Joel tackled me.
“Pavlov, attack!” She was not yet in sight, and I’d taught her no such command. But Joel didn’t know that.
Joel scrambled to his feet. I grabbed hold of his legs. Just then, Pavlov leapt down, landing on all fours. Joel fought to shut the door while I tried to wedge myself in the doorway to keep it open.
Pavlov growled deep in her chest, her teeth huge. Joel got an arm around my neck and pulled me against his chest to use me as a shield.
I grabbed his arm and curled into a ball. Pavlov lunged. Joel screamed in pain and released me. His fists pummeled Pavlov’s back. Pavlov’s teeth were buried in Joel’s thigh.
I scrambled to my feet, raced to the sound booth, and threw the bolt. Tracy burst out, sweating and panting. She stood awestruck at the sight of Joel trying to fight off Pavlov.
Joel let out another scream of pain but broke free. Joel staggered Pavlov with a cruel blow to the muzzle. The knife was back in the control room. My head was throbbing. I felt dizzy, disoriented. I didn’t have the strength to help Pavlov!
A high whine rose from the end of the hall. Sage!
“Call nine-one-one!” I hollered. Blood was gushing from my chin, but I ignored it and staggered in the direction of the sound. I needed to get Sage out of his muzzle to help Pavlov with Joel.
I threw open the last door to the hallway. Greg was lying on the floor, bound and gagged, Sage’s leash tied to a desk leg beside him. I unbuckled Sage’s muzzle, freed him from his leash, and Sage bounded out of the room. Tracy had followed me and snatched up the phone.
This was a waste of time, I now realized. The police should be right outside the lobby. My head was throbbing and I was starting to lose consciousness. We had to get past Joel and the dogs to get to the lobby.
I staggered back into the hallway. Joel Meyer was curled in the fetal position, Pavlov’s teeth sunk into his upper arm, Sage snarling and barking.
“Police!” a man’s voice called just then. Two officers burst into the hallway, just past Joel and the dogs.
“Pavlov! Cease!” I cried. My vision swam, then everything went black.
The next thing I knew, I was outside, staring up at a starless sky. I was on a gurney with a hard, plastic collar around my neck, some sort of padding pressed tightly against my wounded chin.
Russell was there, black eye and all, jogging alongside the gurney, watching me with a shocked, worried expression on his heavily shadowed features.
“Where’d you come from?” I managed to mumble.
“I was listening to the broadcast. I recognized part of it from the other day. I called the police to tell them. I wasn’t sure they believed me.”
“Miss?” one of the paramedics pushing the gurney interrupted. “We need to put you in the ambulance now.”
“Wait!” I looked again at Russell. “Pavlov and Sage. Are they...”
“They’re fine. I hear Pavlov saved your life. You’re lucky you have her. I called your mom, and she’s meeting you at the hospital.” He started to turn away, as forlorn as I’d ever seen him.
The paramedics started to lift me into the ambulance. “Just a moment,” I cried to them, and they hesitated. “Russell? Remember that date at Flagstaff House you asked me about for last Saturday? Could I take a rain check, next week or so?”
I couldn’t tell if my words were intelligible, till the smile on Russell’s wonderful face seemed to light up the dark night.
A CONVERSATION WITH LESLIE O’KANE
Q. You began your career as a novelist with mysteries about cartoonist/sleuth Molly Masters. What (or who) was your inspiration for Molly?
A. After my first attempt at a mystery (about a psychiatrist) was clearly not working, the leader of my critique group suggested I think about creating a character who was closer to myself. I played a game of “What if?” and asked myself what would have happened had I stuck to my original major in college—art. I realized that, as the perennial class-clown type, I would have become a cartoonist.
Q. What made you decide to create a second series with a new heroine, Allie Babcock?
A. I had listened to an interview with a pet psychologist who sometimes treats dogs that are depressed from such events as a death of someone close to them. As a murder-mystery writer, that immediately caught my interest. Everyone I ran the concept past—of a dog psychologist whose furry clients lead her into murder investigations—loved the idea.
Q. How is Allie different from Molly Masters?
A. Unlike Molly, who is happily married with two children, Allie is happily single, though she is not opposed to a romantic involvement. She is much less likely than Molly to make wisecracks and has a greater sense of dignity. Also, they differ in their upbringing—Allie lost her father when she was very young, and she tends to be more of a loner, sometimes more comfortable with dogs than with people.
Q. What inspired you to pursue a writing career? Why mysteries? Did any authors particularly influence you?
A. My mother is an avid reader, and when I was growing up, we made trips to the library every other week without fail, giving me a lifelong appreciation of books. My first-grade teacher taught us how to write the words “it” and “is” the first week of school, and I rushed home and wrote a five-page tome, entitled “It Is,” that went: Is it? It is. Is it? Is it? It is. It is... (My plots improved once I learned more words.)
Even as a kid, I loved mystery novels. At one point I had just begun reading Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders and told my parents that I knew who did it—and stated the obvious clue that led me to think so. My father said, “If you were writing a mystery, would you start your book with a clue that revealed the murderer’s identity?” I realized then that no, I wouldn’t, and I became forever fascinated by the art of mystery writing.
Q. Dogs often play major roles in your books. Do you have pets at home that are models for your fictional animals?
A. I have an adorable cocker spaniel and often dog sit for a golden retriever and two more cocker spaniels. As a child, I had a collie—and he was the inspiration for Sage in Play Dead.
Q. Is it true that you were once taken hostage in a robbery? Please tell us about that experience.
A. That took place during a particularly rocky time in my life, when I was working in Boston as a cocktail waitress at night to put myself through college by day. I was head waitress, and just before two in the morning, I had to inform my coworkers that I’d just learned we were scheduled for a “clean-up party”—a euphemism for slave labor because the waitresses and bartenders had to clean the bar from top to bottom for three hours, in exchange for which they got pizza and beer at five A.M. This enormous customer—he looked like a former linebacker—overheard me and said that he was the superintendent of the apartment building in which our bar was located; consequently (so he reasoned) he was an employee, too, and could stay and drink. I said no, that didn’t make him an employee and, furthermore, the bar was closed and he’d have to leave.
Some fifteen minutes later, after we’d locked up and begun cleaning, the French doors of the bar came flying open, and there stood Enormous Customer with a rifle under one arm and a double-barrel shotgun under the other. All I could think of at that moment was, “This guy is taking missing last call wa-a-y too seriously!” And I started to laugh. He smacked me with the shotgun and told me to quit laughing, but all humor had already gone out of the situation.
The SWAT team arrived at last, and around seven A.M. we got out of there. Unfortunately, Enormous Customer was out of there too. He escaped when the police ignored my observation that they’d only sealed the building, not the entire block—and that all the roofs were attached. The guy was big but not very bright; he was finally captured the next night following a brawl at another bar, in which he cut off a man’s ear and then collapsed from exhaustion. Hence my conclusion that writing about crimes is more enjoyable than taking part in them.
*** To learn more about the novels of Leslie O’Kane and
Leslie Caine, please visit Leslie Caine
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
A CONVERSATION WITH LESLIE O’KANE
Play Dead Page 24
