Page 4 of Death on Gallows Path

That was mutual, because his dog’s attention was on the man with a focus I only achieved with Gracie when holding top-notch treats.

We’d passed through Zepke’s store to a zig-zag of a hallway that led to this training area. It was a large, rectangular space with folding chairs and elevated mesh dog beds alternating around the perimeter, leaving an open area in the center.

We walked directly across the open area to the opposite wall, which was one of the rectangle’s long walls.

Clara put LuLu on a bed between her chair and mine. I gave Gracie the place command to take the bed to my right.

She looked around for something more interesting to do, then deigned to comply.

This room was a later addition to the original Zepke’s building, which was a mere century old, but echoed the buildings around the town square a block away. It had an alternative exit door that led to a narrow passage between buildings before opening on Beguiling Way.

Whoever constructed the buildings in this block that faced Tanner Street on one side and Beguiling Way on the other must have been a jigsaw puzzle devotee.

The trainer, Leo, came in, greeting each dog by name, even though it had been more than a year since he’d encountered Gracie and LuLu, while bestowing generic smiles on the humans.

Probably didn’t know most of the human names. Not that I held that against him. I approved of his priorities.

A couple more human-dog combos arrived.

Following the same dynamic I’d noticed in places such as waiting rooms, each successive arrival sat in the middle of the largest remaining open gap.

Until the next set of two humans and one dog.

The preteen holding the leash of the bouncing black, brown, and white puppy started toward the gap that would have perpetuated the trend of newcomers halving the largest remaining open space. She was stopped by an older woman with her.

That older woman was Donna, the undisputed boss of the dog park, who pointed the girl and Bernie the Bernedoodle toward us.

Gracie and LuLu alerted with delight, knowing both Donna and Bernie from the dog park.

Bernie’s distracted excitement — people! dogs! — zeroed in on us with recognition and the girl had all she could do to hold onto him, leaning back in her effort to counter his energy.

I gathered in Gracie’s leash to prevent her from meeting Bernie halfway. Clara lost LuLu’s leash and resorted to hugging her around her neck.

“Grandma,” the girl panted.

“You’re doing fine. Put him on that bed and sit there.”

There was a chair on the far side of a dog bed that Bernie mostly occupied the space above and in front of — but not on — as he circled and bounced, bounced and circled.

Donna took the chair on this side of Bernie’s bed.

That put her next to Gracie.

Oh. Noooooo.

“Hello,” Donna said to us. “This is my granddaughter. Layla, meet Clara Woodrow and Sheila Mackey from the dog park.”

The girl, occupied with Bernie, muttered a hello.

Donna said to her granddaughter, “The collie with Sheila is called Gracie and—”

Hearing her name was enough to send Gracie into a scrabbling effort to launch herself around Donna’s shoulders to lick all over her face.

Her version of hello for people she liked.

Did I mention she’d regressed on the polite greeting?

In a vain attempt to look like I was in control, I clamped my foot on Gracie’s leash, holding it in place on the floor, which should have brought her into a down on the bed.