“It appeared that Victor purposely scheduled his specialty show to conflict with Aunt Peg’s seminar,” I said. “He knew the show would be a big draw right before Westminster. And he wanted the attendance at the symposium to suffer because of it.”
“The room looked pretty full to me,” Clark commented.
“It was. I know Aunt Peg was pleased with the turnout.”
“So then she had no reason to want to harm Victor.”
“Of course not,” I agreed. “That’s the whole point. She didn’t do it.”
“And that’s why you’re here talking to me.”
I started to nod, then quickly thought better of it. Clark had neatly laid a trap for me. And I’d almost fallen into it.
“You’re trying to discover whether or not I might have wanted to kill my business partner.” His expression was grim. “Is that it?”
“Victor Durbin wasn’t a nice person,” I said. “Most people who had any kind of dealings with him ended up wishing that they’d never gotten involved. It occurred to me you might feel the same way.”
Victor pushed back his chair and stood. “I think it’s time for you to leave my office.”
I stood up too. It wasn’t as if I had a choice. But I did have another question. One I really hoped I’d get an answer to.
“Are you aware that Victor was handing out shares in the Pooch Pub to people who were supplying him with puppies?”
Clark had started around the desk as if he meant to escort me to the door. Now he abruptly stopped walking. I took that as a no.
“Shares?” he repeated.
“Part ownerships, percentages of the profits,” I clarified. “Five percent here, eight percent there. That kind of thing.”
Clark frowned. It looked like that was news to him—news he wasn’t happy to hear. I watched him make an effort to compose himself.
“What Victor chose to do with his half of our mutual enterprise wasn’t my concern,” he said stiffly.
“Until his business affairs begin to affect you,” I pointed out. “Are you aware that one of your new ‘partners’ is initiating a lawsuit?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Clark’s tone was clipped. “But he can hardly sue Victor now.”
“He can probably sue Victor’s estate, however. It would be a shame if the Pooch Pub was tied up in litigation for years, over an issue that you knew nothing about.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Clark was walking again. In two steps we’d be at the door.
“How can you be so sure? Did you and Victor have a partnership contract?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have done business without one. We had an ironclad agreement. My lawyer wrote it, Victor’s approved it, and he and I both signed it.”
Which meant Clark was smarter than both Larry Bowling and Manny Garza. No surprise there.
“We also amended our wills,” he continued. “This eventuality was thoroughly addressed. In the case of either of our deaths, the partnership was terminated and full ownership of the Pooch Pub passed directly to the surviving partner.”
Now it was my turn to stop in my tracks. “So now all this belongs to you?”
“That’s right.” Clark positioned a hand between my shoulder blades and gently pushed me through the doorway.
When his hand dropped away, I spun around. “So Victor Durbin’s death made you a rich man.”
I wasn’t fast enough to see Clark’s expression. The door was already swinging shut in my face. If I hadn’t jumped back it would have hit me in the nose. I heard a small click as the lock turned.
Our conversation was over. Dammit. Just when things were really starting to get interesting. I hate it when that happens.
Chapter 17
I had no choice but to show myself out. When I emerged from the back of the pub, the barista who’d pointed me in the right direction gave me a smile. “Did you find him?”
“I did. Thanks. We had a nice chat.”
She gave me a thumbs-up and turned to her next customer.
Puppies were tumbling around on the floor, so I was looking where I placed my feet as I made my way to the door. I didn’t want to step on a puppy. Or trip over one. The place was still half filled with customers, so I threaded my way between the tables with care.
“Psst!”
I heard the sound but didn’t immediately look up. Or look up at all, actually. A fluffy white puppy with a black button nose had just come galloping out from beneath a table and barreled into my foot. He seemed to think that was reason enough to grab the toe of my shoe in his mouth. Man, that puppy was cute. He wouldn’t last here long.
“Pssst!” The sound was more insistent this time.
I gently disengaged the puppy’s sharp baby teeth, then stood up and had a look around. A woman with a baseball cap pulled low over her face was seated at a small table near the window. Between the cap and the glare from the sun behind her, I couldn’t see her face. But when I glanced in her direction, she lifted a hand and gave me a surreptitious wave.
Was she motioning to me? I couldn’t imagine why. I turned and checked behind me. Maybe the woman was trying to get someone else’s attention?
Nope. That wasn’t it. No one else was even looking in our direction.
“Melanie!” The mystery waver hissed. “Over here!”
Okay, this was definitely odd. The woman obviously knew me. But who was she and what was she hissing about?
I walked over and slid into the empty seat opposite her. With the sun no longer in my eyes, I could finally see the woman’s face. It was Mattie Gainer.
Though it was warm in the pub, Mattie was still wearing her coat. The collar was pulled up around her ears. Now that I’d sat down, she tipped her face downward again. I realized she was cuddling not one, but two, puppies in her lap.
“Mattie—” I began.
“Shhh!” She lifted a finger and held it to her lips.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“I’m undercover.”
I must have heard wrong. “You’re what?”
“Shhh! Not so loud. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”
“Who?” I glanced around the room.
Nobody was paying any attention to us. Much less listening in. Why would they? If I wasn’t part of this conversation, I wouldn’t have been interested in it either.
“I’m undercover,” Mattie repeated. “Nobody’s supposed to know who I am.”
Okay, I’d bite. “Who are you?”
I was really hoping she’d say Spiderwoman. That would have been cool—and no more strange than the rest of this encounter.
That made Mattie look up. And roll her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know who I am.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Performing my civic duty.”
So many questions. And still not a single sensible answer.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Mattie leaned down and gently placed both puppies on the floor. Together, the pair scampered away. “This place is a puppy welfare travesty. I’m going to get it shut down.”
“How?”
“Look around,” she told me.
So I did. I didn’t agree with the Pooch Pub’s business model either. But I didn’t see grounds for closing the place down. The puppies looked healthy and mostly well cared for. And assuming Clark had the proper licensing in place, the pub functioned in much the same way that a pet store did.
“Dogs and food are a terrible combination,” Mattie whispered.
Tell that to the French, I thought.
“There must be a health code violation here somewhere,” she grumbled. “If I have to sit here the rest of the afternoon, I’m going to find something to report.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
She stared at me across the tabletop. “That’s all you have to say? Good luck? I thought you might want to help.”
“There’s a health code inspection sticker posted near the
front door,” I pointed out. “I noticed it when I came in. The Pooch Pub got a good score.”
“So what? Victor probably lied to the inspector. That’s just the kind of thing he would do. Did you know that when this place first opened he told everyone that all the puppies came from a local rescue? He said he was giving them needed exposure so they could find good homes. There was even a feel-good story in the newspaper about what a humanitarian he was. What a total crock!”
At least we agreed about that.
Mattie frowned ferociously. “Later on, I confronted him about that crap, and do you know what he told me? That breeding puppies to sell here was a simple matter of supply and demand. He said he was just giving the market what it wanted.”
“Victor was an awful person,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” Mattie snapped.
“But he’s dead now. So I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish.”
“I’m going to shut him down.”
There didn’t seem to be much point in mentioning that someone had already shut Victor down. Permanently.
“I’m sure you mean well—”
“Mean well?” Mattie interrupted me. “Mean well? Is that what you think this is about?”
“Isn’t it?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you defending Victor? How well did you actually know him?”
“I’m not defending Victor,” I replied evenly. Usually Mattie’s enthusiasm seemed like a good thing. But this conversation was beginning to wear me out. “I didn’t like the man any more than you did. I’m simply pointing out the improbability of what you’re trying to do.”
“Don’t be such a pessimist.” She slumped back in her seat. “When it comes to getting what I want, I have my ways. Who said, ‘Never underestimate the power of a woman with an idea?’ Was it Eleanor Roosevelt?”
I hadn’t heard that before. “I think it was you,” I told her. “Right now. Nice sentiment. Well done.”
“Please don’t patronize me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I started to rise. It was time for me to go.
“I asked you a minute ago how well you knew Victor.” Mattie looked up at me. “You didn’t answer. Were you one of his women?”
I sat back down in a hurry. “What does that mean?”
“You know.”
“No. I really don’t.”
“Victor was a flirt,” she muttered. Then she paused and drew herself up. Her shoulders squared. “No,” Mattie said in a firmer voice. “He was more than a flirt. He was a pushy SOB.”
“I didn’t know that.” I thought back to the encounters I’d had with Victor when he was still a member of PPC. They’d all taken place in a group setting, either at a dog show or a club meeting. “You mean he came on to you?”
“I wish that’s all it was.”
I swallowed heavily. And hoped she’d keep talking. “I’m listening,” I said softly.
There was a long pause. I waited her out.
“I was so happy to join PPC,” Mattie said after a minute. “But it wasn’t long before I started to dread going to meetings. Victor would always find a way to corner me somewhere. And then he’d . . . you know . . . put his hands where they didn’t belong. When I protested, he’d just laugh and say it was an accident—even though we knew it wasn’t. Victor knew exactly what he was doing.”
“That’s terrible.” I exhaled a long breath. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say something?”
She sighed. “If the ‘me too’ movement had been around then, I probably would have. But at the time, I was a newcomer to the area and the club. Victor was a longtime member in good standing. No one would have believed me.”
Not entirely good standing at that point, I thought. Victor was already feuding with the board. Though Mattie probably hadn’t known that then. Thinking back, I could see how she might have been intimidated by him.
Mattie was right, though. The “me too” movement had changed a lot of things. Women now had a voice they’d never had before. Men who’d scoffed were now listening.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I wish I’d known at the time.”
“What could you have done about it?” she asked unhappily.
“I’d have told Aunt Peg.” I didn’t need to detail the kind of mayhem that would have ensued.
“I like to think that’s true,” Mattie said. “But I guess we’ll never know. Victor left the club not long after that, so then I didn’t have to worry about him anymore. I pitied the women who went on to join his new club, though. I hope one of them set him down good.”
“I do too,” I agreed.
“So that’s why I’m here,” Mattie announced. “Maybe I’m older and wiser now. Or maybe I just feel more empowered. But when I look back on that time in my life, it makes me sad. I let Victor take advantage of me. I let him make me feel like I was less of a person than he was. Something bad was happening and I did nothing to stop it. Well, not anymore.”
I nodded.
“Look at this place,” she said. “Something bad is happening here too. Puppies are being sold like chewing gum. People take a dog home, having given no more thought to the purchase than they did when they bought their coffee. It’s abhorrent. Last time, I felt like I didn’t have a voice. Now I refuse to shut up.”
“Good for you,” I said heartily.
“Good for me and good for the puppies,” she replied. “Victor isn’t going to get away with mistreating them the way he mistreated me. I’ll make sure of that.”
It wasn’t until I was in my car on my way home to Connecticut that I began to wonder just how forceful Mattie’s newfound sense of empowerment truly was. And what else it might have caused her to do to have her revenge on the man who’d wronged her.
* * *
I chose a route back from Tarrytown that took me through back country Greenwich. Since it was the afternoon before a dog show, I knew just where I would find Aunt Peg. Her young Standard Poodle bitch, Coral, was entered Saturday in White Plains. Today there would be plenty of preshow grooming to be done.
Coral had been shown in the puppy trim the previous summer. Now, as an adult, she was wearing a continental clip. A large mane coat covered the front half of Coral’s body. There were rounded rosettes over her hip bones, bracelets of hair on her lower legs, and a pompon on the end of her tail. Her face, feet, and the rest of her body were all shaved to the skin.
Aunt Peg would have clipped Coral earlier in the week. Today was bath day. After that the Poodle’s long hair would be meticulously blown dry.
Aunt Peg was the one who’d come up with the idea for her and Davey to team up and finish Coral’s championship together. She did the majority of the pre-show prep work; then Davey took over Coral’s care and management on show day. The two of them were still working on ironing out the kinks in that relationship.
Aunt Peg liked to micromanage every aspect of her dogs’ lives—and her relatives’ too, when she could get away with it. So things hadn’t proceeded entirely smoothly thus far. But Coral had ended the summer having accumulated five points toward her championship and we were all pleased about that.
Coral’s coat had been growing out for nearly five months. Tomorrow’s show would be her adult debut. It felt like a long time since we’d had a Poodle in the show ring. We were all impatient to get back to it.
I didn’t bother knocking on Aunt Peg’s front door. I knew she’d be downstairs in her grooming room. With the big, freestanding dryer blowing at full strength, she wouldn’t be able to hear me anyway. Her dogs heard my arrival, though. Zeke and Beau appeared in the hallway as I entered the house. I hung up my coat, then let the two Poodles escort me down the stairs.
Aunt Peg looked up as I entered the well-lit room. Coral was lying on top of a rubber-matted grooming table. Her eyes were closed—she was probably asleep. Coral’s mane coat was already partly dry. The rest of it was covered by a damp towel, waiting to be dealt with shortly.
Aunt Peg wa
s working on a small section, straightening the hair by sweeping her pin brush through it as a stream of hot air blew the coat dry. She didn’t turn off the dryer. We would have to talk over it.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” she said. “Have you come to work?”
“No way.” I hoisted myself up on a low counter that was meant to hold grooming supplies. My grooming technique wasn’t nearly as good as Aunt Peg’s—and she never let me forget it. “I’ve come to watch you work. And to talk.”
“That will do.” Her gaze dropped to Coral, who’d lifted her head when we spoke. Aunt Peg smoothed the Poodle back into place and continued brushing. “You may entertain me.”
One could only hope.
“How much do you know about the Pooch Pub?” I asked.
“The name sounds regrettably familiar,” she said. “Is that Victor Durbin’s place of business?”
I nodded.
“Then I know very little about it. And I’m profoundly grateful that I don’t know more. Why?”
“Sam and I met one of Victor’s partners at your seminar last Sunday. A man named Clark Donnay.”
“Tall?” she asked. “African American? Sitting in the front row?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“He introduced himself to me too. He complimented me on my speech. I had no idea he was a friend of Victor’s.”
“I’m not sure how friendly they actually were,” I told her. “But they owned the Pooch Pub together. And now that Victor’s gone, Clark has inherited the entire business.”
“How very fortunate for him.” She smiled speculatively.
“There are complications with that.”
Aunt Peg’s smile widened. She loved complications.
“Do you remember Larry Bowling?”
“Only the name. Isn’t he the man Louise sent you to?”
“Precisely. Larry lives in Cross River and he’s a member of the Empire Poodle Club. Louise said something about a dispute over unpaid stud fees. But Larry’s problem with Victor turned out to be much bigger than that.”
“Oh?”
“About two years ago Victor and Larry made a deal to start producing Mini and Toy Poodle puppies to sell at the Pooch Pub. Victor supplied the champion stud dog—”
Game of Dog Bones Page 14
