by Donna Ball
I gave him a look known to send large dogs trembling to their crates. I could see him fight back a grin as he crumpled up the empty bag and took out his phone. “Don’t worry,” he said, scrolling through his messages. “No food, no training, no pissing off the judge. Horse racing is just a game, too, you know, but two people have been murdered at the Kentucky Derby in the past ten years alone over a horse.”
I stared at him. “How do you know things like that?”
He shrugged, not looking up from his phone. “I keep up.”
I rolled my eyes elaborately, and a woman taking a seat a few feet away from me caught the expression and grinned. “Husbands,” she said.
“He’s not my husband,” I objected quickly.
Miles said at the same time, “Not her husband.”
That caused me to frown at him a little. I couldn’t say why, but he was still checking messages and didn’t notice. The woman, who should by now have no doubt as to the nature of our relationship, nodded at Cisco. “Great dog,” she said. “I was watching you warm up. He’s got real heart.”
I rubbed Cisco’s ears and said proudly, “Thanks.” Cisco, who always knew when he was being complimented, tilted his head back to grin at me. “This is Cisco, and I’m—”
“Raine Stockton,” she said. “I know.”
Cisco and I are pretty well known in our hometown, both for our search-and-rescue work and as a therapy dog team. We get our pictures in the paper now and then, and if there’s a fundraiser for the humane society, I’m always the one who does the radio interview. But had our fame spread as far as Pembroke, South Carolina? Even my ego was having trouble believing that.
My surprise must have been evident because she explained. “I recognized you from your Facebook page.”
“Oh.” I relaxed. Everyone in dogs was on Facebook and Twitter; we posted action shots of our champions to each other’s timelines and tweeted our triumphs like gleeful children. I tried to remember if I’d seen this woman’s picture anywhere before.
“I’m Aggie Connor,” she went on, reaching across the bleacher to extend her hand. “Celestial Goldens.”
Of course she was. The sweatshirt she wore had the kennel name, Celestial Goldens, written in script above the happy face of a golden retriever on the front. Since the AKC frowned upon apparel that identified a dog to the judge, I assumed she must be here to watch someone else complete. She was a large woman in her forties or fifties with short curly hair and work-worn hands, and as I shook one of those hands, I made the connection.
“I know who you are,” I said, relieved to be out of the dark. “My friend, Maude, has Sundance Goldens.” The dog show world is a relatively small one, and the chances are good that you will meet someone you know, or almost know, at every show.
She grinned. “I know. My daughter Ginny is running Gunny in Novice. One of Maude’s dogs is Gunny’s sire.”
I nodded. “Sure, I know Ginny and Gunny.” In fact, I’d never met Ginny, but had admired her young golden’s focus in the ring, and they had had a clean run.
She nodded proudly. “Gunny is one of the most honest dogs I’ve ever met. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Ginny, and he’ll get his title this weekend. First time out.”
I thought that might be a little optimistic, but smiled encouragingly.
“Maude has fine dogs,” Aggie added. “That’s why I wanted to use one in my breeding program. I got four champions out of that litter.”
I said, “I’ll be sure to tell her.” But the chances were that Maude already knew the history of any dog in which her kennel name had been involved. She’d been my father’s clerk for thirty years and her propensity for meticulous recordkeeping had carried over into the world of dogs.
Aggie chuckled and confirmed my thoughts with, “She knows. We keep up with each other’s dogs. In fact, that’s why I’m glad to see you here. Maude’s line has produced some solid working dogs, and I hear your Cisco has a pretty good start on a career in search and rescue himself. Ginny’s moving to Boulder next month, and she’s been talking about training Gunny for avalanche search and rescue when she gets out there. I know she’ll want to talk to you about it, since Cisco and Gunny are practically cousins.”
I started to protest that I didn’t know anything about avalanche dogs when Miles, one of the most social people I know and an annoyingly efficient multitasker, glanced up from text-messaging and invited, “Why don’t you and your daughter have dinner with us tonight? The hotel dining room isn’t bad. Miles Young,” he added, stretching across me to offer his hand. “Not her husband.”
Aggie shook his hand, pleased to accept the invitation, and I smiled a little weakly. Of course I’m always up for spending time with another golden retriever lover, but I’d kind of been looking forward to room service that night. Room service was, in fact, the best thing about traveling with dogs.
We chatted a little more, and I learned that both Aggie and her daughter were part of the host club for this event. Miles held up his phone to me, which displayed a picture of Melanie standing in front of the Washington Monument, and said, “Mel says hi.” I told him to tweet hi back from Raine and Cisco, and the next group was called.
“Summer is up,” called the gate steward. “Flame on deck!”
“Flame?” I said, leaning forward to get a better look at the intense little border collie who was next in line. “As in Neil Kellog and Flame? I didn’t know they were going to be here!”
“Who are they?” Miles asked.
In the time it took him to ask the question, Summer broke her start-line stay, completely destroying her handler’s two-obstacle lead out, sailed over the first jump, took a wrong course, knocked over the bars on the next two jumps, and tore into the tunnel backward. The whistle sounded when she emerged from the tunnel and jumped over the seesaw without touching it, and a ring crew flooded in to repair the damage.
“Neil is last year’s national champion, that’s all,” I told Miles, “with his other dog, Bryte. And he won the Standard Cup two years in a row. Bryte’s the fastest dog in the Southeast, and her sister, Flame, isn’t far behind.” I reached for his phone. “I’ll bet you anything she’s the next champion. Let me borrow your phone. I want to video this.”
He turned a shoulder to me, eyes on the screen. “Hold on. Downloading from Belgium. Where’s yours?”
“Back at the camp in Cisco’s crate.”
Now he looked up. “You left your phone in a dog crate? What for?”
“Because that’s where you keep important stuff at a dog show.”
Now his expression turned incredulous. “Did you leave your purse there, too?”
I arched an eyebrow. “My mother always said all a lady needs when she’s with a gentleman is a lipstick and a twenty.” I snatched the phone from him. “After all, you’re paying for dinner, right?” I turned on the camera function and zoomed in. “Who knows when I’ll get another chance to video a run like this. People pay hundreds of dollars to go to one of Neil’s workshops.”
“Of course you’ve heard the stories about him,” offered Aggie, lowering her voice a little.
The dog show circuit abounds with stories about everyone, but you know what they say: If you can’t say anything good about somebody, come sit by me. I was no more immune to gossip than anyone else, and I turned to her, immediately interested. “What?”
“He dopes his dogs,” she confided.
There are a few respectable breeders in this world, those who are dedicated to improving the health, temperament, and function of their chosen breed, who monitor the welfare of their puppies for a lifetime and take full responsibility for making sure they always have the best possible homes, care, and training. These people aren’t in it for the money, but for the love of the dog, and they deserve our respect. Maude believed Aggie Connor was just such a breeder, or she never would have loaned her one of her dogs for stud. Whatever she had to say, therefore, automatically gained credibility with me.
> To a point, of course. The thing to remember about competition, any competition, is that everyone has an agenda.
Miles said, “Steroids? For dogs?”
I shook my head impatiently. “Not steroids.”
“Thyroid supplement,” supplied Aggie.
I explained, “It amps your dog up. Not exactly illegal, but not very smart, either. The dog’s heart can literally explode.”
“Steroids for dogs,” Miles repeated.
I started to argue, but then admitted, “I guess so. Kind of.”
He tilted his head toward me skeptically. “You’re sure Vegas isn’t involved in this?”
I ignored him, studying beautiful Flame and her tall, wiry handler. “I don’t believe it,” I said. “Look at her focus. Besides, who would take chances with a dog that good?”
Aggie shrugged. “People will do all kinds of things for money, and this year’s Standard Cup is worth a hundred grand. They’re only inviting MACHs, you know, and Neil’s a shoo-in with either Flame or Bryte. He only needs one more double-Q on each of them.”
Miles said, “What’s a MACH?”
“Master agility champion,” I said. “It’s as high as you can go in the sport, and not many dogs make it that far.”
Miles raised an eyebrow. “A hundred grand, huh? I thought you said there weren’t any cash prizes.”
“I meant in competitive agility. Standard is a pet food company,” I explained, “and the Standard Cup isn’t a sanctioned agility trial. Every year they put together a trial with the top competitors from each region, and the winner gets a big silver cup and a check. ESPN usually carries it, and last year Animal Planet did a whole series of shows about the dogs that were competing. The Road to the Standard Cup.”
He nodded approvingly. “Now that makes sense. I knew somebody had to be making money somewhere.”
I spared him a disparaging glance. “It’s always about money with you.”
“Sweetheart,” he assured me, and gave Aggie a smiling wink, “it’s all about money with everything.”
Sometimes I really wonder why I even like him.
“Flame is up,” called the gate steward as the crew scurried from the ring.
I pulled Cisco between my knees, crossed my ankles in front of him, and wrapped his leash securely around my palm, focusing the camera phone with the other hand. There was about to be a lot of shouting. “Watch this,” I told Miles. “They’re amazing. And if I had any money, I would bet on her.”
“I’d take a piece of that, girlfriend,” said Aggie.
Neil stepped to the start line, slipped Flame’s collar and leash over her head, and put her in a sit-stay. He walked confidently away from her, past the first two jumps, past the chute, past the tire, to the jump spiral, a five-obstacle lead out. I held my breath, but the little dog sat like a statue, her eyes boring holes into his back, every muscle in her body coiled to spring. He turned, made eye contact with his dog, and raised his hand. Almost before he completed the motion she had taken two jumps, the chute, and another jump in the precise correct sequence and was by his side, both of them in motion. The crowd was on its feet, cheering them on, as he pivoted to guide her through the spiral, over the bar jump, up and over the A-frame—perfect contacts!—to the pause table for a flawless five-second down-stay. He never said a word. It was as though they were telepathically linked. I’d never seen anything like it. A one-eighty into the weave poles, the seesaw, the broad jump, then into a blind cross around the A-frame and into the tunnel. With only four obstacles to go, the unthinkable happened. Coming out of the pivot that had sent his dog into the tunnel and swinging the opposite way to meet her on the other side, Neil lost his balance and went down in the dirt. A collective cry of dismay went up from the spectators.
Flame came flying out of the tunnel with her handler nowhere in sight. But this is what makes a championship team. Before his dog exited the tunnel Neil called, “Over, over, walk it!” He couldn’t see Flame and she couldn’t see him, but he was guiding her through the course and she was doing what she was trained to do. He regained his feet just as she touched the down contact zone on the dog walk, but he was still three obstacles behind her and there was no way he could catch up now. Amazingly, Flame looked as though she would take the last two jumps on her own, and we were all on our feet, cheering in anticipation as Flame raced toward the finish to the kind of applause and cheers usually reserved for Olympic athletes breaking a world record. We were all competitors, of course, and we all wanted the blue ribbon, but when you see something like that you start to understand why people say it really is all about how you play the game.
And then the most astonishing thing happened. As she made the turn toward the last jump and the finish line, the border collie stopped so suddenly that a cloud of dust flew up around her. She spun and barked—a typical sign of frustration in this high-strung breed—then ran back over the jump she had just taken to return to Neil and leapt into his arms. A groan of disappointment rose up from the crowd as the judge blew her whistle to indicate an elimination. I lowered the camera in disbelief. They were out.
“I guess that means they didn’t win,” observed Miles, holding out his hand for the phone.
“What a shame,” exclaimed Aggie, settling back into her seat. “She must have spooked after he fell.”
“I guess,” I murmured. I returned Miles’s phone to him absently, watching Neil limp out of the ring with Flame in his arms. “It’s just that…”
“What?” Miles, who was learning to read me too well, glanced at me curiously.
I shook my head. “Nothing. I thought I saw something, but it’s silly.”
“Oh, look,” said Aggie, waving happily to someone below as the ring crew came in to set up the equipment for the next class. “There’s Ginny.”
“I’m going to help set up the ring,” I said, handing Cisco’s leash to Miles. “Stay right here. Keep your eye on him. And no food.”
Miles tucked his phone back into his pocket and held up his hand in a solemn promise.
“And don’t let Cisco play with the other dogs.”
“I won’t.”
I started down the stairs. “And don’t let anyone pet him.”
He gave me a long-suffering look. “Maybe Cisco and I should just wait in the car.”
You see, if I had an RV I wouldn’t have this problem.
“Just stay here.” I hurried down to the ring.
~*~
THREE
Hansonville, North Carolina
Twenty-eight hours before the shooting
The sign on the door said “Sheriff” in bold, stenciled letters and below that “Buck Lawson,” written in black marker on a piece of poster paper taped in place. It was just another reminder, as if he needed one, that he wasn’t the real sheriff, and his place in this office was only temporary. Some days that suited him just fine. Other days, like today, it got under his skin like a bad rash.
Buck was currently serving out the unexpired term of Roe Bleckley, who’d been elected sheriff of Hanover County nine consecutive times and whose well-worn boots, to put it mildly, were hard to fill. Roe had retired after a heart attack and it surprised no one that Buck had been tagged to step into the job, not only because he was the senior man on the force, but because, having been married to Roe’s niece Raine for over ten years, he was practically family. The fact that his marriage to Raine had been over long before Roe’s unexpected retirement hadn’t figured into most people’s thinking. Neither, if truth be told, had the possibility that Buck might not want the job.
Buck Lawson was a good law officer, but he hated being sheriff. He hated working fourteen-hour days and spending twelve of them behind a desk. He hated drawing up duty rosters and filling out payroll forms. He hated attending budget meetings. And he hated opening piece after piece of mail addressed to “R.O. Bleckley, Sheriff.”
“Rosie!” He ripped open yet another envelope addressed to the former sheriff, leaned toward the op
en door, and shouted more loudly, “Rosie!”
Her reply came distantly over the buzz and hum of activity from the outer office. “Yes, your lordship!”
Rosie’s official title was Head Dispatcher, but she’d been with the Sheriff’s Department even longer than Buck and was the only person on board who really knew how everything worked. The budget, as Buck discovered all too soon, didn’t allow for an office manager, so Roe had solved the problem by changing Rosie’s job description, but not her title. It was that kind of creative thinking that was sorely missed around here by everyone, including Buck.
She appeared at the door, a middle-aged woman with a poufy faded-brown hairdo that hadn’t changed in twenty years and too much eye makeup. She wore a wireless telephone headset in one ear and a pair of glasses pushed into her hair. “You bellowed?” she inquired politely.
“Sorry,” he muttered. His former desk had been only steps from hers, and it had been easy to call over to her when he needed something. He couldn’t get used to being stuck back here in the middle of a hallway with a door between him and the department he was supposed to be running. “Did you call Roe to come pick up his mail?”
“I did. He said he’d stop by after lunch.”
Most of the mail that came through the office was official business that Buck would end up handling anyway, but he kept an ongoing stack of personal notices, magazines, brochures and the like addressed to Roe. The man had been in office for thirty years, and it was starting to look as though it would take at least that long to get his address changed on all those mailing lists.
Buck frowned a little as he glanced over the contents of the most recent letter. “You know anything about a felon by the name of Jeremiah Berman?”
“Can’t say that I do,” she replied. “But then, I know so many felons.”
“I wonder why the pardons and paroles board would be notifying Roe about his release.”
“Sounds routine to me. He must have put the guy away.”
“No, it says here, ‘At your request, we are notifying you…’” He gave a little grunt and put the letter aside—in his pile, not Roe’s. “See what you can find out, will you?”
