Play Dead (9 page)

Sage tensed a little and let out a couple
of short, moderate barks, but stayed seated.

“Should I face you now?” Russell asked
timidly.

“Yes.”

Doppler, who was always friendly to just
about everybody, rushed up to greet Russell, who took a step back in fear.

“N-nice doggie,” he said with all of the
confidence of someone at rock bottom of the food chain. Doppler continued to
wag his stubby tail.

“Wow. That’s kind of weird,” Beth said. “I
don’t understand why Sage was barking before, but not now.”

“I had Russell take his hat off. That may
not be what’s behind Sage’s reaction, but I wanted to test the theory.” I
cleared my throat, grinned, and said, “Russell?”

He met my eyes, a panicked expression on
his face. He held up his palms. “Oh, no. I knew it! You’re going to ask me to
go out, put my hat on, and then come back in, aren’t you?”

Trust an engineer to figure out the best
test procedure. I mustered my sweetest voice and asked, “Would you mind
terribly?”

“All right. I’ll do it. But after I escape
from that big, vicious dog trying to eat me alive, I’ll meet you in my car. All
right?”

“Thank you, Russ,” I said, embarrassed but
still determined to go through with the plan.

“Is that your boyfriend?” Beth asked the
moment the door closed behind him.

“No, he just shares this office space.”

“Boy, does he ever have a crush on you,”
Beth said, shaking her head as she leaned back against my desk.

“You think?”

We waited in silence for what was an
inordinate amount of time for Russell simply to retrieve his hat and come back
down the steps. Sage and Doppler, in the meantime, lay down on the floor
back-to-back, nearest their respective owners.

Finally, Russell reappeared, doing his best
to tiptoe sideways down the steps, his hat perched so lightly on the top of his
head that the least little breeze would whisk it away. He barely got the door
open a crack before Sage started barking wildly. Russell slammed the door and
raced up the stairs.

“Weird,” Beth said, over the sounds of
Sage’s barking. Once again, Doppler started up too, his hackles raised in
excitement.

I held up the box of dog treats to Beth. “Time
to try learning how to distract Sage from his barking.”

She grabbed a dog bone and cried, “Come
here, Sage. Come on.”

I resisted a sigh and said, “Dog’s name
first, then the word ‘come.’”

“Sage, come.”

Sage immediately stopped barking and
obeyed. “Good dog,” Beth said, giving him the biscuit and stroking his back.

Well trained dog,
I thought. As soon as his owner could get
the hang of the basics, they’d be in good shape.

Beth began to unzip a purple fanny-pack on
her hip. “While I’m here, I want to pay you in advance for six weeks of
treatment for Sage.”

“There’s no reason for you to do that. We
don’t even know for certain that it’ll take six weeks.”

She hauled out a fistful of twenties. “Maybe
so, but I’d rather pay up while I’m thinking about it. I’ve got the cash now,
and I’m not always so good with keeping track of my money.”

She handed me the bills, and I gave her a
receipt and thanked her, stashing the cash in my wallet and reasoning that I
could always give her a refund if she had overpaid. “Were the men Sage barked
at before wearing hats, in addition to raincoats?”

Beth said slowly, “I guess they must have
been, when I think back. I just thought it had to have been the coat. I mean,
who would notice such a little thing as a man’s hat?”

“Dogs have excellent memories. While it’s
a little unusual to have a memory triggered by something visual and not a smell
or sound, Sage was probably traumatized by a man wearing a hat.”

“Yeah. Such as one shooting his owner in
the head,” Beth murmured.

“Maybe, but the trauma could have been
caused by any number of actions.” Which was why I was handicapped in not being
able to ask Hannah Jones about Sage’s personal history. Even so, it should be
fairly easy to counter condition Sage not to bark at men wearing hats. “We’ve
got a starting point now for working with Sage on Monday. But I’m afraid I’m going
to have to take a rain check on breakfast. I’ve got a basketball game to go to.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll walk out with you. I’d
like to thank your little man with the enormous crush.”

I grinned. “Let’s not call him that,
though. I have a feeling he’d take it the wrong way.” I hesitated. With Russell’s
touchiness regarding dogs, I decided there was no point in asking him if we
could drive Doppler home first.

If I was going to leave Doppler alone for
over two hours, he needed a dog bowl. My coffee cup—which would taint the
water with coffee flavor—wasn’t going to cut it. I’d have to sacrifice my
mayonnaise-jar-cum-flower-vase. I quickly filled the sink, put the flowers in
that water, rinsed out the vase and filled it to the brim.

“Okay. Let’s go. I need to leave Doppler
here.”

Seated in his car up ahead, Russell was
getting the anxious look of a man who, though he might never be on time for
anything else in his life, knew that the game’s tip-off was growing near.

Beth glanced nervously down the street,
barely managing a smile at me as she said goodbye.

Perplexed by Beth’s change in attitude, I
asked, “Are you going to walk home? We can give you and Sage a ride.”

“No, I can use the exercise. Besides, that’s
one of the reasons I—”

A black car screeched to a halt. A male
driver who was so tall his curly brown hair was nearly brushing against the
ceiling of his car rolled down the window. “Beth!”

“Oh, jeez,” Beth said under her breath, “It’s
Chet.”

“I’ve been looking all over for you!” he
called, thumping the side of his door through the window. “Figured you were out
walking your dog. What the hell’s going on?”

“You said you’d pick me up at ten. I gave
up waiting for you.”

To an outsider, Beth’s decision not to
wait sounded very reasonable, since it was now well after eleven. Chet,
however, hollered, “Shit!” He got out of the car, still in the middle of the
road. He was even taller than I’d first imagined. He looked to be at least
six-foot-five. “I was a couple minutes late. Why make a federal case out of it!”
He crossed the street, ignoring the honk of a pickup that had to drive around
his car.

Beth took a step back and gestured at me. “This
is Allida Babcock. She’s working with Sage. She already—”

He shifted his glare onto me. “What the
hell makes you think you can pull this dog shrink shit on Beth?” He towered
over me, clearly enjoying the intimidation factor.

“Because what I do
works.
I help
dog owners learn how to eliminate the cause of their dog’s behavioral problems.
And what is your noble occupation, Chet?”

He crossed his arms and studied me at
length. “You’re one of those smart mouthed pipsqueak types, aren’t you?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. As
soon as I meet enough smart mouthed pipsqueaks to know what they’re like, I’ll
let you know.” I could hear Russell’s footfalls as he approached from behind me
and wished I could signal him to stay out of this.

“You know, Beth might fall for this dog
psych garbage. ‘Oh, boo hoo!’” he imitated in a high voice. “‘My dog’s
depressed.’ But I don’t buy it. I’m not letting you con Beth out of—”

“Are you having some kind of a problem
here, buddy?” Russell asked.

Chet was a full foot taller and guffawed
as he looked down at Russell. “You’ve got to be shitting me. What would you do if
I did have a problem? Karate chop me in the knee?”

Beth grabbed onto her boyfriend’s arm and
started to try to drag him toward the car. “Oh, please, Chet. Can’t we just go?”
Sage, in the meantime, started growling at Chet.

Chet leveled a finger at me. “You watch
yourself, little girl. You try to swindle Beth, and you’ll wish you didn’t have
to answer to me!”

The basketball game proved to be a welcome
diversion to my unpleasant encounter with Beth’s boyfriend, though the
experience zapped my concentration during the first half. Chet had struck me as
a total bully—the kind who wants to dominate “his woman.” I was worried
for Beth’s sake, but was also determined not to discuss my concerns with
Russell, who was too likely to jump on any chance to build on our relationship.

The Colorado Buffaloes had had a losing
program when I left the state years ago, but now they had what announcers and
sports writers would call some “real scrappy kids” who worked hard on defense.
Offensively, however, they had a tendency to stand around the perimeter a
little too much. They needed a big man or two to work the paint. This team didn’t
have that luxury.

Russell and I struggled to make
conversation, and, to my annoyance, Russell stared at my face in profile
throughout the game. The Buffs won, and my—lest I forget— dog-disliking
date and I soon found ourselves in queue with thousands of other cars waiting
to get out of the parking lot.

“The Buffs’ point guard is terrific,” I
said. “His ball control is something to behold.”

“So are you,” Russell said, then blushed.

Oh, good grief!
Nobody had ever even
inadvertently
called
me “something to behold.” Under the circumstances, I decided to stay away from
the topic of balls entirely.

He cleared his throat, his cheeks crimson.
“Traffic sure is backed up.” After a moment, he seemed to regain his composure
and, while staring straight ahead, asked me, “So, how come you’re not married
or anything?”

“I was engaged after college. Things just
didn’t work out.”

“What happened?”

“He eloped with my maid of honor.”

“Ouch. Having had friends like that, it’s
no wonder you like dogs.”

I stared at Russell in surprise. “Dogs
certainly do tend to be more loyal than certain people. Not to mention more
trainable.” This conversation was making me a tad uncomfortable. Privately I’d
acknowledged that that particular chapter in my life had taught me to be a
little overly cautious about my choices in both girlfriends and in lovers. The
last thing I’d expected from Russell Greene was insightful analysis into my
psyche—not something I found enjoyable this early in a relationship. It
was time to employ a time-honored technique for dealing with men— get
them to talk about themselves. “How about you?”

“Haven’t found the right woman. Yet.” He
tapped the steering wheel nervously. “Or at least, if I have, she doesn’t know
she’s the one.” His cheeks reddened once again and he shot me the quickest of
glances. “Got any suggestions on ways I could sweep her off her feet?”

Well, so much for the
get-him-to-talk-about-himself technique. Of course, if I were an expert on
handling men, I wouldn’t still be single and barely scratching out a living for
myself at age thirty-two. “No, but I can give you one minor suggestion. Don’t
call her up when she’s on the radio and ask her out. We women tend to react
badly to being held up to public ridicule.”

“Now she tells me.”

There was an awkward pause, but then
traffic started to move. When we finally emerged from the lot, he commented, “That
little dog in your office was kind of cute. Was he yours?”

“Yes. His name’s Doppler.”

Russell smiled. “Maybe you can introduce
us sometime.”

“You want to meet my cocker spaniel?”

“He looks about my speed.”

“So I take it you wouldn’t want to meet my
German shepherd?”

Russell laughed, then stopped when he saw
that I wasn’t joining him. “That, uh, that wasn’t a joke, was it.”

“No, I have a cute
big
dog, too.”

“Oh,” Russell replied, then fell into
silence. As we neared our office, he said, “Are you going to invite me in for a
cup of coffee?”

“No, our cups are otherwise occupied.
Besides, I’m just going to tidy up a bit in my office and then head out to my
next appointment.” Actually, my appointment with the golden that was chewing up
house and home was two hours away, but I still wasn’t sure I should be dating
Russell Greene, who was, after all, glaringly incompatible with me in at least
one key aspect.

Russell nodded and pulled up along the
curb by the steps. “Thanks, Allida. I enjoyed being with you today. I’m glad
you let me force you into coming with me.”

“I had a great time.” It suddenly struck
me that my automatic response had been the truth, and the realization made me
uncomfortable. “Thanks for...forcing me.” I stepped out, taking a deep breath
of the rapidly chilling air. The weather was being a bit schizophrenic today,
but so were my feelings regarding my officemate. He lifted a palm in a goodbye
wave, then drove off pretty quickly for someone who’d claimed to want to meet
my dog.

I went in, Doppler rushing over toward me
then flopping at my feet for a tummy rub. “So, little guy. Did you take any
calls for me while I was out?” I rose and pressed the button on my answering
machine, but once again only a series of quick hang ups had been recorded.
Doppler leapt at me, scrambling to get his front paws even waist high.