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I quickened my pace toward the front exit. I wished I’d planned today’s schedule better. When I set up my training sessions, I’d envisioned myself working from home or my office in Boulder. Instead I would be traveling to Tracy’s home in Boulder, Valerie’s house in the eastern boonies near my house, then to Jesse’s home in Longmont—fifteen miles or so closer to Boulder. I’d stop off to feed Doppler, Barker, and Ginger, then return north to Fort Collins. It was not unlike being a contestant in “Amazing Race,” with my challenges at each location to train dogs how to improve their times on obstacle courses. Although when it came to Bingley, my challenge was to get him to participate in something resembling a race on a designated course.
Just as I reached the door, I heard Kiki call my name. I stopped and waited as she managed to trot toward me in her high-heel shoes.
Kiki grinned at me, which was a little surprising. We’d had a less-than-chummy day. “I’m glad I caught you before you left for the day.”
“I’m coming back later tonight. Baxter and I have dinner plans.” By “dinner plans,” I hoped she’d assume we were eating out at a romantic restaurant. Her crack about Baxter needing somebody to have his back still stung.
She looked at her computer tablet. “Good for you. I have a couple of assignments for you. If you don’t mind.”
“Okay,” I said, cautious but also too curious to instantly decline.
“Cooper hasn’t been arrested yet,” Kiki began, meeting my gaze. “He now insists he can show dogs, despite his arm in a cast. But, for obvious reasons, it would be best if he stayed away from the dog show completely.”
“Does he think that would be best?”
“No, and that’s where your assignment number one comes in. You’d likely be the best person to tell him to stay home. You two have obviously bonded. Other than his hair, he’s quite handsome, don’t you think?”
“Not especially, no.” I studied her features, hoping to get a read on her. Was she trying to pique my interest in dating him, or her own? I decided to be blunt. “Maybe that’s just because Baxter and I are in our relationship for the long haul.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You two make a cute couple.”
Her voice was just a tad short of haughty. No sense in antagonizing her, though. “Thank you.”
“So can I count on you to dissuade Cooper from attending the show?”
“You can count on me to suggest strongly that he skip the show, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll follow my recommendation.”
“Okee dokee,” she muttered, again glancing at her tablet. “Onto assignment number two. Dad and I have been maintaining contact with all of Terrington’s clients. Most of them already had a backup handler in mind. If you can offer to present one more dog in Terrington’s place, we’ll be all set. The owner is Eleanor McCarthy.”
That was the name of the woman who was suing Baxter and me. “Eleanor McCarthy?” I repeated, trying not sound alarmed. “Does she live in Dacona, by any chance?”
Kiki scrolled on her tablet. “Yes. Do you know her?” Before I could answer she said, “Oh. That’s right! She’s super close to where you live, isn’t she?”
I couldn’t get a take on Kiki’s cheerful expression. She could have orchestrated this deliberately, or she could be totally unaware of Eleanor’s and my unpleasant entanglement.
“Yes. Her property backs to ours. I didn’t realize she owns a dog, as well as a cat.” I was referring to the cat that had trespassed into our barn. And inspired her to write up a petition stopping us from kenneling dogs.
“She owns a Toy Poodle. This will be the dog’s first show.” She started typing on her phone. “There. I’ve just texted Eleanor’s contact information to you.”
My phone made its “text” beep accordingly.
“I’m hoping this will work out okay, since she and her pooch are such neophytes,” Kiki continued. “With a newbie like Eleanor, I have no way of knowing if she’ll agree to anyone other than Terrington. Typically, Terrington’s clients are absolutely convinced that they have hired the cream of the crop to present their dogs. But if you can just give her a call and offer to present her dog on the show’s behalf, that will let the McCarthys know that we did our best.”
“I’m flattered. Thanks so much for saying I’m your best!”
She apparently took my words at face value and snorted. She looked again at her notes. “Whoops. I shouldn’t have pluralized ‘McCarthy.’ She’s divorced.” She furrowed her brow. “Oh, that’s right! I need to clue you in on something.”
She waited for me to ask: What, but this time I could easily ascertain that she was trying to gain the upper hand. I held my tongue.
“There’s a rumor that Eleanor McCarthy was dating Terrington Leach. This could be a little awkward.”
“Thanks for the heads up.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied,
“What about the Wheaton that Terrington was showing? Has that owner found a handler?”
“A Wheaton?” she asked. She again referred to her tablet. “He was never supposed to present a Wheaton.”
“Terrington told me he was. He must have said that as an excuse. I’d asked him to take on a Wheaton that Cooper was originally presenting. Which reminds me. I still have to ask Cooper for that Wheaton owner’s contact info.”
Again, Kiki made a face as if she couldn’t believe how misguided I was. “Cooper was never showing a Wheaton, Allida. He was showing the Bull Terrier, Waxy, Scottie the Scottie, and an Airedale named Eeyore. That’s it. You have Wheatons on the brain.”
She pivoted on her two-inch heel and walked away. At least she’d made it clear that she truly was trying to antagonize me. Which also made it clear that I’d rather not give her the pleasure of getting a rise out of me.
As I rounded Tracy’s corner lot in north Boulder, I saw that she had at least gotten the agility apparatuses that she’d borrowed from us placed in her back yard. She heard me drive up and came out to greet me, Bingley tucked under her arm like a rolled-up newspaper.
“Finally!” Tracy grumbled. “I know you have the murder and everything to deal with, but I really thought you’d be spending more time training than this!”
“Have you been doing the training exercises like I asked?”
“Well, yeah, but not happily.”
“He needs as much repetition as he can possibly get,” I pointed out. “And training a dog more than two hours at a stretch is counter-productive.”
“So is having his trainer ignore him. Plus, I thought you were having financial problems. Happiness can’t buy money, you know.”
“And old tricks can’t teach a new dog.”
Tracy pursed her lips. “I ran out of stupid sayings. Please just give me a really good two hours. Both of you. I need the grins.”
“Rough day at the radio station?”
“Yeah. The Fort Collins police won’t talk to me. They say I try to sensationalize every news story I get.”
“That’s true, isn’t it?”
“Well, sure. Nobody in the media searches out boring content for their broadcasts.” Her eyes lit up. “Which reminds me. Did you hear the latest rumor about Terrington Leach?”
“That he’d been dating my neighbor Eleanor?”
“Is that the lady with the cat?”
“Plus a Toy Poodle she had signed on with Terrington as his handler.”
“Oh, goody! Is she a suspect in the murder?”
“I don’t think so.” An annoying possibility occurred to me. “Were you playing me just now? Tricking me into giving you a tip about the investigation? Or did you actually have a juicy rumor about Terrington to share?”
“Meh. I’d say fifty-fifty. I did hear that Terrington and Kiki had been a couple at one time, and it ended badly.”
I’d never heard that, although it didn’t surprise me. I nodded, determined not to reward her with even more information about Terrington. “I heard that, too,” I fibbed.
“They were in the immediate area, weren’t they?” Tracy asked. “And either Eleanor or Kiki could have felt so betrayed by him that they had a motive.”
“I guess that’s always possible.” Especially with regard to Kiki, because she was indeed in the immediate vicinity of the murder scene. Definitely not something I would tell Tracy, who would be broadcasting that tidbit with abandon in tomorrow’s show. “I can’t have a regular conversation about this with you, Tracy. I don’t want my opinions about the show to hit the airwaves.”
“But I’m not saying anything that’s going to take audiences away from the show. My own dog’s going to be performing there. I want the show to be a huge success.” She set Bingley down and snapped a leash onto his collar. “I’m not about to tell my listeners: ‘Hey, guys! Watch out! There’s a killer on the loose in the Fort Collins Fairgrounds.’”
“Good to hear.” I grabbed Bingley’s leash. “Bingley and I are going to get a great two-hour workout on the obstacle course now.”
An hour later, I had done a lot more running than the dog. He was better on weaving through the posts than I had any right to expect. That is usually the hardest obstacle because it requires dogs to move in unnatural, counterintuitive ways. I did get him to jump over the rails. He would not enter the tunnel, regardless of what I did. At one point, I got so frustrated I put him in the tunnel then lifted that end and tried to slide him through and dump him out. The material was too flexible for that, so I tried to pull it out from under him like a magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a set of dishes and glasses. He was too good at running along with the moving tunnel. Same story on the bridge and seesaw.
The biggest problem with all of that was that when he was competing, I couldn’t touch the dog or the equipment. If he repeated this behavior in the ring, it wasn’t going to be entertaining; it was just going to be a few minutes of a dog lying down in an agility course until I carried him off. Desperate times requiring desperate measures, I called Valerie and asked if I could please bring Bingley to her house and let Bingley watch Sophie and follow her around the course once afterward. As I anticipated, she said no to the latter; she didn’t want another dog to “teach Sophie bad habits.” While she would allow him to watch Sophie and use the course by himself afterward, she told me to bring someone to control the Beagle while Sophie and I were occupied with the agility course; she was not about to pay an employee to assume that task, and she had better things to do than watch a Beagle mess up. Baxter was, of course, busy in Fort Collins. The only viable option was to ask Tracy to come with me to watch my final training session with Sophie Sophistica.
During our drive to Valerie’s ranch in my Toyota Corolla, I told Tracy that Valerie might respond to flattery on her part, which could perhaps persuade her to grant us the opportunity to have Bingley chase Sophie around the obstacle course. I assured Tracy that such a thing would be immensely helpful with Bingley’s learning curve, which, if anything, was upside down.
“Great idea!” Tracy said to me, then spent the trip with her eyes glued to her cellphone. Bingley, meanwhile, spent the trip jumping back and forth over the seatbacks, tunneling under the seats, and doing an amazing military crawl on his elbows, squeezing himself on the shelf behind the back seat and the rear window. I had no doubt that if there were weaving posts attached to a seesaw on my floorboards, he would also be weaving while teetertottering with breathtaking ease.
We arrived at Valerie’s home, and she answered the door. Sophie was sitting beside her in the doorway, her tail wagging furiously. Tracy was holding Bingley in her arms, in order to delay Valerie discovering how poorly trained he was on leash.
“I’m Tracy Truitt,” she said before I’d had the chance to make introductions. “It’s such an honor to meet you. I’ve got two friends who bought puppies from you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such perfection on four paws before.”
Valerie beamed. “How nice of you to say so. What are the dogs’ and owners’ names?”
“Aaron and Susan Fleischer, with the esteemed little Barron Chastwick. Also Deborah and George Bering, the proud owners of Melrose Esther.”
“Two of my champions! The Fleischers live in Denver, and the Berings live in Grand Junction. How did you meet them?”
“Through my job as a talk show radio host. That’s how I met Allie and developed such a deep affection for dogs myself. She’s has such an uncanny expertise on dog behavior. As do you. It’s no wonder you were smart enough to hire her.”
Valerie glanced at me, then beamed at Tracy. “This was actually my first occasion to need a trainer’s assistance since I was a teenager. My knee has slowed me down too much to handle the agility trial work.”
“Ugh. I know just what you’re going through. I had to have surgery on my knee not too long ago. A softball injury. Forgive me if I’m being too forward, but can you possibly join us while Allie works with Sophie Sophistica, and Bingley and I watch? I’d love to hear any insight you can give me.”
“Of course. We’ll meet you at the back door. Allie can lead the way.” She glanced behind her, still grinning. “Let me just get Sophie’s leash.” She slapped her thigh, and Sophie obeyed and trotted alongside her.
Tracy winked at me as she set Bingley down. The dog tried to race away, but the leash thwarted him. I then led the way to the red-slate path to the back yard. “You were reading up on Valerie as we drove out here, I see.”
“I know how to do research, girl. Furthermore, ‘Obsequious’ is my middle name.”
“Really? I would have thought it would be ‘Assertive’,” I teased.
“It should have been, but then some jerk at City Hall would have shortened that particular name to ‘Ass.’”
“Well, then. Wise compromise, Ms. Tracy Obsequious Truitt. I’ll just call you ‘Tot’ from now on.”
A minute or two later, Tracy and Valerie were chattering away like the best of friends, and the dogs scoped each other out as we made our way inside the barn and surveyed her arena. Valerie had brought her stopwatch. Midway through our hour-long session, she acted as a proxy for the judge—standing in front of one of the obstacles’ entry point. After two more practice runs, Valerie invited Tracy and Bingley down from their seats in the stands to watch Sophie from inside the ring. Tracy sat on the ground with Bingley in front of her, gripping Sophie’s collar with both hands. He started whining, trying to join Sophie, which was an excellent sign.
Sophie flew through the course. As we crossed the finish line and turned to face them, Valerie did a doubletake at her watch.
“Great run, eh?” I asked Valerie.
“Quite nice, yes.” She slipped the watch back into her pocket. “You know, I feel fine with letting Bingley follow Sophie in some just-for-grins runs. I’m now reasonably confident that doing so won’t throw her off her game. It might be fun for her, too.”
“That’s wonderful, Valerie,” I said, truly happy about this. Allowing an experienced dog to help teach an inexperienced dog was an excellent training technique. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome. Don’t forget our appointment tomorrow morning, when Kiki Miller sends all of the agility competitors a map of the course layout.”
“Eight o’clock, right?”
“Better make it seven. Unless that’s going to conflict with your meeting with Jesse.”
“No, I’m meeting Jesse later. He’ll be staying onsite in his trailer starting tonight.”
Valerie snorted. “As if being holed up in a trailer for three days is better than making a forty-minute drive from home. And he was so eager to get a good space, he had to pay for the lot starting on Tuesday, when he isn’t even using his trailer. It’s absolutely inane, if you ask me.”
I held my tongue, thinking what a strange figure of speech “if you ask me” was; it was only appropriate to say when you hadn’t asked, which logically means you don’t want the speaker’s opinion.
Tracy strode up to Valerie. “Thanks a million! Bingley entering the agility competition is merely a publicity stunt. I twisted Allie’s arm into doing it. I think it will really help the attendance by publicizing my attempts to get Bingley working an agility course at the show. I have contacts with the local TV news shows.”
“I don’t know if I agree that it will increase attendance. But I suppose we truly could use a good story on the Fort Collins Dog Show. Considering it’s now all about Terrington Leach’s murder.”
“Right. Time to shift the focus away from the search for the killer.”
Valerie snorted. “Oh, I heard from the police chief’s wife that he’s already convinced Cooper Hayes is guilty. They just need to keep making a good show that they’re still investigating other leads.” Her brow was furrowed. She’d returned to her typical prickly mood. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?” She looked at her wrist watch. “I’ve got things to do. You have free run of the course and my little future champion for thirty minutes. Then bring her back to the house.”
“Thanks again,” Tracy said, her smile now less confident.
“Don’t mention it. Nice meeting you.”
“You, too,” Tracy replied.
We watched her walk away. “I said way too much, didn’t I?” Tracy whispered.
“She’s always moody. Let’s just make the most of our time.” I removed Bingley’s collar. “You guys ready to play?” I asked, petting first Sophie, then Bingley; it’s always important to maintain dogs’ pecking orders, and we all needed Sophie to be the leader.
I took off on my run through the course pointing at the apparatus and giving verbal commands as well: Jump, up, down, under, over, around etcetera. Bingley was naturally competitive and was mimicking many of the feats that Sophie was doing. Other times, he was simply running around the obstacles. Sometimes he tried to lure Sophie into chasing him instead of following my instructions. But all four of us truly had fun. Predictably, as soon as I had Tracy pick up Sophie so that Bingley had to follow my commands on his own, he lost interest in our game. I could tell, though, that he knew what I was telling him to do; he just didn’t want to follow my instructions.
“Dang it,” Tracy said. “He was doing so well.”
“He’s a Beagle,” I said with a shrug. “Obstinance is their middle name.”