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

by Jerold Last

  Everybody was having a big party, the barbecues were smoking, the wine was flowing, and the first day's show had gone well, when they found the dead body of another judge on Thursday evening. This time it was a judge from the Working Group, a Rottweiler breeder from Arizona named Jorge Guerrero. He was also strangled with a show lead, so the modus operandi matched the unfortunate demise of Orval ("Awful") Krause.

  The local police and highway patrol officers who responded to the call sealed off the crime scene and made the dog show people, myself included, feel decidedly unwelcome anywhere within a hundred feet of the body. Sketchy details were available from a couple that had been there when the body was found. They immediately became the center of attention at one party after another in the RV parking area. I called Stephen Callahan on my cell phone at his personal number. Wonder of wonders, he answered his phone on the second ring and remembered who I was. I told him what was currently happening at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo and suggested he drive out and see if the police had found any clues that might be useful for his case.

  There was a short interval of silence on the line before he replied. "I can be there in less than an hour. I've passed the Solano County Fairgrounds dozens of times on my way to Lake Tahoe or Sacramento, but I've never actually been there before. That's the same exit from I-80 as Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, isn't it?"

  "Yep. It's right across the road from the Amusement Park. We can meet to compare notes at my motel room after you've talked to the local police. Give me a call on my cell phone when you finish with the cops. I'm staying at the Marriott Courtyard across the street from the Fairgrounds, Room 116."

  About two hours later Detective Callahan, Bruce, and I were sitting in my motel room sipping Scotch and talking. Juliet lay adoringly at Bruce's feet. She was still too young to drink Scotch legally and we had a working cop in the room, so we didn't offer her any.

  Callahan, still wearing his San Francisco police detective's working clothes consisting of a suit and tie, got pride of place awarding him the chance to go first. "The victim was strangled with a show lead, same as the judge at Golden Gate. They both looked a lot alike---tall, skinny, balding, 60-ish, mustache. No obvious clues, but forensics still has to do its thing and that won't really happen until tomorrow. I'd guess it was the same killer from the similarity of technique, but that's for the experts in crime scene reconstruction to say for sure. The local police weren't too pleased to hear we have a multiple murderer, since it's bad for tourism and conventions, but liked the idea of sharing the responsibility for what might be an unsolvable case. I didn't mention you, so they shouldn't be knocking on your door tonight. Likely time of death was about 6:00-7:00 PM. The corpse was lying in a grassy area to the west of the dog show venue, partially hidden by a couple of trees. The dead man was discovered by a gay couple who were walking around the site. They were probably looking for a little privacy where they could do their thing. Otherwise the body most likely wouldn't have been found until tomorrow morning.”

  Callahan loosened the knot on his tie and relaxed back into his chair. "It's too soon to know anything about the victim except for what was in his pockets and wallet. He was one of the judges, as you know. The address on his driver's license was Bisbee, Arizona, a small town near the New Mexico border that was famous in the 1880s for its silver mining. He had papers from the AKC that said he was a judge, a round trip electronic plane ticket from Tucson to Sacramento, and a rental car receipt from the Sacramento airport. I'll e-mail you all of the background material they share with me, but it'll probably take a few days. That’s about all I can tell you. What’d you find out?"

  We both turned towards Bruce as a cue he was next. Bruce asked, "Have they removed the body yet or are they still collecting evidence?"

  Callahan looked surprised, but answered immediately. "The body is still there. Why?"

  Bruce smiled and reached over to pat his dog’s head. "Because I've been training Juliet for search and rescue work. If you can get her a sniff or two of the show lead used as the murder weapon, we can walk her around the fairgrounds and watch her. She'll give us an alert signal if she smells whoever handled the lead, or if she finds the same smell on any other item, such as another show lead from the same batch, that’s been touched by whoever it is that has the same smell."

  Callahan looked directly at Bruce with an incredulous expression on his face. "You've got to be kidding. That's evidence and off limits for us or for a dog to touch."

  Bruce sat up straighter. "She doesn't have to touch the lead, nor do I. She can just sniff it in an open plastic bag or even around the dead man’s neck. After I give her a specific command, she'll do the rest."

  The Lieutenant gave Bruce another look that said, loud and clear, “that’s got to be a load of BS.”

  "I don't believe that's possible!"

  Bruce just smiled while his body language said, every bit as loud and clear, “Just watch.”

  "That's part of what I trained dogs to do in Iraq and Afghanistan and I was very good at it. Juliet has a vastly better nose and is a whole lot smarter than the mutts I worked with back in the desert. Trust me, she can do it, and we won't charge for the service."

  It took a while, but eventually we were part of a group standing around a dead body lying on the ground with a show lead embedded deeply into his throat and neck. Bruce had Juliet on a regular leash and led her towards the body. Juliet was quivering with anticipation, tail wagging at a dozen beats per second, or so it seemed. We all watched the show---Callahan, me, a number of uniformed local police, a couple of local detectives, and several CSI staff wearing CSI emblazoned vests as their special I.D. Bruce instructed one of the CSI staff exactly what he wanted done. A cute blonde in her early thirties had volunteered for the job, and listened carefully to Bruce. She stood next to the dead body wearing a windbreaker with CSI printed on the back over her CSI vest. She was to kneel by the body, trying not to move too much, and lift the loose end of the show lead away from the corpse's throat with her gloved hand, extending it towards Bruce and Juliet. Bruce would do the rest.

  Bruce stood up straight and gave Juliet a very light correction with the leash. "Sit!" commanded Bruce in a gentle tone.

  Juliet looked at him and at the CSI technician kneeling by the body for less than a second and sat, watching the body and the technician carefully. She was in full working dog mode now, with all of her attention focused on the body. She knew something was going to happen and listened carefully for Bruce’s command.

  "Find," was Bruce's next command as he stepped even closer to Juliet, creating some slack in her leash.

  Juliet sniffed the wind and walked carefully back and forth in the general direction of the CSI technician, quartering into the light breeze to make sure she picked up all of the scents coming towards her. When she finally got to the kneeling technician Bruce stopped and said “find” once again, in a firm but calm and quiet voice. Juliet, her tail going back and forth like a miniature metronome, took two sniffs of the extended lead, and sat directly in front of the technician waiting for Bruce’s next command.

  "Heel." They walked away from the body directly toward Callahan and me, where we stood off to the side, away from the main group. Bruce stopped a few feet from us and Juliet sat beside him, waiting for further instructions. Her entire demeanor continued to express she was alert and working. Bruce rubbed her head and ears while telling her what a good girl she was.

  Bruce gave our police colleague a look that spoke volumes about his obvious pride in Juliet. "That's it," said Bruce to Callahan, "Let's take a walk."

  "Where to?" asked the detective, with a look on his face that said, “This is still all BS!”

  “The last time I saw a routine like this was when one of our Lieutenants tried to crack an unsolvable case. The Department hired a psychic who had done some kind of a con job to get paid to have a vision of where to find clues. Needless to say, the case wasn’t solved even if our psychic got paid a small
fortune to mumble New Age nonsense!”

  I had a very specific suggestion as to where we should let Juliet do some finding. "Let's start over at the RV parking area if nobody has any objections."

  Nobody had a better idea. Off we went with Bruce calmly leading Juliet to the parked vehicles. Juliet was intensely eager, tail still wagging as fast as she could, head up and nose in the air seeking the specific scent she’d been told to find.

  As we walked towards the RVs, I spoke directly to Callahan. "Since I suppose you haven't ever done this before, let me explain the relevant rules of evidence here. If we find something you can decide what, if anything, you want to do next. Remember I'm not only an ex-cop but I'm also a licensed lawyer. You can assume what I'm telling you will be accurate and will help you keep any evidence we find admissible in court when this case comes to trial. If Juliet alerts at a car or RV, we have the option of doing nothing else and just quietly keeping on walking. In that situation, you have adequate probable cause for a search warrant and you can get one from almost any judge. If you do search the vehicle, I’ll guess you'll find matching show leads from the same batch used for the murder or murders, but that alone isn't enough evidence to convince a D.A. to go forward with an arrest. You could perhaps link the leads to a killing or two, but it’s insufficient to accuse any specific person of being the killer even if their scent is on the leads.

  "Or, we can keep walking and do nothing. However, we’ll have defined a person or persons as a suspect and can focus your investigation on them to look for motive and evidence.

  "Or, we can knock on the door, go in, and bluff about how much we know and hope for a confession."

  Callahan nodded acknowledgment to me. "I suspect I already know the answer, but which option would you suggest?"

  "I like what's behind door #2 the most. If we can define a suspect or two and focus on them I can't think of any reason we should tip our hand at this stage of an investigation."

  By that time we were almost at the RV parking area. "I agree. Now let's hope she finds something."

  Bruce leaned over to pet the dog on her head and neck and gave her a new instruction. "Seek!" He disconnected the leash from her collar, tapped the back of her head to release her, and started walking slowly along the row of parked RVs. Juliet figured a course along the same general direction we were walking. Bruce moved to keep her quartering into the breeze, as she loped ahead of us, head high and nose pointed into the wind, making broad casts between and around the huge vehicles,. She looked like she was just having fun while she exercised. Anybody who noticed her wouldn’t have any idea of why she was really there.

  It was almost an anti-climax when Juliet alerted as we came to the seventh RV. The dog abruptly sat, her body frozen in place, ears cocked forward, nose pointed towards the door of the seventh RV.

  We caught up to her. "What now?" Bruce asked.

  I had thought about our moves in advance. We didn’t want anyone watching to figure out what we were doing, or what Juliet’s behavior actually meant. "Keep going," I replied.

  Bruce rewarded her with praise and a few well-placed scratches on her ears. "Good girl," Bruce told Juliet, who visibly relaxed. “Heel!” They walked several steps further along the path by the parked RVs. "Seek!"

  Juliet bounded off again, nose in air, checking the remaining vehicles. As it turned out, there weren’t any more RV alerts. We kept walking until we came upon the same group we had partied with in Woodland, sitting at a table drinking wine. There was also the telltale odor of marijuana smoke in the air, but that was typical of many of these tailgate parties and we were all used to it. Juliet sat and came to full alert again. Bruce casually took her off alert by telling her what a good girl she was and walked her past the party towards our motel.

  "I'll just finish Juliet's walk and take her back to the hotel. She's had plenty of exercise, Roger. I'll see you back at our room."

  I introduced Steve Callahan to the Breeds, Schlecks, Todds, Schaefers, Pete and Jewel Harris, and the Cords as a local friend who had stopped by to say hello while we were near his home. We each took the cup of red wine offered to us, then excused ourselves saying we had an early ring time the next morning and had to find Bruce.

  Back at our room we caught up with Bruce and Juliet. I played tug of war and fetch for a few minutes with Juliet and one of her dog toys, a squeaky green snake-like thing made of furry cloth. After that, I introduced Steve Callahan to our dog, gave him a tennis ball, and encouraged him to play fetch with her. She was quite full of herself, as if she realized how important her earlier search and alert mission had been to us. She threw herself into the game with Callahan, a complete stranger until a couple of hours ago. He sat on a comfortable chair while Juliet barked happily every time he threw the ball for her to retrieve. On the final throw she retrieved the ball to his hand, stood on her hind legs with her front legs on his lap, and planted a big doggy kiss on his face. Finally, we discussed what Juliet had done earlier.

  Callahan offered a handshake to Bruce. "If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it. But I did and I do. OK, Roger, whose RV was it and who was she pointing to in the party crowd?"

  "The RV belongs to the Schaefers, Albert and Sadie. They're a couple from West Texas, not too far from San Franciso de Texas where Orval Krause grew up. People were standing close together so I can't be sure enough to testify under oath that Juliet was pointing at Albert Schaefer when she alerted at the party. But I'm pretty sure that was how she lined up. Did you see it any more clearly from your angle, Bruce?"

  "Yes I did. She pointed directly at Albert, which I would testify to under oath in court if it ever comes to that."

  "Well Steve, we have a person of interest, if not a real suspect. Can you check him and Sadie out?"

  "That'll be my top priority tomorrow morning when I get to work."

  "As I remember from my days as a homicide detective in Los Angeles we never got a lot of cooperation from law enforcement in the Texas agencies, especially the Sheriff's offices in the rural areas. We were lucky if they even returned our calls. Maybe if you make it a point to tell them in San Francisco de Texas you're from San Francisco de California, they’ll feel neighborly enough to give you some professional courtesy. Another word of advice: Earlier this year I learned in Valparaiso, Chile that you don't want to shorten their name from San Francisco to Saint Paco or just to Paco. Small towns are sensitive about things like that." I hoped my grin wasn’t too obvious.

  We shook hands, said our good-byes, and went to sleep.

  The next day was an early ring time for GSPs, 8:30 A.M. Juliet was in a great mood. I anthropomorphized her thought process a bit, and ascribed her self-satisfaction to her feeling very, very good about her near-perfect performance as a police dog the previous evening. She was positively prancing in the show ring. Her body language clearly shouted “Look at me, look at me!” to the judge. She was absolutely unbeatable under these conditions and sailed through to Best of Breed by a large margin. The good mojo continued to a Group 1 rosette and a trophy, her first ever Group 1 victory with Bruce handling. The third judge of the day actually gave her a long look before awarding Best of Show to a lovely Schnauzer. All in all, it was a great day for Juliet as a "Special", lots of Grand Champion points, lots of congratulations, and lots of invitations to parking lot parties for the two of us. Coupled with her getting major “select” points in Thursday’s competition, she was on a roll this weekend.

  Saturday and Sunday featured two new judges awarding Juliet one Best of Breed and a Best Opposite Sex, a mild disappointment after Friday's victories, but good for more points and two more rosettes and trophies with no shame in the result.

  Also on Friday afternoon, Steve Callahan e-mailed to my iPhone several scanned pages of fascinating background material about the murdered judge and the new persons of interest Juliet had found. I skimmed the material while Juliet was waltzing through the breed competition on her way to the Group. Then I read everything again
a lot more carefully while I waited for Juliet’s appearance in the Group competition. I studied the relevant pages two or three times, particularly the sections on Albert and Sadie Schaefer's background and criminal records. Both had grown up in West Texas, which is a big part of a very big state. Texas west of the Pecos River sprawls over a larger area than most of the states in the eastern USA. However, in the words of the popular song, it was a small world after all. The Schaefers had grown up at about the same time in the same small town where Orval Krause had been raised. They must have known each other back in the good old days.

  I had a crazy hunch so I cross-referenced dates and places of birth for Judge Guerrero, the murder victim from Arizona, the Schaefers, and Orval Krause. Bingo! Guerrero was another West Texas product and had also grown up at the same time, near the other three people. The odds had to be something like 1,000 to 1 they all knew each other both from growing up in close proximity and from their shared interest in show dogs.

  Both of the Schaefers had criminal records in West Texas. Sadie had been arrested several times for prostitution in her younger days but had never done any prison time. Albert had been arrested multiple times for allegedly using or selling drugs, mostly grass and crank. The only charge progressing to a conviction with time in prison was when he was caught in a trailer with a methamphetamine lab setup, brewing crank. That was way back when he was still in his 30s, and cost him a year in the local county jail. Nobody had arrested either of them in the last 20 years or more, but the couple had a lot more money than either of them could possibly have earned legally. In a Texas border area awash with drugs imported from nearby Mexico by heavily armed cartels, they were small potatoes.