Harold and Janice Butler were very nice people. They owned a nice home in Cave Creek, had nice, pleasant personalities and nice smiles on their nice but plain faces. That’s why it surprised me that their pet of choice would be a chow.
Chows are smart. Chows are loyal. Chows aren’t particularly nice, and they tend to take to one person only. Let’s say they resent the rest. I wondered which of these nice people Teddy considered his best friend and which one he considered his competition.
Those thoughts were completely irrelevant to the Butler’s particular problem, but my mind was distracted by the zero possibility that I could figure out Teddy’s troubles using guesswork. Teddy was depressed.
Join the crowd. I was depressed, and my head ached. Auntie and I were making little headway on finding out who killed Elvira, and until the police let her go home to Wisconsin, Auntie would be sharing my home. Teddy didn’t have an Aunt Gertrude. Teddy hadn’t stumbled over a dead body. What could he have to be depressed about?
“How long has the poor thing been this way?” Auntie asked. I’d introduced her as my apprentice who was along to observe, as in not talk. I shot her a look.
“Oh.” Auntie put her hand over her mouth. “Was there something different you wanted to ask?” To Janice she said, “I really shouldn’t butt in, but I get so excited about helping animals.”
They all looked to me for the important question from the professional.
I cleared my throat. “When did you first notice his depression?”
“He was happy-go-lucky up until a few weeks ago. So social, and he loved his food. Sometimes he’d nudge me if I was late with his lunch. And he looked forward to playtime. He even brought me his ball when he was bored and stared at me until I gave in and played fetch. Such a sweetie.”
No need to tell Janice that her dog’s cute behaviors were bullying tactics that showed he thought she was the family pet.
“When my grandchildren get pushy, I give them a time out just to let them know I’m not a doormat,” Auntie said, showing the insight that made her such a good tarot card reader.
“What changed?” I asked, before Janice could absorb the insult.
“Nothing, really. His feeding schedule stayed the same. In fact, we showed him extra attention, but none of it brought back our sweet little Teddy bear.”
There were certainly enough toys lying around to amuse him. Probably too many. Just like humans, too many choices could overwhelm a dog and make him crazy.
“You could try cutting back on the number of toys available. Just give him one at a time and put it away when you’re done.”
Janice recoiled from me with a huge gasp. “But he’d get bored!” She turned to her husband for support.
Harold, a tall, thin man, crossed his gangly arms over his chest. “I don’t want to be handing out toys and putting them away every other minute. It’s easier to just leave them out.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke. “It’s never been a problem before.”
I made a desperate shot in the dark. “Does Teddy have a crate? Some animals find their crate a secure retreat, kind of like when you slip into another room to get some peace and quiet.”
Auntie raised her hand. “Been there, done that. I used to send you kids out to look for broken glass for craft projects.”
“My point is,” I said, wrestling the conversation back, “if you took the crate away, he might get nervous.”
“A crate?” Harold drew back in shock. “That’s just cruel.”
Janet shook her head over and over. “No. No. No. No crate. We’d never do that to poor Teddy.”
Auntie nodded agreement. “We used to let Peaches out the back door in the morning and let her run free. She’d visit the neighborhood dogs and say hello. Had her own routine. Of course, sometimes she’d eat poop and come home smelling like a sewer, but I just wouldn’t let her kiss my face for a few days.”
Their smiles slipped, and I thought they might fall off altogether unless I came up with a solution they felt good about.
Teddy’s warm brown eyes moved from face to face. I had to find a common-sense solution, just like I’d done for years as a charlatan pet psychic. It shouldn’t be that difficult. The answer usually rested with the pet parents. Janice radiated the eager energy of a mom about to go on a baking spree, and Harold seemed the type of benign man who would shy away from any controversy.
“You know,” Auntie said, reaching into her purse. “I find that animals are so sensitive to their owners. Perhaps the solution lies with one of you.”
I shot her a quick look, surprised that our thoughts followed the same path. I shouldn’t have been, really. When I was a kid and she was teaching me how to cold read, we almost always came up with the same conclusions. When had I stopped looking up to her and started thinking of her as an annoyance? My cheeks grew warm with shame, and I resolved to be more patient with her while she remained in Arizona.
Auntie pulled out her deck of tarot cards. “If you want a reading…”
The back of my neck tingled as if someone were watching us. I jerked my head round to look over my shoulder. Nothing. When I turned back, Teddy jumped up, his tail wagging furiously. He did a doggie bow, shook his head and snorted. He was greeting someone. Or something.
“Well, look at that!” Auntie reluctantly put her cards away. “Maybe he just had indigestion. It always makes me lethargic.”
Light panting tickled my ear, as if I had picked up and hugged up a toy poodle, except the breath was cold. I rubbed my ear against my scrunched-up shoulder.
A flash of light swished through the room, and suddenly a long-haired silver pup with pricked-up ears swirled in circles around Teddy’s feet, yapping in ecstasy.
I jumped out of my seat.
There was something off-kilter about his bark. It sounded hoarse and dry, and it was followed by the kind of echo that comes with cheap microphones. His fur shimmered with a brightness that couldn’t be explained by excellent brushing techniques.
“Um, I thought you only had one dog.”
Harold stared, and Janice twittered nervously. “We do. Teddy.” She nodded her head at the chow as he rubbed his back into the carpet. The silky terrier stood over him, panting.
“What about the little guy?”
Janice grabbed Harold’s hand. “Little guy?”
Auntie leaned over and stage-whispered. “Maybe your headaches are because you need glasses, Sissy.”
Harold coughed. “We had a Yorkie, but he died.”
“Not a Yorkie. A silky,” I whispered, not exactly splitting hairs, but when you’re staring at a dog no one else can see, you like to be clear about these things.
“Yorkie. Silky. Who cares?” Harold said. “He looked like a Yorkie.”
Janice’s nice lady face was replaced by flaring nostrils and pinched lips. “If you’d cared, maybe you wouldn’t have let Bonzo out without his leash and maybe he’d be alive today.”
“Good grief. You act like I pushed him in front of the car!”
All the air was sucked out of the room as if someone were operating a cosmic vacuum sealer. At least, I assume that’s why I couldn’t get any when I inhaled. Wheezing hard, I crouched on the floor to get a better look at—I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t even think it. A doggie ghost?
Bonzo looked over his shoulder at me and yipped. Then he trundled over and licked my hand. It tickled, and I’m sure he meant well, but I snatched my hand away and rubbed off the drool on my pants. Except there wasn’t any. My hand was dry.
How in the name of everything that walks on four legs could I be communicating with a dead dog? It was bad enough that live animals used to barge through my imaginary mental door at will, but dead animals?
“Ms. Chandler,” Janice said, this time in a crisp, no-nonsense tone. She watched me closely, and I realized I was still on my hands and knees. “What does Bonzo have to do with anything?”
I got up and tried to formulate my answer without any of the harsh language I was tempted to use. It amazed me how even kind, loving, nice people could be so dense. “Bonzo and Teddy were friends, right?”
“They got along fine,” Harold said. “I used to throw the tennis ball around the backyard for both of them.” He added this last bit on a triumphant note, as if it proved he deserved pet parent of the year.
“Bonzo is friends with Teddy,” I repeated in a slow patient voice I’ve heard people use with children. “Bonzo dies. Teddy gets depressed.”
It took a minute, but they finally said, in unison, “Oh.”
“You might want to get Teddy another friend. You can’t replace Bonzo, but the three of them—I mean the two of them can play together.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that their dead pet was in the room. “The depression should go away.”
Getting another pet is a big step, and I appreciated it when Janice said they would think about it.
As I walked to my car, I looked over my shoulder at their formerly nice faces, now marred by the uncertainty that comes after a pet psychic actually communicates with their animal. People want it, at least they say they do, but the experience is nothing like a smooth magic trick from a polished performer. And that was when I read live animals. I didn’t want to think about what dead pets might have to say to me.
At least I had my fifty bucks.
“That was genius,” Auntie said, her eyes wide with wonder. “You think outside the box. I never would have come up with the idea of a dead pet. Did you see him in one of their family photos? I must have missed it.”
In the car, I clutched the steering wheel and stared without seeing. A dead pet had invaded my skull. I shuddered, and if it had been possible to take out my brain and run it under soapy water, I’d be scrubbing away right now.
I’m a pragmatist. While everyone thinks vampires are sexy, I realize that characters who snuggle with them are snuggling with a cold, lifeless corpse. There wasn’t anything cute and snuggly about a dead pet, either.
My breathing stopped. Last month, I’d been able to read Bowers and Seamus. What if Elvira tried to contact me from the grave?
“We should get some lunch, Sissy. You’re kind of pale.”
Putting my car in drive, I vowed to put a lock on that stupid, flimsy mental door. Bonzo slipped right through without even knocking first, and there was no way I was taking the chance that Elvira might pay me a visit.
We hit a drive-through, and then I dropped Auntie off and went to the drugstore for more aspirin. Now that pet messages were popping up again without my issuing an invitation, I would have to work harder at keeping the communication lines closed. I’d have to be prepared for the headaches, and I didn’t want Auntie insisting I go see a doctor.
Funny thing was, ever since Bonzo made his appearance, my headache had disappeared.