Play Dead (5 page)

She grabbed a handful of dog food with her
good hand and offered it to Sage as we got in. Sage eagerly gobbled it down. “Thank
goodness,” Beth said under her breath.

We drove back to Beth’s house. Though
deeply concerned about whatever had caused his reaction in the parking lot, I
was tremendously relieved to know that Sage wouldn’t starve. I helped Beth carry
her food and supplies inside, then supervised Sage’s initial feeding. He wolfed
down a cup of kibble, then stood at the ready for more. I reminded Beth to
check her messages for instructions from the veterinarian, but also said that
my recommendation would be to wait an hour for a second feeding.

We set an appointment for Monday morning
at my office, and I broke my own newly established procedures and gave my home
phone number, telling her to call any time if Sage was having any serious
troubles over the weekend.

What if Hannah Jones
had
been
murdered? I asked myself as I got into my car. Sage might have been barking
because he recognized the killer in the parking lot. My stomach knotted at the
thought. That was crazy, I decided. Even if it were true, there was no reason
to think that person could have staked out my office and followed us to Beth’s
and then PetsMart. And yet, something was tugging at me—a memory that
wouldn’t quite return in full color.

It was after five, and I was beginning to
feel anxious to be with my own dogs—especially Pavlov. It was terribly
hard to own such a wonderful, intelligent animal as my shepherd and only have
weekend visitations. Yet I had the slip of paper from Sage’s dog food bag
burning a hole in my pocket. I decided to stop into my office and call the
number.

Russell’s Volvo was already gone. That was
unusual. He tended to work long hours. The door to our joint entrance—the
only access to Russell’s office was through mine—was locked. Curiously,
the overhead lights in both offices were off, but the small reading light on my
desk was now on, though I hadn’t used that lamp all day. I made my way over to
the lamp. It was angled so as to shine on a ticket to a CU Buffs basketball
game, along with the note:

Dear Miss Babcock,

I happened to have an extra ticket to
tomorrow’s 11:45
a.m.
game. (It’s
the early game on national TV and supposed to be a great match.) Use it, don’t
use it, give it away to an attractive female friend. Whatever. No pressure. I’m
including my business card with my home address and phone number, just in case
you’re concerned about pollution and want to ride over there with me.

Yours always, (and I mean that in a friendly, casual sense)

Russ

I smiled and shook my head, thinking:
No
thank you, Russ.
And I mean that in a friendly, casual sense.

I dialed the number on the piece of paper
Beth had given me and held it up to the light as I waited for someone to pick
up. There were some telltale translucent areas, as if the paper had been
soaking up the additive for some time. A woman answered. I identified myself,
then explained that I got this phone number from Sage’s new owner.

“Oh, yes! You’re the dog psychiatrist
lady,” the woman cried, her voice filled with awe as if she were talking to a
celebrity.

Psychologist,
I silently corrected, wondering just how
many listeners today’s show could have had, considering it had been axed. “You
were listening to the broadcast?”

“Yes, once my neighbor called and told me
you were talking about Hannah and her dog. I should introduce myself. My name
is Susan Corning. Dennis, my husband, and I were taking care of Sage after
Hannah’s death. Hannah lived next door to us, so we’re especially interested in
any stories about her.” She paused, then said, “How’s Sage doing? I understand
he won’t eat anything.”

“I think he’s going to be fine. Was he
eating when he was with you?”

“Well, yes and no. He would eat
Shakespeare’s food, but he wouldn’t touch his own. And Shakespeare—that’s
our shih tzu—was getting so upset by that, of course, that we just
figured Sage preferred Shakespeare’s brand, so we started putting that in Sage’s
bowl, too, by the second day he was here. That worked out fine. We wanted to
keep Sage for ourselves, by the way, but Shakespeare was just too jealous.
Plus, we have a two-year-old who kept trying to treat Sage like a pony, and we
weren’t sure how long Sage’d put up with that.”

So at least Sage was eating well until
Beth adopted him,
I
thought. I considered telling Susan about the Bitter Apple, but, not knowing
the motive behind the food dousing, I decided I’d rather err on the side of
reticence, at least for the time being. “Can you tell me anything about Hannah’s
relationship with her dog?”

“She treated Sage like he was a person.
Better, actually.” In the background, I heard what was either a shrill-pitched
bird or a squeeze toy. “She was always cooking sirloin for him, which she
wouldn’t even eat herself. She was the original Boulder vegetarian, and an
eccentric one at—Brian! Don’t put that in your mouth! That belongs to
Shakespeare!”

“I swear,” Susan grumbled, this time to
me. “This happens every time I’m on the phone.”

“Ms. Jones didn’t have any ethical
objections to feeding her dog meat?” This “sirloin” shot down the only
reasonable theory I had formulated—that Hannah Jones had been making some
ill-conceived attempt to convert Sage to vegetarianism.

“Well, yes and no,” Susan replied for the
second time. “As a matter of fact, she had been trying to invent a meatless
recipe that Sage liked. But the woman was eccentric, not stupid. She did realize
that Sage was—Brian! No!—that Sage was a dog and needed meat.”

“Were you surprised that she committed
suicide?”

“Surprised?” There was a long pause. She
lowered her voice and said, “She told us she owned a handgun, which made us
nervous, of course. She used to babysit for Brian every now and then. The gun
belonged to her late husband, and the rumor was that
he ‘d
used it to
commit suicide. In five years of living next door to her, we never saw it, and
she certainly never used it. I guess she must have...gotten tired of living
with the cancer and decided to join her husband.”

“She had cancer?”

“Leukemia. It had been in remission, but
maybe her condition had recently taken a swing for the worst.”

“I’m a little surprised she didn’t make
arrangements for someone she knew to take care of Sage after her death.”

“Yes, that did seem odd, for Hannah.”

“I’ll let you go. Thank you for speaking
with me.” I hung up, gathered my belongings, and locked the door. I managed to
hit the traffic just right to make a quick left turn onto Broadway. If I
hurried home, I could pick up Doppler before Kaitlyn, my chronically depressed
house owner and roommate, arrived.

Minutes later, I pulled up to the curb by
my house in the northwest section of town. It was a little two-bedroom that
looked to be the type of temporary house Laura Ingalls’s father might have
erected during one of their stopovers—Little House by the Rockies. Though
the house was dwarfed—and often shaded—by a brick apartment
building next door, I chose the place because of its low rent and proximity to
my office. Also because it had a wonderful, large backyard with a small,
Doppler-sized dog door that the previous owners had installed. I might have
even considered the place cozy, had I been living with a less neurotic
roommate.

I left my engine running for a fast
getaway and started to trot up the concrete walkway. To my complete surprise,
Doppler was sitting on the front porch. Doppler gave me his usual unadulterated
loving greeting, wagging his stubby tail so hard his rear end was wagging as
well. He was buff colored with patches of white on his nose and chest.

“How did you get out?” I asked, wishing he
could just answer so I wouldn’t have to search for holes in the wire-mesh
fence.

I tried to unlock the front door, then
realized it was already unlocked. The hinge creaked as the door slowly swung
open.

“Kaitlyn?” I called nervously. There was
no answer, and her car was not out front. Kaitlyn was the most
security-conscious person I’d ever met. She would never deliberately leave the
house unlocked. Something was very wrong.

My heart pounding, I shoved the door wide
open and peered inside. Nothing looked out of place. Doppler waited for me to
enter first, as he’d been trained to do. This was the first time my dog’s
training had backfired on me. Teaching a dog to wait for his owner to cross a
doorway is very important in establishing the owner’s rank as master— but
not especially desirable when said “master” is possibly about to confront a
prowler.

“Anybody home?” I called, hoping to give a
would-be burglar enough warning to get out through the back door. I stepped
inside. The house was silent. Reassuringly, Doppler was quiet and stayed by my
feet. He has such an excellent nose that, had there been a prowler still in the
house, Doppler would have darted off, barking as he followed the scent.

Nevertheless, somebody had unlocked the
door and let Doppler out. “Is anybody here?” I asked again.

Silence.

The living room furnishings seemed intact.
I wandered toward the kitchen. Doppler sat and tilted his head as he watched
me, puzzled by my actions. Still fearing the possibility of stumbling onto a
burglar—who would be sorely disappointed by our offerings—I wanted
to make some noise. I sang the only song that popped into my head, “I’m an Old
Cowhand,” which was a very odd choice, as I only know the one lyric—that
the guy was from the Rio Grande. Repeating that one lyric, I checked the
bedrooms, hallway, and bathroom, finding nothing amiss.

Doppler trotted along beside me as I
circled the interior and returned to the living room. “Sure wish you could tell
me how this happened, sweet dog,” I said to him. He, of course, didn’t answer.
I knelt and nuzzled against his soft fur.

There was a clatter and a bang from the
still-open doorway behind me. “Allida?”

I recognized my roommate’s voice. I winced
and slowly turned. It was even worse than usual. Kaitlyn Wayne had to have been
crying for hours to get her face that blotchy. How could she have managed to drive
in this condition? Maybe that explained the unlocked door. Perhaps Kaitlyn had
come home early and then left, so emotionally overwhelmed, she forgot to lock
the door.

Under unemotional circumstances, she was
an attractive woman—five foot five, nicely built despite her own
continual assessment that she was “so overweight I’m disgusting,” and auburn
hair. Yet I wasn’t even sure what color her eyes were, the irises were so
overwhelmed by her eyes being frequently bloodshot and red-rimmed.

“Oh, Allida,” Kaitlyn whimpered. “Thank
goodness. There you are.”

“No, there I’m not. I’m just passing
through.” I rose for emphasis. “I have to go to—”

“He called.”

“Your husband?” I asked, unable to keep
the amazement from my voice.

Kaitlyn nodded, sniffling.

Uh oh. Maybe he was back in town. “He
doesn’t still have a key to the front door, does he?”

“Of course he does. The house belongs to
both
of us.”

I grimaced. So much for my impression of
her being security-conscious. The man had left her three years ago, but Kaitlyn
clung to the hope that he would see the error of his ways and return to her.
For a spacious bedroom and access to the whole house, she had charged me well
below market value, on the condition that I “be prepared to move out the minute
my husband returns.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Bill didn’t call
me.
He
called a real estate agent we both know here in town. He told
her
to
call me and see if I was interested in selling our house and giving him half
the proceeds. Do you believe that?”

Yes, actually.
“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. I’m not going to sell. Not until
he comes back for me. I told the agent to tell him that. She claims she doesn’t
even know where he is or what his number is. That she has to wait till he calls
her again. I asked her when that would be, but she
claims
she doesn’t
know.” Kaitlyn started to weep openly, a tiny whimper that would gradually
increase to a wail.

Doppler began to let out whiny little
pants, not able to understand why Kaitlyn was crying. I stroked his sleek fur.
The first few times Kaitlyn had done this, I had been sympathetic. However,
after only three and a half weeks of living with her, I’d lost track of the
crying jags I’d witnessed and was now only looking out for myself and my dog. “Kaitlyn,
when I got home, the house was unlocked and Doppler was sitting on the porch.”

She instantly stopped crying and looked at
me. “Then he was here! He must have been!” Kaitlyn’s expression turned to joy,
which should have been a refreshing change—if she hadn’t been quite so
manic. She grabbed my arms and did a couple of cheerleader hops, squealing, “Bill’s
back!”

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until
you talk to...Bill before you get all excited? Just to make sure he’s
feeling—”