Pup Fiction

by Laurien Berenson

  I gazed at my older son with love and admiration for what he’d accomplished. I’d never felt so proud.

  * * *

  Early Saturday morning, I was once again awakened by my phone. This time it was ringing. I knew who it had to be. No one was in more of a hurry to get things moving than Aunt Peg with a plan.

  I had no idea why I had to hear about it at seven a.m., however.

  Faith was on the floor beside the bed. She sat up and watched as I lifted the device to my ear.

  “What now?” I said.

  “And a cheery hello to you, too,” Aunt Peg retorted. “It’s a beautiful morning. Yesterday’s clouds have given way to beautiful sunshine.”

  “Thank you for the weather report.” I started to disconnect. Her next words stopped me.

  “You and I have an appointment at Graceland School at nine.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes. I’ve spoken with Emily, and she’s expecting us. I told her we had information she’d want to hear concerning her Dalmatians. I thought the rest of our news should be delivered in person.”

  You think?

  Despite Aunt Peg’s blithe certainty, I wasn’t at all sure Emily would be understanding about the fact that the three puppies she’d lived with since spring didn’t belong to her. In my mind, there was a small chance she’d be happy to be relieved of their care—and an even larger one that she’d simply refuse to let them go.

  And possession was nine tenths of the law. Or so we’d been told when Beau was found.

  “Nine o’clock,” I said groggily. “See you then.”

  Sam opened one eye. I knew the phone had awakened him too, but he’d pretended to sleep through my conversation with Aunt Peg. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “Not until later,” I said. With luck, I might be able to sleep for another half hour.

  Kevin stuck his head through the bedroom doorway. “Who was on the phone?” he asked. “Was it Aunt Peg?”

  I nodded.

  “Is she coming over?”

  “No.” I lowered my head to the pillow. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Can’t,” Kev said.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m already awake.”

  Me too, but that wasn’t stopping me from trying to reverse the process. I closed my eyes. Maybe that would work.

  “Bud needs to go outside,” Kevin told me.

  “Take him downstairs and put him out,” I mumbled. “In fact, take all the dogs with you.”

  “Bud’s hungry too,” Kevin added.

  “Bud’s always hungry.” The idea of more sleep was beginning to feel like a distant dream.

  “He wants breakfast.”

  I lifted my head again. “Are you going to keep talking until I get out of bed?”

  “Yes.” Kevin grinned. It was a good thing he was cute.

  “I’ll go,” Sam said. He pushed back the covers and dragged himself out of bed. “I’m awake anyway.”

  “I love you,” I said to my husband’s retreating back.

  “You’d better,” he muttered.

  * * *

  Once again, I had to leave Faith behind. She and I had a conversation about it before I left.

  “This meeting is all about Emily’s Dalmatians,” I told her. “They’re rambunctious, untrained puppies. They’d drive you crazy.”

  Faith considered that. She wasn’t convinced. But I’ll miss you.

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll miss you too. But I’ll be back soon.”

  “Sheesh,” said Davey, passing by with an apple in his hand. “You should know better than to tell her that.”

  I rose to my feet. “What?”

  “That you’ll be back soon. These days you’re always running off somewhere.”

  “Aunt Peg and I need to talk to Emily,” I said.

  “About her dogs, right?”

  I nodded.

  “You should tell her not to let Mia handle them.”

  I’d started to go. Now I turned back. “Why?”

  “Mia hates it when they run loose all over the place. And she gets mad when they don’t listen.”

  “That’s not their fault,” I said.

  Davey took a bite of his apple. I would have reminded him not to talk with his mouth full, but I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “I’m just saying Mia has a temper,” he told me. “And she acts different when adults are around than she does when it’s just kids. I don’t think she likes dogs much. Or maybe she just doesn’t like those dogs.”

  Fifteen minutes later when I arrived at the school, Aunt Peg’s minivan was already parked in the small lot. A couple other cars were there as well, Emily’s sturdy SUV and a small blue Subaru. I wondered who else would be at the school on a Saturday morning.

  It didn’t take long to find out. When I entered the admin building, the sound of conversation and the smell of fresh paint led me to the kitchen at the end of the hallway.

  Aunt Peg was seated at the trestle table with an open box of scones in front of her. Emily stood at the foot of a tall A-frame ladder. Mia was at the top of the ladder, holding a paint roller. A paint-filled rolling pan was balanced on a pail shelf beside her.

  There was another ladder nearby, and drop cloths covered most of the floor. I stepped carefully as I made my way over to the table. Despite what I’d told Faith, Posey, Pansy, and Poppy were nowhere to be seen. Considering the task at hand, that was probably a good thing.

  Emily heard me come in and gave me a small wave.

  “I thought you painted that wall ten days ago,” I said.

  “Second coat,” Aunt Peg informed me.

  “Actually third,” Emily corrected. There was a paint smudge on the front of her T-shirt. “It turns out it’s hard to cover smoke damage.”

  “When I got here, both of them were up on ladders,” Aunt Peg told me. “Some people like to spend their Saturday mornings productively.”

  The subtext of that comment was clear. I chose to ignore it. Instead I sat down and helped myself to a scone.

  “It’s not like I have a choice.” Emily opened a cupboard, got out three plates, then came over to join us at the table. “With the camp running five days a week, any extra jobs have to get done on our days off.”

  I glanced at the woman at the top of the ladder. During the break in activity, she’d pulled out her phone. “Some day off, huh, Mia?”

  “I don’t mind,” Mia replied evenly. She didn’t bother to look up.

  “Mia never minds,” Emily said cheerfully. “I swear she’s like the Energizer Bunny. She’s always ready to help out whenever something needs to be done.”

  Emily was busy passing out plates, and Aunt Peg was holding out the bakery box to offer her a scone. Neither of them saw the spiteful look Mia gave her boss as she picked up the paint roller and went back to work.

  Having spent time with Emily over the past two weeks, I was aware of how much responsibility she’d been delegating to her assistant. During previous school sessions, Emily was always very much in charge. This summer, however, things were different. With all that had happened recently, it made sense that Emily would rely more on Mia. But maybe she’d been working the young woman too hard?

  “How come Miles isn’t helping with the painting?” I asked.

  “Physical labor isn’t my brother’s forte,” Emily said with a laugh. “If there’s work to be done, he can always find an excuse to be somewhere else. This morning he decided to take a trip over to the Greenwich library.”

  “He’ll enjoy that,” Aunt Peg commented. Greenwich had a fabulous library.

  I looked over at the woman on the ladder. “Hey Mia, do you want to come down and join us?”

  Her hand didn’t pause until she reached the end of a stroke. “No thanks,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m good.”

  “See what I mean?” Emily was breaking her cranberry scone into small pieces on her plate. “Mia’s always good.”

  Except perhaps
when Emily’s Dalmatians were around, I thought. I glanced across the table and caught Aunt Peg’s eye. It was time to move things along.

  Emily must have felt the same way. Her fingers were still crumbling her scone, but she had yet to put a single piece in her mouth. “You told me you had information about the puppies,” she said. “Is there something I need to know?”

  “I’m afraid there is,” I told her. “It turns out that Will didn’t own those puppies when he gave them to you.”

  Emily frowned. It looked as though she was about to protest.

  Aunt Peg didn’t give her the chance. “Melanie and I have managed to locate the Dalmatians’ real owner. We talked to him about them yesterday.”

  “I don’t understand.” Emily was still frowning. “Are you saying that you told some random person about my dogs without getting my permission first?”

  “Rory Scott isn’t just some random person,” Aunt Peg replied. “He’s the puppies’ breeder. The person who brought them into existence, and raised them for the first three months of their lives.”

  “But . . .” Emily sputtered. She still looked skeptical. “How did you even find that man? I never knew where the puppies came from. So how could you have known?”

  “Aunt Peg figured it out,” I said. “She could tell by looking at them that they were part of someone’s valuable breeding program.”

  “Valuable?” Emily repeated. Her gaze swung back and forth between us. “You mean those dogs sitting outside my pen are worth a lot of money?”

  “No,” Aunt Peg interjected quickly. “What Melanie meant is that the puppies’ bloodlines have value for their breeder.”

  She was right to correct me. There was no point in telling Emily the puppies’ real worth—or letting her know how much their breeder wanted them back—just before asking her to give them up.

  “But,” Emily said slowly, “they’re my puppies.”

  “Actually, they’re not,” I replied. “Will didn’t own the puppies. He never should have given them to you in the first place.”

  “But what was he doing with them?” she asked—then abruptly stopped and threw up a hand. “Never mind. I’m not sure I even want to know.”

  Aunt Peg could never resist delivering a lecture. She opened her mouth to tell Emily anyway. I glared at her across the table. She glared back briefly, then popped a piece of scone between her lips instead.

  After a minute, Emily answered her own question. “The puppies were just collateral damage from one of Will’s crazy schemes, weren’t they?”

  I nodded.

  “Dammit,” she swore. “They didn’t deserve that.”

  “No, they didn’t,” I agreed. “But at least by placing them with you, Will put them somewhere they’d be safe and well cared for.”

  Aunt Peg snorted under her breath. We both knew that her standard for adequate puppy care was a good deal higher than Emily’s. But I wasn’t about to let her bring that up either.

  “Something caught in your throat?” I asked sweetly.

  “Oh!” Emily’s gaze flew to Aunt Peg in alarm. “Let me get you a glass of water.” She hopped up and ran to the sink.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Aunt Peg called after her. “There’s no need to make a fuss.”

  Emily returned to the table. She placed a glass of cold water in front of Aunt Peg. “So what happens now?”

  “If it’s all right with you, we’d like to come back tomorrow with Rory Scott,” I said. “As you might imagine, he’s very anxious to see the puppies.”

  Emily shook her head. “I guess I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

  “Not if you want to do the right thing,” Aunt Peg replied briskly. “Rory has been frantic with worry about them.”

  “Tomorrow just seems so . . . quick,” Emily said.

  The sooner, the better, Rory had told us. Of course, he was on the other side of the equation.

  “It’s probably better to do it when the camp isn’t in session,” I pointed out.

  “And then he’ll want to take the puppies away with him?” she asked in a small voice.

  “I should think so,” Aunt Peg said. The woman had about as much sensitivity as a cactus. She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’ll talk to Rory and let you know what time he can come. Does that suit you?”

  “I guess so,” Emily agreed unhappily.

  I stood up too. Aunt Peg didn’t wait for me. Her business concluded, she was already striding from the room.

  Over on the ladder, Mia’s arm continued to move rhythmically as she ran the paint roller up and down the wall. Her back was to us, and she’d made no attempt to join our conversation. But I knew she had to have been listening to every word. Mia didn’t miss much.

  Emily walked me to the door. I stopped to give her a hug before leaving.

  “I’m sorry things turned out this way,” I said.

  “It’s probably for the best.” She sighed. “Those puppies were a lot of bother anyway.”

  “That doesn’t mean you didn’t fall in love with them.”

  Emily looked up. “What makes you think I did?”

  “Because you haven’t even asked about what else I’ve been doing. Or who I’ve spoken with about Will’s murder.”

  “Oh, that.” She sniffled.

  Yes, that.

  “I’ll worry about that later,” she said. “Right now, I’m having a hard enough time dealing with this problem.”

  Chapter 29

  The following morning I was once again on my way back to Graceland School. My human family was getting used to my repeated absences. Faith was taking them harder. Once again, I’d promised to make it up to her when I got home. This time, I knew I was going to have to come up with something really special.

  I pulled into the school property and parked in the lot beside Miles’s silver Lexus. Since he hadn’t come up with another excuse to duck out, I was guessing that today’s get-together interested him more than painting the kitchen. Or maybe Emily had asked him to be there to act as her champion. Miles was clearly protective of his sister. I hoped he wouldn’t turn out to be a problem.

  As I started toward the smaller building, I saw Aunt Peg’s maroon minivan turn in the driveway. She and I had decided against telling Rory Scott where his puppies could be found. He and Emily had conflicting interests when it came to the future of the three Dalmatians. We definitely didn’t want Rory to take matters into his own hands and go racing to the school on his own.

  Instead, Aunt Peg and I had every intention of acting as middlemen for Rory’s meeting with Emily. Hopefully, we’d be able to direct the proceedings toward an amiable conclusion. Rather than divulging Emily’s address, Aunt Peg had given Rory directions to her house. Now the two of them were arriving together.

  I stopped and waited for them so we could all go inside at the same time. Before the van was even parked, the passenger side door flew open. Rory Scott hopped out and looked around eagerly, as if he expected to find his missing puppies gamboling around the parking lot.

  “He’s been like that ever since he arrived at my house,” Aunt Peg said as she got out and came over to stand beside me. “The man is a veritable whirlwind.”

  “He’s impatient,” I said. “I don’t blame him.”

  Now Rory was staring back and forth between the two school buildings, as if trying to decide which one to charge toward first. He spun around at the sound of my voice. Apparently, he’d been so busy looking for his dogs that he hadn’t noticed me standing there.

  “Hi!” Rory said. “You’re Melanie, right? Where are my Dalmatians?”

  “I don’t know. I just got here too. Let’s go inside and meet Emily, and we’ll find out.”

  “Yeah, sure, the teacher.” Rory’s gaze returned to the weathered clapboard buildings. “That’s really a school?”

  “A nursery school,” I told him. “Emily runs it.”

  “Looks like both of Will’s exes made out better than he did.”
/>   Considering that Will was dead and the police were searching for his killer, Rory wouldn’t get any argument from me.

  “Let’s move along, shall we?” Aunt Peg said. “Emily is expecting us.”

  As we approached the building, the door opened. Miles stood framed in the doorway. “Emily is out back with the puppies,” he told us as he inspected Rory with an unfriendly stare. “The thought of possibly having to say goodbye to them isn’t easy for her.”

  I introduced the two men. They shook hands briefly. Rory was anxious to move on. Miles continued to stand in front of us, blocking our way.

  “I hope you’ve brought proof that those Dalmatians are yours,” he said.

  Rory didn’t appear to be surprised by the request. Nor by Miles’s attitude. He stared right back. “Let me get a look at them first. Then we’ll worry about establishing ownership.”

  We walked through the building and exited through the back door. Right away, we saw Emily and the puppies. They were playing in the big field beyond the children’s playground. I watched as Emily threw a tennis ball and Posey took off in pursuit.

  Poppy and Pansy were the first to notice our approach. When the two Dalmatians came running in our direction, Emily turned and saw us. She and Posey followed more slowly.

  Miles was at the front of our little group. Poppy and Pansy raced right past him. They also ignored Aunt Peg and me. Before they’d even reached Rory, the two puppies were already whining under their breath. Without breaking stride, they launched themselves straight at him.

  Rory quickly dropped to his knees in the grass. He held out his arms to gather the puppies in for a hug. They both scrambled onto his lap, hopping up and down with joy as they covered his face with kisses. Within seconds, Posey had arrived to join the mêlée. The red-haired man and the three Dalmatians rolled around on the ground together.

  I could hear Rory quietly murmuring something to the puppies. His hands were everywhere at once, moving rapidly to make sure each Dalmatian received a proper greeting. Whimpers came from deep within the puppies’ throats. It sounded as though they were talking back to him.

  I told myself that what I was witnessing wasn’t definitive proof of ownership. But it sure looked like it to me.

  Emily had hung back when Posey ran on ahead. Now she came forward to stand beside us. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest. Her expression was carefully neutral, but I knew she had to be hurting inside.