Hounded to Death

by Laurien Berenson

  “Want to hear the rest of the bad news?” I asked.

  “Lay it on me.”

  “I think whoever jammed the door also turned up the temperature gauge.”

  Bertie was no more than ten feet away from me, but I could barely see her through the undulating wall of vapor. When she spoke, her voice seemed to come out of nowhere.

  “I guess that explains why I’m beginning to wilt like a piece of broccoli. I’ll never be able to steam clams again.”

  I heard her padding toward me across the floor. When she emerged from the billowing cloud, she was only a few feet away.

  “Not that I’m ready to panic or anything, but I think we really need to get the heck out of Dodge. Come up with any big ideas yet?”

  “I was wondering if we could break that window,” I said.

  The single pane appeared to be pretty solid, but it was all I’d come up with so far.

  Bertie came closer and had a look. “It’d be easier if we had a hammer,” she said.

  “Good thinking. I don’t suppose you found one tucked away under one of the benches?”

  “Just for future reference, adversity doesn’t bring out your better qualities.”

  “I deal better when I’m not pregnant.”

  “Oh, crap, I’m sorry. I forgot all about that.”

  Bertie gathered me into her arms for a hug. Her skin felt hot and damp against mine and we separated quickly. Still, I appreciated the support.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “I’m thinking this much heat is probably not great for the baby. Plus, I hate to say it, but I really have to pee.”

  “Got it. All right, stand back. One broken window, coming up.”

  I retreated several feet.

  She whipped the towel off her body, wrapped it around her hand, and made a big, padded fist. Then she lifted her arm, took careful aim, and let fly.

  Bertie’s a bit of an amazon and there was considerable power in her punch. Even so, when hand and window connected, the window won. Not only did the glass not shatter; it didn’t even crack.

  She swore under her breath.

  “How’s your hand?”

  She jerked the towel tighter. “Could be better. One more try.”

  The second attempt did more damage to Bertie’s curled fingers than it did to the window. Her eyes welled briefly with tears. She blinked them fiercely away.

  “That’s enough,” I said.

  Bertie was staring at the window in frustration. I pulled her away and made her sit down. Her hand was going to hurt like hell in the morning. I hoped we’d be around to care.

  “There has to be something in here that we can break, or jimmy, or undo,” I said thoughtfully. “Too bad the door hinges are on the outside. What about the drain in the floor?”

  “I thought of that too. But I can’t figure out a way to make use of it. Where’s a guy like McGyver when you need him?”

  “Who needs McGyver? I’d settle for Gunther. Even Florence could manage to tip that chair back down.”

  “Unless she’s the one who wedged it up there in the first place.”

  Irritating thought. Trapping us in here had been so easy to accomplish that even a child could have done it.

  Annoyance got me moving again. I marched back to the door and pounded on it with my fist.

  “Hello?” I yelled. “We need help in here!”

  My words were swallowed by the steam. Even to my own ears, they didn’t sound very loud. Nor did they produce a response.

  When I started to pound again, Bertie came over and caught my hand in hers. I was still aggravated; Bertie was beginning to look resigned. I wasn’t sure I liked that.

  Nevertheless, I pulled my hand away and let it drop to my side.

  “I know we ought to be conserving our energy,” I said. “But I hate just sitting here doing nothing. There must be something else we can try.”

  “If there is, I can’t think of it.” Her voice sounded very small. “Sooner or later they’ll come around and shut things down for the day, don’t you think?”

  “I hope so.”

  Neither one of us wanted to think about how long it might be before that happened. Or what kind of shape we might be in when it did.

  Beside me, Bertie slipped down and sat on the floor.

  “Heat rises,” she said. “Even though there are jets down here, this is still probably the coolest part of the room.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. I got down and stretched out on the tiles beside her.

  “All this warm air is making me drowsy,” I said. “Either that or I’ve gotten used to napping in the afternoons.”

  “Don’t you dare fall asleep!”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Keep talking.”

  Usually not a problem for me. But along with filling the room, the mass of swirling steam seemed to be clouding my brain.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Bertie reached over and gave me a poke with her finger. “Keep talking to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Look around,” I said with a small, mirthless laugh. “I’m the one who got you into this mess. Somebody locked us in here on purpose.”

  “So your snooping around is making someone uncomfortable,” said Bertie. “Let’s try and figure out who. Who have you talked to today?”

  “All sorts of people.” I worked my way back through the day’s events, ticking off the list of names on my fingers. “Marshall, Richard, Margo, Tubby, Rosalyn, Caroline, and then Alana first thing this morning. You were with me for that.”

  “Good grief. You have been busy.”

  Tell me about it.

  Bertie lifted a hand and pushed her limp hair up off her face. “Okay, that gives us a list to start with. I’m thinking we ought to concentrate on the women.”

  “How come?”

  “Because this steam room opens off the women’s locker room. It would have been harder for a man to slip in unnoticed.”

  “Not today,” I said. “This whole building is just about deserted. We saw that for ourselves when we were walking around. Big Bird probably could have slipped in here without being noticed.”

  “Okay then, you come up with somebody.”

  Bertie’s breathing had grown shallower, as had my own. It was increasingly hard to draw the hot, heavy air into my lungs. Pretty soon the two of us would be panting like a pair of dogs.

  “All right,” I said. “Here’s something I’ve been thinking about. When the symposium began, Margo was worried about two things that might interfere with her event. The first was Charles’s keynote address and the second was the judging scandal.”

  “Tubby’s transgression.”

  “Right. But here’s the thing: while the first one became a really big deal, the second hasn’t even caused a ripple. Mostly it’s been a nonissue.”

  Bertie rolled over languidly on the clammy tiles. “And we care about this, why?”

  “Because what if Charles’s problems and Tubby’s problems were related somehow? I’m pretty sure that Tubby was about to get into serious trouble. The kind of trouble that would make the A.K.C. consider rescinding his judge’s license. And then, poof! Somehow the whole thing just disappeared.”

  “I bet you have a theory about that,” said Bertie.

  She didn’t sound particularly curious to hear it. But then again, at the moment, I was having a hard time working up much energy about anything myself. Conversation seemed preferable to silence, however, so I pressed on.

  “According to a couple of people I’ve spoken to, the whole reason Derek Ryan signed up for this symposium was to met with Charles Evans. Derek had a problem that the two of them had discussed earlier. The plan was that Charles was supposed to help him fix it.”

  “That’s the thing about problems,” Bertie said dreamily. “Everybody seems to have them.”

  Sad, but true. And unfortunately not h
elpful. I kept talking.

  “Derek’s friend Marshall said that the problem had to do with a dog being beaten when it should have won.”

  “Big deal,” said Bertie. She flapped a hand in the air. “That kind of thing happens all the time. Every exhibitor always thinks that their dog should have won. Otherwise why would they bother showing in the first place?”

  “I know, and under other circumstances I wouldn’t have given this another thought. But Derek Ryan shows Beagles and Tubby, who’s supposedly about to be implicated in some sort of scandal, judges hounds.”

  “Lots of people judge hounds,” Bertie pointed out.

  “You are so not helping with this.”

  “That’s not my fault. I’m trying to be the voice of reason.”

  Maybe I didn’t want her to be the voice of reason. Maybe I just wanted someone to agree with me.

  “There’s more,” I said. “Derek meant to get together with Charles, but he never got the chance. But then it turned out that it didn’t matter, because Tubby solved the problem for him.”

  “You see?” Bertie murmured vaguely. “Everything worked out and you don’t have to worry about them anymore.”

  “Yes, I do,” I insisted. “Because it occurred to me that I had been thinking about these things in a linear way. You know, like going from point A to point B? But maybe they’re not a straight line. What if they’re meant to form a circle instead?”

  “Oh God, don’t start with geometry now. You know I was never any good at math—”

  Abruptly she stopped speaking and lifted her head. “Do you hear something?”

  I didn’t, but I scrambled to my feet anyway.

  As soon as I stood up, I felt light-headed. My limbs were limp as spaghetti. Stars swam before my eyes.

  As I put a hand on the wall to steady myself, Bertie slipped past me. While I was trying to find my balance, she began to bang on the door with both fists.

  “Help!” she yelled. “We’re in here!”

  All at once the door flew open. Weight angled forward, Bertie went tumbling out.

  A draft of cool air came rushing into the room. It felt like heaven on my heated skin.

  “Oh my word!” I heard Aunt Peg say.

  Margo was standing right behind her. Peg caught Bertie and lowered her gently onto a bench.

  “Where’s Melanie?” Margo asked anxiously. “She’s missing too. Is she with you?”

  “I’m here,” I said. The words were scarcely louder than a whisper.

  I stumbled through the doorway and right into Aunt Peg’s arms. The embrace was everything I needed. For the moment all I could do was stand there and let her strength support me.

  I burrowed my head beneath her chin like a child. Aunt Peg pulled her arms tighter and held me close.

  “I told you so,” she said to Margo.

  28

  “What did you tell her?” I asked.

  I stepped away from Aunt Peg and stood on my own. The cool air felt amazingly good. It was as though I could feel my body temperature dropping. Within moments, I began to revive.

  Bertie was also looking better. Margo rushed from the room and reappeared a minute later with two big bottles of cold water. Bertie and I each grabbed one and guzzled them down.

  Aunt Peg was still watching me, a worried look on her face. Since she hadn’t answered, I turned to Margo and repeated my question.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “That if we had an appointment to meet this afternoon, you wouldn’t have stood me up. When you never reappeared after the session let out, I called Peg and told her that you were being willful and irresponsible.”

  “When I heard that, I began to wonder where you’d gone off to,” said Aunt Peg. “So I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”

  “Mel and I left our phones in our lockers,” Bertie said. “Neither one of us could get to them.”

  “So I discovered,” said Aunt Peg. “Because when I couldn’t locate Melanie, I tried you next.”

  “And when Peg couldn’t reach either one of you,” said Margo, “that’s when we began to worry. Peg said it wasn’t like the two of you to just disappear.”

  “What made you look for us in the health club?” I asked.

  “For one thing,” said Margo, “between the two of us we’d searched almost everywhere else.”

  “And then I ran into Alana.” Aunt Peg picked up the story. “A most distasteful girl, but helpful on the day. She told me that Bertie planned to spend the afternoon over here and it seemed like a good guess that you might have joined her. Then that large German fellow came along and pointed us toward the locker room, and here we are.”

  Bertie strode over to her locker, pulled out her clothes, and began to get dressed. I hung back for a minute.

  “Thank you,” I said to both our rescuers. “I don’t know how much longer we would have lasted in there.”

  “Do you know what happened?” asked Margo. “Who locked you in?”

  “Unfortunately Bertie and I didn’t see anything. We had no idea something was wrong until we tried to leave and couldn’t get the door open.”

  I joined Bertie by the lockers and began to get dressed as well. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  “I think we should call the police,” said Peg. “They could dust that chair for fingerprints and find out who did this.”

  “Fingerprints won’t do any good unless the perpetrator already has his on file,” I said as I pulled on my pants.

  “Nevertheless.” Aunt Peg refused to be deterred. “By my estimation, the authorities only have one more day to solve Charles’s murder. When the symposium ends tomorrow, everyone will scatter across the country. If the police don’t get things figured out soon, it’s going to be too late.”

  “All the more reason to light a fire under them,” Margo said firmly. “I’ll go make some calls.”

  Energized by the thought of her next mission, the director spun on her heel and left the room.

  “If nobody needs me for anything,” said Bertie, “I’m going back to the inn to shower and change. I’ll meet up with you later, okay?”

  Peg and I both nodded and Bertie left too.

  “You’re coming with me,” my aunt informed me. “There must be an OB/GYN on duty somewhere in Mountain View. Perhaps the emergency room can arrange an examination to let us know that everything is all right.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Aunt Peg was faster. “I don’t want to hear a single argument.”

  I hadn’t been about to argue, but I closed my mouth anyway.

  Sometimes it’s just easier to let Aunt Peg think she’s running the show.

  True to the ways of doctors and emergency rooms, several hours passed before Aunt Peg and I made it back to the inn. But by then I’d had an ultrasound and been assured that the baby was doing fine; so the trip, and the time it took, was well worth it.

  While we were waiting, Aunt Peg and I discussed and dissected every aspect of our time at the symposium. We began with the opening reception and worked our way through that afternoon’s events. By the time I was finished, Aunt Peg knew as much as I did about each of the various suspects.

  Not only that, but when I ran my circle theory past her, Aunt Peg’s eyes lit up. Unlike Bertie, my aunt is very good at math.

  When I was whisked away for tests, Aunt Peg continued to ponder the subject. By the time we were in the car and heading back to the inn, she had reached a conclusion.

  “Derek’s up to something,” she said. “And I’m betting that makes him the key to this whole situation. We ought to go talk to him.”

  “I’ve done that,” I replied. “And Derek’s not talking. If he’s mixed up in Charles’s murder, there’s no way he’s going to give anything away if he doesn’t have to. We need another angle.”

  Aunt Peg thought for a minute as she drove.

  “Florence,” she said finally.

  “What about her?”

 
; “She’s our angle.”

  I shook my head. “According to Derek, he and Florence barely even know one another.”

  “Pish,” said Aunt Peg. “For one thing, I’m not at all sure we need to believe everything Derek says. And for another, if Florence isn’t part of this mess, why was she attacked?”

  “Maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Or perhaps she knows something. Something the killer would rather have stay hidden.”

  “If that’s the case, her concussion seems to have done the trick. Richard says her memory of last night is hazy at best.”

  “That may be.” Aunt Peg slowed as we approached the driveway and turned on her signal. “Or it could be that’s just a convenient ruse that allowed her to place the blame on me. At any rate, it never hurts to ask. The worst she can do is tell us to go away.”

  I suspected that Florence was capable of far worse than that, but I’ve found it’s best not to get in Aunt Peg’s way when she’s settled on a course of action.

  “Florence it is,” I said. “Let’s go find her and see what she has to say.”

  That objective had to wait, however. When we got back to the inn, our first duty was to retrieve Walter and take him outside for a much-needed walk. Solving a murder was important to Aunt Peg, but responsible dog ownership still took precedence.

  She attached Walter’s new leash to his equally new collar and led him down the back stairs and out the side door. Immediately the German Shepherd lifted his nose to sniff the air, then took off at a steady walk around the side of the building.

  The dog had been cooped up in the hotel room for much of the day. Now that he was finally free, Aunt Peg allowed him to choose his own course. She held the end of the leash and followed along behind.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I haven’t a clue. Walter thinks he smells something interesting.”

  “He’s taking us back to the kitchens. What he smells is probably the remains of tonight’s dinner.”

  We’d been on this particular walkway on several of the previous evenings. On each of those occasions our night had ended badly. Aunt Peg might have forgotten our resolution not to return to this area after dark, but I most certainly had not. Hopefully Walter and his nose weren’t leading us into more trouble.