Ruff Way to Go (15 page)

I began
again in calm tones. “Here is what we’re going to do. We’re all taking a few
deep breaths, then we’re going to approach Fiona, on bended knee if need be,
beg her forgiveness, and you are both going to assure her that you support my
taking temporary custody of Shogun.”

They both
started to protest, but stopped when I held up my palms.

“If you don’t
agree to do exactly what I say, I am going to tell the judge at your divorce
hearing that neither of you deserves this dog, and I’ll insist that we find an
alternative home for Shogun. Have I made myself clear?”

Since I’d
given them no choice, they nodded and grumbled their compliance. I rang Fiona’s
doorbell. After a couple of minutes of groveling, we convinced Trevor’s badly
shaken neighbor to hand Shogun over to me.

Before
anyone could change their minds, I drove off, telling the Cunninghams that they’d
hear from me soon. Shogun, the poor dear, was so out of sorts that he was
trembling in my arms. I broke a cardinal rule and allowed the dog to sit in my
lap while I drove. I talked to him in soothing tones, but he was still visibly
upset until he perked up as I pulled into my street. His little tail began to
wag once I headed up the driveway, and he was clearly happy at being back in
his neighborhood.

It occurred
to me as I got out of the car that very soon John from the animal shelter was
going to arrive with Suds and her five puppies, and here I was bringing home
what would be guest dog number seven. I sure hoped Mom greeted my temporary
canine housing with her usual good humor.

Leaving
Shogun in the car for the moment so that I could give the dogs forewarning with
what would be a powerful scent on my clothing, I entered through our garage.
Mom’s King Cab pickup was not there. I let the dogs in and allowed them to
collect their data with their noses while I read the note Mom had left on the
kitchen counter. She was at a friend’s house and she’d be back soon.

I instructed
the dogs to lie down and stay, then went out to the garage and got Shogun out
of the car. The key to introducing a new dog to one’s other dogs is to make it
clear from the start that this new dog is the bottom-runger. Therefore, rather
than carrying Shogun, I put him down on the garage floor, opened the door, and
went in first, having him follow me.

All three of
my dogs—I considered Sage mine, though he was technically Mom’s—pricked
up their ears, only Sage badly trained enough to disobey my stay command and
sit up. With this being such a little dog, the trouble wouldn’t come from the
dominant dogs, but from the lowest-runger, currently Sage, who had the least
seniority in the house but was rapidly gaining esteem because of Mom’s clear
preference.

Shogun
shrank back against the already closed garage door and began to assert his
presence the only way a little dog can—with loud barks. Meanwhile, I
said, “Pavlov, okay,” releasing her only from her position in the center of the
kitchen; then I greeted Pavlov with a big hug around her strong shoulders. As
top dog, if she accepted Shogun, the others would likely follow suit.

With Doppler
watching her every move, Pavlov sniffed at Shogun and lay back down in her
spot. Sage, too, seemed willing enough to let him join the group, and Doppler
was generally gregarious with other dogs. They knew him already, to an extent.
Edith had been over with him yesterday and they had met one another a few times
during our walks through the neighborhood.

I decided it
would be best to leave the dogs alone for a minute or two and went out front. I
remembered then that I still hadn’t spoken to the Haywoods about the notepaper
of theirs and crossed the street to head to their home.

The curtains
parted and Harvey looked out the second time I rang the doorbell, his lips set
in a frown that didn’t fade once he saw me. After a long pause, Mrs. Haywood
came to the door. She left the screen door shut and said, “Yes?”

I could see
Harvey behind her, sitting at the kitchen table in the background reading the
paper, wearing his usual sleeveless undershirt and brown slacks.

“I was
wondering. This morning, you gave me your daughter’s address on a magenta
sticky pad sheet. Do you happen to remember where you got that paper?”

“Harvey!”
she hollered over her shoulder.

“What?” he
responded, equally loudly, not looking up from his reading.

“The Babcock
girl wants to know where you got the paper you wrote that note on.”

“What note?”

Betsy
narrowed her eyes. “Harvey wants to know why you want to know.”

Actually,
that wasn’t at all what “Harvey” wanted to know, but I wasn’t about to
challenge her on the point. Nor did I wish to divulge that their paper matched
the note on the Cunninghams’ door, so I said, “I just liked the color and would
like to get a couple of pads for myself, but haven’t been able to find it at
any of the stationery stores nearby.”

“You hear
that, Harvey?”

“I don’t
know what she’s yappin’ about,” he called back, rattling his newspaper in
irritation.

“We wouldn’t
know where to tell you to go. We don’t do our own shopping no more. Susan does
that for us.”

“So she
bought the notepad for you?” I asked, knowing full well that Susan had said she
hadn’t
bought it.

“Must have,”
Betsy said with a shrug. “It just showed up on our counter.”

“Recently?
Did you ever see it prior to yesterday afternoon?”

“I don’t
remember.” She gave a heavy sigh at the overwhelming inconvenience of it all,
then asked, “Harvey, you ever see that pad of paper in a drawer or something
before the Babcock girl come over here asking about Susan?”

“I don’t
know, Betsy! I got better things on my mind than pads of paper!”

“So do I,
Harvey! It’s the Babcocks that want to know!”

This was
getting me nowhere. Over the sound of the Haywoods’ continued bickering, I
called, “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Haywood.”

Frustrated,
I returned home and took the dogs out for their exercise and training, which
was one of my favorite parts of the day—theirs, too. I decided it might
be fun to include Shogun and see how he could do against their standards of
training. I played a game of fetch with each dog in turn.

Sage still
had some catching up to do as far as his training went; he hadn’t been with us
for long, but he was such an intelligent dog that he was making fast strides.
Shogun would immediately run out after the ball, not understanding that he had
to wait for his name. He would glance around nervously, eyeing the other dogs,
understanding that there was something he wasn’t getting about this game, but
not sure what it was.

During his
chase of the tennis ball, Shogun ran through a muddy puddle by the fence, which
immediately gave me an idea. Knowing Mom would forgive me, I ran all four dogs
through the mud, then up onto the back deck. I was studying the tracks they
made when Mom arrived. She slid open the back door and, without comment,
watched me studying the muddy mess I’d encouraged the dogs to make.

Finally I
looked up at her. She smiled and said, “You found Shogun?”

“Yes, and I’ll
give him back to one of the Cunninghams in another day or two.”

“I see we’re
studying animal tracks.”

Seeing the
deck anew, I realized what a muddy mess the dogs had made, thanks to me. “Sorry,
Mom. I’ll get the hose and rinse off the dogs’ paws before I let them back in.”

“Did this
teach you anything?”

I laughed and
said, “I hope you’re not expecting me to answer, ‘Neatness counts.’”

Mom rolled
her eyes. “I meant about the paw prints you saw the other day. Were they Shogun’s?”

“No. The paw
prints over at Edith’s place weren’t Shogun’s. They were from a larger dog, Doppler’s
size. Only they weren’t Doppler’s, of course. He was inside the house or our
fence all day.”

“Does that
mean it was one of the puppies?”

“Could be,
but I don’t think so. The tracks didn’t strike me as having come from an
unsteady young puppy. I might know for sure once they’re here.”

She raised
an eyebrow. “Once they’re here?”

Oops. I gave
her a sheepish smile. “Is it all right if we foster the husky and her puppies
for three weeks?”

She spread
her hands. “Just let me know if you’re going to turn my bedroom into a kennel,
so I’ll have time to pack up a few mementos.”

“Thanks,
Mom. I really appreciate your being so understanding.”

“Ah, comes
with the turf. Muddy though it may be. Let’s get these dog paws washed off.”

Mom was
unusually aloof when John White arrived with Suds and her puppies. I didn’t
know if that was because she took some sort of instant dislike to John, or if
she was feeling put out by suddenly finding herself with ten dogs.

Prior to
their arrival, Mom and I had set up a nice area for them in the basement,
giving them the run of the laundry room, and the three of us now watched them
settle in. Suds was obviously a little worse for the wear, having been moved so
frequently in the past couple of days. Her puppies, however, seemed complacent,
quickly curling up against one another to sleep on the fleece blankets we’d
laid down for them.

“They seem
to be happy enough,” John said to me. “Are you still up for going out for a
drink together?”

“Sure.” I
tried to feign more enthusiasm than I felt. Though he hadn’t changed a bit with
his rugged, tanned features and his hair somewhat in need of a trim, he somehow
didn’t seem to be as handsome as he had been just a couple of hours ago. He was
still wearing the same casual clothes he’d worn at work, sans the forest-green
employee vest he’d worn earlier over his striped shirt. Strangely, I was
finding myself thinking about Russell, wondering how his concert was going. And
what this woman his friends had wanted to fix him up with was like.

As we started
up the stairs, Mom said to John, “My
daughter tells me you’re the kennel
supervisor up at the shelter in Loveland.”

“Yes. Have
you seen our facilities?”

“No, though
I’ve given substantial financial donations to it.”

He gave her
one of his brilliant smiles. “Then I’m a major fan of yours. Come on up
anytime, and I’ll take you on a personal tour.”

“I’ll take
you up on that sometime.” Mom wore a feeble smile that faded quickly.

“Great. I
promise we’ll roll out the red carpet.”

We reached
the front door, which we’d left wide open. As John started to open the screen
door, Mom said, “I’m concerned about the coincidence between Suds’s previous
adoptive owner getting murdered the very day she got the dogs. Did you ever
meet Suds’s owner?”

“No, he, or
some concerned citizen, had just called animal services, and they contacted us.”
He hesitated as he looked at Edith’s place, kitty-corner to ours, where the
yellow police tape was still in place. He pointed with his chin. “That must be
the Randons’ house, hey?”

“No, that’s
the Cunninghams’ house.”

“Really? I
assumed...” He didn’t complete his thought, but turned toward my mother, who
was standing back, watching us with crossed arms. “It was nice meeting you,
Mrs. Babcock.”

“You, too.”

“Let us know
if you have any questions or concerns about the puppies.”

She nodded,
but frowned at me. Her expression made me finally take stock of what I was
doing. “Oh, Mom. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have dropped all
these dogs on you, then be immediately leaving you alone with them.”

She
chuckled. “Think nothing of it. My house is your... kennel.”

“I’ll be
back soon,” I said, feeling guilty.

“Don’t
worry.” She gave me a friendly wave and closed the door behind us. I instantly
worried about her.

My date with
John had all of the typical awkwardness of a first date. He was the opposite of
Russell in terms of interests, a man who appreciated dogs every bit as much as
I did and wasn’t into rock climbing. Yet I found myself thinking of Russ and
wondering what he was doing now. Probably enjoying his concert, with the bimbo
date of his hanging on his every word. I spent some time considering the
reasons that Russell was better off without me and quickly came up with a new
one: I was selfish and unfair. It had been my decision, not his, to go out with
someone else tonight.

John ordered
us a pitcher of beer and we sat in the dark bar, the smoke stinging my eyes.
Secondhand smoke was one thing I didn’t have to deal with in Boulder, with its
anti-smoking ordinance. I shot John an occasional question—“How did you
get involved with dogs?” “What’s your job like?” “How long have you lived in
Fort Collins?”—and he would go on at great length.

He said
several times how much more comfortable and better he was at communicating with
dogs than people, which was a sentiment I could relate to, but seemed odd
considering how loquacious he was. At least when it came to talking about
himself. It occurred to me that I’d told him next to nothing about myself, but
decided that that was okay.