The Deadly Dog Show (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 6)

by Jerold Last

  Sherry made an obvious gesture of checking her watch and disengaged from scratching her dog’s ears. “I’ll be the AKC representative at these shows in Stockton and Woodland so I can handle all of the details about the required entries for you and Juliet even though it’s already past the registration deadline. After that you’ll be able to take care of your own scheduling.”

  Sherry refused our dinner invitation. She still had a 6-hour drive and wanted to get home to Sacramento at a reasonable hour. She and Bruce transferred a couple of loads of doggy essentials into our house. Giving Juliet a last hug, she left us as a new dog owning family.

  Under Bruce's guidance, we organized two loads of doggy essentials for now and the foreseeable future. "Let's get to the basics first," suggested Bruce. "Juliet needs to know where she can find the things that are important to her, and what the rules are. There are some real advantages to adopting an older dog like Juliet rather than starting with an 8-week-old puppy. She's a very well trained, mature adult, who already has some established routines. Sherry ran me through her usual routines and left me her essential supplies. I also bought a few more necessities to set her up the way I think we’ll all be happiest here. The more we stay with her familiar routines, the more secure she'll feel with us. The less we have to say “no”, the better."

  Bruce led Juliet and the Bowman family entourage to the back yard. With Juliet following us, we went out through the kitchen door to a stucco- and shrub-walled area. Suzanne explained to Robert and our new dog what awaited them on the other side of the door.

  “This is Beverly Hills, so you’ll see some hills back here, but nothing too steep. According to our local laws, the swimming pool is fenced off to keep you both safe. You’ll have plenty of chances to play in the pool when it’s warmer outside. The little house by the pool is for dressing, changing, and keeping pool toys and equipment. At night we like to sit by the table on the patio and look at the stars in the sky, but that’s too late for you to stay up, Robert. From now on I think we should keep a supply of tennis balls out here to play with.”

  Juliet gave Suzanne a look that said very clearly, “I have my own way of figuring this stuff out”. She ran happily from one end of the yard to the other three or four times at high speed, then started exploring with her nose at a slower pace, stopping at each tree and bush to sniff for interesting scents. She found a few bushes on a mound near the back corner of the yard that she bounded over several times just for the sheer joy of flying through the air. The local trees included nut, fruit, and avocado, offering a variety of smells to sample. There were still a few nuts lying on the ground under the towering walnut tree. Juliet helped herself, broke and chewed the nuts, swallowed, and barked happily.

  The ground was thick, tough grass. Juliet tested the grass by running back and forth on it and declared it ideal. Suddenly, her hunter instincts kicked in and she locked on a rock solid point position at one of the trees. Bruce lined himself up tail to nose and pointed to a gray squirrel standing on a branch about 20 feet above the pointing dog. He tapped her head once to release her from the point and she happily barked at the squirrel till he ran off through the trees. Robert gurgled with delight as Juliet continued exploring the yard and running around in it.

  Bruce watched Juliet playing with a very pleased expression on his face. He was clearly in his element here. "The German Shorthaired Pointer is a terrific athlete. They need lots of regular exercise to be happy and stay in shape. If you think she looked fast running around back here, she has a couple of higher gears she can shift into in the field. Based on sheer speed she can outrun most other dog breeds. Even more impressive is the GSP's endurance. A GSP in excellent condition, like Juliet, can run 20 or 30 miles pretty much continuously at a fast trot and probably wouldn't even be breathing hard at the end of the run. She can jump over a 5-6 foot fence anytime she wants, but she'll stay here in the yard here once she learns it is her home. One of us will have to stay back here with her for the first week or two while she gets used to her new space. After that we can let her out a few times a day to empty on her own. I can train her to use one corner of the yard for that purpose."

  Juliet slowed down for a few seconds and trotted over to us for praise and pats of approval. Now that she wasn’t a blur of motion, I could take a closer look at her. She was white, with dark brown ticks all over. Her head and much of her face were brown, as was a big spot near the base of her tail and her ears. I was soon to learn that GSP owners called her darker color “liver”, rather than brown. All three of us human adults kneeled down to pet and scratch her, telling her what a good dog she was. Robert just poked and pat-patted her with all the vigor an infant could summon to the task. Juliet rewarded each of us with a few sloppy doggy kisses, each kiss featuring lots of tongue with indiscriminate aim. Then she went back to work, looking for squirrels and whatever else was waiting to be found in this strange and wonderful place. Suzanne and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. My dark blue velour vest was covered with white dog hairs, while Suzanne's cream-colored sweater appeared to be covered with liver-colored hairs shed by Juliet. Bruce congratulated us both on our new GSP look. When your dog is a full-body contact people lover like Juliet, being perpetually covered in dog hair was one more thing we had to get used to in our new life. On the other hand, Juliet got brown-nose points (“liver-nose” points?) with all of us for combining her shedding with kissing.

  We all returned to the house. I walked directly through the high ceilinged family room to the elaborate wine cellar off the dining room to retrieve a bottle of our favorite Chardonnay to celebrate Juliet’s arrival. Colorful oriental carpets protected the polished hardwood floors in the dining and living rooms. However, Juliet’s toenails made a loud clicking noise on the hardwood surface of the family room floor. “I’m going to have to keep those nails pretty short or we’re not going to be happy with what she does to the floor,” Bruce observed.

  The rest of the house included our huge master bedroom, a formal dining room, enough additional bedrooms for a family of five and a few visitors, enough bathrooms for a mid-sized family with chronic dysentery, and a recently modernized kitchen with high-end major appliances and lots of additional small appliance toys. We spent most of our time in the modern and informal family room and a less formal dining area just off the kitchen. Juliet would have about 7,500 square feet to wander through and explore, including seven bedrooms, six full, and two half bathrooms.

  Suzanne had already decided that "Juliet's room" would be the large family room, where Bruce and Sherry had piled Juliet's stuff before Sherry left. The first thing that came out of the pile was a large dog crate, already fully assembled, with a soft pad on its floor. Bruce put the crate into the far corner of the room saying, "We've talked about dog crates before. This isn't a doggy jail. It's a Juliet-cave, where good things like meals and sleep happen. She already knows the command 'k-e-n-n-e-l'. I spelled it out so Juliet wouldn’t respond to me, but to you, this time. Try the command, Suzanne."

  Suzanne walked to the front of the crate and said, "kennel" in a firm tone, at normal volume. Juliet walked into the crate, turned around twice, and lay down on her soft bedding. Bruce removed a large dog biscuit from his pocket and handed it to Suzanne. "Give her one of these as a reward whenever she goes into the crate and you'll never have a problem with her wanting to disobey the 'kennel' command."

  Suzanne handed the biscuit through a slot in the grillwork of the front door to Juliet lying in the crate. The dog took it carefully in her mouth and lay there happily, chewing, as Bruce demonstrated to Suzanne and me how to latch the crate closed. Bruce arranged a basket of Juliet's favorite dog toys near the crate. Then he put a large bowl of dog biscuits on a shelf conveniently accessible to humans taller than Robert, but high enough to be safely out of the dog and infant’s reach.

  Chapter9.Suzanne gets a gift

  Just then the front doorbell rang. I got there first and opened the door to greet a teenager deliver
ing a paper-wrapped bundle of flowers from a florist's truck parked at the curb in front of our house.

  A bored teenager looked up from the papers he was carrying. "Does Suzanne Bowman live here?"

  Who'd be sending Suzanne flowers, I wondered. Did I miss her birthday or our anniversary? No, both were months away. "Yes, she does."

  "Sign here, Mister."

  I signed and was handed the flowers, wrapped in green paper. The delivery guy stood there, clearly expecting a tip. I gave him one, got a mumble of thanks, and off he went. I took the flowers inside and handed the conical-shaped arrangement to Suzanne.

  She was clearly surprised, not expecting a floral bouquet. "What's this for?"

  "I don’t know. Why don't you open them and see if there's a card?"

  Suzanne carefully unwrapped the package to find a dozen long-stemmed red roses. A card dropped to the floor. She bent over, picked it up, and read it aloud.

  "To my dear Suzanne:

  Roses are red and violets are blue,

  Because of your beauty I share these with you.

  Your loving admirer."

  Suzanne looked directly at me. Her expression was not a happy one. "Is this your idea of romantic, Roger?"

  Suddenly I was on the defensive. "No, I have no idea who sent these. I'm guessing some kind of whack job. A dozen roses delivered aren't cheap, so they’re definitely meant to send you some kind of message. Have you gotten anyone pissed off at work lately?"

  Suzanne shivered slightly and looked worried. "No, I haven't. But do you remember that feeling I had when we were in New York that someone was watching me? I wonder if it's possible I picked up a stalker while we were there? But if the stalker came from our trip back east, how would they have found my home address? Can I assume you only gave your office address to the AKC folks and our hotel?"

  "Nowadays, if they know how to use a computer, I'm afraid all of that type of personal information is available somewhere."

  I picked up the card and wrapping and found the name and phone number of the florist. It took only a few seconds to dial the number. It rang three times and a deep male voice said "Hello."

  "Hello. We just got a delivery to our house from your store of a dozen roses for Suzanne Bowman. Can you tell us who sent them?"

  "Just a sec!” I heard the sound of his phone being dropped on the counter and some noises in the background. About a minute later he was back on the phone. “It was an Internet order paid for by cash through a third party site. I have no way of knowing the name of the person who paid or who placed the order. I can’t even tell you whether the order originated locally."

  I thanked him for his help, hung up, and turned to Suzanne. "Did you get any bad vibes at Rockefeller University or while we were at the hotel, or was it only while we were at the restaurant?"

  She thought deeply for a moment before looking up at me. "Just at the restaurant. And I think I see where you're going logically. If we don't believe in the random chance someone we passed on the street fell in love and somehow found my name and address, my stalker is most likely to be one of the AKC staff we had dinner with, right?"

  "Right. I'll have Vincent run some background checks on all of them tomorrow and we'll see if anyone has done anything like this before and gotten caught at it."

  Suzanne carefully put the roses in a vase of water. "Anyway, the flowers are pretty, and they’ll look nice on the dinner table."

  She put the vase of roses on the dining room table, took a long look at it, shivered, walked over, and hugged me. "As you know, I can take care of myself very well. But this really, really creeps me out." On that note she turned around to pick up the vase and move the flowers onto a table in the front hall, as far away as possible from where the family tends to hang out and still be in the house.

  I hugged her back and gave her a kiss. "I don't think you have to worry too much about your personal safety, unless this creep escalates what he's doing. Flowers or chocolates are pretty impersonal. If he shifts to underwear or personal stuff, we should take some serious precautions. In the meantime, I'll have Vincent try again via the florist and the Internet site to see if he can find out where the order originated. Let's also tell Bruce about this at dinner. He can keep half an eye on you and Robert at a slightly higher stage of alert than usual."

  The next day Vincent tried his computer magic, which didn't tell us a thing.

  I explained Vincent’s efforts to Suzanne that evening. “I asked Vincent to do a little bit of his computer hacking magic on the florist’s computer, to try to find the IP address of the person who ordered your roses. He couldn’t. Whoever ordered those flowers covered their tracks pretty thoroughly. They used a computer program similar to one called Tor, which conceals your identity. Anyone can just download it free from the Internet. It’s a fancy program that makes the sender’s computer address anonymous by running the message through a bunch of encrypted relay points along the Internet. It works the same way as if you take a twisty-turny route from here to there, to throw anyone following you off your trail. Your secret admirer either has some really impressive computer savvy, either on their own or has access to some pretty good corporate-type Information Technology people who taught him or her this trick."

  Suzanne frowned as she leaned towards me, put down the scientific journal she’d been reading, and looked up from her chair. "So, what now, Roger? Should we call the police or is it better not to do anything and hope he goes away when he gets bored with this stupid game?"

  We really didn’t have a whole lot of choices at this point. "I think we should watch and wait for now. He'll either back off or escalate. If he escalates he'll make a mistake."

  Chapter10.Starting the dog show circuit.

  Bruce, Juliet, and I packed our shiny new minivan, compliments of the AKC, and started our long drive to Stockton. We drove a few miles west on Sunset Boulevard to the entrance for The San Diego Freeway going north, then on I-405 to its merger with I-5, then north on I-5. Bruce had rigged a tight fitting wooden frame in the back of the minivan, allowing him to bolt Juliet’s crate to the frame. With this contraption she could ride safely and comfortably in her dog crate with her favorite bedding and a few selected toys wherever we went. She also took up a lot less space in the car than if she was loose to climb around, and could easily fall asleep when she was bored.

  Travelling with an intact bitch in season was like I imagined travelling with an elderly grandfather who had prostate gland problems would be. When in season, a dog is biologically ready to have puppies. She may have some minor bleeding and definitely needs to relieve herself more often than usual. I-5 turned out to be convenient for this task. It has rest stops about every 50 miles with well-marked areas for dog walking. We stopped a couple of times to take Juliet for a short walk to empty her bladder. The rest stops at least broke up the boredom of this long, straight interstate highway that traveled endlessly through California’s flat agricultural heartland. The posted speed limit of 70 miles per hour apparently translated to 79 mph and faster speeds, which experienced drivers cruised at all the way from Bakersfield to Stockton. Ominous signs alongside the road warned us of airplanes enforcing the speed limits. We never saw or heard one, but the other drivers must have believed the signs as most drivers adhered to the unofficial 79 mph limit. The only change in the endless vista of farms, fences, and sandy soil lying fallow were clusters of tired looking oil wells pumping slowly with little enthusiasm. Occasionally a crude sign posted on a fence alongside the highway identified the crop being grown behind the fence. Notable crops included cotton, alfalfa, various fruits and nuts, and just about every variety of vegetable imaginable.

  Bruce had included a 26-foot long Flexi-lead type leash that retracted or locked into a plastic housing at the touch of a button in our collection of supplies. This device gave Juliet plenty of room to roam at the end of the leash while still being controlled enough that she couldn’t dart into freeway traffic or in front of cars entering the rest sto
p. Juliet had travelled up and down I-5 dozens of times in her show career. She was an old hand at this and knew where to go and what to do when she got there. The only thing slowing us down was her need to smell every spot previously used in the dog area to find just the right one to choose. Thus, 30 seconds of peeing required at least 5-10 minutes. Responsible dog owners were expected to pick up behind their dogs, but that was obviously wishful thinking. You really have to watch your step in these areas. Even so, Bruce had also included a box of plastic poop bags to use for this purpose. CalTrans supplied covered, 50-gallon barrels by the dog walking areas at these rest stops for the used bags, more wishful thinking on their part.

  As we stood around feeling out of place waiting for Juliet to find the exactly right spot to empty her bladder yet again, I turned to Bruce and asked him what he was thinking about.

  “Life’s funny,” he answered. “A year ago I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and decided to give Nanny school a try. Now I’m looking after Robert pretty much full time, training and showing a dog I just met for the first time, and even getting to play private detective and bodyguard every now and then. I’m living in Los Angeles, which is like heaven after Iraq and Afghanistan, and making more money than I ever dreamed of earning. I’d say I’m having a lot of fun and really enjoying not knowing what to expect next. Not bad for a small town kid from rural Wisconsin.