“I need to park as well,” Aunt Peg said. She pointed in my direction. “You’re with me.”
“I am?”
She rolled her eyes. I guessed that meant I was.
“Where are we going?” I asked after we’d dashed out from beneath the tent and grabbed dry seats inside her minivan.
“First, to the parking lot.”
I knew that. “And then where?”
Aunt Peg maneuvered the van across the grassy field to the asphalt lot. With so many vehicles coming and going, the whole area would probably be a sea of mud by late afternoon. By then, we wouldn’t care, however. Our show day would be over, and Coral would have already won or lost.
Aunt Peg shot me a look. “Don’t you know?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t keep asking. Are we playing twenty questions?”
“No, we’re going to introduce ourselves to Mr. Rory Scott and see what he has to say for himself.”
Right. The Dalmatian man. I’d been so busy worrying about Davey and Coral’s chances that I’d forgotten all about him. “He’s here?”
“I told you he would be.” Aunt Peg smiled with satisfaction.
“That was before this typhoon blew in.”
She just shrugged. “It’s much easier to show a smooth-coated breed in the rain than a Standard Poodle. Indeed, my spies have already laid eyes on him. Rory Scott is set up at the other end of the grooming tent.”
A laugh bubbled up from deep in my chest. I turned in my seat to stare at her. “Wait a minute. You have spies?”
“In a manner of speaking. Other people might call them useful connections. I prefer the clandestine nomenclature myself.”
Of course she did. I’d long suspected Aunt Peg had a secret yearning to become an undercover operative. And now here we were, on a mission of sorts. If we turned up some useful information, this could be wish fulfillment on a couple of levels.
We left the minivan in the parking lot and walked back to the tent. Aunt Peg had an umbrella. I pulled the hood of my raincoat up over my head. We both were wearing rubber boots. This wasn’t our first rainy day dog show.
“When do Dalmatians go in the ring?” I asked. I didn’t see any Dals out on tabletops. Then again, they didn’t require much pre-ring grooming.
“They’ve already been judged,” Aunt Peg said. “I didn’t want to bother Mr. Scott beforehand. I assumed he’d be busy then.”
That made sense. People who stopped by our setup when we were prepping our Poodles for the ring often got short shrift. Those who came later—after the day’s results had been determined and the pressure was off—received our full attention.
“Did your spies tell you whether or not he won?”
“Reserve Winners Bitch,” she told me.
“Damn,” I muttered.
His result in the ring would do much to determine whether we found the man in a good mood or a bad one. Reserve Winners was the frustrating, second-best award. Winners Bitch got the points. Reserve went home with nothing but a striped ribbon.
“There he is.” Aunt Peg nodded toward a middle-aged man who was leaning back against a grooming table and perusing his show catalog. A liver-and-white Dalmatian was snoozing in the ground-level crate behind him.
“How do you know?”
“Easy,” she said. “Deborah told me he had red hair and lots of it.”
The red hair was just the beginning. With his chubby cheeks, freckled skin, and bright blue eyes, Rory Scott had the look of a sized-up leprechaun. He was even wearing a green shirt. Apparently it hadn’t brought him luck.
Aunt Peg headed his way, skirting deftly through the setups between us. I followed in her wake. Rory looked up as we approached. He smiled tentatively.
“Hello, Mr. Scott.” Aunt Peg stopped in front of him and stuck out her hand. “I’m Peg Turnbull, and this is my niece, Melanie. I was wondering if we could have a few minutes of your time?”
“Sure. Of course.” He took her hand and pumped it heartily. “I know who you are. In fact, I’ve shown under you.”
“Have you? Did I put you up?”
“Actually, yes.” He smiled. “It was a very good day.”
“I’m delighted to hear that.”
Less than thirty seconds had passed, and they were already on their way to becoming friends. Meanwhile, I had yet to be called upon to say a thing. When Aunt Peg was around, it was hard not to feel superfluous.
“What can I do for you?” Rory asked.
“I was speaking with Deborah Munch the other day about her stud dog, Alistair.”
“Handsome dog.” He nodded his approval.
“She told me that you’d had a litter by him earlier in the year.”
A shadow crossed Rory’s face. “I did, yes. The last litter out of the best bitch I’ve ever bred.”
“Deborah mentioned that you had high hopes for the litter. She also said she was hoping to get a bitch puppy from it for herself.”
Rory turned away. He set down his catalog on top of the crate. “Unfortunately, that turned out not to be possible.”
“So I understand,” Aunt Peg said. “I gather the distribution of that litter did not proceed as planned. It seems several puppies went missing?”
Rory looked up sharply. “I never said anything like that.”
“No, you did not. But it was never made clear to Deborah where those bitch puppies ended up.”
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he snapped. “But I don’t understand the purpose of this conversation. Why are my dogs any concern of yours?”
I stepped out from behind Aunt Peg. “Because we would like to help you.”
“Help me?” Rory frowned. “What are you talking about? Why would I need your help?”
“If the three bitch puppies from that litter are safely home in your kennel, then you’re right, you don’t need any assistance from us,” Aunt Peg said. “If that’s not the case, however, then I believe we can be very useful to you.”
“How?” he asked suspiciously.
“What if I told you I know where your missing puppies are?”
“Truly?” Now the man looked utterly shocked.
“We think so,” I said.
“They’re alive and well?”
Aunt Peg nodded.
“Healthy?” Rory paused, then added, “Not spayed?”
“Yes to all those questions.” I pulled out my phone and showed him a picture of Poppy, Posey, and Pansy sitting in Emily’s yard.
He snatched the device from me and quickly enlarged the picture. His hands shook as he stared at each of the three puppies’ faces in turn. Emotion made him blink several times. “These are really my girls?”
“We believe so,” I confirmed.
Rory swallowed heavily. “Oh, those sweet babies. I thought they were gone forever. I pictured them sitting in a dog pound. Or somewhere even worse. And now you’re telling me that my pups are fine and you know where they are?”
“That’s right,” Aunt Peg said.
Rory gave me back my phone. He scrubbed his eyes with his hands before regaining his composure. Then he treated Aunt Peg and me to a blinding smile. Like someone had just offered to show him the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
“This is the answer to a lot of prayers,” he said.
Chapter 26
“I was hoping you would say that.” Aunt Peg smiled.
I did too. That made three of us standing there, looking very happy.
“We can reunite you with your puppies,” Aunt Peg said. “However, we want something in return from you. Information.”
Rory’s smile dimmed. He nodded cautiously.
“The woman who currently has your bitches has no idea who bred them, nor where they originally came from.”
“How did she get hold of them?” Rory asked.
“Her ex-husband gave them to her three months ago,” I said. “A man named Will Grace.”
Rory Scott, so talkative a minute earlier, suddenly had nothin
g to say at all. Rain pounded on the roof of the tent above us while Aunt Peg and I waited for him to comment.
“I’m assuming you know Will,” I said finally.
“I know him, all right,” Rory spat out. “Bastard stole those puppies right out of my kennel.”
“If you knew he’d taken them,” Aunt Peg said, “why didn’t you go get them back?”
Rory stared past us, his gaze focusing on the show rings in the distance. “It wasn’t that simple.”
“It never is,” I agreed. “Tell us what happened.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because we know where your puppies are and you don’t,” Aunt Peg told him. “If you prefer, however, we will go away and leave you alone.”
“No!” His reply was swift and emphatic. “Not until you tell me where they are.”
“We’ll share that information after you tell us about your business dealings with Will Grace,” I said.
Conflicting emotions played across his face. He didn’t want to do as I’d requested—but we hadn’t left him much choice. Rory struck me as the kind of man who was well versed in the art of negotiation. He was probably wondering how little he could get away with revealing.
We had access to his puppies, however. That gave us the winning hand.
“The truth, please,” I told him.
Rory glared in my direction. He was stuck, and he knew it. “Did you know Will Grace?”
“No,” I replied for both of us. “But we know what kind of man he was. There’s little you can say about him that will surprise us.”
His head dipped in a curt nod. “All right, then. Will and I were running a little hustle together. Nothing where anyone would get hurt, you understand. Just something to earn us a few bucks.”
“Go on,” said Aunt Peg.
“There was a poker game in Atlantic City. We’d been set up with a couple of whales from suburbia who thought they were card sharps because they were better than their country club cronies. It was all supposed to be easy. Will and I were just going to beat them at their own game.”
“I’m guessing things didn’t go as planned,” I said.
Rory grimaced. “It turned out we were the ones who’d been set up. Will and I were lucky to escape with the shirts on our backs. We left all our cash behind and then some.”
“What did that have to do with your puppies?” Aunt Peg asked.
“Will’s a real sore loser. And when something goes south, it’s never his fault. He blamed me for what had happened. He told me I owed him.”
“Money?” I said.
“Of course money. What else?” Rory looked at us as if we were stupid. “But I didn’t have any money to give him. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have, because the whole screwup was just as much his fault as mine. We argued about it, and he went storming off. I thought that was the end of it.”
He sighed heavily. “Except then it wasn’t.”
“Why did Will decide to target your dogs?” I asked.
Rory frowned. “He knew I showed them, and he was always asking questions about that. One time he told me this crazy story about some lady who had a show dog that was stolen. It was worth thousands of dollars, and she went to great lengths to get it back. I have no idea where he heard that.”
Aunt Peg and I shared a look. We knew where. The story sounded very familiar to us.
“My mistake was bragging about that litter and the high hopes I had for them,” Rory said. “I shouldn’t have let Will know how important those puppies were to me. But it never crossed my mind that he’d think he could use them as a bargaining chip.”
“So Will Grace stole your puppies and held them for ransom,” I summed up.
Rory nodded. “Pay up or else.”
“That’s extortion,” Aunt Peg said.
“So what?” Rory replied glumly. “It’s not like I was going to go to the police.”
Aunt Peg had gone to the police when her stud dog, Beau, had been stolen. It hadn’t helped at all. They’d directed her to animal control.
“If those puppies were so important to you, why didn’t you just swallow your pride and pay him?” I asked.
“I couldn’t. Will wanted twenty-five thousand dollars for them.”
Aunt Peg and I shared a shocked look.
“I take back what I said before,” she said. “That’s not just extortion, it’s highway robbery.”
“I thought that was just his opener,” Rory told us. “Will knew I could never come up with that much money. I figured we’d make a deal. I also figured that once he’d been saddled with those three pups for a week, Will might be just as happy to get rid of them as I was to get them back.”
“But that didn’t happen,” I said.
“No, it didn’t. Because not long after that, Will disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” I repeated. He’d surprised me again. “When? Do you mean recently?”
“No, this was a few months ago. In the spring sometime. The guy just vanished. I couldn’t find him anywhere. Eventually I gave up on ever getting the puppies back. I figured maybe Will used them to pay off a debt somewhere. For all I know, he’s in Mexico now. Or maybe the Caribbean.”
Apparently Rory hadn’t heard about the news of his former friend’s demise.
“There’s something you need to know,” Aunt Peg said.
“What’s that?” His tone was still combative.
“Will Grace is dead.”
Those few words had a big impact. Rory’s face went pale. His freckles stood out against his suddenly ashen skin. He sagged back against the grooming table. “You know that for sure?”
“Yes.” Aunt Peg and I both nodded.
“How did it happen? When?”
“Will was shot a week ago,” I told him. “In Connecticut.”
He stared at us as if he was still hoping that we’d change our minds. When we remained silent, he finally said, “Who did it?”
“No one knows,” Aunt Peg replied. “The police are investigating. And we’ve been asking questions too. In light of recent events, I might guess that Will didn’t just disappear several months ago. He went into hiding.”
“I could maybe see that.” Rory considered the idea. “Will was the kind of guy who only saw the end result he wanted. He refused to think about potential complications. Maybe he vanished because he crossed the wrong person.”
“Are you talking about someone you might know?” I asked.
Rory quickly held up his hands in front of him, palms facing outward. It was a gesture of innocence—or maybe denial.
“Not me,” he said. “I don’t have anything to do with people like that. The poker thing was just a sideline. Will was the one who always needed the next score to keep his head above water. That kind of pressure can make you do things a more prudent person wouldn’t touch.”
“It looks as though Will’s lack of prudence caught up with him last week,” I told him. “If you come up with any names you’d like to share, I’m sure Detective Sturgill of the Stamford Police would want to hear them.”
Rory suddenly looked wary. When he gave his head a very deliberate shake, I guessed that meant it wasn’t going to happen.
“Thank you,” Aunt Peg said. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“I told you everything I know,” Rory replied. “Now it’s your turn. You’ll get my puppies back for me, right?”
“We’ll start working on it,” she agreed. “Had they been microchipped before they left your kennel?”
“No.” He frowned. “I hadn’t gotten around to it. It’s not like I was expecting them to disappear.”
We all thought about that for a minute. Circumstantial evidence certainly pointed toward the puppies being his missing Dalmatians. But it would have been better if he’d had proof.
“Just so you know,” I said, “the woman who’s been taking care of them all this time thinks of the puppies as hers.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Rory repl
ied with confidence. “I’m sure she and I will be able to come to a suitable arrangement. You said Will gave them to his ex-wife. Is that Vanessa?”
I looked at him in surprise. “You know her?”
“No, but Will talked about her a lot. They’d gotten a divorce, but he was always trying to figure out a way to get back together with her. It turns out that after she left him, she struck it rich writing romance novels. Is that crazy, or what?”
“Vanessa doesn’t have your Dalmatians,” I told him. “They’re with Will’s first wife, Emily.”
Rory shrugged. “Will never mentioned that one at all. You be sure to tell her I’ll be more than happy to pay for the puppies’ care and for all the time she’s spent on them. How soon do you think I can see my girls?”
“We’ll have to find out about that,” Aunt Peg said. “But we should be able to let you know in a day or two.”
Rory tore a page out of the back of his catalog. He scribbled down his name and phone number twice. Then he ripped the page in half and handed a piece to each of us.
“The sooner, the better,” he said. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”
“I hope you’ll be able to keep those promises you made,” I said to Aunt Peg as we made our way to the other end of the tent. “Emily thinks the puppies belong to her. What if she doesn’t want to give them up?”
“Then we’ll just have to convince her differently,” Aunt Peg replied.
As if it was just that simple.
* * *
When we got back to our setup, Coral was standing on her grooming table gazing around the tented area. Davey and Sam had accomplished a lot in our absence. The Poodle had been thoroughly brushed out, her topknot was in, and her hair had been sprayed up. Sam and Kevin had even run over to the ring to pick up Davey’s armband. Aunt Peg and I must have been gone longer than I’d thought.
“It’s like running through soup out there,” Sam said with a grimace.
“Like soup,” Kev agreed with a happy nod. At his age, mud was something to be savored.
“All we can hope is that Coral looks terrific when she steps into the ring, because as soon as the judge sends the class outside, everything’s going to fall flat. At least all the other bitches will get soaked at the same time.”
I used a spare towel to dry Kev’s hair. For some reason, the child hadn’t put his hood up when they’d run across the grassy expanse to the other tent.
Pup Fiction Page 20
