Ruby merely glared at me as if waiting for me to leave, but I felt it was important that Rachel Taylor know about Ruby’s limitations for providing health care. “No, he was overmedicated the other day.”
“Was not!” Ruby snarled. She screwed up her features and mumbled, “I gave him a double dosage by mistake. It was just an accident and it won’t happen again.” She shot me an accusatory glare, as if my spoiling her job opportunity was an unpardonable offense. It would have been a worse offense to allow someone like this to perhaps “double” dose a human being under her care.
Rachel Taylor’s expression was inscrutable, yet I immediately sensed that she’d picked up on the intent of my statements. “Mail the application back to me once it’s completed, Ruby. Or give me another call, and I’ll come pick it up next time I’m in the area.” Rachel gave her a warm smile, which was not returned.
Ruby grimaced and crossed her arms.
“I’d better be going,” I said. “Take care, Ruby.”
“Let me walk you to your car,” Rachel said to me, then shifted her focus to Ruby. “You know, Ruby, having a friend and neighbor die unexpectedly like this is difficult. Sometimes we find ourselves grieving when we least expect to. Don’t hesitate to call me if you want to talk.”
“I won’t,” Ruby said evenly.
Rachel held the door for me, and we left together.
We walked a few steps away from Ruby’s home so that we would be out of earshot. “What happened with the dog? Did she misread the directions on the medicine bottle?”
“I got the impression she couldn’t read the prescription.”
She sighed. “She won’t be working for me anytime in the near future, then.” Her face looked grim. “Too bad. An adult-care provider is a really difficult position to fill.”
“Terry Thames gave me your card the other day.” I turned and looked at Ken’s trailer. “He said he’d referred Ken to you.”
“Yes. Poor Ken was just so sweet and guileless. I had my hands full, trying to protect him from certain individuals who were intent on taking advantage of him. He spoke very highly of you, however.”
“He did?” We’d only just met, though, the day before he died. “When?”
She gave me a small smile. “Actually, I’d asked around town about you before Ken ever came to see you. He needed someone excellent to work with Maggie, and you came highly recommended.”
“Thank you.” Considering the rancid opinions that Ken’s psychologist and veterinarian had of me, this was music to my ears.
Her expression grew somber. “Ken and I spoke again, right before he was . . . before he died. He called me in a panic, because you had his dog and he was alone. Naturally, he told me about his decision to appoint you temporary guardian of Maggie. I told him he’d done the right thing. That you were the right person for the job.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” I muttered.
“Perhaps I can help you in deciding who gets his dog. Ken always expected his dog to outlive him. He had a weak heart and was overweight and . . .” She paused as if struggling with the sadness. “Anyway, he told me he didn’t want Maggie to go to a stranger, and I’m fairly familiar with the people in Ken’s life.”
“Thanks. Bearing that in mind, what do you think of his brother, Arlen?”
She frowned a little and said, “He wouldn’t be my top choice. For one thing, he pretty much hated Maggie. Terry Thames would be a good choice, however. He’s good with dogs, and I know Ken trusted him implicitly.”
I stifled a grimace at the thought of my rewarding Dr. Thames with Maggie and her money. “I’ll keep that in mind, but Dr. Thames and I didn’t hit it off.”
“No? He can be rather full of himself sometimes. Typical doctor-as-god syndrome.” She rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. She added thoughtfully, “Both he and his wife work and aren’t home a lot.” She paused and shook her head. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure who I would recommend. Too bad you can’t just violate the conditions of the will and put the dog in a good home . . . let the courts resolve who should inherit the money.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I muttered.
“It’s all so sad. I spoke to the police at length. Apparently he was murdered, though they didn’t say how.”
“They didn’t tell me that either.” He had to have been suffocated, I thought; if he’d ODed on the ACP, the police would probably still be considering his death a possible suicide.
“It’s so hard to believe,” Rachel continued. “The man couldn’t possibly have brought himself to hurt anyone, regardless of the circumstances. If only the burglar had realized that.”
“ ‘Burglar’?”
She nervously fluffed her short, blond hair as she spoke. “That’s an assumption on my part, but the papers this morning said that he’d been asphyxiated during a struggle. Asphyxiation seems to be a code-word these days for strangulation. All I could think was that he could have battled with a burglar and lost. He was so careless with his cash. He’d told me he’d been at the police station that night, and the way he always bellowed when speaking, some punk probably overheard him talk about how he kept cash in a shoe box, then followed him home.”
Ken couldn’t have been killed in a burglary—at least not because he had interrupted one in progress. The man had died on his bed. I didn’t want to share this information, however, and instead feigned ignorance and asked, “He kept his money in a shoe box?”
She nodded. “He had two. One for the hundreds, the other for the smaller denominations.”
Someone cleared her throat harshly and we both looked over. Yolanda was standing with her arms crossed, glaring at us from her side of the fence. In a strangely loud and carefully enunciated voice, Rachel said, “Hello. How are you doing today?”
“I do just fine, missy. I can hear just fine, too, so you don’t have to shout. And I un’erstand English just fine, too.”
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Course you didn’t mean to imply nothin’. You jus’ don’t know any better. Always making assumptions about people.”
The color rose in Rachel’s cheeks. “We were just chatting about your neighbor’s untimely death. It’s such a tragedy.”
“Tragedy?” she repeated and let out a puff of indignation.
“Yes. It was.”
“The likes of you have no right to call Ken’s death a tragedy.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
She let out the deep, rumbling laugh of hers but the smile never reached her eyes. “That’s funny, missy. ’Cuz I’m pretty sure you do. I seen you the night Ken died.”
Rachel’s expression grew hard. Through gritted teeth, she said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nor do I care for the implication.”
“I seen you drive past our trailers around three A.M. On the night Ken died.”
Rachel spread her hands. “There was nothing sinister about that, Yolanda. You’re Ruby Benjamin’s good friend, right?”
Yolanda, rejecting Rachel’s attempts to establish camaraderie, maintained her stone-cold front. Her lips were set in a frown and her brown eyes, magnified by her thick glasses, were unwavering and hateful as she stared into Rachel’s.
Undaunted, Rachel continued, “Ken called me, distraught because he wasn’t used to being home alone without his dog. I reassured him, but couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to drive by just to see if his lights were out and his home quiet. Everything looked peaceful, so I drove home without stopping.”
Yolanda let out another puff of air and tossed her head, her short gray hair maintaining its brittle-stiff appearance. “A likely story.”
“I reported it to the police already,” Rachel said evenly.
“Course you did. Like you had any choice, since I already tol’ them about you myself.” Yolanda spat out the words, and I had to admit that she was making me nervous. This was not a woman I would want to cross. I was reevaluating her as
my top candidate for guardianship of Maggie; perhaps she lacked the patience and warmth to be a dog owner.
“What can I say, Yolanda?” Rachel asked. “I was worried about my client and drove past his home. That’s all there was to it.”
“So you was just innocently spying on Ken at three A.M.,” Yolanda said. “Sure am glad I ain’t one of your so-called clients.” She pivoted on a heel and marched off in the opposite direction of her home.
Rachel sighed and glanced at me. “That’s a very angry woman. I run into her kind too often in this job.”
“I’m sure you do,” I murmured, feeling awkward at having been a silent witness to Yolanda’s hostility. I suppose I should have been grateful that, for once, someone else was playing the part of the fall guy.
I glanced at my watch. I had an appointment to keep with a burrowing basenji—which wouldn’t have been so bad, if he’d confined his digging to outside, but the dog had dug through two couches and an ottoman. “I’d better get going, Rachel.”
She searched my eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but as I tried to tell Ruby Benjamin, I’m a trained counselor in helping people handle their grief. Don’t hesitate to call me if you should feel the need yourself.”
“Thanks.” I hesitated as I started to get into my car and watched her getting into hers. “Do you own a dog, Rachel?”
She smiled. “Yes. I love dogs. I have a schnauzer-mix named Cinnamon.” She stared at Ken’s trailer behind us for a moment. Her expression grew somber. “Though, if you’re in any way considering giving me Maggie, perish the thought. I put in too many hours away from home to take on an untrained golden. And Cinnamon doesn’t get along with other dogs.”
“Okay, then. Bye,” I said and left. Ruby was standing outside as I drove off. I smiled and waved, but she merely glared at me.
About twenty minutes later, I arrived across town at the home of the basenji, who was, in my opinion, the victim of an unscrupulous or ignorant pet store salesperson. Basenjis, as is widely known, are the “barkless” dog. They are not mute, but make a yodeling sound that resembles a many-pitched howl. Active, headstrong, and willful, basenjis are great pets for attentive dog lovers; not so great for a leave-the-dog-home-alone-for-ten-hours-during-workdays owner.
The black-and-brown short-haired puppy needed some outlets for his intelligence and energy that didn’t include damaging property. One suggestion I not only made but also sold to them was a toy that challenges the dog to figure out how to feed himself. It is a hollow ball that they would fill with his breakfast kibble. The opening to the ball was small enough to release only one kibble at a time, and this changes meal times from five minutes of gobbling from a bowl into an hour to two hours of the dog kicking the food ball around.
We discussed diet and exercise routines at length, as well as a plan to have them simulate leaving the house for work on weekends as well, and varying the lengths of time that they stayed away, so that Benji didn’t take every time his owner departed as indicating a ten-hour separation.
I had another appointment with the Akita mix and her woeful owner, still in need of my “magic wand,” then grabbed a late lunch and headed back to the office. To my surprise and immediate concern, my mother’s pickup was parked outside. I pulled into my space and raced to the stairwell, to find Mom and Maggie sitting on the bottom step. Mom was reading a paperback, with the loop of Maggie’s leash fastened over her forearm. Maggie’s tail started wagging at the sight of me and she tried to run toward me, but Mom quickly reined her in.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” I asked as I unlocked my office.
She stared at me with a blank expression on her face and said, “Maggie wanted to go for a drive.”
I ushered her and Maggie inside. “Did you use the dog seatbelt?”
“No, that wasn’t necessary.”
“You didn’t have her stay in the bed of your pickup, did you?” I asked in alarm.
“Of course not,” Mom snapped. “She stayed in the back seat of the king cab.”
“She’s making some progress, then. That’s good.”
Mom raised an eyebrow at Maggie, who was intent at sniffing the immediate surroundings. “She still has a long way to go, though. And Sage isn’t handling this well.” She shook her head. “I hope we don’t find dog-staging battles when we get home.”
“She’s driving you nuts, isn’t she, Mom?”
She rolled her eyes. “My patience isn’t what it once was when you kids were young.”
I grinned, but chose not to point out that, if anything, her patience had improved greatly since my older brother and I were growing up. Much of my childhood had been difficult; we’d had to deal with the death of my father in a car accident when I was only six.
My brief reverie was broken by the sound of Maggie coughing as she gasped for air while pulling on her leash. She was not wearing her Gentle Leader but some other collar Mom must have found in a drawer. Mom let go of her end of the leash, and Maggie rushed off to sniff at Russell’s closed office door.
Mom said, “She’s a beautiful dog, and you know how much I love goldens. But she’s so untrained. I left the dogs alone in the backyard while I grocery shopped after you left for work. You should see how many complaints we have on the machine from the neighbors. Apparently she just howls incessantly when she’s away from human companionship.”
I winced but made no comment.
“Then I let her in for a while and went out to the mailbox, forgetting how exuberant Maggie is about breaking free into the great outdoors. She nearly knocked me over, then she just kept going.” Mom made a gesture with her hand representing an airplane’s takeoff. “She outran me, so I had to drive after her. Fortunately, she leapt right into the truck once I caught up with her.” Mom clicked her tongue. “It’s pretty bizarre, when you think about it. When she’s outside, she gouges the back door and upsets the neighborhood with her despair over not having human companionship, then she runs away the first chance she gets.”
That wasn’t at all surprising behavior to me. “She thinks of herself as pack leader, and so she’s allowed to leave the house but protests when the rest of us overstep our bounds and leave the pack leader behind.”
“I guess I can appreciate her wanting to be in control of her location. Especially considering she’s been wrenched from her home and her owner.” She gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “But Allie, I can’t take a leave from work to stay home with her, and I can’t tick off all of our neighbors or let her claw her way through the walls to get back inside the house.”
I glanced around. “Maybe I can keep her here at the office.”
“What about Russell?” she asked, perking up a bit at the mention of him. Mom was so fond of Russell that I sometimes got the feeling she pictured him in a tuxedo and me in white whenever she saw us together.
“He’s out of town for a week or two.”
“Oh. Maybe that would work, then,” Mom said, casting a gaze at Russell’s closed office door. “If you could keep an eye on her during the day and just bring her home with you in the evenings.”
I nodded, but had visions of my office landlord hearing about it if I left Maggie alone in the office for days on end while I went to work with a client. What was I going to do? Give her to Arlen despite my doubts about him?
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out having her at the house alone.”
“That’s okay. You really don’t owe me an apology. Maggie is my responsibility, not yours. I’m glad you brought her to me now rather than letting your whole day get ruined.”
She gave me a hug and then left. I dropped into my desk chair, still pondering what I could do about this. Maggie followed my mother to the door, then trotted over to me and put her head on my lap. “So, Maggie. It’s you ’n’ me again.” I sighed. It simply wasn’t fair to my clients to have Maggie constantly barking just next door in Russ’s office.
Much as it rankled me to do so, only one solution struck me as viable. I ne
eded to contact Maggie’s vet again, Joanne Palmer, and have her put Maggie on the proper dosage of Clomicalm to get this separation anxiety under control.
As I dialed, a memory hit me that had been lost in the excitement of the past couple of days. Dr. Palmer had said Maggie was already on a prescription of Clomicalm. But why would Ken have had a prescription for Maggie when the two of them were never apart? And why had he never mentioned that prescription to me?
I called and managed to make an appointment immediately, which the receptionist said was due to a cancellation. This is sometimes the truth, but having been in the position of starting a new business myself, I knew that a “cancellation” was also a euphemism that struggling practices employed to explain why they were so wide open for appointments.
With Maggie in tow, we drove to Joanne’s office. The receptionist appeared to be eighteen at the very most, probably a C.U. student working here part time. “Hi, I’m Allida Babcock. I called earlier.”
“Yes. Dr. Palmer had something come up, but should be back shortly, if you can wait.”
I glanced at my watch. My next client appointment was in less than an hour. “I’ll wait as long as I can. Thank you.”
I sat down and started paging through a copy of Dog Fancy. There was an article titled “When Your Lover’s Not a Dog Lover” that immediately caught my eye. I had gotten through the first couple of paragraphs, which were anecdotal examples, when Joanne Palmer rushed into the room, looking more than a little flustered. “Made it back,” she said to the girl behind the counter as she grabbed a folder that undoubtedly contained Maggie’s records. I returned the magazine to the table. The article was probably only going to give obvious advice anyway. Still, if I could just learn how to retrain Russell, I’d be happy.
Joanne’s face fell slightly at the sight of me. Then she held out her hand. I rose and shook her hand, saying, “Sorry we got off to such a poor start the other night. That was a stressful situation.”
“Yes, it was,” she said pleasantly. “Come on back and we’ll take a look at your . . . at Maggie.”
Maggie trotted beside me happily on her leash, showing none of the fear of the veterinarian that Doppler, my cocker, for one, showed. Whenever I brought him to my vet’s office, he couldn’t stop trembling. We reached the examining room, and Maggie hopped onto the metal table as if she were expecting a dog biscuit for the feat, which is exactly what Joanne gave her.
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