two vintage holly winter stories

by Susan Conant

  Two Vintage

  Holly Winter Stories

  by

  Susan Conant

  Murder in Ring 19 © 1991 by Susan Conant

  Murder Well Groomed © 1992 by Susan Conant

  All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2010

  Cover design by Brian Yagel

  Preface

  Almost twenty years ago, Dog World magazine invited me to contribute two short mystery stories narrated by Holly Winter. I was asked to use a puzzle format: the first and longer part of each story was to present the mystery; the solution was to be printed elsewhere in the issue. “Murder in Ring 19” appeared in Dog World in November 1991; “Murder Well-groomed” in July 1992.

  In looking over these stories many years later, I considered updating both to reflect changes in Holly’s life as well as changes in the dog world. On reflection, I realized that the stories offer little glimpses through a window into the past and that to rewrite them would mean shuttering that window.

  Susan Conant

  2010

  Murder in Ring 19

  Change in obedience judge," the sign read. "Mrs. Annette Cormier will replace Mr. A. J. Nelson in Open A." A. J. Nelson, a paragon of fairness and friendliness, always drew a big entry. Annette Cormier seldom had the chance to draw any at all. Judge Leo Cormier had a good reputation, but his wife was so unpopular that only the most desperate clubs ever hired her. I swore.

  Dog shows are my heaven. If I arrive at the pearly gates to steward for St. Peter and find that he's been replaced by Beelzebub, I'll probably curse there, too. If I'm let in anyway, I'll at least know my way around. Of the twenty celestial rings, only four will be devoted to obedience, and all four will be on the far side of paradise, as were the earthly ones inside the Bayside Expo Center.

  Opposite rings 19 and 20 stood a megadisplay of texturizing, concentrated, brightening, whitening, tearless, conditioning, antistatic, medicated, nondrying, tangle-fighting, hypoallergenic, anti-itch, protein-enhanced, organic, deodorizing, everything-scented, and fragrance-free shampoos, all stacked next to row after row of foggers, collars, dips, powders, and aerosol and nonaerosol sprays guaranteed to do in fleas for twenty-eight days (ticks for twenty-one) on your dog or in your yard, kennel, carpets, or your entire house, to prevent hatching and to give a quick kill, too.

  In ring 20, Mr. Cormier, who looked like a handsome, ruddy-cheeked mastiff, was conferring with an official. In ring 19, Mrs. Cormier was conferring with herself. She paced sourly back and forth, combing her fingers through her cap of short, dark hair.

  The obedience table ran along one side of ring 19. The breed club sponsoring the show and trial always had trouble recruiting members to steward in obedience, so the Cambridge Dog Training Club had loaned me out. I introduced myself to the chief steward, a dapper little guy who was handing out catalogs and royal blue stewards' badges. "Holly Winter," I said. "What happened to Mr. Nelson?"

  "Perforated ulcer." The chief steward shook his head sadly. "Last night." As he led two other stewards and me to ring 19, he told us at least three times how fortunate it was that Mrs. Cormier had graciously agreed to step in at the last minute. I can take a hint. No matter what our judge did, he expected his stewards to be good sports.

  Before we'd even entered the ring, Mrs. Cormier was swooping toward us and proclaiming loudly, "You're late! How am I supposed to instruct my stewards if they're late?"

  It was 8:30, exactly when we were due in her ring—a half-hour before the start of judging and, if I remembered the regulations correctly, the deadline for Open A exhibitors unsatisfied with the substitute judge to withdraw and have their entry fees refunded. "And," she went on, "I'll bet not one of you knows the first thing about obedience."

  No one corrected her. The other stewards were Nancy What's-her-name—the one with the long brown hair whose sheltie made it to the Gaines Regional last year—and Happy Green. She's that big, tall white-haired woman with Labs—you see her in Utility all the time. A. J. Nelson or Mr. Cormier would've recognized us and probably asked after our dogs, too. Mrs. Cormier, having NQ'd us in advance, gripped her clipboard in both hands and lectured us about the role of the steward in obedience, which, as we all knew, is to help the judge, not to advise. Then she put Nancy on the gate. As ring stewards, Happy and I would be spared the worst of the grumbling I expected from handlers forced to choose between forfeiting their fees and showing under an unpopular substitute judge.

  A few minutes later, a relief steward came to announce that four Open A dogs, including the first two, had been withdrawn. Nancy, who'd been checking in handlers and distributing armbands, drew X's through the first two numbers on the poster by the gate and looked around for the first dog, the original third. "Number eight?" she called. She refused the relief steward's offer of coffee. "It's a golden," she said. "Is nine here? Eight can go second."

  But Mrs. Cormier, seated at the judge's table by the gate, said, "Catalog order. Judges are not required to wait for dogs. It's that handler's responsibility to be here."

  Nancy, Happy, and I stared at one another. Obedience judges are never rigid about the order of judging. Dumbfounded, I looked around, perhaps in the hope that someone like AKC obedience director Roger Ayres would happen to be standing outside the ring and would step in and speak up in favor of flexibility. Ayres was nowhere in sight, but Mr. Cormier was only a yard or two away. His table, by the Utility ring gate, abutted his wife's, and he was leaning over it to fish something out of his briefcase. He must have heard her, but his face registered nothing.

  Fortunately, though, or so it seemed, dog number eight appeared, a flashy male golden handled by a slight woman with the trembling hands and the puce-white face you see mostly in Novice A.

  "What are you so nervous about?" Mrs. Cormier demanded as she measured the dog. "I'm not going to bite you." She grinned as if she intended to do exactly that.

  Lest it seem that I have nothing good to say about Mrs. Cormier, let me state that she used a conventional T-shaped heeling pattern and that her orders were loud and clear. If they'd been soft and mumbled, though, the handler could hardly have missed them; Mrs. Cormier stuck as close to that golden as if she'd been the outside dog in a brace. The golden ignored her. His eyes never left his handler's face, even when Mrs. Cormier ordered a halt and tapped her pencil on her clipboard in sharp staccato. Have I mentioned that this was a terrific obedience dog? Sure—I said he was a golden, didn't I? Well, he heeled precisely and joyfully, and didn't even lag on the outside loop of the figure eight. He hit the mat instantly on the drop on recall, retrieved his dumbbell neatly, didn't mouth it, soared over the high jump, always sat straight, and, in short, wowed everyone.

  "Broad jump exercise," Mrs. Cormier said. "Are you ready?"

  "Ready," the handler said.

  "Leave your dog."

  "Stay," the woman said, then left the dog and positioned herself on the right-hand side of the hurdles with her toes exactly two feet from the third hurdle, I swear. Needless to say, the golden once again performed gorgeously, and when the handler released him, the spectators applauded.

  Then Mrs. Cormier marched up to the handler and said in loud tones of deep compassion, "I'm so sorry. I can't qualify you." She jabbed her pencil toward the handler, then toward the hurdles. "Two feet," she said. "Your toes were touching that third hurdle."

  The handler swallowed hard, nodded compliantly, led her fabulous dog out of the ring and praised him as if he'd received the perfect score he deserved. I wanted to strangle Mrs. Cormier. When I'd set the jumps for the next dog, a pretty Lhasa, I did something that I sure hope the American Kennel Club never hears about. I moved to the gate and whispered t
o Nancy, "Tell them to stand really far back on the broad jump."

  "I already am," she said. "Is there anything else?"

  "Probably," I said. "But not that I know about yet."

  "I feel sick," Happy said. "I hate to be part of this."

  The Lhasa walked back around the high jump. The next dog, a handsome black shepherd, just didn't drop. Maybe happiness stimulated Mrs. Cormier's appetite. As the shepherd left the ring, she caught sight of a food cart in a nearby aisle and told Nancy to get her a tuna on white and some black coffee. Then she started measuring the next dog, a Terv bitch, while I set the jumps at 30 and 60. When I'd finished, though, Mrs. Cormier made me add two inches to the high jump and four inches to the broad jump. "This dog's twenty-five inches," she said.

  "Twenty-four," said the handler, a sturdy, confident-looking woman. "But it doesn't matter. Lizzie can jump thirty-two."

  Although I didn't see it or hear it, it's possible that the Terv ticked the high jump. When Mrs. Cormier said the Terv used the jump to climb over, though, she was lying. "I'm not even required to explain it to you, you know," she told the handler. "I'm trying to be helpful."

  After the handler had left the ring, Mrs. Cormier fixed her eyes on me. "She knew that dog couldn't jump the required height." She sounded outraged. "She thought she'd pull a fast one on me and get away with thirty inches!" She gave an unappetizing snort. "Where's my sandwich?" She spotted it on her table, snatched it up, and tore off the plastic wrapper. She took a big bite and made a face. Dog show food. What did she expect? "Moldy," she said. She took another bite, swigged some coffee, wiped her hand on her mouth, and put the sandwich on the table—yes. right out in plain sight and even plainer smell of every dog that would enter her ring.

  Breed loyalty being what it is, I won't say what the next dog was, but I'll tell you he was so nervous that he gagged, choked and eventually vomited. Happy, who was a friend of the handler's, murmured to me that the dog was great in class but always went to pieces in the ring. Mrs. Cormier informed the handler that a little bundle of nerves like that didn't belong in obedience at all. She went on to predict that he'd develop seizures and eventually turn into a fear-biter, too.

  "Bitch!" Happy said none too softly.

  I glanced toward the Utility ring to see whether Mr. Cormier had overheard, but he was at least twenty feet away, smiling down at a Border collie and chatting amiably with the owner.

  "If she's this unfair in the ring, imagine what she's like at home!" I said. "How does he stand her?"

  "He's stuck with her," Happy said.

  A non-dog person would probably have expected her to explain that the Cormiers objected to divorce on religious grounds, and she did, more or less: "They co-own twelve dogs."

  "Oh," I said. "What kind?"

  "Pulis."

  Yeah, pulik. But that's not what she said. Anyway, I was astounded. I always think of puli people as exceptionally ethical. It was hard to believe that Mrs. Cormier owned even one puli, never mind half of twelve.

  The next two dogs were Rotties. If I'd been scoring Mrs. Cormier's judging of both of them, I'd have given her substantial penalties for consistent crowding. By the time the second Rottie and his handler were leaving the ring, word about the substitute judge in Open A had evidently spread. Ring 19 had drawn a large crowd, and the spectators were jammed together because the obedience table was on one side of our ring, the Novice A ring on another, and Mr. Cormier's Utility ring on the third side. In the aisle on the gate side, waiting handlers peered in to study the heeling pattern, and everyone watched to see whether the judge was really as mean as everyone was saying.

  Well, she was worse. The next dog was another golden, not spectacular like the first golden, but not bad, and definitely qualifying. Not according to Mrs. Cormier, though. When he and his handler left the ring, I did something else that I want you to promise never to mention to anyone from the AKC. I asked Nancy how many no-shows we had.

  “A lot," she said.

  "Good. Now, look. If anyone else wants to check in, why don't you just sort of emphasize that this is a substitute judge."

  "I have been," she said, "but you know what people are like."

  "I'll bet she doesn't qualify a single dog," I said.

  I was wrong. The next dog, a black standard poodle, got off to a bad start by trying to steal the sandwich that was still sitting on the table, and he came to a bad end by vaulting out of the ring. But after that, another dog entered our ring, and Mrs. Cormier finally liked what she saw.

  On the drop on recall, the dog started toward his handier before he was called, and he also dropped before the signal. On the retrieve on flat and the retrieve over high jump, he went after his dumbbell the second it hit the mat. He didn't need to be told when to go over the broad jump, either. In fact, if he'd been sent into the ring all alone, he'd have run through the whole Open routine just fine. Pattern training, right? Too many run-throughs. Everyone liked him, but absolutely nobody could've qualified him. Mrs. Cormier did, though. Did you guess? He was, of course, a puli.

  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.