Proof of Life

by J. A. Jance

  “We live out in Madison Park,” Raines said. “Let me give you the address.”

  I wrote it down, but I was just being polite. I was pretty sure the address was in the material Todd Hatcher had just sent me.

  “Okay then,” I told him. “See you at seven.”

  Only after setting the appointment did I really think about it. If the meeting with Raines lasted until eight thirty or so, that would leave me with a late-night two-hour drive back home in the pitch dark on possibly icy roads. I immediately sent Mel a text:

  Going to town to interview Max’s literary agent. Meeting is at seven. Going to stay overnight at the condo.

  Her response was immediate, so obviously she’d finished the latest round in her charm offensive, her visit with Rotary:

  What about Rambo?

  I was used to coming and going as I damned well pleased. What about Rambo indeed? I looked down at the dog, who was curled up on her bed once more and regarding me with no small interest.

  I’ll have to get back to you on that. What about Purcell?

  Showed up with his public defender. Pleaded not guilty. Bail is set at $500,000. That seems to be a little out of his price range.

  Good. The longer he’s under lock and key the better.

  But the really good news here is that Serena got Nancy to swear out a no-contact order. If he does manage to track her down and show up on her doorstep, he’s back in the slammer no questions asked.

  Good for Serena. Best you can do then. Later. Gotta run.

  Finished texting, I dug through my wallet until I found Colleen McDaniel’s business card. When I asked to speak to her, she wasn’t in, of course. “I expect her back shortly,” I was told. “May I say what this is about?”

  “My name’s Beaumont,” I replied. “I spoke to her yesterday about my new dog—a rescue named Rambo. Colleen told me I could bring the dog in for a possible evaluation as soon as I could verify that her shots were up to date, which I have done.”

  “Colleen personally handles all rescue evaluations,” the receptionist told me. “I’ll have her get back to you on that.”

  Right, I thought without saying anything aloud, sometime in the next century if I’m really lucky.

  I turned my hand to one of my newly assumed duties—filling the dog dishes, food and water both. Then I went outside to do the other one—doggy latrine duty. As I wielded my pooper-scooper, I did so with a respectful hat tip in Todd Hatcher’s direction. It occurred to me in the process that shoveling Irish wolfhound crap was probably less problematic than shoveling horse poop.

  Surprisingly, not more than ten minutes after my leaving a message for her, Colleen McDaniel did indeed call me back. I let her in on everything I’d learned in the course of the morning—that Rambo’s shots were current and that her vaccination records were available on demand from Dr. Dennis White’s veterinary practice in Bellingham.

  “Given all that,” I finished, “would it be possible for me to bring her in this afternoon to drop her off for that adoption suitability evaluation? I’ve been called back down to Seattle this evening, and it would be easy for me to drop her off on my way.”

  “Let me check to see if there’s room,” Colleen said. She turned away from the phone for a moment, and I could hear her speaking to people in the background. “Okay,” she said when she returned to the line. “What time?”

  I checked my watch. “Four,” I answered, “or maybe a little before.”

  Shortly after two, Rambo and I were back in the car and headed south on I-5. Once again, Rambo positioned herself in the backseat, standing on all fours with her chin resting on my shoulder. I’d noticed the slobber stains on the jacket I’d been wearing earlier, so I had abandoned that one in favor of a clean one. I may be slow at times, but at least I had been smart enough to bring along a towel, which I placed on my shoulder as a drool deflector.

  Three different times during the drive south, cars in the passing lane drove slightly past my front bumper and then inexplicably came close to losing control, swerving back and forth before finally straightening up. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand the sudden outbreak of bad driving. No one was speeding excessively, and weather certainly wasn’t a factor. There had been a bit of afternoon clearing, so although the road surface may still have been slightly damp, it wasn’t icy and there weren’t pools of water on the roadway that might have caused hydroplaning.

  It wasn’t until the fourth time it happened, when I noticed passengers in the backseat, pointing in my direction and laughing their heads off, that I finally realized what was going on. Rambo is so large that, with her chin positioned on my shoulder, her head probably totally obscured mine. As far as the occupants of passing cars were concerned, it must have looked for all the world as though a dog were driving the car. With my side and rearview mirrors in play, she wasn’t really blocking my view of surrounding traffic, but I was happy not to have a discussion about that with a uniformed member of the Washington State Patrol.

  Rambo and I arrived at the Academy at what I now realized was the beginning of afternoon rush hour for doggy day care pickup. I drove up to the office and then stopped. It took me a moment. I felt more than slightly guilty about dropping Rambo off among a new group of strangers. After all, she was just now getting used to Mel and me. Nevertheless, there was nothing for it. With a heartfelt sigh, I got out of the car, opened the back door, picked up Rambo’s leash, and led her toward the door.

  I may have been suffering some trepidation about all this, but Rambo seemed perfectly fine. She stepped through the front door with her ears up and her lanky tail plumed out behind her. With several other sets of people and dogs coming and going, I more than half-expected to get into some kind of tugging match with mine, but that didn’t happen. Rambo looked every bit as mellow in these new surroundings as all the other dogs did. Amazing!

  “J. P. Beaumont and Rambo,” I said, in answer to the desk clerk’s query. “We’re here to see Colleen.”

  While I stood by the front desk, waiting, I occupied the time by glancing through one of the color brochures displayed there. I was astonished to see how much a six-week session of obedience training cost. The eye-popping total came out to more than twice what I paid for a year’s worth of college tuition back when I was attending the U Dub!

  I was still mulling over that when Colleen entered through the front door just behind me. “Mr. Beaumont?” she began.

  I turned toward her voice. Rather than stepping forward to greet me, Colleen stopped short with her attention focused solely on the dog. “Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed. “Lucy, is that you?”

  At the sound of her voice, Rambo lunged forward so unexpectedly, she yanked the leash from my hand. Before I could react in any way, Rambo was on her hind legs with her front legs resting on Colleen’s shoulders, licking the woman’s face.

  “Off!” Colleen ordered, talking and laughing at the same time. “Off!”

  Instantly Rambo dropped to all fours.

  “Sit!” Colleen said.

  Rambo sat, but as soon as she did so, Colleen knelt beside her, cradling the dog’s huge head in her hands and crooning at her. “Lucy, you sweet, sweet thing, you! How good to see you again.”

  I stood there utterly agog. “You know this dog?”

  “Not by the name of Rambo,” Colleen said. “Her name was Lucy when I first met her. She’s one of the smartest dogs we’ve ever trained.”

  CHAPTER 13

  THE GOOD NEWS WAS THAT LUCY RAMBO—IT MADE PERFECT sense to me that her first name would be Lucy and her last name Rambo—was a cum laude graduate of the Academy of Canine Behavior. As such she needed no “suitability evaluation” and, as a consequence, there was no reason for her to stay overnight.

  I, on the other hand, was completely in the dark. “I was under the impression that this dog came from a pound,” I objected. “And I just now saw how much you charge for training. How could the Purcells afford to spend that much money on a pou
nd puppy?”

  “Maybe we should discuss this in private,” Colleen said. She turned to the girl behind the desk. “We’re going over to the house for a few minutes. If anybody needs me, I’ll be back shortly.”

  Colleen reached down and picked up Rambo’s leash. “Okay, Lucy,” she said. “Right here.”

  While we’d been conversing, Rambo had been sitting patiently on the floor between Colleen and me. Now, coming to attention, she stood up and stationed herself at Colleen’s left knee. “Let’s go,” Colleen added.

  They started toward the door with the leash dangling loosely in Colleen’s hand. At the door, Colleen looked down at the dog. “Wait,” she said. The dog stopped and waited long enough for Colleen to go out first before allowing the dog to follow. “People go out before dogs,” she explained for my benefit. “It’s a matter of respect. The problem is, Lucy already knows the rules and you don’t. We’re going to have to give you a crash course.”

  Colleen led the way across a broad driveway and into a low-slung brick house that served as the McDaniels’ residence. We entered a comfortably lived-in living room filled with well-worn furnishings and heated by a glowing fire in a wood-burning fireplace. The pleasant aromas in the air told me that somewhere inside the house someone was cooking dinner. There were two other dogs in residence at the moment, small, noisy ones, stationed behind a dog gate in a doorway that evidently led to the kitchen. The two dogs barked their objections to Lucy’s arrival, but Colleen ignored them.

  “Go ahead and have a seat,” Colleen told me. Then, dropping Rambo’s leash, she addressed the dog. “Lucy, go get on the rug.”

  Rambo stopped short and looked around before finally locating a likely-looking rug lying on the floor in front of the fireplace. She went straight there, circled twice, lay down, and curled up.

  “‘Go get on the rug’ and ‘Wait on the rug’ are two of our most useful commands,” Colleen explained. “They’re especially useful if you have a swarm of guests coming into the house. It’s a way of taking the dog out of play long enough for visitors to come inside and settle down. ‘Get on the rug’ is different from ‘Wait on the rug.’ The first one means go there. The second one means the dog is supposed to stay put until you release her by telling her it’s ‘Okay.’”

  “I’m going to need a list,” I told her. “Rambo maybe knows all this stuff, but I’m way behind.”

  “Don’t worry,” Colleen told me. “I’ll give you a study guide.” She turned to the dog. “Okay, Lucy. Come.”

  Obligingly, Lucy rose to her feet and walked straight to where Colleen was sitting. “Sit,” Colleen commanded. The dog did so. “Good sit,” Colleen told her. “Now lie down.” Again, Rambo complied instantly. “Good lie down.” Colleen glanced at me before explaining, “It’s always a good idea to reinforce the idea that the dog has just done what you wanted them to do.”

  With that Colleen rose to her feet. “Lucy,” she said, “stay.” Colleen left the room and was gone for the better part of two minutes. When she returned, the dog hadn’t moved so much as an inch. “Good stay, Lucy,” she said, patting the dog’s head and ruffling her ears. “Very good stay.”

  “That’s impressive,” I said.

  “I told you she was one of my top students.”

  “But you still haven’t explained how all this happened. As I said earlier, I was under the impression that this dog was rescued from the pound.”

  “Not exactly a pound but close,” Colleen said. “She actually came from a wolfhound rescue outfit in Montana. Nancy Purcell’s mother, Louise Crocker, and I went to school together, both elementary school and high school. We’re still the best of friends. She was adamantly opposed to Nancy marrying Kenneth, but you see how far that got her. She thought the first time Ken beat the crap out of Nancy that she’d up and leave him.”

  “But that didn’t happen,” I interjected.

  “Correct,” Colleen agreed. “She took him right back, and not just the first or second time, either. That’s when Louise came up with the idea of maybe adding a dog into the mix.”

  “For protection, you mean—for Nancy and the kids?”

  “That’s right. And that’s why I went looking for a wolfhound in particular. They’re known to be gentle giants, but only up to a point. Go too far and whammo! They’ll come after you tooth and nail. I taught Lucy a command that most of my dogs never learn. I’m going to spell it for you. G-E-T H-I-M! If you use that one with Lucy here, she’ll tear whoever you’re pointing at limb from limb. And the only way you’ll get her to back off is to tell her to L-E-A-V-E I-T!”

  If that was true, I couldn’t help wondering why Nancy hadn’t turned the dog loose on Ken when he’d come after her with that BB gun. Maybe nobody had given her the applicable commands.

  “So I found Lucy, brought her here, and trained her,” Colleen continued. “Once the training was over, Louise gave the dog to Nancy and the kids for Christmas, claiming she’d been rescued from the pound. According to Louise, Ken was pissed about it, but the kids loved the dog so much that he was overruled for a change.”

  “I’ll bet he was the one who decided to call her Rambo,” I suggested.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. So where are Nancy and the kids? The girl’s name is Chrissy, I think. I’m not sure about the little boy.”

  “They’re in a YWCA shelter in Redmond. No dogs allowed. But what about Nancy’s mother? No one mentioned her being involved. Maybe she’d like to have Ram . . . Lucy with her.”

  “Unfortunately, Louise has her own set of health issues,” Colleen answered. “She lives in an assisted living facility over in Shoreline, and she can’t have pets, either.”

  “Okay then,” I conceded. “I guess Mel and I are in for the duration.”

  “Good,” Colleen said. “I’ll give you a copy of our command cheat sheet. You and Lucy will be just fine.” Her phone rang. “Okay,” she said after listening for a moment. “I’ll be right there.”

  She looked over at me. “Stand up and tell Lucy ‘Come.’”

  I did so, and it worked—perfectly. Lucy came to me without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Now pick up the leash and tell her, ‘Right here.’ She should position herself at your left knee. When you start to move, she should stay at your side, but at the door, be sure to tell her ‘Wait.’ She’s supposed to wait long enough for you to go first through any given opening.”

  It was a lot to remember, but I managed. Lucy had no difficulty with any of it.

  “Go ahead and get her loaded, while I go find a command sheet,” Colleen told me. “And she might want to get busy before you drive off.”

  “Get busy?” I repeated. “Is that another one of those commands?”

  Colleen grinned. “You bet,” she said. “Having dogs go on command before you put them in a car comes in very handy at times. Oh, and if you need one, we have poop bags just inside.”

  I tried out the “Get busy, Lucy” command then and there. (By the way, if the name Rambo came from Kenneth Purcell, I had already decided that I was calling the dog Lucy from then on.) “Get busy” worked like a charm first time out. Lucy immediately did exactly what needed to be done. Fortunately that particular pit stop didn’t require the use of a poop bag.

  About the time I drove out through the academy’s front gate, with Lucy’s chin once more resting comfortably on my shoulder, I realized I was screwed. Rather than dropping the dog off, she was with me and headed into Seattle to a high-rise condo where she had a) no bed; b) no food; c) no dishes; and d) most important, no yard! At the next stoplight, I consulted the GPS and was directed to the nearest PetsMart, a couple of miles away in Woodinville.

  This time I went inside without the dog in tow. I collected everything I thought I might need, including what appeared to be a lifetime supply of poop bags. When it was my turn to check out, the clerk wanted to know if I wanted to sign up for their savings club. All I had to do was provide my name and phone number. Having purchased t
wo dog beds in as many days along with forty pounds of kibble, I figured what the hell. I signed up.

  Southbound traffic on 405 was a zoo, but no surprises there. This is Seattle, after all. When isn’t it?

  I drove into the garage at Belltown Terrace and collected the shopping cart that hangs out in the P-4 elevator lobby to facilitate dragging groceries upstairs. I loaded my purchases and then went to get Lucy. I worried about how she’d react to walking along with someone pushing a grocery cart. It turns out that wasn’t a problem. She was fine with that. What I should have worried about was her riding in an elevator. (That was not fine!) Having a hundred pounds of dog suddenly cowering against my leg almost knocked me over.

  We stopped off in the lobby long enough to collect the mail. “Good evening, Mr. Beaumont,” Bob, the doorman, said. “What have we here?” he added, eyeing Lucy, “a new addition to the family?”

  “It’s only temporary,” I said, although the assorted collection of dog-centric items in the grocery cart probably gave the lie to that. “Her name’s Lucy.”

  “She’s one handsome animal,” Bob observed. “You do know where the nearest dog walking area is, don’t you?”

  That’s one of the things I like about Bob—he’s in the business of solving problems, sometimes long before the building’s residents even know there is a problem.

  “I have no idea,” I told him, and that was the God’s truth.

  “Just go out through the garage entrance. It’s right across the street. There’s some grass, streetlights, poop bags, and even a proper disposal canister.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said. “Under the circumstances, that’s vitally important information.”

  Back in the elevator, we rode up to the penthouse. This time Lucy wasn’t quite as spooked. I let her into the unit, unloaded the cart, and then left the dog there to explore while I rode back down to P-4. By then I could see I was running low on time. Back upstairs, I dished up food and then waited impatiently while Lucy thoughtfully worked her way through her kibble, one piece at a time.