Play Dead (19 page)

I pressed the playback button on my
recorder and opened the envelope. My mother’s voice said, “Morning, Allida.
Call me as soon as you get this message. This is your mother, as you probably
realized.”

I skimmed the rhyming note on the
front—getting to know you, yada yada, wanting to show you my world, yada
yada. I have very little patience for mushy rhymes. I opened it and saw that
the card was, indeed, signed “Love, Russell.”

You’re sweet, Russell, but I’ve kind of
got my hands full right now,
I thought as I dialed my mother’s number.

She said, “Oh, good. I’m glad you finally
called. Is now a good time for me to see your new office?”

“Now?”

“A book I ordered finally came in at a
store just a mile or so from you, and I thought I might as well stop by.”

I just wasn’t up for having Mom in my
office at the moment. Her wanting to visit right now seemed contrived—as
though she wanted to check the place out to make sure I was safe here. All the
while, I was still worried whether or not
she
was safe as Sage’s caretaker.
“Thanks, but I have to come out there anyway later this afternoon. My car’s
still full of stuff, and I need to stash it in your spare room, if that’s all
right with you. How about I just pick up the book for you before I leave?”

“Is there some reason you don’t want me to
see your office?”

“No, of course not,” I replied in a
partial untruth. “I just thought it’d be more convenient for you if—”

“I want to see my daughter’s office,” Mom
said. “The book was just an excuse.”

“Okay, Mom,” I immediately replied. Why
did I ever attempt to out worry my mother? She had two extra decades of worry
experience on me. “Come on down. I have one more appointment, but I’ll meet you
here at two o’clock. Do you know where the place is?”

“Yes. Can I bring Pavlov and Sage?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said slowly,
surprised at Mom’s suggestion. I hated the thought of her being with Sage in
Boulder. Beth Gleason had died that way. Then again, nobody would threaten her
if she was with both a collie and a German shepherd.

The Corning residence was nestled into the
foothills at the end of a wildly winding, mountainous road. It was one of those
palatial homes that always make me wonder how anyone can earn enough money to
afford them. I knew the answer with regard to Hannah Jones, whose house I
identified as the only one next door, but the Comings’ place was even larger.
Plus, these folks had to be young enough to have a two-year-old. Maybe they
were the same Comings that made the casserole dishes.

I didn’t think, “How did you get to be so
filthy rich?” would be an appropriate introductory question. So, when a
handsome, thirtyish man answered the door, I said instead, “You must be Dennis
Corning. I’m Allida Babcock.”

He shook my hand. “Nice to meet you. Come
in.” He was wearing jeans and a light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up,
but he also had a white cable-knit sweater loosely tied over his collar. He was
inside his house, for crying out loud, so I saw no excuse for wearing a sweater
draped on his shoulders, other than for giving off the full yuppie effect.

Despite my uncharitable thoughts, I said, “This
is quite a place you’ve got here.” If anything, that was an understatement.
Dennis was leading me down a hallway toward a kitchen that could easily hold my
entire house. Kaitlyn Wayne’s entire house, I should say.

“Thank you. So you believe me when I tell
you we could afford to have another dog.”

“Yes, but that’s really not the issue. By
the way, do you own a white car?”

“No, why?”

“There’s one just around the corner with
its lights on,” I lied.

“Ours are in our garage, of course.”

I nodded and ignored his haughty, you’re-such-an-idiot
tone of voice. This was the price one pays when one can only come up with an
inane excuse for asking an inappropriate question.

A salt-and-pepper shih tzu that I knew
must be Shakespeare ran up to me, claws clicking on the hardwood flooring.
Shakespeare started with his shrill bark. Being barked at reminded me of such a
stupid omission I had to restrain myself from striking my forehead. I hadn’t
warned my mother about Sage’s reaction to men in hats! If she took him anyplace
but straight to my office...

A two-year-old boy ran up as well, with a
huge grin that seemed to take up most of his face. I couldn’t help but notice
that the grin was all he was wearing.

“Brian! Bri! Get back in here! And put
some clothes on before I—”

I’d forgotten Dennis’s wife’s name, but
she was certainly an attractive woman—blond curly hair and blue eyes. She
could have been a professional model. She stopped mid-sentence as she saw me.

“Sorry,” she said. “We’re in the perpetual
stage of potty training. We sometimes reveal more of ourselves to guests than
they want to see.”

“That’s okay. I’m not that easily
embarrassed.”

“Good, but I am.” She grabbed her son
underneath the armpits and scurried off with him.

Dennis eyed me at length. We stood in the
center of his immense kitchen, and he made no move to offer me a chair. “Let’s
get right to the point. I want Sage. How can I convince you to give him to me?”

“I’m not sure that you can,” I told him
honestly. “And while your directness is a refreshing approach, not to mention a
time-saver, it’s a little off putting.”

He gave me a smug grin and gestured at the
cherry-wood kitchen set. “In that case, Ms. Babcock, do sit down. Can I offer
you some fresh-squeezed juice? Have you eaten yet?”

“No and yes, thank you.” Even as I was
telling myself what a complete jerk this guy was, I took a seat, largely
because I really wanted some background information on Sage, and he and his
wife were now the only remaining people I could ask.

I held Dennis’s gaze, and he finally
pulled up a chair across from me. As he did so, he yanked the sweater off his
shoulders and draped it over the empty chair between our seats. “You say Sage
is staying at a good spot, for now, but you didn’t say if this was going to be
a permanent situation.”

In that moment, I realized that I very
much wanted to keep Sage myself. This meant I would need to find a place in
Boulder where I could keep all three dogs. “That’s right. I’m going to do what
I can to make it a permanent home for Sage.”

“We’re really fond of Sage ourselves. As
you know, my wife is occupied at the moment with my son; however, we’ve agreed
that it’d be in the dog’s best interest to let him move in here with us.”

“Let me be frank, Mr. Corning.”

“Dennis,” he interrupted, flashing me a
full-wattage smile. “Tell you what. You be Allida, I’ll be Dennis, and neither
of us will be Frank.”

It was a little too late for me to be
charmed; otherwise, I might have laughed. “The thing is, Dennis, I simply can’t
let
anyone
I don’t know well have contact with Sage until Beth Gleason’s
killer is locked up. I’m sure you understand.”

“No. I don’t understand that at all. You
can’t possibly think we had anything to do with that, or with Hannah’s death.”

His wife entered the room just then,
saying, “I’ve got Brian down for his nap, at last.”

“Susan, Miss Babcock here thinks we had
something to do with Beth Gleason’s death,” Dennis told her, by way of getting
her up to speed with our conversation.

“What?” Susan said, eyeing me as if my
body were morphing into a hairy beast.

“I never said that, Mr. Corning. Dennis,
rather. I have to be cautious, so I’m not going to reveal the location of the
dog to you or to anyone.”

“I see,” Susan said, taking a seat next to
her husband.

“Maybe you can help me clear up a mystery
surrounding Hannah Jones,” I said. “I don’t understand why the dog food that we
got from you, at least indirectly, was tainted with a dog repellent.”

“What are you talking about?” he snapped.

I launched into a brief explanation of the
condition of the dog food and how I’d gotten possession of the slip of paper
with his name and number on it.

Dennis frowned. “I did donate the bag of
dog food I found in Hannah’s kitchen, and I also stuck a slip of paper on top
of it in case the new owner had any questions. Donated a box of dog treats, as
well. But Sage wouldn’t eat that food at all when we brought him home with us.
Remember, honey?”

Susan nodded. “We fed him Shakespeare’s
food. He ate about ten times as much as Shakespeare.” She paused, her pretty,
blue eyes staring directly into mine. “But why would someone have done that to
Sage’s food?”

“That’s the question of the hour,” I
replied. “Could Hannah have done it? Could she have been trying to change Sage’s
eating habits and want to train him to dislike dog food?”

“Christ, no,” Dennis said, shaking his
head. “Hannah loved that dog more than anything in the world.”

“Absolutely,” Susan said. “She would have
given her life to protect him.”

“Is there any chance that she did do just
that?” I asked.

They looked at each other. At length,
Susan shrugged. “As I said before over the phone, Hannah had cancer, so suicide
wasn’t out of the question. But to be honest with you, I’ve never fully
accepted that. I
would
believe someone shot her as she tried to protect
Sage. Nobody could ever convince me she’d ruined his dog food.”

“Same here,” Dennis said.

“Did you happen to notice if she had any
visitors the night she died?”

Dennis shook his head. “I was out of town
on business that night. Hon?”

Susan shook her head. “Brian and I stayed
at a friend’s condo in Vail that night.”

Dennis pushed back from the table and
stood up. “I can certainly understand now why you’re reluctant to let that dog
out of your care.” He picked up Shakespeare. “If he were mine, I wouldn’t let
him out of my sight.”

I rose as well and thanked both of them,
feeling much better about Dennis at the end of the visit than I had at its
start. Yet I drove off in a state of more confusion than ever. If neither
Hannah nor the Comings had tampered with Sage’s food, who had? And why? What
possible motive could somebody have to kill both Hannah and Beth?

Everything seemed normal when I reached my
office, though Doppler was unusually nervous. Chet Adler barged in just as I
was calming him.

“‘Bout time you got here. Shit. I’ve been
waiting for hours.”

“I’m sorry about Beth.”

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry! It’s your
damned fault she’s dead! If it hadn’t been for you and that call-in show,
nobody’d even know about her and that stupid, mangy mutt of hers!”

Doppler had been trained not to bark at
visitors, but he justifiably began barking now. Chet pointed at him. “Speaking
of mutts, if you don’t want me to kick yours through the door–”

“Doppler, cease!” I cried. The dog
immediately stopped barking and looked up at me. “Mr. Adler, just—”

“Don’t try ‘n’ bluff me! You know full
well you’re responsible. What I want to know is, why her? Why didn’t the
shithead kill you and the collie if he thought the fleabag could recognize him?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question.
I wish I did.”

“The police wouldn’t tell me shit. Where
did you find her? Did she say any last words?”

“No. I found her in a yard on Spruce
Street.”

“And? Did the house belong to a customer
of yours?”

“No. I think she might have climbed the
fence into the yard to try to get away from her attacker. That’s all I can tell
you.”

“I want the names of all your customers.”

“Why? What possible good would—”

The veins on his forehead were bulging. “Some
bastard got to Beth through you. I want to find the shithead. I’m gonna kill
him!”

I took a step back. “Calm down, Chet.”

“Just as soon as I get what I’m after.” He
crossed his arms and stepped to within a couple of inches of me, my chin nearly
touching his chest. I could smell liquor on his breath.

I had far too much experience staring down
growling dogs to fall for this power-assertion technique. I stayed put and
said, “Back off. I’m not giving you my client list. Even if I did, what
possible good would it do you? Do you plan to bully each person on the list
into confessing?”

He glared at me, then finally said, “Shit,
I don’t know,” and took a step back.

“Chet, let the police handle this.”

“Lot of good you are,” he snarled, then he
stormed out the door.

I was shaken by the confrontation. He
struck me as a loose cannon, and I wanted nothing to do with the man. Deciding
to make use of the few minutes I’d have until Mom arrived, I typed up notes on
my customers and made out bills, checking my watch periodically.

I shut off my computer afterwards and
stared forlornly at the door. As a child, I’d once asked her who the people at
the time-and-temperature number called when
they
needed to set their
clocks. She’d answered, “Me.” It took me the longest time to realize she’d been
joking, largely because my mother was compulsively prompt.