Play Dead Read Free Page B

chairs, a folding table, and a personal computer.
    “Could I...take you out to dinner to make
this up to you?”
    “No, Russell.” Sheesh! I silently
added. I’ve worked with wolf hybrids who had an easier time taking no for an
answer.
    There was a light tapping on the glass
door just behind Russell, who stepped back to reveal a disheveled looking young
woman with a sable collie. This could only be Beth Gleason and Sage. Russell
surveyed the two of them and, demonstrating his usual dog phobia, held up a
palm, murmured, “I’d better get back to work,” and strode into his office, shutting
the door.
    The dog and his owner entered. I gave a
quick glance at Beth, mentally registering that she was in her twenties or so,
attractive, very tall, and wore loose-fitting dark clothing, then I turned my
gaze on the collie.
    By show standards, Sage could not be
called beautiful. Though his coat was full and in the classic sable
pattern— snow-white ruff, tan body and muzzle, white paws and
tail-tip—he had a face only a dog person could love. His nose was not
only Roman, but oversized and bumpy. One of his black ears was up, the other
down. He walked as if carrying the weight of the world on his back—head
hanging. The midsection of the leash dragged on the ground like a jump rope.
    “You’re Allida Babcock?” Beth asked
nervously.
    “Yes,” I answered, “and you must be Beth
Gleason.” I flashed a quick smile at her. She bore the same dispirited
countenance as her dog, as well as the nearly identical shade of reddish brown,
long, shaggy hair. I noted that her entire outfit, including her socks and
sandals, was black. Returning my gaze to Sage, who flopped down in front of the
door, I said, “Hi, Sage.” I moved toward him slowly. He looked up at me with
his beautiful brown eyes, his chin still resting on his paws. I stroked his
head, then gently moved my hand down his body. Sage’s ribs were protruding,
though this was hidden by the thick coat, which was shedding between my
fingers.
    “We walked here,” Beth said. “I live about
a mile east on Pine Street.”
    A residence on that part of Pine meant lots of traffic
and a small yard, I thought. Problematic for a large dog. I reached into
the bottom drawer of my desk and grabbed a premium-quality dog biscuit, which I
brought over to Sage. Strangely, Sage sniffed at it but jerked away as if
afraid he’d get an electrical shock. “He’s been drinking plenty of water?” I
asked.
    “Yeah,” Beth answered, her voice rife with
concern, “but he won’t go near his food.”
    “What about table scraps? Will he eat
those?”
    “Isn’t it bad to feed a dog table scraps?
I’ve always been told that.”
    The ever-present list of “thou musts” and “thou
must nots,” I thought. If
I were Sage’s adopted owner, I’d feed him filet mignon straight off the plate,
if that were my only means to keep him from starvation. I suspected that if
more owners trusted their own instincts instead of seeking expert advice, their
dogs would do just fine. However, since I was one of those “experts,” this was
an opinion I kept to myself.
    “Mixing table scraps into a dog’s dry food
is not necessarily wrong. I sometimes do that with my own dogs. At this point,
we need to know whether or not Sage will eat anything. We need to ensure
he doesn’t starve while we’re still trying to identify the cause of his
problem.”
    Beth shrugged, her hands buried in
her pants pockets, and chewed on her lower lip. “I’m a vegetarian, so it never
occurred to me to try to give him some of my food.”
    I tried what was perhaps the oldest and most obvious trick
in the book. I broke the biscuit in half and pretended to eat my half, palming
it, then offering it again to Sage. To my mild surprise, he chomped both halves
of the biscuit down with a ravenous hunger.
    “Wow!” Beth exclaimed. “How did you get
him to do that?”
    I grabbed the box of biscuits and selected
a second biscuit,