Belinda Bradley was a dog sitter.
She walked dogs for a living. Kate Meadows had had a dog, a cocker spaniel named Anchorage, colored white and brown, shaggy, utterly adored by her owner, and by Belinda, whose daily routes about Berlin took her into Kate’s neighborhood regularly, until the day Kate finally asked if she might walk Anchorage, too, just around the block, alone, if she could, not with the glut of other dogs.
Kate always did take things slow. Belinda was walking Anchorage daily for three months before Kate thought to exchange more than passing pleasantries with her, not because she was rude, but because she was shy. Belinda found out a lot about her, that day. She’d seen Tommy about. She’d even seen Kate trotting away from Tom’s home, flustered, believing herself caught, in some kind of scandal. Belinda would never have been the kind to judge.
She was always, personally, a little more worried about Matt White, who certainly was. It was in the way he looked at Kate, through the window. Oh, he certainly did judge her.
The day Kate went missing, it was while Belinda was walking the dog. They waited at the door, patiently, Belinda knocking politely, Anchorage starting to whine, Belinda tutting at him. No answer. Very curiously indeed, too, no Matt White at his window. He always seemed to be at his window, when Kate was to be glimpsed.
She couldn’t very well leave the dog. She broke her vow for the first time, taking Anchorage along as she completed that day’s rounds. She didn’t have much choice. She took the dog home with her after her duties were done, they’d checked again, and still no Kate, and no Matt White.
On the evening news Belinda heard about the disappearance for the first time. She supposed she was going to have to keep Anchorage, for a while. She found something for the dog to eat, scraps hidden away in the refrigerator she’d thought might molder for all the interest she’d previously had in them. The dog didn’t seem to mind. She set out a bowl with water.
That night the dog hopped into her bed before she could come up with a different plan, and was still there the next morning. She rang the police station on her old landline. She wouldn’t have a mobile phone for years, much less an interest in using one. She explained the situation. Got brushed off. They said they had bigger concerns than a dog.
Belinda settled in to life with Anchorage. She walked her routes. The dog didn’t mind the added company. She noticed Matt White’s reappearance, later. After the reports that the kidnapping had become a murder investigation.
For the first time she knocked at his door. She had a conversation with him. She exchanged words with Shirley Stanley. Stanley didn’t give her the time of day. Matt White, of course, denied everything.
But as far as Belinda was concerned, she had her man. She just needed to prove it. When she was doing the real snoop work, she had to leave Anchorage at her house. She didn’t own any dogs herself. She’d grown up with them. She walked them. That had always been enough. She didn’t feel comfortable tying the dog up in the yard. But she was fearful of what would become of her house with the dog in it unsupervised.
Every time she returned, still convinced of her premise, Belinda found Anchorage beating the floor happily with his tail. She told him what a good boy he was. She started carrying treats on her person, which she had certainly never done before. Can’t have that, walking dogs for a living.
Matt White slipped. Then it was just a matter of the police catching up with her. Agreeing to the obvious narrative. She practiced her speech in the bathroom mirror. Anchorage thumped his tail along with her.
She started to dread the idea of parting with him.
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