4 Woof at the Door (23 page)

“So you’re pleased with the work that Hank Atkinson and his employees did for you?”

“Absolutely. Hank is the most-thorough man. Would you believe he personally stopped by today, just to see if I was satisfied?” I said nothing, but she continued happily, “I told him how you were coming out here this afternoon on his recommendation.”

“How did he respond?”

She gave me a small shrug. “He didn’t say anything, but I’m sure he was glad.”

Glad? I thought to myself sourly. Not likely, since my being here did nothing to benefit him directly. Though it was a close call, I disliked Hank Atkinson even more than I did his wife. The man struck me as utterly devoid of integrity. Which is why it struck me as odd that he’d recommended me. Maybe he’d considered that compensating for his despicable treatment of Russell.

“Do you happen to recall when it was that Hank Atkinson recommended my services to you?” If it was after Saturday’s softball game, his recommendation probably represented his personal penance for injuring Russell.

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Must have been a week or two ago. It was the same day he installed the security system.”

“Are you sure it was that long ago?”

She nodded. “Yes. His dropping by today was the first time I’ve seen him since a week ago Friday.”

“Huh. That’s interesting.” It was primarily interesting because, “a week ago Friday,” I had never heard of Hank Atkinson, or even of Ty Bellingham.

That meant that either Hank Atkinson had crossed path with a former client of mine who, unbeknownst to me, recommended my services, or he—like Ty—had gotten my name from Beverly Wood.

I continued to work with Titan and his owner on basic training and soon found myself thinking that I knew why the previous owners had been willing to give up the dog to adoption. Titan was a typical malamute, which, depending on what you’re looking for in a dog, was good or bad. Very much like their closest canine counterpart, Siberian Huskies, Malamutes are typically not as far removed from their wolf predecessors as other breeds are. Malamutes show strong pack instincts and independence from their owners, and low tolerance for the standard sit-stay-come training. You want me to sit? Maybe later. Gotta go check out the smells by the maple tree now.

Truth be told, a malamute can make even an experienced dog trainer look like a nincompoop—with the emphasis on “poop.” Luckily, I had a couple of face-saving excuses at my ready disposal. The easiest was the standard: It won’t do you any good for me to train your dog because I won’t be living with him. I can show
you
how to train him, though. That was legitimate, but also translated to: You and your dog are the problem, not my brilliant training techniques. A second plausible demurral was: My specialty is as a dog behaviorist, not a trainer, but I can recommend a good trainer to you.

Then there was the upfront method, which I opted for in this case. I explained very carefully and thoroughly my evaluation of Titan and what her owner would be up against, recommended that she might be best off using the tidbit-reward style of training, right before dinner when Titan was most likely to be hungry; to keep the sessions under fifteen minutes but very focused and energetic on her part; and to do this training using a “Gentle Leader,” or reasonable facsimile. The Gentle Leaders fasten around the dogs’ muzzle and behind the ears, then fasten to the lead itself just below the chin. This puts the trainer in control of the position of the dog’s head.

Henrietta was willing to buy one from me, so I showed her how to put it on Titan, warning that the dog was going to hate it. Titan immediately pawed at the contraption like mad and trying to get it off. But she eventually accepted the fact that she couldn’t get it off, and I ran Titan through a typical training session. I would have ranked Titan’s performance as so-so at best, but Henrietta was ga-ga over it.

After I took off Titan’s collar, Henrietta asked, “I noticed you said ’lie down,’ as your command. I’ve been told you should always make one-word commands, such as ’down.’”

“You just hit on my pet peeve: superfluous tips from trainers. You can just consider ’lie down’ a two-syllable word. Dogs are certainly capable of treating it as such.”

“I’ve also heard that you confuse your dog if you say ’down’ when he or she jumps up on you. That you should always say ’off’ instead.”

“If you say, ’down,’ when a dog jumps up on you, and the dog not only takes his front paws off you but lies down, is that bad? Of course not. In reality, I’ve never had a dog actually do that, because the dog does understand the difference between ’down’ and ’lie down,’ so the whole issue is moot. Furthermore, if the dog’s on the couch and you want him off it, the dog can understand ’off,’ but he can also understand the concept that ’down’ means lie down on the floor, not on the couch. The verbal command itself is only part of the cues that—”

My cellphone rang, which struck me as perhaps a hint from above that I’d launched myself into one of my bombastic modes and it was time to shut up. “Never mind.” I glanced at my screen. It was Russell. My mood immediately switched to worry, as he rarely called when he knew I was with a client. “Do you mind if I get this?”

“No, go right ahead,” she replied.

I walked away and turned my back as I said hello.

“Allida, it’s Russell.” His voice sounded tense and as if he were out of breath.

“Is everything all right?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been here all afternoon, with the door closed. I’ve got a big presentation to make to a customer at the end of the week, so I’ve been pretty…absorbed. Still, you’d think I’d notice if somebody came into your office and…. Anyway, the thing is—”

“Russell, what’s happened?”

“Did you take your computer someplace, to have it repaired or something?”

“No! Don’t tell me it’s been stolen! I’ve got all my client records since I started my business on that computer! It’ll destroy me if my computer’s gone!”

After a sizable pause, Russell said, “You’re not one of those hate-the-messenger types are you?”

Rarely before had I felt this low. Back at my office, my computer was every bit as missing as Russell had described it to be. Nothing else seemed to have been touched. My vase of roses and its single-petal daisy was still there, my papers, knick knacks, just no computer. Russell and I filled out the police report, and I decided to call it a day. A lousy, miserable one at that. Although I told the police that this could have something to do with three deaths in the last few days, they were not optimistic about my chances for recovery. Furthermore, the sergeant, along with Russell, asked me about my backup flash-drive, just to drive the nail in a little further about my not having performed a backup for six months.

The next day, Chesh Bellingham called me to make the arrangements for my meeting her close to five p.m., when the flea market closed. She explained that she had a booth toward the back of the place, and while “the place is a zoo,” that her sign for Way Cool Collectibles was pink and orange and hard to miss.

I made the drive down to the Denver suburb, appalled at the heavy traffic and the unending stream of housing. Whenever I’d made this trip down the Boulder-Denver turnpike as a child, the view out my window had been long stretches of barren, slightly hilly fields, against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.

The parking lot of the flea market was at least half full. I paid my small entrance fee on the way into the parking lot and parked. The market was one huge paved area with some permanent booths set up like a cheap backdrop for a spaghetti western. I negotiated a path past the huge quantities of fresh produce, the crates of which were partially blocking the nearest entrance from my car. I wandered slowly down the first aisle.

Here boldly painted semi-permanent booths had been set up. They resembled carnival plywood flats of a midway, only the merchants in this row were selling hair-care products and sunglasses, leather goods, fake plants and silk flowers, and socks and undergarments in bulk. Personally, I couldn’t see myself buying a gross of panties from a flea market.

As I scanned the crowds, I was reminded once again how insulated Boulder is. The cost of living is so high there and the influence of the college campus is so great that crowds there generally tended toward white, middle-class, youthful people. It was sobering how out of place I felt here, nervous and put-off by the cigarette smoke, the crying, shabbily dressed children.

Past those booths was an enormous garage sale, where people—who all seemed to be smoking cigarettes—picked through vast quantities of used items. Beyond this area, I spotted a few carnival rides, but these were under a tarp, apparently operating only on weekends.

Based on where Chesh had told me to meet her, I concluded that she was probably someplace in the garage-sale-esque portion of the place, and so I wove my way through there till I spotted her orange and pink sign.

The booth was empty. Her hippie mobile was parked in the back. Only the folding tables and the sign were still in place. I asked the woman at the neighboring hunk of turf is she knew where Cheshire was.

The woman shrugged and blew cigarette smoke my direction. In a gravelly voice, she said, “She packed up a few minutes ago. Said everything was too dead to make it worth her while. She went off to see the main attraction, like everyone else.”

“What ’main attraction?’”

“Some lion or leopard or something.” She gestured vaguely in a direction behind us. “It’s all the way in the far corner.”

“Thanks.” Was this one of Damian’s animals? It seemed strange that he would have brought one to such a carnival-like atmosphere. I’d gotten the impression he wouldn’t do such a thing.

There was a huge crowd in the back corner, as delineated by chain-link fencing with barbed wire on top. I pressed my way through it and spotted a woman from the back wearing mini-skirt over silver go-go boots and a bright tie-dyed T-shirt. “Cheshire?” I called.

She turned around. “Allida. Hi! I’m waiting in line. I’ll be a few minutes yet.”

“What’s the line for?”

“There’s a lion in a van up here. For fifty cents, you can pet him.”

“Great,” I muttered. And how much would you pay for the opportunity to stick your hand in a piranha tank? I couldn’t see the van or the lion through this crowd. Keeping up a constant patter of “Excuse me, please,” I started to squeeze my way closer, cursing my lack of stature, which currently made the act of breathing in a hot crowd unpleasant and my ability to see over heads impossible.

“Hey, lady. The line starts back here.” I turned and spotted the angry-looking woman who’d spoken. She had a little girl in her arms.

“You’re going to let your toddler pet the lion?”

She clicked her tongue. “Of course. They wouldn’t let all these people do this if it weren’t perfectly safe.”

“Who is ’they’?”

She clicked her tongue a second time. “You know. The government.”

“Lady, this is a flea market. I’m not sure how closely the government is supervising.”

Just then, the lion let out a roar and people started screaming.

Up ahead, the crowd parted and fled. A huge male lion was growling and making his way through the panicked crowd, straight toward me.

Chapter 17

From the din of the frightened mob, a girl’s shrill voice arose. “Billy poked the lion with a stick!”

My heart leapt to my throat as the lion neared. This could only be Leo, I thought. I froze, knowing I couldn’t outrun a lion anyway. “Leo, stay,” I cried.

The lion hesitated, looked at me, then veered off to my right and stopped just ten yards past where I was standing.

My line of vision restored by the rapidly thinning crowd, I spotted Janine Hesk. She was seated at a small folding table cluttered with what appeared to be plaster carvings of animals. To one side of her was an empty van, its double doors on the back wide open, Leo’s now-broken collar swinging from its tether on the van’s trailer hitch. Janine was clasping a fistful of dollar bills and staring at Leo in disbelief as she rose.

To my horror, rather than go after Leo, Janine stuffed her bills into her fanny pack and turned around. “What happened?” she cried. “Did somebody hurt my lion?”

A boy who looked about ten years old, his face pale, hands behind his back, was cowering between the fence and the front of the van. At Janine’s outcry, the boy took off at a dead run.

“You jabbed my lion with a stick, didn’t you? Didn’t you!” Janine shrieked after him.

In the meantime, Leo circled back. He was now a mere five yards or so away from me. He positioned himself between some other seller’s rack of faded clothing and a table packed with dirty old glassware. Surrounding sellers had deserted their wares, and Leo looked from side to side as if prepared to pounce on the first stranger who ventured too close. Terrified, I forced myself to slowly sidestep so that I’d no longer be directly between Leo and his owner.

The crowd was still noisy and panicked. They continued to push their way out of the lion’s vicinity. Soon a baseball diamond’s worth of space was cleared, with only Leo, Janine Hesk, and me in the field of play.

“Janine,” I pleaded, “you’ve got to get Leo back in the van! Now! Before someone gets hurt!”

Just then, a host of security people approached on carts, no doubt having been alerted by the sound of Leo’s roar. My thoughts battled the sensation that this was too crazy to really be happening. It felt as though I were in some circus scene, or in Theater of the Bizarre. The guard that whizzed past me had a gun in his holster. The sight of the weapon brought home the immediacy of the problem.

The carts were pulling up between Janine and Leo, blocking her from view. I gestured and shouted at them to move to either side of Janine. My fear was that, with the guards actively blocking his access to his owner, the lion might feel he needed to defend her—a de facto member of his pride. My efforts were ignored as four guards—all of them burly looking men—seemed to peer straight through me at the lion.

“Stay away from my lion!” Janine was shouting. She pushed her way between two of the guards and tried to shove them back. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot him! He’s completely tame!”