Chapter Seventeen
by Meg


It was just getting dark when David pulled up in front of Amy’s house. He sat for a minute, trying to get himself together before he confronted Amy. Why had she lied? Why did women always seem to lie to him? Was it him?

He walked up the front porch steps and knocked on the door. Amy swung the door open.

“David, hello. What a nice surprise. Jeet?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

As angry as he was feeling, he couldn’t help the small smile at that word of his childhood. ‘Jeet?’ Always a question.

“No, I haven’t eaten. But it’s not why I’m here. Can I come in?” He asked this in a gruff voice.

Amy looked puzzled and said, “Of course, come in. What’s wrong, David?”

“You lied to me,” he blurted out. “You lied to me.” He followed her to the kitchen as he spoke.

She turned around and looked at him in surprise. “Excuse me?” Her voice had risen slightly and she looked a little angry. “When did I do this? And you had better not say last night in bed.”

David was taken aback by her vehemence. His back went immediately up. “I didn’t say it happened in bed,” he spat out. “No, this lie has been going on for awhile now.”

They were in the kitchen now and Amy reached over and turned the heat down under the skillet on stove. Her eyes were furious. She glared at him. “What, what the hell have I been lying to you about, David? You just tell me.”

David leaned in towards her, suddenly fiercely angry himself. “The dog, the damned dead dog.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Brogus? How the hell did I ever lie to you about that dog?” Amy wasn’t backing down. She leaned right into David. She didn’t shout; in fact, her voice had gotten quieter and quieter.

“He was vicious,” David yelled.

Amy looked confused for a mere second and then looked at David as though he were crazy. Then she started to laugh. “Oh yeah, the vicious dog. The one I had to hold back from killing you when you rubbed his tummy. Who the hell did you talk to? And by the way, I do know where this is coming from. I just don’t know where the hell it’s going,” Amy said with a touch of anger back in her voice.

“I talked to Jonathon Moore and Dr. Walker at the clinic. Moore said that the dog tried to bite him and Marietta’s ex, that Jackson Hemm. Then Dr. Walker said the dog was vicious to everyone but you.” David stated all of this with conviction. But he was beginning to have his doubts.

“First of all, you talked to Jonathan Moore today? You were able to locate him in Nepal?” Amy asked.

Now David looked at her like she was the crazy one. “He’s not in Nepal. He’s here in New Orleans. I found him over at his and Marietta’s old house on Charter Street. He said he lived there. What do you mean Nepal?”

Amy shook her head slowly. “Jeez, David.” She walked over to the computer desk and pulled up the Internet. “Look here.”

David looked at her home page. “What?”

Amy reached down and clicked on the Entertainment tab. A new page came up and one of the top headlines stated, ‘Jonathan Moore to stay in Nepal for filming.’ He read some more of the article, which quoted Moore as saying, “I could barely tolerate my sister when she was alive. She was a mean, vindictive woman. I’ll be damned if I’ll throw off scheduling for her now that she’s dead.” The article went on to state that Moore had been in Nepal and India for the last three months filming his new movie, ‘Higher Consciousness.’

David looked up at Amy in shock. “Who the hell did I talk to?”

“My guess would be Marietta’s ex, Jackson Hemm. Wasn’t he familiar at all to you? Remember Jackson Hemm? He had a few big movies about, I don’t know, maybe fifteen years ago. He had that one big hit where he rescued all the people from the crazy terrorists in the big building--oh, what was it called?--Death Games, that’s it.”

“Oh my god, I remember that movie. But that guy was fit and good-looking. This guy was kind of…well, fat. He had long hair but he was balding on top, he didn’t look like a movie star.” David was desperately trying to remember what the man looked like. He already had his phone pulled out and he was calling the station.

Amy, meanwhile, was sitting in front of the computer, typing away and pulling up web pages. While David barked orders into the phone, she beckoned him over to the screen with a wave.

“Get somebody over to that house on Charter Street. I’m sure that son of a bitch is already long gone but we’ve got to try. Secure the house. And whatever you do, not a word to Kersey tonight.” David slammed the phone down and looked at the screen.

“Son of a bitch,” he yelled. He looked at two pictures. The caption read, ‘Now and Then’. One was from the movie they had been talking about, Death Games. It showed a trim, fit handsome man. The other picture was of the man David had talked to that afternoon. The story was about how Hemm wasted his money on the usual Hollywood stuff. Cocaine, women, and gambling. It went further to say that was why he and Marietta had divorced.

David sat heavily in the chair by the kitchen table. “How could I have been so stupid?” he wondered out loud.

“Apparently it comes naturally to you, David,” Amy said dryly.

He grimaced at her and tried to feel indignant again. “Okay, obviously I can discredit Hemm, but Dr. Walker? He said the dog was vicious.”

Amy sighed. “He was right, Brogus could be.”

David thought he would feel good to be vindicated but instead he felt worse.

“Marietta Blankenship was a cruel woman. She had a bizarre sense of humor, no, not bizarre, a sick sense of humor.” Amy stood up from the computer desk and went to the table. She sat opposite from David.

“Marietta Blankenship should have owned pit bulls or even better for her, Presa Canarios. Do you know what they are?” She looked at David.

“Well, I definitely know what a pit bull is and the other one, Presa whatever, they’re attack dogs, right? Now that’s a vicious dog.” David was confused. “What does this have to do with Brogus?”

Amy smiled sadly. “Golden Retrievers are practically the clowns of the dog world. They’re gentle, loving, loyal. Usually they’re more than happy to run from a fight. Marietta thought it would be…amusing is how she put it when she told me, to train Brogus to be an attack dog. She sent him to the best trainer money could buy when he was nine months old. She got him back five months later and she had an attack dog. A very unhappy attack dog. It wasn’t in his nature. But it was in his nature to be obedient.”

Amy stood up and went back to the stove. She turned the heat back up and began to sauté her vegetables again. She looked at them and shook her head. “Ruined,” she said under her breath.

“The vegetables or the dog?” David asked softly.

“Vegetables; the dog was fine. That is, as long as Marietta wasn’t around. So, yes; the first and as far as I know only time Dr. Walker saw Brogus, Marietta had him in attack mode. She thought it was funny. She only had to whisper the word and he’d go off. People would see this dog lunging on his leash, growling and snapping. Marietta would stand there, acting like she didn’t know what happened. She sicced him on me once. He wouldn’t do it. It really pissed her off. She threatened to send him back to the trainer.”

David looked at her warily. “Why did she sic him on you?”

Amy started to say something and stopped. Then she took a deep breath. “Because I told her she deserved to die for what she did to that dog.”

David stared at Amy. “Did you really believe that?”

“She was such a bitch, David. Did I believe it? At the time I said it, yeah, I guess I did. Believe it or not, that happened about the second or third time she’d brought Brogus to us for boarding, so about two years ago. It was the first time I’d witnessed the attack stunt. She did it right out in our main office, in the reception area. Someone could have gotten hurt. That’s when she told me what she’d had done to him, the training and all. I was furious. I think she thought I would find it amusing. I didn’t. But she kept bringing him back to the kennel; she’d pulled the stunt at the other kennels and they wouldn’t take him.” Amy went over to the refrigerator and began pulling out the makings of a salad.

“Make yourself useful, David.” Amy handed him a cutting board and a small knife. She washed a cucumber, a bell pepper, and a tomato and handed them to him.

They worked side by side quietly for a few minutes.

“How did you get hold of Jonathan Moore to ask about Brogus?” David asked her.

“Persistence. I can’t wait to see that phone bill. Luckily, as weird as that sounds, it was right after Marietta’s death and both he and ‘his people’ were more willing to talk to people involved in her estate. I just kept calling until his poor little assistant couldn’t take it anymore. She’s a dog lover. We’re everywhere, you know.” She glanced sideways at him with a little smile.

“What was the word?” he asked.

Amy looked at him. “What word?”

“The attack word.”

“Ah, words actually. German words; that’s where the trainer was from. ‘Das Glas schieben’.

“What the hell does it mean?” he asked in puzzlement. He’d been expecting a short one-word command.

“The trainer wanted to make sure it would be something no one would utter in a conversation, at least not here in the States. It means, ‘Shoot the glass’. Just a nonsense phrase,” Amy explained.

David sat there thinking over all he knew and all he didn’t know. He didn’t look forward to telling Sadie any of this. He wondered if he could avoid it. He doubted it.

“I’ve been an idiot over this whole thing,” David said miserably.

“Is that your way of apologizing?” Amy asked.

David looked startled. “Not really. I was referring to not checking on all the facts. I mean I just accepted that the man was Jonathon Moore. I believed everything he told me. And then I just let the suspect go. No one at the department knew Moore was out of the country.” He slid the cut vegetables into the bowl of lettuce leaves that Amy had set on the table.

He glanced up and saw her sitting back with her arms folded against her chest. She was glaring at him. “I guess I do need to apologize,” he said sheepishly.

“Do you now? Well, you go ahead then.” She was still glaring.

David took a breath. “I’m sorry, Amy. I’m sorry I came over here ready to accuse you instead of just asking you. I have a really hard time with believing women, people in general, really. I’m always ready to think the worst. I really am sorry.”

She glared for a few seconds more, then smiled. She stood, picked up the salad bowl, and kissed him on the top of his head. “You are forgiven. Now are you staying for dinner or not?”

He smiled at her. “Yes, but honestly, I’m more interested in dessert.”
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