Rottweiler Rescue (2 page)

“Why the back, why not the front?”

“He told me to go to the back when he gave me directions. We talked on the phone.”

“I see, and what was this appointment for?”

Better just take a deep breath and spit it out, I told myself. “I’m a foster home for Front Range Rottweiler Rescue, and he was adopting a dog from us. I brought the dog he was adopting.”

I risked a look at the lieutenant’s face, reassessed my previous thought that it was pleasant, and added, “That’s why so early, Rotties have trouble with the heat, you know, big black dogs, so we decided on eight, so it would still be cool.”

The silence hung between us for long seconds before he broke it, his voice low and furious.

“You brought that dog here. It ripped a man’s throat out, then you made up some story about a man with a knife? You sat out there for hours while every cop in the county looked for a figment of your imagination! Where’s the dog?”

“Safe,” I said, starting to get angry myself.

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, I felt compelled to add, “Jack was dead when I got here. Any doctor will tell you a dog didn’t do that to him. I’d be dead too if it weren’t for the dog. He got between me and the man, the killer, and that’s why I’m still alive. I was so scared I almost fainted, then I dropped the leash, and the dog got in the house and stepped in — made those pawprints before I got him out. He didn’t hurt anyone, and I knew it would get too hot to have him waiting around on the street, and so I got someone to — and so he’s someplace safe.”

None of this had made any impression on the lieutenant, whose mouth was now a tight line.

“Do you know what obstruction of justice is?”

I swallowed hard. “A felony. Most often committed by presidents and those in high office, I believe.”

The intensity of the pale blue gaze made me wish I could take the smart words back as soon as I uttered them.

“All right, Ms. Brennan,” he said softly, “we’ll finish this interview at the Justice Center. Horton!”

Deputy Horton appeared so quickly
he must have been lurking in the next room. He listened to Forrester’s orders silently, then escorted me to one of the black and white Fords with a careful politeness that should have been reassuring but somehow was not.

After a few words from Horton, a second deputy climbed into the front passenger’s seat, and I began second guessing myself and the situation wildly. Were there two of them because they thought I was dangerous? Should I have refused to cooperate and demanded a lawyer? But I wasn’t under arrest now; would raising hell have made everything worse?

I tried not to think about the purpose of the divider that protected the deputies in the front seat from desperate criminals like me in the back seat. Then I noticed that the car’s back doors had no inside handles and almost lost control. Closing my eyes, I gulped in several deep breaths, determined not to let my fear show.

When I opened my eyes, I forced myself to stare out the side window and to concentrate on the scenery flashing by. Neither the blur of rooftops when we started out or the open grasslands beside the highway when we left the developments behind held my attention, but as we approached the Justice Center, I had regained a semblance of calmness. After all, the cavalry was on its way, and everything would work out in the end.

Usually I enjoy any trip to the town of Castle Rock, but this trip was different, and Deputy Horton took a route that avoided the historic town center and its appealing Nineteenth Century homes and businesses anyway. The Justice Center was an ordinary-looking brown brick building northwest of town. Its modern starkness suited my mood far better than the charm of the old town.

Not only that, I thought wearily, the small room where Deputy Horton left me alone with my own thoughts was government-issue dreary, but at least not century-old dreary. Air conditioning was a most welcome modern convenience. I sat and waited. And waited.

When the door finally opened and Lieutenant Forrester walked in, he was accompanied by Deputy Horton and a short female officer who probably didn’t look as thick in the waist when she was wearing something more flattering than her uniform. Her brown hair was skinned back into a knot and emphasized the tight lines of her face. There had to be recording equipment built into this room, but she thumped a notepad down on the table. I understood her aggravation at being the one assigned to do the note taking, but my position was much worse.

The lieutenant was either over his earlier anger or had it well in hand.

“It’s been a long day for you,” he said. “Do you need anything to eat or drink? Restroom?”

I looked at him warily. My thirst was slaked and my bladder was empty. “I’m fine, thank you,” I replied.

He threw a hard glance at Deputy Horton, who was busy looking elsewhere. “Just as well,” he said. “Saves time. Now, are you ready to talk to us?”

I tried to read something in his face but couldn’t. “Am I under arrest?”

“No. You were first at the scene of a homicide, and you saw someone leaving the scene. You’re going to give us your statement is all.”

“Did the medical examiner tell you that it was a knife, not a dog?”

I expected him to stonewall or to bluster, but he ran a hand over his face and answered quietly. “Coroner. We have a coroner. Dr. Reiker says it wasn’t a dog, but that dog still made a mess of the crime scene, and you’re going to have to give him up. We could bring charges for tampering with evidence or hindering an investigation. Now, do you want to cooperate, or do you want us to find something to charge you with?”

If he was going to be halfway forthcoming, I would do the same. “I’m willing to talk about anything except giving you the dog. We can fight over that when my lawyer arrives.”

The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed very slightly, but he kept his voice even. “So you ran out of that house, you called somebody to hide the dog, then you called a lawyer, and then you finally called us. You’re a good citizen, Ms. Brennan.”

I couldn’t help smiling at him. “Actually, I called you first. You can ask your 911 dispatcher. She tried to keep me on the line the first time and couldn’t. I hung up on her and called someone about the dog. I never really called a lawyer — I don’t know one to call — but I do know Judge Cramer in Arapahoe County because he and his wife adopted a dog I fostered last year, so I called him. And I didn’t call him until your officers were already there.”

“And you didn’t worry about the risk of our first responders showing up before you handed off the dog?” he asked.

“I’ve lived in Douglas County for a long time. I figured it was a good bet you wouldn’t show up until he was safe.”

His frown told me I’d just risked our new found détente, so I added quickly, “I’m not being critical. I live here, and I know how big the county is.”

“Eight hundred forty-four square miles,” he growled.

“Exactly, and our county commissioners have never heard of a development they didn’t like. Your department must hire a new deputy every other month to try and keep up.”

Admitting that the response time of the sheriff’s department hadn’t concerned me because I’d driven Robot back to the school that had featured so prominently in my directions and met Carey Inman there didn’t seem prudent right then. Carey was a rescue adopter who lived only a few miles away, and she’d been willing to provide a safe haven. I’d parked in front of Jack’s house again and reestablished my connection with the dispatcher at the sheriff’s office only minutes before the first deputies arrived.

Our preliminary sparring was over. Lieutenant Forrester dictated time, date, names of those present, and a case number clearly for the recording equipment. I took note of the fact that he didn’t recite a Miranda warning.

At first knowing I was being recorded and the sight of the deputy taking notes made me stutter self-consciously, but soon the horror of the morning wiped out such small concerns. No one interrupted, but as soon as I finished, the lieutenant’s questions started.

“You’re sure it was a man?” he asked.

I was sure, but had to think why. “Yes. His size, the way he looked at me, body proportions, the way he went over the fence. Yes, I’m sure.”

“And you think he was a big man? You’re what, five foot five? What’s big to you — six feet?”

“Usually, yes, but he was above me on the deck, and I was so scared.... So maybe he wasn’t that tall, but my first thought was that he was bigger than Jack, and Jack was maybe your height, but smaller looking, fine boned, really thin, not that you’re....”

“I get it. Sheffield was scrawny, delicate even. I’m not. And the killer was definitely more than five foot ten. You call Sheffield ‘Jack.’ How well did you know him?”

“Not well at all. He’s — was — a professional dog trainer. Dog handler is what he’d call himself, I guess. He showed dogs for a living. I go to a dog show maybe once or twice a year, just to look sometimes, to help at the booth our rescue group sets up sometimes. I knew who he was. He probably couldn’t have put my name and face together.”

“Tell me more about this rescuing business.”

“Okay, rescues are groups, or sometimes individuals, who take in homeless dogs and find new homes for them.”

“Yeah, but you called it ‘Rottweiler Rescue.’ You don’t take any Benji types, right?”

“Well, no. Rescue usually means purebred dog rescue. Fanciers of one breed work with that one breed. The theory is that people familiar with a breed can evaluate their own better and know if a certain dog is adoptable and what kind of home it should have, and that if each breed takes care of its own, the shelters would have more time and money for the Benjis.”

Lieutenant Forrester wasn’t buying my explanation. “Sounds like a bunch of dog snobs to me.”

I wasn’t going to deny what I knew to be true. “There’s an element of that in it. The reason people are fanciers of one breed is that they think it’s the best. And while most dog people care about all dogs, they tend to care most about the kind they live with.”

The lieutenant changed the subject slightly. “So if Sheffield dealt with show dogs, why was he getting one of these homeless leftovers from your group?”

“I don’t know.”

His look told me he heard more than my words. “Tell me what you do know.”

“What I know is all from Susan McKinnough, the head of our rescue group. She told me Jack always said he couldn’t have a dog at home because his boyfriend — his, um, partner — was allergic.” Here I searched the lieutenant’s face to see if he understood my full meaning. He did.

“The neighbors told us about the boyfriend. He’s out of town on business.”

“Yes, well, all of a sudden Jack called Susan and said he wanted to adopt a dog. He said his friend was moving out soon and until then they had agreed that the dog would be in only part of the house, and....” I tapered off, unsure how much to say.

“So Ms. McKinnough believed it, and you didn’t.”

Perceptive. The lieutenant was all too perceptive, but I couldn’t see how telling him about Robot could do any harm.

“Susan’s been breeding and showing Rotties for over thirty years. She started before most people even knew what a Rottweiler was. She’s really at home with the breed people, the people whose whole lives revolve around dog shows. She didn’t want to adopt Robot — the rescue Jack was adopting — to the kind of regular family that adopts most rescues. She thinks, thought, an experienced dog handler like Jack was perfect.”

“What’s wrong with the dog?”

“Nothing’s wrong with him,” I said.

“Okay, what does
she
think is wrong with him?”

“He’s been abused, abused so badly he’s like children get, I guess, when they just withdraw. Most abuse cases are so delighted to have anyone be kind, they’re all over the first person who feeds them. We test all the dogs before we adopt them out, and Robot flunked the sociability part of the test. On a scale of one to ten, he’s a zero. In any area he’s in, he’ll get as far from people as he can. For that matter, he doesn’t react to most things like a normal dog. It’s like you have this living, breathing dog, but there’s nothing inside.”

“I’d think people would be standing in line for one like that. He’d be easy to take care of.”

“People love dogs because dogs love them back. This one isn’t going to. People don’t want to adopt a dog that won’t have anything to do with them. Susan thought if Jack knew what the dog was like and still wanted him, it was an ideal solution.”

“How long have you been fostering the dog?”

“A little more than a month.”

“And you didn’t think Sheffield was good enough for him, and you were willing to go to jail to keep him away from us.”

I just nodded my head, admitting the perceptive lieutenant was right. He said nothing. His expression made it clear he didn’t think much of my priorities.

“Jack didn’t suddenly want a pet after all these years. He told me to come to the back because he didn’t want the dog in that fancy living room. He was going to make him a yard dog, and we don’t adopt to people who keep dogs outside. I couldn’t imagine what he did want, but now — I bet it was protection. He thought a big dog would keep exactly what happened from happening. Only I’m the one who was protected. It was too late for Jack. And if I hadn’t gotten scared out of my wits and dropped the leash, Robot never would have gone inside, and you wouldn’t be so keen to kill him and stuff him as Exhibit A in a murder trial when you may never even catch the guy.”

My voice was rising with emotion, and the lieutenant replied to the part of my fear he had no problem with, in fact probably considered rational.

“We’ll catch him.”

“Oh, sure. From my great description. If he had shorts and a T-shirt underneath, he could pull off the black clothes, stuff them and the knife in a fanny pack, and just jog away. No one would remember him, and he’d be long gone before you ever arrived. And covered up like that he didn’t leave so much as a flake of skin for you to find at Jack’s place.”

Some subtle change in his face told me I’d hit a nerve, but what he said was, “You watch too much television, Ms. Brennan.”