Page 5 of Death on Gallows Path

It didn’t. Her butt stayed in the air at the same time she contorted her body into a C to face Donna. All she had to do was lie down and she’d be comfortable. Instead, she maintained a position that would have broken Gumby.

“—that white beauty is LuLu.”

“Hi, Donna.” Impressive that Clara could get words out while using her body to block LuLu from springing across the space to greet Donna and Bernie. “But what are you doing here? You don’t need . . .” Clara let her words fade out. “Oh, you want to give Bernie the distraction of other dogs during training?”

“Not only Bernie.” With a glint, Donna said, “I’ve come with family members before, as well as friends. Usually, to get them started, then I leave them to it.”

That made sense.

But she wasn’t done.

“And now and then I come back for a refresher with Hattie.”

“Hattie?” I echoed the name of her senior golden, while finally getting Gracie to lie down by sliding my foot along the leash until it nearly reached her neck. As soon as she connected with the bed, I eased my foot back.

Donna’s glint intensified. “No dog is perfect, nor is any owner. Training is never done. Not for canine or human.”

It was like she’d plugged into my earlier thoughts about Lassie Syndrome and its attendant fear of failing Gracie.

Beside me, Clara gasped.

Not loud, not dramatic, but enough to turn both Donna and me toward her, then shift our gazes to follow Clara’s toward the entry.

I don’t think I gasped, but I knew a temptation to sob. Donna clicked her tongue.

Berrie Vittlow stood there with two of her younger Boston terrier fosters.

The thought that this meant a dozen or more Boston terriers were left without human oversight produced a moment of empathy for Berrie’s neighbors, immediately overwritten by the thought that the dogs never had much human oversight with Berrie on hand, either.

Berrie considered herself an expert dog trainer, despite all evidence to the contrary. She also widely dispensed her would-be expertise, despite all efforts to stop her.

At this moment, she had the leashes of the two young dogs crossed in front of her as they strained in opposite directions to bark and lunge at the closest dogs.

Gracie stood, possibly recognizing the two Bostons, certainly poised to dash across the open area to herd them into her version of order.

I reined her back in, which is how I missed exactly what happened next.

Shouts of “control your dog,” followed by other comments that weren’t G-rated, from various voices, barking, and the sounds of lots of feet scrambling.

When I looked up, Leo had a two-fisted grip on Berrie’s raincoat from behind. It was the only reason Berrie wasn’t face-planting, because her feet, caught up in the Bostons’ crossed leashes, were stuck well behind her center of gravity.

Two couples in their thirties flowed past her and Leo, one couple on each side, without glancing at Berrie and Leo, still caught in a messy and decidedly unromantic knockoff of the iconic I’m flying image of Jack and Rose from Titanic.

The man half of the right-side couple, had shortened the leash so much that his young dog’s front feet practically came off the ground. He half steered, half dragged the large puppy, who showed interest but no sign of aggression, past the Boston on that side.

A woman followed him, displaying no interest in any of the events unfolding.

The woman half of the couple on the left stepped over the Boston on that side with exaggerated high steps that were in keeping with the exaggerated spindliness of the spikes on her knee-high shiny black boots.

Her boots were not made for walking, though possibly for stabbing anything that got underfoot.

Like dogs.

In her ostentatious movements, I saw no apparent concern for the Boston, but rather an air of someone stepping over poop and believing the universe owed her better.

Not an air that people who care for their dogs, including picking up after them, frequently exhibit.

I’m no fan of Berrie. But this left-side woman had no call to treat the Bostons with disdain. They were young and had the Berrie disadvantage. Besides, they were cute with their black-and-white tuxedo fur pattern.