Ruff Way to Go (32 page)

A pair of
them tried to engage Doppler in their game, which quickly escalated into a
potentially dangerous situation when Suds threatened to square off with
Doppler. I needed a distraction to safely break this up, so I flung the nearest
unbreakable object—a phone book—against the wall. The noise
startled the dogs enough for me to scoop up Doppler and take him to another
room.

He was in
something of a snit when I set him down, immediately walking away from me as if
angered that I’d interfered. He was actually relieved at my rescuing him from
engaging in a fight with a much larger dog; even dogs have their reputations
and pride to protect. Without Shogun here, only the puppies were smaller than
he, but Suds wouldn’t let him near them, and he probably missed having Shogun
to boss around. Doppler wanted to be let back outside again, which was very
unusual for him; he rarely wanted to be separated from the other dogs in the
pack.

While the
other dogs were finally quieting down, the phone rang. Suds trotted along
beside me as I went to grab the phone. Pavlov, who was starting to have some
struggle with Suds’s territorial rights, admonished Suds with a warning growl.
The moment I picked up the phone and said hello, Pavlov sat down by my feet,
her ears back as she staked her claim on me. This really was starting to get to
be a bit too much like being a den leader, for my taste.

“Hi,Allie.”

I recognized
Russell’s voice immediately, and my demeanor instantly softened. “Morning,
Russell.”

“Good
morning. What’s left of it. I know Mondays are supposed to be your day off. Are
you coming into the office anyway?”

“No, I
really am taking the day for myself. How’re things going for you?”

“Better, now
that I’m hearing your voice.”

I rolled my
eyes, but smiled. “That’s flattering. Thank you.”

“Are you
doing anything for lunch?”

“Well, no...but
I was planning on staying in Berthoud.”

“I don’t
mind taking a long lunch and getting something up where you are. Is that French
restaurant in Berthoud open for lunch?”

“No, just
dinner. And not on Mondays.”

“Do you have
another suggestion?”

“There’s the
Summit in Loveland.”

“Sounds
great. I’ll come pick you up as soon as my Volvo and the traffic let me.”

We said goodbye
and then hung up.

“Who was
that on the phone?” asked Mom, who’d emerged from her room partway through my
conversation and who, come to think of it, couldn’t have been returning calls
on our one line. She must have just wanted some solitude.

“Russell. He’s
taking me to lunch at the Summit.”

“Lucky you.
Have I told you how much I like your Russell?”

“Yes, you
have. More than once. And he’s not
my
Russell.” Although I was rapidly
becoming more and more keen on the idea.

She swept up
her purse and headed to the garage. “Have fun. I have a meeting this afternoon
at the airport. See you tonight.”

“Bye.”

She stopped
and gave me a visual once-over. “For heaven’s sake, Allida, when you see
Russell, don’t...be so on guard. Relax and live it up a little.”

“Fine. I’ll
put on a leather miniskirt and ride to the restaurant on the hood of his car.”

“Pardon me
for offering a little motherly advice.”

“You call ‘relax
and live it up’
motherly?”

“For you,
yes. See you tonight.”

“‘Bye, Mom.”

I watched
her drive away, thinking that this was good timing. I needed to make some calls
to verify my theory, and I truly didn’t want her listening in, especially since
I was still so unsure of myself.
I called Trevor at work.
Unfortunately, I had to go through his secretary, which made the whole reason
for my calling seem more serious man I’d wanted to portray.

“Allida, hi.
Is everything all right?” He sounded tense, and I regretted bothering him, but
it was too late to hang up now.

“Fine. I
just have a couple of questions to ask you.”

“That’s a
relief. Whenever I hear your name these days, I assume Edith has run off with
Shogun again or something to that effect.”

“Actually, I
just wanted to ask you where you got Shogun’s bed. I’m thinking of getting one
for my cocker spaniel.”

“Edith
bought it from PetsMart, I think.”

“And she
paid extra to have them put Shogun’s name on it?”

“Oh, no.
Cassandra did that for her as a favor. She used to do excellent embroidery
work.”

“Does Edith
do any embroidery work herself?”

“Now she
does, as a matter of fact. She had Cassie give her lessons and bought this
fancy sewing machine from Cassie’s former partner, but she didn’t really get
the knack of it. Her threads were always unraveling and it looked pretty
amateurish. I wouldn’t hire her, if I were you.”

“Where is
Shogun now?”

“He should
be safe at home. Why?”

“Just making
sure. Thanks, Trevor. Let me know if Shogun has any trouble adjusting to his
new home.”

“You’ll be
the first person I call. And thanks again for straightening everything out with
Edith.”

“What do you
mean?”

“She called
me and said that you and she had made your peace and she realized that you’d
made the right decision in letting me keep Shogun.”

“That doesn’t
sound like her.”

“You’re
telling me. But I don’t look a gift...dog in the mouth. Take care.” He hung up.

I paced,
trying to make sense of all of this. I was now quite certain about the scam
that Edith was running. She was
selling cheap knockoffs of
designer-label clothing, removing the actual labels from the cheap knockoffs
and replacing them with her imitation labels.

Mom had told
me that Edith had once asked Cassandra to be her business partner. Could that
somehow have led to Cassandra’s murder?

I called
Susan, but hung up when the machine answered. Just in case, I dashed out front
and down the block a few steps till I could see the Haywoods’ driveway. Susan’s
car was still there.

I knocked on
the door, and fortunately, Susan answered so that I didn’t have to deal with
her parents.

“Susan, I
was wondering. Did you sell your sewing machine to Edith Cunningham, by any
chance?”

Susan
averted her eyes and stuck her hands in the pockets of her cutoffs. “Stay away
from this, Allida. You always were a pain in the butt.”

“Edith was
sewing expensive labels onto cheap clothing, wasn’t she?”

She still
wouldn’t meet my eyes, but her rapidly reddening cheeks gave me my answer. “I
don’t know. Not for sure.”

“But you
mentioned your suspicions to Cassandra Randon, didn’t you?”

For the
first time I saw a genuine look of sorrow on her face. She looked up and
sighed. “Cassie and I...had our differences. She was always yelling at me for
smoking cigarettes while sewing...claimed it made the cloth stink. By telling
her about Edith, I thought I was doing her a favor. I thought maybe she was getting
mixed up in it. I just...I wanted to tell her that she wasn’t going to get away
with it.”

“Only she
didn’t know anything about it, right? Because it was all Edith’s doing.”

“I tried to
warn you off her, Allida.”

“Why didn’t
you go to the police with this?”

“Like they’d
believe me? With my drug abuse record? I want nothing to do with the police.
Anything happens near me, and I look the other way.”

“That’s why
you covered up your dog’s prints, isn’t it?

Because you
knew your dog was the one that left the bloody footprints. And you didn’t want
to be implicated in the murder.”

“You’re
reading into things, Allie. I didn’t do anything wrong.” I held her gaze, and
at length she continued. “He’d burrowed under the fence and into the yard I had
to go through the Randons’ gate, but he came then. I didn’t see anything. And I
heard Edith arguing with someone earlier. But I didn’t know anyone had gotten
killed till my mom called hours later. And I didn’t know he’d left paw prints
till I saw you and you told me.”

Edith
Cunningham was the killer. She must have become so enraged with Cassandra
during their discussion that she killed her in her own yard. I needed to get
this last information to Sergeant Millay.

Half to
myself, I muttered, “At least Edith’s still at work.”

Susan
furrowed her brow. “No, she isn’t. I saw her here. Wasn’t she with you just a
minute or two ago?”

“With me?
No. Why?” My heart had already started racing.

“Because I
saw her heading over to your property just a while ago.” Susan pointed. “She
was parked right on the street. Her car is gone now, so I guess she must have
gone someplace.”

Without
another word, I rushed back over to my house to check on my dogs.

“Is
everything all right?” she called back to me.

I didn’t
answer.

Deciding to
forgo checking inside the house, I ran at top speed to the gate at the side of
the house. It was wide open.

“Doppler,
come!” I cried, listening in vain for the jingle of his collar tags.

There was a
sticky pad note stabbed through the gate latch. This time yellow paper had been
used, no doubt because the Haywoods now had the magenta pad. I snatched it off
and read:

Allida—If
you want your dog to live, come get him. Make sure you come alone, or he dies.
We’re at the water tower.

“Oh, shit!”
I screamed, battling tears. Only the killer herself could be so sick as to do
something like this. And she’d be able to see for miles from that tower. There
was no way the police could get there unseen. Regardless, if I notified them
now, they’d gladly sacrifice a dog’s life to capture a murderer. I had to follow
her instructions and rescue Doppler myself.

Clutching
the note, I ran inside, ignoring the other, frantically barking dogs, grabbed
my keys, leapt into my Subaru, and sped down the driveway.

I hit the
brakes. I had to leave a note. I didn’t want to waste time going back to the
house. I’d leave it on the mailbox.

My stomach
was in knots and my thoughts raced. What was Edith doing with Doppler at the
Berthoud water tower? What possible good could this do her?

My tires
screeched as I hit the pavement at the bottom of the driveway. I scanned the
Haywoods’ property to see if Susan was there, thinking I should yell to Susan
what was going on. She was nowhere in sight.

I grabbed a
pen, added the words, “Edith’s the killer!
Help!” to Edith’s note, then threw
open the car door, ran to our mailbox, and stuck the note on the door flap.
Eventually, somebody would spot that and come help me. I could only hope that
it wouldn’t be too late.

I raced
north through town in a state of such panic, I couldn’t think straight. Why a
tower, of all things? How had Edith known about my petrifying fear of heights?
Mom must have mentioned it.

The huge,
green-painted water tower soon loomed before me. It looked like some prop left
over from
War of the Worlds
—an enormous Martian vehicle. I hated
heights so much that I couldn’t judge relative size, but the tower had to be at
least a hundred feet tall.

I pulled
into the dirt and gravel parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust behind the
wheels. Edith was there, an evil blemish on the tower, leaning over the
railing. She had Doppler in her arms. He was just a lightish-colored speck from
this distance.

Just looking
up that high made my vision swim, but I was too frightened for Doppler’s sake
to take my eyes off Edith. She gave me a wave, mocking me. Satisfied that
nobody was behind me, she set Doppler down on the walkway that circled the
water tank.

I ran to the
only ladder, a wrought-iron, spindly-looking thing. Just the sight of it and
its never-ending steps made my mind reel.

“Come up,”
Edith shouted down. “The view is lovely.”

I grabbed
the railing. The metal was as cold as death. I climbed the first few steps,
trying to focus only on the thought of saving Doppler, trying not to think
about what I was doing.

Edith had
such an advantage over me it was ludicrous. By the time I’d navigated the first
ten steps, my vision was so distorted that it felt as though my eyes were
crossed.

I kept going
for as long as I could, then stopped. I told myself to go just five steps
farther. Then five steps more. And so on. My progress was slow, each step
agony.

My vertigo
kicked in at full force. I wrapped my arms
around the handrails and leaned my
body against the steps, eyes shut tight, battling nausea. My brain was sending
my body false signals as if I were in a blender on full speed.