My heart sank at the discrepancies. Harry had seemed to have the better memory of the two. If the man was clean-shaven, Joel had to be crossed off my list. “Was his hair curly, straight, wavy?”
“Hard to say. He always wore a fedora, even when he was inside. Rude, I’d call it. Least it wasn’t a backward baseball cap.”
This touched off quite an argument about the way the man actually looked. I was now deeply regretting that I’d agreed to come to the apartment before asking the other members and teachers of the cooking class for a description.
“Did he say what type of dog he owned?” I asked.
“A poodle,” they answered in unison.
“He said his poodle looked a lot like Misty, but not quite of such obvious show quality,” Eudora added.
I nodded appreciatively at Misty, who had that intelligent look in her eyes that I so appreciate in poodles. However, Misty also had large white markings on her chest and stomach that would disqualify her on sight from any professional dog show. The mention of Misty being of “show quality” was such a line, I had a feeling that the slick salesman owned a fictitious dog, which would morph into a slightly inferior version of whatever breed his prospective customers happened to own.
“Did he say what his dog’s name was?”
“Goldie,” Harry said.
An interesting name for a black poodle—though a common one for a golden retriever. Could this be the pet name the salesman always gave, so as not to trip on the name and spoil his sales pitch? If so, it might be a clue into the breed that the salesman actually did own. Yet the only golden in my client base was George Haggerty’s Rex, and George didn’t meet either of the Finches’ physical description of the man.
Unable to elicit a name or a more thorough description, I decided to wait till tomorrow and give Naomi Smith a call. She should be able to give me both a name and a description of this one-time student. I described the same procedure to deprogram Misty from her food-aversion training that I’d used successfully on Sage. Eudora assured me they would rather wait till morning to get new brands of dog food, as they were “ready to turn in.” Which touched off yet another argument, as Harry insisted this was nowhere near bedtime and he was hoping for a swim. Misty was in no immediate risk, so I jotted down their number and said I’d check on Misty in the morning, then left for home.
I struggled to fall asleep later that night, questions tumbling mercilessly around in my brain. Could I at least be on the right track with the murderer? Was he in fact this dog food salesman-cum-scam artist?
To my mild surprise the next morning, I’d apparently beaten Russell to work, as his parking space was empty. The moment I reached the bottom step and peered through my glass door, my heart skipped a beat. My office had been trashed. Both filing cabinets were knocked over, papers were strewn all across the floor, and it appeared as though a full carafe of coffee had been poured and splattered all across the room.
This had to be the work of Bill Wayne. He’d heard about my input on the financial finaglings between him and Kaitlyn, and he was seeking an outlet for his rage.
I righted a tipped over file cabinet. At the noise, Russell rushed out of his office. I was completely surprised he was here.
“I was just trying to reach you at your mother’s house,” Russell said, holding his hand over his left eye. “She said you’d already left.”
“Oh, my God, Russell!” I ran up to him and pulled his hand away from his eye. It was red and starting to swell. It looked painful and I winced in empathy, a gnawing feeling in my stomach. “What happened to you?”
“Someone’s car was parked in my space this morning, so I had to park around the block, and by the time I got here, the guy was leaving. I tried to stop him, but he punched me in the eye and took off.”
“Who did this? It must have been Bill Wayne. Was he thin and dark-haired, sunken eyes, and—”
Russell shook his head, gingerly covering his injured eye again. “It was that big guy I argued with Saturday morning.”
He had to mean Beth Gleason’s boyfriend. “Chet Adler?”
“If that was his name. You got any steak? That’s supposed to help.”
I had some T-bone dog biscuits, but I doubted that would do the trick. “Oh, Russell. That looks so painful.” I pulled out my desk chair for him. “Here. Sit down. I’ll get you a compress.” He sat down while I rushed into the bathroom. We didn’t have a washcloth, but I pulled off several sheets of paper towels, folded them, and ran cold water on them. Russell was leaning back in my chair, acting stoic, but the flesh surrounding his left eye was swelling fast. I gently placed the makeshift compress on his eye and found myself sorely tempted to caress his smooth-shaved cheek in the process. I was so disconcerted by this impulse that I jerked away rather abruptly and asked, “Have you called the police?”
“I didn’t get the chance. You really only just missed him yourself by a minute or two.”
On the desk behind Russell, my computer and printer were on. “I’ll bet he printed out my client file.”
“He had a couple sheets of paper that might have come from your printer.”
“Dammit! Now he’s got the phone numbers and addresses of my clients! He thinks one of them killed his girlfriend and that he needs to avenge her. I should have used some system security.” When I’d set up my software, I couldn’t imagine why anyone other than me would want to look at files about dog owners.
I called the police station and reached the soft-spoken detective. “Chet Adler broke into my office, stole my client listing, and punched my officemate in the face.”
After a slight pause, the detective asked, “Adler is Beth Gleason’s boyfriend, right?”
“Yes, and he told me he wanted to speak to my clients because he’s sure one of them killed Beth.”
“Did he say what gave him that idea?”
“No, not really. I guess it’s just the connection between me and Sage, Hannah Jones and then Beth Gleason’s dog.”
There was another pause. “I don’t follow. Why would Mr. Adler think the dog was significant?”
I grimaced but resisted the urge to stomp my foot. I’d been through all of this with the police before. Weren’t they talking to one another? “Ever since I did that radio show, which talked about the possibility that Sage could identify Hannah Jones’s killer, I’ve gotten some new clients who may or may not be after the dog through me. Now Chefs a loose cannon who’s going to harass all my clients. He already trashed my office and punched Russell, and I want you to arrest him before he hurts someone else!”
“Calm down, miss.”
“I was perfectly calm till you implied this breakin was just some isolated incident!”
“Let me assure you, we’ve got a lot of first-rate officers working on this case. I’ll send someone out to take a formal report, then we can put out an arrest warrant for Mr. Adler.”
He hung up before I could respond. My fear was that Chet Adler was the least of my concerns. I’d felt threatened into moving out of Kaitlyn’s house. Someone had attempted to poison my dogs, and who knows what might have happened had Mom let the “organic dog food” salesman into the house. How much longer could this go on?
I dialed Naomi Smith’s number. Her recorder kicked on after four rings. I left a message to call me, then went back to ministering to Russell, who was now milking his injury for all it was worth. But then, I really did feel indebted to him for trying to help me.
Half an hour later, Russell and I talked to a uniformed female officer, then I left for my scheduled morning appointment with Rex and George Haggerty. I was still wondering about the connection to him—his being my one bald client and having a name so similar to that of the door-to-door salesman wearing the toupee.
George greeted me with the statement, “Great news, Miss Babcock! I took your advice and faked Rex into thinking I’d left, and I caught Rex in the act of chewing on the furniture three times!”
“That is good news,” I
told him sincerely, though I knew how odd it was to be pleased that the dog was still gnawing away at the furniture.
“Yes, and this morning, I tried the same thing twice, for fifteen minutes the first time and over half an hour the second, and he was good the whole time. So, I hate to tell you this, Ms. Babcock, but after today, Rex no longer requires your services.”
“Oh?” This was one downside of this job—there are few other professions in which one can be fired by a dog. “Isn’t that just a tad optimistic on your part? I agree that Rex has responded to his reconditioning very nicely, but he still hasn’t made it through an entire workday alone, has he?”
“No, but he has stopped jumping on me and now lets me lead on leash. And my wife agreed with your suggestion to build a pen for him. We’ve hired a contractor and everything. In fact, we’re getting all new furniture. I already tried to get Goodwill to take the stuff Rex chewed on, but they said it was in too lousy shape. Makes me feel like quite the schlep when my own living room furniture isn’t even good enough to give away to a charity.”
The thought of a whole new living room set under Rex’s domain made me nervous, and I tried to warn George that trying to adjust a two-year-old dog who’d always stayed inside to life in a pen could be a challenge. George was a true optimist, however, so we worked on more of the basics of asserting oneself as the dog’s master. At the end of the hour, I tested him by asking, “A salesman came to my door the other day who reminded me of you.”
George showed no trace of nerves, but rather smiled and asked, “Really? What was he selling?”
“Organic dog food.”
He chuckled. “I wonder what that means—organic dog food.”
“That it’s made from various organs, I guess.” I studied him at length, trying to imagine him with a black Presley-like wig on, and concluded that my mother simply could not have mistaken him for a muscular man in his thirties. The talk of “organic” dog food reminded me of something. John O’Farrell had said he owned a health-food store. That could be how he got to know Hannah Jones. Could he sell “organic” dog food at this store?
“If you have any questions or concerns about Rex, don’t hesitate to call.”
George smiled. “Oh, we won’t. You’re number eight on our speed dialer on our phone.”
“I’m honored.” As long as numbers one through seven weren’t dog psychologists, too.
When I came out, Chet Adler was seated on the hood of my car. I hesitated, considering doubling back and having George call the police, but reasoned that Chet was unlikely to do anything violent, or he would have hidden from my view.
I marched up to Chet, who was regarding me coolly. “I take it you got this address off my computer, right?”
“Maybe I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Already checked him out, though. That wimp couldn’t possibly have gotten Beth’s knife away from her. She was too strong and too tall for him.” He spat, then dragged his sleeve across his mouth. “None of your other clients were home this morning.”
“You broke the law, Chet. Both by breaking into my office and trashing it, and by assaulting Russell. What do you think you’re accomplishing? Are you trying to get yourself thrown in jail, along with Beth’s killer?”
He stared at the ground. “Don’t have to worry about that. They’re never going to get the guy who did this. Shit. I just want to look the guy in the eye, one time. I want him to tell me why he did it.”
My heart was pounding. I found Chet utterly intimidating, with his large frame and violent undertones, and he was still seated on my car. “Then what? You’re going to beat him to a pulp, aren’t you?”
Chet rose and pointed at me. “The bastard’ll deserve every instant of it! He’s not worth one-tenth of what Beth’s worth! She was the only one who ever treated me like a human being!”
“And then you’ll get arrested and convicted. Even if you try to run, you won’t be able to avoid arrest for long. To avenge the death of the one person who said you were worthwhile, you’ll make your own life worthless. Do you really want to betray Beth’s faith in you this way?”
He shouted in my face, “You don’t get it, do you? My life already is worthless. Whoever killed Beth Gleason saw to that.” He shoved past me, got into his own car parked farther down the road, and drove off. My hands were shaking as I started my engine. What was taking the police so long to arrest Chet? I’d given them a printout of my clients’ addresses and numbers. Yet here he’d been, biding his time at my very first appointment. I drove back to the office, largely to check on Russell. My heart leapt to my throat at the sight of a silver Mercedes convertible parked in my space. Bill Wayne had come to call.
“What now?” I asked myself aloud. Sadly, I was getting used to the thought that all visits from my fellow humans were going to wind up as confrontations. I parked nearby, rushed into my office, and found Kaitlyn’s husband pacing the floor.
At the sound of the door opening, he pivoted to face me. “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” His normally haggard features were even more so now. He had a naturally heavy beard, which had two days’ growth, and the dark circles around his sunken eyes were more noticeable than ever.
“Pardon?”
“Kaitlyn called that real estate agent I’d been working with and said that she wasn’t going to owe me a penny for the house. That we have less equity in the house than my car is worth! I bought that car with my own money after I left her! That car is mine!”
“Yes, and I’m sure you feel the same ownership over your car that she feels regarding her house. She’s been paying that mortgage by herself since you left.”
“You bitch! You’d better watch your backside, ‘cause I’ll get you for this! That’s a promise!”
With what must have been tremendous reluctance, Russell Greene, black eye and all, emerged from his office and asked, “Is there a problem here?”
“Yeah, man!” Bill shouted, pointing at me. “She’s the problem! But she won’t be for long!” Bill stormed out the door and up the cement steps.
Moments later, we could hear him revving his engine and trying to peel out of my parking space. Then there was an almost instantaneous honk, the squeal of brakes, and a crash. We both raced through the door and up the steps, just in time to see Bill emerging from his beloved vehicle, which had smashed into a tree. Another driver in a minivan called out his window to Bill, “I’ll call the police on my cell phone.”
“Did you see that?” Russell asked in awe.
“Just goes to show. There is a God. And He’s got a sense of humor.”
My phone was ringing as I returned to my office. The instant I answered, a sexy male voice said, “Allida, this is Dennis Corning. I need to talk to you. I’m on my car phone and can be there in ten. That all right by you?”
“Sure, why not?” I hung up. Come on down. Yell at me. Threaten me. Everyone else does. I was beginning to feel resigned to my own fate, which bothered me immensely, but I wasn’t sure I could do much to change my mood.
“Another customer?” Russell asked hopefully as he returned to his office.
“Another hostile man who happens to own a dog.”
Russell stopped and glanced nervously at our entrance. This was so demeaning. All Russell ever saw of me was men coming into my office to shout at me. Russell said, “I have a meeting with some prospective customers to attend. Want me to postpone it so I can stick around and help you circle the wagons?”
“Nah. I’ll be fine. If nothing else, the police will be outside soon to help with the accident.”
He offered again to stay, but let me convince him I’d be fine alone. I had a feeling he was going to have a hard enough time winning this job despite his black eye without having to reschedule at the last minute. It finally struck me that he’d returned my office to its former neatness while I’d been at George’s—and I hadn’t even thanked him.
A few minutes later, Dennis arrived, looking dapper as ever in an impeccable Itali
an suit. He waggled his thumb over his shoulder as he entered my office. “Did you know there’s a grown man, sitting on the curb and crying, just outside your door?”
“He just crashed his Mercedes.”
“Poor devil,” he said, his voice rife with empathy.
“If you came here to berate me over my giving Sage to someone—”
“No, no. That’s not at all why I’m here. Quite the opposite, in fact. I had a lengthy talk with my wife. Seems I owe you an apology. My wife thinks you’re brilliant. We’re going to refer our friends to you. In the meantime, I wondered if we could also hire you to help us select the right collie puppy for our family.”
“Yes, I’d be happy to.” His mention of his wife brought to the forefront a niggling thought I’d almost forgotten—Susan Coming’s almost desperate need to explain how Beth Gleason had known to call them about adopting Sage. Beth had possessed one of those long-limbed bodies that men seem to find attractive, she’d come from a wealthy family, and she’d had terrible taste in men.
He nodded. “Well, I left my engine running and I’d better get out of there. I don’t want anyone to swipe my Beamer.” He pivoted and reached for the door handle.
“Were you and Beth Gleason lovers?” I asked, in a rare show of bluntness that froze him where he stood.
He turned toward me. His face gave me my answer. It bore the look of a dog, caught in a major act of disobedience. “What makes you ask that?”
“Just some things Beth said to me before she died.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels for a long moment. Finally, he shrugged and said, “It was just an innocent fling. A one night stand. Don’t tell my wife, okay? That’d break her heart.”
“I won’t say a word, provided you can convince me you didn’t kill Beth.”
“I didn’t kill her! What possible motive would I have had? Jeez, if I killed every woman I slept with, I’d be right up there with Son of Sam.”
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