Play Dead (11 page)

“Just...wait here for the police, in case
Beth comes back, all right?”

I hoped to make my instructions as
clear as possible. I picked up a black sweater off the floor by the front door
where it had fallen off the coat hook.

“Is this Beth’s?” I asked Chet.

He nodded. “She wears it all the time.”

I held the sweater up to Sage’s nose. “Beth,”
I said. “Sage, find Beth.”

“This isn’t going to work, you know,” Chet
said.

“Sage, find
Beth.”

Sage looked at me, then trotted out the
door, his nose to the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least he acted as
though he knew what he was supposed to do. Could Sage already know exactly
where Beth was? If she’d had Sage on leash when someone confronted her, he’d
likely lead me to that spot; that was fairly automatic dog behavior—to go
to the place the sought-for object last was.

On the other hand, if he’d been with Beth
when she’d been attacked or injured or something, why hadn’t Sage led me there
directly? Why lead me to her house? Maybe, since he wasn’t a trained tracker,
he was confused by the leash. I removed the leash, wanting Sage to concentrate
on following Beth’s scent, not on his leash training.

Now my heart was really pounding hard. I
had relinquished immediate control of a large dog, while sending him out to
search for his possibly seriously wounded owner. He could well attack the next
man in a hat he happened to see.

Sending up a quiet prayer, I quickly,
folded the length of leash into my hand and followed the dog.

Sage was tracking, his nose pressed to the
ground, trotting along as if he’d forgotten my presence. We were on Mapleton,
passing the mushroom-shaped building that housed a children’s playhouse, when
Sage stopped. He sniffed at the ground and circled.

He crossed die grounds behind the
building, clearly tracking something now. He leapt a two-rail fence and ran
across a yard, and I climbed over the fence in chase. If the homeowners called
in a trespassing complaint, I’d have to explain this to the police.

A much bigger concern hit me: Why would
Beth have climbed a fence? Maybe Sage had run away and she followed. That was
plausible. I tried to tell myself that was all there was to this—that she
hadn’t climbed a fence to get help or to escape.

Sage scrambled over a five-foot-high
privacy fence that bordered this property. I started to look for a gate when
something caught my eye. There was a dark stain on the cedar fence post near
the section the collie had just leapt over. Please, dear God. Don’t let that be
blood.

My heart pounded wildly as I stared at the
stain. I couldn’t waste time rounding the property now. The flat railing at the
top of the fence was just above eye level, but charged up by a mixture of fear
and urgency, I hoisted myself easily over it.

Across the yard from me, Sage had stopped
his search and was whining over Beth’s motionless body.

Ahead of me, just a few feet from the back
door of a small, white house, Beth Gleason lay on her side on the wet grass.
Sage was whining and nudging her limp hand with his nose.

Only vaguely aware of myself dropping the
leash on the ground, I staggered toward her and called, “Somebody, help me.”
But help was already too late. I put a hand on her cheek. It felt as cold as
the wintry blasts of wind that seemed to whip straight through me. Her eyes
were closed, her lips were blue, and I deliberately refused to look at her
blood-soaked T-shirt, sliced in at least three places. I pressed my fingers
against her carotid artery. No pulse.

A woman’s voice called over the fence to
me, “Oh, my God. Is she all right?”

I didn’t look up, but heard myself answer,
“No. She’s dead. Call the police.” It felt as though my voice was coming from
some distant tunnel—not really me speaking, not my words, none of this
was really happening. I turned Beth over just in case there were signs of life,
knowing full well this was senseless. So was everything that had happened to
her since she’d gotten Sage.

Sage circled Beth and me as I knelt beside
her. My mind was a torrent of thoughts and unanswerable questions, penetrated
by Sage’s childlike whimpers. How, in a town of Boulder’s size, had someone
managed to stab Beth Gleason in broad daylight with, apparently, no witnesses?
Why hadn’t anybody been around to help her? Even now, a steady stream of
traffic passed by. Though my view of cars was blocked by the fence, the hum of
engines and tires on asphalt was ever present.

I deserted my pretense of attempting
lifesaving measures. I took off my jacket, draped it over Beth’s face, and sat
on the hard ground hugging my knees to my chest while I shivered
uncontrollably. Sage came over to me and sat down beside me, pressing his body
against mine. As I stroked his fur, I realized how hard I was fighting against
breaking down.

Sirens in the distance grew louder. The
police would soon be here. I would have to explain. How could I?

What did I even know about Beth? That she
was too young to die and didn’t deserve this fate. That she was supported by a
trust fund, and that she seemingly had little common sense and atrocious taste
in men. Yet she was wise enough to recognize the soul of a truly fine dog when
she met him.

And what of Sage? My heart ached for him.
I felt sure he’d been a voiceless witness to two violent deaths. Worse, both
victims had been his owners. Could this dog identify the killer? How could I
find out?

Police cars pulled up, their shapes
visible through the slits in the fence. Sage rose, watching the approaching
officers on the other side of the fence, then turned and looked at me in a plea
for protection. I hugged him and whispered, “We’ll get the bastard who did
this. I don’t know how, but we’ll get him.”

I heard the footfalls of the officers
heading up the front walk of the house and called, “She’s back here.” I noticed
the gate for the first time, which was within ten yards of where Beth had
fallen. “She’s been stabbed.”

The officers entered through the gate,
eyeing the collie and me as if primed to aim their guns at us if we moved. Sage
barked wildly at them. The first officer said, “Do you live here, ma’am?”

“No, I—”

“The paramedics are on their way,” the
second officer told me. He gestured for me to come toward him. “Let’s give my
partner some room, okay?”

“She’s already dead,” I murmured, but got
up and did as I was told. “The leash.” I glanced back and saw where it lay on
the lawn, equidistant between me and the fence. I started to head back to grab
it.

“Stop right there,” the officer commanded.

I looked up at him in confusion and
realized both officers were poised to pull their guns at me. “The dog needs to
be on a leash,” I explained. “I dropped it back there in the grass.”

“Just leave it where it is, ma’am, and
step towards me.”

I did as I was told, realizing the
policemen were afraid I was about to retrieve a weapon. The first officer
pushed his cap back on his forehead as he knelt by Beth. He tossed my jacket
aside and felt her carotid artery. Sage’s frantic barks turned to growls; he
might go on the offensive to protect his owner from these strange men.

“Sage, come.” He followed my instruction,
but continued to bark. Sage was almost as frantic as he’d been in the PetsMart
parking lot. I had to get him out of here.

The officer, an average-looking,
middle-aged man with a receding hairline, led us to the sidewalk in front of
the house. I glanced back at Beth, just as the grim-faced officer beside her
slowly shook his head at his partner.

The officer introduced himself, but the
name left my brain even while he was saying it. He asked my name and address.
To my embarrassment, I couldn’t remember my house number. I rambled about how I’d
just moved back to Colorado after several years in Chicago, till enough of my
mental faculties returned that I could remember my address. Two more patrol
cars pulled up, along with a chartreuse-colored emergency fire department
vehicle. One officer rang the doorbell of the white house, while another
escorted the paramedics to Beth’s body.

By now, pedestrians and people from
neighboring homes were gathering, and the question, “What’s going on?” kept
being asked over and over by various voices. I had to steel myself against
shouting, “Where were you when Beth Gleason was getting stabbed to death?” I
tried to ignore the crowd and give the policeman as complete a picture as I
could—what had happened in the last twenty-four hours or so since some
stranger named Beth Gleason called into that damned
Tracy Truett Show.

Behind us, mostly blocked from view by the
cedar fence, the paramedics were working on Beth Gleason, which seemed macabre
to me, since there was not a doubt in my mind she was already dead. In the
meantime, the policeman with me asked more questions about what I was doing
here and my “relationship to the victim.” I did my best to answer him, but I
hadn’t felt this out of it since I’d been knocked unconscious by an elbow to
the head during a high school basketball game. At once, things seemed to swirl
around me in a flurry of motion and yet barely drag by.

A detective arrived and had me repeat my
entire story. He was Hispanic with a trace of an accent and was soft-spoken, so
much so that I had to ask him to repeat himself almost every time he said
anything. I grew impatient to leave and check on Doppler, who was still alone
in my office. Sage, too, was growing more restless as time passed, barking
nonstop. Once again, I began to shiver uncontrollably.

The detective said, “Cold day to be
outside without a coat.” At least, I think that’s what he said.

“I...covered Beth with my jacket. I don’t
want it back.” I doubted I’d ever be able to look at my L.L.Bean without
thinking of this day.

“Would you be more comfortable in my car?”

For once, I heard him the first time. I
shook my head. “I’d really like to go back to my office. I need to get Beth’s
collie to a quiet spot, and my own dog is locked up there and needs to be let
out.”

The detective pocketed his small notepad. “Would
you come to the police station and give a formal statement?”

I fought back a sigh. “Of course. I’ll do
anything I can to help. But can I meet you there in a couple of hours?”

He nodded. “Matter of fact, I’ll be...” He
looked over his shoulder toward Beth while mumbling. The next words I could
make out were: “...hours yet. Can you meet me at the Boulder Police Station
tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, I’ll be there.” That reminded me. My
appointment with the golden retriever was fast approaching. I checked my watch.
I was supposed to be at the client’s house in ten minutes. “There’s a guy named
Chet...something-or-other who’s waiting for the police at Beth Gleason’s house.
He called in about Beth being missing well over an hour ago. He...needs to be
told.”

“We’ll take care of that, miss.”

“The collie’s leash is in the pocket of
the jacket with Beth. It’s a green nylon leash. There was blood on it. There’s
also a second leash back in the yard behind...It’s between Beth’s body and the
fence. That’s my leash and I’ll need it to walk the collie back to my office.”

The detective knelt on one knee, talking
softly to Sage as he examined Sage’s leather collar and ran his hands over his
fur, in a tactile examination that apparently yielded nothing. “You’re going to
take the victim’s dog with you?”

“Yes. He’s traumatized. He needs my help.”

The detective rose, staring at the dog. I
worried he was going to tell me he’d have to take Sage for evidence. He finally
nodded and muttered something indistinguishable, except for the word “wait.” He
headed through the gate and soon emerged, inspecting my leash in his hands.

He handed me the leash, eyeing me as he
did so. “Be sure you’re at the station house no later than noon tomorrow.” His
words were quite forceful this time.

“I’ll be there,” I said, battling my emotions
as I slipped the chain over the collie’s head. I hated being treated like
this—as a possible suspect. Mustering as much confidence as I could, I
said, “Sage, come,” and patted my thigh. He came with me in perfect heel
position on my left side. To his further credit, he managed to maintain this
all the way to my office, despite my brisk stride.

I trotted down the steps and unlocked the
door to my office. Fortunately, I’d stashed the keys in my pants pocket and not
in my jacket. Ignoring Doppler’s cheerful, bouncy greeting, I pulled off Sage’s
leash then headed straight for the phone, and the dogs turned their attention
to each other.

My remaining appointment was with a golden
and his owner, George Haggerty. George answered, and I explained that I would
have to postpone my appointment until the next day. “I’m terribly sorry for the
inconvenience,” I went on, “but I just witnessed a terrible accident and couldn’t
possibly give you and your dog the attention you deserve.”

“An accident?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Do you think I could possibly reschedule
to one P.M. tomorrow?” I asked, ignoring his question.