Unleashed (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

by Berenson, Laurien

  His eyes were dark, too. Piercingly so, I noted as they flickered past me and came to rest on Sam. His brow lowered slightly as he smiled, showing white, even teeth. The expression looked more like a feral grin than a welcoming gesture.

  “Melanie, I’d like you to meet Brian Endicott.”

  Automatically, I stuck out a hand. Brian followed suit.

  “Sam?” Sheila paused. For just the briefest moment, she looked uncertain, then her smile returned. “You remember Brian, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Sam. It sounded as though he was speaking through clenched teeth.

  “Driver.” Brian nodded tersely.

  I guessed this meant I didn’t have to worry about them bonding over the Boxster.

  “Won’t this be fun?” Sheila said brightly. “Just like old times; well, except for Melanie, of course. But don’t worry, dear, we’ll get you caught up in no time.”

  For a fleeting moment, I wondered if I should just make my life easier and run right then. Unfortunately, good manners, drummed in since birth, asserted themselves. I plastered a smile on my face, took Sam’s cold hand in mine, and followed Sheila inside.

  Two

  “What’s going on?” I whispered, crowding close to Sam as we found seats on a chintz-slipcovered love seat.

  Sheila had gone to the kitchen to fetch drinks. Brian was gazing out a picture window that overlooked the backyard. I wondered why both men seemed to feel the need to place the length of a room between them.

  “Nothing good,” Sam muttered, as Brian turned to face us.

  “You’re not afraid of big dogs, are you, Melanie?” he asked.

  “No, of course not.” I wondered what that had to do with anything. “I have a Standard Poodle at home.”

  “I should have guessed. One of Sam’s?”

  “No, I got Faith from my Aunt Peg. Margaret Turnbull, Cedar Crest Standard Poodles?”

  “You’re related to Margaret Turnbull?” Brian sounded impressed. “Sheila didn’t mention that.”

  “Didn’t mention what?”

  Sheila reentered the room carrying a small tray with drinks and a platter of cheese and crackers. Quickly both men moved to help her. Sam was closer. Was I imagining things or did he look vaguely triumphant as he lifted the platter from her tray and set it on the coffee table?

  “That Melanie’s aunt was dog show royalty.”

  Despite, or perhaps because of, the tension building in the room, I found myself laughing. “I’m sure Aunt Peg would be mortified to hear herself described that way.”

  “Nevertheless it’s true,” Brian insisted. “Margaret Turnbull has been a fixture in Standard Poodles for what, thirty years?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s also one of very few breeder, owner-handlers ever to win the group at Westminster. That alone is enough to make some people stand up and salute.” He paused, gazing at me thoughtfully. “I seem to recall she was the subject of some gossip a couple of years ago, around the time her husband died. Something about one of her stud dogs... ?”

  Brian wasn’t just another dinner guest, I remembered suddenly. He was also Sheila’s new partner in journalism. Yellow journalism. This was one bit of innuendo I could nip in the bud.

  “I imagine you mean Beau,” I said evenly. “Champion Cedar Crest Chantain. He was stolen—”

  “And then recovered,” Sheila chimed in. “I read all about it in Dog Scene. Sam had just moved here, hadn’t you?”

  “Right. I appeared just in time to be considered a suspect. That’s how Melanie and I met.”

  “How very romantic.” Sheila cut off a sliver of cheese, slid it on a cracker, and offered it to Sam.

  “But there was something else,” Brian persisted. Though the rest of us were seated, he remained on his feet. Not quite pacing, but not standing still either; as if he had more energy than he could contain. “Something about the dog himself ...”

  It wasn’t hard to figure out what he was getting at. “Beau has SA,” I said. “Sebaceous adenitis. He failed a punch skin biopsy and, in fact, had been removed from active stud duty right before he disappeared.”

  “Right!” said Brian. “That was it.” Now it was his turn to look triumphant. Also speculative. “Considering the amount of winning that dog had done, the news must have come as quite a shock to the Poodle community.”

  “It did,” Sam agreed. Like me, he obviously meant to disarm Brian’s suspicions with honesty. “Many people felt blindsided, myself included. There was a lot of admiration for Peg as well, though. Considering all the problems we’re currently battling in purebred dogs, she was one of the first big breeders to come right out and say that despite all our efforts, despite the testing, there are still affected dogs and she had one.”

  “Of course, there was a backlash, too,” I added. When this had all happened, I’d been too new to dogs to understand what was happening. But now I knew what Peg had been through. There were plenty of people in the dog show world who had too much money, effort, and ego invested in their dogs to ever consider admitting that something might be wrong. “Other breeders whose dogs shared common ancestors with Beau were horrified, afraid that Aunt Peg’s disclosure would taint their lines, too.”

  “As well it should have,” Sheila said firmly. “I’m always amazed by how many breeders are willing to bury their heads in the sand over issues like this. They do no testing and then assert that such-and-such a problem has never been found in their dogs. Well, of course it hasn’t, if they’ve never looked for it.”

  “Hear! Hear!” said Brian. “That’s exactly the sort of story that’s going to make Woof! fly off the presses.” He glanced in Sheila’s direction. “Right, partner?”

  “Right.” She lifted her glass in salute.

  Outside, the dogs began to bark. Five higher-pitched, little-dog voices were joined by one deep-throated bass.

  “Good Lord.” I laughed. “It sounds like your Pugs have cornered a bear.”

  “That’s Boris, my Saint Bernard,” said Brian, heading for the kitchen. “I was about to bring him inside. That’s why I asked if you minded big dogs.”

  The minute he disappeared, Sheila leapt up. She opened a cabinet in a sideboard and withdrew a small stack of towels, keeping two for herself and tossing the rest so they landed on the couch between me and Sam. “Trust me,” she said. “You’ll need them.”

  Then she picked up the platter of cheese and moved it to a higher spot. “Brian insists that dog is trained, but you’d be amazed how much food just happens to fall into his mouth. Boris seems to have developed a fondness for brie, and a half-pound wedge is barely a morsel to a dog that size.”

  Precautions complete, Sheila was seated sedately in her chair when Brian returned. The Pugs preceded him. We heard them gallop through the kitchen, then all five appeared, in a flurry of scrambling legs and eager noses.

  “Hi, guys.” Sheila leaned down from her chair and held her arms wide, making snuffling noises under her breath. The Pugs reciprocated, while Sam and I both grinned, just as pleased that they weren’t our dogs, so we weren’t the ones making fools of ourselves.

  “This is Boris,” Brian announced from the doorway. From the solemnity of his tone, I wondered if we were meant to stand up as the Saint Bernard entered the room.

  I had to admit, though, the dog was beautiful. Huge, with a sparkling red-and-white coat, massive bones, and large, soulful eyes. Everything about him exuded quiet authority, and I could well imagine that his forebears had been superb rescue dogs.

  “Hey, boy,” Sam said. Boris’s ears lifted slightly as he looked in our direction. He ambled toward the couch.

  Like most big dogs, Boris seemed to have a sense of his size, relative to the room. While the Pugs gamboled and rolled on the rug, the Saint’s movements were calm and measured. Even his tail seemed to move in slow motion as it wagged from side to side.

  “Nice dog,” I said admiringly, as Boris edged between Sam and the coffee table and came to gree
t me.

  Just in time, I managed to snag a towel and slide it across my knees. A moment later, a head the size of Davey’s backpack was resting in my lap. A long string of drool dripped from his flews.

  “Must be hell fitting him in that car,” Sam mentioned.

  “Tell me about it.” Brian laughed. He sat down in an armchair by the couch, and Boris went to lie down at his side. “But we manage, don’t we, boy? If you want something badly enough, you can always find a way to make it happen. I imagine you’d agree with me about that, wouldn’t you, Sam?”

  There it was again, that undercurrent to the conversation that was about as subtle as a Rottweiler with bad breath. Obviously something had come between these three in the past. I wondered how long it would take me to find out what it was.

  The Pugs began to disperse and lie down; one of them flopped across my feet. I reached down to rub the round head with its velvety button ears, and asked, “How did you all meet?”

  The three of them glanced at one another, each waiting to see if someone else was going to answer.

  “In business school,” Sam said finally, when no one else volunteered. He reached for his beer and took a long swallow, then set the glass down on the table with a finality that seemed to declare the subject closed.

  “Now, Sam,” Sheila chided gently. “Melanie wants to know more than that.” Her eyes shifted my way, declaring herself my sister, my ally. “She’s looking for details.”

  “Don’t hold back on my account,” Brian said. “In fact, maybe I should just tell the story myself and get it over with.”

  Beside me, Sam tensed, ever so slightly. Sheila, meanwhile, was smiling. No doubt whatever was about to be revealed showed her in a good light.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  Brian leaned forward in his chair. “Sam and I were buddies, I guess you might even have said best friends. We met the first year, had a lot of the same classes, hung out together on the weekends.”

  “I was a year behind,” Sheila interjected. “By the time I arrived, these two were upperclassmen.”

  “I noticed Sheila right away,” Brian continued. “Hard not to, even though in those days her hair was all wild and frizzy, sticking out like some giant, dark dandelion all around her head.”

  “A bad perm.” Sheila sighed. “The hairdresser told me it would add body. Two years later, I was still growing it out.”

  “Anyway, Sheila and I began seeing each other. It got pretty serious, pretty fast. We were looking into getting an apartment together. Then I made the mistake of introducing her to my good friend, Sam.” Brian paused, ceding the others a chance to continue.

  For a minute, no one did. Sam was staring straight ahead, looking as if he could have gone the rest of his life quite happily without having this particular episode from his past rehashed. Even Sheila finally had the grace to look uncomfortable.

  “You have to understand,” she said softly. “When Sam and I met, I felt as though I’d been struck by a speeding train. I know it sounds corny to talk about love at first sight, but that’s what it was. I knew I’d met the man that I was destined to marry. Neither of us wanted to hurt you, Brian.”

  Brian shook his head curtly, warding off any sympathy she tried to offer. “It all happened a long time ago. And it wasn’t that big a deal. I got over it fast enough.”

  “And took up with Miss Cheerleader from Alabama,” Sheila prompted, trying to lighten the mood. “What was her name again? The one with the lacquered hair and big pompons?”

  “Honey Sue Beaudine.” Slowly Brian smiled. “Now there was a woman who knew how to take a man’s mind off his troubles.”

  Even Sam seemed amused by the memory. “As I recall, taking things off was a specialty of hers.”

  “So you see,” Sheila said, “the three of us go way back. And now that Sam and I have split up, and Brian and I are working together on the magazine, I guess you might say things have come full circle.”

  Indeed, I mused, as Sheila got up and went into the kitchen. In my experience, life never revolved quite that neatly. It was hard not to suspect that Sheila might have given fate a nudge.

  In March, she’d come to the East Coast hoping to reclaim the attentions of her ex-husband. Failing in that, she was now involved, professionally and otherwise, with a man from both their pasts. From what I’d seen of Sheila, she was much too savvy to make a stupid career move for the sake of a man. Still, I had to wonder whether the new job at the start-up magazine was the golden opportunity she’d claimed it to be.

  Excusing myself I got up and followed her into the kitchen. A lamb roast, spiked with fat cloves of garlic and sprinkled with rosemary had just come out of the oven. Sheila was applying the finishing touches to a homemade salad dressing.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  “Dress and toss?” she said, indicating a wooden salad bowl on the counter. She opened a drawer and pulled out a long fork and spoon.

  “Nice kitchen,” I said, as we worked side by side.

  “It’s getting there. You should have seen what this place looked like when I first moved in.”

  “I heard about it,” I said, trying to keep the edge from my tone.

  For the first month Sheila had been in residence, her calls to Sam for aid had been constant. She’d never struck me as the helpless type, and after a while, I’d begun to wonder just how many things could possibly go wrong in one small house.

  “This place was really in bad shape,” Sheila said, as though reading my thoughts. “The woman that owns the house is quite old, probably in her late eighties. It’s at least a decade since she’d had any serious maintenance work done. Finally, I guess she realized it was just too much for her to keep up. After she leased the place to me, she went into managed care.”

  I could see how a property that size would be hard for an older woman to keep up by herself. “Didn’t she have any relatives nearby who could have helped?”

  Sheila sliced the lamb on a cutting board, transferred it to a platter, and arranged roasted new potatoes around the border. “One, a son named Chuck, who apparently didn’t realize how much of a burden the place had become. I gather his mother had always been the independent type, so maybe they hadn’t seen each other much.

  “Anyway, after she checked into Southbury Oaks, he dropped by. Frankly, he seemed pretty appalled by the shape the place was in. Sam had been helping me out some, but there was still plenty to be done. So, for the last couple months, Chuck’s been stopping by and fixing things up—you know, painting, small repairs, general handyman stuff. If you ask me, he feels kind of guilty that he never got around to doing those things when his mother was here. How’s that salad coming?”

  “All set.”

  “Great. Then we’re ready to eat. Go get the guys, would you, while I carry this to the table?” Sheila frowned prettily, an expression of concern she didn’t quite manage to pull off. “I hope they’re not at each other’s throats in there.”

  If they were, I decided, I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of letting on.

  They weren’t. In the living room, Sam and Brian were drinking beer, petting dogs, and swapping stories about Honey Sue Beaudine and other classmates they hadn’t heard from in years. Maybe what Brian said was true, and the trouble between them had ended a long time ago.

  For all our sakes, I hoped he was right.

  Three

  Sheila had opened most of the windows in the small house and a gentle, evening breeze floated through the dining room. Once again, there were candles, flickering on the table and the sideboard. The lamb was delicious; the merlot, a better vintage than I could afford. In short, the ambiance was all one could have wished for.

  And the company? Once everyone settled down, that wasn’t half-bad either.

  Over dinner, Brian told us all about the plans he and Sheila had made for their new magazine. Gesturing with his fork, toasting their venture with his wine, laughing heartily to punctuate his own stories, he made h
is enthusiasm for the venture abundantly, and infectiously, clear.

  By the time dessert and coffee were served, Brian had me sold. Thank God he wasn’t soliciting backers, or I probably would have signed on. As it was, Woof!’s upcoming launch was beginning to sound less like a gamble and more like a sure thing. Maybe I’d been wrong in thinking that Sheila’s career path had taken a precipitous detour.

  Sam, however, wasn’t as easily convinced. Though he joined in the conversation and the laughter, his eyes never entirely lost their slightly wary look. Even after downing several glasses of wine, it was clear to me, if not the others, that he was far from relaxed.

  “You know,” Brian said to his old friend, “if this project is a success, I’ll have you to thank.”

  Sam looked up sharply. “How do you figure?”

  “You were the one who got me started in dogs in the first place. Without your guidance, I would never have known the dog show world even existed.”

  “Don’t you mean my interference?” Sam permitted himself a small smile. “As I recall, that’s what you called it at the time.”

  Brian waved away the interruption. “I wanted a dog,” he explained for my benefit. “A big dog. I’d seen a Saint Bernard in a movie and thought it would be just the thing. I figured any pet store would have one.”

  “Thank goodness Sam was there to set you straight,” Sheila said, voicing the antipathy that any informed dog lover feels toward pet shops.

  “Sam told me I had to find a breeder. Someone who did genetic testing and had healthy puppies with good temperaments. Before he started all his lecturing, I figured I was just looking for something cute with floppy ears and big feet.”

  “I dragged him to a dog show,” Sam said. “Drag being the operative word.”

  “I couldn’t believe he wanted me to waste a whole Saturday watching pampered canines prance around a show ring.”

  “You couldn’t believe they didn’t have a beer stand.” Sam laughed.

  “Hey, you sold the thing to me as a sporting event, okay? Let’s just say I had certain expectations. And then this big guy steers me to the Poodle ring. The Poodle ring! Where I discover that otherwise sane-looking people are putting hair spray on their dogs.”