“We’ll keep up working with him,” Lena assured me. The edge of desperation in her voice made me very uncomfortable. They were both looking at me as though they feared I’d call Animal Control any minute.
After all, what had Chaka actually done? He hadn’t barked (aside from that one deep woof), and he hadn’t lunged up the tree, and he hadn’t growled at Moosie … or at me. I began to relax. But there was a point to be made.
“What I’m worried about is when Sophie is bigger, and walking, and she wants to go in the backyard to play,” I said. “How will the dog see Sophie? As another threat? You understand, we can’t have that.” That was plain as plain can be.
“That gives us a long time to keep working with him,” Lena said, her shoulders losing their tension. “In his year with us, this is the only time he’s done something like this.”
Peggy met my eyes, relief all over her face. “Thanks, Roe.”
I nodded. As I turned to go inside, I wondered if I’d made the right decision. Chaka may have literally crossed the line only once … but with Sophie, once would be too much.
I yelled “Robin!” the minute I shut the door behind me.
“I’m in here,” he called, in a very hushed tone.
I followed the sound of his voice to his office, wondering what else could possibly be wrong. At first glance, everything looked fine. Moosie was curled up on Robin’s armchair. Robin was behind his desk, holding the baby monitor, which was blessedly silent. I said, “What happened?”
“When I came in, I went to the kitchen for a drink, and the helper guy was in there. I could swear he was up to something.”
I had to sit down, and luckily there was another armchair available. “Like what?” I said.
“He was over in the corner of the counter, where you drop your purse. I think he was looking in the drawers over there.”
I was bewildered. “What can we do? Tell Arnie? Confront the guy? Call the police?”
Robin shook his head. “I don’t know. I hate to call the police. I don’t think he actually took anything. It’s not against the law to open a drawer.”
I nodded. I was doing a lot of that today.
“And if we confront him, what good would that do? He’d just say, ‘I did no such thing,’ or ‘I saw a roach run under her purse and I was trying to kill it for her.’”
“Right again. And … ewwww.”
“But we can’t do nothing.” Robin looked gloomy.
“So telling Arnie is our best option.”
Something finally went right. Just then, Arnie came in the room with his invoice. “Tracked you down,” he said cheerfully. “We’re nearly done, Mr. Crusoe. One window isn’t secure yet, because I don’t have all the parts I need. I’ll have to come back tomorrow morning, but it should only take me about five minutes.”
“Great,” Robin said. “Then you’ll have the system working. We have to talk to you about something.”
“Okay,” Arnie said slowly. “What’s on your mind?”
I don’t know how I expected Arnie to react to what Robin told him. Whatever I might have predicted, Arnie surprised me.
The coroner/security expert stood with his head bowed for a long moment. Then he took a deep breath and looked Robin square in the eye. “The guy’s been my employee for a long time,” he said. “He’s been in some trouble before, and I should have fired him then. But he’s a great worker, and I like him a lot. I’ll have to let him go, now. I’m sorry this caused you concern.”
Arnie had made a bad choice, but it seemed clear he was trying to rectify it. My eyes met Robin’s, and I gave a tiny shrug.
“Okay, Arnie,” Robin said. “I want the guy to leave now. It scares me that he was even inside. Please be sure he doesn’t have any access to the house.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Arnie said hastily. “He won’t know what code you’re using for your system, and it’ll be up and running early tomorrow morning. I’ll get him to sit out in the truck while we settle up.” He laid the invoice down in front of Robin, and left the room hurriedly, his head bent as though he were thinking furiously.
“Somehow I don’t feel much better,” I said.
“What? He gave us an explanation, and offered to correct the situation.”
“His words were convincing, but his tone wasn’t.”
“We can’t give him the third degree over his tone.” Robin wasn’t being a smart-ass, he was being practical.
“When Sophie gets up, let’s put her in the car seat and take a ride. I’d like us to be out of the house and doing something fun.”
“Okay by me,” Robin said. “I don’t know how much work I’m going to get done anyway.”
We talked about his book for a little while, and he told me what the holdup was in his thought process. I had already learned Robin didn’t want me to offer a solution. He just wanted me to listen. I could certainly do that. I was always interested in how his mind worked.
In a few minutes, I heard Sophie howl. She’d had the worst bowel movement in the history of baby bowel movements. It was amazing how something so disgusting could come out of someone so cute. I must say, it seemed to have made her happy. She was making cheerful little noises and pumping her legs while I changed her, which added considerably to the mess. Finally, I got her bottom clean, the changing table clean, and then my hands. Robin was ready to put Sophie in her car seat. We stopped by my mother’s so she and John could see the baby. I was sure John would get well much more quickly if he could see the magic baby. We only stayed a few minutes, so we wouldn’t tire John. But while we were there, he mentioned coming over at least three times.
It was so nice being out together, and the weather was so pretty, we stopped off at the Finstermeyers’ house after I noticed that both Beth and George were at home.
“Hey, Roe! Haven’t actually laid eyes on you since the baby came,” Beth said. George was sitting in the family room with a book in his hands, but he put it down and rose to greet us.
They both said the appropriate things about Sophie, Beth admiring Sophie’s red hair, and George saying she was pretty like her mom, which made me laugh.
We accepted their invitation to sit.
“I know Phillip is over here a lot,” I said. “I hope he’s being a good guest?”
“The best,” Beth told me, smiling. “He’s a good kid, Roe.”
“We like him,” George said.
We talked about Josh and Phillip’s chances on the track team. We didn’t need to worry about Joss—Jocelyn. She was an excellent athlete at every sport she’d tried.
Robin said, “Arnie Petrosian installed our security system today.”
“Arnie’s a nice guy, isn’t he?” George smiled. “When we decided we needed one, we knew he was having trouble making ends meet, because his bills from Halina’s illness were just incredible. And then the funeral was expensive, they always are. Our church took up a donation to help him with it.”
This was a very different picture of Arnie’s finances than we’d gotten from Arnie.
“He said he’d been a friend of the previous owners of our house, the Martinezes?” I said. “Did they go to your church, too?”