by Tracy Weber
No doubt about it, I was frustrated. But I was also relieved. Dharma and I had a mere thirty minutes, and Dale had taken away all of my excuses to waste them. If I couldn’t talk about Eduardo or Marla in my visit with Dharma tomorrow, I’d be forced to learn about an entirely different enigma.
Me.
After three decades of silence, the conversation was long overdue.
The mantra seemed to echo within and around me.
May you have peace.
May your heart be open.
May you be healed, and may you be a source of healing for all beings.
I reached my arms up and imagined that I was bathed in a warm, healing light. This ancient Buddhist metta meditation was one of my favorites. In it, I offered peace, healing, love, and joy to everyone who touched my life: acquaintances, loved ones, even myself.
Today’s practice seemed especially powerful. The vibrations of the repeated words permeated my cells, soothing my nervous system like soft caresses. My prickly defensiveness lost its hard edges. My emotional nerve endings finally stopped throbbing.
I started to nod off—always a risk in meditation. I should have been a good yogi and kept my mind focused and alert, but the sensation of floating was simply too delicious. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to drift asleep.
What felt like a second later, I heard a low, distant rumble. The floor began shaking. The walls started to tremble.
Earthquake!
My eyes flew open and I scrambled to find something to hide underneath—a table, a doorway, anything—but I was suddenly surrounded by darkness. Cracks formed in the earth around me. The warm light I’d relished turned burning white cold.
He was back. The demon who lurked in the shadows. The evil that haunted my nightmares.
But this time, my eyes were open. This time, I wasn’t afraid.
The familiar voice penetrated my subconscious: Kate, you’re dreaming.
“I know.”
Normally, this was the point at which I panicked. But not tonight. Dharma’s letter—vague as it was—gave me power.
This time, rather than run from the dream universe, I changed it. I halted the shaking. I brightened the light. I smoothed out the cracks in my metaphorical foundation. I touched my fingers to the edge of the darkness, but I chose not to go inside. Instead, I faced it and gave my demon a message.
“If you come again, I’ll be ready.”
Much to my surprise, I meant it.
For the first time ever, I woke myself up.
Twenty
I spent the rest of the night in deep, dreamless sleep. When I awoke the next morning, I felt more rested, more balanced, than I had in a very long time. I jumped out of bed at eight o’clock, called Betty, and arranged to bring Bella over for a visit later that morning. After I fed Rene the first of her two breakfasts, we hit the road to Maple Valley and the headquarters of Fido’s Last Chance.
“What do you think Betty will be able to tell us, anyway?” Rene asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know. But I talked to pretty much every rescue group in Seattle when I was trying to find a new home for Bella. I got the feeling that the rescue community is like a small town—everyone knows everyone else’s business. Betty would definitely be in on all of the dirt.”
Rene rubbed her hands together. “Oh goodie. She’ll be our snitch!”
I turned right and pulled into the gravel driveway of Fido’s Last Chance. “Please, Rene. Don’t say that in front of Betty. She won’t think it’s funny.”
“Un-effing-believable,” Rene muttered under her breath.
“You say some pretty rude things sometimes, and—”
“I’m not talking about the snitch comment—I’d totally say that.” She pointed to the building in front of us. “That!”
I smiled. Betty’s dilapidated house and converted garage/dog kennel had given me pause the first time I’d visited, too. But I was beginning to realize that state-of-the-art facilities with bright shiny cages weren’t the measure of a good rescue. What counted was how well the humans who ran the facility cared for their charges. Betty and Judith’s rescues were both proof of that.
I opened the car door to the clamor of barking dogs. Hundreds of them, from the sounds of it. Betty once said that having ten dogs on site was her personal limit, but I had a feeling she’d made some exceptions.
Rene looked at me, aghast. “You were going to surrender Bella to this place?”
I cringed at the memory. Thinking about parting with my canine best friend seemed like an abomination. Something only a completely different woman—one I didn’t like very much—would have considered doing. But in reality, I was different back then. Bella had changed me, in every way for the better.
“Believe me, this place is a lot better than it seems from the outside. Most of the dogs rescued by Fido’s Last Chance live in foster homes. Betty takes in the animals that no one else will. I called over forty rescues trying to get help with Bella. They all said Bella was too expensive, too aggressive, or both. All except Betty. She’s a tough old broad, but I like her. I think you will, too.”
I clipped on Bella’s leash. She must have remembered her prior visit, because in spite of the deafening barking that emanated from the converted garage, she pulled me directly to Betty’s front door. Before I raised my hand to knock, Betty threw it open.
“Well there she is!”
Bella wiggled her way up to Betty, plopped her rear on the ground in a perfect sit, and offered her paw.
“My goodness, aren’t you a fatty!”
I could only hope that Betty was referring to Bella. For a dog with EPI, being called “fatty” was a compliment. Bella had lost over twenty-five pounds in the month before her diagnosis. She had gained it all back since I’d adopted her, and then some.
“Kate,” Betty said, “I’m impressed. Looks like you’ve got that EPI of hers under control. Bella looks fantastic.” Then she frowned, as if noticing me for the first time. “You could stand to gain a couple of pounds, though.”
The barking dogs drowned out my snarky response.
“What’s that you say?” Betty asked.
“Sounds like you have more dogs than when I was here last time,” I yelled over the din.
“Yep. Along with my three, I have nine fosters right now.”
“I thought ten dogs total was your limit?”
“It is. At least it was. I got a call a little over a month ago about two ten-year-old shepherds. Littermates who grew up together. As always, the rest of my foster homes were already over capacity. One of the old girls is blind; the other has epilepsy. They had to go as a pair.” She huffed. “Good luck finding a home for that combination. It was either me or, well, you know.” She sighed. “I may as well face it—they’re my dogs now.”
“What happened to their owner?”
“Poor old guy got Alzheimer’s. His family put him in assisted living, and no one wanted his dogs. Surprising how often that happens.” She shook her head. “I can’t take in every hardship case that comes along. I know that. But these old ladies deserved better.”
She wagged her finger at me. “You make sure you have written plans for Bella, in case something happens to you. She depends on you as much as a child would.”
“Bella will be fine. Her future is more secure than mine is.” I wasn’t exaggerating. Michael and I had each made provisions for Bella in our wills, and Rene had agreed to be her guardian if necessary. Bella would never be homeless again.
Rene waddled up the porch steps to join us. After I made the requisite introductions, Betty ushered us into a hallway filled with dust, dander, and twelve dogs’ worth of shedding season. She led us to the closet she called an office, cleared a stack of papers off the visitors’ chair for Rene, and dragged in a folding chair for me.
The room had seeme
d crowded when Bella and I met with Betty last year, but that was nothing compared to this. By the time Rene lowered her three-person body into the chair, I was convinced we would use up all of the room’s oxygen.
I was about to ask Betty to turn on a fan when two things happened at once: I lowered my rear toward the folding chair, and Bella charged the filing cabinet, knocking the chair out from under me. I landed on the ground and exhaled a loud “oomph!” On the following inhale, I smelled the unmistakable scent of recently used cat litter, which made sense, since my nose was four inches away from a cat box.
Rene sneezed. “Oh no, there’s a cat in here.”
Betty frowned, obviously not impressed with Rene’s powers of deduction. “What? You got something against cats?”
Rene lifted her elbow to her nose and sneezed again. “I’m allergic.” Clear fluid dripped from her nose and her eyes. “Where is it?”
As Dad used to say, I’d give her three guesses and the first two didn’t count. Bella danced, whined, sniffed, and pawed at the filing cabinet, reveling in feline-induced ecstasy. Diablo, Betty’s huge orange tabby, flattened his ears and showed her his claws from the top of the cabinet.
Betty ignored Rene and watched the two animals. “You know, Bella was interested in Diablo the last time you were here, too. Have you considered getting her a kitten? The company might help with those separation anxiety issues.”
“Oh lord,” Rene said. “Please, Kate. Please don’t do it. I can’t get anywhere near a cat without—” She sneezed again. “Can someone please take that cat out of here before my head explodes?”
Betty gathered the huge feline in her arms and carried him out of the room. Bella stared longingly after them, as if already mourning the loss of her mid-morning snack. She eventually lay next to my chair, let out a low groan, and rested her head between her paws.
Rene pulled out a bottle of Benadryl and swallowed two tablets dry. Her eyes were so watery, I was afraid her eyelashes would drown.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.
“I’ll survive now that the dander generator is out of the room. Hopefully the antihistamines will kick in soon.
Betty marched back in and sternly crossed her arms. “Okay, you two. Now that you’ve made me evict my cat from his very own room, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here.”
“What do you mean?” I tried to look innocent. “I thought you’d like to see Bella.”
“Uh huh. Right.” Betty lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Look, Kate, I’m delighted to see Bella, but you haven’t darkened my doorway since you adopted her last year. You want something.”
She was right, on multiple levels. I did have a hidden agenda, of course, but that was just part of it. I should have brought Bella by sooner—Betty’s no-nonsense encouragement had saved Bella’s life, and I owed her. A lot. Much more than dropping by simply because I needed another favor.
“I’m sorry, Betty. I should have visited months ago. But you’re right. I do need something: information.”
I told her everything I knew about Raven’s murder, including the part about my mother being the number one suspect. When I finished, Betty’s expression was somber.
“I heard about Raven getting killed.”
“You knew her?”
“A little. We rescue folk tend to run in the same circles. I liked her. She was a little crazy sometimes, but she had spunk.”
“I’m trying to learn more about DogMa. The director, Raven’s cousin Maggie, is acting cagey with Dharma’s lawyer. Frankly, we’re getting desperate.”
“I don’t know how much help I’ll be. What little I know about DogMa is based on gossip and innuendo.”
“Anything might help at this point.”
She leaned back and crossed her ankle over her knee. “DogMa’s relatively new on the rescue scene. It was formed by the two cousins—Raven and Maggie—and a woman named Sally a couple of years ago. I always got the feeling that the cousins were in it more as a status symbol. You know, rich kid do-gooders? Sally, though, she’s the real deal. She’s dedicated her life to that rescue, even after her husband’s stroke. Gotta admire that.”
“Is it as good as it seems? DogMa, that is.”
Betty’s jaw tensed. “Honey, we’re all good. Us legitimate rescues, anyway. We just don’t all get the credit.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a sore spot for me. I got to feeling downright defensive about all of the positive press DogMa got when it first opened. Everyone made out like those trust fund babies were Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers all rolled into one.” She frowned and made air quotes with her fingers. “‘Troubled girls make good.’ Give me a break. We all have baggage.”
“Troubled?”
“Sniffing white powder, spending too much time in Vegas, that sort of thing.”
“Both of them?” Raven’s grandmother had complained about Raven’s addictions, but she’d never mentioned Maggie. Did it run in the family?
“One of them, both of them—heck, I don’t remember anymore. Whoever it was, they supposedly cleaned up their act and decided to give back.” She said the last two words with obvious sarcasm. “Heck, if I had their money, I could make a real difference.”
“They don’t? Make a difference, that is?”
Betty waved her hand through the air. “Don’t let me badmouth them. I’m harping on like a jealous old bat. The work they do is important. I just get sick of places like DogMa getting all the positive press because they’re ‘no-kill’ and flashy. It’s easy to call yourself no-kill if you have state-of-the-art facilities and limit yourself to animals that are easy to place. Try doing it when you have twelve special needs dogs in your house twenty-four/seven.”
As if on cue, a dog started howling.
“I know, Millie, I’m coming,” Betty yelled. “Millie’s getting senile. Freaks out if I’m gone too long. Anyway, I don’t disagree with DogMa’s philosophy, in principle. The faster they get the easy-to-adopt animals placed in homes, the more money and space there is for challenging dogs like Bella. Still, you don’t see people holding huge fundraisers for places like mine. We just expand our garages and empty our personal bank accounts.”
Again, Betty was right. I’d have to talk to Michael about doing an event for Fido’s Last Chance next year.
Rene interrupted. “Have you heard anything about DogMa having financial difficulties?”
“Nothing to speak of. I know they started going after public funding not long ago. Before that, they were private.”
“Maggie says that their expenses have been skyrocketing.”
Betty shrugged. “Anything’s possible. Lord knows my costs certainly seem to get higher every year. But they don’t take in animals that require significant veterinary care, and as far as I know, they aren’t housing more animals than they used to. If they’re having money problems, I suspect it’s due to revenue, not expenses.”
Unless Maggie’s “expenses” include cocaine and gambling.
But I didn’t say that out loud. “Do you know how I could get a look at their finances?”
“Sorry, Kate. That’s way out of my league.”
“Ask her about the bird lady,” Rene prompted.
“Bird lady?” Betty looked at me.
“Have you ever heard of Precious Life Wildlife Center?”
Betty grinned. “You mean Judith? Now that’s an old battle-ax I can appreciate. If I were into wild animals, she’d be my hero.”
Her description of Judith matched my impressions: opinionated, stubborn, and not afraid to skirt the law when she needed to protect her animals.
“Do you think she’d be capable of murder?” I asked.
“Honey, most of us folks in animal rescue are a few crayons short of a full box. We have to be, in order to do this kind of work. But murder?�
�� She shrugged. “I’d like to think not, but then again, I could never imagine abusing a dog, and people do that every day. Maybe I’m not the right person to ask.”
As the conversation dwindled, Betty turned her attention to Rene. First she looked Rene up and down, clearly appraising her. Then she watched her interact with Bella. When the questioning started, I knew Betty was up to no good.
“You look like you’re about to pop any day. That baby of yours overdue?”
Rene looked aghast. “I’ll have you know that I’m very thin for my stage of pregnancy. I’m having twins.”
“You got a husband?”
“Yes … ”
Betty grabbed a clipboard and started writing. “When’s your due date?”
“In three months.”
“Well, that gives us plenty of time, then.”
Uh oh.
Rene froze. “Time for what?”
Betty didn’t answer. She pointed a thumb at Rene but spoke to me. “You like this one?”
“She’s okay … ”
She wrote my name next to the word references. “Bella seems to like her too,” she observed.
I knew exactly where this was going.
“And she’s allergic to cats, not dogs, right?”
Rene scrunched her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “Why are you talking about me like I’m not in the room?”
Betty’s eyes locked onto Rene like a tabby targeting a field mouse. “Fine. I’ll ask you, then. Did you have pets as a child?”
“No. My mom was a neat freak.”
Betty leaned in closer. “That explains those terrible allergies of yours. You don’t want your twins to suffer like that, do you?”
Rene scooted her chair back several inches. “No, but … ”
“Babies who grow up with animals are rarely allergic. And kids need to learn how to be responsible. Nothing teaches that better than a dog.”
Rene crossed her arms defensively. “I have never owned a dog, and I’m plenty responsible. Who do you think looks after Kate?”
Betty smiled and made a check mark on the form. “Well, that’s great, honey. Dog owners need to be responsible.”
