Death of a Dog Whisperer (9780758284570) (13 page)

Fran laughed. She must have been reading my thoughts. Her cup and saucer clinked as she set them down on the wicker table between us.

“Maybe he doesn't look like it now,” she said. “But when Barney's outside, he's a live wire.”

“Really.” I smiled politely.

“Not fast necessarily. But determined to go where he wants to go when he wants to go there.”

Now
that
I could readily see.

“Barney's also kind of food motivated,” said Fran. “That dog will eat anything. And with that nose of his, it seems like Barney can sniff out something interesting half a mile away. So he has a tendency to wander off. Sometimes I would put him in the yard, come back five minutes later, and he'd just be gone. I was always having to go out looking for him.”

“I can see how that would be a nuisance,” I agreed.

“I called the number on the card and told Nick that I needed someone who could train Barney to stay home. He asked me a lot of questions and then came for a home visit.”

“And was he able to help you?” I asked.

“Yes, and no.” Fran smiled ruefully. “Like I said earlier, he and Barney got along like a house on fire. That part was great. Nick was the one who told me about Barney being a scent hound. And that scent hounds follow their noses. He said that's what Barney was bred to do.”

“Did he have a solution for you?” I asked.

“He most certainly did. He told me I needed a fence.”

Fran started to giggle. After a few seconds, I was laughing with her. Barney didn't open his eyes, but his tail thumped up and down on the floor. I guess even he was in on the joke.

“When he said that I felt pretty dumb,” Fran admitted. “But Nick delivered the news in the nicest possible way. That was how he did things. He was very clear about that fact that our problems weren't Barney's fault, that he was only doing what generations of selective breeding had taught him to do.”

I nodded.

“And then Nick told me said that the problems we'd been having weren't my fault either. How could I have understood something I didn't even know? So then I didn't feel like such an idiot anymore.”

Nick not only had a way with dogs, I thought. He knew just how to handle their owners too.

“I had an invisible fence installed the following week,” Fran said. “And now when Barney goes outside, he wears the collar. And he stays where he's supposed to be.”

“I'm glad everything worked out. So I guess you only needed Nick's services for one visit?”

“Oh no,” Fran said quickly. “That's not how it worked at all. After I had the fence put in, Nick came back to teach Barney how the system worked. First Barney had to learn where the boundaries were and how to stay inside them.”

“And after that?”

“Nick was just such pleasant company. And he never made it seem like it was an imposition to stop by and see how we were doing. We even started teaching Barney some basic tricks. Just fooling around and having fun. Nick would come over and spend an afternoon, and Barney and I always looked forward to his visits . . .”

Fran's voice trailed away unhappily. She glanced at the dog in the kitchen. Barney was still snoring. Every so often his feet would paddle in the air or his tail would wag, but for the most part he was oblivious to his surroundings.

“I'm not the only one who will miss Nick,” she said with a sigh. “He and Barney got to be great friends. Now Barney won't have anyone to talk to.”

“It sounds as though both you both got to know Nick pretty well,” I said. “Were you aware of any problems Nick might have been having?”

Fran thought for a minute before answering. “No, nothing,” she said finally. “Nick was always the same happy, sunny guy. He never seemed to worry about stuff at all. If I had to guess, I'd say that whatever happened to Nick . . . he never saw it coming at all.”

B
ack in my car, I pulled out Nick's client roster and had another look.

The majority of his clients had lived in Greenwich, including a woman named Missy Alexander whose address placed her no more than a mile or so from my current location. I could call ahead and see if she was home, but that would give Mrs. Alexander a chance to turn me away. I decided I'd probably have better luck simply showing up at her house and seeing what happened.

The Alexander residence was large and impressive. Built of stone, it was set back from the road and surrounded by several acres of well-manicured lawn. Considering the grandeur of the approach, I wasn't expecting to find the lady of the house on her knees in a flower bed, up to her elbows in dirt.

Unlike the house I'd just visited, here I was greeted by the dog first. As I stepped out of my car, a tiny, amber-colored, ball of fluff came hurtling across the lawn, barking wildly. As it drew near, I saw that the little golden missile was a Pomeranian, six to eight months of age, with a big grin and a very high opinion of herself.

Reaching my legs, the puppy began to spin in mad circles around them. Brief, high-pitched yips accompanied each bouncing stride. I didn't dare take another step for fear of putting a foot on her.

Over by the front walk, the slim, blue-jean-clad woman rocked back on her heels but didn't rise. Instead she lifted a hand, shaded her eyes from the sun, and stared at me and her small whirling dervish. A look of annoyance crossed her face.

“Primp!” she called, without much conviction. “Come back here.”

The puppy paused her playful assault long enough to glance back and forth between me and her owner. Seizing the opportunity, I used the brief moment of inaction to reach down and scoop the little dog up in my hands. The plush appearance of the Pom's red-gold coat made her appear bigger than she really was. I've worked out with dumbbells that were heavier.

Now the woman rose to her feet. She was tall and slender to the point of skinniness. Handsome rather than pretty, she wore little make-up, though I imagined she was probably well lathered in sunscreen. Her hair was covered by an old kerchief.

Still frowning, the woman yanked off a pair of gardening gloves and let them fall to the ground at her feet. She wiped her hands on her jeans and the sun glinted off a diamond the size of a grape on her left ring finger. Lips pursed, she strode in my direction across the lawn.

“Be careful. She'll nip you if she gets the chance.”

Having already discovered that for myself, I now had my fingers angled discreetly out of range as the puppy wriggled within my grasp. I carried her across the driveway to the edge of the lawn and set her down. Happily Primp scampered back to her approaching owner.

“Are you Missy Alexander?” I asked.

Her nod was curt. “Whatever you're selling, I don't want any. I like the religion I already have. And if it's a donation you're looking for, you'll need to send the request to my husband's office.”

“I just want to talk,” I said. “My name is Melanie Travis.”

“I don't have time to talk to strangers.” Missy spun on her heel. “Please see yourself out.”

“We haven't met, Mrs. Alexander, but we have a friend in common.”

Her retreating steps slowed fractionally. She still had her back to me but she was listening.

“Nick Walden,” I said.

The woman stopped and turned. “What about him?”

“I was a friend of his, and I'm also a friend of his sister. We're trying to make sense of what happened to him.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

Her words were clipped, her tone abrupt. I don't intimidate easily but Missy Alexander made me want to take a step back. If she was looking for a job, she would have made a wonderful headmistress. Or maybe chief warden of a women's prison.

“We want to know how and why Nick died,” I said.

“He was shot,” Missy informed me. “I read that in the newspaper. As for why, what does that have to do with me?”

“Probably nothing,” I said. “But if you could give me just a few minutes—”

“One.” She folded her arms over her chest. “No more.”

The clock was ticking. I'd talk fast. In my experience, everybody likes to talk about their dogs. Maybe starting there would loosen things up a little.

“I'm guessing you engaged Nick's services because of your puppy?”

“That would be correct.”

“Normal new baby adjustment issues, or one problem in particular . . . ?”

“How is that germane?” Missy snapped impatiently.

So much for loosening things up. It was time to cut to the chase.

“Were you aware of any problems Nick might have been having in his business—”

“No. None.”

“—or his personal life?”

Missy's eyes narrowed. “How would you expect me to know that?”

I shrugged in what I hoped was a disarming fashion. “Nick became friends with many of his clients.” So Bob had told me. And my conversation with Fran Dolan had certainly supported that claim. “It wasn't unusual for him to discuss other things besides dogs when he was with them.”

“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about,” Missy replied shortly. “Our relationship was nothing like that.”

My gaze drifted downward. While we'd been speaking, Primp had sat down beside her owner's sneaker-clad foot. One tiny paw reached over and quickly worked the shoelace free of its bow. The puppy drew the narrow cord into her mouth and began to chew happily.

Primp might be light on training, but damn, she was cute.

“So yours was strictly a business relationship?” I said.

For the first time, Missy didn't snap an answer right back. Something I wasn't quite able to read came and went in her eyes.

“Of course,” she said after a brief pause. “I have no idea what would make you think otherwise.”

Pointedly she lifted her arm and had a look at her watch.

“Were you satisfied with Nick's services?” I asked quickly. Any moment now, my time was going to be up.

“Very much so. Of course he still had further work to do. But both I and my husband thought that Nick had made a very good start to Primp's training.”

I found it interesting that Missy thought to mention her husband just after I'd inquired about her relationship with Nick. It was almost as if she was trying to remind me of his existence. Or maybe she was trying to remind herself.

“I assume we're done?”

Missy made an attempt to turn away once again. But Primp, still holding tight to her shoelace, forestalled the movement and bought me another few seconds.

As she leaned down and prized the fastener from between the Pom's sharp teeth, I said, “Can you think of any reason at all that someone might have wanted to harm Nick Walden?”

Abruptly Missy straightened. She now had the errant puppy clasped in her arms. Her shoelace was still untied.

“I heard that Nick had a new sponsor of some sort,” she said. “Someone who was supposed to be helping his business to grow. Maybe you want to check with that guy.”

Or that woman, I thought as Missy spun around and strode back to her flower bed. Regardless, I was pretty sure that Aunt Peg was in the clear.

 

It had been an interesting morning and I had plenty to think about as I drove home. I'd spoken to two of Nick's clients and each had portrayed her working relationship with Nick very differently. From what I'd seen of the dog whisperer, I had to assume that Fran's description was the closer to the norm. But maybe I was wrong about that.

On the other hand, Missy had told me several other things that hadn't rung true either. According to the list Bob had given me, Missy and Primp had been clients of Nick's for the last three months. So how come the puppy still didn't seem to have any training? And if, during the time Nick spent at her house, the two of them had discussed nothing but dogs, how did she know about his new sponsor?

I might have spent more time debating those questions, but when I got home, it turned out that the Poodles had other plans for me.

This is what usually happens when I arrive home: I pull the car into the garage and enter the house through a connecting door. The adult Poodles, having heard the garage door rumble open, come running to cluster in the hallway and clamor for my immediate attention. Augie, the puppy, doesn't join the fray because he has to wait for me to release him from his crate. Our only Poodle currently “in hair,” he's confined when Sam and I are both away because his show coat is a precious and fragile commodity.

A Poodle's hair starts growing when he's born and is protected every day of his life until his show career ends. A hole in the wrong place can spoil a dog's look and keep him out of the ring for months. For that reason, Poodle puppies learn at an early age that certain kinds of behavior are off-limits. No rubbing, no scratching, and definitely no play involving hair pulling, are allowed.

I trust my Poodles to obey the house rules even when I'm not looking. But I also enforce that trust with a nice, big, comfy, crate. Augie might be almost twelve months old, but he was still a puppy. Not only that, but at his age he was entering the canine teenage rebellion stage—that several-month-long period when dogs act out, ignore their training, and generally make you wonder what you ever liked about them in the first place, before reaching the other side and blossoming back into the wonderful pets you always knew they were.

You know, kind of like kids.

So when I opened the door leading into the house from the garage, the first surprise was that no flying scramble of Poodles came running to greet me. The second was that from my vantage point just inside the door, I could see that the big crate in the corner of the kitchen where Sam and I stow Augie when we're both going to be out, was clearly standing open. And empty.

That wasn't good on so many levels that I didn't even want to stop and think about it. Instead I tossed my purse and keys on a nearby side table, remained where I was, and called out, “Hey, guys! Where is everybody?”

Purposely I kept my tone light and welcoming.
Nobody's in trouble yet,
it said.
Let's see what we have to deal with first
. The fact that the Poodles hadn't appeared when I first walked in the door meant that something was wrong somewhere. Now I wanted them to come to me.

And then they did. One by one, black heads began to pop around the corner of the entrance that led to the living room. Faith, Raven, Eve; I counted noses and identified faces. So far, so good. Casey took an additional few seconds to appear, but then she joined the bunch as well.

That left only Tar and Augie who continued to be AWOL. Only an idiot wouldn't have seen
that
coming.

Faith sidled out into the hallway. Eve was beside her. Then Raven and Casey followed suit. The bitches had their heads lowered and their ears flat. Their tails hung down and swung slowly from side to side, a silent plea for clemency.

This was clearly a group of dogs who felt very guilty about something. I wondered whether the four had actively participated in whatever mayhem I was about to discover or whether they'd merely been powerless to prevent it from happening. At least there weren't any big, black, hunks of hair littering the hallway, I thought as I strode toward them. It wasn't much, but it was better than the alternative.

“What did you guys do?” I asked them. “Who's in trouble?”

Acting as one, the four Poodles turned to look back into the living room. They couldn't have answered my question more clearly if they had drawn me a diagram. Faith gazed at me imploringly.
Don't be too mad,
her dark, expressive eyes said.

Reaching the group of bitches, I dropped a hand onto Faith's head and ruffled it through her topknot reassuringly. Her tail lifted slightly. She leaned in close against my legs.

“I'm not angry at you,” I told her. “You know that. You never do anything wrong.”

Hearing that, the other three bitches came and crowded around us. If forgiveness was available, they wanted to get in on it too. Either that or they were hoping to distance themselves from whatever I was about to see in the living room. Neither possibility seemed very reassuring.

Not yet ready to offer general absolution, I turned the corner and had a look. For the first, startled, moment, everything simply looked white. It was as if the room had been blanketed by an explosion of confetti that seemed to have been strewn randomly over floor and furniture alike. And of course, lying there right in the middle of the debris, were my two missing Standard Poodles.

It took me a moment to process what was going on. Tar and Augie were on the floor facing one another. Something—it appeared to be a giant, fabric toy—bridged the distance between them. Each Poodle had grasped an end of the object between their teeth and they were engaged in a fierce game of tug-of-war.

Then all at once my heart sank as I realized what I was seeing. The prize the two dogs were wrestling over wasn't a toy at all. It was the middle cushion from the living room couch. Or what remained of it anyway.

Even worse, what had appeared at first glance to be confetti was instead the former insides of that ripped-open cushion, now gleefully deposited around the room. Aside from that lovely mess, an end table and lamp had been overturned, and a stack of books was scattered across the floor.

It looked as though I'd missed quite a party.

“Drop it!” I said in the meanest voice I could muster.