Drop Dead on Recall (21 page)

66

I slept deep and
short, and by 5:30 the next morning I was enjoying the cool massage of dewy grass between my toes and the “pretty, pretty, pretty bird” song of the resident cock cardinal. This early morning stuff was getting to be a habit. Jay was back to his normal bouncy self and elated to spend the better part of an hour reading the tale of the night with his nose while I pulled a few weeds and tried to push the events of the past few days out of my mind. I couldn’t.

My rendezvous with Virginia Scott, Fly’s breeder, was set for 11:30 in Valparaiso, about two hours away. I showered, dressed, and still had half an hour before I needed to pick up Fly at Marietta’s house. I decided to sort some more old photos. It was a good mindless job for a short time slot.

I had another half-filled shoebox of old candid photos I’d taken at Dog Dayz back when I still used film. A few went straight to the circular file. The others I put into piles by subject. As my pile of group photos grew, I put everything else aside and re-sorted those into two piles, one for photos with Abigail or Greg in them, and the rest. As I’d noticed in the photos I sorted the other day, whenever Greg was present, you could bet that Giselle would be there as well, in the background or off to the side. Some of these adoration shots went back years. For all Giselle’s imposing size, her longing for Greg, so clear to me now, had been invisible.

Surely Greg knew? Or not. He’s a man, after all. But what about Abigail? She must have seen it, especially if she spent time with Giselle, as Connie seemed to think.

I rolled my observations around in my mind until I noticed the clock on the wall. Five to nine. Time to go get Fly and head west.

_____

I cruised along U.S. 30 at about five miles over the limit and made great time. This is a straight run across the northern tier just south of the interstate that fools out-of-staters into thinking Indiana is all flat fields of corn. By some miracle, I hit all green lights through Columbia City, Warsaw, and Plymouth. In Wanatah my luck ran out and I sat behind a clean-emissions-challenged gray pickup with red cellophane duct-taped over the starboard brake light and a muffler a few inches too low and several decibels too loud. Why Indiana dropped vehicle inspections is beyond me.

The cows munching away in the big feed lot on the north side of the road distracted me from my impending asphyxiation. Give her a
platinum wig and the little Hereford by the hay rack would be a dead
ringer for the gum-popping clerk at the Clark station where I fill up my van from time to time.

I survived the toxic exhaust, dodged around the truck as soon as we got the green, and opened all the windows to clear the fumes. I pulled into the parking lot at the Broadway Inn in Valparaiso just before eleven. No sign of the white van with the Scotswool Border Collies sign on the side that Virginia Scott had described to me, so I got Fly and Jay out of their crates, and hooked them up to retractable leashes, and walked them in the grass edging the pavement.

Fly nibbled Jay’s ear, bowed in front of him, spun around, and bumped his face with her tail, inviting him to play. After they twisted
their leashes together for the third time, I put on my boring-old-fart-human hat and told Jay to jump back into his crate in the van. He gave me his best “I never get to do anything fun” look, but in vain. I walked a more sober Fly to the grass and then to a dumpster at the back of the parking lot.

When I turned back toward the parking lot, I found I was being watched.

67

A tiny dark-haired woman
stepped from a white van parked beside mine. She barely reached five feet in thick-soled walking shoes, but she exuded energy and strength. She walked toward us, waving. “You must be Janet!” When we were ten paces apart, she knelt and opened her arms, and Fly nearly upended me to get to her. The dog was wooing and whining and squeaking, alternately slurping her breeder’s face and rolling in ecstasy at her feet.

“You definitely must be Virginia!”

“Ginny, please.” She wiped her hand on her jeans, and held it out, pushing Fly down with her left. “Thanks so much for meeting me here. I’d have come to Fort Wayne if necessary, but this saves me about five hours of driving. I appreciate it.”

We chatted for a few minutes while Fly settled down a bit before Ginny loaded her into a crate in her own van. We moved both vehicles to the far side of the parking lot, under some trees and away from foot traffic but within sight of the restaurant windows so we could leave the backs open for air.

We ordered, and I gave Ginny a folder Yvonne Anderson had given me. She removed the contents and went through Fly’s registration, veterinary and health-screening records, and various other papers, including a notarized letter from Suzette saying that in the event of her death, Fly should be returned to her breeder, Virginia Scott, Scotswool Border Collies.

“Leave it to Suzette to have everything in order.” Ginny choked on the last two words. “Damn. It just stinks, you know?”

“I know.”

“You were good friends?”

“Not really. I mean, I saw her all the time at training and at trials, and I photographed Fly a couple of times, but that’s about it.”

“She was a breeder’s dream as a puppy buyer. Took great care of Fly and did everything she told me she’d do with her. More than everything. She was absolutely thrilled when she finished the OTCH and UDX.” Ginny’s eyes were red, and her little button nose was puffing up. “I can’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense.” She blew her nose. “I don’t believe it was suicide. Things were finally falling into place for her.”

“Really?”

“Did you know she was getting married?”

“Not officially.” I pictured the diamond ring I’d seen at Suzette’s house, and flashed back to how weird she acted when I asked who the lucky guy was. I meant the stud dog she planned to use for Fly, but she must have been thinking of a different stud.

“She was very private about it. I didn’t even know until last week, and we e-mailed almost daily. She said she’d been seeing this guy for quite a while but there were some things to deal with before they could make their engagement public.” Ginny leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I wondered what things, but it wasn’t my place to ask.”

Alarm bells started clanging in my skull. Could Connie have been right after all about Greg and Suzette?

When she continued, Ginny’s voice crackled with emotion. “The funny thing is, Abigail introduced them. Suzette’s parents weren’t happy about the marriage, so Suzette was having a tiny wedding. More of an elopement, I think.”

“Abigail introduced them?”
Of course she did
, I thought.
She was married to the guy.

“Yes.” Ginny’s voice seemed to be back under control. “They were friends long before they hit big time in obedience, you know, and still were, I think, despite the occasional sniping at one another.”

“Do you think maybe things didn’t work out? With the fiancé, I mean?”

“Possible, I guess. But Suzette wouldn’t kill herself over a man. She was excited about breeding Fly. Her first litter and all. Besides, she would have made sure Fly was safe before she ever did anything to herself.”

That certainly made sense to me. Then I remembered something else. “Someone told me Suzette bred Fly last year.”

“She was going to. When it fell through, I encouraged her to wait until she finished Fly’s obedience championship.”

“That was probably wise.”

“Guess so. But she was so excited about having a puppy of her own breeding.”

“Why did the earlier breeding fall through?” I figured that if anyone had the scoop, it would be Ginny. Whether she’d tell me was another matter.

“The stud dog she was planning to use had close relatives with some serious health problems. The dog himself is healthy so far, but there are too many risks too close in his pedigree. Neither one of us knew about the problems until Fly was already in season, so there was no time to find a different dog.” I knew that a responsible breeder would spend many hours investigating health and temperament and other traits of a dog’s whole family before deciding on a match.

“How did you find out about the dog’s problems?” I knew that it wasn’t always easy to ferret out negative information about individual dogs and their bloodlines if the people in the know didn’t cooperate.

“The owner of one of his brothers called Suzette. Said she’d heard about the planned breeding and figured the dog’s breeder wouldn’t divulge that there were problems in the line, and she thought
Suzette would want to know.” Ginny didn’t say a word about DNA or suspect parentage. Maybe Abigail had kept that under her hat.

“What kind of problems?”

“The woman who called said her dog had CEA—collie eye anomaly—and she said there was another puppy from the same litter with inherited epilepsy. She said that their sire had produced puppies with epilepsy and eye problems in other litters, too.” She put her napkin on the table and leaned back against the red upholstery of the booth. “So Suzette backed out of the breeding. The stud dog’s breeder was furious. She sent Suzette a couple of nasty e-mails about what a fool she was, and threatened to sue her for slander if she talked about the health problems in her dogs.”

“You can’t slander an animal. Besides, attitudes like that hurt the whole breed.”

“Right. But the breeder imported the dog’s sire from Australia and his dam from Scotland. She had a fortune invested, all down the tubes if word got out. Anyway, Suzette said she didn’t plan to launch a campaign against anyone, but she wasn’t going to go through with the breeding.”

Ginny picked up an unused spoon and balanced it across her index finger. “Next thing you know, the stud’s breeder launched a campaign against Suzette and Fly. Posted to Internet lists and told people that Fly had health issues, and claimed that the stud owner refused to breed her dog to Fly, not the other way around. Very ugly.”

Although I already knew that she was talking about Abigail Dorn and Francine Peterson, I had to ask. “So who owned the stud dog?”

She gave me a “not important” wave of the hand.

“It was Pip, wasn’t it? Abigail’s dog.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Suzette told Abigail about the issues in Fly’s bloodlines. Fly’s maternal aunt produced an epileptic pup. Only one I know of in the close family, but Suzette was determined to stay away from any dogs known to have close relatives with epilepsy.” Ginny plunked the spoon onto the Formica table. “I mean, come on! All dogs carry the genes for something we don’t want. You just don’t double up on bad genes if possible. Pip is a fine dog, but not a good match for Fly.”

“Makes sense to me.”
Wow
, I thought. Another one who doesn’t know about the really big obstacle to using Pip at stud.

“If everyone were open about these problems, we could get a better handle on them.” She took a long drink of water. “Francine has always tried to cover up issues in her dogs. I think the lines Pip comes from actually are pretty healthy all told, but Francine used to have some serious temperament issues. In her dogs, I mean—she still has some of her own!”

I couldn’t dispute that.

“Anyway, for years she denied that her dogs weren’t perfect, then suddenly those dogs disappeared and she started over with new bloodlines.” I wondered whether the dogs had actually disappeared, or if Francine had continued to breed them and fudged the puppies’ papers.

“There’s something you should know about Pip.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s neutered.”

“No!”

I nodded.

“Whoa!” Her eyes were enormous. “I bet Francine doesn’t know that.” She started to laugh. “You know, that sounds like something Abigail would do. Neuter the dog, avoid the hassle of telling Francine.” She giggled some more. “And who could tell with the coat that dog has?”

We switched to more pleasant topics. Dogs mostly. After I got her mailing address and promised to send her the photos I’d taken for Suzette, Ginny and Fly drove west toward Chicago, out of the storm of murder and deceit. I headed the other way.

68

Jay and I spent
a couple hours wandering along the Tippecanoe River and shooting photos in Potowatomi Wildlife Park. I’d hoped for a glimpse of an osprey or bald eagle, or a river otter like the one I spotted on my last trip, but there were no endangered-species sightings on my plate this time.

The sun was skimming the treetops by the time I pulled into my driveway. I let Jay out of his crate and he made a beeline for Goldie, who was deadheading grape hyacinths in her front yard. I thought he would dislocate a hip the way he was wriggling his butt.

“Where ya been?” She followed me into the house and I filled her in.

“Push those photo boxes out of your way,” I told her as I scooped a cup of dry dog food into Jay’s bowl.

She picked up a big old plastic dumbbell that was standing on end next to the pepper grinder. “New kitchen tool?”

“Cute.”

“Heavy sucker.” She tested it against her biceps.

“Yeah. I have a lighter one I like better.”

She clucked at me. “You really should start tossing things you don’t use anymore. Give it to someone who can use it if you don’t. Get rid of some of the clutter in here.”

“Oh, okay, Mom. Sure thing.” I made a rude noise as I took the dumbbell out of her hand and into the living room. I supposed I could have put it away somewhere, but I settled for the end table by the couch. I’d find a place for it later. Goldie rolled her eyes at me when I got back to the kitchen. “Something else?”

“I’m just suggesting.”

“You never know when something like that will come in handy.”

“Uh-huh.” She tapped the side of one of the photo boxes. “May I?”

“Help yourself. Old photos from doggy school.”

She popped the lid and flipped slowly through the photos. “Doesn’t this look like fun? All those lovely dogs. Oops!”

Leo was straddling the box of photos and head-bumping Goldie’s chin. I stepped to the table and started to reach for the cat. “Hey, Mister, mind your manners. No kitchen table for you.”

“I don’t mind,” Goldie protested, wrapping a protective arm about Leo’s tawny body.

I looked more closely at Goldie’s face and physique. Even in baggy sweats I could see that she had lost a lot of weight, and there were new hollows in her cheeks and the smudges beneath her eyes had darkened. “Goldie, are you really okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine.” She hugged Leo and focused her eyes on the contents of the box.

I was about to press the issue when the phone rang. Jo Stevens lost no time on small talk. “I have an unofficial opinion from the coroner on Ms. Dorn and Ms. Anderson. Your friends were both poisoned.”

“What?” My voice sounded shrill in my own ear. I mean, the thought had danced around my mind, but having it confirmed was something else.

“We’re not sure yet about the source, but Mrs. Dorn had ingested lethal levels of some sort of alkaloids. And preliminary evidence suggests that Ms. Anderson was also poisoned.”

“But we knew that. I mean, she took the Tylenol.”

“No, the medical examiner doesn’t think so. The autopsy hasn’t been done yet, but the M.E. took a quick look and thinks it was something other than acetaminophen.”

I pulled a chair away from the table and sank into it, not sure my knees would hold me since they’d turned to jelly. An image popped into my brain. “Wait a minute.” I started slowly, speaking more quickly as I continued. “That container I took from Abigail’s setup at the show. The one I washed.” A hot wave of embarrassment at my own stupidity crept from my chin to my cheekbones. “I thought it smelled funny.” I tried to remember what I did with the contents of the bag. “I don’t think I cleaned out the trash from the tote bag, you know, paper plate and napkins and stuff. I don’t remember taking the plastic bag with the trash out of the tote bag. Maybe there’s still something there.”

“There was. They haven’t run the tests yet, but the lab guy said there may be some traces.” For a long moment I thought she might not tell me the rest. Then she did. “They lifted your fingerprints from the container.”