Gone With the Woof

by Laurien Berenson

  “And then he died,” I said quietly.

  “And somehow the police seem to think I got what I wanted.” March shook his head incredulously. “As if my own son wasn’t more important to me than any company could ever be.”

  Robin lifted her head and whined softly. I felt the same way myself.

  “Here’s the bad news,” I said. “If the police have settled upon you as their chief suspect, they’ll spend more time trying to build a case against you than they will looking at other possibilities.”

  “I already figured that out,” said March. “That’s why you and I need to get busy.”

  “That’s what we’re doing,” I told him. “That’s why I’m asking questions. Have you considered the possibility that someone might have been trying to strike at you through your son?”

  “No.” He looked up. “How? In what way?”

  “Maybe there’s someone you planned to write about in your book who didn’t want you telling tales.”

  “There could be one or two like that,” March allowed. “But I don’t see how going after Andrew helps.”

  “Are you writing?”

  “Well . . . no. Not right now.”

  “Probably not for the foreseeable future,” I said.

  “The delay can’t be helped. March Homes is more important. I have to get the company back on an even keel first.”

  I let him think about that for a minute.

  “Aunt Peg said you recently sent out an e-mail.”

  March must have heard the censure in my tone. “It would have taken too long to call everyone. That seemed like the easiest solution.”

  Plus, I thought, if he’d taken the time to actually speak to the women, he might have gotten an earful of antagonistic feedback.

  “When did that e-mail go out?” I asked.

  He thought back. “I sent it after the second time we met.”

  “Two weeks ago, then. Only a couple of days before Andrew was killed.”

  “No,” March said firmly. “I refuse to believe that. A woman?”

  “Don’t be so old-fashioned,” I scoffed. “Besides, it could have been a disgruntled husband. With your history, there was no shortage of options.”

  March frowned at that. He was ready to move along. “What else do you want to know?” he asked.

  “Who was the dark-haired woman standing next to you during the memorial service?”

  “Nobody important.”

  “That’s not how it looked to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone seemed to be doing a good job of purposely ignoring her. Plus, I got the impression that she knew Andrew’s friends.”

  “They weren’t talking to her,” said March.

  “As far as I saw, no one was talking to her. Which made me wonder why that was.”

  “She shouldn’t have been there, that’s why.”

  It hadn’t escaped my notice that March was still dodging my original question. “What was her relationship to your son?”

  “Ex-girlfriend. Emphasis on ex.”

  “Julia Davis,” I said.

  Charlotte had mentioned her name to Detective Wygod. As I recalled, March had been similarly dismissive of the woman then. Now I waited for him to expand upon the subject. He didn’t.

  “I take it you were happy when she and Andrew broke up,” I said after a minute.

  “Andrew’s love life was none of my business. Let’s just say that my son got around some. He was popular with the ladies. Like father, like son.” He had the nerve to sound proud of that, as if it were an accomplishment.

  “But you must have known Julia,” I said. “Or at least known something about her . . .” How else to explain the latent hostility?

  “Oh, I knew her, all right. She’d been buzzing around Andrew for a year or more. Always flattering him, building him up, making him feel important. She tried that game on me, too, but I didn’t fall for it. Julia wanted to be number one in Andrew’s life. She wanted him to think that she was indispensable. A couple of months ago, she was looking to set up housekeeping with him in the cottage.”

  “Why was that a problem?”

  “She was trying to tie my son down. She thought she could get him to put a ring on her finger.”

  “Andrew was in his midthirties,” I pointed out. “Maybe he was ready to be tied down.”

  “Not with that one.”

  “Because . . . ?” I prompted.

  “She wasn’t worthy of him. Anybody meeting her would know that he could do better. She was cheap goods. She worked in the mall, for Pete’s sake. Banana Republic. After a customer tried on a bunch of clothes, she emptied out the dressing room. Hanging up pants . . . What kind of career path is that? Oh, wait a minute. Julia didn’t need a career. She was going to con Andrew into marrying her and taking care of her for the rest of her life.”

  “Maybe they were in love,” I said.

  “They weren’t.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “For one thing, the harder she tried to nail Andrew down, the more I watched him squirm to get away. That didn’t look like love to me. When Julia didn’t get the ring she wanted, she pressed too hard about moving into the cottage. That’s when Andrew broke up with her. About damn time that he saw her for the gold digger she really was.”

  “You’re very cynical,” I told him.

  “And you sound like some sort of bleeding heart romantic,” March shot back. “Are you married?”

  I nodded.

  “How long?”

  “Nearly three years.”

  March snorted. “You’re practically still on your honeymoon.”

  “We like to think so,” I said.

  “Give it another decade. You’ll be cynical, too.”

  I hoped not.

  “Back to Andrew and Julia,” I said. “So after more than a year together, he broke up with her a couple of weeks ago?”

  “That’s right. But that girl’s still trying to keep her clutches in. You saw her at the memorial service, standing right there like she thought she was family. Now that Andrew isn’t here to set the record straight, she’s trying to pretend that everything was all hunky-dory between them. That they’d kissed and made up. Nobody’s fooled, least of all me.”

  “Maybe she was trying to cover up how she really felt,” I said thoughtfully. “That would be useful.”

  “How’s that?”

  I pointed to the second item on March’s paper. “We’re supposed to be looking for suspects—people besides you who might have had a good reason to be angry with your son. It looks as though Julia Davis just knocked you off the top of the list.”

  Chapter 12

  Well, that made us both feel better.

  “See?” March said with satisfaction. “I told you this was going to be easy.”

  “Don’t get too cocky just yet,” I told him. “We’ve barely even gotten started. Not including you, we only have one suspect. Let’s talk some more about Andrew’s life. Tell me about the people he worked with.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “For starters, who will succeed Andrew as president of March Homes?”

  March picked up his coffee cup and took a sip, then set it aside. The brew had probably gone cold. “If I were only twenty years younger, I’d be at the headquarters right now,” he said glumly. “Instead, my doctor has cleared me to drop by twice a week to check on things. That’s no way to manage a business.”

  “So then you must have spent some time thinking about whom you’re going to appoint to take over Andrew’s position.”

  “It’s impossible not to under the circumstances. You probably saw Walt McEvoy the other night?”

  I nodded. “He got up and spoke about Andrew.”

  “Walt was Andrew’s second in command. He started at March Homes as a smart, ambitious kid straight out of business school, and it didn’t take him long to find the fast track. For the past few years, he’s been CFO.”
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  “So Walt knows where the money is,” I said thoughtfully. “And where it goes. How did he feel about your son’s plans to expand March Homes?”

  March paused for so long that I thought he’d decided not to answer. Finally, he admitted, “Andrew had Walt’s backing.”

  It was obvious but seemed worth stating, anyway. “Meaning that you did not.”

  “So what are you trying to say? That you think I should turn away an otherwise good man because he made one bad decision?”

  “No, not at all. I’m just wondering how the two of you get along.”

  “We’ve always had a good relationship. Don’t forget, Walt came on board ten years ago, so I’m the one that hired him. I knew at the time he had a ton of potential, and he’s proven me right. In siding with Andrew, he thought he was acting for the good of the company. You can’t fault a man for that.”

  “And now he stands to gain a big promotion,” I said.

  “He deserves it.” March’s tone was resolute; it allowed no room for argument.

  Not that I wanted to argue the decision; I had no reason to doubt that March had chosen the right candidate. But in rushing to the defense of his employee, he had skipped right over the point I’d been trying to make. Walt McEvoy had stood to profit from Andrew’s death.

  I added another name to our sparse group of suspects.

  “Is there anyone else there that you think I should talk to?” I asked. “Maybe someone who had problems working with your son?”

  “You’re talking about a company I built from scratch,” March replied. “March Homes is a family business. Anyone who had problems with the family found another place to work. Period.”

  It occurred to me—as perhaps it had not occurred to him—that March’s information might be five years out of date. By his own admission, it had been at least that long since he’d been involved in the day-to-day running of the company. At any rate, I intended to ask that question again when I visited the corporate headquarters.

  “Just one more thing,” I said, standing up. “Do you have a list of the women who received your e-mail?”

  “Of course. It’s in my computer.”

  “Do you mind printing a copy for me?”

  March swiveled his chair to the side to face a cluttered credenza. He pushed a newspaper and a large rawhide bone aside, and a keyboard and mouse pad emerged from the scattered items. It took him only a minute to find what he needed. Then I heard a printer activate somewhere in the room.

  “Behind the couch,” March told me.

  Why was I not surprised?

  A few seconds later, the printer spit out a piece of paper. I picked up the sheet, glanced at it, then quickly looked again.

  “Seriously?” I said. “There must be twenty names on here.”

  So help me, the old goat looked pleased with himself. “There would be more, but I didn’t have e-mail addresses for everyone.”

  I closed my eyes briefly and prayed for patience. Or maybe March’s redemption. I wasn’t entirely sure which.

  “Let’s narrow this list down to the women you heard back from,” I said. “The ones who weren’t happy to find out about your book.”

  March frowned slightly. “To be perfectly honest, none of them were exactly pleased.”

  “And that didn’t make you rethink the wisdom of the project?”

  “I figured they’d come around in time. After all, what choice did they have? And like I told them, it wasn’t as if I was going to paint an unflattering portrait of anyone. That would only make me look bad.”

  No doubt the women he’d spoken to had been vastly reassured by that fine sentiment.

  “Let me see that.” March held out his hand.

  I passed the list over. He picked up a pen and made check marks next to several names. “I guess if you want to talk to the ones who were really mad, those ladies would make a good start.”

  I didn’t know whether to be irritated by his cavalier attitude or elated to have gathered more names. Bottom line, our pool of suspects was increasing by the minute.

  Since I had some extra time, I decided to stop and talk to a few of March’s neighbors on my way home. Unfortunately, the basic flaw with that plan quickly became obvious. The other homes along that quiet lane were much like March’s own: set well back from the road and surrounded by acres of land. None of their owners would have been able to see what was happening on the road the morning that Andrew was killed unless they chanced to be driving by.

  Still, I thought, since I was already there, it wouldn’t hurt to spend ten minutes asking around. At least that would entitle me to tick another item off of March’s to-do list.

  No one was home at the first house I tried. At the second, a maid answered the door and told me that they didn’t want whatever I was selling.

  “I’m not selling anything,” I said quickly.

  The door closed in my face, anyway.

  On my third try, I had slightly better luck. A well-dressed matron answered the door herself. She didn’t look particularly friendly, but she didn’t dismiss me immediately, either.

  “Yes? What is it?” she inquired briskly.

  I introduced myself and asked if she was aware that a man had been killed in a hit-and-run accident on her road the previous week.

  The woman nodded shortly. “That had nothing to do with me.”

  “Even so, I was wondering if you might have noticed anything unusual early that morning. Anything at all.”

  “Are you from the police?” she asked. “My husband told me that somebody had already been by.”

  “No, I’m not—”

  “A reporter?”

  “No—”

  “Is there any reason that I have to talk to you?”

  “No, but—”

  For the second time that morning, a door started to close in my face.

  “You don’t have to answer my questions,” I said as the gap narrowed. “But it would be the neighborly thing to do.”

  The door stopped moving. Unexpectedly, the woman began to laugh.

  “Neighborly? Where do you think you are? Alabama? Connecticut doesn’t do neighborly.”

  “We do where I live,” I said.

  “And where is that?”

  “North Stamford.”

  “That’s quite a distance. What brings you to Westport?”

  “Edward March.” I turned and pointed in the direction of his house, in case she truly wasn’t acquainted with her neighbors. “It was his son who was killed.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said. “We sent flowers to the memorial. Step inside, would you? I need to shut this door. It’s freezing out there.”

  I was only too happy to oblige. Her front hall was lovely. And warm. Both were pluses from my point of view.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” the woman told me. “The first I knew of any disturbance was late that morning, when I left to go shopping and saw the police cars parked on the road. I didn’t find out what had happened until that evening.”

  “What was your first thought when you heard?”

  “I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t very complimentary. I guess that sounds terrible, but Andrew always was a reckless boy. I wondered what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into now.”

  “Did the police tell you that he’d been murdered?”

  “No, but I read about it in the newspaper. The news sent a chill right down my spine. People live in the suburbs because they want to feel safe. What happened to Andrew was a reminder that the world is changing no matter where you are. Selfishly, I hoped that he’d brought his problems upon himself.”

  I could understand that. Blaming the victim conferred a sense of immunity. It wasn’t fair, but it made bystanders feel better.

  “You said that Andrew was reckless. In what way?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual teenage pranks. My husband and I have lived here for twenty years. We moved to Westport the year before Isabelle died. She was a lovely wom
an. And Andrew certainly kept her on her toes.”

  “What about more recently?”

  “I wouldn’t really know. The only time we see Andrew now is when he’s zipping up and down the lane in that red sports car of his. He’s always driving much too fast, and there seems to be a different girl in the passenger seat each time he goes by. But that’s no reason to kill someone.”

  I heartily agreed. I thanked the woman for her time and left.

  Friday afternoon after school, Davey had a basketball game. It was the seventh game of the season, and so far his team had won more than they’d lost. When you’re in middle school, that’s cause for celebration.

  As usual, the bleachers in the gymnasium were nearly full. Fairfield County parents aren’t rabid about sports, but they do make a point of turning out to show their support. I saw dozens of familiar faces, mostly mothers, but also a few fathers who had made the effort to come and cheer for the home team.

  Sam was working, so I had Kevin. I held his hand in mine as we entered the gym. Left to his own devices, the toddler would have run out onto the court to join the players, who were busy warming up and running pregame drills.

  I caught Davey’s eye briefly, but he was much too cool to acknowledge his mom. Instead, he snagged a high pass out of the air, spun around, and dribbled away down the court.

  “Daaaavey!” Kevin shrieked gleefully.

  He yanked his small hand away and tried to follow his brother down court. With ease born of practice, I caught him in two steps. I scooped Kevin up and settled him safely on my hip.

  “Davey’s busy right now. You can play with him after the game.”

  “Melanie, up here!”

  Alice Brickman was standing up in the middle of the bleachers, waving her arms above her head with enough enthusiasm to land an incoming plane. She must have come to the game straight from work, as she was dressed in a trim wool suit and hose. Her strawberry blond curls, gathered into a subdued ponytail at the nape of her neck, began to work their way loose as she bounced.

  As always, Alice’s smile was wide and infectious. I waved back and headed in her direction.

  Alice and I first met in a neighborhood playgroup when our sons were less than a year old, and knew immediately that we were kindred spirits. In the ten years that we’ve been friends, we’ve supported each other through ear infections, preschool applications, science projects, and the occasional broken bone.