Underdog

by Laurien Berenson

  “Jenny was my sister. She was my best friend!” Her voice was high and keening. It was almost enough to convince me she was in pain. Almost.

  It was like shifting the focus on a camera ever so slightly and seeing a whole new picture emerge. When I’d believed Angie to be innocent, she looked innocent. But now her protests didn’t ring as true as they once had. I settled in on top of the grooming table and crossed my arms over my chest.

  “If you and Jenny were so close, why didn’t she tell you she was leaving?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Jenny was getting out. She was going to leave Rick and everything else behind. In another week, she would have been gone.”

  “No!” Angie shook her head violently.

  “Yes. She’d been planning her escape for weeks. You can ask Florence Byrd if you don’t believe me. She knew all about it.”

  The silence was so thick it was almost palpable. Angie put the Bichon away, used the poop scoop to do some cleaning and got out another Cocker.

  “If only you’d been a little more patient,” I said finally.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her tone was equal parts anger and incredulity.

  “I think you do. I think you figured you’d been the assistant long enough. You wanted your turn and you were going to get it.”

  “That’s a lie—”

  “And then once you had Jenny’s clients and Jenny’s dogs, you still weren’t winning as much as you wanted and you realized Harry Flynn was in your way.”

  Angie snorted loudly. “Harry didn’t worry me.”

  “Then why did you kill him?”

  She stared at me round-eyed. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  Rick had said much the same thing. Now here I was accusing someone else whose first response had been righteous indignation at my stupidity. But while Rick had managed to come to his own defense, I had yet to hear Angie do the same.

  “Somebody left a cup of coffee at Harry’s set-up this morning. Somebody who probably knew his habits. Somebody who’d been in dogs long enough to know where to get arsenic and how to dose it. Florence Byrd told me just last Sunday she was furious when Charlie was beaten by Flynn’s Cocker in the variety. I think that’s when you knew that just getting Jenny out of your way wasn’t enough, that Harry was going to have to go, too.”

  It was an impressive speech, I thought. Some guesswork on my part, but heavily laced with fact. Angie should have crumpled like a stale biscuit.

  Instead, she shook her head. “I didn’t buy that coffee for myself.”

  “No?”

  “I bought it for Dirk.”

  Talk about throwing a spanner into the works. Dirk? “Why?”

  “He asked me to. We both left the motel this morning at the same time. He offered me a ride over and I told him I wanted to stop for breakfast. He said he was in a hurry, but could I pick up some coffee for him.”

  Well shoot. “And did you give it to him?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Angie scooped up the Cocker and put it away. She cleaned up the dirty paper and laid out fresh for the morning. “Two cups, just like he asked for.”

  “Two cups?”

  Angie shrugged. “He’s a big guy. I guess it takes a lot of caffeine to get him started in the morning.”

  Dirk? I tossed him around in my mind, trying to work him into my theories. It was like trying to force a working dog into a toy-sized crate. Bits and pieces fit, but not the whole thing.

  Angie was back fishing around in the tack box. Probably looking for keys so that she could lock up for the night.

  “Did you tell the police about that?” I asked.

  “No.” Her voice was muffled as she dug deeper into the large bottom compartment. “They didn’t ask.”

  Then she straightened and turned to face me and I saw what she’d been looking for.

  A gun.

  It was black and shiny and looked big in her hand. It was also pointing straight at me. So much for not being able to inflict significant physical damage.

  “Angie, what are you doing?”

  “Rick bought this for protection,” she said calmly. “I told him he was nuts, but I guess he wasn’t.”

  “Protection? Who do you need protection from? Dirk?”

  She gave me a pitying look as if I was being entirely too slow and after a moment, I realized I was. All that business about Dirk had been a distraction, a detour she’d thrown my way while she figured out what to do next. Like a sap, I’d been too busy being ambivalent to take her as seriously as I should have.

  “You think you know so much,” Angie said. “You don’t know anything. I don’t need protection from Dirk. He’s the one who was supposed to be looking out for me. And Jenny, too. That’s a laugh, isn’t it?”

  She didn’t sound as though she found anything about the situation to be even vaguely humorous. The gun in her hand never wavered. I wondered if it was loaded. I wondered if she knew how to use it. At this short range, it probably didn’t even matter. Then I thought about what she’d just said.

  “What do you mean Dirk was supposed to be looking out for you?”

  “It turns out he’s been giving reports to my mother for years. She’s been paying him to keep an eye on us all this time, and we never even knew it. As if that big oaf could ever be trusted to get things right!”

  “So that’s what you were fighting about with your mother earlier.”

  Angie shot me a glare. “I guess Dirk isn’t the only spy around here.”

  “Is that why he was in the building early this morning?”

  “Yeah, it’s ironic, isn’t it? He was here to see my mother before judging started.”

  “And he saw you leave that cup of coffee at Harry Flynn’s set-up.”

  “I guess I should have been paying more attention,” said Angie. It was the first time I’d heard her admit she’d done anything wrong.

  “Did he tell the police?”

  “No, and he won’t either. My parents are taking care of that. Roger and Lavinia Peterson. They can put a good face on anything, didn’t you know that?”

  Her tone was bitter. I wondered if she actually believed what she was saying. The Petersons were a power in the dog show world, but Angie would have to be insane to think they could cover up a murder. Then again, she probably was. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing there with a gun pointed at my middle.

  “What about Jenny’s death?” I asked incredulously. “Are your parents willing to overlook that, too?”

  “They blame Rick for what happened to her. That part was easy. They never liked him much anyway.”

  Easy. How could she possibly feel that anything about murdering her own sister had been easy? I’d thought that when I had some answers, I’d begin to understand. But I didn’t. None of this made any sense to me at all.

  “You liked Rick, didn’t you?” I asked. “More than a brother-in-law. More than just a friend.”

  “You don’t know anything!”

  “You’re right.” I braced back and hiked myself up onto the grooming table. Sitting gave me a small feeling of security, like it meant I was going to be there for a while. “Why don’t you tell me about it.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Maybe it will make you feel better.”

  “You mean, like a confession? I don’t think so.”

  “Jenny was your sister.”

  “As if I could have missed that fact,” Angie snapped. “As if I could have ever, for one moment, have gotten out from behind her shadow. Jenny was always the favorite, the one things came easily to. Good grades, good dogs—anything she ever wanted, all she had to do was snap her fingers and it was hers.”

  “You were jealous.”

  “Not of who she was. Just of what she got. Jenny was always the center of attention. Everybody thought she was so wonderful. I was smart, too. I was good with the dogs. But nobody ever noticed because Jenny . . . was . . . always. . . there.”


  Angie spaced her words for emphasis, to make sure that I got the point. I nodded, not taking my eyes off her. If I’d had a gun in my hand, I’d have been sweating. But the opposite was true of Angie. She seemed calmer now, more sure that she was in control. That was good. It meant I might be able to keep her talking, which was certainly preferable to any other alternative I could come up with.

  “So you figured out a way to make Jenny disappear.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No!” Angie said violently. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. I never meant for her to die.”

  I wondered if that were true, or if it was something she’d convinced herself of afterward in order to soothe her conscience. “You poisoned her with arsenic.”

  “I only meant to make her sick. Jenny never took a day off, not ever. I wanted a chance to show what I could do, but she was always there in my way. She wasn’t supposed to die, honest. I thought I could control it.”

  “Just like your parents controlled the dosage they gave the show dogs when you were little.”

  “Right.” Angie nodded. “I started putting it in her morning coffee. I thought that would be enough, but it wasn’t.”

  So she’d upped the dose. Jenny had collapsed and died after dinner. And Angie had calmly gone on about life, immediately setting her sights on the fame and fortune that had eluded her up until that point.

  I still hadn’t seen any sign of remorse. Now I was beginning to doubt that I ever would. No wonder Angie had been able to fool me—to fool everybody—for so long. From her warped point of view, getting rid of Jenny had been the right thing, the only thing, to do. Even if it meant getting rid of her for good.

  Casually, I let my gaze drift around the area. It seemed like eons had passed since she’d pulled out the gun; but in reality I supposed it was only minutes. The security guard wasn’t in sight. Nor had anyone come over to our end of the grooming area to do a late night check of their dogs.

  “What about Harry Flynn?” I asked.

  “Everybody hated him.”

  As if that made it all right. “Harry was beginning to beat you with his Springer. Was that why you killed him?”

  “Of course not.” Angie looked at me as though I was dense. “He knew.”

  For a moment I had no idea what she meant. Then I realized she was talking about Jenny’s death. Harry must have known about Angie’s part in it. But that didn’t make sense; surely she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to tell him.

  “How did he find out?”

  Angie sighed heavily. “I got the arsenic from him. Fowler’s solution. You used to be able to buy it at the drugstore. But not anymore. Now there are laws. I was stuck until I thought of Harry.”

  “Where did he get it?”

  “How should I know? I guess he still had his connections from way back. He said it wasn’t a problem.”

  “Did he know what you planned to do with it?”

  “I told him it was for a dog.”

  I shook my head, disbelieving. “Harry Flynn competed against you—tooth and nail, from what I’ve seen. Why would he have agreed to help you?”

  “Back then, I wasn’t the one he was competing against. I was only the little sister that nobody ever noticed.” The bitterness was back in her tone. “If he had any suspicions, so what? Anything that put Jenny out of commission for a while could only work to his benefit.”

  She was right about that. Of course, later, the same would have been true about Angie. Harry Flynn had been an opportunist. So why hadn’t he told what he knew?

  “Are you kidding?” Angie said when I asked. “I would have taken him down with me and he knew it. I’d have told the police that he coerced me into doing something terrible, something I never should have done. And who do you think they would have believed? Jenny’s grieving baby sister, or a man who’s held a public grudge against the Maguires for years?”

  I remembered the story Aunt Peg had told me about Harry trying to get one of Jenny’s dogs disqualified. Everyone had been aware of the animosity between him and Jenny Maguire. Angie was right. Harry would have had a hard time making his story stick.

  “If he wasn’t going to tell, why did you kill him?”

  “I didn’t have any choice. He overheard me talking to Mrs. Byrd at Fitchburg. About how I wanted Charlie to go on showing next year. Harry called a couple of days later. He said next year was his turn, and if I tried to get in his way, I was going to be sorry.”

  “So you poisoned him too.”

  “I had to. Don’t you see? He was going to ruin me. What happened to Jenny was an accident. But Harry was going to make it look as though I were to blame. I couldn’t let him do that.”

  Angie stared at me, her expression hardening. “And I can’t let you do it either. I’ve waited my whole life to be where I am now. You’re not going to take that away from me. The police don’t have any connections in the dog world. Once you’re gone, they’ll never be able to put it all together.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I tried to sound firm, but I could hear my voice wavering.

  “Yes, you are.” Angie took a step forward. She gestured with her gun hand and I realized I was meant to stand. “For starters, we’re going to leave the building together.”

  Right. That was about the last thing that was going to happen. Outside, I’d have no defense. At least in here, there was a chance. Eventually, the guard was bound to come by to tell us he was closing things up.

  I slid another look around. There was nobody within earshot. Even the boom box on the other side of the building had been silenced. The place had been relatively empty before. Now it was deserted.

  “Come on,” Angie said impatiently. “Let’s go.”

  I grasped the edge of the grooming table and hopped down. Slowly. “Do you know how to use that thing?”

  “Sure,” said Angie. Now that we were both standing, with a deadly weapon filling the space between us, her voice didn’t sound any steadier than mine. “Point, and shoot. Don’t worry, I won’t miss.”

  I wasn’t worried about that at all. On one side, the narrow aisle was blocked by the ex pen. On the other was the big hair dryer I’d pushed out of my way earlier.

  “Go on,” Angie said between gritted teeth when I hesitated. “Just get through. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Quickly I weighed my options. The exercise pen was no help; but the hair dryer had possibilities. The heavy engine piece stood upright on a three-legged base. Attached to it was a fourteen-inch steel nozzle. The machine was meant to free your hands for other uses; the thick nozzle swiveled, swung, and moved up and down.

  “This way.” I nudged the grooming table to one side with my hip and stepped carefully over the four-legged base. Like a sheep, Angie fell in behind me. The hair dryer was so much a part of each set-up that I knew she hadn’t given it a thought. Always the little sister, always the follower, never the one in charge.

  I hoped she hadn’t changed too much in the last six weeks.

  I took two more steps, then glanced back over my shoulder. Angie’s eyes were downcast; she had to watch where she was going so her feet didn’t get tangled up in the stand. I wished the nozzle was on the right side—Angie’s gun side—but I’d take what I could get.

  I lifted both hands and gave the metal tube a hard shove. It swung around in a short arc and crashed into her shoulder with a satisfying thud.

  Angie screeched and staggered sideways. If the grooming table hadn’t been in her way, she would have fallen. As she lost her balance, one foot caught in the dryer’s base. Her leg twisted beneath her and her injured arm flew up in the air. I grabbed her other wrist and slammed it hard against the edge of the table.

  Her fingers opened and the gun fell from her grasp. It hit the concrete floor, bounced once, then fired.

  The boom echoed through the building. Immediately dogs all around us began to bark. I was so busy trying to figure out where the gun had been p
ointing when it went off that I didn’t see Angie’s fist coming until just before it connected with my jaw.

  Pain exploded in my head. Everything went black, then bright white. Through eyes swimming with tears, I saw Angie scrambling on the floor for the gun. I reached around for the dryer, lifted it off its base and swung the nozzle once more. It caught her on the back of the head and she crumpled.

  The table gave way as Angie fell beneath it. I had just enough energy left to kick the gun. It skittered away out of reach. The hair dryer weighed a ton and I let it fall too.

  I thought I heard people yelling. I knew I heard dogs barking. I’ll close my eyes for just a second, I thought.

  God, I had a headache.

  Twenty-eight

  For the second time that day, the police were called to the show grounds. It took hours for them to get things sorted out; after fetching Rick and Dirk and the Petersons from the motel and sitting everybody down for questioning. In the meantime, Angie woke up, hissing and screeching like an angry cat. I hadn’t done any permanent damage, only given her a nasty headache. As far as that went, I figured we were even.

  Angie immediately protested her innocence and for a while, I thought she might be able to make the claim stick. Dirk was stonewalling; the Petersons, calling for a lawyer. But when Rick finally saw the direction the questions were heading and jumped to the right conclusion—that Angie had killed his wife—all hell broke loose. He got his fingers wrapped around her throat before Detective Brucker leapt in to restrain him. After that, the jig was pretty much up.

  It was close to three A.M. when I finally dragged myself back to the hotel room and I’d been asleep a good deal less time than I needed when I awoke to Davey bouncing on my stomach. That morning, Aunt Peg had a similarly bleary-eyed look about her. I drew a bath for Davey that he swore he didn’t need and filled her in on the details while he soaked.

  “I should have known,” she said irritably.

  “Why?”

  “The dogs. She never was that good with them. You can always tell a person’s true character by the way they handle their dogs.”