Chapter 5: What Diane Had Been Hiding
Walter did not invite Diane inside.
They sat on two chairs on his front porch.
Diane kept both hands around a glass of water she barely touched.
Her story came slowly.
Eleven months earlier, Diane’s older sister, Carol, had brought a golden dog to her house.
Carol lived forty miles away.
She told Diane she had taken the dog from a man who could no longer care for him.
There was no paperwork.
No veterinary history.
No explanation for why the dog had no collar.
Diane admitted she should have asked more questions.
She did not.
“I was lonely,” she said.
Her husband had died three years earlier.
Her children lived in other states.
The dog was gentle.
He slept beside her chair.
He followed her around the garden.
She started calling him Charlie.
Walter said nothing.
Two months later, Diane saw an old lost-dog post online.
Buddy.
Same white chest.
Same face.
Five-thousand-dollar reward.
She confronted Carol.
Her sister admitted finding the dog near Willow Ridge months earlier.
But Carol insisted she had tried to locate the owner and failed.
Diane wanted to believe her.
So she did.
“Why didn’t you call Margaret?” Walter asked.
Diane stared at the porch floor.
That was the part she had been hiding.
Because by then, she loved the dog.
She knew returning him was the right thing to do.
She also knew it would leave her house empty again.
“I kept telling myself I needed proof.”
Walter’s expression hardened.
“You had proof.”
“I know.”
Diane’s voice cracked.
She had removed Buddy’s original collar after recognizing the name.
She put it in a kitchen drawer and replaced it with a blue collar.
But she could never bring herself to throw the old one away.
Three days before Walter found Buddy, Diane had taken the red collar from the drawer.
She claimed she had finally decided to call Margaret.
Then Carol visited.
The sisters argued.
Carol warned Diane that returning the dog could raise questions about where he had been and who had kept him.
Diane lost her nerve.
The red collar remained on the kitchen counter.
Buddy apparently found it.
Diane believed Carol had put it back on him during the argument, perhaps as a way of forcing Diane to make a decision.
The next morning, the gate was open.
Buddy was gone.
“And when you saw him with me?” Walter asked.
Diane closed her eyes.
“I panicked.”
She had assumed Walter had found the reward notice.
She imagined him collecting the money.
She imagined Margaret asking questions.
She imagined everyone discovering that Buddy had been living in Diane’s yard for nearly a year.
So she attacked first.
She accused Walter of the very motive she feared people would attribute to her.
“You tried to take him.”
“Yes.”
“You lied about your sister’s dog.”
“Yes.”
Walter leaned back.
Diane finally looked at him.
“I know what that makes me look like.”
Walter did not answer that.
“What about Carol?”
Diane swallowed.
“She didn’t tell me the whole truth.”
That morning, after leaving the green, Diane had called her sister and demanded it.
Carol admitted that she had seen one of Margaret’s original reward flyers shortly after finding Buddy.
She knew someone was searching for him.
But she had recently lost her job and convinced herself that she would return the dog once she figured out how to claim the reward without explaining why she had kept him.
Then weeks passed.
The flyer disappeared.
Carol moved.
The dog stayed.
Eventually she gave Buddy to Diane.
“She told me she never contacted Margaret because she was afraid she’d be accused of stealing him.”
Walter stared across the street.
Fear, shame and selfishness had apparently built one bad decision on top of another until fourteen months disappeared.
“You need to tell Margaret.”
Diane flinched.
“She’ll hate me.”
“That isn’t the important part.”
Diane’s mouth tightened.
“You think this is easy?”
Walter looked at her.
“No.”
His voice remained calm.
“I think it’s necessary.”
Diane left twenty minutes later.
Walter did not know whether she would follow through.
At seven that evening, Susan called.
Diane had contacted them.
Margaret had agreed to meet.
But Margaret had made one request.
Walter had to be there.
