Play Dead (17 page)

She shook her head. “They’d think I was
nuts!”

I managed to hold my tongue.

She stared out the glass door. “You can’t
see the street from down here. He could be out there right now and we’d never
know it.” She clenched her hands and whirled on a fuzzy-slippered heel to face
me. “Allida, you’ve got to move back in! You can’t just have people you work
with get murdered and then leave me all alone and defenseless!”

Nonplussed, I stared at her. One thing
this experience had taught me was to be far more discriminating about my choice
of housemates. “Kaitlyn, is there any chance that the driver of this white car
you saw was Bill?”

“No!” she snapped, then she furrowed her
brow. “At least, I don’t think it was...” Her voice trailed off thoughtfully.
She gave a small shrug. “Maybe.” She spun back toward the door and unlocked it
with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “I’m going home now. I’ll see you later.”

Oh, great. Now she was so hopeful that the
white car was being driven by her husband, she was set to dash out onto the
streets of downtown Boulder. Never mind that it was one
a.m.
and all she was wearing was a flimsy nightgown. “Wait!
I’ll walk you to your car. I just need to put something on.”

Not having expected a wee hour visitor, I
had done a lousy job of unpacking the necessities. I grabbed Russell’s
khaki-colored cardigan from his desk chair. While I was putting my sneakers on,
I saw a pair of slippered feet run past the window. She was so energized at the
possibility she could see her husband again, she hadn’t been willing to wait
one minute for me. “Kaitlyn!” I called.

With visions of her running in front of
the next white sedan she saw in the hope that her husband was its driver, I
cried, “Please be careful,” though I knew she couldn’t hear me. “Blast it all!”

My choice of actions regarding Kaitlyn was
either to stay put or to try and outrace her to her car and convince her not to
do anything rash. I opted for the former. My body aching with exhaustion but my
mind wide awake, I dragged myself back to Russell’s couch and slumped down.
Doppler rushed over to me and put his paws on my knees, hoping I’d invite him
to hop onto my lap. Lost in thought, I petted him.

The man following me was wearing the type
of hat that Russell had worn and which caused Sage to bark at him. That same
man could have killed both Hannah Jones and Beth Gleason. Or it could be
coincidental that the driver happened to own a fedora. Russell owned one, and I
certainly didn’t suspect him.

The fact that Bill Wayne had broken into
my bedroom tonight to look for information about me could have nothing—or
everything—to do with the man in the white car. Was there any chance this
was all connected? That Bill Wayne was the killer? That would make me the victim
of an enormous coincidence—that I’d happened to rent from his ex
after
he’d killed Hannah Jones. Unless Hannah’s death really
was
a
suicide, and Beth’s conversation with me on the radio had triggered some
homicidal maniac who started to trail us. Which meant Bill Wayne could be as
likely a suspect as anyone else I’d met in the last couple of days. Enough! I
was scaring myself.

I ordered Doppler to return to his own
bed, though I sorely wanted his companionship. Dogs thrive on consistency in
matters such as their sleeping quarters, and it’s unfair to confuse them by
cuddling up in bed with your dog only when you feel insecure. Then again, the
way my life was going, I could be in for a long spell of insecurity.

If I was lucky, that is.

The police interview first thing that
morning was a depressing experience. I gave every iota of information about my
last two days that the police could possibly want, and probably much that they
didn’t. I told about the white sedan, as well as my unsubstantiated theory that
Bill Wayne was the driver.

If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought
that I was their number one suspect. For one thing, after I’d told them what
Chet had said about having instructed Beth to carry her switchblade wherever
she went—advice so terrible it might have led to her having been stabbed
to death with her own knife—the policeman asked me if I had any idea
where the murder weapon might be. My answer was, “No. I never saw the killer
nor the weapon. Why do you ask?”

The officer’s response had been, “You’d be
surprised the things people forget to mention till we ask them directly.”

Afterwards, I headed off to meet my new
client, George Haggerty, and his golden retriever, Rex.

Mr. Haggerty and Rex lived in east
Boulder. Many of the lawns in his development had been recently sodded, and the
trees were all just saplings. George was a slender man in his late fifties to
early sixties. He wore thick glasses and had gray hair with a lousy comb-over
that disguised his hair impairment from no one. When he opened the door for me,
his dog nearly barreled over him. I stepped back to the edge of the porch. Rex
was perhaps the largest golden retriever I’d seen.

“No, Rex! Down!” George cried as he tried
to unplaster himself from the doorjamb. Despite his words, I noted that he’d
lifted his hands over his head, which was inadvertently signaling “up” to the
dog.

In the meantime, anticipating what was
coming, I reached into the compartment of my purse where I keep a noisemaker.
Sure enough, Rex tried to goose me, and I pushed the button on my noisemaker,
an inexpensive electronic toy that let out a shrill beep. Rex backed away
immediately and looked at me quizzically. “Good dog,” I said, stroking him.

“What was that?” George asked, looking
around as he stepped out onto the porch beside his dog and me.

“An aversion-training technique,” I
answered, showing him the device in my palm.

He glanced at Rex, who was still looking
as though he didn’t know what had hit him. “Sure seems to work fast.”

“When possible, I prefer to use positive
reinforcement, but this has its uses, too. In my line of work, you meet a lot
of large dogs. I won’t tolerate their getting overly personal or jumping up on
me.”

Slipping his hands in the back pockets of
his baggy brown pants, George smiled and said with enthusiasm, “Say. I’ve got a
coach’s whistle you can hear a mile off. Should I just blow that whenever I
catch Rex acting up?”

“Probably not. Blowing a loud whistle near
Rex’s head could affect his hearing. Besides, if your major problem is that Rex
tears up your house when you’re gone, you’re not going to be there to blow your
whistle. Instead of learning to avoid his bad behavior, Rex will learn to avoid
you and your whistle.”

“Maybe so,” George said, “but when I come
home, he gets so excited he nearly bowls me over. I could use it then, couldn’t
I?”

I was a little surprised that George
seemed to find the thought of coming home at the end of the day with a whistle
in his mouth so appealing. Maybe he was a former basketball coach.

I answered patiently, “There are other
ways to get at the root of Rex’s problem more effectively. Also, one reason
this handheld noisemaker works so well is the dog doesn’t see me operate it,
such as he would if I were to blow on a whistle. If every time Rex were to
sniff me or a visitor, a buzzer he can’t even see goes off, he thinks his
action caused the noise. He quickly learns not to do it, and he blames the
unpleasant noise on his own inappropriate action, not on me or my noisemaker.
Nor does he get the opportunity to check for my whistle and act up whenever he
doesn’t see me with it.”

George’s eyes were getting the glazed-over
look that warned me I was giving too much information too fast. “I’m sorry,” I
said. “I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Allida Babcock, though I’m sure
you figured that out.”

He chuckled pleasantly and held the door
for me. Rex nearly knocked me off my feet as he raced past me. The two led me
into a room with the standard newer home appointments—white walls and tan
wall-to-wall carpeting. I’d seen dog-wrought destruction before, but this was
impressive. Of the sparse furnishings in the room, there was not a single
cushion or pillow with no tears in it or woodwork that was free from teeth or
claw marks. The fabric on the arms and base of the couch was also torn through
so that the wood framing was revealed. It was also badly gnawed.

George gestured at a cushion-less rocker. “Have
a seat. I’d offer you a seat on the couch, but as you can see, the cushions are
rather lumpy now.”

“This couch was relatively intact when he
started to rip it up?”

“That was the nice one, believe it or not.
We have our junker in the basement.”

“The ‘junker’ must really be something to
behold.”

I winced at my comment, which was too
forward, considering I’d just met the man, but he laughed. “‘Fraid you’re right.
He’s been tearing that one up for more than a year now—ever since he got
to be eight months old.”

So Rex was twenty months old—the
adolescent stage for a dog in which so many behavioral problems emerge—though
in this case, Rex had been at it awhile. George sat on the former couch, and I
sat kitty-corner to him on the rocker, mentally reminding myself not to lean
too far, as much of its base had been gnawed away. “Is your family here?”

“Kids are grown and scattered. My wife is
too freaked out about what Rex has done to our house to want to talk about it.”

“Is she here?”

“No, she’s out of town for the week. I
hope that doesn’t make your job harder.”

“It could lengthen the treatment phase a
little,” I told him honestly. “You and your wife are going to have to do the
lion’s share of redirecting Rex’s behavior. Otherwise, you’ll see him revert to
his old patterns very quickly whenever I’m not around.”

Rex leapt onto the couch and draped
himself across George’s lap. With his flawless, shiny yellow coat, Rex was a
beautiful dog, yet this had all the makings of a textbook case of the dog
mastering his owner.

We chatted pleasantly while I gleaned the
necessary background information. During my note-taking, I slipped in the
question, “What models and colors of cars do you and your wife drive?”
Understandably, George asked what that had to do with his dog, but he accepted
my bogus reply that “It gives me an indication of your dog’s lifestyle outside
the home.” His wife drove a silver Toyota and he drove a white Jeep Cherokee.

To my chagrin, I had to struggle to
concentrate. My thoughts kept wanting to return to Sage and my mother. I wished
I could convince myself that there was little cause for worry. For one thing,
Pavlov was a first rate watchdog.

George paused, and I asked, “He hasn’t
started chewing on himself, has he? Some dogs move into self-mutilation, I’m
sorry to say.”

“No.” George’s eyes widened in alarm, and
he stroked the dog faster. “Do you mean he might start chewing on his own leg
or something?”

I wanted to move away from this topic
before I alarmed him unduly. “I need to observe your dog’s behavior when you
leave. Let’s start by having you go into another room, shutting the door behind
you.”

George winced a little and murmured, “This
is going to be embarrassing.” He tried to push Rex off his lap, saying, “Down!
Down, Rex!” The dog half slid, half hopped to the floor as George rose. With a
wide, four-paw stance primed at preparing himself for his owner’s next
movement, Rex stood in front of George, watching over his shoulder so that he
could lead the way in whatever direction his owner chose to take. “Rex, stay.
Stay.”

The dog completely ignored this command.
When George stepped to the left as if heading toward the kitchen, Rex dashed
ahead of him. George followed, then reversed fields and tried to head down the
hall. Rex stopped in his tracks and galloped ahead, but the moment Rex got far
enough in front of him, George ducked into the first door he passed, which was
a small coat closet.

What followed was a truly pitiful
scene—Rex howling and scratching at the door and trying to tunnel through
the carpeting. The dog made such a racket that George couldn’t hear me call to
come out. I walked up to Rex, growled, “No,” and pushed the button on my
noisemaker. Rex stopped and I immediately praised and petted him. This afforded
me my first glance down the hallway, where every door bore gouges and claw
marks, and each doorway was delineated with shredded carpet.

George Haggerty emerged from the closet,
then had to fight off Rex, who was intent on licking his master’s bright red
cheeks. “He’s not always quite this bad,” George cried over the noise of Rex’s
excited barks at their reunion. “Sometimes he sleeps through it when the wife
or I leave the room.”

“I can see where we need to start.”

I discussed my treatment plan and billing
procedures, all of which he agreed to. His one bone of contention was when I
suggested he purchase a Gentle Leader collar, which George thought was a
muzzle. I explained that the collar actually works just like a horse bridle;
one strap fits behind the dog’s ears and the other loops around the dog’s
muzzle just below the eyes. The dog’s jaw is unrestricted, but the handler can
control the dog’s head position.

I keep a spare Gentle Leader in my glove
box and showed George how to slip it on Rex while enticing him with a treat. At
first Rex pawed at the collar and tried to rub it off, but by my encouraging
Rex with treats and pats during basic leash training, he eventually accepted
it. As soon as I showed George how effective a word of warning followed by a
firm pull on the leash was when discouraging Rex from jumping up, I’d made a
sale.