Ruff Way to Go

by Leslie O'Kane

  “Hi,Allie.”

  I recognized Russell’s voice immediately, and my demeanor instantly softened. “Morning, Russell.”

  “Good morning. What’s left of it. I know Mondays are supposed to be your day off. Are you coming into the office anyway?”

  “No, I really am taking the day for myself. How’re things going for you?”

  “Better, now that I’m hearing your voice.”

  I rolled my eyes, but smiled. “That’s flattering. Thank you.”

  “Are you doing anything for lunch?”

  “Well, no...but I was planning on staying in Berthoud.”

  “I don’t mind taking a long lunch and getting something up where you are. Is that French restaurant in Berthoud open for lunch?”

  “No, just dinner. And not on Mondays.”

  “Do you have another suggestion?”

  “There’s the Summit in Loveland.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll come pick you up as soon as my Volvo and the traffic let me.”

  We said goodbye and then hung up.

  “Who was that on the phone?” asked Mom, who’d emerged from her room partway through my conversation and who, come to think of it, couldn’t have been returning calls on our one line. She must have just wanted some solitude.

  “Russell. He’s taking me to lunch at the Summit.”

  “Lucky you. Have I told you how much I like your Russell?”

  “Yes, you have. More than once. And he’s not my Russell.” Although I was rapidly becoming more and more keen on the idea.

  She swept up her purse and headed to the garage. “Have fun. I have a meeting this afternoon at the airport. See you tonight.”

  “Bye.”

  She stopped and gave me a visual once-over. “For heaven’s sake, Allida, when you see Russell, don’t...be so on guard. Relax and live it up a little.”

  “Fine. I’ll put on a leather miniskirt and ride to the restaurant on the hood of his car.”

  “Pardon me for offering a little motherly advice.”

  “You call ‘relax and live it up’ motherly?”

  “For you, yes. See you tonight.”

  “‘Bye, Mom.”

  I watched her drive away, thinking that this was good timing. I needed to make some calls to verify my theory, and I truly didn’t want her listening in, especially since I was still so unsure of myself. I called Trevor at work. Unfortunately, I had to go through his secretary, which made the whole reason for my calling seem more serious man I’d wanted to portray.

  “Allida, hi. Is everything all right?” He sounded tense, and I regretted bothering him, but it was too late to hang up now.

  “Fine. I just have a couple of questions to ask you.”

  “That’s a relief. Whenever I hear your name these days, I assume Edith has run off with Shogun again or something to that effect.”

  “Actually, I just wanted to ask you where you got Shogun’s bed. I’m thinking of getting one for my cocker spaniel.”

  “Edith bought it from PetsMart, I think.”

  “And she paid extra to have them put Shogun’s name on it?”

  “Oh, no. Cassandra did that for her as a favor. She used to do excellent embroidery work.”

  “Does Edith do any embroidery work herself?”

  “Now she does, as a matter of fact. She had Cassie give her lessons and bought this fancy sewing machine from Cassie’s former partner, but she didn’t really get the knack of it. Her threads were always unraveling and it looked pretty amateurish. I wouldn’t hire her, if I were you.”

  “Where is Shogun now?”

  “He should be safe at home. Why?”

  “Just making sure. Thanks, Trevor. Let me know if Shogun has any trouble adjusting to his new home.”

  “You’ll be the first person I call. And thanks again for straightening everything out with Edith.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She called me and said that you and she had made your peace and she realized that you’d made the right decision in letting me keep Shogun.”

  “That doesn’t sound like her.”

  “You’re telling me. But I don’t look a gift...dog in the mouth. Take care.” He hung up.

  I paced, trying to make sense of all of this. I was now quite certain about the scam that Edith was running. She was selling cheap knockoffs of designer-label clothing, removing the actual labels from the cheap knockoffs and replacing them with her imitation labels.

  Mom had told me that Edith had once asked Cassandra to be her business partner. Could that somehow have led to Cassandra’s murder?

  I called Susan, but hung up when the machine answered. Just in case, I dashed out front and down the block a few steps till I could see the Haywoods’ driveway. Susan’s car was still there.

  I knocked on the door, and fortunately, Susan answered so that I didn’t have to deal with her parents.

  “Susan, I was wondering. Did you sell your sewing machine to Edith Cunningham, by any chance?”

  Susan averted her eyes and stuck her hands in the pockets of her cutoffs. “Stay away from this, Allida. You always were a pain in the butt.”

  “Edith was sewing expensive labels onto cheap clothing, wasn’t she?”

  She still wouldn’t meet my eyes, but her rapidly reddening cheeks gave me my answer. “I don’t know. Not for sure.”

  “But you mentioned your suspicions to Cassandra Randon, didn’t you?”

  For the first time I saw a genuine look of sorrow on her face. She looked up and sighed. “Cassie and I...had our differences. She was always yelling at me for smoking cigarettes while sewing...claimed it made the cloth stink. By telling her about Edith, I thought I was doing her a favor. I thought maybe she was getting mixed up in it. I just...I wanted to tell her that she wasn’t going to get away with it.”

  “Only she didn’t know anything about it, right? Because it was all Edith’s doing.”

  “I tried to warn you off her, Allida.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police with this?”

  “Like they’d believe me? With my drug abuse record? I want nothing to do with the police. Anything happens near me, and I look the other way.”

  “That’s why you covered up your dog’s prints, isn’t it?

  Because you knew your dog was the one that left the bloody footprints. And you didn’t want to be implicated in the murder.”

  “You’re reading into things, Allie. I didn’t do anything wrong.” I held her gaze, and at length she continued. “He’d burrowed under the fence and into the yard I had to go through the Randons’ gate, but he came then. I didn’t see anything. And I heard Edith arguing with someone earlier. But I didn’t know anyone had gotten killed till my mom called hours later. And I didn’t know he’d left paw prints till I saw you and you told me.”

  Edith Cunningham was the killer. She must have become so enraged with Cassandra during their discussion that she killed her in her own yard. I needed to get this last information to Sergeant Millay.

  Half to myself, I muttered, “At least Edith’s still at work.”

  Susan furrowed her brow. “No, she isn’t. I saw her here. Wasn’t she with you just a minute or two ago?”

  “With me? No. Why?” My heart had already started racing.

  “Because I saw her heading over to your property just a while ago.” Susan pointed. “She was parked right on the street. Her car is gone now, so I guess she must have gone someplace.”

  Without another word, I rushed back over to my house to check on my dogs.

  “Is everything all right?” she called back to me.

  I didn’t answer.

  Deciding to forgo checking inside the house, I ran at top speed to the gate at the side of the house. It was wide open.

  “Doppler, come!” I cried, listening in vain for the jingle of his collar tags.

  Chapter 19

  There was a sticky pad note stabbed through the gate latch. This time yellow paper had been used, n
o doubt because the Haywoods now had the magenta pad. I snatched it off and read:

  Allida—If you want your dog to live, come get him. Make sure you come alone, or he dies. We’re at the water tower.

  “Oh, shit!” I screamed, battling tears. Only the killer herself could be so sick as to do something like this. And she’d be able to see for miles from that tower. There was no way the police could get there unseen. Regardless, if I notified them now, they’d gladly sacrifice a dog’s life to capture a murderer. I had to follow her instructions and rescue Doppler myself.

  Clutching the note, I ran inside, ignoring the other, frantically barking dogs, grabbed my keys, leapt into my Subaru, and sped down the driveway.

  I hit the brakes. I had to leave a note. I didn’t want to waste time going back to the house. I’d leave it on the mailbox.

  My stomach was in knots and my thoughts raced. What was Edith doing with Doppler at the Berthoud water tower? What possible good could this do her?

  My tires screeched as I hit the pavement at the bottom of the driveway. I scanned the Haywoods’ property to see if Susan was there, thinking I should yell to Susan what was going on. She was nowhere in sight.

  I grabbed a pen, added the words, “Edith’s the killer! Help!” to Edith’s note, then threw open the car door, ran to our mailbox, and stuck the note on the door flap. Eventually, somebody would spot that and come help me. I could only hope that it wouldn’t be too late.

  I raced north through town in a state of such panic, I couldn’t think straight. Why a tower, of all things? How had Edith known about my petrifying fear of heights? Mom must have mentioned it.

  The huge, green-painted water tower soon loomed before me. It looked like some prop left over from War of the Worlds—an enormous Martian vehicle. I hated heights so much that I couldn’t judge relative size, but the tower had to be at least a hundred feet tall.

  I pulled into the dirt and gravel parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust behind the wheels. Edith was there, an evil blemish on the tower, leaning over the railing. She had Doppler in her arms. He was just a lightish-colored speck from this distance.

  Just looking up that high made my vision swim, but I was too frightened for Doppler’s sake to take my eyes off Edith. She gave me a wave, mocking me. Satisfied that nobody was behind me, she set Doppler down on the walkway that circled the water tank.

  I ran to the only ladder, a wrought-iron, spindly-looking thing. Just the sight of it and its never-ending steps made my mind reel.

  “Come up,” Edith shouted down. “The view is lovely.”

  I grabbed the railing. The metal was as cold as death. I climbed the first few steps, trying to focus only on the thought of saving Doppler, trying not to think about what I was doing.

  Edith had such an advantage over me it was ludicrous. By the time I’d navigated the first ten steps, my vision was so distorted that it felt as though my eyes were crossed.

  I kept going for as long as I could, then stopped. I told myself to go just five steps farther. Then five steps more. And so on. My progress was slow, each step agony.

  My vertigo kicked in at full force. I wrapped my arms around the handrails and leaned my body against the steps, eyes shut tight, battling nausea. My brain was sending my body false signals as if I were in a blender on full speed.

  Edith’s voice, still above me but louder now, called, “What’s the matter? You can’t possibly be more than ten stories above the ground. And the wind is hardly even making that ladder sway.”

  With rage seeping into me, I cried, “What do you hope to gain by this, Edith?”

  “It’s simple, really. You rescue your dog, or the dog dies. At least I’m giving you a chance to get your dog back. It’s more than you gave me with Shogun. You climb up here, and you humiliate yourself as much as you humiliated me. I want you to suffer, the same way you made me suffer!”

  I forced myself to look up, sweat running down my face, my hands now so wet that I was at risk of losing my grasp. I was perhaps halfway there, but the distance might as well have been a mile. “I can’t do it, Edith. You win. I can’t climb any farther.”

  “Then say goodbye to your dog.”

  Doppler yelped, and she held him over the railing so that he’d drop just beyond my reach.

  “No! I’ll come up.”

  Every step was more agonizing than the last. It felt as though I were crawling into a Tilt-A-Whirl at an amusement park. My hands were clammy, dripping with sweat, but I couldn’t chance letting go with one hand long enough to wipe it. My stomach was so nauseated there was no way I could keep from vomiting, and Edith laughed with unabashed glee.

  My anger gave me some strength to keep going. I now knew how horribly sick Edith really was, to take such venomous delight in humiliating me this way. “You killed Cassandra. Why? Was she going to report your labeling scam to the police?”

  There was a pause. Then she let out a low, humorless laugh. “So you did figure that out, after all. That’s what I was afraid of. And the real reason I dragged you up here. She recognized my sewing, insisted she could even tell that the labels were sewn on her former partner’s machine.”

  Damn it! She wanted to push me off this tower!

  Edith continued, “Cassie said that, out of friendship, she felt she had to tell me first, rather than go straight to the police. Then she refused my efforts to pay her off. She didn’t believe me when I said I’d never do it again. I had to stop her. That store was all I had that was truly mine! We argued, and in a moment of rage, I hit her in the head with a rock.”

  “You didn’t plan to kill her. You can stop this now. Turn yourself in to the police. Killing Cassandra in the heat of passion won’t carry the same consequences as if you push me off this tower.”

  “You know what, Allie? We should come up here more often. I like it up here. It’s peaceful. You can see for miles.”

  “Why are you doing this, Edith?” I asked again, stalling, hoping I could force myself to keep up a patter of conversation and keep from focusing on my climb. “You can’t escape. It’s too late. Besides, I left a note identifying you as the killer. You’re going to be caught, no matter what.”

  She ignored me and said incongruously, “There was this fox-like black dog in my yard. I tried to chase him away, but he just barked at me.” Edith’s disembodied voice sounded dispassionate, as if she were almost in a trance-like state. “Shogun ran off instead. I had to get out of there before you saw me. As I was driving away, I realized that my note was still on the door, and that the police would know it was my handwriting, my fingerprints, so I doubled back and took the note. I figured the police might think you killed her. Then I went back to my boutique, washed up, and put on a new pair of white pants and jacket.”

  I was eye level with the top rung, but I was now immobilized with fear. This was even more frightening to me than climbing the ladder. It felt as though I were climbing over the edge of a cliff.

  Doppler was whining, trying to get to me, but I couldn’t even look in his direction for fear of losing my precarious balance. I got my hands on the posts to either side of the ladder and climbed one mote rung. These posts, like all of the others in the guardrail that circled the outer edge of the walkway, were spaced some three or four feet apart. Not nearly close enough to provide me with any security.

  Suddenly Edith loomed right in front of me, blocking me. “Goodbye, Allie. Your trip down won’t take long at all.”

  She kicked me. I ducked as best I could, the blow landing flush on my forehead. I managed, somehow, to keep my grip.

  Edith chuckled. “Come now. Give up, Allida. How long do you think you can prolong the inevitable?” She walked back toward my dog. “If you don’t go first, I’ll just have to see to it that Doppler does.”

  “No!”

  I made my way toward them. I had no choice except to crawl, but the flooring of the walkway was a thick grate. I could see through each rounded-diamond shape to the ground, a distant blur below.<
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  Finally I risked a quick glance toward Edith to check on my dog. Doppler’s leash was loosely tied to a post of the guardrail. He was still struggling against the leash to get to me. If he slipped off the edge in the process, he’d be strangled.

  I retched. I had to shut my eyes and try to hold steady on all fours, though my brain was still telling me that I was spinning, moving toward the edge. My eyes still closed tight, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You did all of this— killed Cassandra, framed me, stole my dog—just because you wanted to get away with sales fraud?”

  She laughed at me. “Look at yourself. You look like a sick dog. You’re pathetic. But to answer your question, yes, I did it to get out of going to jail. By the way, you stopped your list too early. You left out your own imminent free fall off this tower, my dear.”

  I looked at her. “As soon as the police get my note, they’ll put all of this together.”

  She shrugged and faced me, but it felt as though she were staring past me, not really seeing me. “I’ll take my chances. Explain that you set me up. I’m selling off my cheap merchandise at the store and replacing it with the real thing. That evidence will soon be gone. I just need to get rid of you to...”—she paused and smiled—”tie up the loose ends. I’ll tell the police I ran up here to escape from you, Cassandra’s killer, because I knew about your phobia. Only you were so determined, you followed me anyway. Tragically, though, you lost your balance.”

  “And what about Susan Nelson? Cassandra’s former partner, who sold you that sewing machine. The woman who owns that little black dog who burrowed under your fence that day.”

  Edith shook her head. “She doesn’t know anything.”

  I managed to stand up by pressing my shoulder against the wall of the water tank, as far from the edge as possible. “Yes, she does. And my mother also knows. I’ve been keeping her informed of everything. She knows about the label, too. She bought me the blouse. Are you going to kill both of them, too?”