Play Dead (10 page)

“Down! Just because you’re small doesn’t
mean I can cut you slack. I don’t get any special treatment ‘cause of
my
height.”
Doppler picked up on my tone of voice and looked appropriately contrite, his
head hanging below his shoulder and his big brown eyes looking up at me.

I had to get the bathroom back into some
acceptable condition before leaving. Russell might take offense at finding the
flowers he’d bought me floating in the sink.

Doppler started barking before I could
transfer all the flowers into the jar. I went to see what was going on.

I gasped at the unexpected sight of Sage
on the tiny cement walkway to my door. He appeared to have dragged his
unattended leash with him. There was no sign of Beth.

I rushed to the door and opened it. Sage
did not come in, but instead climbed two stairs, then stood looking at me,
waiting for me to follow.

“Good dog. Wait.” My heart was already
pounding in what I could only pray was false alarm. The handle of the leash was
right in front of me.

The green nylon weave was now dark. “Please,
let that be mud,” I said to myself. As I started to reach for it, the collie
climbed another stair. “Sage, stay.”

I grabbed the loop, but then dropped it in
shock. The flecks that stuck to my hand were red. I stared at them.

My hands were flecked with dried blood.

I scanned the street and called “Beth!”
There was no answer. Maybe Sage would lead me to her. I glanced again at the
leash and took a calming breath. The blood was probably from the cut on Beth’s
thumb yesterday. Sage could have tugged on the leash, which might have reopened
the wound.

“Sage, sit. Stay.” He obeyed, and I dashed
inside the office and grabbed a leash. Doppler was picking up on my excitement.
He barked and hopped at my knees, expecting to go with me now that I’d picked
up a leash.

“No. Down, Dop.”

He stopped hopping and cocked his adorable
head at me, relaying his confusion. I glanced through the glass door at Sage,
who was waiting for me patiently.

I grabbed a lilac-colored sticky notepad,
wrote:
Beth—I have Sage, A.
, and rushed out the door, stuck the
note on the glass, and locked the door behind me.

Doppler rushed to the door and put his
paws on the glass. It killed me to have to leave him in my office again. I had
a persistent and, hopefully, irrational fear that some evil person had tracked
Beth through my office address that I’d given over the radio. If so, he’d come
here next, and poor little Doppler would be unprotected. Yet I had no choice.
If I were to have any hope of Sage’s leading me to Beth, he could not be
distracted by a second dog.

I removed the leash on Sage’s collar,
telling myself I was only doing it because I didn’t want to hold on to
something blood-soaked, not because Sage’s leash might be evidence in a
horrible crime. My hands shook nonetheless. I slipped over his head a thick-linked
chain collar attached to a long, inch-wide blue leash. Nothing could get a dog’s
attention faster than the sound and sensation of a quick snap on this type of
leash. If Beth was in serious trouble, I would need Sage’s instantaneous
response.

How did all of this get so out of control
so fast? I was a dog psychologist, for heaven’s sake! Now here I was, scared to
death that my first Boulder customer had been murdered because of something
some maniac had heard her say to me on the radio!

Unlike yours truly, the collie had calmed
down in the few moments it took me to leave my office. He no longer seemed
anxious for me to follow him. That had to be a good sign. Surely, if Beth was
severely injured while the two of them had been out walking, Sage would be more
agitated than this. Instead, he sat patiently while I switched leashes, one ear
up and one down, and peering over that almost comical long, bumpy muzzle of
his.

“Sage, find Beth,” I told the collie. He
trotted toward the busy intersection at Broadway and Mapleton. As we waited, I
wondered how he’d managed to cross this intersection alone to get to my office.

I encouraged him to go quickly across the
road—which meant we crossed at a dead run. As we trotted along the
streets lined with enormous budding maple trees, I listened for sirens. Sage
led me a block south, and I realized he was leading me back to Beth’s house on
Pine Street.

My heart was thumping as the two of us
headed up the walkway to Beth’s house. The screen door was shut, but the inner
door was open halfway. “Beth?” I called as I opened the screen door. Sage
trotted in ahead of me. He stopped just inside the doorway and barked at
something in die kitchen, directly ahead of us. After three short barks, he
looked back at me.

“It’s all right, boy,” I said quietly, not
believing my words for a second. Dogs are so trusting, even when their handlers
are quaking in their shoes. Keeping one hand on Sage’s soft, long coat, I
cautiously stepped alongside the large dog, not even sure what to hope to see.

It was Beth’s boyfriend, Chet, just rising
from the kitchen table, a cup of coffee and a newspaper in front of him.
Indoors he looked larger than ever. He wore work boots, jeans and a
black-and-white plaid shirt over a forest green T-shirt. His curly brown hair
was uncombed.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded,
glaring at me with unmasked menace.

A horrid thought occurred to me. Beth
could be here, beaten to a pulp by this creep. If he were keeping her here
against her will, what better way for her to contact help than to send her dog
out a window with a bloodstained leash?

Considering our lousy first encounter,
there was no sense in my trying to force pleasantries. I called upon my best
professional facade—which was effective for dogs but not necessarily for
humans—and said calmly, “I’m bringing Beth’s dog back. He showed up at my
office, dragging his leash. Is Beth here?”

“No.”

“Do you know where she is?” I wanted to
scream at him. I really, really didn’t like or trust this guy, and my gut
reaction was telling me Beth was in deep trouble.

“No.” He maintained a snide, taunting
expression on his face as he stared into my eyes.

“When did you last see her?”

“What is this? Twenty Questions? I don’t
know where she is. I’m waiting for her.”

“But you went out to brunch with her a couple of hours ago,
right?”

“No.”

That did it. Unwilling and unable to
continue false calmness, I dropped Sage’s leash, whirled around on a heel, and
charged down the hallway.

“Beth? Are you here?” I hollered. I threw
open the first closed door—a bedroom that Beth apparently had been using
as a storage room. There were no signs that anyone had been in here for days.

Chet overtook me. “Hey! What the hell do
you think you’re doing?” He grabbed my shoulder. His fingers dug into me.

I wrenched my shoulder free. “Look, Chet!
I’ve gathered that ‘no’ is your favorite word and that you don’t want to talk
to me, but Sage’s leash was bloodstained and there’s no sign of Beth.”

Chet’s enormous hands were still fisted,
but his expression turned from anger to surprise.

“I’m more than a little bit concerned
here,” I continued. “The last I saw of her was as she was getting into your car
with Sage, and the two of you were arguing. So, have it your way and don’t talk
to me, because I’m calling the police!”

I got all of two steps toward the kitchen
phone before Chet cried, “Wait.” He still looked angry enough to hit me, but
Sage had followed us and was now standing by my side in the hallway. Sage was
growling and barking at Chet, who ignored the dog’s threatening demeanor, took
a couple of long strides, and grabbed the leash to inspect it. “What do you
mean, Sage’s leash was bloody? It looks fine to me.”

“This isn’t his leash.” I tried to step
around him toward the second room at the end of the hallway. This had to be
Beth’s bedroom, and I could search for her while calling the police. “Excuse
me, I need to get to the phone.”

He grabbed me by both shoulders this time.
“When did Sage get to your office?”

I leveled a glare at him, and he let go
just as I was considering giving him a knee to the groin. “I left when you did,
around eleven-thirty. I got back there around two. I didn’t see Sage when I
first arrived, but he might have been waiting for me on the lawn someplace.”

“My God,” Chet whispered, slowly paling. “Somebody
could have...This is all my fault. We had a terrible argument. Beth and Sage
got out of the car at...I don’t know...must have been Arapahoe and
Twenty-eighth Street. I ate alone, finally cooled down, and came here ‘bout an
hour ago, but there was no sign of her. Maybe somebody...”

Chet seemed so worried that I found myself
believing him and feeling the need to reassure him. If this was all a show, he
was a fine actor. “She cut her thumb earlier. Maybe that’s where the blood was
from. She could have reopened the cut when Sage ran away from her. She might
just be out searching for her dog, with no way of knowing he’s with us.”

As though he hadn’t heard a word, Chet
cried, “Shit. Her car’s still here. But when the dog was gone and his leash, I
figured she was just...out walking him or something.”

“Were there any clues that she’d been back
since you last saw her?”

“Clues?”

“Yeah, you know. The same clothes that she’d
been wearing, her fanny pack, something like that?” She’d had a great deal of
money on her when she was in my office a couple of hours ago, I thought to
myself. Perhaps she’d been mugged.

“I, uh, we’d better go check.” He led the
way into the room at the end of the hall, which was, indeed, Beth’s bedroom.
The king-size waterbed had been left unmade. Only one side was mussed, as
though Beth had slept alone last night. I studied Chet’s face in profile. There
was a shocked glaze to his expression. By all appearances, his worry seemed
genuine, but I was much more skilled at judging dogs’ reactions than my fellow
two-leggers’. I quickly searched the bathroom and closet for any signs of blood
or, God forbid, Beth’s body. There was nothing. I felt only slightly relieved.

“Shit,” Chet said, which was apparently
his second favorite word. “Here’s her fanny pack. She had to have come here
after she got out of the car.” He held up the purple canvas fanny pack, which
did indeed appear to be the one she’d had on when she was at my office that
morning.

“Maybe that’s good news,” I replied, not
knowing what else to say.

He searched through the pack. “Her money’s
here, but her knife’s gone. She must have taken that with her.” He dropped the
pack onto the bed.

“Why would she take a switchblade with her
while she was walking the dog?”

He widened his eyes at me as if amazed at
the stupidity of my question. “For self protection. I told her never to go out
without it.” He glanced at the fanny-pack and rubbed his prominent chin. “Well,
shit! I’m calling the police,” Chet said, more to himself than to me.

I watched him as he punched 911 into the
beige princess phone on Beth’s nightstand. After a moment he said into the
phone, “Yeah. My girlfriend’s missing.” He paused, then said, “Three hours or
so, maybe.” He shook his head at the dispatcher’s response, then said, “Yeah,
but her dog’s leash had blood on it. See, she must have been out walking her
dog, ‘cause the dog showed up at this—” he waved his hand in my
direction, then continued “—stupid dog shrink’s office she’s been going
to. Her name’s Beth Gleason.” He listened to the dispatcher’s response, then
jerked his free hand into the air in frustration. “No! Not the
dog shrink’s
name!
My girlfriend’s, you moron!”

Just in case Chet was only pretending to
speak to a 911 dispatcher, I decided to pick up the other phone in the kitchen.
I rushed through the house, and by the time I’d picked up the kitchen phone, I
heard the woman dispatcher saying, “—normally wait twenty-four hours, but
we’ll send an officer out to take a report. You say her name is Beth Gleason,
and she lives at—”

Convinced this was an actual call, I hung
up. Sage had once again followed me to the kitchen. A few seconds later, Chet
stormed into the room.

“The police aren’t going to do jack shit!”
he announced.

“They
are
sending somebody out to
speak to you about this, though.”

“A shitload of good that’s going to do.”

Maybe Chet could use some time alone to
come up with some new words. “There’s only one thing I can do to help in the
meantime. Try to find her myself.”

“How?”

“Sage,” I answered simply.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going
to accomplish that way. This is just a dumb mutt. We’re not talking a
bloodhound or anything.”

“Sage is
not
stupid, and all dogs
can track,” I answered sharply. The latter half of my statement was only partly
true. My challenge would be to get Sage to understand what I wanted from him.
Getting a dog to follow a new command is always difficult, even if the action
itself—such as tracking—comes perfectly naturally to the dog.