“Adult dogs, maybe. But puppies? No way. They can’t hold it that long.”
“I guess this is going to be more involved than I thought. I have a lot to learn, don’t I?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Aunt Peg makes a great teacher.”
Alice had met my aunt a number of times. She knew what she was letting herself in for. “I’ll just bet,” she muttered.
As Alice had predicted, Henry Pruitt lived in the same North Stamford neighborhood where he’d been driving a school bus for the past half dozen years. His house was on a block very similar to the one Alice and I lived on: a post—World War II development of small homes on quarter-acre lots meant to welcome returning veterans with affordably priced housing. Half century later, Henry’s street looked to be a mix of young, yuppie families and older residents who’d been in place for years.
Numbers above the mail slots on most front doors made Henry’s house easy to find. It was a light gray cape with white trim. The porch was neatly swept and the roof looked new. Even in winter, the yard was well tended.
I pulled the Volvo in beside the curb and coasted to a stop. Together, Alice and I peered out at the house. All at once, neither one of us was in a hurry to get out of the car.
“Well, now I feel sort of stupid,” she said. “I mean, everything looks fine. What are we going to say when we knock on the door and Henry answers and asks what we want?”
“That we were worried about him and wanted to make sure he was okay?”
“He’s going to wonder why we thought he might not be. The poor man’s probably taking his first vacation in a decade. He’ll think we’re a couple of stalkers, coming to his house just because he’s missed two days of work.”
“Maybe he’ll think we’re a pair of kind, caring individuals.” I tried to sound hopeful; Alice did have a point.
“Stalkers,” she said again as a curtain shifted in one of the front windows.
I heard the unmistakable sound of barking coming from within the house. Big dogs, unless I missed my guess. And more than one.
“Come on.” I reached for the door handle. “We’ve been announced. Now we have to go in.”
As we navigated the front walk, the barking grew louder and more frantic. Climbing the steps to the porch, I heard a distinct thump as one of the dogs threw itself against the inside of the door. I knew many people kept big dogs as watchdogs, but now that these had done their job and revealed our presence, I wondered why Henry hadn’t called them off. The noise inside the small house must have been deafening.
Alice hung back near the steps, but I crossed the porch and reached for the doorbell. I pressed hard and heard it ring within.
Toenails clacked against a front window as one of the dogs pushed the curtain aside and pressed his nose to the glass. A broad golden head with soft brown eyes stared out at us. The dog began to whine under his breath.
“Look,” Alice said, staring. “It’s a Golden Retriever.”
“Two.”
A second head joined the first. Judging by the way their bodies were wriggling, the dogs’ tails had begun to wag. The watchdogs were happy to see us.
“Ring it again,” said Alice, and I did. We waited another minute but there was still no response. The dogs continued to watch us through the window, their warm, moist breath fogging the cool glass.
“I guess Henry isn’t home,” I said finally. I wasn’t quite sure whether to be concerned or relieved.
“Probably just as well,” Alice agreed quickly. She was already heading for the steps. “Let’s go.”
I glanced over at the dogs again. Something seemed off somehow, though I wasn’t sure exactly what. “Maybe we should leave a note. You know, saying we stopped by and asking Henry to call and tell us everything is okay.”
“I’m sure everything must be fine.” Alice reached back and grabbed my arm. “Henry’s probably just out somewhere running errands. Maybe he was low on dog food.”
“Maybe . . .” I agreed reluctantly. As I followed her down the stairs, I could still hear the two dogs. Now the two of them were whimpering unhappily.
“Yoo-hoo! Ladies, wait!”
I’d been so tuned in to the dogs’ distress that it took me a moment to realize someone was calling us. Thankfully, Alice was quicker. Already halfway down the walk, she stopped and then turned, treading carefully across the frozen grass to the neighbor’s yard.
The woman who’d hailed us was standing in her doorway. The door itself was mostly shut, presumably to block out the cold. The woman’s head and one arm poked though the slender opening. I hurried to catch up.
“Are you the daughters?” she asked as we approached.
Alice and I looked at one another. “What daughters?”
“Henry’s girls. Come to see about—” The woman stopped and stared hard, seeming annoyed all at once to find us standing in her yard even though she’d been the one to call us there. “Who are you?” she asked abruptly.
“Friends of Henry’s,” I said quickly before Alice could answer. “Come to check on him.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“Henry drives our children on the school bus,” Alice said. “We’ve known him for years.”
The woman’s features softened. She sighed and pushed her door open. “I guess you’d better come inside then.”
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
I didn’t get an answer. Instead the woman waved a hand irritably in our direction. “Hurry up, you’re letting all the warm air out.”
Alice and I did as we were told. Together we scurried through the opening and shut the door behind us. Compared to the brisk temperature outside, the air inside the house was stiflingly warm. I reached up and unwound my scarf, then unbuttoned my coat. Inside for only a moment, I was already hot.
“I’m Betty Bowen,” the woman said. “Henry and I have been neighbors here for more than twenty years. John and I moved into this house as newlyweds all that time ago. Don’t think we ever expected to be here this long.
“Lots of people, they feel the need to trade up when they start a family, but we never did. Good thing too, since John didn’t live past his forty-fifth birthday, and Johnny and I ended up with a house that was mostly paid off so’s we didn’t end up on the street.”
“Johnny?” I asked, even though I knew I probably shouldn’t.
Betty Bowen reminded me of my next-door neighbor, Edna Silano. Edna was an older woman, living alone, who didn’t have that many people to talk to. Get her started and she would tell you her entire life story, beginning with her trip to America from the old country.
“My boy. That’s his picture there.” Betty gestured toward the mantelpiece. The wooden ledge was covered with framed photographs. At a glance, they seemed to chronicle the highlights of her son’s life. The most recent picture was a high school graduation shot. Alice walked over for a closer look. If they’d have been dog pictures, I might have done the same. Since they weren’t, I stayed where I was.
“So you must know Henry pretty well,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back on topic.
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing.” Betty sighed loudly.
“What is?” I asked. Alice looked up.
“What happened to poor dear Henry.”
For a single beat, my heart stood still. I knew I should ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Alice managed for me. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you,” Betty said. “But Henry’s gone to his rest. That poor man died the night before last.”
Aunt Peg is a pragmatist where other people’s dogs are concerned. She understands that not everyone trains his dogs to the level of behavior she takes for granted in her own Poodles. When she opened the car door, she immediately reached in and took hold of one Golden’s collar, while using her body to block the exit until I could grab the other. Nobody was going to escape
and run away on Aunt Peg’s watch.
A gate on the other side of the driveway led to a fenced three-acre field with the kennel building at the far end. We led the Golden Retrievers through the gate and turned them loose. At once, Pepper and Remington dashed away, racing joyously in huge, looping circles.
“They’ve been cooped up inside a house all by themselves for the last two days,” I said. “Their owner died Monday night and nobody made any provision for their care.”
Aunt Peg had come outside without a coat on. Now, watching the two dogs play, she was smiling and shivering at the same time. “I want to hear everything,” she said. “But first I need to get the heat and water turned on in the kennel. It will take a few minutes to warm up.”
While Aunt Peg strode across the field and attended to that, I went back to the car and got the dog food and bowls I’d brought with me from Henry’s house. By the time I reached the kennel, the furnace was already humming and warm air was beginning to stream out through the vents. Peg was pulling blankets out of a cupboard and building a plush bed in one of the big runs. I left the supplies in the outer room, where my aunt had once done all her grooming, and then went to check on the two dogs.
Pepper and Remington had finally stopped running. Now they were standing side by side in the middle of the big field, uncertain what to do next. When I called them by name, both heads snapped up. Moving together, they started toward the kennel.
Aunt Peg joined me in the doorway. “Good boys,” she said encouragingly. “That’s the way. Come on.” Her voice held just the right inflection, with a tone that dogs seemed to trust instinctively. The Golden Retrievers covered the remaining distance and came trotting happily into the building. I closed the door behind them.
“First things first,” said Peg. She’d already set out a big bowl of fresh water; now she was considering the kibble I’d delivered. “How bad was it where they were? Did they at least have access to food and water?”
“A neighbor did that much for them.” I explained Betty Bowen’s involvement. “Mostly I think they were just really lonely.”
“And confused too, I’ll bet.” Peg reached down and stroked Remington’s long back. The Golden leaned into the caress, rubbing his body against her legs like a cat. “Who was their owner? And how did you happen to find them?”
While Aunt Peg started soaking some kibble, I related what I knew about Henry Pruitt. Regrettably, it wasn’t much.
“So their owner is dead,” she mused when I was done. “And the two daughters who presumably will inherit the estate may or may not want them.”
“Probably not,” I said. “At least not if Betty Bowen is correct. At any rate, they have yet to put in an appearance. If the daughters were aware of the dogs’ existence, don’t you think they would have made some attempt to check on them?”
“One can only hope,” Peg said, though her expression indicated that humans had let her down on that score before.
“I’m expecting that we’ll have to find homes for them. I was hoping they could stay here in the meantime.”
“Of course they’ll stay here,” Aunt Peg said firmly. In her mind, that part of the problem had already been settled. “It’s what comes after that that needs to be figured out.”
“Do you know any Golden Retriever people who could put us in touch with their local rescue group?”
“These two don’t need to go to rescue. That would be a last resort. First we need to find out where they came from. If they were bred by reputable people, chances are both their breeders will take them back.”
Like many of her peers who bred for the dog show world, Aunt Peg’s puppies were sold with a contract guaranteeing that she would take a dog back at any point in its life if it was unable to remain with its current owner. Considering how much time and thought had gone into planning and executing each breeding, not to mention finding exactly the right homes for those puppies she didn’t keep, Peg felt it was only prudent to keep a judicious eye on her offspring’s welfare even after they’d left the nest.
Even in the best of homes, circumstances could change unexpectedly. Death, divorce, loss of a job could all create situations where dog ownership was no longer possible. Aunt Peg wanted it clearly understood that any Poodle who bore the Cedar Crest name would always have a home with her.
“You’re right,” I said. “I should have thought of that. But what makes you think there would be two breeders? I just assumed these guys were brothers.”
“They’re not.”
“How do you know?” I hated it when Aunt Peg was so certain of something that wasn’t at all clear to me.
“For Pete’s sake, Melanie. Look at them.”
I was looking at them. In fact, I was staring. All I saw was two very similar male Golden Retrievers. Remington was slightly larger; his coat was also a lighter color. Other than that, they looked remarkably alike to me.
Aunt Peg drummed her fingers on the countertop, waiting for me to get a clue. It wasn’t happening.
Finally she gave up. “I can’t believe you don’t see it! Those two barely have a single trait in common. Pepper has quality written all over him; it’s obvious he came from a good line. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that he has littermates who have finished their championships. Remington, on the other hand, is probably a pet store puppy. Lucky for him he seems to have a good temperament because he certainly isn’t going to get by in this world on his good looks.”
There was no point in asking how she could do that: look at a pair of dogs she’d never seen before and make what were probably accurate predictions about their parentage. By now I’d been involved with Standard Poodles long enough that I could tell a good one from a bad one. I couldn’t sort out an entire class with Aunt Peg’s effortless ease, but I could definitely cull the wheat from the chaff. Other breeds, however, were still a mystery to me.
Not to Aunt Peg. Her eye for a good dog was honed to such a degree that even those she’d just met could immediately be slotted into their proper categories. I didn’t doubt for a minute that she was correct in her assessment. And assuming that Pepper had come from a quality line, I wondered if that meant he’d been bred by someone she knew.
Clearly my aunt’s thoughts had traveled in the same direction as mine. “The easiest way to track down their breeders is to get a look at their papers. Henry obviously took good care of these two. Let’s hope their registration slips were important enough to him that he kept them somewhere safe. What kind of man was Henry? Orderly, organized?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” I admitted. “He was just a very nice man who drove Davey’s bus.”
Peg harrumphed under her breath. She liked her relatives to be better informed. Her Poodles’ AKC registration slips were kept in an accordion folder. A separate file was maintained for each dog; all pertinent health, breeding, and show records were easily accessible and up-to-date. It had to be asking too much to think that Henry might have done the same.
Aunt Peg poked at the kibble with a spoon. Deciding it had soaked long enough, she divided it into two stainless steel bowls and offered it to the dogs. We watched as both dug in eagerly. Having lived with a finicky eater for three years, it did my heart good to see them gobble down the unadorned kibble. Still, I was betting it wouldn’t take Aunt Peg more than a day to have these two eating homemade stew like the rest of her crew.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.
“Teaching school,” I said. “It’s Thursday.” When it suited her purposes, Aunt Peg was apt to conveniently forget that I worked for a living.
“After that.”
“I have a feeling I’m chasing down Remington and Pepper’s papers.”
“Quite so. Give me directions, tell me what time, and I’ll meet you at Henry’s house. The job will probably go faster with two people searching than with one.”
It sounded like a plan to me.
Alice’s husband, Joe, was working late at his law firm in Gree
nwich. By the time I got back to the Brickmans’ house, Alice had the boys doing their homework and she’d ordered in enough pizza for all five of us.
“You’re a lifesaver,” I said gratefully.
Alice waved away my thanks. “It’s just part of the job. How’d your aunt feel about coping with two unexpected visitors?”
“One thing you have to say for Peg, she’s never at a loss for what to do next. Pepper and Remington are living in her kennel and she and I are going back to Henry’s tomorrow afternoon to see if we can find their AKC papers.”
“Is that necessary to find them new homes?”
“No, but if we can figure out who their breeders were, we can probably just send them back where they came from. That’ll be the easiest solution all the way around.”
Alice and I both stopped talking and watched as Carly, still clad in her leotard and ballet slippers, twirled in one kitchen door and out the other. I’d grown up a tomboy and was now raising a son. Little ballerinas were a foreign concept to me. I had no idea whether Alice’s daughter had talent or not, but she certainly was cute.
“Tell Davey to get off the bus tomorrow with Joey,” Alice said after a moment. “He can stay here until you’re ready to come get him.”
“Thanks. That would be great.”
“I know.” She grinned as the doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of dinner. “Great’s my middle name.”
It wasn’t until the next morning, as I put Davey on the bus that Annie Gault was driving, that I realized I hadn’t told him about Henry’s death. Henry had been a part of my son’s life, albeit a small one, for a number of years. I supposed I was going to have to come up with a way to break the news to him.
When I went back in to get the Poodles, the phone was ringing, just as it had been the day before. This time it was Aunt Peg.
As always, she got right to the point. “Have you looked at the morning paper yet?”
“No, I haven’t had time.” In fact, I’d just brought it in from the driveway. The newspaper was still encased in its protective plastic wrap. “Why?”
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