Free Raining Cats & Dogs (A Melanie Travis Mystery) by Laurien Berenson Page B

“wasn’t that great? Did you have a good time? Are you coming back next week?”
    “For Pete’s sake, Minerva,” said Steve. “Let Melanie catch her breath. We haven’t even left the building yet. She may want to take a little time to digest the experience. Not only that, but she might have had more fun today if you hadn’t decided to be such a show-off—”
    Minnie’s expression darkened. She turned back to frame a retort.
    Then I heard the footsteps behind us and realized why Steve had stopped speaking. Paul was running after us down the corridor. Cora was at his side, her short legs pumping to keep up.
    Paul’s face was white; his features were drawn. He stopped beside us and thrust the Corgi’s leash into the trainer’s hands. “Take her, will you please? Something’s happened. I can’t leave right now.”
    “Of course,” said Steve. “What’s the matter? Is there anything we can do?”
    “It’s Aunt Mary.” Paul choked on a sob. “I went to tell her I was leaving and I found her in her room. It just doesn’t seem possible, but Aunt Mary is dead.”

7
    “T rouble just seems to follow you around, doesn’t it?” Aunt Peg said.
    A sad fact, and undeniably true. I wished, however, that my aunt didn’t feel compelled to keep pointing it out.
    We were sitting in her living room in Greenwich surrounded by a bevy of black Standard Poodles. After Paul’s surprising announcement, I’d left Winston Pumpernill intending to drive home. Instead, with Aunt Peg’s house only a short distance away, I’d found myself going there.
    Talking to Aunt Peg is often helpful when I need to make sense of difficult situations. She’s a good sounding board; plus, having lived a very full life, she’s pretty much seen it all. Very few things shock Aunt Peg, and Mary Livingston’s death was apparently no exception.
    “We’re talking about a woman who was how old?” she asked.
    “In her early eighties, but she looked great. I was just talking to her half an hour earlier. There wasn’t the slightest indication then that anything was wrong.”
    “In the sunroom,” Aunt Peg said with a nod. I’d already described much of my visit to the nursing facility. “And yet shortly thereafter, she must have gone back to her room for some reason, even though the visit from your obedience club was still in progress. Was that normal for her—to leave in the middle like that?”
    “I have no idea. This was the first time I’d ever been. People did seem to be coming and going all the time, however. Some stayed in the room for the entire visit and others didn’t.”
    “But Mary Livingston had a family member present. A young man who was apparently responsible for the very fact that you were there. It seems unlikely she would have left unless she had a good reason. Perhaps she felt unwell and went back to her room to lie down.”
    That sounded like as good an explanation as any, especially in light of what had followed.
    “Paul didn’t say how his aunt died, although it was obviously sudden and unexpected. If he hadn’t gone looking for her before we left, we would never even have known.”
    Aunt Peg pondered that. As always, there was a Poodle within easy reach. Her retired stud dog, Beau, was lying on the floor next to her chair. Peg rubbed her foot back and forth across the big dog’s shoulders absently.
    “You never really knew your grandparents, did you?” she said after a minute.
    “No, they died when I was very young.”
    “You’ve probably never seen anyone you were close to grow old and have to deal with deteriorating health and the infirmities of advancing age. I know what happened today came as a shock to you, but to me it sounds almost like a blessing. To live to a fine old age and be in good health right up until the moment of one’s death? I’d certainly rather go that way than in any number of other scenarios I can come up with.”
    “I know,” I said with a sigh. “And it’s selfish of me to