Changing of the Guard Dog

by Lane Stone

  “She thought mentioning your name would help her.” He cocked an eyebrow and said, “After all, I am your boyfriend.”

  It was one thing for me to say that, but to hear it was something else. I didn’t know if I was breathing or not—until I saw the look on his face. It was gentle but eager, hungry but patient. He took my hand and we walked through the public area and down a side hall.

  “Why did she come in? You said she had a complaint?” I asked.

  “She suspects someone was in her house when she wasn’t there. Said there was sand on the floor,” he answered. “I had someone go back over the reports from the neighborhood survey the uniforms did on Sunday, and she didn’t mention a break-in to the officer at the time.”

  He opened the door to the interview room and said, “Sue Patrick, this is Bess Harper.”

  She twisted in her chair and grasped my hand in both of hers, greeting me like I was a long-lost friend. “Suuuuuee,” she cooed. She wore a tan linen blouse and matching wide-leg pants, with strappy high-heeled sandals. My seasonal work uniform of khaki slacks and an Oxford shirt with the golf course–green Buckingham Pet Palace logo on the pocket made quite the contrast.

  “Why would I call Nick Knightley?” she asked, like we were in the middle of a conversation. Obviously a rhetorical question, but I would have liked an answer.

  I gave a little laugh, like, why indeed. I nodded a greeting at Officer Statler. She was seated in the corner of the room, holding a computer tablet. “Lunch?” I asked Bess.

  * * * *

  We walked from the Lewes City Hall building on Third Avenue to Agave, a Mexican restaurant on Second, and were seated at a table near a front window. Before we left, John had told her not to leave town without notifying him, since there was the matter of her call to Nick Knightley still needing an explanation. She maintained that she had not called him. She had her indignation but my money was on his proof.

  On the way to the restaurant she told me that she lived in Georgetown, a neighborhood in Washington, DC, and spent most of the summer here in Lewes, at her vacation house on Bayview Avenue. This coveted address runs parallel to Lewes Beach, separated from it only by sea grass and brush. Her house could have been one of those I’d been looking at while I was minding the first murder victim.

  “So you’re here this week for the concert?” I asked.

  She nodded and said, “Yes, my husband and I came Saturday. We had planned to come Monday but the pleasant weather forecast changed our minds for us. I’ll stay the week.”

  “Did you know Nick Knightley?” I asked.

  She hesitated just a beat and I got why John had the feeling she was hiding something. Maybe a lot of something. “We’ve met. He does work for the symphony, after all. Every encounter is unpleasant, so I go to great pains to avoid him. Whatever he’s done, it has nothing to do with me.”

  I took note of her use of the present tense, about someone who, to be blunt, was no longer a present tense kind of guy. “How about Georg Nielsen?” I asked her.

  “Pleeeease don’t mention that name, either,” she said. For a meditator she certainly was dramatic.

  “Why not? I heard he was the second coming of Elvis.”

  “I hate his guts…” she said, again not sounding like someone into meditation.

  “He’s dead,” I interrupted. It didn’t seem fair to let her go on with me knowing what I knew.

  Her mouth dropped open, then she tried to speak. I don’t read lips, but it looked like she was saying, “Wha-wha?”

  “Georg Nielsen was murdered Saturday night,” I said.

  “That’s whose body you found on the beach? That’s who you were talking about this morning?” she asked. I didn’t know if I was hearing panic or drama in her voice. Then she closed her eyes and began breathing deeply and noisily. I looked around for someone, anyone, to ask what I should do, when she opened her eyes. “Wha—wha—what are we going to do about the concert?”

  Not quite what I expected.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She nodded that she was. “Sorry, I was doing my breathing exercises.”

  “Why did you hate him?”

  “Friend-raiser,” she said, in a faraway voice.

  “What?” I said.

  For the next few seconds her head pitched back and forth on her neck. I pushed my chair back so that if she passed out I could jump up in a hurry to help her. “He refused to say friend-raiser. You see, I prefer that to fundraiser.” I thought about how John couldn’t bring himself to say Pet Palace. He said Pet Place instead, every single time. Grinning would have been completely inappropriate, so I bit my lip.

  Ms. Harper pulled a tissue from her slouchy green leather satchel. “And it wasn’t just me. We met with him once after the contract was signed—you see, we hadn’t begun rehearsals—but he has antagonized everyone. As chair of the symphony board of directors, I need everyone to pitch in. We work as a team. Money from ticket sales only goes so far, and we have to raise the rest. Everyone knows the realities of financing the performing arts.”

  “Well, there might be someone who doesn’t,” I said. No need to say who that might be.

  “Ticket sales cover less than half of our expenses. Wait, did you say murdered?” Bess asked.

  I nodded. A waitress came to take our order. “Hi, Sue! How are you?”

  “I’m good. And you?” I said when I saw who it was. “How’s Clairol?” I turned back to Bess Harper and said, “Her Afghan Hound has the most beautiful blond hair.” Then back to my pet parent client. “How’s the teeth brushing going?”

  “Better every day,” she said. “I did what you suggested. I rubbed her lips with my finger every day for a week and when she got used to that I started using a pet toothbrush. She mostly eats the chicken-flavored toothpaste off it, but I figure if I do it every day some is bound to get on her teeth.”

  “We’re thinking about giving free dog teeth-brushing classes at the Lewes farmers market in the summer—”

  Bess interrupted. “I’m not a dog person.”

  “Then let’s talk about the food here.” I was becoming painfully aware of the line of would-be diners at the door. “The guacamole here is really good….” I let my sentence drift off when I saw Bess was looking at her lap, and her menu was still untouched.

  “I guess we need a minute,” I said. The waitress gave me an are you kidding me? look. Getting a table at Agave without a wait had been nothing short of a miracle, and to delay ordering was a sacrilege. I gave her a little smile of apology and motioned to my guest, dabbing her nose and eyes.

  Suddenly, Bess’s head jerked up. “Why did Chief Turner ask me if I called Nick Knightley?” I doubted John had asked if she had called Knightley, but I let this dodge, or mistake, or whatever it was, go. “What does that have to do with anything?” she continued. “Wait, did that weasel kill Maestro Nielsen?”

  The waitress’s eyes widened, and she gave me a what the hell? look. I shrugged again. “I’ll come back,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  I wanted to ask Bess why she cared. If she hated Georg Nielsen, what was it to her who killed him? “Nick Knightley was also murdered,” I said.

  Bess glared at me, her lips crushed into a tight line. She took a deep breath and stared down at her gold Rolex. Maybe she was meditating. I prayed she wasn’t about to resume her breathing calisthenics. “I’ve got so much to do. Can we have lunch some other time? I believe he said that yellow tape will be gone by this afternoon?” I gave one nod and stood. The line was now out the door, having grown to eight or ten hungry people. She sprang out of her chair and headed for the door, all thoughts of lunch with her new best friend long forgotten.

  We had both parked at the police station and began the short walk back there. Once we’d made a little progress down the block, I said, “Why didn
’t you mention that you suspected a break-in of your home during the neighborhood canvas the police officers conducted on Sunday?”

  “No one came to our house,” she said, looking confused.

  Chapter 9

  John closed the door to his office and sat in the twin of the guest chair I occupied. He put his arm over the back of my chair and smiled at me. After Bess Harper and I had said our quick goodbyes, she had practically sped away in her BMW and I had come into the city hall building.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I like looking at you.”

  “You’ve seen me twice this morning.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say?”

  I told him how pitifully little I had learned in my brief visit with Bess. “So, she had come in to report someone breaking into her home?” I asked. “Could that have anything to do with the murder? I remember what you said about there being no coincidences in real law enforcement.”

  “She said she found sand on the floor of her foyer,” he said. “I can’t use it. Problem is, they haven’t been in Lewes for months, so it could have been there for a while.”

  I pointed a finger at him. “Respect,” I said, imitating Dana.

  He laughed and leaned in. Before we connected I said, “So ask when her housecleaning service was last there.”

  “Respect,” he said, imitating me imitating Dana.

  When his face got too close, I pulled away and said, “I need to get back to Buckingham’s. Lady Anthea and Mason went to pick up her brother at BWI and Shelby might need help.”

  We stood and he ran his hand over his head, not looking at me. “Yeah, I better get back to work, too.”

  “So, no DNA at all on that fabric?” I asked on my way through the lobby.

  “Nothing,” he said. His cell phone rang and he swiped to take the call. “The thumb drive has what on it?” He listened with a puzzled look on his face. “Send me what you have.” He ended the call, then took my elbow and piloted me back to his office. “This might be more in Lady Anthea’s line than yours, but let’s look at what they found on that USB drive from Georg Nielsen’s pants pocket.”

  I sat in his desk chair and he stood behind me, leaning over and clicking on what looked like a picture of a cardboard box on his computer screen. “This is like Dropbox for law enforcement,” he said. There was a document labeled with a case number and he double-clicked on it.

  “What is it?” I said. “It looks like sheet music.”

  “Yeah, they said it’s a music score. The guy was a conductor and a composer, so I don’t get what the big deal is,” he said.

  “The Ocean, Our Original Opus,” I read out loud. “I like it.”

  “You would,” John said, massaging my shoulders.

  I twisted around in the chair. “Lady Anthea said she had heard rumors that the music they were going to debut at the concert this week had an ocean theme. I agree with you. This is what you’d expect him to have. Makes sense to me.”

  “Sure, it makes sense now. After the thumb drive dried out, they still had to find the application this was written in. They told me this is a common one used by people who write music—at least, these days.”

  “Duh, since it was written by a contemporary composer,” I said.

  “I wasn’t saying Elvis used it,” he said with a laugh.

  “Elvis has cowriting credits on a few songs because his manager, Tom Parker, had that put in the contracts, but he didn’t write any songs.” Then I added for good measure, “And by the way, Colonel Parker wasn’t a colonel.”

  John stood up straight from leaning over me and arched his back in a stretch. He pointed at the screen. “And this isn’t any kind of a clue.”

  “Then why was Nick Knightley looking for it?”

  Chapter 10

  “Do you think a symphony orchestra is actually a pack?” I mused, and immediately wondered who would be its leader.

  Shelby and I stood behind the reception desk. A luxury bus had driven into our parking lot and sat with the nose facing our entryway. The effect was more than a little unsettling and neither of us could take our eyes off the hood and grille of the black bus.

  “I don’t like this,” Shelby said.

  “I know,” I agreed. “I thought I was just being jumpy after what happened yesterday, but it looks like it could drive right in here.” I made out shapes of heads bobbing, turning, looking out windows, or slumped sleeping.

  The side door had been opened by some unseen operator, then closed again. The engine had been turned off and then back on. When the door opened a second time, two people, one a man carrying a dog, and the other a woman, emerged and walked around the front of the bus and through the two sets of doors.

  The man, dressed in an ill-fitting black suit and black soft-sole shoes, entered first, leading a now-leashed Pekingese. He had come in and immediately handed the dog off to the young woman, then walked back out to the waiting bus, which still sat idling aggressively—at least, it seemed that way to my imagination. She had done a double take before accepting the leash from his beefy, outstretched hand. The dog was in the normal size range for the historic breed. The coat color was cream.

  “Hi,” she said, walking with languid movements to the desk. “I’m Cordy Galligan.”

  Ah, I thought, the concertmaster that Lady Anthea thought of so highly. Her thinness was exaggerated by the skinny black jeans and black knee-high boots she wore. Her black turtleneck sweater was sleeveless, revealing muscular arms. I wondered if that was from working out or from playing the violin. She had long, black curly hair and because she glanced down at the dog every few seconds, I could see her ultrathick eyelashes.

  “Abby, I’ll be with you in a minute,” I said. “That’s my dog. She’s looking at me.” I pointed left to my office.

  “How do you know? She didn’t make a sound and you didn’t look over there.”

  “I always know where she is and what she’s doing. We’ve been connected like that since I got her.”

  I looked over her shoulder to the bus. Before the man could climb back on the bus, he had to move aside for another woman to descend the steps. She took no notice of him in her hurry to get through Buckingham’s double doors. She approached the desk talking and swatting her hands in confusing gestures. “Cordy! Have you…? No, Cordy, I can’t talk.” The concertmaster seemed unfazed by the contradicting messages from the new arrival.

  Shelby and I pulled back in tandem. Who walks up to someone and says she can’t talk? She turned away from Cordy to face Shelby and me behind the desk, then quickly back to her again. “Have you heard from Maestro…?” She stopped and glanced at us again. She gave Cordy a conspiratorial look and with the thumb and index finger of her left hand squeezed her own lips together. Subtle. She lowered her voice, and in a stage whisper, finished her question, “The Maestro this morning?” This woman was middle-aged and dressed more corporately, in a red fitted sheath dress with a navy jacket. Her long, professionally straightened hair was dyed with the trendy ombré technique, with the brown locks fading to a lighter color at the ends than the crown.

  My phone pinged the arrival of a text and I looked down. It was from Shelby, who stood about two inches away from me. Who can it be? Lewes has many maestros. I kicked the side of her foot.

  Cordy Galligan shook her head. “No,” she said. Her voice was so soft as to be barely audible, and the volume wasn’t helped by the fact that she was addressing the dog on the floor.

  “You know him, right?”

  Cordy shook her head. “No.”

  “I’ve left I don’t know how many messages and he hasn’t deigned to return my calls!” the older woman said.

  And he ain’t going to, I texted back.

  Shelby cleared her throat to keep from laughing. She was back to thumb-typing.

  Perhaps Nick Knightley can get a
message to him, I read. This time it was me who had to swallow an inappropriate laugh.

  As entertaining as this was, Buckingham’s was a place of business. “Ms. Galligan,” I said, “this is Shelby Ryan.” I checked the computer screen to get the Pekingese’s name. “She can conduct Marin Alsop’s temperament evaluation now, if you’d like to wait.”

  “What is that?” she asked in her little-girl voice.

  “It’s the same as a behavior test. Before a dog’s first visit we want to know a little about her personality and her reaction to other dogs. It helps to ensure her safety and that of her new playmates, and to manage her stress level. We’ll start with her alone, then take her to a play area to observe her with other dogs. We look for separation anxiety, toy aggression, and other behaviors like that.” We had never had to turn a dog away, but I wouldn’t hesitate to before I exposed other dogs or my employees to an aggressive dog.

  Shelby went around to the other side of the desk and Cordy extended her arm, but couldn’t bring herself to release Marin Alsop’s leash. “What’s the story of her name?” Shelby asked with a smile. The way she slowed down the transfer had me thinking she had noticed the hesitation in the leash’s surrender also.

  “Marin Alsop is the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra,” Cordy said. She knelt to her dog and said, “Bye, baby. Be a good girl.” Since all was well, Shelby walked off with Marin Alsop. The dog never looked back. That’s how Pekingese roll. I was thinking about what a kick Lady Anthea would get out of the name.

  The superenthusiastic woman had wandered to the side of the lobby, and now she came back to the desk. She had been clicking away on her phone, texting and trying to place phone calls. Since I have doglike hearing I knew she’d left more than one heated message. She opened her mouth to say something to Cordy but her phone rang and she answered it instead. “Bess? Oh, good. I frantically need to talk to you.”

  I had been typing in an update for Marin Alsop’s record but glanced up when I heard the familiar name, Bess. She looked at me and said, “No, wait, I can’t talk just now.”