Rottweiler Rescue (18 page)

“Who showed your dogs before that?”

“Harry Jameson.”

Harry again. Damn it. I
liked
Harry and his family. “What made you switch handlers?”

“Oh, it’s hard to say exactly one thing. Harry’s attitude is that if he’s the handler, you’re paying him for his expertise and you ought to do what he says. And of course Myron feels since he’s paying he ought to get what he wants. They just bumped heads once too often over that kind of thing. Myron wanted to show Joe here in Kansas City.” She nodded toward the big male at her side. “We were willing to fly Joe and Harry back there, and it wasn’t as if there was an important local show to miss that weekend. Well, Harry said he wouldn’t do it, that the judge wouldn’t like Joe enough for it to be worthwhile. So we were at a local show just before the Kansas City entries closed, and Myron and Harry were arguing about it, loud enough to be heard, you know?”

I nodded. Just from hearing her husband’s message on my phone, I could imagine how easy it would be to overhear him in an ordinary conversation much less an argument.

“Afterwards Jack came over and said he couldn’t help but hear, and how he didn’t believe in not competing just because the judges weren’t in your pocket. And the upshot of it all was Jack took Joe to Kansas City, and after that he showed all our dogs for us.”

“So how did Joe do at that Kansas City show?” I asked.

“Didn’t win, didn’t even get a long look for that matter.”

We grinned at each other in mutual appreciation of the irony. Harry had been right, but being right had cost him a customer.

Before I could ask another question, furious barking sounded outside. Nadia scrambled up and off the couch and ran with Joe to the glass doors. Both dogs were hackling and giving low growls, ready to take on the strangers outside.

I was right behind them, peering out as best I could with the dogs keeping me from getting to the door.

“I need to get out,” I said to Ginny. “I left my dogs in the car. I need to see what’s set them off.”

Ginny took hold of the dogs’ collars and pulled them back. “Go ahead and check, but I bet it was deer. They’re thick all over up here, and it’s the right time of day for them now.”

Squeezing past the dogs and out onto the deck, I stared down at my car. Sophie and Robo were no longer barking but looking intently into the forest that started only a few feet from where the car was parked in the driveway. As I watched, Robo turned away and lay back down, disappearing from my sight below the windows. Whatever had set them off was gone now, and they were still safely in the car.

I slipped back into the house, shivering after just a minute outside, and accepted another cup of coffee. When I took my former position on the couch, so did Nadia. We were old friends now.

“So you left Harry and went with Jack,” I said, trying to get the conversation back on track. “Did Jack ever try to get you to go for a national ranking with Joe?”

“Joe was in the top twenty the first year Jack showed him,” Ginny said proudly. “But Jack knew he wasn’t ever going to do much better than that. He’s a grand boy, and we love him, but he’s not competitive at a higher level than that.”

Did Myron Feltzer really love his dogs? Or was it his wife who loved them and Myron who took pride in their victories? I looked down at the head in my lap. Nadia had her eyes closed and looked blissful as I fingered one velvety ear. “So are these two all you have now? Or do you have others being shown?”

“We have two good ones out on the circuit right now,” boomed a deep voice behind me. “And the sire of those puppies beside you on the couch is going to be the number one dog next year. Pick of the litter will be out there following in his daddy’s footsteps.”

Hmm. Did that mean the sire of the puppies was Joyce Richerson’s Carter? I decided to exercise the better part of valor and not ask.

As Myron Feltzer walked into the room, it shrank. The effect wasn’t from his size alone; his bullish attitude and bluster were what changed the room. His head was large for his body, and his features large in his face.

“Has my wife satisfied you with enough gossip, or do you have questions for me?” He didn’t wait for an answer but kept right on talking. “We have to leave in a few minutes anyway, so let’s be quick about it.”

Considering I’d been on time and he had waited until just minutes before his self-imposed deadline to put in an appearance, he wasn’t going to get away with that. I ignored the impatient way he stood there with his arms crossed, somehow giving the impression of tapping a foot without moving.

“Yes, I do have questions. Did Jack ever try to get you to let him campaign a dog nationally?”

“Sure he did,” Myron said, surprising me. “We had it all planned out. Then the dog was hit by a car, and that was the end of that.”

He had to mean Maida. “Are you saying you were going to campaign the bitch you imported from Germany for a national ranking?”

“Not a ranking, number one. She was tops over there and so were both her parents. It took a long time to find one that good that someone would sell.”

He sounded resentful of the time it had taken. Did it surprise him people didn’t want to sell a dog like Maida? Most people would sell their souls before they’d sell a dog like that.

“Did you ever think that maybe Jack was lying to you about what happened the night Maida was hit by the car? Did you ever consider that maybe the Standers were right and it was Jack himself who let her loose?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Jack was at MaryAnn Balma’s that night. She had a new litter and wanted his opinion. She said so in court.”

“But you fired Jack as your handler right after the lawsuit ended. If you believed him, why did you do that?”

“Because the son of a bitch let it happen. He should have had a padlock on that kennel run. From now on my dogs are with people who have kennels right on their property and see to their dogs themselves every night. None of this paying somebody else for the hard work.”

“Do you think Lee Stander was angry enough over the lawsuit and the way it came out to kill Jack?”

He wasn’t expecting that question and actually paused a moment to consider it. “No. He was angry — like a volcano ready to erupt — but why would he kill Jack? It was one of his own kennel workers he should have wanted to kill, or his wife for mismanaging the place. Or maybe me for not letting them get away with it. Damned insurance company originally offered me two thousand dollars.”

His answer sounded genuine to me. Maybe he really believed Jack’s version of events. I was tempted to tell him what Jack had admitted to Harry and Lannie Jameson, but that could lead to his learning what had happened to Maida. Just out of curiosity, I asked him about Maida.

“What happened to the dog you imported? I heard she had several surgeries.”

For the first time, his eyes slid away from mine evasively. “Four. Damn vet bills were enormous, and it was all for nothing. She was ruined.”

“It was terrible,” Ginny added. “After all those operations and all that time at the vet’s, we finally thought she was going to be okay, and she was home here with us. Then she wouldn’t eat, and Myron took her to the vet again, and she had a blood clot. It got to her lungs, and she died at the hospital.”

Ginny looked both sad and sincere in her belief that Maida had died at the vet’s. Had Maida really given Myron his excuse by refusing to eat a meal or two, or had he found a way to fake that? How had he kept his wife from learning the truth from the vet? I’d never know and didn’t really want to.

I tried another tack. “After you lost Maida, did Jack ever say anything to you about hoping that Joyce Richerson would let him campaign her dog?”

“Sure he did,” said Myron. “He said she was talking about sending the dog to Loomis in California — he’s done real well for a couple of people these last years — but Jack was convinced he could talk Joyce around. I wasn’t so sure. Joyce has strong opinions about her dogs, and she doesn’t take advice easily.”

“Did you ever get the feeling it was causing trouble between them?” I asked.

“Hell, no. Just the week before Jack died we all had dinner together after a show. Everyone was getting along just fine. Joyce even let the boy husband off his leash that night. She was coming down with something and went to bed early and left him there with us. He told us some stories about growing up in Germany and all. Usually he just keeps to himself. He had enough wine that night to loosen up some. He....”

“He’s just embarrassed,” Ginny interrupted. “He did what he had to to get to America, but it embarrasses him.”

Myron made a sound of disagreement. “You think he’s pretty just like all the girls do. Too damn pretty, I say. He didn’t want to just get to America. He wanted to get to America and be rich without working for it. Now he’s finding out there’s no free lunch. Joyce is no fool. She told me she has an ironclad prenup. If he wants to keep living well, he’d better keep her happy.”

Joyce’s prenuptial arrangements weren’t what interested me right then. I tried to get the Feltzers back on the subject. “What would Joyce have done if Jack really pressured her to let him show Carter?”

“Thrown him right out on his ass,” Myron stated confidently. “What’s more, he knew it. He might have tried to charm her, cajole her, but he’d never have tried pressure. You’ve met her. Would you try to pressure her into anything she didn’t want to do?”

I shook my head in acknowledgment of the truth of his words. Knowing I was running out of time with the Feltzers, I eased Nadia’s heavy head up off my lap a bit and slid out from under, then got to my feet.

“Would you look at my list of people who did business with Jack or were associated with him somehow and tell me if you can think of anyone else I should talk to?” I asked.

At his nod, I pulled the paper from my purse and handed it to him. He took his time reading the names, then handed it to Ginny.

“You don’t have the vet he dealt with on there,” he said, “but I don’t see how that matters. There are people he showed a dog for now and then. You could get them from his billing records, I guess, but you’ve got the people he dealt with every weekend at every show.”

“Do you have any idea at all who might have wanted Jack dead enough to kill him?” I asked.

“Harry Jameson, maybe. He probably thinks Jack stole a lot of clients from him. The truth is Harry’s an inflexible son of a bitch. He loses customers for himself. No one has to steal them.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to ask him. “Thanks for your time,” I said, buttoning my thin jacket all the way up to my neck.

“You didn’t learn anything you didn’t already know, did you?” Myron said.

“No, but you confirmed some things others told me, and that’s useful too.”

Now I was the one lying. Coming out here had been a disappointing waste of time, and I still had a long drive home ahead of me.

Ginny took her time showing me out, chatting away, and trying to get me to accept a warmer jacket on loan.

“Winter would be over before I could get it back to you,” I told her. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be in the car all the way home.”

I got Sophie and Robo out of the car and took them for a brief walk down Feltzers’ driveway, hugging myself against the chilly mountain air and cursing my own foolishness in not taking Ginny’s jacket.

Sophie kept trying to pull me into the trees to go after whatever had started the dogs barking earlier. Robo’s only interest in the trees was lifting his leg on as many as possible. Sophie finally accepted my sharp, “No,” and got down to business herself.

My teeth were chattering by the time the dogs were finished. Returning to the car and starting the heater was a relief. Night seemed to be closing in faster than it would have at a lower altitude. Maybe my annual difficulty in adjusting to fall’s shorter days just had me feeling that way.

I put the car in gear and started to back down the steep driveway, surprised by how difficult it was to turn the steering wheel. When the meaning of the way the car was handling came to me, I stopped right there on the hill, yanked on the emergency brake, got out and walked around to the passenger’s side.

At the sight of the flat tire on the front wheel, Ginny’s coffee rose sour in the back of my throat. So much for my intentions of avoiding driving in the dark on curving mountain roads.

The garage door in front
of my car rumbled open, backup lights flashed on, and a big black SUV in the garage bay started toward my crippled car then immediately jerked to a stop.

Myron and Ginny got out and joined me in their driveway. She clucked and sympathized. A look that might have been annoyance or maybe just impatience flashed across his face, then he turned matter of fact.

“Bad luck,” he said. “I suppose your spare is one of those donuts.”

“Yes, it is,” I told him, “and I’ve already used it once. I think it said you could drive fifty miles on it, and I went maybe twenty that time.”

Myron just grunted in reply and looked at his wife. “Go call Kenny, why don’t you. She can drive that far.” He turned to me. “Kenny Piesecki runs a garage not too far from here. If we catch him before he leaves for the night, he’ll help you out. I’ll get the spare on for you, and you can follow us there.”

He ignored my protests that I didn’t want to make them late and that I could change the tire myself and directed me in maneuvering to an almost flat piece of ground beside the driveway. I got the dogs out of the car so he could reach the tools and spare.

As Myron started jacking up the front end of the car, Ginny returned with the welcome news that she’d reached Kenny and he would wait for me. Even more welcome was the puffy white down-filled jacket she brought with her and wrapped around me.

“It’s an old one I never even wore all last winter,” she said. “You can bring it back to me at the February show, and if you forget, no harm at all.”

The coat was a size too small, tight under the arms and across the shoulders, but I zipped it all the way up, grateful for the warmth. Ginny made small talk about car trouble and the weather as she petted Sophie and Robo, making me feel guilty for the suspicious thoughts about her husband that kept running through my mind.