4 Woof at the Door (22 page)

“Someone’s high school yearbook?”

“Not high school. College. Arizona.”

“I didn’t even know universities produced yearbooks.” I glanced at the date on the spine. “Apparently Arizona did, twenty-five years ago.”

Chesh patted the mattress, indicating for me to have a seat, which I did, after we got Doobie, who’d assumed Chesh’s gesture was meant for him, to lay down on the floor by our feet. She had bookmarked a particular page and flipped it open. She handed me the book and tapped her black-painted fingernail on the specific photo she wanted me to see.

It was a picture of a young Ty Bellingham. Though the photo was not taken in the sixties, he wore bellbottoms and a shirt with big cuffs and poofy sleeves. The stocky young man beside him was a shocker.

Chesh scotted closer to me to peer over my shoulder and, again, indicated what she wanted me to see by tapping with her nail. “Recognize this dude?”

I stared, trying to verify the face beneath the phony afro. “Is that…Hank Atkinson?”

“Yep. It was from Ty’s college days at Arizona.”

“That’s where Hank went to college,” I murmured. “I remember him saying he used to be on their football team.”

Chesh said, “Thing is, though,
Ty
told me he never went to college. Why would he lie? And it seems he and Hank were the best of friends back in college.” She grabbed the book back from me, and flipped it open to a second bookmarked page. Look at how Hank signed Ty’s yearbook.”

I read: To the best friend a guy could have. Go 4 it, Monster Man! Hank.

“Did Ty ever mention his past relationship with Hank to you?” I asked.

“No, never.”

“This makes no sense.”

I sat on the bed and carefully scanned the yearbook, looking for a picture of someone else I might be able to recognize. Sure enough, I found a very young-looking woman with a distinctive, beaker-shaped nose. Paige Gunders, the former Mrs. Bellingham and current Mrs. Atkinson.

I showed my discovery to Chesh, still seated beside me on Ty’s four-poster bed. “This explains the sudden marriage to Hank Atkinson,” I said. “They’ve known each other for years. In fact, there’s an inscription here.” I read aloud, “‘To Ty, the best third wheel a couple could hope to have. Love, Paige (and Hank!)’” She’d dotted the “i” in Paige with a heart.

Chesh grabbed the yearbook from me and read it again herself. “This is, like, Beyond Bizarre. In the, um, nine months I’ve known Paige, she never once said anything about her and Hank and Ty all having gone to college together. And like I said, Ty used to tell everyone how he was living proof that college was a waste of time and money. That he’d never gone to college and here he was a successful, self-made business owner.”

She looked at me, waiting for my reply. Every time something surfaced that looked as though it should be a clue, it only confused matters all the more. “You’d better turn this over to the police. Maybe it’ll prove useful to their investigation.”

“I will, but I thought, you know, you’re a psychologist. I mean, I know your work is with dogs and all, but you still seem to know a lot about human behavior. Can you explain this to me? Why wouldn’t the three of them have admitted to knowing one another?”

This was a first—nobody had ever made the leap that my work with dog behavior could make me incisive with human behavior. I decided to take her remarks as a compliment and leave it at that.

“Maybe they wanted to forget,” I answered. “Something had to have happened after this yearbook was signed that led to Paige leaving Hank and choosing Ty.” Which begged the question: Why, if you wanted to forget about your college experiences, would you live next door to a former college buddy—or lover—more than a quarter-century later?

Chesh latched onto my unspoken question and said, “Yeah, but I mean…whenever I’ve broken up with a boyfriend, I’d just as soon never see him again. You know? But Ty marries his best friend’s ol’ lady, his best friend marries somebody else, and they get houses next door to one another. And
then
they swap who gets the girl, detest each other, yet they still live in the same houses. It’s like a really bad soap opera.”

“You’re right,” I said, thinking that the relationship among Ty and the Atkinsons did bear some resemblance to dog behavior after all, but this wasn’t a train of thought I wished to dwell on. Instead, I continued to flip through the yearbook, looking for Hank on the football team. He wasn’t listed. That was interesting; both Paige and Hank had mentioned his having been on the team. In fact, Paige had said how “he never lets anyone forget” about his football prowess in college. I checked his list of achievements to see if he’d been on the team in previous years. No listing. He hadn’t been involved in any sports activities, but rather, was captain of the chess club.

Doobie suddenly shot up on all fours and galloped out of Ty’s bedroom. He was now barking from what sounded like the living room.

I ignored the dog and asked, “Chesh, did Hank ever happen to say anything to you about being on his football team in college?”

“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes as she hooked her long blond hair behind her ears. “I remember one morning he was limping a little when we both happened to be going out to get our papers at the same time. Just to be friendly, I said something to him like, ’Hurt your foot?’ and he told me that it was a football injury from his college days that flared up from time to time.”

“Did Ty overhear the conversation, or did you ever repeat it to him?”

“Ty wasn’t there, and I certainly wouldn’t bother to repeat the remark. I mean, college football? Who cares?”

“Apparently both Hank and Paige cared enough about Hank’s having played football on a nationally renowned college team to lie about it.”

Doobie’s racket from the other room had still not let up. Chesh murmured, “He’s at it again.” She frowned and sighed. “Allida, I’m real concerned about Doobie’s mental health. He probably…witnessed Ty’s murder.” Our eyes met and she said somberly, “The police told me Ty wasn’t killed by the wolf. That his throat…” she shuddered.

I shook my head. “Doobie couldn’t have been in the room. Ty had trained Doobie to attack people on his command. That means, if Doobie had been in the room at the time that Ty was being murdered, Doobie would have attacked the person. Unless the killer was someone…the dog trusted.”
Such as you,
I added in silence.

“That’s good to hear,” she said pointedly. “Doobie must have already been locked in the bathroom, because I didn’t kill Ty.” She covered her ears. “You’ve got to stop Doobie from this infernal barking! What is the matter with him, anyway?”

“Tell me more about the pattern of this barking. Does it usually begin at this hour?”

Chesh shook her head. “I’m almost never here at this time of day. I wouldn’t know.”

“Maybe I can ask some of your neighbors about the barking.”

We left the yearbook on the bed and went into the living room. Doobie was barking out the windows again, but this time, he was barking out the front. I looked out the window myself, but didn’t see anything. The sidewalk was deserted. No squirrels on nearby trees.

I turned back to face Chesh, who had slumped onto a beanbag chair, looking forlorn. “I have some appointments this afternoon, but before I go, I’m going to see if there are any neighbors around who can tell me about Doobie’s pattern of barking. That might give me some clues.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” Chesh said. She looked miserable and in physical pain, as if she were battling a headache.

We said our good byes, then I headed down the front walk and soon spotted Seth Melhuniak, tying his shoe lace. He rose, the color rising in his cheeks as he recognized me. He started to walk purposefully away from me, toward his house.

“Hello, Mr. Melhuniak. Could I—”

“You again!” he barked over his shoulder. He made a gesture at me as if he were shooing a buzzing fly. “Leave me alone!”

I quickly caught up to him, despite his impressive clip for someone his age. “Please tell me why you objected so strongly the other day when I told you I was working with Doobie.”

Seth tried to wave me off again and grumbled, “That’d be just like a criminal defense attorney askin’ why I’d object to his getting his murderous client off scot free.”

I stopped as he headed up the short walkway to his front porch and called after him, “Did Doobie injure your dog?”

“I don’t have no dog no more!” he said as he slammed his door shut.

Could Doobie have attacked and killed his dog?
The thought made me shudder.

Chapter 16

I headed back toward my car, my feet slowing as I had to pass Beverly’s house. Moments before, I’d trotted past it without as much as a glance, and now that struck me as a betrayal. I couldn’t let her be swept out of my life this easily. There was a reason behind her death; there was a killer who was still breathing while Beverly wasn’t, and I would not have peace of mind till I found out why her life had been taken, and by whom.

I needed to talk to the Atkinsons. They alone knew the reason behind the subterfuge regarding their past relationship with Ty. In the process, I could make sure the puppies were still in good health. I rang the bell, and Paige opened the door. Through dull eyes, she stared at me. “Oh, it’s you. Dog woman.”

My second warm greeting in a row. This was decidedly not Mr. Roberts Neighborhood. “Doobie is barking again and I thought I’d—”

“No kidding,” she interrupted. “His barking begins like clockwork around two p.m. and doesn’t stop till six.” A high-pitched bark began from inside the Atkinsons’ house. “And there goes Sammy, too.”

It was too early for the afternoon school buses, I thought, but maybe Doobie barked in anticipation. “Do you ever see any children, taunting one of the dogs, perhaps, as they get off the bus?”

She shook her head. “Not that I’ve noticed. It’s always in this order, too. Doobie barks first, then Sammy, then…” she paused and grimaced and said through her teeth, “Beagle Boy, the illustrious sire of our dog’s puppies.”

If the barking truly was that predictable, I could always stake out the house, hide out in my car, and watch what happened.

“Speaking of your dog, how are Sammy and her litter doing?”

“They’re fine. We even have a couple of buyers already, which surprised me. They’re not exactly going to be pedigreed.”

“Pedigrees aren’t as important to everyone as they apparently are to you.” She gave me a blank stare, so I continued, “Did you know that your ex-husband kept his college yearbook?”

She paled and stared at me in shock. “No. That’s hard to believe. He didn’t want anybody to know he was a college graduate. He liked to project the image of the self-made success story. Thought it made him look better.”

“Even so, apparently he was too nostalgic to throw away his year book. It’s unusual how you and Hank were once a couple, and you bought a house next door to one another. Have you already explained all of that to the police?”

She started to sputter a protest at the “impertinence” of my question, then paused, sighed, and said, “Oh, hell, there’s no sense keeping secrets now. It’s not so strange, really. Hank and I stayed in touch after college, in spite of my marriage. Our flame never really died. We had a bad fight, and we broke up. I married Ty on the rebound. That was a terrible mistake. Hank and his wife bought this house once it came on the market a year after Ty and I bought his. For years, we all lived with the silly notion that we could just be friends. We were wrong. Hank and I belong together, and we’re happy now.”

“Huh. I also noticed Hank isn’t mentioned as a former player for the Arizona Wildcats.”

She curled her lip at me, then said, “He would have made the team. He blew out his knee, his freshman year, horsing around with his roommate.”

“Was Ty Bellingham that roommate?”

“Yes, he was, as a matter of fact. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to attend to.” She shut the door in my face.

I weighed the notion of ringing her doorbell again to ask her more questions. Yet, the bottom line was, I wasn’t a police officer or any kind of an authority figure that could make a case for needing to know. Besides, I was due at my appointment in east Boulder with the new client to whom Hank had referred me.

My new client, a young female malamute, was a beautiful animal, and every bit as friendly as his owner had described. She had lovely washed-out blue eyes with dark rims. The owner, Henrietta, had led me into the back yard to meet the dog, which came right up to me and nuzzled me for a pat.

“You must be Titan,” I said. Once again, I could feel myself tense up despite my appreciation for the animal’s beauty. Titan had those same lupine features that set my nerves on edge.

I took a calming breath. In the meantime, Titan rolled over onto her back in the submissive position and sought a tummy rub. To discourage her submission, I stepped back and knelt and called her over to me again, then petted her chest when she obliged.

A bit of motion in the corner of the yard caught my eye. Titan, too, turned her head, and we watched a squirrel dart across the length of the yard and then up a tree. Titan showed no more interest in chasing it than I did.

“She’s a beautiful dog,” I said to her owner, a thirtyish woman named Henrietta.

“Isn’t she though? But can you teach her to be a better guard dog?”

“
Better,
yes. But the best watchdogs are aggressive. So far, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most aggressive and one the least, Titan is ranking at a two.” Maybe a two-and-a-half, I silently reconsidered; at least she hadn’t run from me or piddled on herself. “There are three basic elements to aggressiveness: predation, territorial instincts, and dominance. Titan shows none of the three. I can show you ways to beef up her aggressiveness, which I think would be a good idea so that she’s not overly dependent on you. And, if you want, you could post a couple Beware-of Dog-signs. She’s big enough that those alone could be an effective deterrent.”

The woman nodded. “Especially now that I’ve got such a good security system, thanks to Hank.”