4 Woof at the Door (4 page)

This was trouble. There was nothing I could do to stop an attack on Hank if Ty sicced his huge dog on hi.

“Hank! Ty!” I pointed at the dog, trying to warn Hank, but he ignored me.

“Perspective?!” Hank shouted, his face beet red and sweaty. “I’ll tell you about perspective, you moron!” He kept an eye on Doobie, and backed down the steps. “You ruined everything! I was going to mate Sammy with a wolf! You owe me five thousand dollars! That’s what I planned to make on this litter alone! Then I was going to get a steady income out of breeding the females!”

“There’s no way I’m going to pay that kind of money,” Ty scoffed.

He squeezed back inside through his door. He stood beside his still growling dog.

“Oh, you’d better believe you’re going to pay!”

Ty slammed his front door on Hank’s words.

“You’ll pay, all right! Otherwise, I’m going to kill you!”

Chapter 3

My heart was pounding from the near miss of a horrible altercation.

I looked at Hank. “You realize that Sammy can be bred again safely in another year to eighteen months. As long as this is only going to be her second or third litter, that is.”

“Her previous owner already bred her three times,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“This is all for the best, Hank. It would have been enormously irresponsible of you to sell Wolf Dogs as pets to the average owner. That could have had hideous consequences for all concerned. One bad bite, and you could have been sued and lost your home-security business.”

Hank glared at me, lifted his chin, then pivoted on a heel and marched back into his house. I hesitated on the porch, wanting to make sure Ty wasn’t going to sic Doobie on Hank after all before I dared leave.

Just then, an orange VW van neared. Its curtained windows bore peace signs. On one side was a mural of unrecognizable content. Perhaps the artist had painted it while the van was still in motion. Not surprisingly, the vehicle pulled into Ty’s driveway. Out stepped a very pretty blond woman in her mid- to late-twenties. She wore a tie-dyed T-shirt and multicolored skirt, sandals, and at least twenty beaded necklaces.

As the woman came toward me—up the front walkway at a remarkably slow pace—Ty opened his door again and joined me on the porch. He smiled and said to me, “That went well, don’t you think?”

As comical as he looked in his hippie garb, his making light of such a serious issue infuriated me. “Mr. Bellingham, you had better think twice before you sic your dog on anyone. Someone will be badly injured, you’ll get sued, and Doobie will wind up being put to sleep!”

Ty merely laughed at me. “Now, would I do such a thing? He gave me the peace sign with both hands and waved them in the air. “Peace, love, peace, love.”

“Don’t test me, Mr. Bellingham. My client loyalties are squarely with the four-pawed sector.”

“Oh, hey, wha’s happ’nin’,” the woman drawled to me, finally having reached the porch. Her eyelids were drooping and her smile was so lazy looking I half expected to see drool on her chin. “I’m Chesh, short for Cheshire. Ty’s ol’ lady.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, which was perhaps my biggest lie of the day. The woman’s perfume mingled with the incense smells emanating from the house. The combination made me want to hug a pine tree. “I’m Allida Babcock. I had an appointment a little over an hour ago to help you and your husband with Doobie’s barking.”

“Heavy,” she said with a slow smile and nod.

“Who’s minding the store, Chesh?” Ty asked.

She glared at her husband. “Hey, cool it, man. Check your sun dial, babe. It’s closing time.”

“Since when do we close at one p.m. on a Saturday?”

“Speaking of barking,” I interrupted, “I strongly suspect Doobie was picking up on the scent of a new animal next door, which might have been behind all his barking today.”

“New animal?” Ty asked, the eyes behind the pink, octagonal glasses suddenly sparking with interest. “Was the wolf from Hank’s commercial at his place?”

His question took me by surprise. With all the animosity between those neighbors, it was odd that Ty watched the man’s commercials, let alone cared about Hank’s four-pawed visitors. “Yes. Shall we set another appointment for—”

“Damn it! I wish I’d known. I’ve been dying to see that wolf in person!” He leveled a finger at his wife. “Chesh. Make yourself useful and set the next appointment with Allida for us. And, this time, be there! I’ve got a couple phone calls to make.” He shut the door, leaving his wife standing beside me on the front porch.

My cheeks warmed out of embarrassment for her sake. I was appalled at Ty’s abusive treatment of his wife—even if she did seem to be either on drugs or rarified air. “Groovy, daddy-o,” she muttered under her breath. She looked at me and put her hands on hips.

Suddenly dropping her strung-out persona, she said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t make our appointment, Allie. A clerk called in sick. Here’s the deal. Ty’s got some macho ego-trip regarding the dog. Actually, with all dogs; hence, the obsession with Hank’s wolf. I’ve been training Doobie as best I can behind Ty’s back, but there’s only so much I can accomplish. Ty wants us to treat Doobie like a wild animal. The thing is, though, if this keeps up, Doobie’s going to take a bite out of the next cookie-toting Girl Scout. Can you help us?”

I was so dumbfounded by the abrupt change in her demeanor that the question took a moment to register. “Frankly, I can’t do all that much to train your dog without your husband’s cooperation. I can get him to behave in my presence, but as soon as I leave, he’ll revert to his old behaviors.”

“You’re referring to Doobie’s behavior, not Ty’s, right?”

“Right,” I repeated, though my answer had been obvious. Even if I wanted to train her husband, a suggestion I found repulsive, the dog was certain to be a better student.

She pursed her lips and nodded, grabbing the doorknob. “I’ll talk to him. Can you come back tomorrow, same time?”

“I guess so,” I said, as she stepped inside her house.

Adopting her strung-out attitude once again, she slurred, “Outta sight. See ya then, babe.” She winked at me and shut the door.

“I’ve stumbled into ’The Twilight Zone’,” I muttered to myself, then headed toward Beverly’s house, where I was now a few minutes late for lunch.

Why, I pondered during my short walk next door, had Beverly never mentioned to me that her next-door neighbors were sixties-hippy-wanna-bes? She and I had been getting reacquainted over the past couple of months, mostly through our being on the same softball team. A friend of mine had recruited me and then asked me if I knew of any good female pitchers, which had immediately brought Beverly Wood to mind; she’d been a terrific pitcher in high school.

Come to think of it, Beverly had been running a cute ad on the radio for her construction company. In a wordplay on her last name, the slogan was “Hit Nails, Miss Wood.” She might know the production company that did the wolf commercials. I might be able to get the name of the wolf’s owner after all.

Beverly was expecting me, and, in fact, was standing by the screen door, which she swung open for me.

“Allida, hi!” She swept me into a hug, which was a bit awkward, because when it comes to height, I’m a Dachshund to her Greyhound. I’d gotten to know Beverly when we were high school seniors together on our basketball team. At five-eleven, she was our center. At five feet, I was a guard, and earned my position by dribbling and passing, and shooting only when I was wide open. Not to mention my dogged defense.

Beverly had long curly strawberry-blond hair that I envied shamelessly, and angular but attractive features—blue eyes, a crooked nose. Today she was wearing some sort of an ankle-length cotton dress of an Indian pattern that looked as though it could have come from Ty’s store. Her little dog, Beagle Boy, was barking away at me, but he stopped as soon as Bev released me. I knelt to greet him; he wagged his tail as I scratched him behind the ears. B.B., for short, was a typical Beagle—affectionate, curious, energetic, and with an outstanding sense of smell that led him to be highly distractible.

“Allida, what’s going on next door? I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on my neighbors, but there was quite a bit of shouting a little while ago. Were you involved?”

“Only peripherally,” I said, rising, though her dog clearly would have gladly let me pet him forever.

“Figures. I never did know you to back down from a confrontation. Was that Hank who was shouting at Ty like that?”

“‘Fraid so. Hank Atkinson thinks Doobie got his dog pregnant.”

“Uh-oh. Hank’s been planning to breed Sammy. That’s just going to make things even worse between the two of them.”

Assuming “the two of them” had meant Hank and Ty, I said, “If that’s even possible. I wish you’d warned me how bad things were between them.”

“Didn’t I?” Beverly said. She grabbed my arm and gave it a squeeze. She always was the enthusiastic touchy-feely sort back in high school, and the years hadn’t dimmed her spirit. “So did you talk to your mom yet about hiring me to remodel her kitchen?”

“Yes, but she says the kitchen is her least favorite room in the house, so—” I imitated my mother’s low voice— “‘why spruce it up and dupe people into spending time in it?’ Sorry, Beverly. Once my mom makes up her mind, she practically never changes it.”

“Nor does she want to change her kitchen. Ah, well. My business is doing fine. I was just hoping to crack the Berthoud market.”

I had to laugh. “Oh, right. The big booming metropolis of Berthoud?” Berthoud was one of the few towns even remotely near Boulder that had remained small. At almost an hour’s drive from downtown Boulder, it was too long of a commute for most folks.

She raised an eyebrow. “Hey, don’t knock it. Small towns are the best. You do a good job in one person’s kitchen, her neighbor hires you, and then another. Next thing you know, you’ve got more jobs from one small community than you could have gotten from an entire city.”

“Hmm. Maybe I should be on the lookout for difficult dogs in Berthoud.”

“Absolutely. And check out the condition of their kitchens for me, while you’re at it. I can always use more customers wanting a kitchen makeover.”

She led me into the dining room, where she had already set out an impressive luncheon spread. I’d seen deli bars with less selection, and I told her so.

“Oh, pish,” she replied, patting me on the back for some reason. “This is all just leftovers from a brunch I hosted yesterday. We’d better eat up before E-Coli sets in.”

“Well. On that note, Bon appetite.”

She giggled. “Just make yourself a sandwich.” Then she rubbed her hands in excitement. “So, Allida, we’re finally alone. Tell me all about you and your cutie.”

I hesitated, honestly having to piece together that she meant the man I was seeing and not one of my two dogs. “Russell Greene? He’s very sweet, and I like him a lot, but we’ve only been going out seriously for a couple of months, and we still have a few problems to hash out.”

“Problems?”

“For one thing, he hates dogs. He’s afraid of Pavlov.”

“Your German shepherd? Why? I thought you said she was really gentle.”

“She is. But Russell’s brother got attacked by a neighbor’s German shepherd right in front of Russell when he was just a little boy. He’s got quite a phobia, and he doesn’t want to see anyone professionally about it. He thinks he can just get over it by himself.”

“Have you slept together yet?”

The years hadn’t softened Beverly’s characteristic bluntness, either. Even my really close friends hadn’t asked me that, but then, they knew me well enough to surmise the answer. “Not yet.”

“Once you do, that’ll motivate him right into therapy.”

“Oh, thanks a lot!”

Beverly laughed heartily and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I just meant that soon he’ll do anything to keep you. So, what else is new?”

“I came face to face with a purebred wolf a few minutes ago.”

“Over at Hank’s place?”

“You knew about that?”

She nodded. “He told me about his plan to have white wolf-dog puppies.”

While we spoke, I’d created a tasty-looking ensemble of a sandwich and took a seat. Beverly grabbed a huge handful of lettuce, wedged it between two slices of rye bread, and took the seat across from me. Beagle Boy attached more hopes to me and spillage from my meat combo than to his owner and her lettuce, and rested his chin on my feet.

I was mildly surprised that both Ty and now Beverly knew about Hank’s wolf. After all, Hank had even hidden the wolf-handler’s van in the garage. Although, now that I thought about it, he probably did so to prevent Larry Cunriff from having to walk the wolf up Hank’s suburban sidewalk.

Beverly took a bite of her lettuce sandwich and, in between noisy chomps, said, “That’s quite a wolf, isn’t it? Belongs to this guy, Damian Hesk, who has a ranch east of I-twenty-five. He’s got two other wolves, too.”

“You know him?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve even been to his house.”

This news captured my full attention and I scooted to the edge of my seat, anticipating deserting my sandwich to jot down an address. “Where does he live?”

“Quite a ways out east. He’s got hundreds of acres out there. I’ve got his card around here someplace. I’ll get it for you.” She left the room, but called from around the corner, “One Saturday a month, he does tours for small groups, and Hank set one up for his neighbors. So a whole batch of us went last month.”

“Probably not Ty Bellingham, though. He and Hank probably avoid each other, right?”

She returned with a business card, which I slipped into the breast pocket of my blouse. “Actually, they managed to set aside their differences long enough to both be there. Not that they spoke to each other. They didn’t come to blows, in any case, which is something of a triumph.”

How odd. Ty had said that he’d been “dying to see the wolf in person,” and yet, apparently, he already had seen the wolf. “Does Damian own just wolves?”

“No, he’s got a regular zoo license, just doesn’t have his place open to the public. He also has lions, tigers, and bears.”