Chapter 28

Chief Turner rose, too. He nodded at Officer Statler and she got it, that she was being left in charge.

As soon as he closed the door behind us, he said, “Remember when I questioned Martin Tuesday night and he said Billy B. might have gone to Buckingham’s or to your house looking for a dog to track Wags? You thought it was ridiculous, but maybe it was true since he admitted to stealing the dog just now.”

“I still think it was one of Martin’s fibs. There was nothing on the body or in the car with Wags’s scent on it for a dog to know what he was supposed to be tracking.”

He nodded. “Did you find out what you wanted to know from Julie Berger?”

“Yeah, Wags doesn’t know her and she didn’t know Wags,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“So she and her uncle weren’t close? If she’s even his niece,” he said.

Here we went again. He’d labeled her a suspect.

“She said they talked every week and last week he sounded nervous.”

Chief Turner was shaking his head and he ran a hand over it. “They didn’t talk, they emailed.”

“Was that Friday?” I asked, remembering how she’d corrected herself. Had she known phone calls could be verified?

“In their last email, he told her she was the sole beneficiary of his will. She doesn’t come to see him for years, and then she shows up.” He shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands, palms up, like, I rest my case.

I nodded. “So the timing of her first visit to Lewes is suspicious?”

“Everything about her is suspicious,” he said.

* * * *

Irish Eyes was just up the street from Anglers. Kyle O’Malley was waiting for me at the bar when I arrived. He was dressed in black from his cashmere turtleneck and leather jacket down to his jeans and boots.

I had gone back to Buckingham’s and came in with Wags in my arms.

He gave the dog pats on his back and shoulders. “Nice touch,” he said and gave me an air-kiss. He had been referring to me bringing Wags for our visit with Pauline von der Osten, but the way he had patted the dog showed a nice touch, too. Many, maybe most, dogs hate to be patted on the head. They will tolerate it, but don’t like it.

“What’s good here?” Kyle asked.

“Oysters on the half shell,” I said, looking around. “I don’t think they’re going to let me stay in here with him.” We placed our order and told the bartender we were going to the back deck.

Kyle picked up his beer and followed Wags and me out. He took in the water view before sitting down. Being on the water meant we were colder, but neither of us complained. The Lewes Irish Eyes is on the canal and the Milton location is on the Broadkill River.

“Could not believe I found Pauline von der Osten. I didn’t know if she was even still alive. She’s in one of those continuing care places. She’s in her nineties but she sounded good. Looks like I might be able to have a decent interview,” he said. Then he got out his phone and took a few photos of Wags.

“Where does she live?” I asked. The waitress had brought a glass of chardonnay and I took a sip.

“Some old age home pessimistically named Autumn Acres,” he said. “Sounds like spring’s over, summer’s done, you’re going down.”

“I don’t think they call them old age homes anymore. I know where it is.” Despite Kyle’s dreary analysis of the name of the place, it looked pleasant enough from the outside.

The fresh oysters were lowered to our table. Wags got up to sniff but immediately laid back down. Not for him.

“Is it far?” he asked, slathering an oyster with horseradish.

“Nothing in Lewes is far,” I said. I was thinking about the business’s location on Plantations Boulevard. Billy B. would have walked by it every day. “I need to tell you more of the story. She gave him to a man in town named Billy B. and he was found murdered Monday morning.”

“Fantastic!”

“Kyle!”

“I mean, not for him, obviously,” he said. “Don’t turn around but you have an admirer. Oh, he’s leaving. Too bad.”

I stopped myself before asking if he was wearing a police uniform, but I couldn’t stop myself from grinning.

Wags had been dozing by my foot but jerked awake. He growled and wedged himself behind my legs. He wasn’t snarling at anyone behind me, where my so-called secret admirer had been. Wags’s reaction was to someone on the other end of the deck. I looked over Kyle’s shoulder and saw Sandy Westlake. Suddenly Wags took off after him and when Westlake recovered from the shock, he leaned down and scooped Wags up. With the Pug under one arm like a football he turned to run. I leapt out of my chair and ran to the railing. I climbed over and took off after them. I decided I wouldn’t be able to catch him since he had a head start, but I could embarrass him. “Captain Westlake!” I screamed. He had a lot more to lose doing this than the amount of money he would make from Wags.

He slowed and put the dog down on the ground. “Just playing with ya,” he said. “Just a little joke.”

“Right.” I picked Wags up and walked around to the deck steps.

“Let’s go,” I said to Kyle.

“This is getting better and better.” He paid our check and left a large tip. “Want to go in my car?” His car was a Porsche 911 Carrera, so that was really just a rhetorical question. I got Wags’s harness out of my car. Once I had myself seated in Kyle’s car I hooked the Pug to my seat belt. The engine purred as we drove away from Irish Eyes.

I was thinking about how annoyed I was with myself for not having Wags on a leash at the restaurant and what Mason would say if he knew, when the loud truck came up behind us. The gravel from the parking lot scattered. I looked at the side mirror and saw Captain Sandy Westlake. What was he thinking? “Get away from him,” I said to Kyle. We zoomed up Anglers Road to Savannah Road, and turned right.

Unfortunately, we were still zooming once we were on Savannah Road and before I could warn Kyle about Lewes’s low and serious speed limits, a police car pulled out from the parking lot on the side of a store, siren on. “You can’t zoom on Savannah Road,” I said.

“Is this what they mean by lower, slower Delaware?” he asked. Later, I would have to explain that those bumper stickers referred to the slower pace we preferred here in southern Delaware, but for now there was a police officer to hear out.

“Registration and license, please.”

I pushed myself back into the seat and looked out the passenger-side window.

“Excuse me,” Kyle said. He needed to open the glove compartment and my knees were in the way.

“Sue,” Chief Turner said. The look he gave me was about as warm as what I’d seen on Abby’s face when she saw someone was going away in the Jeep with me and it wasn’t her.

When Wags, the little traitor, saw Chief Turner and heard his voice he wagged his tail so hard his whole body lurched on my lap.

“Sorry,” I said to Kyle as Chief Turner ran his plates and license. “Hopefully it’ll be a warning.” Then I whispered to Wags that he wasn’t supposed to be enraptured to see a police officer who was writing a ticket.

I was still looking out the side mirror tracking Sandy Westlake. He had turned right, as we had. Then he made a right onto Second Street. I had thought that was a good thing. Now that he was parking in front of Mozart’s, I was rethinking it. He looked up the street at us and smirked. If he had been the one parked on the side of the road engaging with the local police, I would have done the same. Who am I kidding? I would have laughed my ass off. Then he traipsed into Mozart’s.

Chief Turner was back. He handed Kyle his documents and said, “This is just a warning, Mr. O’Malley. Watch your speed.” Then he looked at me, “Where were you coming from in such a hurry?” The question seemed odd. Why would he care? I heard a message in his voice, but needed a little more to go on.

“I think the name of the place was Irish Eyes,” Kyle answered.

“Hmm, just got a complaint about a disturbance there. That’s all. I’m sure you’re in a hurry to get where you’re going, but watch your speed.” He had emphasized “get where you’re going,” and I took the hint.

I could either waste time defending my actions at Irish Eyes or I could make myself scarce before he got the details on whatever had happened there. I chose the latter. “Thanks,” I said.

The powerful car floated up Savannah Road and crossed Highway 1. Then we made a left onto Plantations Boulevard. “Autumn Acres is on our left, past this light,” I told Kyle. “Ms. von der Osten will be so happy to see Wags.”

The two-story building was faced with white stone. The lobby was filled with sofas and rocking chairs. A fire roared in the fireplace directly ahead of us. A man was taping red paper hearts to the inside of a window. Kyle approached him and introduced us. When I saw who it was I tried to stop him, but I was too late.

“H-e-l-l-o, Sue,” Dr. Walton said. Obviously he was still working off his community service hours.

Kyle looked at me, with a raised eyebrow, at the man’s obvious animosity. I wanted to tell him that not every man in town hated me. Just the three he had encountered on this one afternoon.

“We’re here to see Pauline von der Osten,” Kyle said.

Dr. Walton pointed to an attractive lady wearing a silk blouse and jeans who had appeared at a reception window, and we walked over.

“Hi, Sue,” Kate Carter said.

“Hi!” I hoped Kyle had noticed her friendly greeting. “Do you volunteer here?”

“Just a half-day a week. I wish I could do more. There are so many interesting people living here,” she said.

Kyle asked her where we could find the opera singer.

“Oh, she’s in her room. She’s one of the most fascinating residents,” Kate said, coming around and leading us down a carpeted hallway.

I noticed the poster advertising the commemoration events on an easel by the entrance door. “Wait, this date is last week.”

“Howard Fourie came and gave a presentation to the residents since most can’t get out to go to one of the venues,” she said. “Mrs. von der Osten’s daughter-in-law converted her old reel-to-reel tapes into a DVD and she’s been watching it nonstop. She’s enjoying it so much. She turned ninety last year and she has something new to enjoy. Isn’t that wonderful?”

We agreed it was.

Her room had an elaborate Valentine’s decoration on the door. Kate knocked and we waited.

“Come in,” a heavily accented voice said.

“You have two guests,” Kate said.

The petite woman was dwarfed by her Queen Anne chair, which was turned to face a side table, with a computer on it. All had been positioned to prevent glare caused by the sun shining in through the big window on one side of the room. She motioned for us to come and watch the grainy image with her. “This is the very best part,” she said, with her German accent.

I left my handbag, which was really a beach bag, by her door and went to kneel beside her. She looked over and smiled.

“I’m Sue Patrick,” I whispered to keep from interrupting the music.

Kyle introduced himself and reached over to shake her hand. Then she turned her attention back to the screen. “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. von der Osten,” he said.

“Please call me Pauline.”

Two young boys were singing opera, in German. They wore matching short pants and what looked like dress shirts, tucked in. Their voices were angelic and they were freakishly talented. These prodigies did exist.

My bag barked and Wags jumped out. Pauline’s hands flew to her mouth and she shrieked. “Is it? Could it be? Mein liebling!”

“It is!” I said.

Wags ran to her and I picked him up and placed him on the chair beside her.

“You didn’t come on Sunday and I missed you!” she said.

I knew there was a chance Billy B. had taken Wags to visit her, but it hadn’t occurred to me that she might not know that Billy B. was dead. From the corner of my eye I saw Kate tap the toe of her stiletto. I moved behind Pauline’s chair. “Doesn’t know,” she mouthed. Then she shook her head and I took that to mean I wasn’t to tell her.

I nodded.

“Wags and Billy B. visited her every Sunday morning,” she said. “Isn’t that nice?”

I would have to tell Mason and Joey about this arrangement, if they ended up keeping him.

“This is William, who you call Billy B.,” Pauline said, pointing to one of the boys on the screen.

I stared, unable to speak.

“And that’s his brother,” she went on. “They didn’t have to change their name after the war, but others did.” She listened to more of the music before speaking again. “This was one of the most ruthless men in Cologne,” she said, reaching for the screen, and pointed to a man in the background. He had been listening to the music with a scowl on his square face. He stood there in what looked like a gray uniform, along with jackboots. He was who and what the children were escaping from in their minds through the music they were making. “I understand his family changed their last name.”

“What do the lyrics mean?” That was something in Lady Anthea’s wheelhouse, not mine.

She dreamily rubbed Wags’s back. “They are singing about families.”

“Her daughter-in-law also put this on YouTube. We showed it in the community room last week so everyone could enjoy it,” Kate said.

“And now both boys are dead,” Pauline said. Even though one of those boys was in his late seventies, the pain in her voice was obvious.

If what Kate had told us was a ploy to get us off the subject of Billy B., it hadn’t work. “I didn’t know if you knew. I didn’t want to upset you,” she said.

“Most of my friends are dead, my dear,” she said and looked at me. “The newspaper said he was murdered.”

I nodded, then I told her about his body being found in my driveway. “I saw him and I don’t think he suffered.”

“Thank you for telling me that.” She went back to stroking Wags’s back, hypnotizing him. When she stopped again he nudged her arm with his nose for her to keep her hand going. “What will happen to him? We’re not allowed to have pets here.”

“That will be up to his great-niece, Julie. Have you ever met her?”

“No, I don’t believe so, but William talked of her often,” she said.

“I don’t know if Julie can care for a dog. If not, there’s someone keeping him now who has grown very attached to him. We’ll see.”

“Someone is taking too good care of him. He’s getting fat.”