Page 90 of Death on Gallows Path

The requirement of having the dogs on individual beds around the perimeter of the room, with the owners seated beside them was the only reason the humans weren’t a clot in the middle, talking as fast as they could.

Despite the dog beds between our chairs as spacers, we all clumped near one narrow end of the rectangular room, minimizing the space our comments had to cover to reach the others.

The strings of conversation crossed and recrossed until they were a tangled wad. I couldn’t pick out any that included new information.

The door from the hallway opened. Leo.

The dogs stirred restively and not even Donna ordered Bernie back to his place, though Layla’s hold on his leash limited his roaming. The same couldn’t be said for a mix, who sprinted away from his owner and stood five feet away, yapping defiantly.

LuLu leaned across Clara, trying to reach Gracie, who paced from me to Clara and back across the three-foot length of the bed.

Leo walked into the open area. The ongoing volley of words could have knocked over a lesser man.

“Okay, everybody.” Nobody heeded his would-be call to attention.

The door opened again. Leo turned in that direction, his mouth still open. The word volley sputtered to silence.

Lucifer and Izolde scrambled in.

On the other end of the dogs’ leashes, Pammy and Zoley followed them in.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The drama of their entry took a nose-dive when their dogs zigged, then zagged, crossing their leashes in front of the women.

Zoley started to drop back in an attempt to drag her dog into place.

“Stop it,” Pammy ordered Zoley. Then, to Izolde, “Here.”

She grabbed Izolde’s leash. Uncrossed it from Lucifer’s, handed Izolde’s back to Zoley, then stepped forward. Lucifer had sat, directly in her path, his attention riveted on all of us. She pushed Lucifer forward with her foot.

She didn’t kick him.

It hardly mattered.

Even before he jumped up, the contact of her shoe with Lucifer caused a chorus of sucked-in breath that would have changed the reading on a barometer.

Leo lurched forward, but Pammy was faster.

She advanced into the space. “We want to thank you — our friends — for your support in this horrible time. We came here tonight to show that we are united, not torn apart, by this horror and to try to gain a short period of something resembling normalcy amid these horrific events.”

As if Pammy hadn’t already sucked all life out of the word and its cousins, Zoley chimed in from behind her with “Horrible.”

The frozen silence stretched longer, until Leo shook himself — not as efficiently as a wet dog, but good enough to get moving.

“Yes, okay. So sorry about— But, good. I mean good you’re here. Together. Good for Lucifer and Izolde, too. They must be unsettled. And you two, of course.”

He appeared to recognize he’d reached the threshold of inescapable awkwardness. He skipped expressing condolences for the murder of one husband and the arrest of another.

He said, “Have a seat. We’ll get started.”

He did his best to turn the last part into the truth,

Can’t say the rest of us did a lot to help.

* * * *

After a couple quick review rounds, the first new exercise was Leave it.