Discouraged, I trudged to the house on the other side of Mack’s home. I rang the bell, and Coco obediently sat beside me. A man came to the door, and Coco jumped to his feet. The man was probably in his mid-sixties, with thin, silver hair, and wearing a short-sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. He spotted the dog, and his face lit up.
“Coco!” Happiness rolled off him, and Coco woofed with enthusiasm. The man threw the door open and stepped onto the porch, crouching beside the dog. “What a surprise. I never thought I’d see you again. How ya doing?” After receiving several doggy licks, and giving Coco lots of love, he turned his attention to me. His eyes were kind and gleamed with curiosity
“Hi, I’m Shelby Nichols. I’m a private investigator. I adopted Coco.”
“Oh… lucky you. He’s a great dog.”
“Yeah, he sure is. I’m here because I met Austin yesterday. After speaking with him, I told him I’d look into his father’s death. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?”
“Uh… sure. Please sit down.” He motioned me toward a couple of cushioned chairs, with a small, round table between them, on the big front porch. “I’d invite you inside, but my wife’s allergic to animals.” After sitting down, he continued. “I already told the police everything I know. Do they have any suspects?”
“Not that I know of. Are you the neighbor who called the police?”
“Yes, I’m Reed Gardner.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Sure, but first I want to know how you ended up with Coco.”
I gladly told him the story, making sure to include how Coco basically picked us. “He seemed depressed, but he warmed up to us pretty fast. Yesterday, I took him on a walk, and we ended up here. I have to admit, it was mostly Coco’s doing. He pulled me the last few blocks. Austin was there in the house, and he told me what happened. Since I’m a private investigator, I told him I’d look into it.”
“Wow. That’s quite the story.”
“I know. So… what can you tell me about that night?”
He let out a big sigh. “I heard Coco barking sometime after nine. It was loud and continuous. He doesn’t usually bark like that, so I wondered what was going on. I called Mack’s number, but he didn’t answer, and I got worried. So I went over to the house and knocked. When no one answered, I walked in and found him lying on the floor.”
“So the door wasn’t locked?”
“No.” Reed shook his head. “I thought he might have had a heart attack at first, but, once I got closer, I saw all the blood and the big gash on the back of his head. I felt his neck for a pulse, but he was gone. Maybe if I’d come sooner, he might have had a chance.” Guilt and sorrow washed over him. It still shook him up, just thinking about it.
“When you first heard Coco barking, did you happen to look outside?”
“No. I was downstairs watching TV. At first, it didn’t register that he was barking, but then his bark changed; it sounded more frantic. That’s when I called Mack, but it was too late.”
“What about your wife? Did she see anything?”
His brow furrowed. “No. She took a sleeping pill earlier and slept through the whole thing. She gets migraines, and sleep is about the only thing that works on them.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” It was hard for me to believe she slept through everything, but what did I know? From his thoughts, I picked up that his wife’s condition weighed him down, and it was a little more complicated than he wanted to share.
“So what did you do after you found Mack?”
“I ran home to call nine-one-one. It occurred to me that the house was a crime scene, and I didn’t want to disturb anything by staying. I gave Austin a call too, thinking he needed to know something bad had happened to his dad. But after he answered, I couldn’t tell him Mack was dead. That might have been a mistake, but I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“So was Austin at his place when you called him?”
He shrugged. “I think so. The police showed up before Austin did, and they made me wait out here on my porch.” He leaned over to pet Coco. “Poor dog was going crazy in there, but they wouldn’t let me back in. I told them Coco wouldn’t hurt me, but they insisted on leaving him there until animal control came to let him out.”
“That must have been awful.”
“It was.” He swallowed. “They got him in one of those long-handled noose ropes to keep him from attacking anyone… as if he would.”
Reed was thinking that Coco had to be taken out through the back door, because Mack’s body was still lying in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, blocking the front door.
“The poor dog must have seen Mack. The animal control guy told me that Coco hadn’t wanted to leave Mack’s side, and he’d ended up carrying him out. They were going to put him in the back of the animal control truck, but I couldn’t let them do that.
“I stopped the man carrying him and convinced him to let me take the dog. Coco was whining and shivering by then, but he licked my face, and the guy finally relented. I brought him up here on the porch, and he stayed with me until Austin got here.”
He closed his eyes, remembering Austin’s anguish at finding his father dead. He’d hoped that having Coco would have helped Austin cope with his loss, but that hadn’t turned out so well.
Reed patted Coco’s head. “I wanted to keep him, but, with my wife’s allergies, it wasn’t possible. Austin took him home that night, but he was devastated. When he came back a few days later, he told me he’d
