Chapter 13

“Uh-oh,” was how Martin Ziegler greeted us. He looked tired and it seemed almost like keeping that smirk on his face was real work. His tone had been sarcastic but he looked at Rick with affection. I’d just met him but my read was that he was glad his son was there. Of course, hell would freeze over before he would admit it.

Rick sat next to his dad and I sat across from Mr. Funny Man. Chief Turner took the chair next to me and tapped the fancy recorder in the middle of the table. “Interview is resuming. Sue Patrick and Rick Ziegler are also present.”

Martin pointed a stubby finger at me. “I want the dog.”

“Chill, Pop,” Rick said.

“I love that pooch and I can give him a good home,” he said with a sniffle, added on for maximum drama.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

The beat it took him to answer was all it took for me to know my hunch was right. I’ve never known a pet parent to refer to their dog as the pooch. People wanting you to go out with them, buy something, or vote for their candidate said “pooch.” What did Martin Ziegler want?

“It’s Billy B.,” he said.

“I meant the dog, the Pug. What’s his name?”

“It’s Puggie,” he said, finally and with such assuredness that I was ready to bet good money he thought I didn’t know the dog’s name either.

I shook my head. “It’s Wags.”

The corners of his lips tilted down. For some curious reason he was disappointed that I knew.

“He’ll stay with me until Billy B.’s next of kin can be contacted, but I’m curious to know why you want him.”

“To give him a good home,” he answered. I didn’t bother to say the dog was spending his days at a five-star pet palace getting very expensive classes from Lady Anthea, gratis, and his nights being spoiled by Mason and Joey.

“Pop?” Rick’s tone was stern.

“Billy B. was my employee and that’s the least I can do.” He stuck his chin out defiantly.

“Pop!”

“What?” Martin Ziegler yelled.

“Why do you keep saying Billy B. was your employee?”

“Why not?”

This exchange sent Chief Turner scrambling through his old-school notebook. “You must have referred to him as your employee five or six times. He’s not?”

Martin leaned toward me, like we were the best of pals. “Ms. Patrick, explain to him that in a small business titles often aren’t relevant.” He sneered at John. “If you’re not one of us, you just don’t understand.” He smiled and added in soulful eyes as a bonus.

“Ziggy? May I call you Ziggy?” I cooed.

“Of course. Please do,” he said.

“Ziggy, would you like to take me out for a drink? Let’s get out of here.”

His mouth dropped open. When he recovered, he looked at Chief Turner for either assistance or permission, or both.

John raised his hands, palms up. “By all means. You’re free to go.”

I stood. “I’ll wait out front for you to pick me up.”

“Gimme ten or fifteen minutes. I’ll be right back—” That’s when Martin froze, his backside hovering over his chair. He realized he had pretty much admitted he had his car back, or at least knew where it was. You can’t just make a direct run at someone like Mr. Ziegler and expect an honest answer. I hoped John was taking notes in his little notepad on this.

He sat down. “I told you it was stolen.”

“You have the car now?” John asked.

All this got him from Martin, never-aka Ziggy, was a scowl.

Just last month I read a book about someone taking something that belonged to someone else, and that person got it back and the first person ended up dead. By “The End,” we knew that the second person, that is, the owner, had killed him. The source was Nine-Tenths of Death. Martin Ziegler had done his damnedest to incriminate himself. And then there was Rick’s question about why he was calling Billy B. his employee. What had he been? Was this just more of Martin’s craziness or did his actual status in the business have anything to do with the murder? After all his stories, the only thing I knew for sure was that if Lady Anthea and I were going to find out who killed Billy B. we would have to know everything that had happened early yesterday morning. We would have to find the facts in the chaos that was the Martin Ziegler-created reality. For now, Rick had to find an off-ramp for his father.

“Did Billy B. steal your vehicle?” John was asking. Another scowl. Chief Turner pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the inside pocket of his jacket and flattened it before laying it on the table in front of Martin. “Here’s a photo of the victim driving your car yesterday morning.”

“He may have borrowed it,” Martin answered. “He’d never steal from me.”

“Do you know why he borrowed your car?” John asked.

“Maybe he couldn’t figure out Uber,” he said.

“Pop,” Rick said, stretching the word out, his voice filled with a plea to get back on the straight and narrow.

“He went over there to get a dog to track his and find it.” He looked at me. I liked the way he hadn’t held my earlier deception against me. “That’s what dogs do, right?”

“Only if they’ve been trained to,” I said.

Mr. Ziegler went on, “Well, your dog is probably trained in a lot of things. And with all the dogs going in and out of Buckingham’s some of them must know how to track, right?”

Sure, his theory had a crazy number of holes, but I believed there was some legit information woven in. The case had something to do with dogs, or a dog, Wags. It had not escaped my notice that he alluded to Abby. “You knew Billy B. came to my house and to Buckingham’s?” I gave Rick a this isn’t good look, and John saw it. Martin knew his car had been at my place and that Billy B. had been there, too. This closed off any possibility that the car had been abandoned somewhere and he had found it, which was flimsy but there were probably attorneys out there sleazy enough to use it. “Why would he steal from Rick and me first?” I asked.

Rick rubbed his forehead. “Pop, if you don’t know, you don’t know.”

“So when can I get Wagner?” By changing the subject instead of making up a story, Martin was restoring my faith in humanity. He pronounced the composer’s name correctly and with a German accent. Vagner. Why had he pretended not to know the dog’s name before? I had said Wags, but few people would make that connection. Actually, Lady Anthea was the only person I knew whose brain would spring to the composer, instead of to what a dog’s tail did.

“Wags. Wagner. I get it now,” I said.

“Some opera singer Billy knew was going into assisted living and she gave him the dog. She used to live around here and liked his singing. That was about five or six years ago.” Martin smiled at the memory.

It was a nice story but I still wanted to know why he’d led us to believe he didn’t know the dog’s name, and why he wanted him, though I doubted I’d find out from him.

“Martin, can I ask you another question? The whole town thought a lot of Billy B. but few of us feel like we knew him. Why was that?” I looked at Martin and hoped he would say something honest.

He looked at the wall over my shoulder and I saw his jaw clench. “I know what you mean. He would sing opera every day for lunch and dinner but when it came to talking about himself, no dice. I asked him once what some of those songs meant and he told me which ones were love songs and which ones were about families, or just life. But if I ever asked about where he came from he’d clam up. He did say that keeping a low profile was how you stayed safe in this life.” I believed what he had said, and hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed.

“Did Billy B. not have a car?” I asked.

Martin shook his head no.

“Then how did he get to work every day?” I asked.

“He walked,” Martin said.

“I have his address. He would have had to walk at least four or five miles each way!” Chief Turner said.

“He liked it. Once told me his father did the same thing. His old man used to say that just getting out and walking with no one to stop you was the best feeling in the world.”

Chief Turner looked unconvinced but waited before he asked, “Mr. Ziegler, do you have any idea how much trouble you are in? Even if I forget the misleading information you’ve given me here tonight, instead of adding on obstructing an investigation, and forget you claimed your car was stolen when you had it all along, you’re looking at a murder charge.”

Martin started to interrupt but Chief Turner cut him off. “The victim had possession of your car almost up until the time he was killed. Now you have the car. Where is it?”

“In the parking lot of Fowler’s Beach,” he said.

I didn’t know if Chief Turner knew where that was, but I could tell him later that it was a few miles north of Lewes on Route 1.

John was becoming more angry and frustrated, and spoke with what I would call his last-chance voice. “I’m about to ask you a question and I want you to think carefully before you tell me another untruth. Was Billy B. alive when you retrieved your car from Sue’s driveway?”

The question was so un-Chief-John-Turner that all I could do was stare. First, it was a question. I had expected a statement that began with the words, “I’m arresting you for.” Second, that he hadn’t jumped straight to “Did you murder William Berger?”

“He wants a lawyer,” Rick said. There it was; there was his off-ramp. Now all we had to do was hope his father would stop talking, by that I mean lying, long enough to drive onto it.