Ruff Way to Go (28 page)

He nodded. “A
while ago, Trevor used to let Melanie walk him.” He stared at his giggling
daughter. “Seeing these two together was the main reason I was so adamant about
wanting to get a dog.”

“That was
nice of him.” Though somewhat unfounded, I felt a surge of relief at the
thought that maybe this meant that Edith’s accusations concerning Trevor having
had a sexual relationship with Cassandra weren’t true. Maybe he’d innocently
been over here to let his dog visit with Melanie.

“Trevor was
a good neighbor. Listen, I’d invite you inside, but the place is a mess
and—”

“No, that’s
all right. It really was the dog’s idea to come, and I’d better be going
myself.”

“Can Shogun
stay?” Melanie asked. “He can sleep in my bed.”

“No, he can’t,
honey. Sorry. Shogun doesn’t belong to Allida.”

“Your Dad’s
right. I’m going to give him back to Trevor tonight.”

“Tell him I
said hello,” Paul said.

“But you
said you hated him,” Melanie said, getting to her feet.

“I said no
such thing. Come on inside.” Paul all but chucked Melanie back inside the
house. He gave me a sheepish smile and shook his head. “Kids. It’s hard to know
where their imaginations leave off and their interpretation of reality begins.”
He ruffled his daughter’s hair. “Thanks for bringing Shogun over. Have a good
day.”

He shut the
door, and I walked Shogun back across the street, feeling intensely uneasy. It
had been my impression that Melanie had a fairly good grasp of her “interpretation
of reality.” And I remembered how Paul had said something to Trevor that all
but froze him in his tracks the night after the murder.

Back home,
my mother gave me a shoulder colder than the cup of ice cream she’d stashed in
the freezer. When I asked why, she said, “You’re obviously hell bent on getting
yourself killed, and I don’t want to have to stand by and watch. For God’s
sake, Allie, a man nearly strangled you this morning! Then I see you over there
talking to Susan, after you came out of Edith’s house. One of those women might
be a murderer! For heaven’s sake, stay away from them. Let Andy handle things.”

“I am. I
just want to get Shogun to his rightful owner.” Then I wanted to get the
puppies and Suds adopted to good homes; I doubted Carver would be a free man
anytime soon.

Mom was
already in a huff, so I decided that I might as well go through with my idea of
calling Trevor to invite him over to get Shogun. He wasn’t home, so I tried his
work number and reached him. The moment I said, “This is Allida,” he blurted, “I
just hung up with Edith. She tells me that she thinks you’re incompetent and
won’t pay. Am I right in taking that to mean that you’ve decided to award me
custody of Shogun?”

“Yes, and I
was wondering if—”

“I’ll be
right over. And don’t worry, I’ll cover your fees myself.”

Half an hour
later, despite a rainstorm that had developed, Trevor arrived, soaking wet. He
pumped my hand vigorously, picked up his dog and Shogun’s bed, then handed me a
check for twice what I’d planned on charging. He said he had never been so willing
to pay for anyone’s service.

Just as he
was about to leave, I decided I had to address the niggling concern that Edith
had raised about his relationship with Cassandra. “Trevor,” I began, “I heard a
rumor about Cassandra having been unfaithful to Paul. Did you ever hear
anything to that effect?”

Trevor
scoffed. “Cassie? Unfaithful? Never.” He shook his head and met my eyes, his
own filled with joy at having his dog back. “Someone got the story wrong.” He
beamed at me, said, “I can’t thank you enough,” and left.

That
evening, John White called me to ask how I was. I said, “Fine,” and asked how
soon I could get Suds back with her puppies. He insisted on personally bringing
Suds to my home. In a lame attempt at humor, he promised that this time he
wouldn’t have any knife-wielding passengers with him.

An hour or
so later, he rang my doorbell. He was wearing brown cotton-twill slacks and a
pale yellow T-shirt, and his hair was neatly combed. I wondered if he’d spruced
up in my honor. Suds, her muzzle still bandaged but otherwise healthy-looking,
rushed inside and straight to her puppies the moment I opened the door, but
John remained on the porch.

“Thanks for
bringing her.” I was unable to make my voice more than barely civil.

He shrugged.
“I really came over to apologize. I’m sorry I lied to you before. I never
dreamed Carver would...I just wanted to tell you that I’ve turned in my two weeks’
notice at work. I’m leaving the state, getting a fresh start someplace else.”

“Because of
Carver?”

He nodded. “My
past has been catching up with me. I need to get some distance between myself
and...who I used to be.”

“I don’t
understand.” I didn’t feel like talking to him
through the screen door, and
even less like inviting him inside, so I joined him on the porch. “Who did you
used to be?”

“A petty
thief, for one thing. I’ve changed my ways, though.”

Now I
understood. “That’s how you met Carver. In prison.”

He nodded,
not meeting my eyes. “I’m real sorry, Allida. I had nothing to do with your
neighbor’s murder, and I never thought Carver would come hassle you and try and
take Suds.”

“What’s
going to happen with him?”

“He’s going
back to jail. We’ll be putting Suds up for adoption in a couple of weeks, once
the puppies are fully independent. That’ll be my last project for them before I
go. We’ll try to get the puppies adopted immediately when they’re at seven
weeks. They’ll go fast. Puppies always do. You wouldn’t want to make your
fostering of Suds permanent, would you?”

“No. Sorry,
not until I’ve got my own place. I think Mom has put up with enough of my
decisions regarding the animal kingdom. She’s probably getting pretty fed up
with my taking my work home with me.”

He nodded. “I’ll
be seeing you in a couple of weeks, then, unless something comes up in the
meantime.”

“No offense,
but let’s hope not. So far, anything that’s ‘come up’ has been painful.”

John sighed
and searched my face. “I never intended to get you involved with Carver. You do
believe that, don’t you?”

I regarded
him for a moment and realized that I’d been unlucky—or unwise—when
I hadn’t thought to double check his claim that the police had told him that
Carver had had an alibi. Otherwise, John’s lies might have unraveled sooner
than they did. “Yes. It’s just that...you can’t run away from your past, and
lying about it doesn’t make it go away.”

“That, if nothing
else, is one thing I’ve learned. Goodbye, Allida.” He pivoted on his heel and
walked back to his car, then drove away without a second glance.

***

Sunday
morning, I accompanied my mother to church. She had seemed to have put our
previous friction behind her, and I was more than willing to drop the matter.
It was such a nice day that we left all of the dogs outside in our absence. Mom
went out to the back deck to check on them the moment we returned. Suds and a
couple of the puppies rushed in the instant she opened the door. She was
looking pretty flustered when she returned from the backyard. “Have you seen
Fez?”

“No. Isn’t
he with the others?” I asked stupidly.

“No. Not
unless I miscounted and he already came inside.”

“Okay. He’s
got to be here someplace.”

We searched
thoroughly, inside and out. Fez was nowhere to be found. But I did find a
puppy-sized hole underneath the fence. Suds might have done the digging. My own
dogs weren’t diggers, and the puppies were too young to have taken up this
particular activity. If Fez had dug this hole himself at his age, he was
awfully precocious.

First Shogun
was missing, then Suds was forcibly taken. Now a puppy was missing. This was a
pattern that had to stop soon. One way or another.

Mom and I
decided that she would check with the neighbors on our side of the street and I’d
check with those on the opposite side. The neighbors next door, whose property
bordered the fence the dog had dug under, had been out of town this past week.
Mom went there first to see if they were back home. She didn’t return, which
meant that, yes, they were home, and Mom would have all too much catching up to
do on the recent grisly events befalling the neighborhood.

It was unlikely
that such a young puppy would venture far on his own. Someone could have
spotted him and picked him up, which would not have been a tragedy, for Fez
would be old enough for adoption in another ten days anyway. The real danger,
of course, was that he might eventually wander into the road at an unfortunate
time. I couldn’t forgive myself if that were to happen.

Fez was too
young to respond to his own name, so I whistled a few times, but didn’t bother
calling. I went to the Randons’ place first, because it was closest and because
it was possible that Fez remembered his former temporary home, even though he’d
been there for less than a full day.

The front
door was open. “Hi, come on in,” Paul hollered from a back room in answer to my
knock.

That was a
surprisingly friendly greeting, but I stepped inside his home.

He came out
wearing only shorts, and his face fell at the sight of me. For my part, I had
to say that Paul really wasn’t the sort who should be showing off his torso. He
had fairly substantial love handles and only a few scraggly-looking chest hairs
on his pale skin. “Oh. Allida. I thought...I’m expecting my secretary to drop
by with some work for me.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke.

Pretty
casual relationship with one’s secretary not to have put on a shirt for her,
but that was his business, not mine. “I just came over to see if you or Melanie
have seen any of the puppies this morning. One of them got out through a hole
underneath the fence a few minutes ago.”

“Oh. Er, no.
Sorry.”

“Could I ask
Melanie?”

“She’s...not
here. She’s staying with my sister for the next few days. I thought that would
give her a chance to get—”

“Yoo hoo,” a
woman called from the doorway. I whirled around and faced a pretty young woman
with blond hair. She appeared to be startled to see me. Her eyes darted between
Paul and me. “Oh. I didn’t realize you had company.”

“Uh, yes,”
Paul said. “This...is just a neighbor looking for her lost puppy.”

“You lost a
puppy? Oh, dear.” She cast a glance in Paul’s direction, then said with clasped
hands, “I do so love little puppies.”

Spare me,
I thought.
She was obviously playing up to Paul.

Paul
disappeared into the room he’d emerged from, muttering, “Let me get a shirt on.”

I couldn’t
wait to get out of there, but Paul’s visitor was still standing in the doorway.
The young woman had a smile plastered on her face.

“I’d better
check with some more neighbors.”

“So you live
in the neighborhood?” she asked, still smiling.

“Across the
street.”

“I’m a real
estate agent. Helping Paul to find a new home. I don’t know if he told you
this, but he’ll be moving to Boulder.”

I was
embarrassed for my own sake and for theirs, being caught in their lie. “That’s
nice. Boulder’s a great town.”

Paul
reentered the room just then and chuckled nervously.

“Yes. She is
not only my secretary, but has her real estate license.”

“That’s...very
industrious of you.”

Paul had a
dog-caught-with-his-nose-in-the-garbage look on his face when I turned back
toward him. “Please let me know if you see the puppy.”

The woman,
still smiling but now with crimson cheeks, stepped aside, and I left quickly. I
now had to choose between visiting Edith next door and skipping that house to
go to the Haywoods’. Not that the Haywoods were such a treat, but I sorely
wanted to avoid seeing Edith again this soon.

I started to
head past Edith’s house on my way to the Haywoods’ and glanced directly across
the street to see if my mother was still over there, hopefully with the dog.
Mom was on the front porch chatting with the neighbor. No puppies in sight. She
apparently wasn’t overly concerned about Fez’s whereabouts.

I heard a
screen door bang and turned to see Edith Cunningham standing on her porch with
a puppy in her arms. She was watching me, a haughty expression on her face. I
changed directions and slowly headed toward her, wishing someone else had found
Fez.

As usual,
she was impeccably dressed, in a long white pleated skirt and a gold silk
blouse, augmented with pearls. To her credit, she was cradling Fez with
seemingly no regard to his getting her clothes dirty. “Why, Allida. Look what I
found.”

“Yes.
Thanks. I’ve been looking for him.”

She nuzzled
the puppy, but kept her eyes on me. “Seems as though the Fates are trying to
even things out between us, wouldn’t you say? I have your puppy, you took my
dog. Of course, there’s no real comparison between your puppy, which you intend
to give up for adoption in a couple of weeks, and my beloved Shogun. Is there?”