Rottweiler Rescue (5 page)

“Maybe they’ll make an arrest soon,” I said, also repeating myself.

“Hah,” Susan actually snorted. “If they arrested him tomorrow, it would be years of trials. They sit on death row for decades, appealing and appealing. You’ve basically adopted that lump of a dog yourself. I should go to the county attorney and tell them you had no right to sign that agreement. I’ll tell them they can have him. They’ll kennel him. He’ll be fine.”

We had been going round and round over the situation for more than half an hour, and suddenly I was fed up with it. If you started counting from that first phone call about Butch, I’d known Susan for over a dozen years, and in all that time when it came to dogs I’d always deferred to her judgment.

Susan is twenty-five years older than I am, about the same height, and at least ten pounds lighter, one of those women blessed by the gods who can eat anything and stay slim. Her hair didn’t turn gray, it turned silver, and it always hugged her head in a gleaming cap. Her elegant, classy look and reasonable way of clearly stating her most extreme positions let her regularly steamroll her way over us lesser beings with impunity.

I for one had always docilely done exactly what she told me with the foster dogs, even when I disagreed with her as violently as I did about the wisdom of adopting Robot to Jack Sheffield. The dogs actually belonged to Front Range Rottweiler Rescue, and she was the corporation’s president, but it was the fact that she knew more about dogs than I ever would that had always made disagreeing with her seem foolish.

All that had changed yesterday. I knew it, but Susan didn’t yet. If our friendship was to continue it was going to have to change. I looked straight into her angry eyes that were as dark as could be desired in a champion show dog.

“Susan, I’ve taken in every dog you’ve ever brought here without a quibble and never asked for favors. I took Robot to Jack’s because you said to, even though I didn’t want to, and you knew it. The dog saved my life....”

“By accident! You admit it was an accident!”

“I’m just as alive as if it were by design or on command! If you go to the county attorney, I’ll fight you. I’ll use Judge Cramer. I’ll use Owen Turner. I’ll use every penny of equity I have in this house fighting you, the county and anyone else I have to, but this dog isn’t going to spend his life in some little cement-floored run. I’m keeping him!”

For a moment I thought she was going to take up the gauntlet I’d just thrown down, but the moment passed. She sighed, and tension drained out of her.

“All right. If it means that much to you, he’s yours. I’ll bring an adoption contract the next time I’m out this way.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying for a conciliatory tone. “How much is the adoption fee?”

“Same as for anyone else! No favors, right?” After a small pause, she said, “That’s really silly, isn’t it? No, of course not. A dollar to make it legal, that’s all.”

“Thank you,” I said again. “And I’m changing his name to Robo. Just that little change to soften the sound a bit.” And to take away Susan’s derogatory meaning, but I wasn’t going to tell her that outright.

“So since it’s too early in the day to celebrate my new dog with a beer, how about some coffee? Have you had breakfast?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “I came over as early as I dared, and breakfast was the last thing on my mind. You were all over the news last night in the story about Jack’s murder, and I couldn’t get you on the phone. I’m sorry I got you up.”

“You didn’t quite get me up.” In fact, I’d been up just long enough to let the dogs out and listen to the many increasingly frantic messages from Susan on my phone before she showed up at my front door.

I busied myself starting coffee, then took strawberries that should have been eaten the day before out of the refrigerator. As I picked through the berries, discarding some, cutting soft spots out of others, I wondered as I had many times before why Susan, who had so many demands on her time, almost always turned down my offers to drive to her house and instead drove to mine.

Of course at home Susan had a husband, show dogs, never less than two rescue dogs, and a phone that never stopped ringing. She had three grown children, the youngest of which was a son who was to my knowledge her single weakness.

Divorced and chronically unemployed, Wesley was a bum who dumped his small children on Susan every time he had visitation with them.

As I finished with the berries and popped frozen sweet rolls into the oven, I once again came to the conclusion that for Susan, time spent visiting me was restful. At least it had been until this morning.

I poured coffee, put bowls of berries on the table, and sat down again. “Was Jack the kind of man someone would want to kill?”

“Mmmf,” Susan said around a strawberry. Then, “Do you think Jack was killed on purpose — he didn’t just interrupt a burglar?”

“Yes, I do. Think about it. What burglar would be in a house that time of the morning? And why did Jack want a dog all of a sudden?”

“He said his boyfriend, who was the reason he never had a house dog, was moving out.”

“But the boyfriend wasn’t out. He still lives there.”

“He was going to leave, and he’d agreed to a dog being only in the kitchen until he was gone.”

“Why wouldn’t Jack just wait until he was gone? Why wouldn’t he bring one of the show dogs home?”

“He wanted a dog of his own that didn’t have to be kept up. He wanted to know he was helping a dog that needed help, just like any other adopter. Why do you have so much trouble with that concept?”

“I guess because it’s not what I’d do. I’d never live with anyone so allergic I couldn’t have pets to start with, but if I did live with someone like that for years, I’d wait till he moved out to bring a dog into the house.”

“Not everyone is the same,” said Susan, a woman who imposes her own beliefs on everyone she can without mercy.

“No, but even so.... Did he say anything that would make you think he wanted some protection, even just as a minor consideration?”

“Absolutely not,” said Susan with confidence. “And if that’s what he wanted, he’d have been better off bringing home one of the dogs in his show string. Rescue dogs are a poor choice for protection. They almost always have too much baggage to have the confidence a protection dog needs.” After a pause, she added, “Of course the mere presence of a big dog can be a deterrent. You saw that yesterday, thank God.”

Thank Robo
, I thought but didn’t say as I pulled the rolls from the oven and set them on the table. Sitting down again, I went back to the subject of Jack Sheffield’s personal life. “Lieutenant Forrester said the boyfriend was out of town. Did you ever meet him?”

“I’m not sure — not at shows — he’s allergic. What’s his name again?”

“Warmstead. Carl Warmstead.”

Susan finished her berries while she thought it over.

“Carl. I do remember. At the committee meeting for trophies for last year’s specialty show. I remember thinking he and Jack were like salt and pepper. Jack so dark, dark hair, always a deep tan, and this Carl was very blond. He was taller than Jack, just a little, but taller.”

“The man I saw could be almost any height,” I said. “He was a couple of feet above me on the deck. He seemed tall, taller than Jack, but I was so scared. And I have to be wrong about the eyes. Nobody has colorless eyes.”

“An albino?” Susan said doubtfully.

“No, not like an albino. Just... not like that. Like water in a clear glass. Like ice. You know what they say about eye witnesses. I’m hopeless.”

“Maybe not. Gray eyes could look like that in certain light, and when you’re frightened to start with.”

“Did this Carl have gray eyes?”

“Blue. You wouldn’t think I’d remember, but I do. I remember thinking he looked like a Scandinavian doll, very blond, very blue eyed. Quite handsome, really. Jack was so, so proud to be with him. I was almost embarrassed for him.”

“Well, if he was really out of town, Carl isn’t a possibility, and a Rottweiler in the yard wouldn’t protect against anyone who lived in the house anyway.”

“The dog was
not
for protection, and he was going to be in the house,” Susan said forcefully. “I told you that, not all over the house, but in the
house
.”

Yeah, right
, I thought, remembering the designer living room done in pastels, but out loud I said, “Of course,” as if she’d convinced me.

We left it there.

The next several weeks passed
peacefully. The customers who counted on me for help with their computers and networks had enough problems to keep me busy, but not enough to make me frantic. I finished customizing report forms for an accounting firm in Denver, and by the end of the month had set up a small network for three architects leaving a large firm and going out on their own.

A few days later, Susan brought me a small female Rottweiler named Millie who had been abandoned at a local vet clinic with injuries from falling out of the back of a pickup truck. The vet had done the surgery to repair Millie’s broken leg, and after she finished healing, he adopted her out himself to a young couple who returned her in a week. At that point he called Susan.

Millie was a cutie with what I call “rescue ears,” that is, her right ear had the proper Rottweiler fold, and her left stuck up a bit. Neither Susan nor I could figure out why anyone lucky enough to adopt her wouldn’t be totally charmed. Yes, she jumped on any human she got close to, and yes, she pulled like the little train who could on a leash, but a bit of training would fix that.

Susan and I cursed the irresponsibility of the pickup owner and lamented the lack of vision of the failed adopters while introducing Millie to Sophie and Robo. Millie was hardly more than a baby at a year old and was properly deferential to Sophie, who accepted her with resignation, and to Robo, who ignored her as if she were human.

When Bella, my all-too-fearless calico cat, put in an appearance, Millie showed far more interest than the vet had promised, but none of the true cat killer’s intensity. Susan helped me set up a crate in a corner of the kitchen and settle Millie in with chew toys to keep her busy.

With Millie taken care of, Susan picked up her purse, but made no leaving motions. Instead, she pulled out folded papers and held them out. “Here’s your adoption contract on the robot,” she said.

I took the papers from her readily enough, but felt a wave of suspicion rising. As I dug a dollar bill out of my own purse, I considered the situation. Susan had avoided giving me that contract for weeks. When she visited me, she forgot. When I visited her, she was too busy with chores that made booting up her computer and printing an agreement an insurmountable task.

I hadn’t made an issue of it. In a secret corner of my heart I wished things were different as much as she did. In a perfect world I would adopt a second dog who loved me with Sophie’s passion. In an even slightly less flawed world I could adopt a dog who at least
liked
me. Of course in that better world there would be no rescue dogs, no fools transporting dogs in open bed pickup trucks, no sadists making the wounds that had left Robo so scarred inside and out.

Regret about the dog and the adoption had nothing to do with my sudden wariness, though. That came from my knowledge of Susan herself. She had spent a lifetime manipulating dogs and people into doing what she wanted them to do. Robo’s contract was today’s bait, and I was already in the jaws of today’s trap.

By the time I had it worked out, Susan was talking me into helping her with the rescue booth at the local breed club’s annual specialty show. A specialty is very much like any other dog show, but is for only one breed. This Rottweiler specialty was scheduled for the Friday before the last weekend in September, an outdoor show in Greeley, a two-hour drive north of my peaceful little house, which might not be air conditioned, but was quite comfortable with a swamp cooler and fans running. Even knowing resistance was futile, I resisted.

“Patricia always helps you at shows. Patricia
likes
shows,” I said, as a way of reminding her that I didn’t like them that much.

“Patricia is doing obedience with Gunnar. You know, that cute male she adopted last year. She got an ILP on him as soon as she adopted him. Well, they call it something different now — PAL. Purebred Alternative Listing. And if you’d just adopt a nice young male, you could get a PAL number and you could help Patricia show everyone what rescue dogs can do. If obedience competition isn’t your cup of tea, you could do agility. You’d
like
agility. It’s loads of fun for people and dogs.”

“
Competition
isn’t my cup of tea. I had enough of that in my teens with horses. I’ve told you the kind of things I saw people doing to horses in pursuit of the almighty blue ribbon.”

I cut her off fast before she started her usual sales pitch about PAL numbers, AKC — the American Kennel Club — and canine competitions. Susan really believes that since I succeeded in civilizing Butch, I have undeveloped talent as a dog trainer, and it is one of her many missions in life to develop it.

“You help every dog you foster, you know. You could make people sit up and notice the potential of rescue dogs if you’d just work with a halfway decent candidate.” She threw a disapproving look at Robo where he slept in his corner, reminding me without words how very unsuitable a candidate for anything he was.

“There are people who put titles on rescues all over the country. They don’t need me to make a difference.”

“Patricia’s dog is the only rescue Rottweiler competing in Colorado,” Susan said. “You could make a difference here.”

This was another argument we’d had before, and I didn’t want to have it again. My horse show experiences had turned me off competition, and watching news reports of human athletes who took drugs that would render them sterile and shorten their lives just to win a race, a game or position on a team had reinforced my aversion regularly.

“Okay, I’ll help you in the rescue booth, but only for that one day of the specialty,” I said. There would be an all breed show at the same fairgrounds on Saturday and Sunday. Being very clear about the limits of my commitment was only wise.