Give the Dog a Bone

by Leslie O'Kane

  “Not partners, no. Ruby saw me kill Ken. She had a view of his bedroom window. And she couldn’t resist trying to blackmail me. Now, Mary was more my pawn than a—”

  The doorbell rang. In the blink of an eye, Rachel had the gun trained on me, again. “Just a minute,” she called pleasantly, then grabbed the remote control with her free hand and turned up the already blaring television set beside Yolanda. More background noise, I realized, to drown out the cries for help. The sound of the doorbell had renewed T-Rex’s barking.

  Under her breath, Rachel snarled, “Shit! Bet those damned people came out to check on the dog after all! It never fails. Nobody ever does a damned thing, till the one time you want ’em to do nothing!”

  While speaking, she grabbed a roll of duct tape from the floor, tore off a piece without relinquishing the pistol, and slapped the tape over poor Yolanda’s swollen and bloodied lips. She let out a muffled moan of pain.

  Rachel said into her ear, “You make one sound, and I’ll shoot you and Allida dead before you can take another breath.”

  She gestured at me to head toward the door. “You go ahead of me and tell them that everything’s fine. Just remember, I’ll still be holding a gun. And I’ve already killed two people, so I’ve got nothing to lose by putting you out of your misery, too.”

  Rachel stepped toward the door but stayed back a couple of feet. She crossed her arms so that her pistol wasn’t in view, then gestured with her chin that I was to open the door. I pulled it fully open and two men in brown uniforms stood there. The first one, a young, tall man, smiled at me through the screen door. “Allida Babcock, right?”

  “Yes.”

  I grabbed the latch for the screen door, but Rachel coughed loudly, then said, “ ’Scuse me.” I let my arm drop to my side.

  “Chad Bowman,” the young man went on. “I’ve seen you around at the Humane Society.”

  “That’s right. I work with the dogs there, whenever I can spare the time.” I kept my voice flat and tried to indicate Rachel behind me with darting motions of my eyes.

  “That’s cool. I hear you had some sort of false alarm with a dog here. Is that right?”

  “Um—”

  Rachel said, “That was my fault, I’m afraid. I’m Yolanda Clay, the dog’s owner.” She raised her voice at the end of the sentence as if asking a question, donning the attitude of a woefully contrite homeowner. “I’m the one who called Allie, here, to help me.” My skin crawled as she patted me on the shoulder. “See, my dog, T-Rex, and I were playing a game of tug-of-war, and I guess he took it a little too far. Grabbed my sleeve and wouldn’t let go. I guess I kind of panicked.” She chuckled, as if embarrassed by her foolishness. “He’s fine now, and so are we, as you can tell.”

  The second man, standing a step below and behind Chad on the cinderblock stairs said, “We’ll still need to see the dog. Just to make sure everything’s fine.”

  Thank God! Rachel was in a bind now, and I could feel her stiffen. Though the men couldn’t see the real Yolanda from where they stood, she was in this front room with us, bound and gagged, just a few feet away from the doorway. There was no way Rachel could hide her without first shutting the door in the men’s faces and dragging her someplace.

  “Bureaucratic red tape,” Chad said, grinning affably. It was more than that, though. Animal Control responded to distress calls much the same way as a domestic abuse case. Sometimes people with serious dog bites would cover up for their dogs, or would cover for their own retaliation.

  “Fine. I’ve got him in a bedroom in the back, as you can hear,” Rachel said. “We’ll go get him and bring him out. But please, I . . . kind of had an embarrassing accident when I . . . got so scared about T-Rex. I’ve got some unmentionables hanging up to dry in here, so respect my privacy and wait outside. Please.”

  “Oh. Sure thing, ma’am.” Both men stepped back, making it clear that they had no desire to trespass.

  God damn it! My life was hanging in the balance, and they were scared off at the prospect of seeing some woman’s panties?

  Rachel grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the door in front of her. Though I was deliberately walking slowly in the hopes that Chad out there would find our conjoined-twin act suspicious, we rounded the corner into the hallway. A short distance away was the bedroom where T-Rex was keeping up his frightened, rhythmic bark.

  This was going to be my only chance. Rachel and I both knew it. I craned my neck and gave a quick glance at Yolanda. Her eyes were wide open and she was fully alert. I could tell that she knew this would be her one chance, too.

  “Not one false move,” Rachel whispered in my ear, poking me in the back with the barrel of the gun. “You get the dog out here, nice and quiet.”

  My mind racing to calculate my best chance for survival, I stayed put. Rachel put one hand on my shoulder and pushed the point of the gun into the small of my back. “Like I said, I’ve got nothing to lose at this point.

  You get those clowns to go away. In return, I’ll let the two of them and T-Rex live. Try to pull any tricks, and you’ll die knowing you could have saved the mutt’s life, along with that idiot Chad and his buddy.”

  “I feel sick,” I mumbled. “Just let me . . . collect myself.”

  “No time! Hurry!” she whispered harshly in my ear. I got a whiff of her reeking breath and nearly vomited for real.

  “T-Rex,” she called gently. “That’s a good doggie.”

  T-Rex stopped barking for a moment to listen. As I’d hoped, she removed her free hand from my shoulder as I opened the door. Though I hated to do this, knowing it would incite T-Rex further, in one sudden, sharp motion, I flung open the door so that it banged into him.

  Predictably, T-Rex barged out the door past me. I pretended to reach for his collar and yelled, “Grab him!”

  Rachel was distracted by T-Rex’s charge for the split second I needed. Momentarily out of balance, she dropped her vision to the dog, and away from me. I grabbed the arm holding the gun and pulled her toward me in the bedroom doorway.

  Even though my action had caught her fully off guard, she was surprisingly strong. She started to pull her arm back and aim the gun toward my head.

  Using every ounce of my energy, I hooked the bottom of the door with my foot and managed to pull it into us.

  Throwing my shoulder into the door, I caught her wrist with the loaded gun. It was now wedged between the door and the jamb. I heard her gasp so as to suppress a scream that would alert the men outside. I shouted, “Help! She’s got a gun!”

  “Stay back or I’ll shoot you!” Rachel countered. She pulled the trigger. Though the blast was frightening, she could not aim at me from this angle. The bullet whizzed past me into the room.

  The thumping and banging noises told me that the men had barged into the trailer toward us, even though they must have believed they were rushing toward a loaded gun. I pressed with all my might on the door. An instant later Rachel cried out again in pain as one of the men cried, “Drop the gun!”

  She let out another cry and then, finally, let the gun drop from her hand. I kicked it across the room. It slid harmlessly under the bed.

  I opened the door. Rachel again cried out in pain, and Chad, keeping her arm pinned against her back, slammed her against the wall. “My arm’s broken!” she cried.

  “Don’t move!” he said.

  I pushed past them and into the living room, where T-Rex was barking and snarling at the second man, who was gingerly trying to pull the duct tape from Yolanda’s mouth.

  “Let me do that,” I said. “Could you call the police?”

  Though it was grisly work, slowly pulling the tape off her tender, wounded skin amid Yolanda’s streaming tears, I finally succeeded. Then, with T-Rex licking her face, I cut the tape that had secured her arms to the back of the chair.

  Still sobbing, she held her face in her hands and said, “Sorry ’bout the tears. But it’s like I tol’ you. The crap’s finally done hittin’ the fan.”


  The police sirens in the distance were drawing closer. I cut the tape off Yolanda’s ankles, and said, “Yes, it is.”

  She pulled me into a long hug, which T-Rex kept trying to join. Chuckling through her tears, she petted him and said, “Man alive, this dog could use some better manners. Wish I could afford to hire you, Allie.”

  “You can. You’re about to come into a whole lot of money very soon. If you’d consider taking in a wealthy but rambunctious golden retriever, that is.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked me, her eyebrows raised. “All Rachel’s nonsense about Maggie’s fortune can’t really be . . .” She let her voice fade, then stared into my eyes. “You lost your mind?”

  “Quite the contrary,” I said with a smile. “I’m finally seeing things clearly. Maggie living with you and T-Rex is exactly what Ken would have wanted.”

  “That’d be okay by me,” she said slowly, scanning the room as if considering the upgrade in living quarters she’d be capable of making. She stared directly into my eyes. “If you’re sure about it, that is.”

  “I’m positive.”

  I shuddered as I listened to the crunch of gravel as the police cars pulled to a stop just outside. A person’s hold on life was so very tenuous. It was all I could do not to cry with joy knowing that I would live to see another day after all.

  I watched Chad’s partner from Animal Control open the door. He’d helped save my life, and I didn’t even know his name. I made a silent vow: I was going to contact every friend and family member I had and tell them how much they meant to me. Starting with Russell Greene.

  By Leslie O’Kane

  DEATH AND FAXES

  JUST THE FAX, MA’AM

  THE COLD HARD FAX*

  THE FAX OF LIFE*

  THE SCHOOL BOARD MURDERS*

  WHEN THE FAX LADY SINGS*

  PLAY DEAD*

  RUFF WAY TO GO*

  GIVE THE DOG A BONE*

  *Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Books published by The Ballantine Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.

  A Fawcett Book

  Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2002 by Leslie O’Kane

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Fawcett is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  O’Kane, Leslie.

  Give the dog a bone / by Leslie O’Kane

  p. cm.

  1. Women detectives—Colorado—Boulder—Fiction. 2. Boulder (Colo.)

  Fiction. 3. Dog trainers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3565.K335 G58 2002

  813’.54—dc21

  2001052678

  www.randomhouse.com

  eISBN: 978-0-307-41532-5

  v3.0