Play Dead

by Leslie O'Kane

  The self put-down struck me as sincere, yet a martyr-ish overstatement. He was not especially good-looking, but the sight of his face wasn’t guaranteed to disappoint a prospective date, either. “I wish you’d given both yourself and me more credit than that.”

  He frowned and nodded. “You’re right. But Alex was so anxious to go out with you after hearing you speak on some radio show or something that it seemed like the best solution.” He held out the flowers to me, which I accepted. “I brought you these, by way of an apology.”

  His words had highlighted a concern that now gnawed at me—Alex was yet another man interested in me only after he’d learned about my connection to Sage. “Thank you. Apology accepted. And flowers certainly weren’t necessary, but I appreciate them.”

  Again, he nodded and seemed to be on the verge of weighing his next words. “It was nice meeting you, Allida,” Keith said, then turned toward the exit. “Again, I’m really sorry. I’ll do my best to apologize to your mother, as well.”

  He left, trotting up the cement stairs without hesitation. This might just be a sign that this odd little wave of men attracted to me was about to enter ebb tide and return me to my usual long stretches between dates. I set his roses alongside Russell’s in their pathetic mayonnaise jar and felt my heart lurch. Whatever happened to those pseudo-statistics that had me—in my thirties—more likely to be taken hostage than to find an eligible man? The way my life was going, the terrorist would ask me out—then shoot me when I declined.

  All of these guys had—coincidentally, I could only hope—entered my life at the same time as Sage. At least I’d met Russell weeks before Beth Gleason had turned my life upside down. Russell had let his attraction to me be known from the very first.

  I stared at his door and entertained the notion of bursting in and returning his kiss. Then good sense took over, and I collected my things to return Pavlov to Mom’s. I’d planned to keep her with me all day—but that was before I knew about my officemate’s justifiable fear of shepherds.

  Before we could get out the door, the phone rang. The deep voice on the other end identified himself as Dennis Corning. “Listen,” he said. “I know this is unexpected, but we need to hire you to work with Shakespeare. Right away.”

  “Shakespeare?” Warning signals went off in my brain. The Comings’ dog had seemed quite well-behaved yesterday. His parting words to me had been that if he were Sage’s caretaker, he “wouldn’t let that dog out of sight.” This from someone who’d taken Sage to the Humane Society. Perhaps he was trying to get to Sage through me. “What’s your dog doing?”

  “He’s got garbage-itis again. This is the second time. Yesterday, after you left, he got real sick, and we took him to the vet. He’d eaten a batch of Brian’s crayons. He’s much better today, but he’s leaving multicolored presents all over our yard, if you get my drift.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief for my own sake, but was immediately worried for the dog. “Garbage-itis” was not the sort of problem that could be easily faked. Nor was it easy to cure. “I take it, then, you want me to train him not to eat nonfood items?”

  “To stop being a garbage disposal, yeah.”

  This was an interesting connection. Shakespeare had eaten bad “food” at the household that had possessed and then passed along Sage’s tainted food. Maybe, while treating Shakespeare, I could learn the cause for Sage’s troubles. My instincts were telling me that the tainted food was somehow the key to both Beth’s and Hannah’s murders. Until those crimes were solved, I’d be unable to put my life in order. “I’ll work with him. How soon did you have in mind?”

  “As close to now as you can swing. I don’t want Shakespeare to put himself through this sh— this junk again.”

  I glanced at my watch, then at Pavlov, who was pacing as if she were a caged animal. I needed to get her back to my mom’s, where she could roam around the fully fenced acre. “I could be there in two hours. Can you meet us at your place?”

  “Me? I didn’t think I’d need to be there. I’m at work. Susan and Brian and, of course, Shakespeare are going to be there, though.”

  “If you can’t make it, that’s fine, but it’d be best if the entire family was there at once.”

  “This is really Susan’s problem. She’s the one who hasn’t trained Brian not to leave his toys around. Nor the dog not to eat them. But, whatever. I’ll come home and meet you on my lunch break.”

  Big of you, I thought sourly, disliking his reference to his wife being solely responsible for “training” their son and dog. Nonetheless, I managed a pleasant, “See you then,” and hung up.

  I made good time driving to Berthoud during this off-hour. All three dogs were happy to see one another. I let them into the yard, indulging myself by watching them romp outside and stage their top-dog battles.

  This was nice, I thought, leaning against the cool glass of the back door. Much better than living in my little house with my little maniacal roommate. If I stayed here, the dogs could be together. Then again, there was now that dreadful drive ahead of me...which would grow truly tedious by winter. After fourteen years of independence, was I seriously considering living in Mom’s house again? No. I had to find a place of my own in Boulder soon. Within the next few months, at any rate. I made myself a sandwich, grabbed a can of soda, and headed back to Boulder to eat while behind the wheel.

  * * *

  Susan Corning ushered me into her elegant living room. Even with no makeup, barefoot, and in jeans and a pale blue angora sweater, she fit in this room with all its pricey appointments. As opposed to how out of place I felt here, despite my reasonably nice black slacks and beige blouse. Brian was on the floor at his mother’s feet, hammering pegs into a block. The process had the little two-year-old thoroughly mesmerized.

  “Let me ask you this,” I said to Susan, once I’d collected the rest of the pertinent background information about the gray-and-white shin tzu. “If your son were to, say, spill some of his...” What did wealthy people feed their children? Escargot? Caviar? “...macaroni and cheese on the kitchen floor, do you allow Shakespeare to eat it?”

  Susan chuckled. “Sounds as though you’ve been eating supper with us. That happens all the time. Is that bad?”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘bad,’ but it can lead Shakespeare to think that he’s supposed to eat whatever Brian drops, including crayons.”

  “Oh, I see. But I simply can’t collect every last item that Brian drops. The thing is, Allida, I’m just not sure how much more of this garbage his little system can take.”

  It took me a moment to sort the pronouns in her statement and realize she was referring to the dog’s literally eating garbage. “There are two ways I should be able quickly to break Shakespeare of the habit of eating off the floor. The fastest method is to use a long, light lead and a choke collar, which one of us would tug whenever Shakespeare tried to eat something off the floor.”

  Susan shook her head. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “Of course not. But bear in mind that a brief pressure on Shakespeare’s trachea is considerably less painful than the indigestion he’s been causing himself.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What’s the second choice?”

  “Sound aversion therapy.”

  “Which is?”

  I explained that I would press the button on my noisemaker every time Shakespeare tried to eat a treat off the floor and praise him each time he’d eat something I offered to him. This was the method she chose, and Shakespeare proved to be a quick study. Then I expanded the lesson to include food offered by the family, and especially to avoid inedible items that Brian dropped.

  Dennis never showed up, but he finally called just as I was about to leave. Susan handed me the phone, and he immediately explained, “Something came up at work. How’d it go?”

  “Fine. I’ll just need you and everyone else in the family to reinforce the message that Shakespeare is only to eat the food that is directly offered to h
im.”

  “No problemo.”

  His haughty tone of voice annoyed me. Was I just being touchy here, or was Susan infinitely classier than her yuppy husband?

  “Say,” he went on, “I hope this little incident hasn’t made you decide against us getting Sage.”

  I squared my shoulders. My nervous system was now tensing as if the very mention of the collie’s name were as grating as nails on a blackboard. “I’m sorry, but since the last time I spoke with you, I’ve decided to give Sage to somebody else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  From the corner of my vision, I saw Susan react and give me her full attention as well. “Exactly what I said. I already found a good home for Sage.”

  “Damn you! How can you decide something like that without waiting to see if we’d make you a better offer?”

  His shouts rang in my ear. Out of deference to his wife and son who were still nearby, I kept my voice level. “This isn’t a public auction. Through no choice of my own, I’ve found myself in charge of finding a good home for a dog. That’s what I’ve succeeded in doing.”

  “Have it your way. We’ll find ourselves another collie. In the meantime, you’re fired!” He hung up on me.

  I set the receiver down and looked at Susan, who was now hovering beside me, no doubt having surmised the rancor between her husband and me. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Except for the fact that I’ve been fired, yes.”

  She lifted her chin and said pleasantly, “Oh, you have not been.”

  “Your husband was quite clear. He said, ‘You’re fired.’ That’s pretty hard to misinterpret.” Along with his having cursed in my ear.

  “In that case, you’re rehired, by me.” I started to protest, but she brushed my concerns aside with the explanation, “I’ll handle things with my husband. He’s always made it clear that he thinks I’m in charge of Shakespeare, so that makes this my decision.”

  I couldn’t argue with her logic, though Dennis probably could. The friction between Dennis and me reminded me that I had yet to attempt to learn more about Sage. “By the way, did you or your husband ever meet Beth Gleason?” I asked on the off chance that this could lead me to a clue.

  To my surprise, she sighed and nodded, combing her fingers through her blond curls. “That young woman was quite a nuisance, always hanging around Hannah. At first, I used to think she wanted Hannah to adopt her or something, till I found out that her father could have bought and sold all of us put together.”

  I was so confused by this my thoughts were reeling. Beth had given me the impression that she only knew Sage and Hannah Jones through the cooking class.

  The hammer and peg board long since deserted, Brian had been darting from room to room, but now entered and asked, “Mommy?”

  “Not now, honey,” she replied.

  “You knew Beth’s father?” I asked, trying to work backward to make some sense of this.

  “Just by reputation. He’s the CEO of a major computer company. Beth, however, latched on to Hannah after taking one of her cooking classes. In the last few weeks before Hannah died, every time I’d drop by for a visit, there was Beth. The minute Hannah died, Beth was on the phone to us, leaving message after message asking if we’d give her the dog. Dennis and I decided Sage would be better off with someone else—anyone else—as an owner. We took him down to the shelter and...” Susan lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender “...the joke was on us. She’d left her name there as wanting to adopt a collie, and she got Sage within a couple hours of our bringing him in.”

  That didn’t jibe with what Beth had told me. She’d said she called Hannah’s machine to inquire about adopting Sage. That once she got him, she called the number Dennis had left in the kibble, but wouldn’t tell the Comings where she lived.

  “What did you do when you learned that Beth had adopted Sage?”

  She shook her head and lifted Brian, who’d begun tugging on her sweater for attention. “Nothing. What could we do? We spoke to her only once after that and—”

  “When she called the number Dennis had left in the dog food?”

  “Right. We wished her well and asked her to keep us posted as to how Sage was doing.”

  “How did she know to call you prior to that?”

  Susan furrowed her brow and turned her attention to her son, who said in no uncertain terms that he wanted “Juice!” She carried him into the kitchen, asking me over her shoulder, “You mean...when she was trying to get us to give her the dog?”

  “Yes.”

  She filled a Winnie-the-Pooh cup with what looked to be fresh-squeezed juice and sent Brian on his way again. Watching her, though, I got the strong feeling my question had upset her. It had apparently never occurred to her to wonder about this. “I don’t know. Dennis must have said something to her at some point about how we watched Sage whenever Hannah was out of town.” She wasn’t meeting my eyes. “Or maybe Hannah had told her that.” After a pause, she brightened. “That must be it. As far as I know, she never even met Dennis. I mean, he’s always gone during the day, when Beth tended to be at Hannah’s place. Of course! Hannah would have told her at some point that we watched her dog.”

  She looked positively relieved at having come up with this answer. Why was the thought of Dennis and Beth having spoken prior to Hannah’s death so unsettling to her? Only one answer to that question came to mind, which would mean Dennis Corning was every bit as big a jerk as I’d felt he was. Bigger, even.

  At five P.M., I was waiting, as planned, on the curb outside George Haggerty’s house, listening to Rex’s pathetic howls within. A classic case of separation anxiety. This was one bored, lonely dog who considered himself master of his pack and couldn’t understand why his pack members— George and his wife—were deserting him during the day.

  George pulled into his driveway, and we agreed to have me go into the house first. We further agreed that I would put a leash with a gentle leader on Rex, which George would give a quick yank on and say “No,” while I activated my noisemaker. I went in through his garage, surprising Rex, who was all poised to leap on his owner. To Rex’s great credit, it looked as though he was tempted to goose me, but remembered what had happened yesterday. I slipped the collar over his head and glanced around, seeing no immediate signs of destruction.

  George came in, the dog pounced, George snapped the leash and said, “Down,” instead of “No,” but otherwise everything went according to plan. Rex stood there blinking as if wondering what had happened.

  “Let’s see how many more of my possessions he’s laid to waste during the day,” George muttered, surveying the place as he strode past me.

  Normally, after having destroyed parts of the house in the owner’s absence, a dog cowers when his master does this—not because the dog knows he’s done wrong, but because the dog has learned that Master Plus Damage Equals Punishment. Rex, however, trotted happily by George’s side, which told me that George wasn’t punishing Rex. Maybe, I silently mused, I’d been misspelling Rex’s name all along. Maybe it was Wrecks, as in what he did to the house.

  George returned with a small, unrecognizable object clenched in his hand. He promptly threw it in the trash. “Well, it’s a little better, anyway.”

  “Don’t get discouraged.” I removed the leash while speaking. “This has been going on for more than a year. It’s going to take more than one or two sessions till he’s learned new habits.”

  George ran his palm across his baldpate, his shoulders sagging. In a major non sequitur, he said, “The papers said they were reopening Hannah Jones’s murder case.”

  “They’re calling it murder now?”

  “Actually, the coroner still says it appears to be a suicide, but they want to look into the possible connection between the two deaths.” He plopped down onto his dilapidated couch and looked up at me. “Maybe Hannah’s dog is cursed, like Jimmy Dean’s car.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know. Th
at young actor. He was probably before your time. Everybody who owned even a piece of that car he crashed in would get into a terrible accident. Maybe it’s the same with Sage. If I were you, I’d give him to somebody you don’t like very much.”

  This conversation was giving me the willies. Was Mom safely back from her flight lessons? If not, Sage and the other dogs had been all alone most of the day.

  “Could I use your phone?”

  “Sure. In the kitchen near the sink. It’s slightly gnawed, of course, but it still works.”

  My mother answered on the first ring. I greeted her, then said, “I’m at a client’s house now, but I’m going to be leaving in—”

  “You need to get a cellular phone or at least a beeper.”

  “I know. I will. It just seems so...Boulderish. Why? Have you been trying to reach me?”

  “Pavlov is acting really strange.”

  My heart started pounding, but I managed to ask relatively calmly, “What’s she doing?”

  “She won’t come when I call. She’s in the far corner of the yard, and whenever the other dogs come near her she barks. It’s as if she’s guarding something.”

  “Oh, shit!” I blurted, realizing what was likely going on with my dog. “Mom, drop the phone and go out there now! See if she’s near a piece of meat on the lawn!”

  “A piece of meat? I haven’t given her any—”

  “I know! That’s my point! Somebody could have tossed poisoned meat over the fence!”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” my mother cried. There was a thunk, then a long silence after she dropped the phone.

  Chapter 16

  “You were right,” Mom said, breathless from her dash across the lawn, her voice strained with barely checked emotion. “Pavlov was guarding a big chunk of hamburger.”

  “Are there any bite marks in the meat?”

  “No. I don’t think the dogs ate any of this meat. I just hope there weren’t any other pieces that Doppler or Sage...” She let her voice trail off.