A Hell of a Dog

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  “Correct.” I took a sip of wine. “But for that speaker’s other slot, we have a situation that tests credibility. Tina’s forte is breed temperament. She contracts to deliver this important talk, the opening talk of the program, then fails to respond to all of Sam’s attempts to reach her. So far, it’s not too bad a stretch. But then, the day before the symposium, the only other person who could do as brilliant a job on the talk, someone who had refused repeatedly to come to the States to lecture, calls Sam and volunteers to speak on the very topic that is her specialty and that happens to be going begging.”

  “How do you know it was at the last minute?”

  “Because the evening before, Sam had asked me if I’d cover it, because she hadn’t been able to reach Tina, and she had to be sure everything was covered for the students.”

  “You would have been spectacular.”

  “This is true. But I never thought I’d be giving that talk. I assumed Tina would show, that she’d been away or something, which would explain her not getting back to Sam. I figured she’d be back just in the nick of time. Sam even saved a room for her, 303, the room on the other side of mine, just in case.”

  “But she didn’t show. And now you know why.”

  “She’d had an abortion,” I said even more softly than I was already speaking, wanting to be absolutely sure my voice didn’t carry up the stairs to Tina.

  Chip didn’t say anything right away, but he reached for Betty, who was lying on the other end of the couch.

  “Martyn?”

  I nodded, watching him get it.

  “But aren’t we back where we were before? Why the others? Why Alan and Rick, too?”

  “That’s what I’ve yet to find out.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  “I thought I might ask Beryl,” I told him.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Not at all. Sometimes if you ask in the right way, you get whatever it is you’re after.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Good boy.”

  As he reached out for me, the same look in his eyes that Dashiell gets when I order in pizza, we heard the bedroom door open, and a moment later the bathroom door closed.

  “I never knew it could be like this.” He sat back, shaking his head.

  “I find it often is. I’ve been thinking of hiring a personal assistant to do for me all those things I no longer get the chance to do—converse, eat out, go to the movies, have sex.”

  “It sounds like marriage,” he said.

  Strings of light were coming in through the slats of the shutters. Chip reached out and took my hand. Sitting there quietly, we heard a lone bird begin to sing. While we waited for Tina to come downstairs, I told him what I planned to do, and asked if he would help.

  I fed the dogs while Chip showered and dressed. Then he took them out for a walk while Tina and I got ready. Afterward, he made breakfast, while I made some urgent phone calls.

  We took separate cabs. Chip and Betty took Tina with them. Dashiell and I rode with each other, he watching the city slip by on one side of the backseat, me leaning against the window on the other side, thinking about how sometimes even the best of intentions go hideously awry and wondering what would become of Tina when all this was over.

  30

  ONE DOOR CLOSES

  When we got out of the cab, Dashiell looked at me and then looked over toward the park, sending a message without saying a word. But I headed for the hotel instead. It was six-forty-five, time for us to get to work.

  Sometimes killers play games with the cops, I thought, using the service entrance around the corner. They write notes, or leave maddening, conflicting clues on purpose.

  Some killers want to show how smart they are, and so they brag.

  Some are dumb as pigeon shit. No matter what they do, even tying their shoelaces, they fuck it up royally.

  But this killer was one smart cookie. She’d done everything she could not to get caught, staging the crime scenes so that they appeared to be other than they were, accidents or suicide instead of calculated murders.

  Had she killed the other two to muddy the waters, so that the death she needed wouldn’t stand out and eventually point to her?

  Or worse, her daughter?

  One door closes, I’d told Chip, talking about the inability I’d felt to go back to the profession I so loved after my divorce. Had I felt I didn’t deserve even that?

  Another door opens. I’d become a detective.

  A door also closed the night I’d gone for ice. Cathy’s door.

  She’d opened it, hoping to see Martyn. Was she thinking she could rewrite history? Whatever she’d been thinking, she’d come to her senses and closed it without peering out to see who was there, to see that it wasn’t Martyn. It was only me.

  But then another door opened.

  Martyn was tired. He unlocked his door and opened it. He wanted to go to bed. Why didn’t he?

  Was it because Beryl’s door had opened?

  But how the hell did she get him up to the roof?

  I handed the package I’d brought from home to one of the waiters. When everything was ready, I headed for the elevator. Getting out on four, I told Dashiell to drop and wait. Then I knocked softly on her door.

  “Have you had your breakfast yet?” I asked, holding the tray in front of me.

  “Oh, brilliant,” she said. “You’ve brought tea and scones. Come in, Rachel. Come right in.”

  She’d already been out for a walk. I could see where the dew had taken the shine off her sturdy nun’s shoes.

  “Here, let me put that on the dresser,” she said. Then she pulled her chair close to the window seat. “Which would you prefer?”

  “Either is fine.”

  “Save the chair for me,” she said. “It’ll remind me to keep my back straight. Shall I serve, dear?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she walked back to the tray and lifted the lid off the teapot. “How did you get them to use loose tea?” she asked. “I’ve been trying unsuccessfully all week.”

  “I brought my own from home,” I whispered to her back.

  “Clever thing,” she said.

  Cecilia was scratching at the doorjamb, then turning around to try to catch Beryl’s eye. But Beryl didn’t notice. She was pouring tea.

  I walked into the bathroom.

  “My mother always told me,” she said, loud enough for me to hear her over the sound of the running water, “keep your back straight, Beryl. Head high. The rest will take care of itself. Now, isn’t that the silliest thing you ever heard?”

  I came out and took my seat. Beryl was smiling when she turned around, my cup in one hand, a plate with a raspberry scone in the other. I took them and placed them carefully next to me on the window seat. Beryl went back for the napkins, cream, and sugar. And again for her own cup and scone.

  “Isn’t this cozy?” She poured some of the heavy cream into her thick, dark tea, stirred, and took a sip. “Just like home.”

  “Sam was so thrilled when you decided at last to come and speak here, to be part of her symposium.”

  “Yes, she was. She seemed delighted to hear from me.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “Oh, I saw a wonderful article in the Gazette, Rachel. It sounded like something one couldn’t afford to miss.”

  “And it has been quite something, hasn’t it?”

  “Well, much more exciting than anyone dreamed,” she said, leaning toward me over her cup. “Poor things, those men who died.”

  She was looking down at her lap now, and I could clearly see that there was no hearing aid in either ear, yet she’d heard me when I’d whispered. I gave it one more try.

  I broke off a piece of my scone and took a bite. “I feel so sorry for their families,” I said, rudely talking with my mouth full.

  “Oh, yes, the wives. I feel such empathy for the wives, alone now, having to cope by themselves. Griev
ing, but carrying on.” She seemed not to be seeing me, but looking off into the past.

  “Detective Flowers called Sam,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “They don’t think the deaths were accidental.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I do. I’ve never thought so myself, Beryl.”

  “Is that so, dear?” Holding her cup at chest level, she peered at me with unblinking eyes.

  “I was thinking that maybe Alan’s door hadn’t closed all the way when his lady friend left. Then, of course, someone else would have been able to open it without a key, wouldn’t they?”

  “Well, I suppose that’s—”

  She turned because Dashiell had opened the door to her room, the door I’d stopped from closing all the way by using my foot to push Dashiell’s ball into the corner of the door frame as soon as Beryl had taken the tray of goodies and headed for the dresser, the way the ball Beau had hopefully tossed to the departing Audrey had gotten wedged in Alan’s door and had kept it from clicking shut.

  “Possible,” she said, finishing her thought.

  I saw caution creep into her eyes.

  “Oh, look, dear,” she said, a smile as false as a four-pound note spreading across her lips but leaving her eyes unchanged. “It’s happened here. The door didn’t shut all the way. How careless of me. But something good’s come out of it, hasn’t it? Now Cecilia has your beautiful boy to play with.”

  “Did something good come out of Alan’s door being left ajar when his lady friend exited? She was in such a rush, wasn’t she?”

  We sat there then holding our teacups and looking at each other, sending messages without saying a word. We could hear the dogs wrestling on the other side of the room, but neither of us turned to watch them.

  “Audrey? Oh, yes, dear. She was anxious to get back to her room unseen. She never even looked in my direction.”

  “Why, Beryl?”

  She ignored me, taking a sip of her tea.

  “Wonderful,” she said. “I don’t understand why you Americans use those silly little bags.”

  “It had to do with Tina, didn’t it?”

  “I see. So that’s where you and Chip were last night. Then you understand, of course.”

  And just then, I did.

  “She never told you who. That’s it, isn’t it? Of course,” I said. “Who would know better than your own daughter what a fuss you would have made. And she was right, wasn’t she?”

  “It’s not what you think,” she said, holding her cup in front of her, balancing the plate with the scone on her lap.

  “Then tell me what it was.”

  “I’d gotten up early, you see. Well, early isn’t the word for it. It was four in the bloody morning. Jet lag, I suppose. I tossed and turned for half an hour, then tried a warm bath. But I couldn’t get back to sleep. We had to get up early anyway, I told myself, for the tracking. So I decided I’d take the little one out for a walk. I thought it would calm my nerves, make me feel better, fresh air and all that. That’s when I saw her, sneaking out of Alan’s room.

  “I’d only meant to get cross with him, you see. I know it was foolish of me to think my anger would stop him from hurting other vulnerable young girls.”

  “The way he’d hurt Tina.”

  Beryl winced.

  “At the time,” she said, talking slowly, thinking she shouldn’t have to explain all this, “I thought it was he. Else I never would have walked in on him when he was in his bath, would I?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’d only gone in there to vent, Rachel. You’re absolutely right. Tina never told me who. ‘You know how you are, Mummy,’ she said to me. ‘You’ll only make a scene. It’s none of your business,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of it myself. I’ll do whatever has to be done.’”

  She pulled a large handkerchief from her jacket pocket and blew her nose.

  “I came because I thought she’d need my help, working when she was pregnant. I thought we might take a little place together so that—” She blew her nose a second time. “Well, never mind that, dear. There won’t be a baby for me to care for now, will there?”

  I shook my head.

  “I knew it had been one of these men. That’s what kept Tina from honoring her commitment to Sam and to the students. And I knew it was a married man. One who didn’t think twice about breaking his vows. Well, there I was checking my pocket for the keys, holding the little one under my arm so that she wouldn’t start all the other dogs barking and wake the lot of them, and I saw Audrey backing out of Alan’s room, disheveled looking. I thought, aha, I have my man. But you must believe me, I only meant to scare him, Rachel, to let him know his hurtful behavior was not going unnoticed.

  “It was completely irrational, to think that by walking in on him in the tub and yelling at him I could change his ways, as if he were a dog I were correcting. Once a cocksman, always a cocksman, wouldn’t you say? Of course, I wasn’t rational. You see, I’d called Tina on Sunday night, to tell her my surprise, but before I’d had the chance to say I was here, I heard she sounded just terrible, that she’d been crying. Well, I knew she’d been abandoned. And that she was pregnant. But as it turns out, the tears were because she’d had an abortion, and it made her feel so awfully blue. So of course I was in a state myself. Not only was Tina so miserable, but I’d lost my—”

  Cecilia came over to sit near Beryl, and Dashiell came and stood by my side, his forehead wrinkled, his one-track mind on Beryl now.

  “‘It’s none of your business,’ she said. Imagine thinking that.” Beryl took a sip of tea. “At any rate, dear, I saw this chance to tell this man what a snake I thought he was, and when I showed up in his bathroom, he had the nerve to deny any affair with my daughter. In fact, he said I sounded like a dotty old fool and told me to get the hell out of his bathroom. He stood up. What a sight. He was buck naked, raging at me. But he’d just soaped himself, and as he lifted his leg to get out of the tub, only the good Lord knows what he would have done to me then, probably grab me by the collar, call me a nosy old biddy, and toss me out of his hotel room, well, instead, he slipped. And as he was going down backward, his arms flailing at his sides as if he were trying to fly, he grabbed the towel rack with the radio on it.”

  She bent her head and covered her face with her hands.

  “Of course it was all my fault. If I hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have been in such a rush. He would have paid more attention to what he was doing when he got up out of that slippery tub. But I most certainly didn’t go in there with the idea of doing harm. I only thought I might do some good.”

  “And how did you find out it wasn’t Alan?”

  “When I called Tina and told her about the accident. There wasn’t the reaction there would have been were he the one. Oh, dear, I thought to myself, you are an old fool. But you know what, Rachel? I was glad it had happened. I felt rather satisfied, not at the time of course, at the time it was just gruesome. But afterward. Afterward I felt good about it. Don’t you see?”

  I tried to keep looking neutral, but Beryl was a dog trainer. She knew body language and saw that I was appalled.

  “It was an accident, Rachel. But not a mistake. He’d broken his marriage vows.”

  “And you were worried about Audrey, how she’d feel afterward, when he had no further interest in her? You were worried she’d suffer, the way Tina was suffering?”

  “No, dear. I wasn’t thinking about her at all. I was thinking about Alan’s poor wife. Suppose he had a change of heart and left her after this fling with pretty little Audrey? That’s what I was thinking.”

  “I see,” I told her. But of course, I didn’t. Not yet, anyway. “And what about Rick Shelbert?” I asked. “Did he break his marriage vows as well?”

  “Why, of course, dear. I certainly wasn’t going around the hotel randomly killing people for nothing.”

  I felt the hair on my arms standing up. Dashiell knew something was wrong too
. He looked at me, then back at Beryl. I could feel his tension rising with my own.

  “How did you, uh, focus on Rick next?”

  “I’m not much of a sleeper, even without the jet lag. I suppose it’s my age. I usually stay up quite late, and then I’m up bright and early anyway—with the birds, my mother used to say. So it wasn’t too difficult to know when one of the gentlemen had company. Anyone could have done it, dear.”

  She broke off a piece of scone and popped it into her mouth. Then she took a second piece and gave it to Cecilia. “Naughty thing,” she said, “begging like that.”

  “Tell me about Rick’s accident.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t an accident, Rachel. When I heard the commotion in his room—oh, my dear, the noise could have awakened the dead—I thought, now I have my man.”

  I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, feeling a tear run down my cheek.

  “The sugar bowl.”

  “Clever girl,” she said.

  “You crumbled them up.”

  “Powdered them, actually. I put them in a handkerchief and hit them with the heel of my shoe, the same as I do with Cecilia’s vitamins. She so hates to take a pill. This way I can mix it in her food, can’t I, love?” She looked dotingly at the little dog, breaking off another piece of scone for her. Then she poured some of her tea into the saucer and set it down on the floor for Cecilia to lap.

  “Convenient, all of us taking the same seats at every meal,” I said. “We apparently pattern-train as readily as our dogs.”

  “The aspirin wouldn’t have hurt anyone else,” Beryl said. She seemed annoyed that I might think her so careless. “Had I missed, no matter. I would have simply tried again.”

  “But then you found you’d made another mistake.”

  “Oh, no, dear. Not a mistake.”

  “Of course. And who was he with?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “Heaven knows, dear. That’s not the point, is it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “But I must confess,” she said, leaning closer, “I did stay long enough to hear some talking. Afterward. Pillow talk, I think it’s called. And, well, both voices sounded very deep.” She sat back and fiddled with her shirt, tucking it neatly into her skirt. “It’s quite possible Rick’s lover was a man. But what earthly difference would that make?