Jingle Bell Bark

by Laurien Berenson

  I paused and straightened. My expression brightened. Put like that, I suddenly knew the answer.

  “Aunt Peg,” I said.

  As Betty Bowen had warned us, Remington and Pepper had indeed made a mess. While I found two strong leather leashes and snapped them to the Goldens’ collars so I could take the dogs outside for a much needed walk, Alice set about cleaning up.

  I told her to wait until I came back in; I insisted I’d do the job myself. But Alice waved away my objections and stooped down to open the cabinet beneath the sink, checking for cleaning supplies.

  “I’m a mother,” she grumbled. “It’s not like I haven’t seen worse.”

  Remington and Pepper were so excited by the prospect of a walk that they dragged me out the door and down the steps. Under normal circumstances, the pair was probably leash trained. Now they were barely controllable.

  Not that I could blame them. Semi-free for the first time in days, they had plenty of excess energy. They raced and played, barking with glee. Tethered to them by the length of two six-foot leashes, I just did my best to keep up.

  It was at least fifteen minutes before the dogs’ high spirits showed the slightest sign of flagging. By that time I was thoroughly whipped. Nothing like a couple quick laps around the block to hammer home the point that my life was a little light on aerobic exercise. Like eating more fiber and learning to appreciate opera, it was one of those things I was planning to get to when my schedule cleared.

  Steering the pair back inside, I immediately noticed a difference. The house smelled a whole lot better than it had when we’d left. Alice, wearing bright yellow rubber gloves that covered her arms all the way up to the elbows, was looking quite pleased with herself.

  “Lysol, and lots of it,” she said. “As soon as I drag these bags outside to the garbage, you’ll never even know there was a problem in here.”

  While she did that, I looked in the cupboard where I found a big bag of lams kibble. Two dog bowls were sitting empty on the floor; I rinsed them out and added them to the pile. Alice helped me carry everything outside. While I was loading up the car, she returned Henry’s key to Betty Bowen.

  “Betty said to convey her thanks,” Alice said as she slid in the passenger side. Pepper and Remington, placed in the storage area in the back, had clambered forward into the back seat and were now hanging their heads into the open space between Alice and me. Any minute now, we were going to find them in the front with us. “I think she was pretty relieved to get rid of them.”

  “I can imagine.” I reached back and tried to shoo the two dogs away. Tongues lolling, grinning like a pair of doofuses, they refused to take the hint.

  Alice cast them a glance. “I’m glad you didn’t listen to me. They do look a lot happier.”

  “They must have been lonely locked up inside that house,” I said. “Not to mention, I’m sure they were wondering what happened to Henry.”

  Alice and I both fell silent. I’d been so busy dealing with the two big Goldens that I hadn’t had time to stop and absorb the news of Henry’s death. Now the loss hit me all over again.

  “He was a nice man.” Alice sighed. “I guess the least we can do is make sure that his dogs are okay.”

  “Amen to that,” I said.

  I dropped Alice off at home so she could get her car and go pick up the kids—hers and mine both—at the arts center. Then I got on the Merritt Parkway, thankfully against rush hour traffic, and drove to Greenwich where Aunt Peg lived. Briefly, I considered calling and warning her that I was on my way, but I didn’t entertain the notion long. Much as I expected my aunt to be sympathetic to the Goldens’ plight, given time to think she would no doubt come up with an alternative plan of action that would have me driving all over the state. Much better to simply show up unannounced and plead their case on the spot.

  Aunt Peg lived in backcountry Greenwich in a farmhouse on five acres of land, most of it fenced to contain her Standard Poodles. Currently she had six living in the house with her. Five of those were retired show champions. The other, Eve’s littermate, Zeke, though still in hair, was nearing that status himself.

  As always, the herd of Poodles announced my arrival the moment I turned in the driveway. The doorbell was superfluous at Aunt Peg’s house; I didn’t even bother to knock. I simply climbed the wide front steps and waited on the porch for her to come to the door. It didn’t take long.

  “Didn’t I just see you day before yesterday?” Aunt Peg asked by way of a greeting. “Where’s my nephew? Have you come for dinner?”

  This last was strictly a rhetorical question. Guests who hope to be fed at Aunt Peg’s house are well advised to bring the meal with them.

  Before I could answer, my aunt’s well-honed dog radar had already zeroed in on my car where Pepper and Remington were waiting. Even though it was cool out, I’d left the windows open a crack. Now both Goldens had their noses wedged into the small opening. Streams of drool ran down the glass. Obviously they weren’t too concerned about making a good first impression.

  “Who on earth are they?” Aunt Peg asked. Quickly, she stepped out onto the wide porch and shut the door behind her. Her Poodles, left behind in the front hall, knew immediately that something was up. They raced around to the front window to have a look.

  “Remington and Pepper,” I said brightly.

  “Do we know them?”

  “We do now. Your kennel is still empty, right?”

  Aunt Peg was no dummy. She could see where this was heading.

  My aunt’s involvement with Standard Poodles had begun decades earlier, during her marriage to my Uncle Max. For much of the latter half of the twentieth century, their Cedar Crest Kennel had been a force in the breed. Their Standard Poodle champions had been contenders at shows all up and down the East Coast. Upon Max’s death four years earlier, however, Aunt Peg had begun to scale back.

  Her dedication to the Poodle breed remained undiminished but these days she was breeding only rarely, and doing more judging than showing. The small kennel building behind her house, once home to generations of Cedar Crest champions, was no longer in use. Peg’s Poodles had shrunk to such a manageable number that she was able to enjoy their company as house dogs.

  “Of course it’s empty. You know that perfectly well. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking to take in boarders.”

  “How about a pair of orphans?”

  Aunt Peg tried to look stern and failed utterly. She’s always been a sucker for a dog with a sad story. Moving past me, she was already heading down the steps toward the driveway.

  “I suppose we’d better have a look,” she said.

  6

  Aunt Peg is a pragmatist where other people’s dogs are concerned. She understands that not everyone trains their dogs to the level of behavior she takes for granted in her own Poodles. When she opened the car door, she immediately reached in and took hold of one Golden’s collar, while using her body to block the exit until I could grab the other. Nobody was going to escape and run away on Aunt Peg’s watch.

  A gate on the other side of the driveway led to a fenced three-acre field with the kennel building at the far end. We led the Golden Retrievers through the gate and turned them loose. At once, Pepper and Remington dashed away, racing joyously in huge, looping circles.

  “They’ve been cooped up inside a house all by themselves for the last two days,” I said. “Their owner died Monday night and nobody made any provision for their care.”

  Aunt Peg had come outside without a coat on. Now, watching the two dogs play, she was smiling and shivering at the same time. “I want to hear everything,” she said. “But first I need to get the heat and water turned on in the kennel. It will take a few minutes to warm up.”

  While Aunt Peg strode across the field and attended to that, I went back to the car and got the dog food and bowls I’d brought with me from Henry’s house. By the time I reached the kennel, the furnace was already humming and warm air was beginning to stream out throug
h the vents. Peg was pulling blankets out of a cupboard and building a plush bed in one of the big runs. I left the supplies in the outer room, where my aunt had once done all her grooming, and then went to check on the two dogs.

  Pepper and Remington had finally stopped running. Now they were standing side by side in the middle of the big field, uncertain what to do next. When I called them by name, both heads snapped up. Moving together, they started toward the kennel.

  Aunt Peg joined me in the doorway. “Good boys,” she said encouragingly. “That’s the way. Come on.” Her voice held just the right inflection, with a tone that dogs seemed to trust instinctively. The Golden Retrievers covered the remaining distance and came trotting happily into the building. I closed the door behind them.

  “First things first,” said Peg. She’d already set out a big bowl of fresh water; now she was considering the kibble I’d delivered. “How bad was it where they were? Did they at least have access to food and water?”

  “A neighbor did that much for them.” I explained Betty Bowen’s involvement. “Mostly I think they were just really lonely.”

  “And confused too, I’ll bet.” Peg reached down and stroked Remington’s long back. The Golden leaned into the caress, rubbing his body against her legs like a cat. “Who was their owner? And how did you happen to find them?”

  While Aunt Peg started soaking some kibble, I related what I knew about Henry Pruitt. Regrettably, it wasn’t much.

  “So their owner is dead,” she mused when I was done. “And the two daughters who presumably will inherit the estate may or may not want them.”

  “Probably not,” I said. “At least not if Betty Bowen is correct. At any rate, they have yet to put in an appearance. If the daughters were aware of the dogs’ existence, don’t you think they would have made some attempt to check on them?”

  “One can only hope,” Peg said, though her expression indicated that humans had let her down on that score before.

  “I’m expecting that we’ll have to find homes for them. I was hoping they could stay here in the meantime.”

  “Of course they’ll stay here,” Aunt Peg said firmly. In her mind, that part of the problem had already been settled. “It’s what comes after that that needs to be figured out.”

  “Do you know any Golden Retriever people who could put us in touch with their local rescue group?”

  “These two don’t need to go to rescue. That would be a last resort. First we need to find out where they came from. If they were bred by reputable people, chances are both their breeders will take them back.”

  Like many of her peers who bred for the dog show world, Aunt Peg’s puppies were sold with a contract guaranteeing that she would take a dog back at any point in its life if it was unable to remain with its current owner. Considering how much time and thought had gone into planning and executing each breeding, not to mention finding exactly the right homes for those puppies she didn’t keep, Peg felt it was only prudent to keep a judicious eye on her offspring’s welfare even after they’d left the nest.

  Even in the best of homes, circumstances could change unexpectedly. Death, divorce, loss of a job could all create situations where dog ownership was no longer possible. Aunt Peg wanted it clearly understood that any Poodle who bore the Cedar Crest name would always have a home with her.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I should have thought of that. But what makes you think there would be two breeders? I just assumed these guys were brothers.”

  “They’re not.”

  “How do you know?” I hated it when Aunt Peg was so certain of something that wasn’t at all clear to me.

  “For Pete’s sake, Melanie. Look at them.”

  I was looking at them. In fact, I was staring. All I saw was two very similar male Golden Retrievers. Remington was slightly larger; his coat was also a lighter color. Other than that, they looked remarkably alike to me.

  Aunt Peg drummed her fingers on the countertop, waiting for me to get a clue. It wasn’t happening.

  Finally she gave up. “I can’t believe you don’t see it! Those two barely have a single trait in common. Pepper has quality written all over him; it’s obvious he came from a good line. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that he has littermates who have finished their championships. Remington, on the other hand, is probably a pet store puppy. Lucky for him he seems to have a good temperament because he certainly isn’t going to get by in this world on his good looks.”

  There was no point in asking how she could do that: look at a pair of dogs she’d never seen before and make what were probably accurate predictions about their parentage. By now I’d been involved with Standard Poodles long enough that I could tell a good one from a bad one. I couldn’t sort out an entire class with Aunt Peg’s effortless ease, but I could definitely cull the wheat from the chaff. Other breeds, however, were still a mystery to me.

  Not to Aunt Peg. Her eye for a good dog was honed to such a degree that even those she’d just met could immediately be slotted into their proper categories. I didn’t doubt for a minute that she was correct in her assessment. And assuming that Pepper had come from a quality line, I wondered if that meant he’d been bred by someone she knew.

  Clearly my aunt’s thoughts had traveled in the same direction as mine. “The easiest way to track down their breeders is to get a look at their papers. Henry obviously took good care of these two. Let’s hope their registration slips were important enough to him that he kept them somewhere safe. What kind of man was Henry? Orderly, organized?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” I admitted. “He was just a very nice man who drove Davey’s bus.”

  Peg harrumphed under her breath. She liked her relatives to be better informed. Her Poodles’ AKC registration slips were kept in an accordion folder. A separate file was maintained for each dog; all pertinent health, breeding, and show records were easily accessible and up-to-date. It had to be asking too much to think that Henry might have done the same.

  Aunt Peg poked at the kibble with a spoon. Deciding it had soaked long enough, she divided it into two stainless steel bowls and offered it to the dogs. We watched as both dug in eagerly. Having lived with a finicky eater for three years, it did my heart good to see them gobble down the unadorned kibble. Still, I was betting it wouldn’t take Aunt Peg more than a day to have these two eating homemade stew like the rest of her crew.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Teaching school,” I said. “It’s Thursday.” When it suited her purposes, Aunt Peg was apt to conveniently forget that I worked for a living.

  “After that.”

  “I have a feeling I’m chasing down Remington and Pepper’s papers.”

  “Quite so. Give me directions, tell me what time, and I’ll meet you at Henry’s house. The job will probably go faster with two people searching than with one.”

  It sounded like a plan to me.

  Alice’s husband, Joe, was working late at his law firm in Greenwich. By the time I got back to the Brickmans’ house, Alice had the boys doing their homework and she’d ordered in enough pizza for all five of us.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” I said gratefully.

  Alice waved away my thanks. “It’s just part of the job. How’d your aunt feel about coping with two unexpected visitors?”

  “One thing you have to say for Peg, she’s never at a loss for what to do next. Pepper and Remington are living in her kennel and she and I are going back to Henry’s tomorrow afternoon to see if we can find their AKC papers.”

  “Is that necessary to find them new homes?”

  “No, but if we can figure out who their breeders were, we can probably just send them back where they came from. That’ll be the easiest solution all the way around.”

  Alice and I both stopped talking and watched as Carly, still clad in her leotard and ballet slippers, twirled in one kitchen door and out the other. I’d grown up a tomboy and was now raising a son. Little ballerina
s were a foreign concept to me. I had no idea whether Alice’s daughter had talent or not, but she certainly was cute.

  “Tell Davey to get off the bus tomorrow with Joey,” Alice said after a moment. “He can stay here until you’re ready to come get him.”

  “Thanks. That would be great.”

  “I know.” She grinned as the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of dinner. “Great’s my middle name.”

  It wasn’t until the next morning, as I put Davey on the bus that Annie Gault was driving, that I realized I hadn’t told him about Henry’s death. Henry had been a part of my son’s life, albeit a small one, for a number of years. I supposed I was going to have to come up with a way to break the news to him.

  When I went back in to get the Poodles, the phone was ringing, just as it had been the day before. This time it was Aunt Peg.

  As always, she got right to the point. “Have you looked at the morning paper yet?”

  “No, I haven’t had time.” In fact, I’d just brought it in from the driveway. The newspaper was still encased in its protective plastic wrap. “Why?”

  “Your Henry the bus driver is on page one.”

  Wedging the phone between ear and shoulder, I quickly unwrapped the Stamford Advocate. Rising gas prices and unrest in the Middle East had the banner headlines. I zeroed in on a small picture of Henry just below the fold. Local Man Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances the caption read.

  “Suspicious circumstances?” I said out loud. “What suspicious circumstances?”

  “Read the story,” said Peg. “It’s obviously right in front of you.”

  “I don’t have time. Give me the highlights.”

  “Well, for starters, Henry Pruitt wasn’t just a bus driver.”

  “Oh?” I walked across the kitchen to the back door and called the Poodles inside. Both girls knew the routine; they were standing on the step waiting for me.

  “In his younger days, he was apparently quite a successful businessman.” Aunt Peg paused, then found her place and began to read. “Mr. Pruitt retired in 1997 as vice-president and COO of Sterling Management Group, a commodities brokerage firm in Greenwich.”