Play Dead (12 page)

“Uh, sure. That’d be fine. Rex and I will
be waiting.”

I thanked him and hung up. According to
statistics, Rex was one of those perennially popular dog names, but this was
the first time I’d heard of a dog in Boulder with that name.

Doppler was making it clear that he needed
to go outside—all but crossing his legs as the whites of his eyes turned
yellow. I took both dogs out, wondering what to do with Sage. Taking him to my
house was out of the question. Kaitlyn would never consider having such a large
dog at the house, and more important, being around Kaitlyn and all her
emotional storm patterns wouldn’t be healthy for Sage.

I did a double take at my car as we
rounded the building toward the side lawn. Was it my imagination, or was my
Subaru listing to the right? I bent over and inspected the tires, and sure
enough, the right front was totally flat.

“Shit!” What next? And why now? The tire
hadn’t been leaking. Maybe I’d run over a nail or something and hadn’t realized
it. Was everything connected? Had someone let the air out of my tire after
killing Beth? I glanced at the dogs, who were fine. I struggled to calm myself.
I’d go crazy if I started to think every least little thing was linked to Beth
Gleason.

We returned to my office. Doppler was in
playful-dog mood while Sage was in such an anxious state that he might bite.
Sage growled at Doppler and trotted into Russell’s office and, to my surprise,
hopped onto the couch. My little dog followed, not taking the hint. I ushered
Doppler back into my office with me, closing Russell’s door.

I grabbed my keys and went out to the car,
letting Doppler come with me, only to put him in the backseat to keep him safe
while I changed the tire. I’d just gotten the spare out of the trunk and was
unloading the jack when a deep male voice said, “Hi, there. Can I help?”

Jumpy and out-of-sorts, I turned to face a
nicely built, bearded young man, but my eyes were immediately drawn to his dog,
a small mutt that appeared to be mostly terrier and toy poodle—a toodle.
When I looked back up, the man was smiling at me. His dark, almost black hair
was in need of a trim.

“No, thanks. I can handle it.”

Doppler and the toodle spotted each other
and barked—his giving a shrill yipping song, mine enjoying his superior
position up high in my car.

“I’m sure you can, but odds are, I could
do it faster.”

That was tempting, as he was probably
correct, and I would love to get Sage and Doppler out of here. Furthermore, it
was probably a coincidence that my tire went flat around the time Beth Gleason
was murdered, but I couldn’t know for certain that this man with his toodle
hadn’t set me up. Just in case, I stared at him, memorizing the features
beneath his dark beard.

“My name’s Joel,” he added. “Joel Meyer.”

I forced a smile—being in a
decidedly bad mood—and shook my head. “Thanks for offering. Really. But I
don’t mind taking aggression out on some lug nuts. Besides, you do something as
macho as change my tire, and I’ll feel obligated to do some unmacho favor for
you—” I pointed at the torn pocket of his flannel shirt “—such as
stitch up that tear in your shirt, and I’m not much of a seamstress.”

He watched in silence—not counting
his yapping dog—as I pried the hubcap off, then tried to loosen the first
lug nut.
Uh oh.
The blasted lug nuts had been machine tightened. I might
need a sledgehammer to get them off.

“All right, then. Tell you what,” he said.
“How about I change your tire, then you buy me a cup of coffee.”

Talk about not taking “no” for an answer.
Does this guy wander around neighborhoods, searching for flat tires to change?

“Sorry. I don’t think so.” I kept my
attention on the tire, wondering how long I could stall. I’d changed enough
tires with machine-tightened lug nuts to know what I was in for. I was going to
have to stand and possibly bounce on the end of the wrench till the lug nut
budged and I fell off my precarious perch. This was not the kind of dignified
process for which I wanted to have a witness.

“Joel!” a deep yet feminine voice called
from the bottom of the hill. “Don’t be a dolt! Change the lady’s tire!” I
whirled around and spotted Tracy Truett heading down the sidewalk toward us.

Caught off guard by Tracy’s unexpected
appearance, I let Joel take the wrench out of my hand and replace it with the
leash to his dog. He had the lug nuts loose by the time Tracy reached us.

Tracy was breathing hard and sweating
profusely, despite the chill in the air, as she strode up the hill. She was wearing
a navy blue knit top and matching pants, with a black cape around her shoulders
that rippled in the wind. With her spiky hair and impressive size, she looked
as if she might have come straight out of the comic pages—Batman’s
villain, Big She-Bat.

“We meet again,” she said to me, smiling
broadly. She pointed down at my small office window, which afforded me a little
light and views of pedestrians’ ankles. “That your office?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I got your address off your flier. Got
any coffee?”

After finding the body of a murdered
client, now I was supposed to have coffee with Tracy Truett? What was next? A
game of badminton with Darth Vader? “I’m afraid you caught me on the wrong day.
I don’t have any cups.”

“I’ll drink it straight from the pot.” She
grabbed the leash from my hand and started to lead Joel’s dog toward my office.
She said over her shoulder, “Joel can come join us as soon as he’s finished.
Come on, Suzanne.”

I thanked Joel, let Doppler out of my car,
then said, “By the way, my name’s Allida, not Suzanne.”

“I know. Suzanne is the dog’s name.”

Joel’s mutt yipped fiercely at Doppler,
aggression which Doppler returned. He was squaring off, prepared to defend his
space.

“Shut up, Suzanne,” Tracy said, then
looked at me. “Unpleasant little dog. Joel takes her everywhere.”

I started coffee brewing, wishing I could
just curl into the fetal position until Tracy and crew left. By the time I’d
returned my attention to her, she was comfortably settled into my desk chair,
pushing herself back and forth a quarter turn or so, while Suzanne sat in her
lap and, from this safe perch, barked at Doppler. The racket was getting to me.
I was off duty now and didn’t want to deal with bark management. I swept up my
dog, though he had every reason in the world to bark, and marched toward
Russell’s office. Sage was napping on Russell’s couch, but opened his eyes as
we entered. “Good dog,” I reassured him, then left Doppler.

“I take it Joel’s a friend of yours?” I
asked as I returned to my human visitor.

She nodded, then grimaced. “This is every
bit as unpleasant as I imagined.”

“My office?”

“No, my coming here. To apologize.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“‘Course I do. Why else would I be here,
hung over as all hell?”

“I don’t know. To coerce your friend Joel to
change my tire, perhaps?”

“Nah. He wanted to come. In fact, we
spotted you out there with your flat tire while I was looking for a parking
spot, and he asked for a minute alone with you.”

“Why?”

“He’s got the hots for you.”

I was too surprised to say anything.

“You’d be amazed how many men called the
station yesterday to ask about you. Must have been at least five.” She
chuckled, then settled back in my chair. “Well, all right, two.” She pressed
her palms against her spiked hair and muttered, “Holy crow, what a headache I’ve
got. Got any aspirin?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Too bad you didn’t land on my show a year
ago. I could’ve run a radio dating service and been the hottest thing since
sliced toast. Anyway, Joel’s a real decent guy. Used to work for the station and
now calls into my show every day.” She sneered and rolled her eyes. “Guess I
need to remember to use past tense when referring to my show. But, the long and
short of it is, he wants you.”

The timing of this announcement was so bad
that my stomach lurched. “Why? He doesn’t even know me.”

“Ask him yourself,” Tracy said, gesturing
at the door, where Joel was just entering. “Joel, dear, I was just telling our
friend here how you want to ask her out.”

Joel froze and gaped at her, then gave me
a sheepish grin. “I’d planned to be charming and tactful.”

“Aah, go ahead, Allida. Go out with the
guy. He’s a real peach. Just happens to go for the petite type.” She put both
hands on her hips and said in a husky voice, “Though I keep telling you, Joel,
you don’t know what you’re missing.”

Joel chuckled nervously and smiled at me. “It
was never my intention to put you on the spot like this.”

He was being so sweet that I smiled
despite my state of inner turmoil. Russell came bounding down the outer steps
and burst into my office. He stood back in surprise as he eyed Tracy and Joel,
all the while slipping what looked like a greeting card into a pocket of his
jacket. He shrugged in my direction. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. You said you
had an appointment with a golden retriever. I figured, you’d be out, making a
house call.” He stared at the white-and-gray mutt in Tracy’s lap and muttered, “I
decided I could get a lot of work done today, with no ringing phones and...”
His voice drifted off, and he met my eyes. “I don’t know much about dogs, but
aren’t goldens normally a lot bigger than that and kind of yellowish?”

“I never forget a voice,” Tracy said too
loudly for the small room. “Tracy Truett,” she said. She rose and stashed
Suzanne under her left arm as if the little dog were a football, then pumped
Russell’s hand. “You called my radio show yesterday.” She peered down at him. “You
sounded taller on the phone.” She turned toward Joel. “Well, guy, this is the
Russell who asked Allida out on the show yesterday.” She jabbed his shoulder
and laughed with abandon. “Boys, meet your competition.”

Sage was starting to whimper. I opened the
door to Russell’s office, half hoping Sage would start barking at Joel to
demonstrate he might be the killer. Both dogs raced into the room. Sage did
indeed start barking, but at Tracy and the small dog in her arms.

“Oh my gawd!” Tracy shrieked. “Is that the
collie that the girl called in about?”

“Yes.” I called for Sage, and he came
right over to me, but maintained a rhythmic, nervous bark. Tracy narrowed her
eyes as she watched us. “I remember.” She snapped her fingers. “Beth Gleason.
Where is she?”

“She...” I paused, hesitant at the thought
that, for all I knew, Tracy Truett would be on another radio station tomorrow,
blabbing about Beth Gleason’s death and running listener surveys. “She’s dead.
I’m sure you’ll be reading about it in tomorrow’s paper.”

“Dead?”

“That woman who called your show
yesterday?” Russell asked in shock. “She’s dead? What happened?”

“I don’t know. Somebody stabbed her. Early
this afternoon.”

“If it’d help, I’d be more than happy to
watch after her dog for a while, provided my dog gets along with him,” Joel
offered.

“I’ll
watch him. Sage, I mean,” Russell shot back, moving closer
to me despite a nervous glance at the still-barking Sage. “I don’t have another
dog to worry about.”

Joel, I noticed, had taken a step closer
to me as well. They were posturing, acting as territorial toward me as a pair
of male dogs to a bone. Good thing they
weren’t
male dogs, or I’d have
to shampoo the carpet.

“No, thanks, both of you,” I replied
harshly. “I’ll take care of him. He’s...been through a lot.”

“Coffee’s done,” Tracy said. She thrust
Suzanne into Joel’s arms, snatched the Pyrex pot off its stand, tore off its
lid, and sipped from it as if it were an oversized cup. Just watching her sip
that hot liquid made my eyes water. Years of nonstop talking must have
anesthetized her mouth.

She glanced around the room at us. “Excuse
my lips, but does anybody else want some?”

“No, thanks,” the three of us said in
unison.

“My cup’s underneath the sink, catching
drips,” I explained to Russell, who was staring at Tracy, utterly appalled.

Suzanne was yipping away at the other
dogs, and Sage was barking sporadically and pacing around the room, badly
stressed out. Russell was looking more than a little uncomfortable at being
surrounded by barking dogs.

I moved toward the door, hoping they’d all
take the hint that I wanted them on the other side of it. “It was nice meeting
you, Joel. Really. But I’ve got to kick everybody out. I have to take Sage
home.”

“Maybe I can call you for a date sometime?”

“Sure, that would be...fine,” I answered,
thinking under normal circumstances I’d be both flattered and tempted. Now,
though, it was unlikely I’d accept any dates until Beth’s murder was solved and
my life began to make sense again.

“I gotta tell you, Allida,” Tracy said,
wagging her thumb in Joel’s direction as she set the coffeepot on top of my
file cabinet. “I’d take this guy in a second if I were you.”