Dog Eat Dog

by Laurien Berenson

  “I was thinking of calling ahead for Chinese,” she said. “General Tso’s chicken, Shrimp Lo Mein, maybe some steamed dumplings.”

  Sam loved Chinese food. Since none of us had cared enough for dog show food to bother having lunch, I bet his mouth was watering already. I knew mine was.

  Looking very pleased with herself, Aunt Peg began to pack up her things as if the matter was already settled.

  I looked at Sam and lifted a brow.

  He grinned in return.

  General Tso’s chicken it was.

  Thirty-one

  I called Frank from Aunt Peg’s house and discovered that he had to work that evening. The bartending job. I’d forgotten all about it.

  “No problem,” said Frank. “Bob says he can take Davey home and stay until you get back.”

  “Bob? I didn’t know he was with you.”

  “Sure, we had a great day. They can tell you all about it when you get home.”

  He hung up before I could ask any more questions. It was probably just as well. As long as I didn’t know too much, I could put the whole thing out of my mind and concentrate instead on enjoying the opportunity to spend time with Sam. No ex-husband, no five-year-old angling for equal attention, no outside distractions.

  If you didn’t count Aunt Peg, that is.

  But for once, Peg was on her best behavior. We’d stopped on the way home and picked up take-out; then Sam and I set the table while she tended to her Poodles. Hungry as we were, we’d still ordered too much food. We all had seconds, and then thirds, while we talked about the show and Peg’s new litter of puppies. Briefly the conversation touched on Monica’s murder when I told Aunt Peg about my conversations with Lydia and Bertie. Sam listened politely, but since he didn’t know most of the people involved, the conversation soon moved on.

  In keeping with the upbeat tenor of the evening, Bob’s name wasn’t even mentioned until it was time to go and Sam walked me out to my car. It was hard to avoid talking about him then, especially with the brand new Volvo sitting there in the driveway.

  Sam admired my new wheels briefly, then wound his arms around my waist. “I miss you,” he whispered.

  “I’m here.” I nestled closer.

  “You know what I mean.”

  I did, of course; and I missed him, too.

  “Bob’s leaving soon. Tonight I’ll find out when. Either that, or I’ll tell him he’s being evicted.”

  Good intentions carried me home in a righteous frame of mind. It wasn’t late when I arrived, but Davey was already upstairs asleep in bed. In the living room, Bob was stretched out on the couch with his eyes closed. Faith’s barking roused him a little He didn’t get up, but he did offer me a half-hearted wave.

  “You must have had some day,” I said.

  “Roller-blading,” he mumbled. “Your brother thinks he’s a teenager.”

  “Inside, he still is. Was it fun?”

  “Davey loved it.”

  “How about you?”

  Bob groaned in reply, and rolled over to face the back of the couch. Now he was just tired. In the morning, every muscle in his body would ache. The thought cheered me enormously. I went upstairs, got a blanket and pillow and tucked him into bed on the couch. I may be tough, but I’m not entirely unsympathetic.

  Of course it didn’t occur to me that my actions might be misconstrued until I awoke the next morning with Davey and Faith bouncing on my bed.

  “Daddy’s here!” my son cried. “He spent the whole night!”

  Right. So he had.

  “He fell asleep on the couch,” I said gently. “That’s all. You wore him out yesterday. Did you have a good time?”

  “It was awesome. Did you know I can roller-blade and eat ice cream at the same time?”

  “No, I didn’t.” The boy had heretofore unplumbed depths. I thought hopefully about knee and elbow pads and resisted the maternal urge to poke and prod for injuries.

  “Daddy’s taking a shower,” Davey informed me happily. “After that, he’s going to make me breakfast.”

  “Lucky you. In the meantime, would you take Faith downstairs and let her outside?”

  The puppy’s ears pricked at the words and she beat Davey to the bedroom door. After they left, I heard Bob rattling around in the bathroom. I waited in bed and gave him plenty of time before checking to see if things were clear. He’d used up most of the hot water, but he did hang up the wet towels and clean the steam from the mirror.

  By the time I got downstairs, the air was filled with the aroma of fresh coffee and Bob was dishing out western omelets and french fries. He met my bland look with one of his own.

  “Just making do with what you had on hand,” he said. I helped myself to a mug of coffee, added a dollop of milk, and sat down at the table, wondering if Bob would take the hint. He did. It was nice to be served for a change.

  After breakfast I got Davey dressed, then sent him outside with Faith. Bob and I needed to talk, preferably without our son in attendance. Letting Bob stay over hadn’t been a mistake necessarily, but it had reinforced how at ease he felt insinuating himself back into our lives. Maybe the way to get him started thinking about going home was to chip away at some of that comfort.

  Asking about money ought to start things off on the right foot.

  “I’ve been thinking about the future,” I said, as I poured a second cup of coffee and sat back down. “Now that you’ve got some cash coming in, we’ll be needing to set up a schedule of child-support payments for after you’re gone.”

  “I guess that sounds fair,” Bob said slowly.

  “You guess?” I straightened in my chair. “You guess?” My God, I hadn’t even mentioned the four years of back support in arrears.

  “That’s not what I meant.” One look at my expression had Bob backpedaling furiously. “It’s just that I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about this oil well. It’s not like I’m rich or anything.”

  Two new cars, and a three week vacation from work just because he wanted one? Compared to me, he might as well have been Donald Trump.

  “Nobody asked you for millions,” I said stiffly.

  “Sure the well is making money. But the expenses are high, too. And of course, we lose a lot to taxes, not to mention insurance. You wouldn’t believe what that costs ...”

  He went bumbling on, but I’d stopped listening. Taxes. That was the second time that thought had jiggled something in the back of my mind. Taxes and insurance ... Where had I seen them together recently?

  Then I remembered. Monica’s files, when Aunt Peg and I had been looking for the Belle Haven Club records. There’d been four partitions in the file box. One for club business, one for bills, and another two for tax and insurance receipts. Except that Monica didn’t have any insurance. That’s what Joanne had said, and she would have known.

  With all the information Monica had gathered about the various club members, it made sense that there would have been some records, somewhere. Like maybe in a file called insurance receipts. It was certainly worth a look.

  I pushed back my chair and stood. “I have to make a phone call. Actually, I think I have to go out.”

  “Now? I thought you wanted to talk about Davey.”

  “I do. I definitely do.” But that could wait, couldn’t it? After all, it wasn’t as if Bob was going anywhere, more’s the pity. “Will you keep an eye on him?”

  “Sure, but I wanted to tell you—”

  “I won’t be long, okay? Thanks.”

  I called Mrs. Freedman first. Thankfully, she was in and seemed perfectly pleased by the prospect of a brief visit. My second call was to Aunt Peg. I outlined what I had in mind, told her I’d meet her in Banksville, then stuck my head out the back door and yelled goodbye to Davey.

  Bob sat and watched this flurry of activity with his arms crossed over his chest and a sulky expression on his face. With luck, maybe he’d have the breakfast dishes done by the time I got back.

  The Volvo made exce
llent time to Banksville. In the few weeks since our last visit, spring had made its presence felt. The snow and puddles were gone from the Freedmans’ yard, and the first green shoots of spring were push ing themselves up from underground.

  Because of the stockade fencing, I couldn’t see the Beagles, but I certainly heard them. They were in the yard behind the house, howling up a storm at my arrival. Mrs. Freedman apologized for the racket when she opened the door. Ample hips swaying, she led the way down the hall to Monica’s office.

  “It’s a good thing you called,” she said. “Tomorrow I was going to take everything down to the tax accountant and let him sort it out, so you’re just in time.”

  As we reached the room, the Beagles began to howl again. Mrs. Freedman ambled out to let Aunt Peg in and I went straight to the cardboard file box near the desk. It didn’t look as though it had been touched since our last visit. The three remaining files were just as we’d left them. I pulled out the one marked insurance receipts, carried it over to the bed and sat down.

  “Here I am,” Aunt Peg said cheerfully from the doorway. “I knew you wouldn’t start without me.”

  She hurried in to join me and I opened the manila file folder, spreading it out across both our laps. On top was a letter from Joanne. It was written on letterhead paper from the Lewis Street Insurance Agency and touted the virtues of the agency policies. I skimmed through it, a lump gathering in my stomach. What if I’d been wrong?

  “Go on,” Aunt Peg said impatiently. pushing the letter aside. “What else is there?”

  Beneath it was a Belle Haven Club membership list, with many of the names circled. All were committee heads, and all had been present on the night Monica was killed.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Peg.

  Under that was a newspaper clipping, taken from the Westport News and dated the previous December. “This is about Paul and Darla,” I said, reading the first few lines.

  Aunt Peg took the clipping from my hand. “What’s that fastened to the back?”

  It was a note Monica had written to herself, detailing Joanne’s involvement in what had happened. Monica had listed three dates on which they’d discussed the topic.

  “I never said she wasn’t organized,” said Aunt Peg, adding the packet to her pile. “What’s next?”

  More notes. The one on top recorded a comment Barbara had made about Cy’s top winning Dalmatian that had aroused Monica’s suspicions. The club secretary had apparently followed up by phoning Dr. Rimkowsky, pretending to be Crawford’s assistant and needing to verify an appointment.

  “Organized and devious,” I said, flipping through papers that discussed Lydia’s illegal litter and Aunt Peg’s Poodle with SA. Penny and Mark Romano’s names were noted on a sheet of letterhead paper that appeared to be from a law firm in Greenwich, but with no other explanation attached.

  At the bottom of the pile were two snapshots, both blown up to five by seven. I passed one over to Aunt Peg, and studied the other myself.

  Both pictures appeared to have been taken from ringside, and each showed a close-up view of a Yorkshire Terrier being posed on the table during judging. The body of a woman handler was visible behind the dog, but her head was out of the shot. In my picture she was wearing a blue dress; in Aunt Peg’s, it was red.

  “Who do you suppose they are?” I asked.

  “Some detective you make,” Aunt Peg sniffed. She turned her picture over and read the writing on the back. “It says right here this one is Champion LouShar Lucinda at Springfield. What about yours?”

  I flipped it over and read, “Champion LouShar Lucinda at Central Maine. Who cares?”

  “Apparently Monica did. I wonder why.” Aunt Peg took the snapshot out of my hand and had a closer look. “LouShar is Louis and Sharon’s kennel name. Didn’t Lydia say at the last meeting that they had finished a Yorkie in Maine this past winter?”

  I nodded. “The one she teased them for not bragging about.”

  Aunt Peg frowned, handing back the photos so I could have another look. “In their shoes, I wouldn’t have been bragging either. These two Yorkies aren’t the same bitch.”

  Thirty-two

  “What?” I placed the two photographs side by side and stared at them, hard.

  “I’m no specialist in Yorkies,” said Aunt Peg. “But when they’re together like that, even I can see the difference. The woman looks approximately the same in each picture, but look at the relative size and shape of the dog in comparison. The Springfield show is in November. Central Maine is in January. Unless LouShar Lucinda shrank in size, gained in length and grew a whole new coat, there’s no way these two pictures could be of the same bitch.”

  I nodded slowly, finally able to discern what she wanted me to see. “Are you saying that Louis and Sharon can’t tell their own dogs apart?”

  “Not at all.” Aunt Peg smiled grimly. “My guess is, Monica caught them showing a ringer.”

  I looked up, surprised. “People do that?”

  “It’s not a common occurrence, but it has been known to happen. Suppose a dog has almost finished its championship when something goes wrong. Maybe it loses its coat, or gets injured in some way. After all the time and money that’s already been invested, it can be very frustrating to be left high and dry just a few points away from completing a title.”

  “That’s got to be illegal.”

  “Of course it’s illegal. It’s fraud, for Pete’s sake. It certainly would explain why the LaPlantes seemed so flustered when Lydia mentioned their win. They must have thought they’d sneaked off to some little out of the way show, where nobody would ever be the wiser.”

  “Maybe nobody would have, if they hadn’t won the group.”

  “That’s what’s so odd,” said Aunt Peg. “The only way to pull off this sort of scam is to get the job done quietly. Presumably Louis and Sharon used a very good bitch as a substitute to make sure she’d win. But Best of Breed winners aren’t required to go on to the group. I can’t imagine why they have been so foolish as to call attention to themselves that way.”

  “I guess that’s Sharon handling,” I said, squinting at the picture. With no head and only a small portion of the body showing, it was impossible to tell.

  “Sharon’s not the brightest woman, but I didn’t think she was stupid. And that’s exactly what a stunt like this is. No wonder they didn’t have any pictures to show off. They probably didn’t have any taken.”

  “Too bad for them, Monica was on hand with her camera.”

  Peg nodded. “Monica always took pictures at the shows. She said they helped her with her sketching. Presumably, that’s why she already had a shot of the real Lucinda at Springfield.”

  We’d reached the end of the file, and she began to gather up the papers. “Louis must have been horrified when he found out there was a chance he’d be exposed. Of course his chances of ever becoming a judge would be ruined. But beyond that, would you trust your affairs to a lawyer who’d been implicated in a case of fraud? I wouldn’t.”

  She didn’t say it, but we were both thinking the same thing. As far as motives went, Louis LaPlante had just shot to the top of the list.

  Aunt Peg opened her large purse and slipped the incriminating file inside. “I wonder if Louis and Sharon are home this morning. Let’s go find out, shall we?”

  We passed by the living room on the way out. Mrs. Freedman was watching QVC on TV. She waved distractedly in our direction and we let ourselves out.

  Like me, the LaPlantes lived in north Stamford. Unlike me, they lived in a large colonial on a wooded, two acre lot. Their yard wasn’t fenced, but several large, gravel floored pens were visible around the side of the house.

  Aunt Peg marched determinedly to the front door and rang the bell. Nothing happened. After a moment she rang again. This time we heard approaching footsteps, and after a minute, the door drew open.

  “Yes, what is it?” Louis demanded. He was dressed in corduroy pants and a well-worn s
weater, and had his teeth clamped around the stem of his meerschaum pipe. Holding the business section of the Sunday paper in one hand, he used the other to wave back two very fat Yorkshire Terriers who had followed him to the door.

  “Oh,” he said, looking only slightly less annoyed when he realized who his visitors were. He removed the pipe from his mouth. “What brings you two all the way out here on a Sunday morning?”

  “We need to talk to you and Sharon. Is she here?” Without waiting for an invitation, Aunt Peg walked past Louis and into the house. I supposed I was meant to follow along behind, and did. Louis closed the door behind us.

  “Certainly she’s here. We were just reading the paper. Is something wrong?”

  His look of concern was genuine. I wondered whether he was trying to guess what we might have found out.

  “Quite possibly,” said Aunt Peg.

  Frowning, Louis led the way to a sun filled family room in the back of the house. The furniture looked plump and inviting, and sections from the Sunday New York Times were spread out over two low tables. A Vivaldi concerto played softly in the background.

  Sharon was seated near the window, comfortable in an easy chair with her legs tucked up underneath her. She was chewing on the end of a pencil as she worked the crossword puzzle, and looked up inquiringly as we came in. She reached over and set the magazine section down on the table beside her.

  She didn’t seem surprised to see us, I realized. Too late, it occurred to me that perhaps I had not given this woman enough thought. I had spoken to Louis and Bertie, but I’d never bothered to question Sharon. It was beginning to look like that was an oversight I might regret.

  Sharon unwound her legs and stood gracefully. “Shall I get us all some coffee?”

  “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call,” said Peg. “We’ve just come from Monica Freedman’s house. We found her secret files.”

  I was watching for a reaction, and got one from Sharon. She paled and went very still.

  Louis was clearing away papers. He waved us to a seat, and said, “Files about what?”

  “I believe I told you that Monica had been sending notes to some of the Belle Haven members,” I said. “She seems to have enjoyed engaging in a sort of emotional blackmail.”