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Baxter and I had planned to have lunch together, but he had to cancel. We promised to have dinner together, even though our schedules were so tight; I’d decided to bring it from home after I’d fed the dogs. Grabbing lunch, however, turned out to be easier; a fast-food counter had opened for business today in the second building. I wandered over there and got myself a vegetarian cheeseburger and fries and entered an adjoining room where a few folding chairs and tables were assembled. Marsala was sitting in the corner, looking almost as unhappy as she did yesterday afternoon.
She lifted her gaze as I neared. Although she didn’t smile, she didn’t grimace at me either. “May I join you?” I asked.
“Sure. Thanks.” She kept her eyes on me as I took my seat. I felt a prickle of alarm from the intensity of her expression; she seemed eager for me to speak to her. Her dark hair was more than a little unkempt, and her eyes were so wide, it was unnerving. She looked a tad unhinged.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, “despite your terrible ordeal yesterday.”
“I did think about withdrawing my dogs and staying home. Then I realized that would have been like letting the killer win, you know? Frankly, I felt like I’d put up too valiant a fight to undermine myself like that. I’ve kept my head held high despite Terrington dumping me. I’ve finally taken it on myself and stepped forward to protest the favoritism that Valerie and all of Terrington’s high-society clients have been getting. I’d discovered that being dumped by that jerk was the best thing that happened to me. Then Mark or Cooper killed him...all but right in front of me. What am I supposed to do now, you know?”
I waited, expecting her to continue, but she merely stared at me. “Did you find an answer to that question?” I prompted.
She shrugged. “To carry on. To do precisely what I had been intending to do. Try to open the eyes of my fellow members of the Fort Collins Dog Club, so that they’ll at least try to make it a fair competition.”
“Good for you,” I replied. I had tried to put some gusto in my voice, but she was still giving me the creeps. She continued to strike me as not being all there. Her eyes looked glassy. I should have brought my lunch over to Baxter’s empty office. I was in no way confident that Marsala hadn’t killed Terrington.
“Do you think Cooper’s arm is truly broken?” she asked.
“Yes. His arm is in an authentic looking cast.”
“He could easily have gotten someone to put a cast on his arm...asked a favor of a physician apprentice or assistant or whatever. Someone he knew in the medical field.”
“Why would he do that?”
She leaned forward, put her elbows on the table, and scanned the room as if worried someone could be listening in on us. “Maybe it was part of his plan. Maybe he was planning to kill Terrington and make it look like he was physically incapable, due to his broken arm. So he went ahead and made up this whole lost-in-the-mountains story.”
“But if the cast on his arm is fake, he’d get caught in the act immediately. The police will verify his seeing a doctor and getting a cast put on. Plus, the cast didn’t throw off any suspicion. You thought he’d done it when you saw him yesterday, and he says his prints are on the knife.”
“That’s true. Maybe I’ve just seen too many murder mysteries on TV. And I know he’s a criminal. I already know he’s a thief.”
I’d only just taken a bite of my burger and nearly choked on it. A moment later I said, “Cooper Hayes is a thief?”
She nodded. “Didn’t you hear about my accusations last year?”
“No.”
“He stole my jewelry out of my locker.”
“You’re saying that Cooper Hayes stole your jewelry at the dog show last year? Yet he wasn’t banned from showing dogs this year?” I knew my tone of voice was making my skepticism obvious, but baseless accusations weren’t going to help matters. “How and when did this happen?”
“Cooper is a locksmith of sorts. He can open anyone’s locker and take just enough out of wallets or what have you that you’re not sure you should bother filing charges. He’ll take a twenty and leave a ten. He does it so easily and swiftly it’s all but impossible to catch him in the act. So the police didn’t find any evidence that he was the one who stole my diamond ring and my wedding band. I had stashed them in a locker each day last year because of, well, my affair with Terrington.”
“How do you know it was Cooper?”
“I caught him taking money out of a woman’s purse. It turned out to be his ex-wife’s purse, which she eventually claimed she had given him permission to take. But he’d been holding some sort of lock pick. So not even five minutes after I caught him stealing cash, I checked my locker. Sure enough, my rings were gone.”
“He claimed it was a coincidence?” I asked.
“Right. And I don’t think the police really believed me about the rings having been stolen. And it was pretty freaking clear Davis Miller and his cronies didn’t believe me. They never would have given him the post as manager of the Terrier Class in the first place. Which he was a disaster at, by the way. It was up to me as a member of the dog club to sound the alarm, although my fellow members all agreed.”
“Valerie suggested Baxter take over for him, right?”
She snorted. “And what Valerie says, Valerie gets,” Marsala replied. She widened her eyes even more. “But Baxter was a great choice. Don’t get me wrong. That’s not a knock against Baxter. I just meant...no matter who she chose, they’d get the job. That’s how Cooper got the job originally, despite being a lousy choice.”
“I’d assumed Valerie was the one who insisted on Cooper being replaced.”
“No, you’re wrong. Just ask around. Dozens of us were complaining, and I stepped up and spoke with Kiki and Davis about it. So Valerie heard her Terrier-owner disciples complaining, then she told the Millers to hire Baxter. Who’s a Godsend, by the way.” She stood up. “Thanks for listening, Allida. I’m sorry if I talked your ear off. I get a little pent up.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m surprised, is all. I guess the theft of your rings was overshadowed by the mess with Valerie’s and Jesse’s dogs.”
“Yeah,” she grumbled. “Who could’ve believed Valerie’s pregnant dog would get so much attention?”
Later that afternoon, I noticed that a few dozen members of the FCDC were holding some sort of get-together in the middle of what, starting tomorrow, would be the main show ring. There were the pleasant sounds of laughter and happy chatter. I scanned the faces and spotted Marsala chatting with five other women. They were all smiling at whatever she was saying. The sight made me feel better about our lunch conversation. She did have friends within the club, and she might have been completely truthful about Cooper’s incident with his now-former wife’s purse. Maybe he stole Marsala’s rings. Or someone else stole them. Or she’d lost them. Whatever the case proved to be, it was great that there was some kindness in Marsala’s life. It was also comforting to see several people who were enjoying one another’s company.
I spotted the plaid lady then, who was looking right at me. She smiled and beckoned me. We met on either side of the fence that enclosed the ring. “I just wanted to thank you for your help today,” she said. “Richard Cory is good as new. And I accepted Kiki’s apology. My little boy does indeed love to eat tissues, but it’s not like anyone else would have known to worry about such a thing.”
“Right,” I said, agreeing that was true enough. “I’m really glad Richard Cory is okay.”
“Me, too. He’s the light of my life, now that my kids are grown...and haven’t given me grandkids yet. And even if he can’t top Valerie’s line of Westies in a show.”
“Well, you never know till you try.”
She gave me a knowing smile. “This is his fourth try at this one show alone,” she replied. “But maybe his fifth will be a charm.”
“Right,” I said again.
“I’ll be happy regardless. Just as long as nobody else is killed. And nobody else’s dog is drugged. And, well, nobody else brings a dog in heat.”
“And nobody else’s jewelry disappears,” I added, testing her reaction despite my better judgment to leave well enough alone.
“Oh, that’s right. Marsala’s diamond ring. I’d forgotten about that.” She glanced over her shoulder where Marsala was still holding court. “That whole thing struck me as odd,” she said, lowering her voice. “It happened the last day of the show...when Marsala insisted she’d seen Cooper raiding the locker room and called the cops. The thing is, I’d happened to ask Marsala about her rings on the very first morning of the show, when I spotted her putting them in a locker. I said something like, ‘Be sure and remember they’re there when you leave.’ And she said something like, ‘No biggie. It’s just a zirconia.’ I went ahead and brought that up when she accused Cooper Hayes. She snapped at me that she just fibbed about it being a fake because she hated her husband and didn’t like to admit he’d ever given her something so expensive.”
“Do you think she was telling you the truth that time?” I asked.
“Maybe. Probably. I don’t really know Marsala all that well. But I’m sure nobody would go through all of the trouble of calling the police over losing a fake diamond ring.”
I nodded. She turned around and headed back into the gathering. My mood once again faltered. Marsala was having an affair, so she probably wanted to call her engagement and wedding rings worthless. She also probably wanted to upstage Valerie, considering how vehement she’d been as she claimed the judges were partial to Valerie. And if Cooper had indeed stolen the ring, I had been thinking too highly of the man. There was no simple way to take much solace in this sorry dog show. People were once again not measuring up to their dogs.