4 Woof at the Door (12 page)

“I told you. She had a key, supposedly so she could get in to do those kitchen repairs.”

“Wait a minute.” Some thoughts finally registered that should have occurred to me yesterday. “This isn’t making any sense. If Beverly had a key and you knew it, why didn’t either of you use that key to get in when Ty was calling for help?”

“Beverly claimed she didn’t have a key. She said that her partner, Rebecca, had given it back to Ty when the job was finished.”

I had to squint a little, with the afternoon sun right in my line of vision. Paige’s strange, beaker-shaped nose was in the air. My doubt regarding Beverly’s guilt must have offended her. “Only you think that she was lying about having the key, because you saw her, or another woman who looked just like her, coming out the Bellinghams’ door. Is that right?”

Paige gave her dark hair a flick. “Oh, it was her, all right. That much is certain. I was just driving by on my way home from shopping, and I saw her shutting the screen door behind her. She came running up to me and told me to call the police…that there was a dog fight going on inside of Ty’s house. She only did that to cover up her crime. I went inside my house to call, but then I noticed Sammy was missing. In my concern for Sammy, I forgot to call the police.”

“You forgot?” This was her second or third feeble excuse for not calling the police sooner yesterday, and I couldn’t keep the sarcasm from my voice. “Didn’t you put it on your To Do list?”

Paige ignored me and rattled on, “Anyway, Beverly gave me this big story, saying she’d merely opened the screen to knock on the door when no one answered the bell. But I’m almost certain I saw her pulling the door shut and locking it.”

Beverly’s version was plausible, I thought. During our phone conversation yesterday, just before I raced over here, Beverly had told me she was going to go knock on Ty’s door.

“What possible reason would Beverly have to kill Ty?”

“A reason? Oh, how about the fact that he was threatening to destroy her and her business.” On that note, she turned on a heel and headed back toward her house.

“Paige, wait!”

She stopped and turned back to look at me. Her features were tense and pale, in stark contrast to her dark hair.

“You must have your facts wrong. Yesterday she rushed out here to defend him when you and he were fighting.”

“Oh, please! You think Beverly Wood wanted to defend Ty Bellingham? Ha!” She folded her arms across her chest and gave me a smile that bore only malice. “If she told you that, she’s lying. She came out here to egg me on!”

“That isn’t the impression I got. Beverly is a good person.”

“Oh, please!” she spat out a second time. “First she broke up Ty’s and my marriage by throwing herself at him. While she was screwing my husband behind my back, she installed that monstrosity of a kitchen fan and fed it my darling parakeet, Bluey. She claimed it was an accident, that Bluey got out of his cage while she was still testing the fan and got sucked up before she could react.” She began to cry and dried her cheeks with the back of her hand. “All I know is, she was the only person who could have let my little baby out of his cage, and I never saw poor Bluey again!”

She lost her last semblance of self-control and broke into wracking sobs. I opened my passenger door, reached into my glove box, and grabbed a packet of tissues, which I handed to her. Still crying, she tore off the plastic wrap, got a tissue, and dabbed at her eyes.

I’d been in the pet business long enough to know what an owner’s grief can do to a person. The death of Paige’s pet was enough reason to unconsciously manufacture all sorts of sinister behaviors on Beverly’s part—such as believing she’d seen Beverly emerging from a door that she had merely been knocking on. Or even having an affair with her ex-husband. Though it was ironic, to say the least, that Paige was more upset by this past event than she was by yesterday’s death of her ex-husband.

“Um, Paige, anytime a pet dies, it’s a terrible loss. But with all due respect, what does this have to do with why Beverly would want to—”

While I was speaking, Paige blew her nose and gestured with her free hand for me to stop. “What do you mean, ’anytime a pet dies’? Bluey wasn’t killed by that exhaust fan. He would have been sent right through the ducts. I’m certain all that forced air just blew him so far away from the house, he couldn’t find his way home. I know in my heart that Bluey is living a happy life with his adopted family. Wherever they may be.”

No doubt they were living on the very same “big farm way out in the country” where cowardly parents sent their children’s terminally ill dogs. “I’m relieved to hear that. Be that as it may, why would Ty want to destroy Beverly and her business?”

She clicked her tongue in impatience at my foolish question. “Hank asked me to marry him, right after the Bluey incident, so I moved in with him, and Ty latched onto that Cheshire catty little girl of his just to spite me. Ty’s kitchen wasn’t complete when Cheshire moved in. Beverly and her partner, that lesbian carpenter, had torn up part of the kitchen subflooring and had just set a small piece of plywood over the hole. Cheshire stepped on the plywood, it flipped, Cheshire fell and injured her back. She’s been on pain killers ever since, and Ty is…was trying to get a huge settlement out of Beverly that would have cost her everything she’s got.”

“How long ago did Cheshire’s accident take place?”

“Six months ago.”

“So you’ve been married to Hank Atkinson for about six months?”

She stared at me for a moment. “Well, I don’t see what that has to do with anything, but yes. Anyway, getting back to our original conversation, consider yourself forewarned.” She thrust the wad of tissues, used and all, into my hands, then marched into her house.

It took me a moment to figure out that “our original conversation” meant her warning to me about my friend, Beverly. I sat in my car, checked my phone messages, and returned calls for a few minutes. If what Paige had told me was true, that explained why Cheshire seemed to act so drugged-out whenever her husband was there to witness her behavior around other people. Ty’s lawsuit never had a chance of succeeding, though, because Chesh had dropped her ruse every time he wasn’t present.

But some of Paige’s assertions made no sense. Beverly Wood would never send me to work with a dog owner who’d brought a spurious lawsuit against her. She would have known that he could have found some cause to sue me, as well. And, once again, Ty Bellingham wouldn’t have said, “I’m suing you, but I’ll happily hire a friend of yours to work with my dog.”

Still, what reason would Paige have had to lie to me about this? Whether or not someone had an active lawsuit against them would be an easy thing to check. Not that I knew how to go about doing so—but I could always call a lawyer friend to ask how.

For the sake of our friendship, I needed to sit down with Beverly and have a long chat. My desire to learn what had happened to Ty’s adopted pit bull had fallen by the wayside during my conversation with Paige, and I decided to let the issue wait. Right now, I desperately wanted to see Russell Greene and remind myself what it was like to be with a nice, normal human being. Even if that particular nice normal human didn’t want anything to do with me.

I headed off for my office, wondering what I’d say to Russ when I saw him. If a little time had brought him back to his senses, he’d be chagrinned at his own pouting and his stubbornness, and we’d be able to chalk this one up to experience and move on. There was probably a change or two that could be made in my behavior, too, but it was much easier to see what Russell needed to do.

Russell was one of the finest human beings I’d ever met. He wasn’t dashing or adventurous, but steady, loyal, and amazing. I would never forget how he tried to act as my shield when my desperate attempts to save Sage’s life had put me in a collision course with a murderer. Russell had done so even before we were officially dating. He was everything I’d ever wanted in a man…with the exception of our lack of some key common interests.

But, so what if I loved animals and he was afraid of them? So what if he had a passion for rock climbing that I can’t begin to understand? Nobody ever said love was supposed to come in a perfect package. He could go off and climb his rocks while I went off to run my dogs.

I reached my office on Mapleton in downtown Boulder. I parked, my heart thumping in nervous anticipation as I spotted his car in the space beside mine. He’d gotten into the habit of working on Sundays, claiming that he could get more work done then because his phone wasn’t always interrupting him. I never called him out on the matter, but had noticed that his working Sundays only began once we started dating, after he’d seen how busy my weekends were with work.

Our offices were on Broadway, in a semi-basement—”semi” because the building was partially carved into Mapleton hill. His office had a view of our cars’ tires; my office, which he had to pass through to en route to his office, had a view of passing pedestrians’ ankles.

I trotted down the steps and into my office and was greeted by the sweet fragrance of flowers. On my desk sat a vase filled with a dozen long-stemmed red roses. There was something about a gift of roses that immediately made me feel like Audrey Hepburn. When she was alive, that is. I glanced over at Russell’s door. It was closed, which was somewhat unusual. He only closes it when one of us has noisy, barking customers.

Next to the sweet-smelling roses was a small card that read: I’m sorry. I acted like a jerk. Please forgive me, Love, Russell.

Pocketing his note, I rushed over to his door and knocked. He opened it and we stood there smiling at each other for a moment. Together we must have looked like a couple of overgrown children on Christmas morning. Wounded overgrown children, that is, for Russell’s upper body was in a nasty-looking sling that kept his upper right arm pressed against his side, and my left hand was still in its impressive bandages.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was being a jerk. Do you forgive me?”

“I’m sorry, too. I think we both said some things we didn’t mean.”

He said nothing, simply caressed my cheek with his unencumbered hand. “Rules are meant to be broken,” he murmured, referring to our no-fondling-etc. policy. For obvious reasons with regards to a couple with occasional drop-in clients, we’d decided on a strict no-kissing-and-so-forth policy while we’re in our offices. He kissed me gently. I felt distracted by not knowing where to put my own hands for fear of aggravating his injury, and we cut the kiss short.

Though I knew it wasn’t the romantic statement the situation called for, I couldn’t help but ask, “Is that sling as uncomfortable as it looks?”

“Yes, but at least I can take it off whenever the need arises.” Russell returned to his chair, which was sitting suspiciously close to the door, as if he’d wheeled it over there to listen for my reaction to his flowers. “Is today going any better for you than yesterday?”

I pondered the question. Yesterday I had been attacked by a wolf, saw a gruesome murder scene, and argued with Russell. Today I’d been given reason to suspect my friend was guilty of that murder. Also, though, Russell had given me flowers. “Yeah, it’s a little better.”

“Good.”

We both turned at the sound of the squeak my door makes when it’s opened. It was just enough noise for me to hear most of the time but not so loud as to agitate a nervous canine. “Somebody’s just entered my office. I’ll see you later.”

He gave me a wink and a smile and gingerly began typing on his computer keyboard. Watching him, my cheeks warmed and my heart felt as though it were doing some sort of tap dance. I wished yesterday had never happened—that I could have just said yes and spent the rest of the day with him.

I leaned through Russell’s door to announce my presence.

To my surprise, it was Damian Hesk, the illustrious wolf owner. He looked, well, gorgeous in his tight-fitting jeans, loafers, and a green-and-brown plaid short sleeved shirt, the top two buttons open. Seen in the daylight, he had a fabulous physique, and his blond hair looked newly washed.

I started to shut Russell’s door behind me, but he called, “Leave it open, Allida. It’s getting a little stuffy in here.”

“Allida?” Damian said, smiling slowly. He was standing with his hands in his back pockets, a step from the exit.

“Yes, hi, Damian. Come on in.” I smiled, but inwardly felt like an idiot for noticing how attractive he was. Just an instant ago I’d been admiring Russell. I made a mental note to check my breakfast cereal’s ingredients for Spanish fly.

“I got your business address from the directory.” Damian seemed to have an interest in looking everywhere but directly at me. My office really wasn’t all that interesting—the standard-issue filing cabinets, desk, chairs. It was strange how forceful and self-assured he’d been yesterday in dealing with the catastrophe, and how he seemed a little nervous now. Maybe he was the type who was only comfortable when he was outdoors. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior last night.”

“Oh, you don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes, I do. Good God. I made you crawl through a dog door and caused you to get bitten by my wolf.” His eyes finally met mine. His were very attractive dark brown, despite the blond hair. “I was just…so determined to get Atla out of there, I couldn’t think straight.”

Behind me, Russell cleared his throat. I turned and saw that Russell had followed me and was now standing in his doorway. “Hi, uh, sorry to interrupt, but I couldn’t help overhearing.” He furrowed his brow and studied Damian. “Did you just say that you were responsible for Allida’s getting bitten?”

Well, if “true love” meant having schizophrenic mood swings, I was in love, because I immediately bristled at Russell’s having interrupted someone giving me a private apology. Nonetheless, my upbringing took hold and I opted to introduce the two men. “Russell Greene, this is Damian Hesk. Damian owns the wolf.”

“He
owns
the wild animal that viciously attacked you and killed your client?”

“Russell, that’s—”

“Nice to meet you,” Russell said, ignoring me. Despite the sling that his right arm was in, he started to extend his hand toward Damian, then winced. “You’ll have to excuse me for not shaking hands.”