Free Ruff Way to Go by Leslie O'Kane Page B

a visit to Mom a couple of years ago, I’d seen
Betsy Haywood swing a broom to chase off a dog who’d ventured onto their front
lawn.
    And yet, now
that my course was taking me farther and farther away, it struck me that there
was something significant about those particular prints, some peculiarity,
perhaps, that proved them to be identical to the bloody ones I’d seen the day
before. I wanted to turn around and take a second look at those paw prints. At
the same time, my sudden urge to reverse directions might only be an
unconscious excuse to avoid seeing Susan again. I assured myself that mere was
no rush; the prints would still be there when I returned to Berthoud.
    Upon further
reflection, I wasn’t sure about the significance of the notepaper. While it
would be a huge coincidence if the notes had come from separate pads, it was
also a stretch to think that the Haywoods would be so careless as to use the
same paper twice. Or could the killer have first lured Cassandra, or me as a
scapegoat, into the backyard with the note, then planted the notepad in the
Haywoods’ house to frame the Haywoods? It seemed strange that the grouchy
Haywoods would have a bright magenta-colored notepad. But then, trying to match
people’s stationery to their personality was probably every bit as foolish as
matching styles of collars to dogs.
    Even so, the
address on its familiar sheet of paper was all but burning a hole in my pocket.
At a wide shoulder of hard-packed dirt and gravel, I pulled over and did a
pencil rubbing of the paper, tilting the pencil to give light, wide strokes
from the side of the lead so that the impression from the note that had been
atop this one could be seen. This was a trick that any self-respecting, budding
secret agent learns as a child. Unfortunately, Susan’s address obscured the
faint markings from the preceding sheet.
    Fifteen
minutes later, I reached the outskirts of town. Lyons is a nice little place,
not unlike Berthoud. It’s something of a bedroom community for Boulder and is a
convenient stopping place for those traveling to or from Estes Park—a
tourist town just southwest of Rocky Mountain National Park. I wasn’t
especially familiar with the streets, but reasoned that the town was small
enough for me to find Susan Nelson’s street without too much trouble.
    Eventually I
found the address her parents had given me and parked on the street. Although
the yard and gardens were lovely, the house itself was unimpressive, to put it
kindly. Its white paint was peeling, and the screens on the two front windows
hung in tatters from their misshapen frames. I rang the doorbell and was glad
to hear someone working the latch after just one ring, unlike my experience
with Susan’s parents.
    As a
teenager, Susan had been rail-thin with frizzy brown hair. The woman who opened
the door was considerably heavier, stood at least five-foot-nine, and was quite
attractive. She wore a red tank top and a denim skirt. As usual, though, my
eyes were drawn away from the person and to the little dog barking by her
sandaled feet.
    The
dog—a toy breed just a bit taller and bulkier than a silky
terrier—had a thick coal-black coat, with a foxy face and upright ears.
As he circled his owner’s ankles, I saw that he had no tail. A schipperke! That’s
a Belgian dog, originally bred to chase rats and guard canal barges. The
schipperke wasn’t a rare breed of dog, yet I had never met or worked with one.
For all of the dog training I’d done in Chicago, I’d never happened to run
across one.
    “Can I help
you? Or are you just here to stare at my dog?” the woman asked in a voice
dripping with sarcasm.
    Reluctantly,
I returned my gaze to the woman before me. “Are you Susan Nelson?”
    “Yeah. What’s
it to you?”
    How
nostalgic. Though her looks had improved considerably, her grating voice hadn’t,
which sounded to me like a car engine cranking over. Plus there were those
unforgettable— and loathsome—ice-cold