Raining Cats & Dogs (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

by Laurien Berenson

  “See? What did I tell you? I knew I’d be good at this.” Mark pumped a fist in the air and walked away. Reggie, forgotten on the floor, had to leap to his feet and scramble to catch up.

  I hoped I hadn’t created a monster.

  20

  Friday, while I was at school, Sam was busy at home inviting all my relatives to dinner. Since my entire family could sit side by side on a short couch, the undertaking didn’t involve very many phone calls. Frank and Bertie begged off as Maggie had an ear infection, and my Aunt Rose and Uncle Peter had a previous engagement. That left Aunt Peg and my ex-husband, Bob, as the two lone acceptees.

  What a way to liven up a Friday evening.

  Sam’s relatives are spread out all over the country, and he doesn’t get to see them as often as he would like. So I’d been delighted when he’d adopted my family as his own. But he hadn’t yet come to grips with the fact that certain personality combinations didn’t work well together; and placing Aunt Peg and Bob in the same room topped the list.

  To be sure, their relationship had grown much smoother of late. Now that Bob was living in Connecticut, playing a role in Davey’s life, and working as Frank’s partner in their wildly successful coffeehouse, The Bean Counter, she’d begun to see him as something more than just the man who’d walked out on my son and me when Davey was just a toddler.

  Bob had good qualities—to my mind, they were even more in evidence now than they had been when we were living together a decade earlier—and Aunt Peg was slowly beginning to appreciate them. Which didn’t mean she couldn’t continue to carry a grudge on my behalf. Family loyalty meant a great deal to Aunt Peg, and heaven help the person who hurt one of her own.

  “Which one did you talk to first?” I asked Sam. I was standing at the kitchen counter slicing fresh mushrooms for the salad.

  “Peg, of course.” Sam was putting together a pesto topping for the salmon he was planning to grill. He glanced over at me and grinned. “You know she would hate not being the first call.”

  All too true.

  “So does she know it’s just her and Bob, or are you planning on springing that on her when she arrives?”

  “What kind of a masochist do you take me for? I called her back and warned her after I’d spoken to everyone else.”

  “And?”

  Sam chuckled. “She said she’d bring dessert.”

  Typical.

  “Maybe she’s mellowing in her old age,” I said thoughtfully.

  “Don’t bet on it.” Sam leaned close. His hand skimmed up my bare arm. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t make any ‘old age’ comments, either.”

  “Don’t worry. I already learned that lesson the hard way.” I gently pushed him away. “You do know that we have guests coming? Guests that you invited.”

  “Not for fifteen minutes.” Sam nuzzled my neck.

  “So I’m guessing foreplay is out.”

  “Out, hell,” Sam murmured, “this is it.”

  “Marriage has ruined you,” I said with a sigh. But I did put down the sharp knife.

  When Sam turned me into his arms, I reached for him just as eagerly. Then heard the Poodles begin to bark at the front of the house.

  Reluctantly, I drew back. “Someone’s here.”

  “It’ll take them five minutes to get inside.” Sam slid his hand under my shirt. “More if we don’t answer the door.”

  I heard a clatter on the stairs. Davey was coming down to see who had arrived.

  “This is wishful thinking on your part,” I mentioned.

  “What can I say? I’m an incurable optimist.”

  Now his fingers were toying with my waistband. Two more minutes and I’d be naked. One more minute and I wouldn’t care.

  “Ahem.” A throat cleared loudly in the doorway. I opened my eyes and looked over Sam’s shoulder. Bob was standing there watching us.

  “I guess I’m early,” he said.

  “Nah.” Davey pushed past him and entered the kitchen. He didn’t even glance in our direction. “They do that stuff all the time. You get used to it.”

  Bob laughed out loud as Sam dropped his hands and took a hasty step back. I pulled down the hem of my shirt and decided I looked presentable. Sam, who’d had higher hopes, was taking a little longer to recover.

  “Good evening,” I said to my ex-husband. “I see you brought wine.”

  Bob crossed the room, kissed my cheek lightly, and delivered the bottle of chardonnay into my hands. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said under his breath. “Would you like me to take Davey for a walk around the block?”

  “Not at all,” Sam said quickly. He maneuvered himself between Davey and the cookie jar, placing a carrot stick in my son’s hand instead. “We were just putting the finishing touches on dinner. Grab a beer out of the refrigerator and talk to us while we work.”

  “Carrots,” said Davey. “Yuck.” He glared at the offending vegetable.

  I glanced over. “I thought you liked carrots.”

  “The other kids get cupcakes with their lunch. I get carrot sticks.”

  “And cookies,” I mentioned.

  “They get cookies, too.”

  “Cookie and cupcakes?”

  “Wow, good deal!” said Bob. I glared at him. “You know,” he amended hastily, “if you want to grow up overweight and unhealthy.”

  “Nobody will trade with me,” Davey grumbled.

  “That’s a good thing,” I said. “I pack you a great lunch. I’m happy to hear you’re eating it.”

  “A little trading never hurt anybody,” said Sam. “Maybe we could slip a little something extra into your lunch a couple of times a week.”

  “Cupcakes?” Davey asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Cool.” He took his carrot and left the room.

  “Geez, Mel, carrot sticks?” Bob said when Davey was out of earshot. “That’s cruel. You might as well pack him Brussels sprouts.”

  “He likes carrot sticks. Or at least he did until he realized nobody else had them.”

  “Compromise,” Sam said, like the diplomat he is, “is a good thing.”

  “So we’ve learned,” Bob replied. He opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. “Which is why Melanie and I get along so well now.”

  “I thought it was because you’d finally come around to my way of thinking. You know, moving back to Connecticut and all.”

  “No.” Bob popped the cap off the bottle and took a swallow. “That wasn’t it. It was definitely compromise.”

  I thought about debating the issue—briefly—then said instead, “Would you like a glass?”

  “Nope.” He sat down at the table. “I figure I’ll just chug this down before Peg gets here. You know, a little fortification before I have to face the dragon.”

  “Now, come on. You and she have been getting along much better lately.”

  Bob looked at me suspiciously. “Did she tell you that?”

  “No, why?”

  “I’m just trying to keep up, that’s all. You know Peg. She likes to assign people roles. And if she’s given me a new part to play, I’d hate to be the last to know.”

  “It’s true,” Sam said. “Even I’ve noticed. Peg is finally beginning to warm up to you.”

  “Whereas you,” I said to Sam, “have been her fair-haired boy since the moment you two first met.”

  “What can I say? I just seem to have that effect on women.”

  I hooted loudly, and Bob started to laugh. “Older women, anyway,” he pointed out.

  “Don’t you start.” I turned away from the cutting board and pointed my knife at Bob. “How old was your last wife? Fourteen?”

  After we’d separated, Bob had gotten involved in a brief and ill-advised marriage in Texas that had culminated in a quickie divorce in Mexico. I’d never met his second wife, but I’d seen her picture. She was blonde and cute in a chipper, cheerleader sort of way; and the thought of her acting as stepmother to Davey had made my blood heat. Thankfully, i
t had never come to that.

  “Jennifer was twenty,” Bob said, looking not nearly so smug as he had a moment before. “Maybe I’ll have a second beer.”

  “I think I’ll join you,” said Sam.

  I wondered if he was reconsidering the wisdom of this family gathering he’d engineered. And to think, the chief rabble rouser hadn’t even arrived yet.

  Nothing like having something to look forward to.

  Bob sat down at the kitchen table and eyed the dinner preparations. He wasn’t much of a cook, but for Davey’s sake, he’d been trying to learn how to prepare a few meals.

  “Are you going to bake that?” he asked, watching Sam spread the pesto sauce over the salmon.

  “No, I brought my grill down from Redding the other day. I’m going to cook it outside.”

  For years, I’d been hassling with coals and lighter fluid. Sam had a gas grill. Push one button and voilà! Man make fire. And still they managed to be ridiculously proud of the achievement. It was enough to make you shake your head in wonder.

  “It’s a rite of spring, don’t you think?” Sam asked. “The first barbecue of the year?”

  Bob nodded. “That and the first lawn mowing. I don’t know what I was thinking buying a house on two acres of land. I’m a city boy. Look at these hands.” He held them up for our inspection. “I don’t think I was built for manual labor.”

  “You do have a riding mower,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, but then there’s seeding and pruning and fertilizing. Not to mention shoveling snow all winter and raking leaves in the fall. It’s like Green Acres over there. With a yard that size, there’s always something that has to be done.”

  “Sounds perfect to me,” said Sam. “I enjoy working outdoors. It makes a great break from being on the computer all day.”

  “Any time you want to get your hands dirty, feel free to come on over. I’ll find something for you to do.”

  “With luck, pretty soon we’ll have a bigger place of our own,” I said. “I imagine Davey’s mentioned we’ve been house hunting. Something in your neighborhood would be perfect for us. I don’t suppose you know of any neighbors that are getting transferred?”

  “Or divorced?” Sam tried.

  “Or have lost their jobs and need to downsize?”

  “Or inherited a fortune and are moving to Greenwich?”

  The two of us threw out questions, and Bob kept shaking his head. “Wow, you guys really are desperate, aren’t you?”

  “Believe it,” I said. “Between the five Poodles and the three of us, we’re packed in here like sardines. We need room to expand.”

  “Whereas I’m not using half the space I have.”

  Bob had been in his new house a year now. Originally purchased with an eye toward its investment value, the home was a four-bedroom colonial in a family neighborhood. Over the winter, he had finally finished furnishing the living room and bought a butcher block table for his kitchen, but the dining room and library still remained mostly empty. Davey could ride his scooter inside the house without fear of crashing into anything besides walls, and the front hall had a distinct echo.

  “Sometimes it’s like walking around a big, empty mausoleum,” Bob said dolefully.

  Meanwhile, both Sam and I seemed to have been struck dumb. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was.

  “Maybe you’d be happier in something smaller,” I ventured. “Something cozier.”

  “Something with charm and character,” Sam added, “and a yard that’s easy to take care of.”

  “Something with a gas grill,” I said.

  Sam shot me a dirty look.

  What the hell? I thought. If we could make this idea work, we could buy another grill.

  “What’s going on?” Bob asked.

  Maybe the second beer had dulled his wits. It wasn’t as if we could have hinted any harder.

  “We’re offering you an option,” I said. “A way out of all that hard work you’ve been doing.”

  “And a change of address to go along with it,” Sam added helpfully.

  “Huh?”

  Bob was slow tonight, all right. Sam and I went back to cooking. Bob thought about things and nursed his beer. After a minute he looked up. The light bulb had finally begun to flicker.

  “I get it,” he said. “You guys want to trade houses.”

  Bingo.

  “It wouldn’t be a trade exactly,” Sam corrected.

  “Your place is obviously worth more than this one. We’d be looking at a trade plus cash to make up the difference. I’m sure we could come to an agreement that would offer you a decent return on your investment.”

  “I don’t know.” Bob obviously still needed some convincing. “It sounds kind of crazy. You actually think I should move in here?”

  “Think about it,” I said. “It would be perfect. This is a great house. Just the right size for one or two people. It’s structurally sound and in good repair. And you already know what a nice neighborhood this is. Plus, it would be half the work of your current place.”

  “There is that…” Bob admitted.

  “And you wouldn’t have to buy any more furniture. The stuff you already have would fill the place up.”

  “That, too.”

  “And when Davey came to stay with you, he’d be right at home in his old room.”

  “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea,” Bob said slowly. He looked around the kitchen as though he’d never seen it before, appraising it with fresh eyes. “I am kind of lost in my current place.”

  “Don’t forget,” said Sam. “Everything in Fairfield County is appreciating in value—small houses, as well as big ones. You’d never have to worry about resale value.”

  “Or pruning and seeding,” I said. “Or raking mountains of leaves.”

  “How many bedrooms do you have here?”

  “Two,” I replied, as if he didn’t already know. Bob was interested, all right. Right before my eyes, he was morphing into a savvy shopper. “But both are a good size.”

  “Oil heat?”

  I nodded. “And this place is economical, too. It hardly costs anything to heat. Probably a fraction of what you’re paying now.”

  “Central air?”

  Get real, I thought. “Built in the forties,” I said out loud. It was as much of an answer as he needed.

  “Basement and attic,” Sam said. “Fenced backyard.”

  No point in mentioning the cats who were apt to be showing up from time to time, I decided. Though maybe I should tell him about the new neighbor whose husband was always out of town. The one who occasionally went walking around outside in her negligee. Maybe Bob would see that as a plus.

  “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I think you two might be onto something.”

  “Onto what?” asked Davey, appearing in the doorway. “I came to tell you Aunt Peg is here. I just saw her car pull up.”

  “Your Mom and I are thinking about switching houses,” Bob told him. “What would you think of that?”

  Davey’s eyes grew wide. “For real?”

  “For real,” I confirmed. “That way you could stay right in your same school and keep the same friends. And when you came to spend time with your dad, Joey would still be right down the road.”

  “Yippee!” cried Davey, twirling in place.

  “I think that means he approves of the idea,” Sam said with a grin.

  The Poodles began to bark out front. Almost immediately they were shushed. Only Aunt Peg exerted that kind of authority over dogs that weren’t even hers. My guess was confirmed a moment later when she loomed behind Davey in the doorway. My son was still spinning in giddy celebration.

  “That’s quite a greeting,” Peg said. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “We’re moving into Dad’s house,” Davey announced.

  Aunt Peg didn’t look amused.

  “And he’s moving here,” I added.

  Her expression brightened. “What a capital ide
a. Who came up with that?”

  The three of us looked at each other.

  “Joint effort,” I said.

  Aunt Peg walked across the room and patted Bob on the shoulder. The gesture was a benediction of sorts.

  “There may be hope for you yet,” she said with satisfaction.

  21

  Fortunately, that auspicious beginning set the tone for the rest of the evening.

  Bob had never actually had Aunt Peg’s approval before. Now, suddenly, he was her new favorite relative. He basked in the light of her esteem. It had to have been a heady feeling.

  As for me, I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew what Peg was up to. Any thoughts Bob might have entertained about backing out of the plan we’d hatched so precipitously were being jettisoned by default. He wasn’t even being given the opportunity to think about the deal he’d just made. Instead, he was being praised for a decision that had already begun to seem like a fait accompli. And just like that, what had sounded like a crazy idea only half an hour earlier was turning into fact.

  Sometimes Aunt Peg’s penchant for underhanded maneuvering wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  After dinner, Bob and Davey left early. Davey was going to be spending the weekend with his father, and Bob had promised him that they could take in a new animated movie opening that evening. Davey kept some clothing and a spare set of toiletries at Bob’s house, so he didn’t even have to pack a bag. As soon as he had finished eating dessert, he jumped up, ran around the table to give me a quick hug, and declared himself ready to go.

  “I guess I have my orders.” Bob pushed back his chair and stood. “Thanks for dinner, Mel. As always, it was interesting.”

  Watching him walk out, I got the distinct impression that sometime later that night my ex-husband was going to wake up out of a deep sleep, sit bolt upright in bed, and mutter to himself, “Did I just agree to trade away my house, or was it all a bizarre dream?”

  I was willing to bet money that he’d be calling me the next morning to check.

  “Good,” said Peg, when the front door had closed behind them. “Now let’s get down to business.”

  I paused in the act of gathering up the dishes to take them out to the kitchen. “What business is that?”