Doggie Day Care Murder Read online

  2

  Sam and Davey arrived home right after Alice left. I walked out to the garage and helped them carry in several bags of groceries.

  The five Poodles—reunited after a mere two-hour separation—behaved as though they were greeting long-lost relatives from the Old Country. They barked, and jumped, and chased each other around our legs.

  For Sam and me, getting married had involved merging not only the human element of our lives, but also the canine. Davey and I had had two Standard Poodles: Faith and Eve, who were a mother and daughter pair. Sam had added three Standard Poodles of his own. His two bitches were named Raven and Casey. The third was a young dog named Tar.

  In the beginning, the newly blended canine household had existed in a state of wary détente. Now however, more than a year later, the Poodles were all the best of friends. They played and functioned like a tight-knit team, and I imagine I wasn’t the only one who realized that they outnumbered us.

  “How’s my boy doing?” asked Sam.

  He juggled two bags of groceries to one side and swooped in to give me a quick kiss. If the honeymoon was over, neither one of us had noticed yet.

  “Yeah,” Davey echoed. “How’s my boy?”

  No longer the youngest member of the family, Davey was feeling very grown-up. His actions, however, were often at odds with his words. Now he came spilling out the side door of the SUV. Mid-descent, he tripped over a passing Poodle, dropped the half-eaten apple he was holding in his hand, yet still somehow managed to land on his feet.

  “We were gone forever,” he said, without missing a beat. “Did Kevin miss me?”

  “Every minute,” I replied. “He’s awake in the kitchen and waiting for you to come and play with him.”

  Davey whooped with delight and raced into the house. Predictably, he didn’t bother to take a bag of groceries with him.

  “He really loves having a little brother,” said Sam.

  “I know,” I agreed happily. “I’m only sorry he had to wait so long.”

  Sam cocked a brow. “And whose fault was that?”

  We both knew the answer. I was the one who had dragged my feet. My first marriage had ended in divorce, and the second time around I’d wanted everything to be perfect before I made another commitment that would dramatically change both Davey’s and my lives.

  So I’d waffled, and procrastinated, and made excuses. And along the way I’d learned that perfection was an unattainable goal in anybody’s life. I’d also learned that Sam was right. Just like he’d been telling me all along, he and I were meant to be together for the long haul.

  “Have you ever noticed?” I asked. “Mothers always get the blame.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Sam said, deadpan.

  I scooped up the last bag and we headed into the kitchen. Davey was leaning down over the side of the playpen, dangling his fingers just above Kevin’s reach. The baby batted the air with his hands and laughed at the game.

  Tar, who’d followed Davey inside, was sitting on the floor beside the enclosure. His nose was pressed up against the mesh, and he cocked his head to one side as he watched the two boys play together.

  Most Poodles are smarter than the average second-grader. Unfortunately, Tar, beautiful and kindhearted as he was, was utterly lacking in that department. It was clear he’d been baffled by Kevin’s sudden appearance in our lives, and nothing that had happened in the intervening months had made the situation any clearer to him.

  While Eve had quickly appointed herself Kevin’s canine guardian—coming to fetch me at the first sound of the baby’s cries and picking up toys that had fallen beyond his reach—Tar was still somewhat wary of the tiny interloper. A small, chubby hand waved in his direction could send the big, black Poodle skidding back across the room in frantic retreat.

  “He hasn’t grown any,” said Davey.

  “You were only gone a couple of hours.”

  “No, I meant since yesterday. I heard you tell Bertie on the phone that he looks bigger every day.”

  Bertie was my sister-in-law, married to my brother, Frank. She was also a new mother herself. Her daughter, Maggie, had turned a year old right before Christmas.

  “That’s a figure of speech,” said Sam. “It only seems like he’s growing that fast because none of his clothes fit for more than a week.”

  “The same used to be true of you,” I told Davey. “It seemed like I was always buying new sneakers.”

  “Speaking of which, we stopped at the sporting goods store and Sam-Dad got me new cleats and shin guards for soccer camp.”

  “Great.” Cross one more item off the to-do list.

  Idly I wondered if anyone actually ever got to the end of their lists. If they did, they probably weren’t mothers.

  “Anything interesting happen while we were gone?” asked Sam.

  I paused from unpacking the groceries. “Actually, yes. Alice stopped by.”

  Davey looked up. “Did she bring Joey?”

  “No, she came by herself.”

  “Everything all right?” asked Sam.

  “I think so. She’s getting a job.”

  “Hard thing to do after so much time off.”

  “Yes, although that part is already accomplished. She’s going to be working at Joe’s law firm.”

  “Paralegal work?” asked Sam.

  I stopped and stared. “Am I the only one who didn’t know about that?”

  “Apparently so,” he said with a wink. “Maybe you don’t ask the right questions.”

  It looked that way.

  “Anyway, she’s thinking about putting Berkley in doggie day care.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Would I joke about something like that?”

  “Doggie day care? Like in that song, git along little doggie?”

  “I think those doggies were cows,” I pointed out.

  “That’s stupid,” Davey said from his spot on the floor. “Nobody would put a cow in day care.”

  Sam was chuckling as I went on to explain. “The place is called Pine Ridge, and it’s right here in Stamford. Have you ever heard of it?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Day care for dogs isn’t something I’ve given much thought to. In fact, none is probably closer to the mark.”

  “Me too,” I agreed. “But after lunch, I’m going to go have a look. Alice asked me to check the place out. She wants to know if Berkley would be happy there.”

  “Give Berkley a soft bed and a rawhide bone, and he’d be happy anywhere,” said Davey.

  Wisdom from the mouths of babes.

  “Good,” I said. “Then that should make my job easy.”

  Pine Ridge Canine Care Center was located just off of Long Ridge Road. The area had once been entirely residential, but the northward expansion of Stamford’s business district, combined with a change in zoning and rising land values, had caused most home owners to sell out. The street was now mostly commercial in nature. I passed a gas station and a little strip mall before coming to a tall white gate that marked the entrance to PRCCC.

  It looked a little pretentious to me, but what did I know? In my world, doggie day care was a foreign concept. Obviously the facility was meant to cater to an upscale clientele. But hopefully most dog owners would realize that the frills and embellishments that they found appealing wouldn’t mean a thing to their canine companions.

  I turned in the driveway and drove a hundred yards to a white clapboard building. There was a sign reading OFFICE out front, and I parked nearby in the shade. As I got out of my car, I was still trying to reserve judgment.

  Chimes jingled in the air as I pushed open the office door. The reception area was a spacious room, decorated to look bright, cheerful, and welcoming. Eyelet curtains hung on the windows. A grouping of wicker furniture with plump, flower-sprigged cushions formed a waiting area. Poster-sized pictures of happy-looking dogs covered the walls.

  The room smelled of air freshener, and I found the scent c
loyingly sweet. I could only imagine what the dogs, with their much more sensitive noses, thought of it.

  A teenage girl was sitting behind a high white counter opposite the door. Her neatly pressed white polo shirt looked at odds with her long, spiky bangs and the ring pierced through her eyebrow. She was thumbing through a magazine but looked up with a perky smile as I entered.

  “Dropping off?” she asked brightly.

  “No, I—”

  “Picking up?”

  “No.” This time I kept it short. No use trying to talk if she was going to interrupt.

  I glanced down at the open page she’d been reading and saw that it appeared to be part of a gun catalog. Interesting choice.

  She folded the magazine closed and tucked it away in a desk drawer. “May I help you?”

  “I’d like some information about your facility. And maybe a tour of the premises.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “We prefer that our customers call in advance. We don’t want people just showing up whenever they feel like it.”

  Well, that was a red flag, wasn’t it? If I was going to leave a dog or a child in someone’s care, I’d certainly like to know what was going on when they weren’t expecting to see me.

  “I’m not a customer yet,” I said. “I’m shopping for day care for my dog, and before I make any decisions about which facility I’m going to entrust him to, I need to investigate all the possibilities.”

  “Well, then, that’s easy.” The girl smiled again. “Pine Ridge Canine Care Center is the only full-care, fully accredited, doggie day care center in all of Stamford. We offer nothing but the best. All our people are screened for knowledge and compatibility, and we have a nutritionist and a certified play therapist on staff—”

  “Certified by whom?” I asked.

  It seemed like a reasonable question. If play therapy was something one could genuinely get certified in, I figured a lot of mothers were due advanced degrees.

  “Pardon me?”

  She stopped. Blinked. I’d interrupted her spiel. Now she wasn’t sure how to get started again.

  She reached across the counter. There was a stack of glossy pamphlets in a clear plastic stand, right next to a bowl containing dog biscuits.

  “Let me give you a brochure. I’m sure it will answer any questions you might have.”

  “That’s a start,” I said. “But I’d also like to see some dogs.”

  She was blinking again. Maybe it was a nervous tic.

  For the second time, I’d baffled her, and it hadn’t even been that hard to accomplish. The teacher in me was shaking her head ruefully.

  She handed me the brochure, and said, “What?”

  “You know, four legs, one tail, wet nose? Woof?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Reading about your facility won’t do me nearly as much good as walking around and seeing what it looks like and how it runs. I need to know that Berkley will be happy here. So that’s what I’d like to see . . . you know, happy dogs? Unless, of course, you don’t have any of those here. Which would be a problem for both of us, I would think.”

  I was aiming for mild sarcasm, but the comment went right over her head. I hoped for the teenager’s sake that this was a summer job and she’d be going back to school in the fall.

  “You can’t just go walking around by yourself,” she said. “It’s not allowed.”

  “No problem.” I leaned down on the counter. Close to her, like we were friends. “You can come with me.”

  “No, I can’t. I have to stay here and do my job.”

  “Reading magazines?”

  “Greeting customers.” She shot me a dirty look. “Real ones.”

  “I might become a real customer, how do you know I won’t? All I need is more information to help me make the decision.”

  “We’re not set up to do that,” she said stubbornly.

  “Seems like a funny way to run a business. How do you get new clients?”

  “We do advertising.” The girl seemed relieved to be asked a question she could answer. “And we have great word of mouth.”

  “And then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People must want to come and visit. Surely they’d like to see where their dogs are going to be staying while they’re gone.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said. “Most people aren’t that curious.”

  “And the ones that are?”

  “They call in advance and make an appointment with Steve or Candy.”

  The teen sounded triumphant. As if clearly the entire problem we were having had been my fault for not knowing the correct procedure and calling ahead.

  Duly noted, but I was already there now. And a lone teenager guarding the front desk wasn’t enough of a deterrent to keep me from accomplishing what I’d come to do.

  “Who are Steve and Candy?” I asked.

  “Steve and Candy Pine. They’re the owners. If you had read the brochure or seen the advertising, you’d know that.”

  “Or presumably if I’d heard the word of mouth.”

  She stared at me blankly.

  Right. I’d forgotten. Sarcasm didn’t work.

  At least she wasn’t blinking.

  “How about this?” I said. “Are the Pines here?”

  “Of course. They’re always here. This is their business.”

  “Could one of them give me a tour?”

  She glanced down at a calendar on the desk. As if she really needed to check. “You don’t have an appointment.”

  “I’m pretty sure we’ve established that. But just for the heck of it, let’s try calling them and asking, okay?”

  “I guess I could do that.”

  She picked up the phone reluctantly, then turned her back and shielded her mouth for the duration of a brief phone call, as if she was afraid I might listen in.

  Which, of course, I would have.

  “Why don’t you take a seat,” she said at the end. “Steve will be right in.”

  “Thank you.” I gave her a perky smile of my own. “Now, was that so hard?”

  Apparently so, judging by the look I got in return.

  So far, I hadn’t made any friends at Pine Ridge Canine Care Center. I could only hope things went better with the owner.

  3

  Steve Pine was cute. Like seriously cute.

  Okay, I know. I’m married and a new mother. I’m not supposed to be noticing things like that. But right now, I’m taking no responsibility for my wayward hormones.

  So let me tell you again in case you missed it the first time. This guy was a doll.

  He came striding through a door in the back wall of the room, his walk easy and confident, his smile self-assured. His eyes were so blue that I wondered for a moment if the color could possibly be real. Steve wore his dark hair long, and a narrow leather strip gathered it into a ponytail at his nape.

  Like the receptionist, he was dressed in a crisp white polo shirt and creased khakis. The outfit looked better on him.

  He didn’t spare the teenager a glance as he crossed the reception area. Instead, those blue eyes found mine and held them, never wavering as he drew near. This was a man who knew how to focus.

  I think the temperature in the room rose ten degrees in the time it took him to reach me. I was tempted to lift a hand and fan my face like an old-fashioned Southern belle.

  Thankfully, before I could move he held out his hand, and said, “I’m Steve Pine. Nice to meet you. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  “Not at all.”

  I was so dazzled, the words didn’t even feel like a lie. I gave myself a mental kick.

  “I’m Melanie Travis,” I replied. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

  Steve nodded as though he were confirming my response. Which he probably was. No doubt women often felt that making his acquaintance was a pleasure.

  “I hear you’re l
ooking for a daytime situation for your dog.”

  “For a friend’s dog, actually. She has a Golden Retriever named Berkley, and she’s about to start working again for the first time in years. Naturally, she doesn’t want to leave him alone all day.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Steve replied heartily. “It’s our job to allay dog owners’ fears about their pets’ quality of life. We want every single one of our clients to know that their dogs are in the best possible hands.”

  Well, at least he wasn’t lacking in enthusiasm. This guy would have made a great professional cheerleader. Or maybe a team mascot.

  “I’m sure you must have questions for me,” Steve said. “Go ahead and fire away.”

  “What I’d really like is to take a tour of your facilities, if that’s possible. Then maybe we can talk along the way?”

  “Perfect!” Steve agreed.

  He turned to the teen. She was now sitting behind the desk, hands neatly folded on the counter and looking rather angelic. I’ve worked with kids for too many years to trust a pose like that, but her easy acquiesence didn’t seem to bother Steve.

  “Madison, you have everything under control here?”

  “I do.”

  “Excellent. Then we’re on our way.”

  We exited through the door in the back of the room, which led to a short hallway with offices opening up on either side.

  “This is where Candy and I do the drudge work,” said Steve. “Accounting, working out the schedules, ordering supplies. Nothing interesting to see here, but it’s the quickest way to get back to the compound.”

  “Compound?” I repeated, peering into each of the rooms as we passed by. “How much land do you have here?”

  Both offices looked more functional than luxurious. One had masses of paperwork scattered across every flat surface, an empty dog crate sitting in one corner, and a dead plant hanging by the window. The other office was much smaller and held only a desk whose top was pristine and a comfy-looking chair by the back wall that was covered in pet hair.

  “We have three acres, which is terrific,” Steve said. “Especially since the price of real estate around here keeps going up and up. We were lucky to buy in when we did.”

  “How long ago was that?”