Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

much of a sleeper, even without the jet lag. I suppose it’s my age. I usually stay up quite late, and then I’m up bright and early anyway—with the birds, my mother used to say. So it wasn’t too difficult to know when one of the gentlemen had company. Anyone could have done it, dear.”
    She broke off a piece of scone and popped it into her mouth. Then she took a second piece and gave it to Cecilia. “Naughty thing,” she said, “begging like that.”
    “Tell me about Rick’s accident.”
    “Oh, that wasn’t an accident, Rachel. When I heard the commotion in his room—oh, my dear, the noise could have awakened the dead—I thought, now I have my man.”
    I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, feeling a tear run down my cheek.
    “The sugar bowl.”
    “Clever girl,” she said.
    “You crumbled them up.”
    “Powdered them, actually. I put them in a handkerchief and hit them with the heel of my shoe, the same as I do with Cecilia’s vitamins. She so hates to take a pill. This way I can mix it in her food, can’t I, love? ” She looked dotingly at the little dog, breaking off another piece of scone for her. Then she poured some of her tea into the saucer and set it down on the floor for Cecilia to lap.
    “Convenient, all of us taking the same seats at every meal,” I said. “We apparently pattern-train as readily as our dogs.” ‘The aspirin wouldn’t have hurt anyone else,” Beryl said. She seemed annoyed that I might think her so careless. “Had I missed, no matter. I would have simply tried again.”
    “But then you found you’d made another mistake.”
    “Oh, no, dear. Not a mistake.”
    “Of course. And who was he with?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
    “Heaven knows, dear. That’s not the point, is it?”
    “I guess not.”
    “But I must confess,” she said, leaning closer, “I did stay long enough to hear some talking. Afterward. Pillow talk, I think it’s called. And, well, both voices sounded very deep.” She sat back and fiddled with her shirt, tucking it neatly into her skirt. “It’s quite possible Rick’s lover was a man. But what earthly difference would that make?
    “I must admit that after that, I really badgered Tina. Parents can do that, you know. We know all the buttons to push to get our children raging mad.”
    “Did she blurt out Martyn’s name at last?”
    “No, dear. But when I’d finally gotten her really angry, by naming trainers and nattering away at her, Was it he? Was it he? she said, No, Mummy, it’s not any of those. He’s foreign. So naturally I thought it was Boris.”
    “Did he have a sweetie, too?” I asked.
    “Exactly my question, Rachel. So guess what I did,” she said, taking on a conspiratorial tone, as if the two of us were in on this together.
    I got up and walked to the door, opened it, and looked out into the hall, nodding to Mercedes, who patted her uniform pocket to show me where the twenty I’d given her had been squirreled away. Then I called to Dashiell. “Keys,” I told him, pointing down the hall to where the supply cart had been parked. A moment later, Dash was back with the passkey. He sat and tossed it in the air for me to catch.
    “Brilliant,” she said, the muscles in her cheeks jumping. She looked at Dashiell and then at me, sizing us up anew.
    “But what did you do about Sasha?” I asked her.
    “Don’t be a goose, dear. Do you think I can’t handle a Rottweiler? Are you forgetting who I am?”
    “Not in the least, Mrs. Potter, but we’re discussing a protection-trained Rottweiler here, not a crooked sit.”
    “I bloody well know that.”
    “What was it you shoved through a crack in the door?” I asked, remembering the dog dead asleep on stage the following morning, “a couple of Valium in a bite of cheese? Halcyon? Then you waited a few minutes before opening the door and having yourself a good look.”
    “Yes, dear, a good look.” She was glaring now, and I knew she was planning something, too. I had trained enough dogs to recognize escape behavior, no matter if the creature was human, not canine.
    “At who?” I asked.
    “Whom,” she said. “At Boris, that’s who.” She sat back again, smiling now.
    “And?”
    “He was all alone, lying on his back, snoring. He looked like a beached whale. I thought to myself, Tina couldn’t have meant Boris.”
    She picked up her cup of cold tea and took a sip.
    “Of course, I hadn’t thought of Martyn as foreign. But after this,