Chapter Thirty-Five
The drama of their entry took a nose-dive when their dogs zigged, then zagged, crossing their leashes in front of the women.
Zoley started to drop back in an attempt to drag her dog into place.
“Stop it,” Pammy ordered Zoley. Then, to Izolde, “Here.”
She grabbed Izolde’s leash. Uncrossed it from Lucifer’s, handed Izolde’s back to Zoley, then stepped forward. Lucifer had sat, directly in her path, his attention riveted on all of us. She pushed Lucifer forward with her foot.
She didn’t kick him.
It hardly mattered.
Even before he jumped up, the contact of her shoe with Lucifer caused a chorus of sucked-in breath that would have changed the reading on a barometer.
Leo lurched forward, but Pammy was faster.
She advanced into the space. “We want to thank you — our friends — for your support in this horrible time. We came here tonight to show that we are united, not torn apart, by this horror and to try to gain a short period of something resembling normalcy amid these horrific events.”
As if Pammy hadn’t already sucked all life out of the word and its cousins, Zoley chimed in from behind her with “Horrible.”
The frozen silence stretched longer, until Leo shook himself — not as efficiently as a wet dog, but good enough to get moving.
“Yes, okay. So sorry about— But, good. I mean good you’re here. Together. Good for Lucifer and Izolde, too. They must be unsettled. And you two, of course.”
He appeared to recognize he’d reached the threshold of inescapable awkwardness. He skipped expressing condolences for the murder of one husband and the arrest of another.
He said, “Have a seat. We’ll get started.”
He did his best to turn the last part into the truth,
Can’t say the rest of us did a lot to help.
* * * *
After a couple quick review rounds, the first new exercise was Leave it.
Leo kept after us all to give the command with authority.
“Need to make an impact with your voice. Your dog needs to have no doubt. This is the voice you use to keep your dog from eating poison or disemboweling a chipmunk.”
That drew ews from several of us, including me.
Next, the owner was supposed to get the dog’s focus and keep it, while giving sit, down, stay, by me commands.
I had severe focus envy when Oscar and Quasar had their turn. She looked at him as if the rest of the world disappeared.
Leo called Gracie and me up to follow that.
Gracie got the commands. The focus? Not so much.
Her head swiveled everywhere but at me.
“You have to work with your dog’s breed — or breeds — and the individual pup. For example, rough collies like Gracie are sentries, attuned to any potential intrusion on their flock.”
It was like Leo heard Lassie Syndrome angst brewing in my head and knew the antidote for it.
“But do work at home on focus,” he finished as we sat down.
The truth is all of us focused most on Pammy and Zoley, neither of whom showed much interest in the exercises.
And yet, the two women did not provide the most memorable moment of the class.
Layla struggled getting Bernie to sit. Leo directed her to lower her voice to gruff.
That didn’t work. In fact, Bernie took it as an opportunity to break away and bound toward the Bostons. Berrie jumped up as if to defend them.
Leo demonstrated the voice to use with a quick, “Bernie, sit!”
Berrie sat.
* * * *
The only warning outside Zepke’s was from our dogs.
They wagged their tails when a figure emerged from the dark as we reached my car.
Two figures.
One of them was short, cute, and canine.
Quasar.
Quickly followed by Oscar. “Sorry if I startled you.”
We’d emitted small, simultaneous gasps.
Clara gave reassurances that he hadn’t truly startled us.
I didn’t.
He had. And I had a suspicion he might have intended to.
“. . . only because we thought you’d left well before us, and with it being dark right here—”
He cut across Clara’s words. “I did leave before you. Was in my car. On the phone.”
His staccato delivery alerted Clara, judging from the fact that she stopped reassuring him.
“Willow called me. She said you asked her a lot of questions. A lot more questions. I’m here to tell you to stop.”
“Willow knows—” That’s all Clara got out.
“I’m aware you have learned of the connection between Willow and me.
Of Willow’s devotion to my late wife. Of her generosity after Jean’s death.
Of her ongoing generosity. You might think you have found out something, but it’s only a young woman being generous and caring.
Don’t try to make something else of it.”
“We can ask you—”
“No. I’m not talking to you.”
With him cutting off Clara twice, I stepped up to the plate.
“Willow agreed to talk to us, to cooperate. She’s helped us understand things. And if we have more questions—”
“No.” This time the word came out harsh enough to make Quasar flinch and all the dogs look at Oscar in surprise. “You don’t talk to her anymore. You’ll have to take my word for it. She knows nothing of use to you.”
“That’s not the way it works when someone’s been murdered. There will be questions — many of which you will not enjoy, some you will consider intrusive. They will still be asked and you will answer them, whether to us or the sheriff’s department. Or both.”
I thought my speech was impressive.
He didn’t.
“We’ll see about that.” He walked away, with Quasar doing a perfect heel at his side.
Show off.
We remained in place while he got into a midsize sedan down the street, then drove away.
“Interesting,” Clara said.
“Uh-huh. You were going to say something about Willow knowing the dogs — Lucifer and Izolde — weren’t you?”
“And through them she observed the murder victim, so of course we’re interested in talking to her. That didn’t seem to occur to him.”
“Nope. He went directly to us talking to Willow because of her devotion to his dead wife and him.”
“As I said, interesting.” Clara opened the back door for the dogs to hop in. “You know, if Oscar used that voice for Leave it, Quasar would never be in danger of eating something she shouldn’t.”
“We, on the other hand, are not dogs.”
“No, we’re not.”
“As much as I love our dogs, it’s a good thing we’re not dogs, since it would make it hard, if not impossible, for us to ask Willow and Oscar more questions,” I said.
“Which we are absolutely going to do.”
“Questions like if she made up the description of the man who tackled Damon. Like if it was actually Oscar.”
* * * *
Teague had messaged that he’d missed me and had one last meeting before he went to bed early to catch his first flight the next day. He ended by saying he was looking forward to seeing me.
I messaged back, confirming the time I’d pick him up at the airport.
Yes, there were things ahead of us, but I sure was looking forward to him being home.