Bride & Groom

patients shows up. You’ve seen it.”
    He dipped a piece of sushi in soy sauce. “Yeah, it’s unmistakable.”
    “And Judith was the last person to arrive at Ceci’s. Judith arrived. Rita got quiet. And she got that look. And what I’ve realized is that Rita has heard all about Mac, and she’s seen his book here, but I never call him anything but Mac, and his last name is McCloud. Judith is the only person who calls him Bruce, and it’s all she ever calls him. Everyone else calls him Mac. And Judith’s last name is Esterhazy. I’ve probably mentioned Judith to her, but it’s a common first name. Rita had no reason to see a connection.”
    “I want you to try to remember exactly what Rita said.”
    “She said that the husband had sent the wife to therapy because the wife thought he was repeatedly unfaithful to her. He claimed she was imagining things. Rita said his infidelity was the wife’s truth. From the patient’s point of view, she was telling the truth. Something like that. And that her patient’s reality was the only reality that she, Rita, had available. The husband wouldn’t see Rita. Oh, one other thing. The wife had a dog, and Rita said that one issue was that the woman loved the dog more than she loved her husband.”
    “We could ask Rita to listen to us. And not say anything.”
    “Not now! Cheating and lying are the last things she needs to think about. I saw her for a second today. Steve, she looks as if she’s lost five pounds since Saturday. We just cannot put any pressure on her about anything. She trusted Artie. The only one of us who didn’t was you.”
    “Veterinary reflex. Nice guy. But if he’d been a dog, I’d’ve known to muzzle him before I got close.”
    “Well, I wish Rita had had the same intuition. And I wish we’d warned her.”
    “We went over that. It could’ve been some other guy.”
    “We were fooling ourselves. We wanted to be wrong.” One piece of seaweed-wrapped rice remained. “Do you want that?”
    “It’s yours. I got ice cream.”
    As he dished out Ben & Jerry’s, I asked, “So what does it mean? Mac sent Judith to therapy because she thought he was unfaithful. He told her she was imagining things. She told Rita she wasn’t. And then she stopped therapy.”
    “She knew. And then something convinced her she was wrong? Or she just didn’t like therapy. But, look, Holly, what we’re doing here is leaping to conclusions. One conclusion. Mac. That’s illogical.”
    “We’ve been over the murders. So has everyone else.”
    “One more time. All women. All killed in the evening. Not in the middle of the night. Killed at times when people go places or are on their way home. All killed right near where they lived. Or were staying. All except the first one owned dogs, and the dog or dogs were nearby. All except the first did some kind of work that had to do with dogs. All except the first were people you’d met. And Mac knew. Who else knew them?”
    “You met Elspeth. So did Judith and Ian, at the talk at the bookstore. If Mac and I knew all of them, except Laura Skipcliff, there are probably other people who did, too. Other dog writers. Vets. Dog trainers. Vet techs. Veterinary assistants. And so on.”
    “You see? The value of taking a fresh look. Techs. Assistants. Think about it. Laura Skipcliff doesn’t fit the pattern. Or doesn’t appear to. But someone else does. At your launch party. The woman who’d died?”
    “Nina Kerkel. But she died a natural death.”
    “She worked with Mac. Veterinary receptionist?”
    “Yes. I remember because Judith said that she was all too receptive. Yes! Judith was muttering about her. Venomously, too. And according to Ceci, who knows Greta Kerkel, her ex-husband’s mother, Nina Kerkel, was, quote, no better than she should’ve been, unquote. But Nina Kerkel wasn’t murdered.”
    “She died,” Steve said. “If you look at it systematically, Laura Skipcliff was the first victim, but Nina Kerkel was the first in the series.”
     

CHAPTER 32
     
    The dog lover’s hymn: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” The melody ran through my head as I sat at a card table at the front of the mall bookstore on Tuesday evening. I obviously wasn’t walking, and I certainly wasn’t alone. With me were the two most fanatical fans any author could desire. One pressed his body against my left thigh, the other pressed hers against my right. The behavior was intimate, but when a signing draws only two attendees,