Give the Dog a Bone (16 page)

“Could be. And her diction probably weren’t so hot neither.”

I clicked my tongue, not sharing in Tracy’s amusement. “Can you replay it for me? If I come down to the station this afternoon?”

“Oh, hey. No problem. I’ll just stay late and listen to my tapes of the entire show till I hear it. Shall I pick up a nice Chianti and some cucumber sandwiches for you while I’m at it?”

I gritted my teeth. “This could be important, Tracy. This caller of yours could be a major witness. Or it could be a total hoax. You’ve got to get a tape of the call over to the police, just in case.”

“Wow! Would
that
ever make a big story, if a caller to my radio show breaks the case wide open. This could be the biggest break I’ve ever gotten! Thanks, Allida!” She hung up.

I stared at the receiver in surprise for a moment, then followed Tracy’s reasoning and punched my thigh in frustration. I could already hear the publicity stunt that Tracy would put together: A source close to the double-murder investigation has just informed me that a major witness called my show yesterday.

I hit the redial, but got a busy signal. Shit! Ruby had apparently been killed simply for trying to leave a message on my machine about the killer’s identity, and my answering machine had been stolen and then smashed. What if this caller
was
the killer, trying to deflect attention onto Ken’s therapist?

After three more tries, I got her recording and said, “Tracy, if my friendship means anything to you, do not, repeat, do
not
say anything about yesterday’s caller being a possible witness. Okay? Tracy? You could be riling up the killer. Call me back as soon as you get this message.”

Tracy still had not called by my lunch break, so I called the station and was told that she’d “left for the day.” It was all I could do to hang up the phone without relegating it to the same fate as my old recorder.

Maybe I could find out on my own who the caller was. I found an old directory that listed “M. Culberson” in a northeast Boulder address, but got no answer when I called. I decided to take Pavlov with me and drop in on Theodora, whose business address was listed in the yellow pages, to get a feel for what, if anything, she knew about a certain radio talk show. Yolanda and Mary were perhaps more likely candidates for the anonymous caller, but Theodora was the only one within walking distance, and I sorely needed a walk to calm myself.

Her business was squeezed between two stores on Fourteenth Street, just off of the Pearl Street Mall. It was upstairs and identified only by a wooden sign flush against the door. The sign—in the shape of a crystal ball on a stand, with lightning bolts emanating from the ball—looked more like one of those balls that collect static electricity than a sign for a soothsayer.

I climbed the first couple of steps. Pavlov hesitated, and I had to slap my thigh to get her to come with me. We walked up the narrow staircase, Pavlov a step behind me, and entered the open door at the top. I then ran into black velour floor-length drapes, which I had to push aside. Pavlov sat quietly beside me while I stood still, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting.

A large fan rotated slowly from the ceiling, though the room was stuffy. The overwhelming aroma of incense was probably all but intolerable to Pavlov, which could explain her initial reluctance to come up here. Sitar music played from unseen speakers.

My eyes adjusted. We were in a small room, a couple of feet away from a sunken area filled with pillows that occupied most of the room. The pillows were perhaps intended to break the fall of those who boldly stepped into the center of the room before their eyes had grown accustomed to the dark.

“Hello?” I said tentatively.

“Be right with you, Allie,” Theodora called from behind a closed door directly across from me and the pillowed pit that separated us.

The door opened and Theodora waltzed in. Once again, she was wearing purple. Her dress was in a thin Indian-style cotton print that might be see-through with better lighting. Her long black hair was fastened in a loose ponytail. She stepped down and lowered herself almost regally onto a pillow.

“Sit down, Allie. I was expecting you. A premonition, if you will.”

“I’ll stand. Was my dog part of your premonition, by any chance?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Then I guess there’s no need to introduce the two of you.” Though I tried to be more mature about this, I found her too annoying and suggested, “Of course, if you could tell me my dog’s name, I’d be much more inclined to take you at your word.”

“That wasn’t part of my vision, I’m afraid. He’s welcome to join me on a pillow, too, where I’m sure you’d both be more comfortable.”

“
Her
name is Pavlov. Apparently my dog’s gender wasn’t part of your ‘vision’ either.”

She tented her fingers and rested her chin on her fingertips. “I sense hostility, Allie.” She gazed at Pavlov and smiled serenely. “You’ll be happy to know that, unlike Maggie, Pavlov has a very clear aura.”

“That
is
a relief; however, I have more pressing matters on my mind. Such as why you anonymously called a talk show to cast aspersions on Ken’s therapist.”

I knew no such thing for a fact, of course, but my bluff hit its target, for she replied, “I need to stop that man. Letting it be known publicly that he’s a sham was the very least I could do, in my duty as an aware woman.” She met my eyes. “Terry Thames had been hypnotizing Ken into believing that he was his best friend. He was trying to get him to sign his money over to him.”

“How do you know that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Ken told me about the hypnosis, though he needed my psychic abilities to learn what was happening during his episodes of hypnotic suggestion, since he, of course, couldn’t remember.”

So she’d lied on the air about where she’d gotten the information. “How did that subject even come up? Surely he didn’t come to a psychic because he wanted to know what was going on during his therapeutic hypnosis.”

“No, but I don’t focus my psychic energies on just one aspect of my clients’ lives. That would be tending to the tree for aphid infestation and missing the raging forest fire upwind. Originally, Ken came to me again because he missed his ex-wife and wanted to speak to her spirit. But I couldn’t find her. Which, it turns out, is because she wasn’t dead. I didn’t know that at the time.” She paused and gave me another of her too-placid-to-be-sincere smiles. “So he hired me to bring her soul into Maggie.”

“Ken told me the exact opposite. That he’d hired you to get Mary’s soul
out
of his dog.”

“Ah, yes, but you see, that was later, once he found Maggie every bit as difficult to live with as he’d found Mary to be.”

“Okay, I can follow that, I guess.” Which was not to say that any of it made any sense to me or was even remotely believable. But then, Ken was a wealthy man living like a pauper who’d left his fortune to his golden retriever, and who’d put me, a virtual stranger, in charge of appointing the dog’s caregiver. Within that context, hiring a psychic to put the spirit of a woman he thought was dead into his dog, only to change his mind later, was logical. “If Ken was your client, how did you come to know Mary?”

“They were both longtime clients of mine. From back when they were still a couple.”

“This was several years ago, then? When they were married, you mean?”

“No, I only moved to Boulder four years ago. They started coming to see me every couple of months about three years ago. Two and a half, actually.”

“Was it a shock when Ken told you about Mary’s death, then?”

She chuckled. “My dear, I’m a psychic. Things rarely, if ever, come as a complete ‘shock’ to me. No, I’d have to say that I was more confused than surprised. I get a sense of when the spirit of someone I know has passed into the other realm. That wasn’t the case with Mary. And, of course, in retrospect, it’s quite obvious why that was so.”

Also quite easy “in retrospect” to claim to have had those feelings.

Her features grew somber. “I experienced Ken’s death, secondhand. It woke me from a solid slumber. I could barely breathe. I knew someone close to me had been murdered. His was such a forceful and reluctant passing to the other realm.”

It was becoming awkward to continue to stand while she was seated so far below my vision, so I stepped into her conversation pit and sat down on the edge. Pavlov promptly lay down beside me. “You said ‘someone close’ to you. These . . . visions of yours. You don’t know who they’re concerning?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes they’re quite specific. Other times just general sensations. The time I read about Ken’s death in the papers is when I also realized quite clearly that Mary was still alive. I was expecting her when she came over the other day to summon me to your office and work with Maggie.”

“Tell me something, Theodora. Am I the only person who sees how wrong what Mary did was? Did you point out to her how cruel her hoax was that she played on her ex-husband? Did you ask her how she could do something like that to him?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Mary is a deeply damaged woman. Believe me, if you, too, could see how her aura reveals her severe state of despair, you’d know to anticipate almost anything from that woman.”

“Meaning that she’s dangerous?”

She sighed, as if weighted down by my lack of empathy. “Meaning that she’s frightened and lashes out when she feels cornered.”

“With all due respect, she seems to lash whether she’s cornered or not.”

“She was moving to Texas at the time of her accident. Trying to get a fresh start for herself. She didn’t tell Ken or anyone else that she was leaving. She got the idea of fooling him into thinking she was dead, and she spent a couple of months in Texas, then came back to settle her affairs just last week. She was going to tell him then that she was alive. He died before she got the chance to talk to him.”

Having met Mary, I didn’t believe a word of that, but it was possible that Mary had conned Theodora into believing she was a victim. “You know a lot about this. Did she explain all of this to you yesterday?”

She gave me a proud smile and said softly, “Yes, she did. Sometimes even in words.”

I looked away, finding her attitude too annoying to put into my own words.

“But, really, you’re here because you think I besmeared Terry Thames’s reputation.”

This was almost impressive, but I’d told her as much when I arrived.

“You’re defending the wrong person, Allie. Mary thinks he killed Ken. I’m inclined to agree.”

I didn’t know Dr. Thames well enough myself to form an opinion, so maybe their suspicions were justified. I’d met with the man just today. A shiver ran up my spine.

Theodora rose. “You have a problem barker to attend to now, don’t you?”

“Um . . .” I rose as well, slightly shaken, because she was exactly correct. Could that have been a lucky guess? “I do. I’d better go. Thank you.”

I went straight home after work and vegged out in front of the TV. Mom had had another reasonably peaceful day with Maggie, who jumped on my lap only once— an improvement. I went to bed sometime after eleven.

The phone rang, jarring me from my sleep. Disoriented, I fumbled for the receiver on my nightstand, eventually found it, and murmured hello.

There was someone panting into the phone. My first thought was that this must be an obscene phone call, and I almost hung up.

“Allida?” a high-pitched female voice gasped. “Is that you?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Theodora. You have to listen to me. We’re both in danger. The killer isn’t through.”

Chapter 16

This was the woman who, hours earlier, had told me she “rarely, if ever” was shocked? Now she sounded shaken to the core. I sat upright in my bed.

Theodora continued, “Allie, an hour or so ago, I had a vision. A clear one. I could see it was Mary. Somebody was trying to kill her, to stuff a pillow on her face.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see that, the vision was . . . it was horrible! It’s like I was seeing things from the killer’s viewpoint. That’s never happened to me before. Never! It scared me so badly I went to her house.”

“Why? Why would you take a risk like that?”

“To see if I could help her, obviously! Only she wasn’t there. Nobody’s been there for days. There’s, like, a batch of newspapers on the front lawn, and her mailbox is practically overflowing. I let myself into her house . . . it wasn’t even locked. I went to her bedroom, and the closets are cleaned out. Then there was this . . . this note on her bed. All it says is: ‘You’re too late!’ ”

“Is the note in Mary’s handwriting?” I asked, wide awake now but thoroughly confused.

“I don’t know. It has her vibrations, so I think she wrote it, but I can’t say for certain.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“At your office, when I exorcised her spirit from Maggie’s body.”

“That’s right when she found out that Ruby had been murdered. Maybe that scared her. She and Ruby could have been partners with a third person who then turned around and killed—” I stopped, realizing that Theodora could be playing me for a fool.

“Who?” she asked. “Terry Thames?”

“Maybe. The police need to look into this, Theodora. You need to report her missing.”

“No way. You do it. I’m not talking to the police. Not if I can help it. I’m not exactly squeaky clean, and I don’t want them checking into my past, you know?”

“Fine. I’ll call the police in the morning, but I’m going to tell them everything you told me, so you’re going to get pulled into this either way. It’d sound better coming from you, don’t you think?”

“Can’t you just make up some excuse and drive out here yourself tomorrow, then call them?”

“I could, but I won’t. I’m telling the police the truth. It’s easier and less incriminating that way.”

She clicked her tongue. “You don’t know what it’s like, Allie. I never asked for these visions of mine. They’ve been here, all along, lousing up my life. I try to do some good with them now, but it’s just made me a target for everyone’s jokes and finger pointing.”

“Be that as it may, Theodora, two people are dead, and you’ve just discovered that a third is missing. The police need to be notified.”

There was a long pause. “Shit! You’re right, damn it all!” She sighed, then added sadly, “They’ll find out about my writing bad checks in Wisconsin. At least I’ll have a permanent address for the next few months . . . the Boulder County jail.”

“You don’t know for certain that they’ll put you in jail. Things generally don’t turn out nearly as bad as we’re afraid they will.”

She hung up. So much for my platitudes. For the countless time I reminded myself to limit my psychology to dogs. I dropped the phone into its cradle and sat down on the edge of my bed.

Mom tapped on my bedroom door and opened it a crack. “Allida? Is everything all right?” She’d probably been standing there for a while now, listening to my end of the conversation.

“Not really.”

Maggie barged past my mother and through the door, leapt onto my bed—stepping on my lap in the process—and, tail wagging, lay down beside me, her head on my pillow.

“Who was that who called?” Mom asked, ignoring my new bed companion. Mom was wearing her robe, her braid undone so that her long hair hung below her shoulders.

“Theodora. Psychic healer of dogs and men. I’m sorry it woke you.” I got up, turned my attention to Maggie, and pointed at the floor. “Maggie, off!” I grabbed her collar and gave a tug. She spread her paws. “Off!” I got a second hand on her collar and put one foot on the side of my bed for leverage. I managed to drag her to the floor, though I now would have to remake my bed. “This dog could make a
mule
weep in frustration!”

Mom grabbed Maggie’s collar and, in one sure movement born from years of manhandling large dogs, guided her out the door, which she shut between them unceremoniously. “What’s going on?”

Her question brought the harsh reality back to me. I sat back down on my messy bed. “Somebody involved with Ken is now missing. Mary Culberson. Probably left town, because she knows who the killer is and is scared.”

I shivered involuntarily and pulled my So-Many-Dogs-So-Little-Time T-shirt down to cover my knees, which I hugged against my chest.

Just outside the door, Maggie was whining in canine woe, but Mom ignored the noise and dropped into a hard-back chair by the door. “Oh, Allie. Isn’t there some way you can get yourself extricated from all of this?”

Tired and thoroughly discouraged, I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t think so, Mom. I don’t know how I could even begin to go about untangling myself at this point. Until this murderer gets arrested, I’m just . . . trapped into being a part of everything.”

“You could stay with your brother for a couple of weeks, couldn’t you? Leave Maggie with me and just—” I was already shaking my head and Mom added angrily, “You don’t need to be a hero.”

“I’m not trying to be one. Just to do what’s right by my late client and his dog. Now, suddenly I feel like a duck in a shooting gallery.”

“Then get out of the gallery, Allie! Do what this . . . Mary Culberson did. Go away for a few weeks!”

“And desert my business now that it’s finally getting to be profitable?”

“If that’s the price you have to pay to stay safe, yes!”

“But, Mom, what if the police don’t ever catch the killer? Am I supposed to stay away forever?” I gestured at the closed door, where Maggie’s whines had mutated into howls. “I’ve got to rehome Maggie eventually. I’m stuck with that responsibility, whether or not I . . . go into hiding first.”

Mom set her lips in a straight line and rose. I knew she was angry at the situation and not at me, but that didn’t make things any easier. “I don’t understand any of this,” she muttered as she let herself out, pulling Maggie with her.

“Neither do I.” I got back into bed, though I knew sleep would now be out of the question.

At seven-thirty A.M., the doorbell rang. It was the detective who had interviewed me following Ruby’s murder. He wanted to know what, if anything, I knew about Mary’s disappearance. I told him everything that Theodora said during her phone call to me. I added that Theodora had known Mary—and Ken—a lot better than I had. In case it was relevant, I recounted yesterday’s conversation with Terry Thames about the anonymous caller, and Mary’s having threatened to sue him. He informed me that Theodora had, in his words, “turned herself in” last night.

If any of what I said was enlightening to the detective, he masked his interest well. After my being of no help to him, he left. Mom had some flying lessons scheduled, and she left soon after the detective did.

Today Maggie was either going to have to be left home alone or come with me on client calls. Either way, she needed to show better manners and obedience than she’d displayed last night. I worked with her in the backyard, going over sit-stay-lie-down routines, which she performed adequately.

It was a gorgeous morning, with a slight chill to the air that would soon warm from the bright sun. Pavlov, Sage, and Doppler would be happy to stay outside today, and I’d greatly prefer to let Maggie be with them. That meant, though, that Maggie would be in the backyard, potentially driving the neighbors crazy with her barking.

To test her behavior, I left her out back and drove around the block. When I returned, quietly letting myself in through the gate, she was tunneling under the fence as fast as her paws could go. The other dogs were watching her progress with interest.

Spotting me, she stopped digging and trotted up to me as if she hadn’t a care in the world. This was not a dog whose past experience had taught her to make the usual canine association—property damage plus owner’s return equals a scolding—which so many owners misinterpret to mean “my dog feels guilty because he knows he’s been bad.”

I looked at the tunnel, sighed, then looked at the dog. “Maggie, you know what? Don’t tell my clients, but I don’t have the time or energy for this.” I haphazardly pushed the pile of dirt back in place with my foot, grabbed Maggie’s collar to keep her from running away, and led her to my car.

As we drove, I scolded myself. Here I was, not practicing what I preached. My actions were the very anathema of the dog trainer—I was rewarding bad behavior by giving the dog what it wants. Ah, well. Nobody is as insightful with their own troubles as they are with others’.

At a stoplight, I glanced into the back seat. “You know, Maggie, I’m only doing this this one time because I got so little sleep last night. Then had to lose so much of the morning talking with the police. Fortunately, I know you understand every word I’m saying so I won’t have to undo any setbacks my laziness has caused.”

We went to my appointments. Although I had a full load for the next few hours, I was fortunate enough to have them with dog owners flexible enough to allow me to put Maggie in their backyards while we worked indoors. My busy schedule had also provided me with much-needed distraction. I managed to push from my mind all thoughts about the murders.

Those thoughts came crashing back when I pulled into my parking space at the office that afternoon and saw a horrible sight: Theodora engaged in conversation with my friendly loose-lipped media maven, Tracy Truett, on the sidewalk in front of my entranceway.

“Damn it!” I smacked the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. Knowing Tracy, tomorrow’s radio broadcast was going to be all about the story of a psychic’s exorcism of a certain golden retriever.

I fastened a leash on Maggie’s collar, and we got out of the car. Tracy spotted me and called over her shoulder to Theodora, “So this is the actual dog right here, isn’t it?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Theodora answered proudly.

I looked at Tracy, taking in her typical flamboyant outfit—all the way from her brightly colored loose-fitting blouse and scarf down to the knees of her black lycra leggings. Her bleached-blond hair was in its spikes and her eyelashes thick with mascara. Under the circumstances, I was unable to muster any appreciation at seeing my friend again. “Let me guess. You heard about Ken’s ex-wife’s disappearance last night and came here hoping to get a scoop.”

Tracy laughed and gave my arm a squeeze. “No, I’d never use the phrase ‘get a scoop’ from someone who works with dogs. Pooper Scoopers are the last thing I need.”

Out of respect for our friendship, I resisted making a crack about the type of shovel I felt she needed for her show.

“Plus, I wanted to drop this off. The tape you wanted to borrow. I hope it proves helpful.” Keeping up her guise, she turned to Theodora and said conspiratorially, “Relaxation tape,” then slipped me the tape, which I pocketed. I hoped she’d made a copy of just the anonymous phone call so I wouldn’t have to listen to her whole show; having to listen to a three-hour discussion about Ken’s murder would be as far from relaxing as a recording could possibly get. Plus, Theodora had already admitted to making the call.

I shifted my attention to Theodora. “You’re not in jail, I see. That’s a good sign.”

She beamed at me and tossed her long hair from her shoulders. She had bounced back well from last night’s trauma, I thought sourly. She was wearing the same purple frock she’d worn yesterday. “I suddenly had this vision that I needed to drop in on you now. And, as a result, I’m going on your friend’s show tomorrow.”

I gritted my teeth and glared at Tracy.

“You’re not pleased, I know,” Tracy interjected, in an obvious attempt at cutting me off. “But we’ll keep your name out of it. I promise.”

“That’s nice. Mind keeping everything having to do with Maggie out of it as well?”

She let her jaw drop as if at the absurdity of my request. “Then I wouldn’t have a theme for the show. Sorry. No can do.”

I deliberately held Maggie on a short leash, so that she couldn’t try to make friends with Tracy or Theodora. “How about if I threaten to never speak to you again, quit the softball team, and ask Russell to quit as well?
Then
could you find a new theme?”

Tracy’s face fell, again overdramatizing her reaction, but this time with more sincerity. “Hmm. Well, that does put me in a bit of a jam. You we could get around, but Russell’s irreplaceable. We barely won without him.”

She was kidding. I was one of the best players on the team, and we both knew it. Plus, we were friends, even though unorthodox issues kept cropping up and driving a wedge between us. Such as her theory that her right to free speech gave her a license to trample all over my right to privacy.

Tracy turned to Theodora. “Change in themes. We’ll focus exclusively on how your psychic abilities led you to discover another potential victim last night.” She turned back to me, studied my features, and said, “I get the feeling that this isn’t a good time for me to visit. I’ll talk to you soon. Such as at tomorrow night’s softball game. Don’t forget, or I’ll have to bench you for two weeks.”

“I won’t forget.”

She smiled, tossed her long scarf over her shoulder in a final dramatic gesture—I suspected she often wore scarves precisely because they allowed her to make that motion—then she turned and gave Theodora’s hand a quick squeeze. “Theo, see you tomorrow at the station. We’ll kick ass.”

Tracy headed down Broadway toward downtown Boulder. I unlocked my office door and let Maggie in first. I asked Theodora, “Do the police have any idea what Mary’s note meant?”

“No.” Now that she was no longer in Tracy’s presence, her cheer quickly fell away and she looked exhausted and sad. She combed her fingers through her long hair. “I was up all night talking to them. Nowadays I’m getting used to less sleep. It’s getting so that I’m afraid to close my eyes at night.”