Give the Dog a Bone (11 page)

“Mom, what are you doing here?” I asked as I unlocked my office.

She stared at me with a blank expression on her face and said, “Maggie wanted to go for a drive.”

I ushered her and Maggie inside. “Did you use the dog seatbelt?”

“No, that wasn’t necessary.”

“You didn’t have her stay in the bed of your pickup, did you?” I asked in alarm.

“Of course not,” Mom snapped. “She stayed in the back seat of the king cab.”

“She’s making some progress, then. That’s good.”

Mom raised an eyebrow at Maggie, who was intent at sniffing the immediate surroundings. “She still has a long way to go, though. And Sage isn’t handling this well.” She shook her head. “I hope we don’t find dog-staging battles when we get home.”

“She’s driving you nuts, isn’t she, Mom?”

She rolled her eyes. “My patience isn’t what it once was when you kids were young.”

I grinned, but chose not to point out that, if anything, her patience had improved greatly since my older brother and I were growing up. Much of my childhood had been difficult; we’d had to deal with the death of my father in a car accident when I was only six.

My brief reverie was broken by the sound of Maggie coughing as she gasped for air while pulling on her leash. She was not wearing her Gentle Leader but some other collar Mom must have found in a drawer. Mom let go of her end of the leash, and Maggie rushed off to sniff at Russell’s closed office door.

Mom said, “She’s a beautiful dog, and you know how much I love goldens. But she’s so untrained. I left the dogs alone in the backyard while I grocery shopped after you left for work. You should see how many complaints we have on the machine from the neighbors. Apparently she just howls incessantly when she’s away from human companionship.”

I winced but made no comment.

“Then I let her in for a while and went out to the mailbox, forgetting how exuberant Maggie is about breaking free into the great outdoors. She nearly knocked me over, then she just kept going.” Mom made a gesture with her hand representing an airplane’s takeoff. “She outran me, so I had to drive after her. Fortunately, she leapt right into the truck once I caught up with her.” Mom clicked her tongue. “It’s pretty bizarre, when you think about it. When she’s outside, she gouges the back door and upsets the neighborhood with her despair over not having human companionship, then she runs away the first chance she gets.”

That wasn’t at all surprising behavior to me. “She thinks of herself as pack leader, and so she’s allowed to leave the house but protests when the rest of us overstep our bounds and leave the pack leader behind.”

“I guess I can appreciate her wanting to be in control of her location. Especially considering she’s been wrenched from her home and her owner.” She gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “But Allie, I can’t take a leave from work to stay home with her, and I can’t tick off all of our neighbors or let her claw her way through the walls to get back inside the house.”

I glanced around. “Maybe I can keep her here at the office.”

“What about Russell?” she asked, perking up a bit at the mention of him. Mom was so fond of Russell that I sometimes got the feeling she pictured him in a tuxedo and me in white whenever she saw us together.

“He’s out of town for a week or two.”

“Oh. Maybe that would work, then,” Mom said, casting a gaze at Russell’s closed office door. “If you could keep an eye on her during the day and just bring her home with you in the evenings.”

I nodded, but had visions of my office landlord hearing about it if I left Maggie alone in the office for days on end while I went to work with a client. What was I going to do? Give her to Arlen despite my doubts about him?

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out having her at the house alone.”

“That’s okay. You really don’t owe me an apology. Maggie is my responsibility, not yours. I’m glad you brought her to me now rather than letting your whole day get ruined.”

She gave me a hug and then left. I dropped into my desk chair, still pondering what I could do about this. Maggie followed my mother to the door, then trotted over to me and put her head on my lap. “So, Maggie. It’s you ’n’ me again.” I sighed. It simply wasn’t fair to my clients to have Maggie constantly barking just next door in Russ’s office.

Much as it rankled me to do so, only one solution struck me as viable. I needed to contact Maggie’s vet again, Joanne Palmer, and have her put Maggie on the proper dosage of Clomicalm to get this separation anxiety under control.

As I dialed, a memory hit me that had been lost in the excitement of the past couple of days. Dr. Palmer had said Maggie was already on a prescription of Clomicalm. But why would Ken have had a prescription for Maggie when the two of them were never apart? And why had he never mentioned that prescription to me?

I called and managed to make an appointment immediately, which the receptionist said was due to a cancellation. This is sometimes the truth, but having been in the position of starting a new business myself, I knew that a “cancellation” was also a euphemism that struggling practices employed to explain why they were so wide open for appointments.

With Maggie in tow, we drove to Joanne’s office. The receptionist appeared to be eighteen at the very most, probably a C.U. student working here part time. “Hi, I’m Allida Babcock. I called earlier.”

“Yes. Dr. Palmer had something come up, but should be back shortly, if you can wait.”

I glanced at my watch. My next client appointment was in less than an hour. “I’ll wait as long as I can. Thank you.”

I sat down and started paging through a copy of
Dog
Fancy.
There was an article titled “When Your Lover’s Not a Dog Lover” that immediately caught my eye. I had gotten through the first couple of paragraphs, which were anecdotal examples, when Joanne Palmer rushed into the room, looking more than a little flustered. “Made it back,” she said to the girl behind the counter as she grabbed a folder that undoubtedly contained Maggie’s records. I returned the magazine to the table. The article was probably only going to give obvious advice anyway. Still, if I could just learn how to retrain
Russell
, I’d be happy.

Joanne’s face fell slightly at the sight of me. Then she held out her hand. I rose and shook her hand, saying, “Sorry we got off to such a poor start the other night. That was a stressful situation.”

“Yes, it was,” she said pleasantly. “Come on back and we’ll take a look at your . . . at Maggie.”

Maggie trotted beside me happily on her leash, showing none of the fear of the veterinarian that Doppler, my cocker, for one, showed. Whenever I brought him to my vet’s office, he couldn’t stop trembling. We reached the examining room, and Maggie hopped onto the metal table as if she were expecting a dog biscuit for the feat, which is exactly what Joanne gave her.

“It’s the separation anxiety,” I explained, taking on the corner bench while Joanne Palmer lavished attention on Maggie in the process of giving her a cursory examination. “I’ve got to be able to leave her alone in my office for a couple of hours at a time at least.”

Joanne examined the dog’s ears. “You’re in the process of determining her new guardian, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.” I had to fight back a sigh. “You heard about the inheritance, I take it?”

“It’s the talk of the town. Do you have any idea how much longer she’ll be temporarily under your care?”

I shook my head. “No. Which reminds me, I called yesterday trying to find out what you know about Maggie’s date-of-purchase and ownership history.”

“Oh? I mustn’t have gotten the message.”

“Do you know for certain if Ken was the sole owner, or was he once a joint owner with his ex-wife?”

She glanced through her folder for Maggie. “Maggie was born in April and purchased in June, two years ago, by Ken.”

That all but cemented things. “The divorce was finalized June third. Do you know the exact date she was purchased, by any chance?”

She scoffed. “Of course not. But I can’t see why that’s a concern. His ex-wife is dead, after all.”

Maggie rose to all fours and started to jump down. Once again, Joanne gave her a dog biscuit, and she stayed put while she crunched through that. She busied herself by licking up the crumbs off the metal surface.

“You said you’d met Mary. Right?”

“Once. When Maggie was about six months old. She came in with Ken, insisting I give Maggie something to calm her down, that she was destroying things and howling whenever Ken went anyplace without her.”

They had to have already been divorced for four months or so by then. Odd that Mary would make the dog’s behavior her business, but maybe she’d kept Ken wrapped around her finger even after the divorce. In any case, that only helped to refute her ludicrous claim that she’d been afraid of Ken. “That’s when you prescribed Clomicalm?”

“Yes,” she said, already bristling as if in anticipation of another debate on the topic.

I didn’t wish to get into another disagreement and decided to offer up an olive branch. “Do you have any suggestions regarding who you think Ken would have wanted me to select?”

Maggie again rose to jump down toward me. This time Joanne let her as she turned her attention to making some notations in Maggie’s records. “You mean, other than myself?”

“You?”

“I’m half joking, of course, but Maggie would be happy here with me. And heaven knows I could use the money.” She didn’t wait for a response—and wouldn’t have gotten one if she did. She handed me Maggie’s records. Maggie was already set to leave, standing with her nose an inch from the door. “Give that to the front desk. I’ve noted the refill prescription. I know I don’t need to go into details with you regarding how to administer the medicine.”

“Thank you.” With the tension easing between us, I told myself I should leave it that way, but like a child picking at a scab, I heard myself ask, “Did you ever follow up on Maggie’s medication? See how she was doing with Clomicalm?”

“Is that an accusation?” she asked through her teeth.

“No, just a question. I’m still puzzled about why Ken would put his dog on medication for separation anxiety, when he had such separation anxiety himself that he made sure they were always together.”

“Like I said, it was upon his wife’s insistence.”

“They were already divorced by then.”

“I had no way of knowing that at the time.”

“Of course you hadn’t.” Short of asking Mary whether
she
was home with the dog herself before prescribing an antidepressant to a puppy, that is. But I kept the thought to myself. I was, however, grinding my teeth—but then by all appearances, so was she. Back to hating me again, it seemed. “Thanks for the prescription.”

“Don’t mention it, Allie,” she said pointedly.

While waiting for Maggie’s prescription to be filled, I got a chance to return to the article about non-dog-loving lovers. The advice was too generic to be of much use in Russell’s case. I wrote out a check for the visit, loaded Maggie back into the car, and returned to my office. The Clomicalm was of no use until I needed to leave Maggie alone, and I hoped to delay that as much as possible. I got Maggie inside and talked her into lying down by my desk.

I had to do some schedule-shuffling again, now that Maggie was with me. I had less than half an hour till my next client was scheduled to arrive, so I ignored the flashing message light and called that client and then my next one. After lengthy discussions, I managed to reschedule them as home visits tomorrow. With luck and a good reaction to Clomicalm, I’d be able to keep Maggie at the office tomorrow while I made those visits.

With a course of action in hand—or at least in mind— I pressed the play button on my message machine, hoping whatever this was wouldn’t pose a serious setback to those plans. I heard a long pause. Just as I was about to give up and press the stop button, a woman’s voice, sounding horribly drunk and slurring her words, said, “That you, Dr. Babcock? I don’t know what’s wrong. I feel so sick. I can barely . . .”

My heart started thumping as I listened through another long pause. I didn’t recognize the voice. Who would call me “Dr. Babcock”?

“I gotta tell you somethin’. Right away. It’s a emergency. It’s ’bout your, uh, dog person thingee. The dog. Dead.”

Now I was thoroughly alarmed, but there was still more on the recorder. What was she talking about? Was this woman, whoever she was, saying one of my dogs was dead? One of my clients?

“Oh, hey!” the voice continued but slightly quieter now as though she was no longer speaking directly into the phone. “Whatcha doin’ here? This is my home! You get out! T-Rex?”

There was a click as someone hung up the phone.

T-Rex. Ruby Benjamin. My heart racing, I flipped through the phone book, got her number and dialed with shaking hands. No answer. Had she overmedicated
herself
with ACP?

Without waiting to consider any of the ramifications of what I was doing, I squeezed out the door, leaving Maggie staring at me through the glass. Then I got into my car and drove north up Broadway and toward the trailer park.

Leaving my car engine running, I raced out of my car, gave a loud, quick pair of knocks, then barged into Ruby’s trailer.

She was lying in the middle of the living room floor. T-Rex was whining beside her and started to growl at me as I neared.

“Please, God. Not again,” I murmured.

Chapter 11

My stomach was in knots as I fought back a scream of horror. Ruby’s face was blue and her wide-open eyes bulged. Though it was probably pointless, I needed to check for vital signs but couldn’t with her dog protecting her.

With my eyes on T-Rex, I turned so that we were sideways to each other and facing the same direction. A shoulder-to-shoulder approach was the least threatening to a canine’s point of view.

“T-Rex, that’s a good dog.” I used my most soothing voice and stepped sideways toward him.

He continued to growl, his hackles raised. This was no time for the nice-doggie-I’m-not-going-to-hurt-you routine. I was too on edge, and T-Rex, sensing that, had become all the more agitated.

With a confidence I didn’t feel, I demanded, “T-Rex, sit.”

I had a few chunks of a dog biscuit in my pocket, leftovers from my previous client. I held the biscuit in my fist over T-Rex’s nose and repeated, “Sit.” As he looked up to sniff the treat, the dog’s haunches touched down, and I gave him the biscuit.

With T-Rex having relaxed his guard, I put my palm on Ruby’s neck and checked her carotid artery. No pulse. Her skin was warm. I put my ear to her chest and could hear no heartbeat or breathing.

I reached toward the phone, which was in its cradle on the floor near her body, then stopped, recalling the abrupt ending to my phone message from Ruby. Her phone could have been touched last by the killer. Deserting T-Rex for the time being, I ran next door to Yolanda’s trailer and pounded on the door.

Yolanda swung the door open a couple of inches and said, “What?”

“I need to use your phone. It’s . . . Ruby.”

She maintained her post in the doorway, but her face paled slightly. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh, my God!” She sucked in a breath of air and in rapid succession, her expression changed from shock to sadness to anger. “It’s that Rachel! I should’ve warned Ruby to stay away from that woman. I did in fact. Jus’ after you left, I says to Ruby, ‘Stay away from Rachel. She killed Ken.’ ”

“I need your phone,” I repeated.

She stepped aside, but continued to talk. “Nobody listens to me. Everyone thinks ’cause I’m overweight and old and got no money that I got no sense. They think ’cause I’m not educated like you all that I got no brains. But I sees what I sees. And I’m telling you, it’s that so-called social worker. She’s crazy. She’s killing off her clients, one by one.”

While she spoke I scanned first the living room and then the kitchen. Her home, though much neater and better furnished than Ken’s or Ruby’s had been, had no phone in plain sight. “Yolanda, where’s your phone?”

“Don’t remember.” She gestured at the empty cradle beside the refrigerator. “Press that pager button there and it’ll ring from wherever it’s at.”

I did as she’d instructed and heard a series of three faint beeps from further in the trailer. While attempting to follow the sound, I muttered in frustration, “I can’t just leave T-Rex over there. He’s too upset. I’ve got to get him out before the police and the paramedics arrive.”

More muffled beeps resounded, but I couldn’t tell from which direction.

Yolanda began lifting her couch cushions. “Bring ’im over here. I love dogs. Used to own two, till they both passed away a couple years back.” She handed me the phone, which had apparently fallen between the couch cushions.

“You don’t seem very upset by Ruby’s death.”

“Of course I’m upset. We were friends and neighbors. Wouldn’t
you
be upset?”

“Yes. I’d probably be in tears the moment I heard a friend of mine had died.”

“You done seen all the things
I
seen in my life, you tend to mourn only when the time’s right. You get a sense of when the crap’s done hittin’ the fan. It ain’t nearly over yet, and I ain’t letting the tears come till I’m all done ducking.”

The police dispatcher instructed me to keep watch over Ruby’s trailer until the police arrived. She hadn’t specifically told me not to go inside again. I simply could not cope with the thought of poor T-Rex trying to defend his lifeless owner when the paramedics and police arrived.

Feeling trapped in my own nightmare, I returned to Ruby’s trailer. T-Rex was lying beside her. Though he pricked up his ears and looked at me, he didn’t rise or growl this time.

I spotted his leash, which was lying atop a couple of magazines on the coffee table near Ruby’s feet. I then knelt and called him to me. T-Rex allowed me to snap his leash onto his collar and put up surprisingly little resistance as I led him next door, where Yolanda stood waiting outside. The dog’s resignation struck me as horribly sad, and I had to battle tears as I handed over the leash to Yolanda.

The sirens were already resounding in the distance. I gestured behind me to indicate Ruby’s trailer and murmured, “I’ve got to wait for the police,” before excusing myself.

Yolanda nodded and stroked the dog’s fur. “Guess you got yourself another dog to rehome, hey?”

That hadn’t occurred to me till now. “I guess so. I’ll probably have to let Animal Control take the dog to the Humane Society for adoption.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’ll keep T-Rex.” Yolanda straightened and met my eyes. “I used to have him over here every time Ruby went off to visit someone. Won’t be much of a change for either of us. Hey, T-boy?”

The dog wagged his tail and looked up at her with loving eyes.

“Fine. Let’s leave it this way, at least for now.”

The paramedics’ chartreuse van pulled into Ruby’s parking area. Yolanda ushered the dog inside her house and, casting an angry glance over her shoulder as she disappeared inside, said, “It’s that damned Rachel doin’ this evil. I feel it in my bones.”

In a routine that was becoming all too familiar, I went with the police to their station house to give them my full report. In testament to how shaken I was by Ruby’s death, I had been there for some time and was in the middle of being questioned when I remembered Maggie. I leapt to my feet.

“I’ve got to do this later. I just remembered that I’ve got a very distraught dog left all alone.”

“You’re worried about a dog?” the police officer said in tones of barely suppressed disgust at my sense of priorities.

Through gritted teeth, I retorted, “It’s Ken Culberson’s dog. Everyone in this city seems to know that that particular golden is now worth a couple million dollars.” A horrid realization hit me then, and I groaned and pressed against my forehead. “I’m not even sure I locked my office door.”

I rose, trying to stay calm. At least anyone after the inheritance would realize that snatching the dog would be pointless; the money had to come through Maggie’s trust fund, and her legal guardian had to be formally assigned by me.

The officer walked me to the lobby, saying, “We’ll send someone over to pick up the tape from your answering machine. There might be something important we can get from it.”

“I don’t have a tape-style recorder. It’s digital. You’ll have to take the whole machine.”

“That’s fine.”

“It’s not ‘fine’ with me, though,” I grumbled, my emotions still too on edge to be able to get a grip on myself. “I don’t have a spare answering machine.”

“You can get one of those answering services that do everything automatically.”

“Thanks. I’ll take that under advisement.” In actuality, I’d already tried that service but hated having to dial another number just to hear my own messages.

“We know where to reach you,” the officer said as he opened the front door for me.

“Good. We’re even.” I ran to my car and drove off. En route, I chastised myself for being so short-tempered with a police officer. In their eyes, I was undoubtedly a suspect yet again. This was hardly the time to make enemies of them.

Fortunately, much of the police force must have still been at the trailer park, for I broke the speed limits on my way to my office with no ramifications. Unfortunately, whatever time I’d saved by breaking traffic laws was spent in parking woes. Someone had ignored the “private parking” signs. Not only had Russell’s clearly marked private parking space been taken, but so had my own.

Cursing the audacity of the parking scofflaws, I found a space on the street around the corner and made my way down the steep hill to my office. I trotted down the steps, then froze at the sight in front of me through the glass door. Mary, Ken’s ex-wife, was sitting in the classic yoga position, while some purple-clad woman with straight black hair down to her waist stood over her, administering what looked to be a long-distance massage. Maggie, meanwhile, was lying on her side in the middle of the room.

I threw the door open and snarled, “What the hell is going on?”

My outcry immediately awoke Maggie, who had merely been asleep. The cloying smell of overly sweet incense reached my nostrils.

The purple-clad woman said, “Shush.”

“Hey!” I marched up to her and jabbed a finger in her direction. “You don’t get to shush me! This is my office! You people are trespassing!”

“Shush,” Mary said, eyes still closed, “We’re almost finished.”

“
You can’t . . . shush me!
Trespassers are
not allowed
to shush people!”

“I’m doing astral manipulations, Allie.”

Her voice was low and soothing, but in my current mood, infuriating. This purple woman I’d never seen before in my life was now calling me by my nickname.

“I’ve successfully moved Mary’s astral emissions back to her and away from the retriever.” She put her hands on her hips and studied me. “By the way, Allie, your astral projection is nearly a solid black. You could use my services yourself.”

“Lady, it would be impossible for me to state just how unlikely the chances are of my hiring you to do anything with my ‘emissions.’ ”

She sighed and shook her head, as if having to tolerate my lower level of awareness. “If you can see through all that blackness, you will notice that Maggie has been cured. She is finally back to being a dog.”

Through my clenched jaw, I said, “I don’t know who you are or what your game is, but I can assure you, Maggie is now and always has been
a dog
!”

She held my gaze for a long moment, then said, “There are books by greater minds than ours that I could recommend you read to show you otherwise, but I can see that I would be wasting my time.”

Still seated cross-legged on the floor nearby, Mary was listening to our argument without comment, a bemused expression on her face. When Purple Person whirled on a heel and headed for the door with her nose in the air, Mary gathered up her purse as if she intended to leave as well.

“Mary, could I speak to you for a moment?” I asked with as little hostility as possible.

She looked surprised by the request, then said, “Oh. I suppose you want an explanation.”

Purple Person was now battling to squeeze out the door while keeping Maggie inside. No way would I assist her with anything, which I think she realized, for she glanced at Mary and said, “Could you grab hold of the dog’s collar, do you suppose?”

“Certainly, Theodora. And thank you again for all of your help.”

“My pleasure.”

Maggie was so focused upon squeezing out the door herself that she barely noticed that it was Mary, whom the dog despised, who had dared to grab her collar. No doubt it was the dog’s surliness around Mary that forced her to bring Theodora to the dog, instead of vice versa. After giving Mary a pleasant wave through the glass, Theodora left. Mary released her grip on the collar, and Maggie then started barking at her. The dog then rushed forward and clunked her head against the glass door. Maybe I should get some fully padded cat-shaped decals after all.

Mary crossed her arms tightly against her chest and glared at me. “Theodora is one of the most respected psychics in the world. You treated her like a vagabond gypsy who’d intruded into your living room.”

“Because she
did
intrude into my space, thanks to you, no doubt.”

She chuckled and shoved her strawberry blond bangs from her eyes. “Hey, you’re the one who left
my
dog here all alone. When I came looking for you and found that Maggie had been deserted, I took it upon myself to seek some help for the poor dog. A lesser person would have simply taken Maggie, since she
is
rightfully mine.”

“She is not ‘rightfully’ yours, and we both know it.”

Mary replied, “Theodora detected right away that Maggie did indeed possess part of my aura. She thinks that happened when I was in my coma after the car accident.”

“Oh, please, Mary. You don’t really believe that, now do you?”

“I most certainly do believe it, and I can get Theodora to testify to that effect and about what happened here today. The fact is that my late husband left his money to a dog who possessed
my
soul. Which makes a good case for the inheritance going to me.”

“And just whom were you hoping to get to preside over the court? Shirley MacLaine?” I was just too angry at the world in general and Mary in particular to hold my tongue. “I know this is Boulder and that we tolerate all kinds of tutti-frutti philosophies here, but I grew up in this area, and it’s been my experience that that stops short of the courthouse steps. Your daffy friend, Theodora, is not going to hold much weight with the judges. Furthermore, if you pursue this matter, you’ll simply be demonstrating to the authorities what a prime suspect you really are.”

She glared at me and thrust her finger into my face. “For the last time, I didn’t kill Ken. I had nothing to do with his death, and I don’t know who did.”

“And you had nothing to do with Ruby, either, right?” I said in a taunting voice.

All traces of anger disappeared. She asked quietly and fearfully, “Ruby? You mean that drunk who lives next to Ken?”

My anger dissipated as well at witnessing her reaction to the news. “Somebody killed her, too. Sometime today. That’s why I wasn’t here. I was talking to the police.”