cane, clenching tight. “How do they know the dog didn’t just drop dead?” I managed to ask through the crushed stone in my throat.
“I heard one of them shouting about foam around the mouth.” Lily looked back at the couple, her lips twisted up at one side. “I guess you have to be connected to get the cops to respond. I had a burglary one time and nothing. They get two officers for a dog that probably ate a bad mushroom—you know those two aren’t the kind of dog parents who regularly check their grounds for stuff like that, or even tell their yard service to get rid of anything dangerous.”
Yeah. No.
The police presence had nothing to do with connections. Neri might be a junior member of the homicide team, but she was still part of it. No one would dispatch her to take a report about a dead canine unless they thought it was connected to my mother’s murder.
“Did you hear Veda screaming your dad must’ve done it?”
I thought of our conversation at the dinner table, my father’s sly smile. And I thought of my dirty soles and aching, throbbing foot. “She should know better. He’ll probably sue her for libel.”
“Games of the rich.” Lily glanced at her watch with those dismissive words as Leonid emerged down the street with his twins in their stroller. Also with him was a very large man in a black suit and aviator sunglasses.
“I better get back,” Lily said. “I needed to clear my head after the morning rush, and was just planning to walk up and down the Cul-de-Sac when the cop car pulled up and Veda started ranting.”
“I’ll walk with you, get some coffee.”
Brett’s pale blue eyes fell on me as I walked away, and he jabbed a finger in my direction, his bald head gleaming under the weak sunlight. “Why don’t you ask him? It’s his fucking father who’s a psychopath.”
I gave him my most charming smile.
He flinched as if I’d hit him. His wife put a hand on his arm. Statuesque and striking Veda with her long red curls was way out of Brett’s league if you were judging solely on looks, but while they were prats to everyone else, they seemed to have a great marriage.
My mother had never reached out to a young Veda as she had to Alice, and maybe it had been a simple case of differing personalities, but looking back, I think it was also about envy. One evening, when I was a teen, I’d caught her watching the couple from my bedroom. She’d had an odd . . . yearning look on her face, and when I’d gone up to her, she’d put her arm around my shoulders and said, “Look.”
Following her gaze, I’d seen Brett silhouetted against his large kitchen window. He’d been cooking, and as we watched, Veda had slipped her arms around him from behind, and pressed a kiss to his neck. He’d smiled and said something that made her laugh.
“Sometimes,” my mother had murmured, “I see beauty and I want to break it.” Then she’d smiled and kissed me on the cheek and asked me if I wanted her to make my favorite cookies, and we’d never again talked about Veda and Brett except as our annoying neighbors.
I’d automatically discarded doughy out-of-shape Brett as a possible suspect when it came to my mother’s “tall and dark-haired” lover, but now I wondered. Because Brett hadn’t always been bald. Had she done it? Had she damaged the unexpected beauty of the Fitzpatricks’ marriage just because it hurt her to see them have what she didn’t?
If she had . . . Well, Veda was a smart, strong woman who took no shit.
“Mr. Fitzpatrick.” Constable Neri’s clipped tone. “I’m going to have to remind you to stop making unfounded allegations that inflame the situation.”
Brett’s cheeks turned a mottled red.
Veda, meanwhile, looked around at all the neighbors watching the show, and suddenly ducked her head. I couldn’t hear what she said next, but Neri nodded and the four of them—the other officer included—filed onto their drive and up through the tree ferns at the entrance. Shadows filigreed their bodies before they disappeared from sight.
Lily didn’t look at me as she said, “That bother you?”
“No. My father is a shit.”
“You think he could’ve done that? Poisoned a dog?”
“Sure. But do I really think my father would skulk around at night to lure a dog?” I shook my head. “If he was going to do something