the trip well worth it, surreptitiously slipping her pieces of chicken under the table when he thought I wasn’t looking. At first we talked mostly about dogs, but then the conversation shifted. I found out that Sam had recently gone into business for himself, designing interactive software. He told me he’d grown up in the East, but school and jobs had taken him to Michigan. Now he was happy to be back.

  In return, I regaled him with thrilling tidbits from the life of a Connecticut schoolteacher and single parent. That took about thirty seconds. Then he asked about Davey and managed not to look bored when I went on a bit. Maybe he was a good actor.

  Sam didn’t inquire about Bob at all. The omission pleased me.

  When we finally brought our plates back into the kitchen, Sam took over the scraping and rinsing, carefully setting the leftovers aside. “Where are the rest of your Poodles?” I asked as he opened a cupboard and got out a stack of five stainless steel bowls.

  “My office is downstairs, and I’ve got some crates down there, too. I figured they’d be just as well off sleeping through our meeting. They’re show dogs, don’t forget. When they’re up here, they want to be the center of attention.”

  “You only have bitches, right?”

  “Right.” He half-smiled. “Would you like to see them? Maybe count noses or check for testicles?”

  I hadn’t realized my thoughts were so transparent. “If you did have Beau, Sam, I doubt that he’d be here tonight.”

  “Quite right. But since I keep only bitches, unless I bought a dog legitimately I’d have an awfully hard time explaining where he came from, wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know. You seem pretty clever to me. I imagine you could figure something out.”

  All right, so I was being mean. I admit it. Sam had fed me, entertained me, and how was I repaying his kindness? By treating him like a suspect.

  “Your aunt trusts me,” said Sam.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  Because it scared the hell out of me, I thought. Because I’d trusted Bob and look at where it got me. Obviously I was a lousy judge of character when it came to men. It would be one thing if I only had myself to worry about. But I didn’t; I had Davey. I simply couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

  “Maybe I don’t know you well enough,” I said. Though it was the truth, it came out sounding disgustingly like a come-on.

  “We can do something about that.”

  Were we reciting dialogue out of a bad movie or what? That was enough for me. Using the sitter as an excuse, I cut and ran. I got out of there so fast there was barely time to give Charm a pat and say thanks for dinner. Sam stood in the doorway and watched me drive away.

  I knew because I looked back.

  It wasn’t until later that night when I was lying in bed that something occurred to me. For some reason, I was having trouble falling asleep. After I’d pummeled the pillow into a ball for the sixth or seventh time, I remembered what Sam had said about the company he’d worked for having its home office in Detroit.

  Detroit was just a short hop across the lake from Ontario.

  Ontario, Canada, that is.

  Now that was interesting, wasn’t it?

  Twenty

  The next time I saw Aunt Peg, Davey was at camp and she was blow-drying a Poodle. It’s the sort of thing you have to see to believe. She’d entered her puppy Lulu in a show that weekend, which meant that the preparations had started on Wednesday. The face, the feet, and the base of the tail had to be clipped, the ears cleaned, the toenails shortened.

  Friday was bath day. Aunt Peg had a separate room in the kennel where a tub with special hoses had been built at waist height
. Even though Lulu was only seven months old, she seemed to know the drill and stood quietly for a shampoo and cream rinse.

  Then they moved on to the grooming table for the blow-dry. The objective, Aunt Peg explained, was to take that huge mass of naturally curly hair and dry it so that it was perfectly straight. I understood the theory: I’d been doing it to my own hair for years. What I didn’t understand was why one had to do that to a dog.

  “It’s the only way to get that really thick, plush look,” said Aunt Peg. “Otherwise the hair will never stand up.”

  She wheeled over her dryer which stood as high as my shoulders and looked capable of blowing pictures off the walls at twenty paces. Lulu was unfazed. As Aunt Peg directed the hard stream of hot air and began to brush, she lay down on the table and went to sleep.

  “I want to hear all about your meeting with Sam,” said Peg. “But first you have to guess who was here yesterday.”

  I hate to guess. I never do it. I waited, but Aunt Peg held firm. “The Fuller Brush man?” I said finally.

  “You’re no fun. No, Frank.”

  “Frank, my brother?”

  “Of course, your brother. Who else would I be talking about?” She finished blow-drying the short hair in front of the tail and began to move up along the back toward the neck. “He dropped by to see how I was doing.”

  I was surprised but also pleased. My brother wasn’t known for his thoughtfulness. Then again, maybe he’d reconsidered his skepticism about Aunt Peg’s Poodle business. Frank could smell financial gain a mile away, especially if he thought he might somehow get in on it.

  “Of course I told him that the police had been here. He was very concerned.”

  “So am I,” I said. “You’re the only one who isn’t worried.”

  “I’m realistic,” Peg said firmly. “There’s a difference. Anyway, Frank said that if being here now all alone made me uncomfortable, I could certainly come and stay with him.”

  “In his apartment?” The thought made me laugh. “Aunt Peg, have you ever been there?”