Authors: Laurien Berenson

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Underdog (29 page)

BOOK: Underdog

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Twenty-eight

For the second time that day, the police were called to the show grounds. It took hours for them to get things sorted out; after fetching Rick and Dirk and the Petersons from the motel and sitting everybody down for questioning. In the meantime, Angie woke up, hissing and screeching like an angry cat. I hadn't done any permanent damage, only given her a nasty headache. As far as that went, I figured we were even.

Angie immediately protested her innocence and for a while, I thought she might be able to make the claim stick. Dirk was stonewalling; the Petersons, calling for a lawyer. But when Rick finally saw the direction the questions were heading and jumped to the right conclusionâthat Angie had killed his wifeâall hell broke loose. He got his fingers wrapped around her throat before Detective Brucker leapt in to restrain him. After that, the jig was pretty much up.

It was close to three
A.M.
when I finally dragged myself back to the hotel room and I'd been asleep a good deal less time than I needed when I awoke to Davey bouncing on my stomach. That morning, Aunt Peg had a similarly bleary-eyed look about her. I drew a bath for Davey that he swore he didn't need and filled her in on the details while he soaked.

“I should have known,” she said irritably.

“Why?”

“The dogs. She never was that good with them. You can always tell a person's true character by the way they handle their dogs.”

My puppy was snoozing in my lap. I scratched her muzzle and wondered what sorts of psychological insights Aunt Peg was mining about me. Then Faith reached out and licked my palm with her long pink tongue, thumping her tail contentedly, and I figured I was doing okay.

Davey, Faith, and I packed up and went home that morning. I needed a break from dog shows; and aside from waving Faith's entry under my nose once or twice, Aunt Peg didn't protest much. I found out later that Peaches had gotten her second major; and that Charlie, with a pick-up handler on the end of the lead, had won both the remaining groups. Apparently Florence Byrd had been rightâfame or notoriety, it all worked the same in the end. With only a handful of shows remaining in the year, the wins from Springfield weekend were enough to assure that the Quaker Oats Award was hers.

Amazingly, it turned out that the Cocker was lucky to have even been in contention. The bullet fired from Angie's gun had gone in through the grilled door of his crate and blasted out through the wooden ceiling. Charlie, presumably lying down when the commotion started, had been asleep below the line of fire. Still, Angie had come within a hair's breadth of blowing away her meal ticket and the irony was lost on none of us. Mrs. Byrd took the Cocker home for good at the end of the weekend.

During my lunch break on Tuesday, I wrote her a note of congratulations and dropped it in the mail. I wondered if Florence Byrd had known about Dirk's other source of employment, and decided she probably had. She didn't seem like the type of woman who would relinquish any control if she could help it.

After lunch, I worked with my third graders. Timmy hadn't done his homework and after I got the others started working on maps of South America, I sat down beside him and asked him why.

His big brown eyes were guileless. “I didn't want to.”

“Homework isn't always something you want to do. It's something you need to do.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He drew in a deep breath and I watched his narrow chest fill with air. “There are lots of things I need to do. Do you ever feel like you're being pushed all different ways at once?”

I nodded slowly, feeling for him. “What do you do when that happens?”

“I hide.” He sounded almost proud.

“Where?”

“In a book, sometimes. And sometimes I just tune everything out. I don't even have to go anywhere at all.”

Coping mechanisms. We all had them. What a shame Timmy had to develop his so early. “Sometimes I hide, too,” I told him.

“But you're a grown-up!”

“Even grown-ups get confused sometimes. But hiding doesn't help, does it?”

“Not really.”

Not really. I guessed I'd found that out too. I wondered if Sam was back yet. I wondered if he'd call when he got in.

I reached out and slipped my hand over Timmy's. “Sometimes you have to confront the things that are bothering you. You have to say to yourself, âI'm doing okay. I'm a really good kid and I'm doing the best I can.' That's the most anybody can ever ask of you.”

“What if my best isn't good enough?”

“It is good enough. What isn't good enough is not trying.” I picked up the half completed homework assignment.

“You want me to finish it?”

“I do.”

Timmy looked over to where the other children were working. “What about my map?”

“That, too.”

“I won't have time.”

“Yes, you will.” I got a piece of construction paper and lined up a set of markers. “I'll help.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Just for today. Tomorrow you won't need me. Tomorrow you're going to finish your own homework.”

Timmy cracked a smile. “Don't forget, Chile's at the bottom and Venezuela's at the top.”

“I'll try to get it right.”

The homework and the map both got done and went in on time. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. As the class lined up and left the room to go to Art, Timmy was trading jokes with another boy from his desk group. I sighed as I watched them go. Regardless of what I'd said, there are times when your best doesn't feel nearly good enough.

Sam announced his return by inviting himself over that evening. He showed up with pizza and a movie, which made him an instant hit with Davey. I bent the rules and let my son eat in the living room in front of the television.

No fool she, Faith elected to keep him company. She'd only been with us a matter of weeks, but the Poodle puppy was such an integral part of the family, I couldn't imagine how we'd done without her. Davey and Faith curled up on the couch together, limbs comfortably intertwined, pizza box within easy reach. I hoped the puppy would let him eat at least a piece or two.

While the movie played, Sam and I sat in the kitchen and compared notes on our respective weekends. His sister was fine. His brother-in-law was up for a promotion. The nephews were hellions. They'd eaten leftover turkey for three days straight. In other words, a perfectly normal family visit.

“It was good to get away,” said Sam. “It's even better being back.”

I told him what had happened at Springfield. Actually I elaborated on the sketchy details I'd given upon his arrival when he noticed the purple bruise extending along my jaw line.

“I never would have guessed it was Angie,” he said.

“Me neither. But then I guess we're all pretty good at hiding that part of ourselves we don't want anyone else to know.”

“Not me.” Sam spread his hands. “I'm an open book.”

“Really? What about that blonde I found at your house last summer? Susan, wasn't it? The one in the tight dress who was supposedly giving you information?”

“She was.”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “Right.”

His hand came across the table, fingers skimming lightly over the inside of my wrist. “My investigative technique is very thorough.”

“I'll bet.”

His other hand cradled the back of my neck. His palm was at the pulse point in my throat. Both of us could feel the pounding. “When I know what I want, I don't ever give up.” He smiled lazily. “What time does Davey go to bed?”

“Soon.” I looked at the clock above the sink. “Very soon.”

“Good.”

“And after that?”

Sam's chair scraped on the floor as he drew it closer. So close that I could feel the heat emanating from his body. His lips came up next to my ear as he whispered, “Keep your options open.”

“I'll do that.” I felt ready for anything.

With luck, I might even get it.

If you enjoyed Laurien Berenson's
UNDERDOG
then turn the page for an exciting sneak peek
of Melanie Travis's debut in
A PEDIGREE TO DIE FOR,
now on sale wherever
paperback mysteries are sold!

One

There's a lot to be said for dying in the midst of something you love. But fond as Uncle Max was of his Poodles, I doubt that he'd ever envisioned himself being found dead on the cold, hard kennel floor, his curled fingers grasping at the open door of an empty pen.

For their part, the Poodles didn't seem to think much of the idea either. All seven of the big black dogs were scratching at their doors and whining when Aunt Peg came out the next morning looking for Max, who was inexplicably missing from her bed when she woke up. The moment she saw him, she knew what had happened. The Turnbull men weren't known for their strong hearts; the doctor had warned Max more than once to slow down. But in the end, all the things they'd done togetherâgiving up smoking, taking up walking, watching their cholesterolâhadn't made the slightest bit of difference.

Not one to panic when composure served better, Aunt Peg had closed her husband's eyes, then covered him with a blanket before picking up the phone and calling for an ambulance.

I learned all this from my brother Frank, whose name she'd supplied when asked by the police if there was someone they could call. One look at Aunt Peg and they must have realized that the sedatives the paramedics had so thoughtfully left behind were going to go to waste. That's when they started making comforting noises about next of kin.

We've never been the type of family to advertise our emotions. Aunt Peg would no sooner keen and wail than join the chorus line of the Rockettes. Nevertheless Frank had arrived prepared to offer whatever support was needed. That none was needed soon became apparent when Aunt Peg declared that his hovering was making her nervous and sent him home.

Now, three days later, Frank was kneeling beside me in the front pew of Saint Mary's Church in Greenwich. He looked every bit as uncomfortable as I felt when the rest of the funeral party trooped up to the altar to receive communion. It was painfully obvious that we were the only two to remain behind.

Thanks to my Aunt Rose, Max's sister and a member of the order of the Sisters of Divine Mercy, the church was full. As the priest began dispensing hosts from the golden chalice, I pushed aside the missals that littered the pew, sat back, and resigned myself to a long wait. Two by two, the sisters glided by, their rubber-soled shoes noiseless on the church floor. Many, I noted absently, were of the old school, which meant that they still wore the dark habits and crisp white wimples I remembered so vividly from my youth.

The soft rustle of cloth, the muted clacking of polished rosary beads that swung from the sisters' waists, both were sounds from the past. For a moment, I found myself transported back to the narrow halls of the convent school where I'd been raised. It wasn't a trip I enjoyed. Some Catholics refer to their faith as something that has lapsed. I tend to think of mine as expired.

Until that afternoon, it had been years since I'd been inside a church. Five years, to be exact, since an icy patch of road had sent my parents' car careening down a steep embankment and into a river, leaving meânewly married and newly pregnantâalso newly orphaned. Bob, my husband then, ex now, maintained at the time that anyone who had reached the age of twenty-five was simply too old to qualify for orphan status.

“I know what I feel!” I wanted to shout at him. In later years, I wouldn't have been so reticent. Later we shouted about a lot of things.

Still, I had Bob to thank for my son, and in my mind, that more than evened the score. Davey was home now with a sitter, no doubt spurning the glorious May weather to watch Oprah Winfrey on TV. There'd be plenty of time later for him to learn about funeralsâand about people who die long before you're ready to say goodbye.

A throat cleared scratchily, and I looked up to find Aunt Peg standing above me. One of the first to go to the altar, she was now ready to return to the pew. Quickly I stood up to let her by.

Behind her came Aunt Rose, Sister Anne Marie to the other nuns. Her head was bowed, her eyes half-closed. Her fingers were braced together at the tips, forming a slim arrow that pointed upward toward the heavens. In contrast to Aunt Peg's grim-lipped frown, her expression had a soft, unmolded quality. She was talking to her God, I realized. Uncomfortable, I looked away.

The line at the communion rail dwindled, then finally ended. The sisters glided back to their pews. At the altar, the priest mumbled the remaining words of the mass before offering a blessing to the assemblage.

I was turning to retrieve my purse from the bench when the sisters began to sing. Their voices rose, filling the large church with the harmonious cadence of a well-rehearsed choir. I straightened, then paused to listen. The hymn was Latin, its words vaguely familiar. But it was the music itself that reached out to me; the voices joined as one sent a tingle racing up the length of my spine. The sound was pure and sweet and uplifting. For a moment, I could almost believe that the sisters
were,
as I'd been taught years before, in the business of sending souls to heaven.

I waited until the song ended before leaving the pew. Uncle Max, who'd always had a dramatic flair, would have loved the pageantry of it all. As a child, in the years before the family drifted apart, I'd found him fascinating. Everything about Uncle Max was just slightly outsize; he had no use for the ordinary, and little tolerance for anyone who did. He enjoyed beauty and style, and surrounded himself with plenty, like the kennel full of Standard Poodles that he bred and exhibited. The funeral mass, with all its pomp and ceremony, would have suited him just fine.

I rode to the cemetery in the first limousine with Frank and Aunt Peg. Aunt Rose was curiously absent. Perhaps she felt the chauffeur-driven Lincoln was too ostentatious for her station in the world. Or perhaps the impression I'd gotten over the years that she and Aunt Peg didn't get along was true.

Aunt Peg was silent during the drive, and Frank and I followed suit. Somehow I didn't feel I had the right to intrude. The dark brim of a fedora was pulled low over her eyes; the set of her shoulders was stiff. Whatever emotions she was feeling, she kept them to herself.

The graveside ceremony was brief. In keeping with family tradition, there were no histrionics, only a quiet prayer beside the coffin. As we turned to leave, I heard a quiet sigh.

“Goodbye, Max,” Aunt Peg whispered. Her lower lip trembled briefly, then stilled.

Walking back toward the line of parked cars, I reached out impulsively and took her hand in mind. “If there's anything at all I can do . . .”

Little did I know.