“I’d like that.”
I left the courtroom thinking that he hadn’t mentioned whether he was married. I hoped the answer was yes and happily, though he hadn’t been wearing a ring.
I headed home early, going by the Woodruff house to get the car seat out of Willow’s car. When I got to my street, I parked my Beetle in front of Dr. McDermott’s house. He answered the door, and, as Deacon boiled out around my legs, he looked past me at my car, a puzzled expression on his face.
“I’m not here for long,” I said. “Just long enough to pick up Deacon.” I bent over to pat him just as he surged upward to meet me, and his nose hit me in the mouth. “Mmmf,” I said, jerking backwards.
“Where are you taking him?”
“To pick up a toddler who’s met me only once. I thought Deacon might help me break the ice. You don’t think the combination’s going to be too overpowering, do you?”
“When you want to be just overpowering enough?”
I had a sudden vision of Caden Woodruff screaming his head off all the way home while Deacon bounded back and forth between the front seat and the back and I weaved back and forth across the road as I tried to control him. “Good point. Maybe I ought to leave Deacon after all. He’s got the size of a full-grown dog, and he’s still as boisterous as a puppy.”
“Maybe you ought to take an old man with you. I’m pretty calm.”
Deacon had charged out onto the lawn and was urinating copiously.
“That would be good. Help me control him.”
Deacon took the steps in two bounds and jammed his nose between my thighs. I scratched his head.
“Let me get a jacket,” Dr. McDermott said. “I’m not as warm-blooded as you spring chickens.”
“If you’re sure you don’t mind.”
I left Deacon with Dr. McDermott in the car when I went in to get Caden. There was a girl at the reception desk—a young woman, actually, twenty-something, though she might have been as much as a decade younger than I was.
“Can I help you?” She spoke loudly so as to be heard over all the young voices clamoring somewhere behind her.
“My name is Robin Starling. I’m here to pick up Caden Woodruff.”
“Are you with CPS?”
I laid the court order on the counter and turned it toward her. After studying it a minute, she said, “Just a minute,” and disappeared back into the building. The sound of children grew louder, then diminished. She came back not with Caden, but with another woman, this one at least a decade my senior. The woman glanced at me, then picked up the court order the young woman had left on the counter. While she read it, a dark-haired man in slacks and a dress shirt came in and, after the young woman fetched a young girl for him, left again with her on his hip, the girl using her hands to turn his head toward her as she started to tell him about her day.
“You’re Robin Starling?” the middle-aged woman asked me.
“Yes, I am,” I smiled encouragingly as I unslung my purse to get my driver’s license.
“I’ve seen things like this before—parents splitting up, fighting over their child, one or both of them brandishing legal documents. Sometimes CPS is a part of it, but not usually.” She looked up from the document and studied me through narrowed eyes. I gave her another smile, but seemed to be running up against the law of diminishing returns. Certainly, it failed to thaw her appreciably.
“I’m going to call CPS.”
“Ask for Mindy Churchill. I’ll give you ten minutes to get hold of her, then I’ll call the police.”
She froze with her hand on the phone. “What have the police got to do with this?”
“Nothing yet. But I have a court order granting me temporary custody of Caden Woodruff, and you do not. Withholding him is probably a crime of some sort, though right now I’ll just be calling them for help in enforcing the court’s order.”
She squinted her eyes at me again. “You a lawyer?”
Though my friendly smiles hadn’t done much good so far, I gave her my most winning one, tilting my head in a coquettish fashion.
She stepped away from the counter as if I were a cobra that had just flared its hood. “Get him,” she said, jerking her head at the young woman.
“Sorry,” I said when the young woman had disappeared back into the building again. “It’s been a long day. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
The woman nodded, but didn’t say anything. The young woman came out leading Caden by the hand.
I took a breath and bent over, bracing my hands on my knees. “Hi, Caden. Remember me? I’m a friend of your mommy’s.”
He looked up at me with wide brown eyes. “I seen you at my house.”
“Yes,” I said. “I was at your house.”
“What your name is?”
“Robin.”
“Wobin,” he said. He took his hand from the young woman’s and patted his chest. “Caden,” he said, then held up a hand with his index and his little finger extended. “Two birthdays.”
“Well, hello, Caden with two birthdays.” I held out a hand, and he took it. “Do you like dogs?”
He nodded up at me. “Dogs is nice.”
“You forgot your papers,” the woman said behind me.
“That’s your copy,” I said.
Dr. McDermott was on the far side of the parking lot with Deacon. When they saw us come out, they started toward us, Deacon pulling at his leash until Dr. McDermott gave it a jerk and told him to heel. I was impressed with the way Deacon fell back with his gaze on Dr. McDermott. I mostly walked Deacon without a leash, and, while I maintained a loose control, I could tell Dr. McDermott had done a lot of work with him on-leash.
I stopped with Caden at my VW Beetle. “This is my car,” I told him. “I’ve got your car seat in the back.”
He nodded. He hadn’t yet seen Dr. McDermott and Deacon, or at least hadn’t connected them to us.
“A couple of friends are going to ride with us, an old man and a dog. You like dogs. Right?”
He rolled his gaze up to meet mine, looking uncertain. I opened the car door on the driver’s side and pushed the seat forward. “See? There’s your car seat. You remember it, don’t you?” When he nodded assent, I said, “If you had a choice, who would you want to sit next to you, the old man or the dog?”
Dr. McDermott and Deacon came around the front of the car, and Caden’s eyes grew wide. “Doggie,” he said.
“This is my dog Deacon. Do you think you’d like him to ride next to you?”
Caden looked back up at me. “Where is Mommy?”
I felt a stab of pain, but kept my expression neutral. “She’s not home right now,” I said.
“Is she at wuk?”
“No, she had to go on a trip. She wanted to take you, of course, but they wouldn’t let her. That’s why she asked me to pick you up. It won’t be for long. Your grandparents are coming to take care of you until she gets back.”
He looked unenlightened.
“Your grandparents? Grampy and, ah, Mimi?”
He evidently didn’t call them Grampy and Mimi.
“Grandpa and Grandma? Papaw and Gammy?”
“Gammy? P-paw?”
“Yes. Gammy and P-paw. I have a very important question to ask you now. Do you like to be licked?”
“Wike to be wicked!”
“Yes. See the dog there? If he sits in the backseat with you, he’s going to get in your face and lick you. Only a few times, and then he’ll sit and look out the window. If you don’t like that, I can put Deacon in the front seat, and the old man can sit next to you. He doesn’t lick.”
“I really don’t,” Dr. McDermott said, smiling. “I’m friendly, but I don’t lick.”
Caden looked back and forth between him and Deacon. “Doggie,” he said finally.
“Okay.” I picked up Caden and put him in his seat and buckled him into it. Then I took the leash from Dr. McDermott and walked Deacon around the car. I opened the door on the passenger side
and pushed the seat forward. Caden’s eyes were wide.
“I don’t fink I wike to be wicked.”
“He licks me, too,” I said. “They’re kisses.”
“Kissies?”
“Yes, kissies.” I squatted beside Deacon and got one on the mouth. “See?”
He nodded solemnly.
I took a breath and gave Deacon some slack. “Hop in,” I said. He hopped and I grabbed the leash close to the collar.
“Deacon,” I said. “This is Caden. Caden, this is Deacon.”
Deacon’s nose was strained toward him, his nostrils flaring. He seemed very big in the confined space. “I’m going to let him go now,” I said. “He’s going to stick his nose in your face, and I think he’s going to lick you. Can you be very brave?”
“I fink so.” But his voice was trembling.
“Easy, Deeks,” I said. “Easy.” I gave him some slack, and he stuck his nose in Caden’s face as I’d predicted, touching noses, sniffing one of Caden’s eyes and then his ear, finally giving him a lick that covered chin to forehead. Caden giggled, and I relaxed. Deacon turned back toward me, and his tail flapped against Caden’s car seat.
“He’s funny doggie,” Caden said.
I stepped back.
“He is a funny doggie, isn’t he?” Dr. McDermott said. He pushed the seatback backwards until it locked into place and got in. “Deacon and I are good friends.”
I adjusted my rearview mirror so as to keep an eye on Caden and Deacon as we drove. I trusted Deacon, but he wasn’t used to small children, and Caden didn’t seem to be used to dogs. What I saw was reassuring: Caden watched Deacon with round eyes; Deacon looked out the window. When I got on the Chippenham Parkway and looked again, Caden’s hand was stretching slowly toward Deacon. Dr. McDermott had his head turned to watch and was smiling.
Caden touched his hand against Deacon’s side and, when Deacon didn’t react, exhaled slowly. Then he began to open and close his small hand, giving Deacon a scratch with his fingertips. Deacon turned his head, stretched his neck to give Caden’s face a quick lick, then went back to watching the road. Caden giggled.
When we got back to my house, a lime-green Smart car was parked on the street. I pulled up behind it and stopped. Mindy Churchill and I got out. “Hi, Mindy.” I pushed my seat up to get Caden, and Deacon jumped to the floor and then past me. He trotted toward Mindy to check her out, trailing his leash, the whole back-half of his body wagging.
Mindy, for her part, backed against her car, holding her hands up under her chin as if she were afraid of getting them bitten off. Deacon gave her dress a lick, then bent his head to sniff at her shoes. Dr. McDermott got out on the passenger side, and Mindy eyed him distrustfully.
“Are you the grandfather?” she said.
“I’m a grandfather, but I think there’s more than one of us.”
If Mindy had a sense of humor, she didn’t show it. “I meant are you Caden’s grandfather.”
“I am not.”
Her gaze turned to me, and I shrugged and reached into the car to get Caden. Deacon moved around Mindy snuffling at her, trying to get behind her but unable to because she was still backed against the car. “You had this large dog in the backseat with the child?” she said.
“And I had an old man in the front seat with me. Don’t worry. Neither one of us got pawed.”
She didn’t smile, but I’ll go ahead and concede that my comeback wasn’t particularly funny. I set Caden on the ground. Seeing Mindy, he backed against me. I scratched his head, less vigorously than I might scratch Deacon’s. “You can see he’s fine,” I said.
Caden pointed at Deacon. “Doggie,” he said. He held out his hand, flapping his fingers against his palm in a summoning gesture. “Heah, doggie.”
Deacon turned and looked at him inquiringly, then trotted toward him. Mindy gave an audible intake of breath as Deacon gave his face a lick, then pushed the top of his head against Caden’s chest.
“He wants you to scratch his neck,” I said.
Caden obliged, working his fingers into the short fur.
“Do you want to wait inside?” I asked Mindy. “I can offer you a hot beverage.”
Again, no smile. Probably she wasn’t a fan of The Big Bang Theory. A pickup turned onto Beechnut, but none of us paid any attention to it until it drew up beside us. The window slid down, and a pleasant-faced woman with gray hair and high cheekbones said, “Which one of you is Robin Starling?”
I raised my hand.
“And there’s little Caden. Jim, park the truck.”
Jim pulled to the curb ahead of us and got out. He was tall and lean and had a full head of silver hair. Caleb ran to him. “P-paw!” He threw his arms around his p-paw’s thighs and embraced him. P-paw scooped him up and handed him to his wife, who had come around the back of the pickup.
“Here’s Gammy,” he said in the cadence of a Tonight Show host.
Gammy hugged Caleb fiercely, and Deacon jumped up to put his paws on P-paw’s chest.
“Deacon!”
Mindy said to me, “You realize your court order doesn’t allow you to transfer Caden to his grandparents until we’ve run a background check.”
P-paw was rubbing Deacon’s ears. “Been a long time since I’ve had a dog,” he said.
“How long is that going to take?” I asked Mindy. “Can you get it done tonight?”
“No, I cannot. I can interview them tonight.”
“Fair enough. Let’s go inside. Deacon!” He dropped to all fours. “Let’s go in.”
Deacon trotted up the sidewalk and, when he got to the step-up to the front porch, turned to look back at us. P-paw said, “You’ve got that boy trained.”
“I thought I had him trained not to jump.”
Dr. McDermott caught my eye, jerked his head toward his house across the street. I held up a hand before he could move off. “Has anybody eaten? Why don’t I get you all inside, then I’ll go get a sack of burgers. Does that sound good?”
Mindy shook her head. “Nothing for me, thanks.”
“Grilled chicken sandwich? Or do you not eat meat at all?”
“I’ve eaten. I’m not a vegetarian.”
“Hot beverage for you,” I said. “Dr. McDermott, will you go with me, help me make sure Deacon doesn’t put on the sack of burgers like a feedbag before I get it home?”
“Of course.”
I got them inside and distributed water bottles in lieu of the promised hot beverage, which would have taken longer. I got Caden’s attention away from his P-paw for a moment and squatted in front of him. “Caden, do you eat hamburgers? Would you like a hamburger?”
“Bugga,” he said. He ran in a circle waving his arms. “Bugga, bugga!”
“Okay,” I said, standing. “Bugga it is. Nothing on it but a lot of catsup.”
Dr. McDermott, Deacon, and I went out to the car. I held the seat forward, and Deacon jumped into the back as Dr. McDermott was getting into the shotgun seat on the other side. Paul Soldano turned onto the street, and I waited for him.
He drove up beside me. “What’s up?” he said as his window opened.
“Got loads of company. Going on a burger run. If you want to come, you can ride in back with Deacon.”
He craned his neck to look past me into the back seat. “Do I have to ride in the car seat, or can we put it in the trunk?”
“There’s room in the trunk.”
So it was a crazy evening. We had burgers, even Deacon, who ate his burger—plain, just meat and bread—on the way home and rode the rest of the way with his nose pressed against one of the sacks with the remaining burgers. Mindy did her interview, which included getting the names of some of Jim and Amy’s neighbors she could talk to. I offered to let P-paw and Gammy stay in my spare bedroom for the night, and they accepted. After he ate his hamburger, Dr. McDermott walked back across the street to his home, and Mindy Churchill left about thirty minutes after that. Paul stayed later, keeping me and Deacon company on the
back patio while P-paw and Gammy got their grandson to bed.
“So what happens now?” Paul said.
“Tomorrow sometime, with any luck, Jim and Amy Woodruff will get temporary custody of Caden and will head back to Arlington with him. I’ll be free to focus on the case against Willow.”
“How’s that going?”
“Not well.”
“Meaning. . .”
“Meaning I don’t know of anything yet that might help her. The arraignment’s tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to press for an early preliminary, next week if I can get it.”
“Is that smart, given what you’ve got?”
“It’ll give me a look at the prosecution’s case, maybe give me something to work on. Right now, I’ve got nothing.”
“Whatever came of Chris Woodruff’s phone? Did you get anything off it?”
“No. There was just enough there to make it obvious the phone was his and that it had been wiped clean. I think whoever sent it was just trying to give the police one more reason to charge me as an accessory.”
“The police never found out you had it.”
“No, I was lucky there.”
“Of course, they still think you were playing who’s-got-the-button with the murder weapon.”
“There’s no hope for that.”
“Button, button, who’s got the button: Did that just start with Dexter’s Laboratory, or was it around before that?”
“The cartoon? It goes all the way back to Little Men, at least.”
“Louisa May Alcott? Actually, I had heard of button-button before Dexter’s Laboratory. I think Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum said something about it in Alice in Wonderland.”
I frowned.
“The Disney version, anyway,” Paul said.
“Does everything you know about popular culture come from a cartoon?”
“Pretty much.”
Chapter 8
Aubrey Biggs was at the arraignment the next afternoon. He was calm and deliberate, not at all like his usual volatile self. Judge Cheatham asked if I wanted him to read the indictment aloud, and I said I did. I had a copy, but I thought it was always a good idea to drive home to the defendant what we were up against. And the point got driven. The whole time the judge was reading, Willow was looking not at him, but at me, her expression anxious, her eyes pleading. It occurred to me that I was what was standing between her and disaster, and I have to say I didn’t envy her.
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