Hot Dog

by Laurien Berenson

  The almost full bowl fell from my hands and clattered into the sink. Its heavy load of water spilled over the sides, sloshing up onto the counter. I hoped like crazy that I’d misheard him, but I didn’t think so.

  Back still turned to Phil, I hastily righted the bowl and began to refill it. My face was flaming; my stomach clenched. Maybe I was reading something into his words that wasn’t there.

  Oh, the heck with it, I thought. Maybe I should just run screaming out the front door and never look back.

  Barring that, I definitely needed to say something to defuse the situation. I turned off the water and wiped my hands on a towel. “You know I like spending time with Mutt and Maisie. They’re great dogs.”

  Hearing their names, the two pooches looked up and wagged their tails. I carried the bowl over and put it down beside them. Mutt levered himself up and went to get a drink.

  Feeling a compulsive need to fill the silence, I began to babble again. “Of course, you and I usually don’t see each other. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? I mean, if you were here—”

  Something, the merest flicker in Phil’s expression, made me hesitate. “Well, aside from last week, that is. And then again today . . .”

  Why didn’t he say something? Why did he just keep looking at me with that strange expression on his face?

  Then finally Phil spoke. His voice was low, his tone soothing. The sound of it set my teeth on edge.

  “I guess I have a confession to make,” he said. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I figure you and I are friends now, and friends shouldn’t keep secrets from one another.”

  Phil patted the chair beside him. “Come on,” he said again. “Come over and sit by me.”

  22

  I didn’t think so.

  Of all the things that were not about to happen, accepting that invitation ranked very near the top of the list. Instead, I turned to face Phil and remained right where I was. My back was pressed against the lip of the sink; nearly the width of the room was between us. And that was exactly the way I wanted it.

  I couldn’t imagine what Phil might have to confess. Bearing recent events in mind, however, my thoughts flew immediately to the missing Dachshund puppy. Not to mention my wallet.

  I’d been at Phil’s last Thursday; Davey and I had stopped for gas on the way over. That was the last time I’d known for sure where my wallet was. And although I’d never given Phil my address, he knew I lived in Stamford. I was listed in the phone book; my house wouldn’t have been hard to track down.

  “A confession?” I asked, and heard my voice wobble. “How interesting. I’m listening.”

  “I thought you might.” Now Phil was smiling, looking more sure of himself. He liked having the attention focused his way. “Are you sure you don’t want a beer?”

  I didn’t bother to answer again, I simply shook my head.

  “Okay, your choice. I guess I’ll just get to it then. I know you’ll understand that I was only looking out for Mutt and Maisie’s best interests. Any parent, any dog owner, would have done the same.”

  He paused so long—his fingers fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers on the table, his gaze skittering in several directions around the room—that I began to wonder if he was going to continue. “Would have done what, exactly?” I finally prompted.

  Phil hesitated another minute, then pushed back his chair and stood. “Maybe it would be easier to show you.”

  He walked into the living room. I followed several steps behind. Phil stopped in front of a tall wooden cabinet I’d never paid much attention to.

  “Look up there,” he said. “What do you see?”

  “A potted plant. The leaves look like they’re made of plastic, and they’re badly in need of dusting.”

  “Perfect,” Phil chortled. “That’s just what you’re supposed to see. But that innocent looking plant is actually a hidden video camera.”

  I sucked in a shocked breath. He didn’t seem to notice. His voice, his stance, were growing bolder. “You’ve probably heard of something like this. The stores call them nannycams. It records everything that goes on in this room.”

  Phil was proud of the way he’d duped me. He was enjoying the opportunity to show off his toy. A toy that had apparently had me under surveillance for the last four months.

  Bile was rising in the back of my throat. “I can’t believe this,” I choked out. “You’ve been spying on me?”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that—”

  “No?” I spun around, searching the room. I didn’t see a television, maybe it was inside the cabinet. “What would you call it?”

  “Insurance,” Phil said quickly. He was beginning to realize he might have miscalculated. “Protection for my home and my animals.”

  I’d have called it rampant paranoia, but what was the point? Phil had interviewed me; he’d checked my references. He’d professed to be satisfied with my services. So why had he felt the need to record my every move?

  “How many cameras are there in the house? Just that one?”

  “Actually three,” he admitted. “There’s one in the dining room that covers the hall.”

  And the powder room, I realized, wondering if I’d ever used the facilities. Trying to remember if I’d bothered to shut the door. What else might I have done when I’d assumed I was alone that I should now regret?

  “That’s two,” I said.

  Phil flushed slightly. “The third one is upstairs, in my bedroom.”

  At least I didn’t have to worry about that camera. I wondered if there were other women who did, women who hadn’t been fortunate enough to be privy to Phil’s confessions.

  I strode over to the cabinet and yanked it open. As I’d suspected, it contained a TV set. A collection of homemade video tapes was stacked on a shelf below. Each was neatly labeled. As I skimmed over the selection, my horror grew. They were dated twice a week since January, and my name was on every one.

  I was beyond outrage now. For a moment, I was afraid I might throw up. There weren’t any other women. Just me.

  Oh, crap.

  I reached into the cabinet and grabbed as many tapes as I could hold.

  “Wait a minute,” said Phil. “What are you doing?”

  To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I had to get out of there, and I was taking the collection with me. I felt violated, exposed, in a way I’d never before imagined. Not knowing what was on the tapes only made the situation worse.

  Watching me, Phil was growing visibly agitated. I wondered if he’d try to stop me. I wondered what I would do if he did.

  “Those tapes are my property,” he said. “You can’t have them.”

  “No? What do you intend to do with them?”

  “Look at them. That’s all I do, I just look at them. They make me feel closer to you—”

  I yelped slightly and began to back away. If there was one thing I didn’t need it was Phil Dutton feeling any closer to me.

  “I don’t know why you’re so upset,” he whined. “Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m explaining things badly. This is all very innocent. The guy at the store told me that employers do this all the time. I was just making a record of what went on in my house on the days you came when I wasn’t here. Surely you can’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

  Arms filled with tapes, I turned slowly to face him. “What do you mean, on the days I came when you weren’t here? I thought you were always gone on Mondays and Thursdays. Isn’t that why you hired me?”

  Phil blinked several times, like an animal caught in the glare of an unexpected light. “Initially, yes. I was working in the city on those days, just as I said.”

  “And then?” My voice rose ominously.

  “Then after a couple months, the project ended. It happens all the time, that’s the way freelancers work . . .”

  I didn’t give a damn how freelancers worked. I wanted to know why, once Phil had stopped being away twice a week, he continue
d to use my services. And I was very much beginning to suspect that I wouldn’t like his answer.

  “When did you stop working in New York?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe last month? Look, it really isn’t important—”

  “It is to me.” I cast a look in Mutt and Maisie’s direction. I was going to miss those little dogs. Too bad they had such a creepy owner.

  “The only thing that matters,” Phil said, “is that you’re here now. And I’m here. I know you always give Mutt and Maisie their full hour, I’ve seen that on the tapes. So there’s no need for you to rush off. I thought we might spend some time getting to know one another.”

  He had to be nuts, I thought. Or at least seriously deluded. Could Phil Dutton honestly believe any woman would feel that being spied upon was an appropriate prelude to beginning some sort of relationship?

  “Look at all the tapes I made of you.” He gestured toward the collection in my arms. His eyes were large and liquid. “Isn’t that proof of the way I feel?”

  Sheesh, I thought. Nuts, it was.

  “Did you ever stop to think about my feelings?” I demanded. “Did you ever consider the fact that what you were doing was an invasion of my privacy?”

  “No.”

  Well, then. In his mind, I guessed that made everything all right.

  “Tell me something,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  His glib answer annoyed me. Of course. After all, we were buddies now, weren’t we? I tried not to snap when I spoke.

  “Have you ever been to my house?”

  Phil didn’t answer right away. Instead he smiled slightly, like a man enjoying a private joke. He turned and gazed out the window. When he finally spoke, I couldn’t see his face.

  “Why would I want to go to your house when you were already coming here?”

  “No reason,” I said softly. All at once, I was very glad I’d arranged to have Davey spend the week with Bob.

  Phil followed me to the door. It was all I could do not to run. He reached out a hand and his palm rested briefly on my shoulder before I shrugged it off.

  “This is turning out all wrong,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I just wanted us to talk. I thought maybe we could be friends.”

  He sounded sad, and more than a little lonely. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

  “I guess I probably should have told you when I stopped working, but I was still paying you for your time, so what was the harm in that? I figured you were probably glad to have the job. After all, you wouldn’t be working if you didn’t need the money. But now everything’s out in the open, and that’s good, right? We can go back to things being the way they were.”

  “No,” I said firmly. “We can’t. For one thing, I was coming here for Mutt and Maisie’s sake, and they don’t need me anymore. For another, I could never be friends with a man who thinks it’s all right to spy on people.”

  Juggling the tapes, I reached into the pocket of my jeans and fished out the door key he’d given me in January. I left it on the table near the door on my way out.

  On my way home, I stopped by the locksmith with whom I’d left a message the day before. What he had to say wasn’t encouraging.

  “I’ll be happy to come over to your house and change every lock you’ve got,” Peter Stiles told me. “Dead bolts are your best bet, but nothing I’m gonna do is foolproof. Let me be honest, Ms. Travis, unless you go to putting bars on your windows, if someone really wants to get into your house, they’re gonna come in.”

  “What about a security system?”

  “Same thing.” Stiles shrugged. “There’s a bunch of good companies out there. Call one of them, get them to rig something up. What you’re going to get for your money is an alarm that makes a whole lotta noise and a direct link to the police station. What’s the response time for emergencies in your neighborhood?”

  I had no idea. Thankfully, it had never come up.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes would be considered pretty good in most areas,” Stiles told me. “Whole lotta stuff can happen in fifteen minutes, you know what I mean? You really want some protection, you ought to think about getting yourself a guard dog. Something big and scary like a Doberman or a Rottweiler. Something with lots of teeth. Plenty of burglars think twice about taking on a house with a big dog inside.”

  My house had two big dogs inside, and as far as I could tell, their presence hadn’t deterred the intruder at all. I thanked Stiles for his advice and drove home.

  When I got there, my two watchdogs were waiting for me by the front door. At least they were inside the house this time. I squatted down and opened my arms wide to encompass both wriggling bodies. Faith looked past me, out the door. Her body language was easy to read. She was looking for Davey.

  “I know.” I sighed. It had only been two hours. “I miss him, too.”

  Aunt Peg called while the two Poodles were chasing each other like maniacs around the backyard. Her sixth sense for my behavioral lapses is uncanny. Poodles in show coat aren’t supposed to play chasing games. Chasing inevitably leads to hair pulling, which results in saliva-encrusted mats.

  It was no use wondering how Aunt Peg always knew when I was being remiss in my duties as Keeper Of The Coat. The way things had been going recently, I was perfectly willing to believe that she had the place wired.

  “So?” she demanded. Not hello. Not how are you. Just, so?

  And people say the younger generation has no manners.

  “So what?” I inquired pleasantly.

  “Really, Melanie, don’t be fresh. Have you found Dox yet?”

  Oh, that. I should have known. And probably would have if I hadn’t had eight million other things to think about in the meantime.

  “No.”

  “Where have you looked so far?”

  I wondered briefly how to put this. There didn’t seem to be a way to sugarcoat it. “Ummm . . . nowhere.”

  “Nowhere? It’s been nearly an entire day. What have you been doing?”

  “Let’s see.” I thought back. “I talked to the police. I got the glass fixed in my back door. I talked to Sam, I talked to Bob. I had lunch at the Bean Counter with Bertie—”

  “And how was any of that supposed to help Dox?”

  “Maybe I misunderstood,” I said. “Weren’t you the one who was supposed to be coming up with a plan?”

  “Not all by myself.” Aunt Peg sounded rather huffy. “While you were off gallivanting, however, I did talk to Marian.”

  That was interesting. “And?”

  “She called earlier to ask a favor. She’d like you to bring Dox by her house for another visit.”

  Perfect, I thought. Just perfect.

  “I don’t suppose you told her that wouldn’t be possible?”

  “Not exactly,” Peg hedged. “After all, you were the one who thought of her as one of your better suspects. I figured you’d want to tell her about the puppy’s disappearance in person and see what kind of response you get.”

  Considering that Marian was allegedly expecting me to show up with the Dachshund puppy, her reaction would be pretty predictable. On the other hand, there were still several discrepancies between what George had to say about their divorce and the story Marian was promoting. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to ask a few questions.

  “Since you’re going out this evening anyway,” Peg continued, “I thought you could stop by and see her on your way over to Rose’s.”

  Anyone who thinks that a stop in Ridgefield is on the way from Stamford to Cos Cob has never consulted a map of Connecticut. Not that Aunt Peg lets such simple logistics get in her way.

  “Should I take that to mean that Marian is expecting me?”

  “She will be.” Aunt Peg sounded satisfied. “Just as soon as I call and let her know you’re coming.”

  Maybe Aunt Peg hadn’t been childless, I thought as I hung up the phone. Maybe she’d eaten her young.

  It would
explain a lot.

  23

  On the way to Marian Firth’s house, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps Aunt Peg, in her own sneaky, underhanded fashion, was actually trying to sabotage my evening with Aunt Rose. I mean, really. Why else would she send me all the way up to Ridgefield when I was supposed to be heading to Cos Cob?

  My two aunts have always been competitive with one another. And since Rose and Peter moved back to the area, it’s taken a great deal of diplomacy on my part not to get caught in the middle. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. On the other hand, I reflected—and the long drive offered me plenty of time for reflection—given the current state of my life, a little paranoia didn’t seem entirely out of line.

  As Aunt Peg had promised, Marian was expecting me. She opened the door with an expectant smile. Almost immediately her face fell.

  “Oh,” she said. “When Peg told me you were coming to see me I just assumed you’d bring my puppy with you.”

  Either Marian Firth was a wonderful actress, I decided, or she had no idea that Dox was missing.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I do need to talk to you about him, though.”

  “Of course.” She stepped aside. “Please come in.”

  The three Dachshunds I’d met on my last visit, two smooths and a wirehair, came tumbling into the hall like a troupe of circus acrobats. At least they looked like the same ones to me. It’s taken me several years to reach the point where I can tell several black Poodles apart with total assurance. Sorting out Dachshunds was a skill still in my future.

  “Tell me all about my puppy,” Marian said. “I want to hear everything.”

  Tough assignment, that. I decided to wait until we were seated opposite one another in the living room before trying to explain.

  “Dox was doing very well,” I said. “As you know, I’ve been keeping him at my house. He and my Poodles were getting along beautifully.”

  “Were?” Immediately Marian picked up on my use of the past tense. If anything, the woman looked even more fragile than she had on my last visit. “Has something happened?”