4 Woof at the Door

by Leslie O'Kane

  “Did Ty overhear the conversation, or did you ever repeat it to him?”

  “Ty wasn’t there, and I certainly wouldn’t bother to repeat the remark. I mean, college football? Who cares?”

  “Apparently both Hank and Paige cared enough about Hank’s having played football on a nationally renowned college team to lie about it.”

  Doobie’s racket from the other room had still not let up. Chesh murmured, “He’s at it again.” She frowned and sighed. “Allida, I’m real concerned about Doobie’s mental health. He probably…witnessed Ty’s murder.” Our eyes met and she said somberly, “The police told me Ty wasn’t killed by the wolf. That his throat…” she shuddered.

  I shook my head. “Doobie couldn’t have been in the room. Ty had trained Doobie to attack people on his command. That means, if Doobie had been in the room at the time that Ty was being murdered, Doobie would have attacked the person. Unless the killer was someone…the dog trusted.” Such as you, I added in silence.

  “That’s good to hear,” she said pointedly. “Doobie must have already been locked in the bathroom, because I didn’t kill Ty.” She covered her ears. “You’ve got to stop Doobie from this infernal barking! What is the matter with him, anyway?”

  “Tell me more about the pattern of this barking. Does it usually begin at this hour?”

  Chesh shook her head. “I’m almost never here at this time of day. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Maybe I can ask some of your neighbors about the barking.”

  We left the yearbook on the bed and went into the living room. Doobie was barking out the windows again, but this time, he was barking out the front. I looked out the window myself, but didn’t see anything. The sidewalk was deserted. No squirrels on nearby trees.

  I turned back to face Chesh, who had slumped onto a beanbag chair, looking forlorn. “I have some appointments this afternoon, but before I go, I’m going to see if there are any neighbors around who can tell me about Doobie’s pattern of barking. That might give me some clues.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate it,” Chesh said. She looked miserable and in physical pain, as if she were battling a headache.

  We said our good byes, then I headed down the front walk and soon spotted Seth Melhuniak, tying his shoe lace. He rose, the color rising in his cheeks as he recognized me. He started to walk purposefully away from me, toward his house.

  “Hello, Mr. Melhuniak. Could I—”

  “You again!” he barked over his shoulder. He made a gesture at me as if he were shooing a buzzing fly. “Leave me alone!”

  I quickly caught up to him, despite his impressive clip for someone his age. “Please tell me why you objected so strongly the other day when I told you I was working with Doobie.”

  Seth tried to wave me off again and grumbled, “That’d be just like a criminal defense attorney askin’ why I’d object to his getting his murderous client off scot free.”

  I stopped as he headed up the short walkway to his front porch and called after him, “Did Doobie injure your dog?”

  “I don’t have no dog no more!” he said as he slammed his door shut.

  Could Doobie have attacked and killed his dog? The thought made me shudder.

  Chapter 16

  I headed back toward my car, my feet slowing as I had to pass Beverly’s house. Moments before, I’d trotted past it without as much as a glance, and now that struck me as a betrayal. I couldn’t let her be swept out of my life this easily. There was a reason behind her death; there was a killer who was still breathing while Beverly wasn’t, and I would not have peace of mind till I found out why her life had been taken, and by whom.

  I needed to talk to the Atkinsons. They alone knew the reason behind the subterfuge regarding their past relationship with Ty. In the process, I could make sure the puppies were still in good health. I rang the bell, and Paige opened the door. Through dull eyes, she stared at me. “Oh, it’s you. Dog woman.”

  My second warm greeting in a row. This was decidedly not Mr. Roberts Neighborhood. “Doobie is barking again and I thought I’d—”

  “No kidding,” she interrupted. “His barking begins like clockwork around two p.m. and doesn’t stop till six.” A high-pitched bark began from inside the Atkinsons’ house. “And there goes Sammy, too.”

  It was too early for the afternoon school buses, I thought, but maybe Doobie barked in anticipation. “Do you ever see any children, taunting one of the dogs, perhaps, as they get off the bus?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I’ve noticed. It’s always in this order, too. Doobie barks first, then Sammy, then…” she paused and grimaced and said through her teeth, “Beagle Boy, the illustrious sire of our dog’s puppies.”

  If the barking truly was that predictable, I could always stake out the house, hide out in my car, and watch what happened.

  “Speaking of your dog, how are Sammy and her litter doing?”

  “They’re fine. We even have a couple of buyers already, which surprised me. They’re not exactly going to be pedigreed.”

  “Pedigrees aren’t as important to everyone as they apparently are to you.” She gave me a blank stare, so I continued, “Did you know that your ex-husband kept his college yearbook?”

  She paled and stared at me in shock. “No. That’s hard to believe. He didn’t want anybody to know he was a college graduate. He liked to project the image of the self-made success story. Thought it made him look better.”

  “Even so, apparently he was too nostalgic to throw away his year book. It’s unusual how you and Hank were once a couple, and you bought a house next door to one another. Have you already explained all of that to the police?”

  She started to sputter a protest at the “impertinence” of my question, then paused, sighed, and said, “Oh, hell, there’s no sense keeping secrets now. It’s not so strange, really. Hank and I stayed in touch after college, in spite of my marriage. Our flame never really died. We had a bad fight, and we broke up. I married Ty on the rebound. That was a terrible mistake. Hank and his wife bought this house once it came on the market a year after Ty and I bought his. For years, we all lived with the silly notion that we could just be friends. We were wrong. Hank and I belong together, and we’re happy now.”

  “Huh. I also noticed Hank isn’t mentioned as a former player for the Arizona Wildcats.”

  She curled her lip at me, then said, “He would have made the team. He blew out his knee, his freshman year, horsing around with his roommate.”

  “Was Ty Bellingham that roommate?”

  “Yes, he was, as a matter of fact. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to attend to.” She shut the door in my face.

  I weighed the notion of ringing her doorbell again to ask her more questions. Yet, the bottom line was, I wasn’t a police officer or any kind of an authority figure that could make a case for needing to know. Besides, I was due at my appointment in east Boulder with the new client to whom Hank had referred me.

  My new client, a young female malamute, was a beautiful animal, and every bit as friendly as his owner had described. She had lovely washed-out blue eyes with dark rims. The owner, Henrietta, had led me into the back yard to meet the dog, which came right up to me and nuzzled me for a pat.

  “You must be Titan,” I said. Once again, I could feel myself tense up despite my appreciation for the animal’s beauty. Titan had those same lupine features that set my nerves on edge.

  I took a calming breath. In the meantime, Titan rolled over onto her back in the submissive position and sought a tummy rub. To discourage her submission, I stepped back and knelt and called her over to me again, then petted her chest when she obliged.

  A bit of motion in the corner of the yard caught my eye. Titan, too, turned her head, and we watched a squirrel dart across the length of the yard and then up a tree. Titan showed no more interest in chasing it than I did.

  “She’s a beautiful dog,” I said to her owner, a thirtyish woman named Henrietta.


  “Isn’t she though? But can you teach her to be a better guard dog?”

  “ Better, yes. But the best watchdogs are aggressive. So far, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most aggressive and one the least, Titan is ranking at a two.” Maybe a two-and-a-half, I silently reconsidered; at least she hadn’t run from me or piddled on herself. “There are three basic elements to aggressiveness: predation, territorial instincts, and dominance. Titan shows none of the three. I can show you ways to beef up her aggressiveness, which I think would be a good idea so that she’s not overly dependent on you. And, if you want, you could post a couple Beware-of Dog-signs. She’s big enough that those alone could be an effective deterrent.”

  The woman nodded. “Especially now that I’ve got such a good security system, thanks to Hank.”

  “So you’re pleased with the work that Hank Atkinson and his employees did for you?”

  “Absolutely. Hank is the most-thorough man. Would you believe he personally stopped by today, just to see if I was satisfied?” I said nothing, but she continued happily, “I told him how you were coming out here this afternoon on his recommendation.”

  “How did he respond?”

  She gave me a small shrug. “He didn’t say anything, but I’m sure he was glad.”

  Glad? I thought to myself sourly. Not likely, since my being here did nothing to benefit him directly. Though it was a close call, I disliked Hank Atkinson even more than I did his wife. The man struck me as utterly devoid of integrity. Which is why it struck me as odd that he’d recommended me. Maybe he’d considered that compensating for his despicable treatment of Russell.

  “Do you happen to recall when it was that Hank Atkinson recommended my services to you?” If it was after Saturday’s softball game, his recommendation probably represented his personal penance for injuring Russell.

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Must have been a week or two ago. It was the same day he installed the security system.”

  “Are you sure it was that long ago?”

  She nodded. “Yes. His dropping by today was the first time I’ve seen him since a week ago Friday.”

  “Huh. That’s interesting.” It was primarily interesting because, “a week ago Friday,” I had never heard of Hank Atkinson, or even of Ty Bellingham.

  That meant that either Hank Atkinson had crossed path with a former client of mine who, unbeknownst to me, recommended my services, or he—like Ty—had gotten my name from Beverly Wood.

  I continued to work with Titan and his owner on basic training and soon found myself thinking that I knew why the previous owners had been willing to give up the dog to adoption. Titan was a typical malamute, which, depending on what you’re looking for in a dog, was good or bad. Very much like their closest canine counterpart, Siberian Huskies, Malamutes are typically not as far removed from their wolf predecessors as other breeds are. Malamutes show strong pack instincts and independence from their owners, and low tolerance for the standard sit-stay-come training. You want me to sit? Maybe later. Gotta go check out the smells by the maple tree now.

  Truth be told, a malamute can make even an experienced dog trainer look like a nincompoop—with the emphasis on “poop.” Luckily, I had a couple of face-saving excuses at my ready disposal. The easiest was the standard: It won’t do you any good for me to train your dog because I won’t be living with him. I can show you how to train him, though. That was legitimate, but also translated to: You and your dog are the problem, not my brilliant training techniques. A second plausible demurral was: My specialty is as a dog behaviorist, not a trainer, but I can recommend a good trainer to you.

  Then there was the upfront method, which I opted for in this case. I explained very carefully and thoroughly my evaluation of Titan and what her owner would be up against, recommended that she might be best off using the tidbit-reward style of training, right before dinner when Titan was most likely to be hungry; to keep the sessions under fifteen minutes but very focused and energetic on her part; and to do this training using a “Gentle Leader,” or reasonable facsimile. The Gentle Leaders fasten around the dogs’ muzzle and behind the ears, then fasten to the lead itself just below the chin. This puts the trainer in control of the position of the dog’s head.

  Henrietta was willing to buy one from me, so I showed her how to put it on Titan, warning that the dog was going to hate it. Titan immediately pawed at the contraption like mad and trying to get it off. But she eventually accepted the fact that she couldn’t get it off, and I ran Titan through a typical training session. I would have ranked Titan’s performance as so-so at best, but Henrietta was ga-ga over it.

  After I took off Titan’s collar, Henrietta asked, “I noticed you said ’lie down,’ as your command. I’ve been told you should always make one-word commands, such as ’down.’”

  “You just hit on my pet peeve: superfluous tips from trainers. You can just consider ’lie down’ a two-syllable word. Dogs are certainly capable of treating it as such.”

  “I’ve also heard that you confuse your dog if you say ’down’ when he or she jumps up on you. That you should always say ’off’ instead.”

  “If you say, ’down,’ when a dog jumps up on you, and the dog not only takes his front paws off you but lies down, is that bad? Of course not. In reality, I’ve never had a dog actually do that, because the dog does understand the difference between ’down’ and ’lie down,’ so the whole issue is moot. Furthermore, if the dog’s on the couch and you want him off it, the dog can understand ’off,’ but he can also understand the concept that ’down’ means lie down on the floor, not on the couch. The verbal command itself is only part of the cues that—”

  My cellphone rang, which struck me as perhaps a hint from above that I’d launched myself into one of my bombastic modes and it was time to shut up. “Never mind.” I glanced at my screen. It was Russell. My mood immediately switched to worry, as he rarely called when he knew I was with a client. “Do you mind if I get this?”

  “No, go right ahead,” she replied.

  I walked away and turned my back as I said hello.

  “Allida, it’s Russell.” His voice sounded tense and as if he were out of breath.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been here all afternoon, with the door closed. I’ve got a big presentation to make to a customer at the end of the week, so I’ve been pretty…absorbed. Still, you’d think I’d notice if somebody came into your office and…. Anyway, the thing is—”

  “Russell, what’s happened?”

  “Did you take your computer someplace, to have it repaired or something?”

  “No! Don’t tell me it’s been stolen! I’ve got all my client records since I started my business on that computer! It’ll destroy me if my computer’s gone!”

  After a sizable pause, Russell said, “You’re not one of those hate-the-messenger types are you?”

  Rarely before had I felt this low. Back at my office, my computer was every bit as missing as Russell had described it to be. Nothing else seemed to have been touched. My vase of roses and its single-petal daisy was still there, my papers, knick knacks, just no computer. Russell and I filled out the police report, and I decided to call it a day. A lousy, miserable one at that. Although I told the police that this could have something to do with three deaths in the last few days, they were not optimistic about my chances for recovery. Furthermore, the sergeant, along with Russell, asked me about my backup flash-drive, just to drive the nail in a little further about my not having performed a backup for six months.

  The next day, Chesh Bellingham called me to make the arrangements for my meeting her close to five p.m., when the flea market closed. She explained that she had a booth toward the back of the place, and while “the place is a zoo,” that her sign for Way Cool Collectibles was pink and orange and hard to miss.

  I made the drive down to the Denver suburb, appalled at the heavy traffic and the unending stream of housing. When
ever I’d made this trip down the Boulder-Denver turnpike as a child, the view out my window had been long stretches of barren, slightly hilly fields, against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.

  The parking lot of the flea market was at least half full. I paid my small entrance fee on the way into the parking lot and parked. The market was one huge paved area with some permanent booths set up like a cheap backdrop for a spaghetti western. I negotiated a path past the huge quantities of fresh produce, the crates of which were partially blocking the nearest entrance from my car. I wandered slowly down the first aisle.

  Here boldly painted semi-permanent booths had been set up. They resembled carnival plywood flats of a midway, only the merchants in this row were selling hair-care products and sunglasses, leather goods, fake plants and silk flowers, and socks and undergarments in bulk. Personally, I couldn’t see myself buying a gross of panties from a flea market.

  As I scanned the crowds, I was reminded once again how insulated Boulder is. The cost of living is so high there and the influence of the college campus is so great that crowds there generally tended toward white, middle-class, youthful people. It was sobering how out of place I felt here, nervous and put-off by the cigarette smoke, the crying, shabbily dressed children.

  Past those booths was an enormous garage sale, where people—who all seemed to be smoking cigarettes—picked through vast quantities of used items. Beyond this area, I spotted a few carnival rides, but these were under a tarp, apparently operating only on weekends.

  Based on where Chesh had told me to meet her, I concluded that she was probably someplace in the garage-sale-esque portion of the place, and so I wove my way through there till I spotted her orange and pink sign.

  The booth was empty. Her hippie mobile was parked in the back. Only the folding tables and the sign were still in place. I asked the woman at the neighboring hunk of turf is she knew where Cheshire was.