“I’m sorry,” the biker said. “I don’t think we’ve actually been introduced. Clarence Rutledge. I’ve just moved to Caerphilly to set up my veterinary practice.”
He extending one large, colorfully tattooed hand to me. I tried not to stare at the cartoon ferrets frolicking around his wrist. The other hand was still occupied with Katy - or Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Apparently she and I had never been introduced, either.
“If you don’t already have a vet for your dog - ,” he continued.
“He’s not mine,” I said. “I’m just taking care of him for a few weeks while his owner decides if she’s allergic to him.”
“If he needs some medical care while he’s with you, then,” he said.
Business must be slow, I thought.
“I emphasize wellness and natural remedies. Of course,” he added, glancing down at Spike, “what I really plan to specialize in is behavior therapy.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“Often, aggressive behavior in canines is a result of underlying psychological problems.”
“If you’re suggesting that you could cure Spike of biting people, it’s been tried,” I said. “Frequently. His owner has probably spent more money on his education than my parents spent on mine.”
“Really?” Doc said, looking even more interested. “I’m getting together a study to try some new approaches on dogs that have proved resistant to previous attempts at aggression reduction. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in enrolling Spike?…”
“Maybe,” I said. “Especially if it requires a period of residence at wherever you’re conducting your study.”
I took Doc’s card, which proclaimed that he provided “holistic care for your animal companion.” He and Rico strolled off to repair the damage Spike had done to Katy’s ear.
So he wasn’t a thug. Did that make him more or less likely to have killed Ted?
If Doc were in the habit of making house calls on his patients, it was all the more likely that he’d known Ted. And witnessed any instances of cruelty to animals Ted might have committed. And also all the more likely that Ted had tried to blackmail him. When I’d thought him merely a biker, I hadn’t considered Doc a very likely blackmail target - unless, I suppose, Ted could prove that he’d never done anything wild or wicked, which could probably ruin someone’s reputation as a hellion. But Doc, the reformed biker turned vegetarian holistic animal doctor? If I were an aspiring young blackmailer looking to expand my clientele, Doc would be exactly the sort of person I’d want to meet. I bet at some time in his unenlightened past Doc had worn leather boots instead of canvas ones. And probably kicked a dog or two with them.
Yes, I should look into Doc, I thought. When he came out, I’d reopen the subject of aggression reduction for Spike.
Meanwhile, to kill time, I picked up Anna Floyd’s romance book and began absently skimming through it again. I confess, my mind was more on Ted’s fate than the perilous plight of the statuesque blond heroine.
A finger planted itself on the page I was theoretically trying to read. I looked up to see Dr. Lorelei.
“I strongly advise against reading that,” she said, frowning. “It can be very dangerous.”
Dangerous?
I glanced up. No, she wasn’t joking - I wasn’t sure she knew how. And if she was trying to make some kind of veiled threat, it was too well veiled for me to understand it.
Silly I might agree with - and I couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed, sitting there holding the thing, when I’d been so intent on establishing my reputation as a tough-minded, no-nonsense kind of person. But dangerous?
“Dangerous? What, do they have subliminal messages or something?” I asked.
“Life, and particularly relationships, are not always the way they’re portrayed in those books.”
“I think that’s the point,” I said. “If I wanted realistic stuff about life, I’d go read Tolstoy or something. I mean, I don’t really believe in dwarves and hobbits, but that doesn’t stop me from reading fantasy. And in real life, murders often go unsolved - does that mean it’s dangerous to read mysteries that wrap everything up neatly on the next to last page?”