Chapter Seventeen
We introduced ourselves to Willow Yost.
“Donna told me about you, that you’re trying to figure out what happened, and I should talk to you,” she said.
Clara’s slightly widened eyes told me she was as taken aback as I was by this endorsement from Donna, though it fit that she delivered it behind our backs.
“We understand you’re a dog walker, Willow,” I said. Inspired, huh?
“Yeah.”
“Have you been doing that for a while?”
“Uh-huh. I started in high school and now that I’m taking classes at NKU—” The initials for Northern Kentucky University. “—I can tailor my schedule and it helps with tuition.”
“That’s smart. You walk their dogs for the Swindells and Georgers?”
“Uh-huh.” She pushed a chunk of wind-frothed hair behind her right ear. She was attractive in an understated way, with regular features, a medium build, gray eyes.
“Did you walk them today?”
“This morning. Before . . . before . . . anything . . . I went and got Lucifer like usual. I had no idea. Not until after class when people were talking.” She blinked rapidly.
Quickly, I asked, “How long have you walked the dogs?”
“Since they got them.”
“So, you know them pretty well.”
“Oh, yes, I know Lucifer and Izzy — Izolde well.”
Couldn’t help but like the girl for putting the dogs first. But unless one of them learned to pull a trigger, had remarkably good aim, and had been at someplace called Gallows Path, that wasn’t going to help us figure out who killed Damon Swindell.
“And their owners?”
She skittered away from that like most dogs do from fireworks.
“I don’t know anything that has to do with him getting killed. I never heard— I never saw anything that would tell you about what happened to Damon.”
“Of course, you didn’t see anything that made you think he’d be killed.” Clara was the poster woman for making someone feel seen, heard, and understood. “Nobody would jump to that conclusion. Would they, Sheila?”
I knew my next line. “Absolutely not. What you could tell us, Willow, is more about the dogs. You spend time with them every day?”
“Yes. But not the people . . . That’s the whole reason most people hire a dog walker, isn’t it? Because they’re not there.”
“How did you begin walking the dogs?”
“Bryon Georger called me and asked if I’d walk Izzy — Izolde. He knew I’d walked two dogs for a co-worker of his, who’s home on maternity leave now. Though I still go by sometimes to give her a break.
“I’ve helped train her dogs with an empty stroller, so they’re used to it.
Next week, we’ll try a short walk with the baby in the stroller.
Ease into it before she tries it on her own, with the baby and the two dogs.
I have a couple people lined up to test them with strangers, like you might meet on a walk. ”
That answered whether she would talk if she was comfortable.
She sucked in a deep breath.
“Anyway, Bryon called and asked if I was interested in walking their new dog. I said, sure. I met him and Izzy — Izolde — at their house and he showed me where things were and stuff.”
“Not Zoley Georger?” Clara slid in.
“She came as I was leaving. We met, but that was it. Usually neither of them is there when I walk—” She spoke carefully and came out with the full name. “—Izolde. A couple times she was coming or going when I was around.”
“Does Zoley work?”
She shook her head. “Neither of them does. Zoley or Pammy.”
Her gaze darted from Clara to me.
Uh-oh. Skittering alert. Stick with the dogs.
“How did you come to add Lucifer?” I asked. “Were you walking each of them separately? Or—?”
“No, always the two of them together after they got Lucifer.”
Her mouth scrunched slightly.
I wanted to know about that mouth scrunch. Fear of skittering restrained me.
“Is it hard to walk them? Two energetic puppies—”
“Oh, no. I mean, yeah, they have a lot of energy and neither of them knew the first thing about being on a leash, much less walking manners. The leash tangles were epic to start.”
We chuckled along with her.
“Both of them want to be good. And they learn fast. It’s like you said — they’re still puppies.
After the first time, I got in a routine.
I pick up Lucifer first and bring him to the Georgers’ house.
They have a fenced area in their yard. The Swindells don’t.
Zoley said Pammy and Damon didn’t want to ruin the view of their house from the golf course.
So they put Lucifer on a long leash on the side, between their garage and the neighbors’. ”
“That’s not a lot of running room for a dog like Lucifer.”
She nodded. “Especially at his age. The Georgers’ area for Izolde isn’t huge, more like a run off the back of the garage. But it’s big enough I can let both dogs off leash to play and run—”
Her gaze slid to where the two young dogs emerged into full view as they returned to the flat part of this enclosure. Wind pushed hair across her face. She swept it back with a practiced hand. The dogs bounced off each other as they circled the fence in full-tilt puppy-turning-adolescent mode.
“—before we walk and that works so, so much better.”
“Smart.”
She turned rosy at my single word of praise.
“Sometimes I bring my tablet and do work for my classes. That way they can play longer before we walk or I can stick around after they’re walked and fed, so they have more company.”
“That’s so nice of you.”
More rosy hit Willow’s cheeks. “It’s not that much. I got in the habit when they all took a vacation together early on and I stayed at the house with both dogs.”
“When was that?” Clara asked.
“The end of February. They went to the beach in Mexico.”
We all sighed slightly in retroactive envy at being on a beach in late February.
With all of us united by the sigh, she said, “Bryon said to stay at their house. Zoley didn’t want us there.
Then Damon started talking about their house being bigger and better.
The men went back and forth. Pammy Swindell didn’t say a lot, but she really didn’t want the three of us staying at her house.
“In the end, we stayed at the Georgers’, which was easier for the dogs and me, because of the run. But even the day they left—”
She stopped. Yup, her own words pushed her into skittering territory.
“I shouldn’t complain,” she said.
Darn. We craved complaining.
Clara came to the rescue.
“How were things at the houses normally for the dogs? The usual things you’d see when you took care of them, not anything you wouldn’t expect, not anything a little off.”
Ah, Clara. You very smart woman.
Putting the dogs front and center to make Willow relax. Then, by emphasizing what she wasn’t asking Willow to remember, much less tell us, priming the girl to remember and tell exactly those things.
When Willow hesitated, Clara added casually, “You follow a routine? Go to their house every day? Different schedule different days?”
“Every day. If I skip a day, whoo boy, they’re wound up. They could use more, especially Lucifer.”
“Oh, I know how that is,” Clara said with empathy. “Do the dogs get in trouble in their houses?”
“They’re not in the houses much from what I can tell.” Willow quickly added, “The houses are real nice, so it makes sense, I guess. They’re . . .”
She faded.
Aiming for what I hoped would be the path of least skittering, I contributed, “Are the two houses alike?”
“They’re both pretty new, with new things in them. The Swindells’ is bigger and it has a fountain in front and the pool in back. Well, they both have pools, but . . . Swindells’ has gold all over. All over. And lots of—”
Her hands made looping motions.
“—elaborate designs. Like one of those kings from France or somewhere before they got rid of kings. Only that was real and this . . . Anyway, both houses are real clean. I mean other people I walk dogs for have nice houses and nice things and it’s not like they’re dirty, but they’re not so . . . strict.”
Why on earth had these people gotten dogs?
“Strict in what way?” I asked as neutrally as possible.
“There aren’t any dog toys or beds or such. Izolde isn’t allowed upstairs and Zoley said the dogs were absolutely not to be in the bedrooms. I slept on the couch in what they call the TV room, so I could be with them when I stayed there.
“The Swindells keep a crate in the garage and that’s where Lucifer spends most of his time. He’s still a puppy and his breeding—” She faltered. “He needs lots of exercise. Along with structure. Clear expectations.”
I guessed her pause about the breeding involved Damon Swindell’s contention that the dog was working-line Belgian Malinois and that she shared our skepticism on that point.
“Was Lucifer getting exercise or structure other than what you gave him?” Clara asked.
“No. Letting him run with Izolde and walking him, is still not as much as he needs. Though he’s a whole lot better after our outings than before.
“That’s what I tried to tell Pammy when I went to pick up Lucifer last Monday. He was in the house, which he’d never been before when I came for him. I don’t know how he got in there. She hardly ever has anything to do with him. Afraid of him, I guess.
“He was racing around, sliding on the hardwood floors and she was screaming about his nails scratching them. If there are scratches, it’s from Zoley’s spike heels, not Lucifer— Anyway, he jumped up on the white couch and I thought Pammy’s voice might break all the glass shelves.
Thought Lucifer would come right out of his skin and I’d have to peel him off the ceiling. ”
Clara and I shared a quick look that said, Pammy? Losing control?
Neither of us would have blinked if she’d said Zoley.
Willow shook her head, presumably at the memory. “I was trying to corral him, which wasn’t easy with her screaming. Screaming at him, screaming at me, screaming at Damon.”
I thought of the way Willow earlier said never heard first, before replacing it with never saw.
Because she’d remembered that she had heard something?
“Did he respond?”
“Sort of. He swore a bunch, shouting around the corner of the upstairs hall, saying he was busy. Said her screeching upset the dog and she had to control herself before she could control the dog.”
Leo would be pleased to know someone in that group remembered his words . . . though shouting them wasn’t the ideal delivery method.
“I don’t know. I got him — Lucifer — out of there as fast as I could.”
Kit says sometimes you find out more with an assumption that prompts someone to correct you than with a direct question.
“The couples must do a lot of things together.”
“I guess. Went out to dinner. The dog training.” Her brows tented at running out of additions after that short list. Then her expression cleared. “Zoley and Pammy grew up together. Zoley said that.”
“Where?”
“Um. Somewhere else in Kentucky . . .?” She made it into a question. “They went to the same school. Not like a regular school. She said Pammy had a scholarship even though it was before college.”
“Did she tell you a lot about their going to school together? Any memories or how they met or their families?”
She shook her head before saying, “No.”
“Or how the women met their husbands?”
She shook her head more strongly.
“What about their other friends?” Clara asked. “People they hang out with, do things with?”
Willow went rosy again, but enough of a different tinge to think embarrassment, rather than pleasure.
“I don’t know anything about that man. And I—”
She was about to skitter off completely so I might as well be blunt.
“What man?”
And darned if that didn’t stop her retreat.
“I don’t know him. He showed up one day as I was leaving. Damon pulled in the garage, and this guy in a pickup was right behind him. I thought he was going to plow into the back of Damon’s big truck. He slammed on the brakes just in time.
“He came out of the truck and Damon came from inside the garage — the door was still open — and they were both shouting and I thought they were going to fight. I froze, kind of hidden behind the evergreen at the corner of the garage, hoping they wouldn’t see me.”
“What were they shouting about?” I asked.
“It was so loud and there was so much swearing, it was hard to tell.” Her gaze went slightly unfocused.
“Something about lying and being a sleaze — that was the other guy to Damon. And Damon said something like It’s your own fault.
Man up. And something about Her choice. That’s when the other guy charged at Damon. ”
“What did you do?” Clara asked with empathy.
“I got out of there while they were wrestling in the garage. Was glad my car turned on right away and I didn’t look back.”
Clara nodded approvingly, then slid in, “What did the other man look like?”
Willow shook her head. “I didn’t see him well. He was kind of tall, at least as tall as Damon, but bigger. Not fat, but not thin, either. He had a black UK windbreaker on.”
A man who was neither fat nor thin, wearing a University of Kentucky logo windbreaker in the spring. That did us no good.
“Have you seen other people who come by the house?” I asked.
“Other than their cleaner? No.” A smile flittered at the corners of Willow’s mouth.
“She’s funny with the dogs. Sounds like she’s scolding them, but then she’ll have them out of their crates and with her in the laundry room— Oh.
She made me promise not to tell the Swindells or Georgers about that. I shouldn’t—”
“Our lips are sealed,” Clara pledged.
Willow’s warmth about the cleaner highlighted that she had none about the members of the Gang of Four. The pink returned, likely in recognition of that self-revelation.
“I need to get going now. School stuff,” she said.
Amid praise of her care of the dogs, we spilled out phrases of thanks and reminders to call if she thought of anything else.
She started to turn away, then stopped.
“I don’t know what you can do, but maybe something that will help Izolde and Lucifer.”