Ruff Way to Go Read Online Free PDF Page B

see
or speak to anyone else in between those times?”
    “No.”
    “And you say
you went to the Cunninghams’ residence to interview Mrs. Cunningham’s dog?”
    I opened my
mouth to make a snide remark about how difficult it was for dogs to fill out my
questionnaire, but decided that was the wrong tack. “In a manner of speaking.”
    “Could these
paw prints you say you saw have been from a cat?”
    “No, there
are very noticeable differences between the two types of prints. A dog’s digit
pads are much bigger than a cat’s. Plus cats have retractable claws, yet I
remember seeing some toenail prints.”
    “And you
also don’t think the prints were from Shogun?”
    “Right,
although I can’t say for sure. With a silky terrier, we’re talking about a very
small dog. My impression, though, was that the paw prints were left by a
somewhat larger dog.”
    Sergeant
Millay held my gaze with his hooded eyes for a long moment, as if appraising my
credibility. He finally looked down at his notes. “Okay. You last spoke to
Cassandra Randon at...what time did you say?”
    “Roughly
quarter after twelve, when I left her place and went home.”
    “And you
found her body at what time?”
    “Five-thirty.
I got to Edith’s house right on time for my appointment.” I didn’t know why he
was asking me about the times again; Edith had to have spoken to Cassandra
hours after I had. Why wasn’t he asking her about the times?
    “Do you have
a lot of stray dogs in the neighborhood? Or folks that don’t keep their dogs on
a leash or in their yards?”
    “Not that I’ve
noticed, but I’m not really familiar with the neighborhood anymore. I’ve been
living in a different state for about a dozen years, and I’ve only been living
in my mom’s house for a couple of weeks now. You’d have to talk to my mother.”
    “Sounds as
though we got us a stray dog now, though, with Mrs. Cunningham’s dog
being missing.”
    “It looks
that way, yet if that’s the case, it really surprises me. This happened in
Shogun’s yard, his territory, which dogs typically try to defend from
intruders. It would be far more typical for Shogun to stay and bark
incessantly. He wouldn’t have understood what was going on with Cassandra’s
struggle, but it would have upset him. For Shogun to run away and leave his
territory unprotected, he’d almost have to have been chased off. And in
that case, typical canine behavior would have been for him to not go far, then
return after the intruder had left the property and start barking...at
Cassandra’s body.”
    “I see,” he
answered, though I got the distinct impression that he was mentally lumping me
into the same category as psychics and tarot card readers.
    “You’re not
a dog owner, are you, Sergeant?”
    “Me? No. Got
a couple of cats, though.”
    “Cats are
independent, territorial animals. Dogs are pack animals. Very different
personalities. Dogs see no reason to ever separate from the pack, and they
consider their owners their pack. As puppies or young dogs, they like to go out
and explore. But by the time most dogs are Shogun’s age, they’ve lost their
wanderlust. They tend to consider their role to be to guard the pack’s
territory while they wait for their pack to return, no matter what happens in
the interim.”
    He gave me a
smile that hinted, at best, of grudging tolerance of my having voiced my opinion,
then consulted his notes. “The gate on the west side of the house was open, you
say. Did it strike you as unusual for Mrs. Cunningham to have left a gate open
like that?”
    “That’s
unusual for any attentive dog owner. It rather defeats the purpose of having a
fence.” Uh oh. I was losing patience and getting snippy in spite of
myself. The last thing on my agenda was to make enemies in law enforcement “It’s
possible that Edith knew the dog would stick right beside her while she was in
the yard and so never paid attention to the gate, but it’s more likely