Dog Helps Those (Golden Retriever Mysteries) (10 page)

I was itching to get my hands on her computer. It was like a sickness, this nosiness of mine when it came to electronics and databases. I liked to know things. It was incredibly satisfying to snoop in places where I wasn’t supposed to be, whether they were in a company’s online archives, or buried somewhere on a public website. But even when I was arrested for hacking into my then-wife’s credit records, it was for a good cause—to keep her from bankrupting us in her depression over her second miscarriage.

My unfortunate incarceration had done a lot to tamp down those illicit impulses, but they still bubbled up from time to time. I felt a physical yearning to walk over to Rita’s laptop, turn it on, and let my fingers loose. But that was foolish, as well as illegal. I didn’t know what to look for, or enough about her to guess at her passwords.

Oh, and a cop was snooping down the hall, too, one who knew my temptations very well.

If Rita Gaines had secrets in her computers then they were safe from me. Resolutely, I walked to the kitchen, where Rick had found the big iced tea mug Rita had been drinking from on Sunday, and placed it into an evidence bag.

“Rita lived well,” I said, nodding toward the high-end appliances, the marble counters and the rack of gleaming copper pots hanging over the prep island.

“The rich are different from you and me,” Rick said.

“Yeah, they have more money. And since when are you quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald?”

“Hey, I read. And I know the Hemingway quote you parroted back, too.”

Rick and I paced back through the house one more time, but nothing struck either of us as evidence. By the time we stepped out the front door, Rochester had escaped from the practice ring and was jumping against a big metal trash can next to it, as if trying to knock it over.

“Here, boy. Come on, let’s hit the road.” I patted my thigh a couple of times.

Rochester jumped against the can again, and this time it tipped over. “Rochester! What are you doing?” I hurried to the can, where he had begun nosing through the garbage.

“Is there something in the trash can?” I said, as I reached him. “Did you find a clue, boy?”

“Steve,” Rick said from behind me.

I grabbed Rochester’s collar and pulled him away. “No, maybe he did find something after all.” He sat on his haunches next to me with a woeful look on his face.

“It’s probably just a food wrapper,” Rick said.

“No, that’s his ‘I found something’ look.” I still wore the blue plastic gloves Rick had given me.

Rick shook his head as Rochester slid down onto his haunches beside me. “Go for it,” he said.

“You’re not helping?”

“I’m just sitting here with Rochester, watching you work.”

He plopped down on the grass next to the dog, and Rochester stuck his big head in Rick’s lap. I got down on my knees and started pawing through the garbage. Rita hadn’t emptied it after the training class on Sunday, and it was a mess of dirty paper towels, treat wrappers and soda cans. Toward the bottom, I found a half-empty bag of doggie treats, a gourmet brand that was way out of my budget. I shook my head at the idea of people so rich they could throw away something I couldn’t even afford.

Rochester stuck his head toward me and sniffed. “So you found some treats,” I said. “Fine. Have one.”

I handed it to him and he sucked it down greedily, then looked eagerly at the bag. “You can have more later,” I said. I crumpled the bag and stuffed in my back pocket.

As I began putting the trash back in the can I spotted an empty blister pack of the kind used for round tablets. All six pills had been popped out, leaving only a few tiny shreds of foil on the back. A faint trace of white powder remained on the plastic.

“You see this?” I asked. “Think it held dog medication?”

Rick shrugged. “No idea. I used my last evidence bag inside, so let me get another one from the car, just in case.”

While he was gone, I pulled out my phone and took a couple of close up shots of the packaging. By the time Rick returned I was innocently feeding Rochester more of the meaty-smelling expensive treats.

“You want to get some dinner?” I asked, as I piled the rest of the garbage back in the can.

“You kinda smell like trash,” he said. “You should go home and take a shower. Wash those clothes, too. Whatever you do, don’t go see Lili smelling like that or you’ll be single faster than you can say loser.”

I followed Rick’s advice. I drove Rochester home with the windows down and took him for a quick walk. I tossed a frozen pizza in the oven, then began running water in the big Roman tub in the master bathroom. I threw my clothes in the washing machine, and once the bath was ready, I turned the washer on and climbed upstairs.

I grabbed a whole stack of towels and left them on the counter, then stepped into the tub. Rochester came over and stood next to me. “How about it, boy? You want a bath, too?”

He looked at me with his soulful deep brown eyes. “Come on in, then.” I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and lifted him up, and then he clambered into the tub with me. I had to give his hind legs a boost.

The tub was plenty big for one person, but not so comfy for a person and a big dog. I sat up on the low ledge and picked up a big plastic pitcher I kept on the windowsill above the tub, filled it, and dumped it on Rochester.

He wasn’t the type of dog to go splashing in a pool or lake, but he submitted to bathing pretty well. He stood patiently as I rinsed him down, then massaged shampoo into his fur. I had to hold him to stop him from shaking, though, and then keep one hand on his back while I rinsed him down. I accompanied the bathing with lots of reassuring noises, telling him what a good boy he was, and how soon he would be a lean, clean puppy machine.

I released my grip on him to reach for the towels, he shook his whole body, spraying the walls around the tub, the bathroom floor, and me. I yelped, “Rochester! Bad dog!”

At least it was clean water.

Golden retrievers have a soft, water-repellent coat, and then a heavy undercoat that’s hell to get dry. He was as slippery as an eel, struggling to get away from me and go shaking water over the whole house, but I manhandled him into submission. I went through five towels before Rochester was merely damp, instead of soaking wet. Then I let him go, and he scampered away.

I let the dirty water out of the tub, and refilled with clean water. Then I relaxed and leaned back. Rochester returned, slumping on the tile floor next to me as I scrubbed myself down. When I felt clean enough, I grabbed the last clean towel and dried myself.

I ate my pizza, giving Rochester some crusts, and then washed up. I dialed Lili’s cell to check in, but the call went direct to voice mail, so I left a message. Rochester was snoozing on the tile floor in the kitchen as I turned on my laptop.

Since my problems with the California penal system had arisen based on my computer hacking, the conditions of my parole restricted me to owning only one computer. It was a decent laptop, though already over a year old. I thought I might lean on Santiago Santos to relax that condition and let me get another electronic device, maybe a tablet or a netbook. Just for fun, of course. For the most part, I had turned my back on my hacking past.

The first thing I wanted to know was more about cobra venom, so I did a quick search. The scientific name for the nerve blocking agent was Alpha-Cobratoxin, and as Dr. Conrad had said, it was used to numb the pain when a dog kept chewing away at a bite.

It was a powerful neurotoxin that acted as a painkiller when administered in small quantities. I wondered how much of it would have been necessary to kill Rita Gaines, but I couldn’t find anything online to tell me. I did discover that the possession of cobra venom wasn’t a crime, although the substance had been banned in horse racing.

Rita might have mentioned the cobra venom in the sleeping Mexican to anyone who’d come to her barn. That would let out Felae. She would never have shared a glass of iced tea with him or talked about dogs and their treatment with him. I doubted he would have known about cobra venom on his own, known where she kept it, or even known that she drank iced tea with lots of sugar that would disguise the taste.

Who else could have known that Rita had cobra venom in her barn? Don Kashane had known. And he’d been nosing around her property right after her death, carrying a shotgun. Did he have a motive to kill her?

Rochester got up and moved behind my chair, where he settled down again.

Perhaps it was someone who brought a dog to Rita’s agility training sessions, or someone she’d sold a puppy to. I made a note to ask Rick if he had found anyone with a dog who had a grudge against Rita.

I remembered the rude way Rita had spoken about Rochester. A lot of people are very possessive about their dogs. Had she insulted someone badly enough to get herself killed?

That didn’t seem very reasonable, despite all the rabid dog-lovers I had met since Rochester came into my life.

What about the flunitrazepam the coroner found in her system? She probably didn’t have that lying around her barn, so the killer must have brought it with him – or her. I remembered the photo I had taken of the blister pack Rochester found in the trash, and I transferred it from my phone to the laptop. Then I opened up Photoshop and enhanced the image. I didn’t want to say anything to Rick, because I knew he’d tell me I was jumping the gun, but I thought Rochester might have discovered the packaging for the drug the killer had used.

Rochester curled around the back of my chair, as if he was keeping me at the computer until I figured out what I had.

Once I had a decent image, I searched for pictures of Rohypnol packaging, and found a good one for comparison. I could make out the left part of the capital R on the left side of the open circle, and what looked like the top of the L on the right.

The giveaway, though, was the remainder of the black hexagon at the bottom of the package. The manufacturer of Rohypnol was Roche Labs, and the bottom part of the Roche logo was clearly visible in the bottom part of the hexagon.

“Good boy,” I said, leaning down to scratch behind Rochester’s ears. He was still damp, and I knew he would be for a while. “Even though Rick laughed, you found a clue after all.”

Rochester yawned deeply and sprawled on to his side. He knew his work was done.

I called Rick in triumph. “That blister pack I found in the garbage? It’s for Rohypnol.”

“How do you know that?”

I told him about taking the picture, enhancing it and matching it.

“You can’t leave things alone, can you?” he said.

“Hey, I’m not calling up your chief and telling him I’m doing your job. Just you.”

“You’re not doing my job, Steve. Most of the time, you’re getting in the way.”

“Don’t be a dick, Rick. Hey, that rhymes.”

He sighed. “Email me your picture and the match. Now go watch TV or something.”

Of course I couldn’t do that. Instead I started surfing the internet trying to figure out how easy it was to get your hands on Rohypnol. Not that I was actually going to buy it, you understand. I wanted to know where the killer could have gotten it, and if I could find a purchase trail for Rick to follow.

I was able to order it from a dozen online pharmacies—no prescription needed, as long as I was willing to fill out an online questionnaire that would evaluate whether the medication was right for me. If I passed, then their “on-call physician” would write the script so they could fill it.

I made a list for Rick of all the online pharmacies. It was a long shot, but maybe he could get a subpoena for client records and match them to someone who knew Rita and had a motive to kill her.

That reminded me of Felae, who was in danger of losing his scholarship, and perhaps even being sent back to his country, wherever that was. I did a quick search for Felae Popescu, but all I could find was his involvement with an animal rights group called Don’t Operate on Animals, or DOA. He had been involved in a couple of protests at medical research facilities and had written numerous blog posts about treating animals properly. I couldn’t argue with any of that.

It was almost eleven o’clock by then, so I took Rochester out for a quick walk. A cold front had swept in, and the air was chilly, but the sky was so clear I could see dozens of constellations. Orion the hunter loomed right overhead, and I wondered who had been hunting Rita Gaines—and why.

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, Rochester was on the floor next to my bed, lying on his back and waving all his legs in the air like a dying cockroach. I looked over at him and laughed, and he immediately rolled over and jumped up to lick my face. We carried out our usual morning routine. We went outside, and Rochester chased a couple of dead leaves fluttering past in the light breeze as if they were prey he was going to capture and return to me in exchange for a treat. Then we drove up to Eastern.

I was in my office working on another of the many press releases I had to complete for graduation when Rochester sat up and barked a couple of times. I looked up to see a tall, rangy kid with crooked teeth and acne standing in the door. “The dog doesn’t bite, does he?” he asked.