4 Woof at the Door (11 page)

When she puts her mind to it, Mom’s a great listener, and she remained silent, nodded, or murmured exclamations at all the right places. After a long silence, she asked, “Did you see Russell today?”

I stood up, mostly to escape the weight of her eyes upon me. “Yeah. Can I get you some more tea?”

“I’ll get it,” she said, rising and whisking the kettle away from my reach. “I know you’re something of a prude, but I assumed you’d be spending this weekend with Russell. Was I reading signals wrong?”

My cheeks warmed at being called a “prude” by my mother, but I decided to let it slide. “Maybe bad signal-reading runs in the family.”

“He called earlier today.” Mom was still probing, determined not to let it drop till she figured out what was going on between him and me. “I told him where you were. I hope you don’t mind. He’s such a doll.”

I drank my tea, focusing on the surface of the water and avoiding Mom’s eyes.

“You&rsquoem;re awfully quiet, all of a sudden. Did you two have a spat?”

“We argued. Sometimes he just comes on too strong. I feel like I’m being smothered.” The words that I’d wanted to keep to myself now burst forth in a torrent. “Then he starts pouting because things didn’t go his way. It’s not like I’m his mother. I don’t want to have to coddle his ego, I want him to coddle mine. And yet I want to be the one to pursue, not to feel like he’s chasing after me despite how rotten I am to him sometimes. You know? And then he got injured in the softball game. Says he’s got a broken collar bone. This creep from the other team deliberately bowled into him. But Russell wouldn’t even let me drive him to the hospital. Men are so stupid.”

“They sure are. Of course, we women are equally stupid, just in different ways.” She paused. “How did you get from the hospital, or wherever they stitched up your hand, to the baseball diamond?”

I set my half empty cup down so quickly the liquid sloshed into the saucer. “You’re the second person who’s brought that up, and there’s no comparison. I accepted a ride to the hospital from the police when I was bleeding all over the place. Russell was being stubborn. I was just being resilient.”

We sat again in silence. I felt too miserable at the moment to speak. Maybe I was wrong to blame Russell for not wanting me to take him to the hospital. Of course he hadn’t wanted to lean on me just then; he had all but flat out told me shortly beforehand that he thought I meant more to him than he did to me. That wasn’t true.

As if reading my thoughts, Mom quietly asked, “Do you love him?”

The unexpected question hit me like a slap in the face. “I don’t know. I think so.” My voice faltered a little. “Sometimes I desperately want to let him into my heart. It’s just that…I can’t survive another mistake, like I made the last time.”

She knew what I meant. The last time I fully trusted a man with my love, he’d dumped me in favor of my best friend—my maid of honor at the wedding that never took place. I’d rather feed a wolf my other hand than face that kind of pain again. No wonder Russell and I were having troubles. He was attracted to a one-handed emotional train wreck.

“Honey, you can’t withdraw from all men, just because you were bitten once, any more than you can withdraw from all dogs when one bites you.”

I said nothing. Her words made me want to bang my head against the counter.

At length, Mom said, “Are you two going to break up over this?”

“I hope not. But I don’t know. Maybe. We’re at a crossroads in our relationship.”

“Meaning you haven’t slept together yet, and you don’t know if he’s the one?”

“Something like that.” Technically, it was exactly like that, but it was bad enough discussing my love life with my mother without discussing sex as well. I pushed back my chair, the linoleum letting out a noisy scraping sound in the process. “I’m taking some ibuprofen and going to bed. Good night.”

Somebody was pressing an ice cube against my cheek. I opened my eyes and gasped. A wolf! I bolted upright in bed, as the wolf changed in the blink of an eye into Pavlov, my German shepherd, who had nuzzled me on the cheek with her cold wet nose.

I wrapped my arms around my chest and struggled to regain my normal breathing pattern. In the middle of the night, I’d woken up in a sweat. In my dreams, my canine customers kept turning into wolves and lunging at my throat. Afterwards, I’d lain awake for hours, contemplating the previous day’s events.

Pavlov let out one small whine and watched me with her doleful eyes, already detecting that my feelings for her were different. Doppler had run into my room, too, and now butted ahead of Pavlov in their self-assigned line of pettings. Doppler’s stubby tail was wagging madly as I greeted him, then moved on to Pavlov.

“It’s okay, Pavlov.” In my so-many-dogs-so-little-time T-shirt, I dragged my weary body out of bed and petted Pavlov in her favorite spots, below the ears. “I’ll get over this soon.”

Dogs can sense what their masters are feeling before the masters themself can recognize these feelings. So I knew that Pavlov wasn’t going to take my attention as a sign that all was well, but expected that she would take it as an appropriate “things aren’t all that bad.”

I have very little tolerance for sitting around moping and feeling sorry for myself. I hoped that last night’s indulgence would suffice. In any case, I would now have to deal with insufficient sleep for the day.

I felt sufficiently confused and in need of answers at to go to church. There’s a small Methodist church here in Berthoud, and, while my mother is a regular, I always imagine that the minister spots me in a pew and says to himself, “Ah. Miss Babcock’s here. Our resident foul-weather parishioner.”

There were probably answers to be found in my prayer, but if so, I was unable to recognize them as such. If there was any one thing that could quickly put an end to my effectiveness as a dog behaviorist, it was fear of canines. While I was quite sure that all I needed right now was a brief vacation, my finances and my wet-behind-the-furry-ears business couldn’t handle one at this time.

What was more, I always tended to trust my almost instinctive reactions to people and problems. I didn’t know what to make of my resistance to Russell’s advances, but I did know that it took a whole lot of love for a relationship to make it through the constant challenges of life. Russell had made it clear he thought I was “the one” for him. If he were my soul mate as well, would I be having these doubts?

Would I be attracted to Damian Hesk?

By the time I returned home, it was after ten a.m. The animal shelter would now be open. I decided I’d stop by on my way into town. I could ask them about the likelihood of a dog rescuer in Nevada allowing unfixed strays to be adopted.

I made the drive with my brain operating at half-mast. The warm air inside the animal shelter bore that odor of dog and cat urine that seems so strong at first it stung my eyes, but faded by the time the woman at the counter had a chance to say more than a quick, “Hi, Allida,” to me. There were two men at the counter, as well, and they were doing a brisk business this Sunday morning—a lost dog and its tearful owner, a new adoption in process, and the constantly ringing phone.

In the last couple of months I’d gotten to know most of their full-time employees. I volunteer my dog-training talents there whenever I can afford the time. I exchanged some more brief pleasantries with the young woman, then asked, “Could you please check to see if you have a registration of a large mixed-breed dog within the last six months under the last name of Bellingham? He said he got the dog from a rescuer in Nevada.”

I waited as she typed the information into her computer terminal. “First name ’Tyler’?” she asked.

“Not in the last six months, no. Only record we have of an adoption by Tyler Bellingham was almost two years ago. He adopted a purebred American Staffordshire Terrier from us.”

“A pit bull?” I asked, incredulous.

“That’s what it says here.” Her brow was furrowed as she scanned the screen. “Dog’s name was King. He was three years old, and his owners put him up for adoption when the woman was expecting. Didn’t trust having one around the house with a baby. According to his owners, they hated to give him up.”

“That’s the only record of your dealings with Mr. Bellingham? And he didn’t bring that dog back for re-adoption?”

“No, though I see complaints have been filed over the last three months about his dog’s barking. Huh. That’s a different dog…mixed breed. Is that the one you’re asking about?”

“Yes. That was his only dog.”

“Huh,” she said again. “I wonder what happened to King?”

I thanked her and headed out the door for the Bellingham residence, determined to learn the answer to that question for myself.

As I could have predicted, had I stopped to think about it, the Bellinghams’ house was still cordoned off with the yellow-with-black-lettering police tape. Where was Doobie? I parked on the street and got out of the car, listening for his barks. The neighborhood was silent. I walked next door and rang Beverly Wood’s doorbell. Beagle Boy started to bark his repetitive shrill yip, but otherwise there was no answer. I spotted him through the front window and called, “Hi, B.B.!” which made him stop barking abruptly. He never looked behind him for Beverly—a sure sign that his owner wasn’t home.

By the time I got back to my car, Paige Atkinson was standing beside it, arms crossed as she waited for me. Today she was wearing simple khaki shorts and a white T-shirt, looking much less formal than she had in yesterday’s pant suit.

“Hello, Allida.” She gestured at my cherry red Subaru. “I recognized your car. I hope your softball friend is okay?” she said, as if this last sentence were a question.

“I do, too. I haven’t seen him since he went to the hospital.”

“Hank is just sick about this. He was tossing and turning all last night.”

I clenched my jaw and muttered, “Aw. Poor baby.”

Paige ignored my unmasked hostility and asked, “Were you looking for Beverly?”

“Actually, I was just trying to find out where Cheshire Bellingham was.”

“She’s at her store. It’s on Walnut, just east of Crossroads Mall.”

Too incredulous to hide my reaction, my jaw dropped. “She opened her husband’s store for business? The day after he died?”

Paige chuckled. “Surely you didn’t think the woman would be mourning, did you? She didn’t even like Ty, let alone love him. Their whole marriage was a farce.”

“It was?”

“Absolutely.” She searched my face. “Ty needed to a wife to maintain his image. You don’t think for one moment that Chesh would have married Ty of her own free will, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t she? You married him, didn’t you?”

“Maybe so, but that was before—” She stopped abruptly, then furrowed her brow and gave me a visual appraisal, as if she were affronted that she’d apparently nearly let something slip, which she wanted to keep to herself.

The Atkinsons seemed to have an unending pool of hatred and acrimony to draw from in all matters regarding Ty Bellingham. That those resentful feelings might extend to Chesh didn’t surprise me, but her decision to open the store did seem remarkably callous. The day after her husband and store co-owner died, she was still open for business as usual.

“I saw you ring Beverly’s doorbell,” Paige said. “She hasn’t been here for hours. I saw her leaving with the police.”

“The police?” I repeated. My heart immediately raced with worry for Beverly, but then I realized that she was probably simply giving her statement. At this point, she and Paige were the two best witnesses the police had as to what had transpired in Ty’s house.

“We need to talk,” Paige announced. “Do you have a moment?”

“I suppose so. What’s on your mind?”

“Not here. Come inside.”

That was not an appealing suggestion for me. If Hank was home, my temptation to hit him might be uncontrollable. Paige marched ahead as if I was at her bid and calling. She had already climbed to her porch before noticing that I wasn’t dutifully a step behind. She gripped the railing, looked at me and said, “Allida?”

“You asked for ’a moment,’ and that really is all the time I have to spare. How’s Sammy doing?”

She shook her head and came back down the steps. “This has been the worst nightmare. Hank took her to the vet’s last night. That was why they weren’t here when all the commotion was going on at the Bellinghams’ house.”

So, Hank Atkinson was supposedly at the vet’s when Ty was being murdered. That would be an easy enough alibi for the police to verify. “I see.”

“There’s nothing the vet can do about my poor Sammy. We were counting on white wolf puppies. That would have been so wonderful, you know?”

She blinked a couple of times, waiting for me to shower her with sympathy, but the sire of their Samoyed’s puppies was way down on my priority list. I frowned and waited for her to go on.

She spread her arms wide and shook her head. “Now God only knows what ugly monstrosities we’re going to wind up with.”

“If it’s any consolation, you wouldn’t have necessarily wound up with ’white wolves.’ Puppies’ fur color is usually determined by the sire.”

“Still, they’d be worth way more than these mutt-lings.”

“Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?”

“No, there’s one other thing.” She blushed and drew nearer. In hushed tones, she said, “If I were you, I would put some distance between myself and Beverly Wood.”

“Why?” I braced myself for the expected character attack on my friend, prepared to defend her.

“As I told the police, while I can’t be one-hundred-percent certain of this—” she paused as if for dramatic effect.

My patience was wearing thin. “I really am in a hurry, Paige,” I said in a near growl.

She pursed her lips, then said sharply, “Fine. I’ll get right to the point. I spotted Beverly Wood coming out of Ty Bellingham’s front door just before I heard all the noise of that dreadful dog fight. I think your good friend, the ’non-bitch,’ Beverly, killed him.”

Chapter 9

“You saw Beverly coming out Ty’s front door?” I repeated. To her nod, I protested, “But the front door was locked.”