by Nina Wright
“Two bodies are missing! And they’re not the bodies we thought they were.”
He shook his head. I couldn’t tell if he was disagreeing with me or just reminding me to be quiet. “Tell me why you’re here.”
I peered at Darrin Keogh through the darkness. “Did you shoot at me with a deer rifle today? And then escape in a hang glider from the dunes?”
He laughed so hard he nearly spilled his Amstel Lite.
“Do I look like the deer-hunting, hang-gliding type?”
“You don’t look like a dog molester, either, but you are!”
That came out louder than intended. I could feel if not see several heads swivel our way. The bar was suddenly silent.
“How about coming over to my house?” Keogh said. “It’s two blocks from here, on Superior Street. You need to see something.”
“I don’t think so, thank you.” I sounded like a Sunday School teacher declining Satan. But I knew Darrin Keogh was no devil. In the flesh, in the dark, he seemed like a dweeb.
“Give me a half-hour, counting the walk over,” he said. When I hesitated, he raised his voice in the still-quiet bar. “Everybody here knows I’m taking you to my house. You couldn’t be safer. Right, everybody?”
There was a murmur of amused consensus. One male voice rasped, “His mama will make sure of that.”
A chorus of ragged laughter followed us out the door. In the slanting early-evening light, I studied Darrin Keogh. He was short, pale, and bookish with wire-rim glasses. His pants were two inches too short.
“I’m onto you, Sparky,” I said menacingly.
“I’m not Sparky.” He adjusted his glasses. “You’re all wrong about this.”
“Do you have my dog? Or does Mrs. Santy? Where are you hiding Abra?”
He shook his head and started up the sidewalk.
I caught up with him. “Why were you in Magnet Springs asking Rico Anuncio about me? Why do you want to hurt me and my dog?”
“You need to see some things.”
Chapter Twenty-one
As we passed the Angola Police Department, I quipped, “How convenient that you hang out with the Chief.”
Keogh said, “We sing in the choir at First Methodist. And we both teach Sunday School. I baby-sit her kids.”
“You’re kidding.”
“They call me Uncle Darrin.”
I let him walk a few yards ahead of me. About five feet seven inches tall, Keogh was soft with round shoulders and thinning sandy hair. All in all, not a scary man. More like an invisible one.
His home turned out to be the best maintained of three Victorians on a block of ranch houses. Neatly trimmed burning-bushes and clumps of bright chrysanthemums lined his front lawn.
“Sweet property,” I murmured.
“Leo liked it.”
“Leo was here?”
“Three times. Twice before you were married.”
That’s when the barking began. It sounded like three or four dogs. When Keogh opened the front door, I saw six. All of them beautiful. All of them Afghan hounds.
“Meet Souriya, Badria, Pashtoon, Ajmal, Wali, and Nadir. Of course, their kennel names are longer.”
Keogh ordered them to sit. Incredibly, they all did.
“These are yours?” I asked, slow on the uptake.
“I used to breed them, but there’s less demand these days. Probably a good thing. Such a magnificent and ancient bloodline requires a dedicated owner, as you well know.”
No comment from this party. A large black Affie barked his assent.
“Wali should know,” Keogh said. “He’s the boss of us all.”
“Darrin, is that you?” A querulous voice floated down the curving staircase.
“Yes, Mother. I’ll be up in a moment.”
Keogh smiled sheepishly. “Correction: She’s the boss of us all, but we let Wali think he is.”
“Wali should meet Abra,” I murmured.
“He has. Wali is Abra’s father. And Souriya is her mother. Can you see the family resemblance?”
Souriya, a demure blonde, was smaller and less exuberant than Abra, who had inherited her mother’s coloring and her father’s gusto.
“Leo bought Abra here?” I was trying to catch up.
“That’s part of the story, but nowhere near the beginning. Please sit down. You’ll need to be sitting when you hear this.”
I would have preferred to lie down. That way I could have let the facts wash over me like the waves on Lake Michigan. Darrin Keogh was overwhelming me.
“When she was fourteen and I was twenty, I fell in love with Avery Mattimoe. I was a counselor at Camp Crystal, about thirty miles from here. Leo sent Avery there for the summer while he and his first wife finalized their divorce. Avery hated Camp Crystal. She was furious at Leo and frightened that her mother would make her move to Belize.
“That wasn’t a great year for me, either. My father had just died, and my mother’s health was frail. I saw my future written on these walls: I’d end up stuck in Angola taking care of her for the rest of her life.”
“Did you say you were twenty and Avery was fourteen?” I tried to keep the “yuck” out of my voice.
Keogh said, “Age is just a number. Our relationship wasn’t sexual. It was romantic.”
“What was the attraction?”
He looked surprised. “Maybe you don’t know Avery. She’s a sensitive, gifted artist. I knew it the first day I saw her paint. She belonged in a first-tier art school, not some backwater in Belize.”
According to Keogh, Leo misinterpreted their friendship. Something Avery said in a letter home caused Leo to yank her out of Camp Crystal three weeks before the season ended. Leo informed the camp management that Counselor Keogh had seduced a minor. He was promptly dismissed.
“My supervisor said I was lucky Leo didn’t press charges. Avery felt awful, but it wasn’t her fault. We wrote letters, sent emails, talked on the phone. Avery would have rather died than go to Belize. That’s when I thought of Uncle Warren.”
“Who?”
“My uncle—Warren Matheney, the water colorist.”
“Cloud Man was your uncle?”
“My mom’s younger brother. The one that got away—from Angola. Seven years ago, he was coming up fast. I thought he could help Avery.”
“How?”
“He knew people in Chicago. Important people who taught art and bought art. I thought maybe he could introduce her, help her make connections. But Leo wouldn’t listen. Until Avery tried to kill herself.”
I hadn’t known about that.
Keogh said, “I’m not sure how serious the attempt was, but it got Leo’s attention. He agreed to meet my uncle. The four of us met right here in this room to discuss Avery’s future.”
My eyes followed his to a small framed cloudscape on the far wall.
“Is that a --?”
“Cumulus. One of Uncle Warren’s first. He gave it to my mother years ago. I should probably lock it up. But this is Angola, not Chicago.”
And not Magnet Springs, I thought, crossing to the picture. It was remarkably like the one stolen from Shadow Play. Then again, how many ways can you paint cumulus clouds?
“Uncle Warren agreed to help Leo enroll Avery in a private fine-arts school outside Chicago. Then Leo tried to make up for the trouble he’d caused at camp. He bought the failing antiques shop where I was working and hired me to run it. I promised to buy him out as soon as I could find another backer.”
“What went wrong? Avery ended up in Belize, anyway, and you kidnapped Abra.”
“That’s not what happened.”
Keogh explained that Avery had been homesick and vulnerable at art school. He stayed away from her, partly out of respect for Leo and partly out of necessity since he was struggling to run his shop. Warren Matheney, a part-time faculty member and Avery’s first friend in Chicago, abused his position. Sexual comments gave way to sexual advances. Avery confided in Keogh, who confronted his uncle. Noth
ing changed, however. If anything, Matheney seemed more determined to seduce her. One night he locked his office door and pressured her to pleasure him. The next day, she called her mother and begged for a ticket to Belize.
“Leo thought I had betrayed him--again. He demanded his loan money back. I didn’t have any cash. If he’d known where I had to get it from, I doubt he would have taken it.”
“Your uncle?”
Keogh nodded.
“And yet Leo bought Abra from you a few years later? I don’t get it.”
“Because of you, Mrs. Mattimoe.”
“Me?”
“Leo called me two years ago. He said his ‘charming wife’ had seen her first Afghan hound and fallen in love. He wanted one for her.”
I knew what Keogh was talking about. One afternoon I’d watched a tourist walking an Afghan hound in downtown Magnet Springs. Its grace and gloss had mesmerized me.
Keogh said, “Leo remembered meeting our dogs when he was here with Uncle Warren. He ordered one for you.”
“You’re leaving out so much. What about the dog show? The threatening letters? Mrs. Santy—?”
“Leo got the wrong dog.”
“Pardon?”
“Leo reserved a different dog, not Abra. I wasn’t here when he came to pick his up. My mother gave him the wrong pup.”
“And Leo never found out?”
“Of course he did. I called him immediately. But he wouldn’t return Abra. He insisted she was the one he wanted.”
“What happened to the other one?”
Keogh looked uneasy. “She . . . went to Uncle Warren. He had reserved Abra and wasn’t happy, to say the least, about the confusion. Once again, I had a problem.”
“When you approached Leo at the dog show, were you trying to get Abra back?”
“For Uncle Warren. He told me to offer Leo a lot of money.”
“And after that, why not let it go? Why the threatening phone calls and the sick letters?”
“That wasn’t me, Mrs. Mattimoe. I never contacted Leo again.”
“You’re saying you didn’t write the sick notes?”
“I could never do that.” His expression was earnest.
“But you knew about them, didn’t you? Who wrote them?”
He gazed sadly at the Cumulus watercolor. It didn’t seem to soothe him.
“Darrin! Are you down there, Darrin? It’s time for my dinner!”
Keogh rose. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Mattimoe. My mother keeps a strict schedule.”
“But you haven’t finished explaining!”
“I’ve told you all I can.”
“What about Mrs. Santy? Why was she at your shop? Why is she pretending to be dead?”
The shrill voice came again. “Can’t you hear me? I’m hungry! I want my dinner now!”
Two of the dogs whined in sympathy. Keogh said, “I promised you a half-hour, Mrs. Mattimoe, and that’s what you got. Please leave now.”
A cream-colored Afghan hound with a charming black mask followed us to the door.
“Which one is this?” I asked.
Keogh said her name was Pashtoon. Suddenly I understood.
“She’s the one Leo reserved, isn’t she? What happened to her eye?”
“She . . . had an accident when she was a puppy.”
“An accident?”
“No, not an accident,” he admitted. “My uncle was a mean man, Mrs. Mattimoe. I’m glad he’s dead.”
Chapter Twenty-two
I sat in my car a long time before turning the key. How much I didn’t know about Leo. How much I would never know. And then there were the scattered pieces, like the ones Keogh had shared, which I had no way to understand or verify. Almost no way.
On my car phone I called Peg Goh. I needed to talk with my stepdaughter.
“Avery’s all right,” Peg assured me. “But she’s not here. She’s with Noonan, getting tele-counseled, only they’re doing it face-to-face.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know--the Seven Suns of . . . Something. I might try it, too. When you’re local, you don’t have to do it over the phone.”
“You’re kidding, right? You feel the same way about New Age that I do!”
“Not necessarily. I believe in personal growth.”
I changed the subject. “Have you seen Jenx today?”
“After the state police grilled her, she came in,” Peg said. “Ordered an Extra-Large Espresso to go, so you know she was hurting. I think she’s still at the station.”
I asked her to have Avery call me, and then I dialed Jenx.
“She’s alive and well in Angola, Indiana!” I announced.
“You found Abra?” asked Jenx.
“No! I found Mrs. Santy—for a minute. And now I’m coming home.
From the Indiana Toll Way, I recounted my adventures. Jenx listened without comment.
“Are you all right?” I could hear crackling, which might have been a mounting magnetic force.
“Rough day. I’m crumpling my notes. So you’re saying Mrs. Santy is alive and well and driving Keogh’s BMW?”
“Yes. How can Keogh afford a late-model Beamer? I never got inside his store, but his house is modest. Except for the six Afghan hounds. And the Cumulus.”
I explained the Warren Matheney connection.
“All you know about Keogh is what he wants you to know,” said Jenx. “Take some free advice from your local law enforcement: Doubt everybody. Especially the guy hanging out with the dead woman.”
I reminded her that Angola’s Police Chief had vouched for Keogh.
“Just that he was minding his store this morning,” Jenx said.
“But he loves dogs and takes care of his sick mother.”
“Did you see his mother?”
“No, but I heard her. She kept shouting at him.”
“Uh-huh.” Jenx did not sound convinced.
“The dogs are healthy. One had a bad eye, but that was Matheney’s fault.”
“Right.”
When I protested, Jenx said, “You’re the one who called him Sparky the Sicko, remember?”
“All right. But I saw Mrs. Santy! She slammed a door in my face.”
“That sounds like Ellianna. I’ll tell the MSP she’s in Angola.”
“How did your interview go?”
“They want to ask me more questions tomorrow.”
“If they want to talk to me—”
“It’s not about you, Whiskey.”
Cruising across northern Indiana, I checked my voicemail. With vicarious lust, Tina reported that Judge Verbelow needed to talk to me about a “personal matter.” Odette checked in to say that there was no sign of Abra at Vestige although Chester was hanging around.
“He said he was too worried to go to California,” Odette said. “I told him California is where you go to forget you’re worried.”
