Ruff Way to Go (21 page)

An old pain
came back to me, suppressed but never quite absent I saw myself in me same
position, as a little girl at my father’s funeral. I remembered how it felt to
know that I was supposed to cry. To feel that everyone was disappointed in my
heartlessness for remaining dry-eyed. I’d felt numb and empty, angry at my dad
for leaving us and at myself for not being good enough for him to want to stay.

I realized
with a start that I’d also been five years old when I lost my parent I felt
such a stab of regret for Melanie that it was hard not to cry out. Hers was a
tough age to lose a parent not really understanding what was happening. My face
must have betrayed my emotions, for Russell took my hand and gave it a squeeze.

Back then,
there never seemed to be any single-parent families besides our own. Mother
never complained to us. There was a lot to be said for simply doing what needed
to be done in this world. But much as I hate the “inner child” psychobabble, I’ve
always agreed that if you scratch below the surface of any adult’s veneer,
regardless of how competent and strong the person seems to be, there is an
injured child there. Mine had gotten through the toughest times with her arms
wrapped around a dog or two. I wasn’t sure who would be there for Melanie.

As we walked down
the aisle, I realized that Sergeant Millay was seated in the back of the room.
I wondered if his investigation had gotten anywhere. He seemed to be keeping a
low profile, as if there were other things occupying his time, though I doubted
that was the case. I stared at his face for a few seconds, hoping against logic
that I’d see some indication of whether or not he still thought of me as a
suspect.

We murmured
our condolences to the family and made our way into the bright light outside,
where most of the other mourners were lingering. The moment Edith spotted me,
she
ignored Russell and my mother to either side of me, marched toward
me, and demanded, “Have you made a decision regarding Shogun’s ownership?”

“Not really.
But he’s doing fine.”

“I’m sure he
is. But that isn’t what I asked, is it? You have no right to keep him. And I have
a right to know which one of us will get the dog permanently. And how soon.”

“I’ll let
you know.”

We walked
away. Though I’d forced myself to be polite, I wanted to sock the woman.

“She was
pleasant,” Russell said as we continued on toward the car.

“She’s our
neighbor,” Mom said. “She’s hired Allida to decide whether she or her
ex-husband gets custody of their terrier.”

“The dog we
were looking for in Longmont, right?”

“Yes. I
found him at Trevor’s house. Through a roundabout journey. But he was safe and
sound.”

We reached
Russell’s car. He shot a quick glance at his watch and said, “I’ve got to take
off. I’ll see you at the office. Goodbye, Marilyn.”

“Thanks for
coming,” she and I both said in unison. I felt her eyes on me the moment we
heard the solid thud of his car door shutting.

I was spared
Mom’s anticipated comments regarding how great Russell was when we spotted
Trevor Cunningham waiting for me by my mother’s truck. Unlike our conversation
with Edith just moments earlier, he greeted my mother, then asked me kindly, “How
is Shogun?” Two points to his side.

“He’s fine.”

“Has he been
sleeping all right? I was thinking that he probably misses his bed. When my
neighbor ransacked my house the other day, stealing my dog, she didn’t think to
take his bed, too.”

“He’s been
okay. We put him on a pillow near my cocker spaniel’s bed in the kitchen and he
seems fine.”

“Still. I’d
feel better if you’d take his bed to him. I brought it with me in case I saw
you.”

“Okay.”

“It’s in my
car. I’ll bring it over to you.”

We watched
as he opened the trunk of a blue Honda Civic a couple of cars down and brought
over a plaid doggy bed. I thanked him and stashed it behind the front seat. The
bed was unremarkable except for the fancy stitching of “Shogun” on the front in
shiny thread.

Edith had
followed us. I knew by the sharp click of stiletto heels.

“What are
you doing?” she demanded.

Trevor
immediately stiffened and regarded her, his hands fisted. “I’m giving her
Shogun’s bed.”

“Shogun
doesn’t need his bed. He isn’t staying at Allida’s house for more than one more
night, and she certainly doesn’t need that old thing cluttering up her house.”

“Hello,
Edith,” my mother interrupted. “How are things going at your shop?”

“Uh, fine.
Thanks.”

“I was
planning on stopping in. I’d love to get a new outfit or two.”

“Really?”

I, too,
looked at Mom in surprise, impressed that she was so intent on calming a
potential altercation, she’d claimed she wanted to go shopping. Mom was
whatever one would call the opposite of a clothes horse.

“Yes, are
you going to be there tomorrow afternoon?”

“Absolutely.
I just recently had to let my salesgirl go, so I’ll be there from now on, at
least until I can get some decent help.”

“I’ll be
sure and stop by, in that case. Oh, and don’t worry about the dog bed
cluttering up our house. We have lots of room, and we’ll be sure that the bed
goes with Shogun from here on.”

“Thank you,
Marilyn.”

She turned
and headed back to her car without further word to any of us. His jaw clenched,
Trevor watched her walk away and let out an exasperated sigh. “You have my work
and home numbers, yes?”

“Yes. I’ll
set up an appointment with you and Shogun tomorrow.”

“Great. I’ll
talk to you then.” He said goodbye to my mother, then nodded to Sergeant
Millay, who was watching Mom and me intently from a slight distance.

When the
officer caught my mother’s eye, he approached. “Mornin’, Ms. Babcock. Marilyn.”

“Hello,
Andy,” Mom said. “Did anyone have any more run-ins with that Carver person who
was harassing my daughter last night?”

The sergeant
shook his head. “Must have left the area, like he said he would.”

“This is
getting to me. Harvey Haywood suddenly acting completely crazy. This Carver
person all but threatening my daughter at knifepoint. I see you haven’t made
any arrests yet. Tell me something, as one friend to another. Are we safe?”

Sergeant
Millay dragged a hand across his thinning hair, visually focusing on some spot
on the ground. “I don’t know.”

Immediately
following the service that morning, I drove straight to the Loveland animal
shelter and marched into John White’s office. He was sitting at his desk, going
through paperwork, his light brown hair slightly unkempt. He wore an orange-red
T-shirt that contrasted with the forest-green employee’s vest. He looked a
little startled to see me. “Hi, Allida.”

“Okay, John.
What’s going on?” I leaned on his desk, glad that while he was sitting, at
least, I had a few inches on him.

“With what?”

“You know
exactly what I’m talking about. I called your office a couple of times and left
messages for you. I had a visit last night from Derrick Carver.”

“You mean
Craig Carver?”

“Exactly. I
was testing you to see if you knew his first name.”

“I... never
said that I didn’t know his name, only that I had a duty to keep it from
getting out to the public.”

“Right. You
wouldn’t tell me who
he
was, and yet you or somebody else you work with
must have told him who I was and how to find me.”

“No, I...nobody
told him your name.”

“Then how
did he find Suds? How did he know exactly where I lived and what my name was?”

“I don’t
know, Allida.”

It was
possible that he’d gotten my name and deduced my address from Tracy’s radio
broadcast, but Carver had also gotten John’s name someplace. Carver could have
called and
asked for the director’s name, but something told me it was John
who was hiding the truth.

In a gentle
voice aimed at defusing my anger, he said, “He shouldn’t know where you live
for the same reason I wouldn’t tell you his name earlier. We have a strict
policy protecting information like that, so he couldn’t have learned it from
here. Unless he’s a hacker and got into our computer base somehow.”

I shook my
head. “The man is too stupid to tie his own shoes. He’s no hacker. You know as
well as I do that he has to use his fingers to add two and two.”

“Allida, I
don’t know anything about him. I’ve never met him. Someone from Animal Control
took the initial call.”

“I’d like to
believe you, John, but he called you specifically by name.”

The color in
John’s face was rising and he couldn’t meet my eyes. “He could have called here
and simply asked what the supervisor’s name was.”

“Yes. He
could have. But he says you two go way back. Do you?”

John raked
his fingers through his hair and didn’t answer.

“Listen to
me, John. I’m more than a little fed up here. A woman gets killed right after
she adopts a dog from your facility, then the dog gets taken from me at
knifepoint, and you don’t even return my calls to see if we’re all right. Don’t
tell me you’re an innocent bystander in all of this. I can’t buy it.”

“So you
think I set you up? Why would I do that, Allida?”

“I don’t know.
Tell me. What was this? A burglary gone bad? Was he using his dog somehow to
try to gain entry to people’s houses?”

“Carver is
an idiot. You said so yourself. He’d never have been able to think things
through to cook up such a thing.”

“How do you
know him well enough to say something like that?”

“I don’t. I
just know his history.” His cheeks were bright red and he could barely meet my
eyes.

“You’re
lying, John, and I’m telling Sergeant Millay about you having a role in this.”

I whirled
around, intending to storm out the door, but John lunged forward and grabbed my
wrist.

“All right,
Allida. Yes, I did know him, at one time. He’s someone I knew when we were
kids. We happened to live near each other. And, unfortunately, back then I used
some bad judgment. We used to shoplift together. He got caught and never
fingered me, and I’ve always felt bad. Eventually he moved and we lost track.
Then one day he ran into me in a bar.”

His story
was plausible enough. I prompted, “When was this?”

He shrugged.
“A couple of years ago. He told me that he’d been through some tough times and
asked me if I could help him find a job.”

“You told
him where you were working, or did he already know?”

“I told him
then. And I said that, sure, I could get him a job, but it’d only be for
minimum wage, that I barely made more than that myself. He got mad, said that
that wasn’t going to be nearly enough to get himself out of his jam. He said he
had run up some pretty substantial gambling debts. Next thing I knew, I read in
the crime blotter in the paper that he’d been arrested on some burglary
charges.”

“This was in
Fort Collins?”

“Yeah. He
disappeared for a while, then he resurfaced. He called here one day and asked
if I could take care of Suds for a few weeks and find a good home for the
puppies. That he wanted Suds back, though, as soon as he got out of jail. I
watched Suds myself for a while, but my own dogs wouldn’t accept the situation,
and sooner or later there was definitely going to be a dogfight, so that’s when
Paul and Cassandra Randon happened to come in. I figured they’d be perfect;
living out in Berthoud, they’d have all of this land for the puppies and
everything.”

“If that’s
the whole truth, John, why didn’t you tell me that earlier? Why did you lie to
me and my mother?”

He spread
his hands. “A woman had just gotten killed. The woman I’d given the dogs to. My
first thought was, ‘What have I done? I hooked her up with a killer.’ But then
the times didn’t jibe, so I knew Carver didn’t do it.”

“How could
you know that for sure?”

“Because he
was
here
all day. He came looking for me. I told him the dogs had been
foster-adopted but that I’d give Suds back to him in three weeks. He said he
was hurting for cash and needed to get out of town before he got into trouble,
so I hired him to work here for a month, starting that Monday. I assure you,
Allida, he didn’t leave here long enough to get out to Berthoud and back, let
alone hurt someone. End of my shift, he asked to be paid in cash, then he didn’t
show up in the morning. I never saw him again.”

“You two
grew up in the same neighborhood?”

“In Indiana.
And before you ask, I have no idea how he found me in that bar. It had to have
been a coincidence, or maybe he got hold of a reunion directory and was just
desperately trying to find our old classmates, hoping someone would help him
out.”