Play Dead (4 page)

Beth nodded, chewing on her lower lip as
she watched Sage. “This just kills me,” she murmured, then grabbed a once-white
phone off its wall mount. She dialed and was soon speaking to who I gathered to
be the receptionist. Beth hung up and said, “My vet’s gonna call me back. He’s
always slow with that. Let’s go now.”

She led the way out her door, letting the
screen door bang behind her before I, followed by Sage, could reach it. I
stepped out onto the porch, quietly closing the door on Sage. “Don’t you want
to lock this?” I asked.

“Nah. I never lock anything. I always
figure, if someone wants to get in, they’re gonna get in, so you may as well
save yourself the broken glass.”

A philosophy which, in this case, left her
dog and his food vulnerable to trespassers. So far, Beth had struck me as a
nice, caring person. Yet she also seemed to be a kibble or two shy of a full
serving in the firm-grasp-on-reality department.

“Beth, I think you should consider
changing your habits, now that you’ve got Sage.” Ironic, I realized even as I
spoke, that I was suggesting she be more careful to lock her house, now that
she owned a watchdog. “What if you’ve got some neighbor who hates dogs? He or
she could have waltzed into your house while you were out and ruined his food.”

Beth, standing on the sidewalk, stared up
at me on her porch. “Jeez. I hadn’t thought of that.” She glanced at the houses
on either side of hers. “I’ve never even met my neighbors.”

I looked back at the house, where Sage was
watching us, his long nose pressed against the narrow window alongside the
door. Though my rational side assured me I was just being paranoid, I had
visions of his being nabbed in our absence. “Let’s take Sage with us.”

Beth stared at me blankly for a moment,
then shrugged. While I unlocked the car and opened the door to the backseat,
Beth jogged back to her house and got Sage, but did not lock the door
afterwards. Good thing much of my work with Sage’s eating problems would be
with her collie and not with Beth Gleason. The dog seemed more trainable.

Beth jogged down the steps, and Sage came
bounding alongside her with surprising energy. This, after all, was a large dog
operating solely on a slice of tofu and a few dog biscuits. He hopped in and
immediately settled down on the pink blanket spread across my backseat. The
blanket was so embedded with dog fur it looked like angora.

Beth clicked her tongue as she looked at
him. “Riding in the car is the only time Sage shows any liveliness. I really
think he always expects me to take him to Hannah’s house.”

That was probably exactly what Sage was
hoping,
I thought. Beth
crammed her long legs underneath the dashboard though her seat was all the way
back, while I slipped easily into my seat, all the way forward. Must be awful
to have to bend down as far as she had to whenever she picked something up off
the floor.

I gave myself a quick check in the
rearview mirror, glad to see that my short, wispy, light brown hair and slight
touches of makeup maintained a reasonably professional appearance. I started
the engine and pulled away from the curb, comforted by the familiar soft sounds
of a large dog panting in the backseat.

It seemed quite possible that some
disgruntled, oddball neighbor of Beth’s was behind the food tainting. Yet, if
that were true, Sage’s reaction should have been to mistrust Beth; she would be
the variable that had changed from the last time Sage had good food. Therefore,
Sage should have shown much more reluctance to eat her tofu or the biscuit she’d
fed him at my office. Sage’s actions had been more in keeping with a dog that
knew his dog food tasted bad, not that all food
Beth
offered him tasted
bad.

“Did Sage ever eat any of his food? On the
first day you got him, at least?”

“Not even once,” Beth answered firmly. “The
very first thing I did when we came into my house was to pour him a bowl of
food, but he wouldn’t eat it.”

That effectively put the neighbor theory
to rest,
I thought. “You
met Sage at this cooking class taught by Sage’s former owner. What happened
next?”

“I read about Hannah’s death in the
Daily
Camera.
I called Hannah’s house and left a message on her machine that if
nobody else wanted Sage, I sure did.”

“And somebody from her estate called you
to let you have him?”

She shook her head. “No, no one ever
called me, but the shelter did when he was brought in. See, I’d also left my
name at the animal shelter as wanting to adopt a collie.”

“And the people at the shelter also gave
you the name and number of the person who’d been watching Sage?”

“No, I...found that on the piece of paper
I gave you. It was in the bag of dog food.”

This was more than a little bizarre.
Fortunately, we were at a stoplight, because I hit the brakes to face Beth. “You
found a man’s name and number inside the bag of dog food? The food that had
been tainted with a repellent?”

“Uh, yeah. Right on top. So I, um, called
the number out of curiosity, and a lady answered and told me they’d been taking
care of Sage.” Her cheeks had colored and she picked at a nonexistent piece of
lint on her black T-shirt as if she didn’t know what to do with her hands. She
reached back to stroke Sage’s fur and avoided my gaze. Why was she acting so
uncomfortable on the subject of Hannah’s neighbors?

“Did they say why their number was in with
the dog food?”

“She said they cared a lot about Sage and
wanted to keep track of him. But I wouldn’t give them my address. It just...felt
wrong to me. Kind of like telling your kid’s birth parents where you are and
everything, once you’ve already adopted him. I mean, what if they change their
minds about giving Sage up?”

“Hmm.” I was starting to feel more and
more suspicious about all of this. Traffic eventually allowed me to make a left
at the intersection, and we passed the round, windowless, white stucco
structure that was appropriately named the “Toadstool” playhouse. “I have to
say that it seems a bit strange that this Ms. Jones, who was so devoted to her
dog as to take him to class with her, would commit suicide and not make any
arrangements for Sage.”

“I know,” Beth said, nodding vigorously. “That’s
why I don’t think she committed suicide in the first place. Especially shooting
herself in the head like that, while Sage was in the house with her.” She
leaned over and whispered to me, “And wait’ll you see how he acts around men in
raincoats. He turns ferocious.”

Beth’s not wanting Sage to overhear made
her theory about her collie having witnessed a murder all the more difficult to
take seriously. Why, then, was I battling this mental picture of Sage barking
helplessly as a man in a trench coat shot his owner to death and doused his dog
food in Bitter Apple?

“Once we restore Sage’s diet and health, I’ll
look into his behavior around men. Is it any particular type of raincoat, or
just any man in any type of coat?”

“Oh.” Beth narrowed her eyes and stared
out the windshield thoughtfully. “I guess I’d have to say it’s any type of long
coat on any man. Just not, like, suit jackets or ski jackets. Good thing the
weather’s so nice today, or we couldn’t even trust Sage not to go ballistic at
some guy while we’re at PetsMart.”

I turned on the blinker and drove through
the parking lot to the opposite end of the Albertson’s shopping center where
PetsMart was located. PetsMart encourages customers to bring their pets into
the store, but Beth announced that she hadn’t brought Sage’s leash, then headed
with long strides into the store, oblivious as to whether I was following. The
collie looked completely settled in anyway, his body taking up every inch of
the backseat, the same way Pavlov’s did. I cracked the windows but locked the
car, then joined Beth in the store.

By the time I caught up to her, Beth’s
cart was half filled with dog bones, chew toys, and two big bags of food
despite my suggestion that she start small in case Sage didn’t care for these
brands. While we waited in line at the cash register, Beth pulled out a thick
wad of twenties, and I asked, “What do you do for a living, Beth?”

“Huh?” Beth did a double take at me, then
said, “I’m a student at CU. I already have a couple of degrees, in fact, but I
haven’t found any careers that speak to me.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little at
that. Beth gave me a puzzled look. I held up a hand in apology and said, “I don’t
mean to laugh. It’s just that I got this image of a voice from the clouds
calling down to you, ‘Beth. Become a dental hygienist.’”

She grinned. “Actually, I gotta admit, a
career would probably speak to me a lot sooner if I didn’t have such a big
trust fund. My father’s getting a little tired of all my changes in majors.”
She led the way outside, pushing the cart at what I’d begun to realize was her
typical, impressive clip.

“Maybe he’ll speak to you about
that,” I commented as the automatic doors opened.

“I’m half expecting him to...to...”

Her voice faded as we heard a dog’s
frenzied barks. I immediately scanned the parking lot for my car. Sage was
going wild, clawing at the window on the far side of the car.

“Oh, my God,” Beth cried. “He must have
seen a man in a raincoat or something.”

She tore across the lot, her cart making a
tremendous clatter as she shoved it ahead of her over the bumpy asphalt. I
followed as fast as I could in my tight skirt and stupid high heels.

“Stop it! Stop it! Sage, it’s me,” Beth
called as she ran around to the window on the far side of the car where Sage
was still clamoring.

I grabbed the box of dog biscuits from the
cart Beth had deserted near my car. I ripped the box open and unlocked the door
opposite to Sage. “Sage, come,” I called. After a few more seconds of barking,
he looked at me, and I repeated the command. He came over to my side and I gave
him the biscuit.

A frumpy middle-aged woman parked directly
across from me got out of her car. She wagged a finger at me and said, “You
need to get that dog of yours under control, young lady! He scared me half to
death!”

“He started barking at you?” I asked,
noting that she was wearing a miniskirt and blouse, which was not at all
flattering, but more significantly, could in no way be misinterpreted as a
raincoat.

“No, not at me, at some man. But I had to
sit here and listen to that racket for the last five minutes!”

“Was the man wearing a coat?” Beth asked,
rounding the car toward us.

“Why would I have noticed what the man was
wearing? I was just sitting here, minding my own business, waiting for my
sister to finish her grocery shopping.”

Beth got into my backseat and cuddled
Sage. He seemed to have completely reverted to the calm behavior he’d displayed
at my office and at Beth’s home. “Where is this man now?” I asked the woman.

“He drove off.” She waved her hand in the
air as she spoke, her brow still knitted.

“Did he just happen to be walking past my
car?”

“How should I know?” She whirled on her
stiletto heel. “All these stupid questions! No wonder nobody wants to get
involved these days.” She stomped back to her car, got in, and slammed the door
shut.

Beth, in the meantime, emerged and pushed
the cart to the back of my car. “Sage seems fine now. Let’s throw this stuff in
your trunk and get going.”

“Sure wish I could ask our Good Samaritan
over there to answer a few more questions,” I muttered as I unlocked the
hatchback. Technically, I didn’t have a “trunk.”

Beth shrugged. “Bet you anything some guy
in a coat walked by. That’s the only thing that could get Sage so upset.” She
hurled a bag of dog food into the back of my car. I was impressed. I can lift a
sack that heavy, too, but not without whimpering and looking truly awkward. “Believe
me,” Beth went on, “I’ve seen Sage do this four or five times now.” I loaded
the lighter dog paraphernalia, while she moved the second bag of food in beside
the first.

She struggled with one bag that was, for
Sage, a new brand of kibble. “Know how to get these open?”

“It’s one of those string things that seem
to start working the moment you give up on them. I just save myself the time
and slice it open with a knife.”

“Okay. In that case, allow me.” Beth
pulled something out of her fanny pack. With an effortless flick of her wrist,
a gleaming, five-inch-or-so blade emerged.

Incredulous, I asked, “You carry a
switchblade around with you?”

“Gift from my boyfriend,” she replied with
a shrug.

A switchblade as a lover’s present.
And
they say romance is dead,
I mused.

Beth promptly cut a hole in the bag, but
also let out a cry of pain as she sliced her thumb.

“Let me see that.”

“It’s nothing,” Beth said, shutting the
knife and dropping it back into her pack as she grabbed a tissue, which she
wrapped around her thumb. The tissue didn’t seem to be soaking through, so I
took her at her word. “Let’s see if Sage’ll eat a little.”