two vintage holly winter stories (2 page)

But what did I tell you about puli people? When Mrs. Cormier tried to congratulate the handler, a good-looking, cheerful guy, he gave her the only real argument she heard that day, He insisted that the dog had anticipated almost everything. She didn't listen to a word he said but hurried him out of the ring and announced that we'd do sits and downs next. She was licking and smacking her lips.

When the handlers and dogs had entered the ring and lined up, and, I might add, when the dogs were all sitting, Mrs. Cormier pulled a legal dirty trick. I'm sure you know this one—yes, she delivered the lecture. "These are the group exercises." She paused. "Your dog should sit by your left side." She paused again and made a face. Then she went on to explain a lot of other things that every handler already knew. Before she'd even told the handlers to sit their dogs, she'd legally stretched the three-minute sit to more than five minutes. OK, so maybe the handlers shouldn't have had their dogs sitting before she gave the command, and maybe they should've been training their dogs to hold ten-minute sits, but these weren't OTCh. people, and I'm telling you that it felt deliberately unfair. Anyway, she finally told the handlers to leave, and they filed out through the gate and followed Nancy past the concession stands and down the aisle.

The judge is supposed to stand during the group exercises, of course, but I've seen tired judges bend the rules by sitting down. Never before, though, had I watched a judge not only take a seat but drink coffee and wolf down a sandwich while the handlers were out of the ring. Also, it should go without saying that the judge keeps quiet during the sits and downs. When Mrs. Cormier tasted her coffee, she almost spat it out and then uttered a loud, dramatic "ugh" that really got to the poodle, who turned his head and fastened his lively, intelligent eyes on her. He didn't break, though. I felt proud of him.

When Mrs. Cormier had finished her mid-morning lunch, it occurred to her to call back the handlers and, when they'd returned to their dogs, to give the orders for the long down. The handlers again filed past the judge's table, through the gate, along the aisle, and out of sight. Once again, Mrs. Cormier sat down. This time, though. when she grabbed the paper coffee cup, she let it fall to the floor. Then she bent over as if to retrieve it, but wrapped her arms around her body. groaned, collapsed on the mats and got massively sick.

As it turned out, someone had put her on a permanent long down. She'd been poisoned, of course. Two cholinesterase inhibitors? An organophosphate and a carbamate? If you dip your dogs, be especially careful with something called gamma benzene hexachloride, and before you use those powders, sprays and, foggers, read the fine print on the labels. I've just told you the moral of this story. Now you tell me: who killed Annette Cormier?

Solution: Murder in Ring 19

If handlers resorted to murder when they thought that judges had been unfair, how many names would remain on the AKC eligible list? Besides, this kind of murder is a family affair. The motive? Leo Cormier was not the sort of callous dog owner who'd sign over six of his twelve pulik to Mrs. Cormier just to get rid of her. "Till death us do part" was evidently a vow he had made to his dogs.

Details: Gamma benzene hexachloride is soluble in fats and oils, not in water, and it tastes moldy. It's highly toxic when ingested, but Mr. Cormier also added a bit of chlorpyrifos and a hint of propoxur to the tuna sandwich he bought from the motel vending machine as soon as he heard his wife would be judging. He'd had the means ready and was waiting for the perfect occasion: at a show, all eyes are on the dogs, and he knew he could count on his wife to generate plenty of possible motives. Need I mention that dog-show food makes the perfect cover? There was nothing deadly in Mrs. Cormier's coffee, though. At a show, the poisonous taste is, of course, perfectly normal.

Incidentally, the handler of the Terv bitch swore me to secrecy and confided that she'd watched Mr. Cormier switch the sandwiches. That Terv handler feels that her silence is justified. "Lizzie never even ticked that jump," she told me. "She cleared it with two inches to spare."

Murder Well-groomed

The notice that arrived in my mail the day before the Essex County show was addressed to the Cambridge Dog Training Club, c/o Holly Winter. Like the usual fliers for fun matches, Canine Good Citizen tests, tattoo clinics, and perfect-heeling seminars, the circular had a club logo in the upper left corner, but this one didn't show something normal like a freeze-frame of a sleek Dobe clearing the high jump. Also, I'd never heard of a kennel club called the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, as you've probably guessed, I'd received my first premium list for a human being. I read it anyway.

"Re: JOHN RICHARD FARRELL, also known as Morris W. Rinehart, John Visco, John Morris. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: The FBI is conducting an investigation to locate John Richard Farrell, who is wanted for Unlawful Interstate Flight to Avoid Prosecution for the crimes of Murder, Conspiracy, and Narcotics Trafficking."

If you're a real dog person, you simply won't believe what came next: "Investigation has determined that Farrell is an avid breeder and owner of Alaskan malamute dogs and may still be involved in that hobby."

Hobby
! I ask you, what is a hobby? Stamp collecting, model airplanes, gourmet cooking, macramé, basket weaving, right? Dogs, my friends, are a passion, an obsession, a compulsion, a mania, or the living, breathing, tail-wagging embodiment of purpose and meaning in this otherwise random universe, but they are certainly not some furry alternative to decoupage. Hobby, indeed. For this we pay taxes?

Worse, the G-men had foolishly sent photos of Farrell, not his dogs. Whereas most people lack distinguishing facial markings like a stunning white blaze on the forehead or a lovely black bar down the nose, each Alaskan malamute is a highly distinct individual. My bitch, Kimi, has a full mask. Rowdy, my male, has an open face, but he's utterly unmistakable, too, not just one more guy like Farrell, who looked like a thousand other men. Nonetheless, I studied the mug shots and the FBI's description: a 50-year-old white male, 5 feet 10 inches, 170 pounds, brown hair and eyes, no scars. A murderer, conspirator, drug trafficker, and, as the notice went on to say, a known user of his own merchandise isn't the kind of person I'd trust with companion guppies, never mind with dogs. If Farrell showed his face in dogdom, I was prepared to spot it instantly.

But when you consider where I encountered Farrell, it's still a miracle that I recognized him. The Essex County show was perfectly probable, but just outside the Novice A ring? Obedience is the last place you'd expect to find a malamute person, and if you count both Farrell and the handler who'd just left the ring, there were five of us.

Pam Ritchie, Tiny DaSilva, and I were sweltering in the mid-July sun that always turns Essex County into a steam bath endurance competition. Tiny, who'd bred the bitch that had just made her obedience debut, was telling lies, and Pam, whose young male had gone Best of Breed early that morning, was agreeing with her.

Tiny had short, blunt-cut white hair obviously lathered in Sho Sno and touched up with a cake of grooming chalk. Although she was small boned and wiry, she had those big malamutes you see in the Midwest—handsome, bearlike dogs with a lot of Storm Kloud in them. "Malamutes are just not that hard to train," Tiny was saying with the authority of someone who'd never so much as entered the Pre-Novice ring at a club-members-only show-and-go.

Pam's obedience qualifications were identical to Tiny's, but she shook her mane of chestnut curls up and down. "People just aren't willing to put in the time," she agreed. Pam's hefty build suggested an origin in the same Storm Kloud lines as Tiny's dogs, but she bred our agile New England Kotzebues. She eyed the bitch who'd just left the ring and commented, "Big, isn't she?"

"Seventy-five pounds is not big," Tiny snapped. "Read the standard."

When one breeder starts ordering another to read the standard, any sensible dog person vanishes. In lieu of actually disappearing, I feigned ardent interest in the performance of a Rottie in the Open B ring. That's when I noticed an ordinary-looking brown-haired man standing about 20 feet to our left. Because I've stewarded in Open and Utility, I'm pretty good at estimating height, but only up to about 32 inches at the withers, of course. Was he 5 foot 10? Well, he was taller than 5 foot 6, shorter than 6 foot 2, looked about 50, and had no visible scars. The details didn't matter, though. He looked exactly like the mug shots. I must have caught my breath aloud. Pam turned to me.

"Did you see that flier?" I whispered.

Breed people like to imagine that they understand obedience, but here's evidence that Pam didn't: So far as I know,
flier
is not dog-training slang for some elevating crime like hightailing it out of the ring or lifting a leg on the judge's shoe. To straighten out the confusion, I said, "You see that man in the blue shirt? Brown hair? Standing sort of in front of those two young guys with the shepherd?"

They were in their midtwenties, blond, short-haired, clean-cut young men dressed more for conformation than for obedience in stiffly pressed and sharply creased khaki pants and heavily starched, wrinkle-free white summer shirts. Their dog, though, was definitely not dressed for breed. He was a decently proportioned tan GSD, but he was no show dog, wasn't on a show lead, and hadn't been groomed for the ring. An obedience dog? Maybe. But neither of the men wore an armband.

Anyway, Pam followed my gaze across the intense, heat-blurred green of the field and said casually, "Yeah." Then she really focused on him, perked up, and said, "Hey, I know him. I sold him a puppy, maybe four years ago." After that, of course, she started to tell me everything about the sire, the dam, the breeding, the puppy's Iittermates, their wins, the repeat breeding, and so on.

Before she had a chance to zip over to Farrell, recite the same litany, and ask about the pup, I interrupted. The melodrama was unavoidable. "Pam, he's wanted by the FBI!"

As Pam was asking whether I'd been out in the sun too long, Tiny came to the defense of my sanity. Someone had shown her the FBI notice, she said. "He does kind of look like him," she added.

"Of course he does," I said. "He looks exactly like the pictures. And, besides, we know this guy has malamutes, because Pam sold him a puppy."

Tiny's little eyes blazed at Pam. "You sold him a puppy?"

Pam nodded. "Yeah." Her big features remained immobile. "He seemed all right."

"I hate to say this," Tiny told her, "but do you really think that 'all right' is good enough? I mean, obviously, it isn't. You know, you trust people too much. You really have to screen better than that." She raised a bony hand as if she intended to shake a scolding finger at Pam but caught herself and ended up holding out a clenched fist.

"Well, what did you want me to do?" Pam said. "I met him and talked to him, and he seemed all right. And he already had a malamute, so he knew about the breed. As a matter of fact, his dog was out of that bitch you sold to the Levinsons, and the dog was dysplastic, which, in case you want to know, happens to be why he came to me when he wanted a puppy."

"Well," Tiny said emphatically, "the dysplasia must've come from whoever the Levinsons bred her to, because it did not come from my lines." She paused and added pointedly, "All
my
dogs are OFA," by which she meant, of course, that her dogs were rated clear of hip dysplasia by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals.

Before Pam could ask OFA what—Excellent? Good? Fair? Dysplatic?—I cleared my throat and, trying to keep my eyes off Farrell, said, "He's a drug dealer and a murderer! Pam, would you turn so he can't see you? You know, he might recognize you, and, for all we know, he knows about the FBI flier. Don't let him see you staring at him."

"Well, what's he done with my bitch?" Pam said. "That was a beautiful puppy. When he got in trouble, he should've brought her back." She paused, folded her arms, and eyed Tiny. "I won't sell
any
puppy without a return agreement."

"Well, neither will I!" Tiny said. "And if you'd followed up, you'd know where your bitch is."

May I interject something? I don't want to give a false impression of malamute breeders, who are not, in general, scrappy, aggressive types. They aren't even terribly competitive, at least by comparison with, say, terrier people. But they're strong-minded and independent. Also, they never back down. Sound familiar?

"Look," I said, "I'm worried about his dogs, too, but among other things, we don't even know that he still has them."

"Of course he does," Tiny said. "Just look at him. He's been to Cherrybrook, and he's been picking up samples."

She was right. A guy at a dog show who's holding a big white Cherrybrook bag and two smaller ones from lams and Science Diet probably owns at least one dog.

“We have to do
something,"
I said. "The FBI notice said not to do anything to endanger anyone, so he's probably armed, but we have to let someone know he's here."

You do show your dogs, don't you? Good. Well, then, I don't need to explain why I was glad that Pam and Tiny were not obedience people, who are the champion nit-picking legal hair-splitters of the dog fancy. Three obedience types in our situation would have argued about whether Farrell was standing within the jurisdiction of the Novice A judge. Since Farrell was outside the ring, was he thereby outside the judge's province? But judges are empowered to remove spectators who are causing a disturbance, aren't they? So doesn't a fugitive from the FBI constitute a potential impediment to the performance of dogs and handlers? I mean, the Best in Show judge would've been making her cuts before we'd settled the question.

As it was, mainly because we were afraid that Farrell had noticed Pam, we immediately dispatched her to look for the AKC rep. Then Tiny volunteered to find the show chairman. I consulted my catalog and swore. The chairman, James J. Pastern, a pint-size Koehler-fanatic martinet and unpopular Working Group judge, owned three breed champion giant schnauzers that reliably NQ'd in obedience because Mr. Pastern drilled them to believe that every move they made was a hanging crime. Koehler, right? The dog training expert who always puts the word
kindly
in quotation marks in case anyone suspects him of meaning it seriously. No one ever does, of course.