Proof of Life

by J. A. Jance

  “Tell me about Rambo,” Colleen commanded. “What kind of dog is he?”

  “She,” I corrected. “And she’s big. We believe she’s all or part Irish wolfhound.”

  Without mentioning any names, I launched off into the whole long story, including the part where Rambo had bared her teeth at me and effectively kept me from climbing into my own bed.

  Colleen listened, nodding now and again as I spoke. “Wolfies are very protective,” she said finally. “That’s what they were bred to do originally—to protect their families from whatever. Since Rambo comes from a background with a history of domestic violence, when you were trying to get into bed, she may have read your actions as somehow threatening to your wife and she was protecting her.”

  I have to confess, that thought had never occurred to me. As far as I could tell, Rambo wanted my side of the bed. Period.

  “Considering her environment and the possibility that she has probably witnessed her share of family violence,” Colleen continued, “there’s a good chance she’s insecure. In my experience, insecure dogs can be dangerous dogs.”

  I had always thought that vicious dogs were just that—vicious. It never crossed my mind that the dogs might actually be scared out of their wits.

  “So by taking in this dog—temporarily or not—you’re saying it’s really a rescue, correct?” Colleen asked.

  “I suppose,” I said. “If we hadn’t taken her home with us, she would have had to go back to the pound. But still, she’s a big dog—a huge dog. We have young grandkids, and the family she came from and may go back to has small kids.”

  “And you’re worried about that—about how she’ll interact with children?”

  “Yes.”

  Without another word, Colleen stood up and walked back to the desk, where she collected a clipboard and a pen. She spent several moments, writing something on a piece of paper. Only when she finished did she look back at me.

  “One of the things we do here at the academy is evaluate rescues,” she told me. “Your concerns about large dogs and especially insecure large dogs as posing a danger to small children are not at all misplaced. Some so-called rescue dogs have been so severely damaged in their previous homes that they simply shut down and can never be safely integrated into new ones.

  “Here at the academy we make it our mission to facilitate successful and safe rescue situations, In order to do so, we take in newly rescued dogs and keep them here at the academy for a week at no charge to the adopting family. That allows us to evaluate the dogs’ personalities and assess their ability to successfully integrate into a new family dynamic. Given Rambo’s troubled background, I think that kind of assessment would make sense for your peace of mind going forward, regardless of whether Rambo stays with you on strictly a temporary basis or if the situation morphs into something more long term.

  “The fact that she knows to ask to go out would indicate that she’s had some training, but oftentimes animals from those kinds of situations have not been properly vaccinated. And even if she has been, you won’t be able to access those records.”

  With that, Colleen handed me the piece of paper on which she’d been writing, explaining the contents as she did so. “The three items listed at the bottom of the sheet are the three vaccinations Rambo would need to have had—rabies, distemper, and Bordetella—in case you decide that you’re interested in dropping her off here for an evaluation. The last one, Bordetella, prevents what we call kennel cough, and dogs can’t come here for anything including boarding and training without up-to-date vaccination records. Do you have a family vet?”

  “No,” I answered. “I’ve never had a dog before.”

  “Check with PetsMart then,” she suggested. “They generally have a vet on hand, and they’ll also have a chip reader.”

  “A what?”

  “A microchip reader,” she answered. “When a dog is being adopted, some agencies install a chip in the dog’s shoulder prior to its being placed. That way, if the dog is lost, it’s possible to locate the owner even if the dog isn’t wearing tags. A chip can also lead you back to the vet who originally inserted it. If Rambo has one, with any luck, the vet in question will have access to the vaccination records. If you decide this is something you want to do, once you ascertain that Rambo’s shots are current, call here, so I can schedule a time for you to stop by and drop her off.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Will do. But what’s this at the top of the page?” Without my reading glasses, I had to squint to make out the two words she had written there—Beth Gelert. Even after reading them, however, they made no sense whatsoever.

  “It’s the name of a poem,” she explained. “It’s also your homework assignment. Go home, look it up on the Internet, and read it. It’ll teach you everything you need to know about the wonders of having an Irish wolfhound in your life.”

  “Thank you,” I said, pocketing the paper along with Colleen’s business card. “I’ll do that.”

  “What’s your wife’s name again?” Colleen asked.

  “Mel,” I answered. “Melissa really, but everyone calls her Mel.”

  “Just for the record,” Colleen added, “I suspect that Rambo is lucky to have you and Mel in hers.”

  I may not have had the dog with me at the time, but I walked out of the Academy of Canine Behavior feeling as though I’d just been given an excellent report card.

  It was ten to seven when I got back on the freeway headed northbound. Traffic was moving fairly well—at least compared to what it had been doing earlier. However, even though I had to drive eighty miles between Bothell and home, I still arrived well before Mel did. Have I mentioned that the job of being chief of police is not a nine-to-five endeavor?

  Once back home I was greatly relieved to discover that all was well. Rambo had indeed deigned to use the doggy door. There were no messes of any kind inside the house. Considering Rambo’s relative size, you could say that was a huge relief. Her water dish was empty. I filled it. Her food dish was empty, and I filled that as well. It was far too late for sunset watching or playing ball, either, so I turned on the fireplace. With iPad in hand, I settled down in my chair to do my homework. It turns out that Beth in Beth Gelert is a misspelling of Bedde of Gelert, which doesn’t mean “bed” at all. In this case it means grave, and the poem Colleen McDaniel had assigned for me to read ended up telling a very sad story.

  It seems a prince of Wales—I’m not sure which one—loved to go hunting with his hounds. One day, when it was time for the hunt, his favorite dog, a wolfhound named Gelert, was nowhere to be found, so the prince went hunting without him. When he came home that evening, the dog came to greet his master, completely covered with blood. With his heart filled with dread, the prince went inside searching for his baby. The crib, also covered with blood, was empty. Assuming the dog had killed his child, the enraged father stabbed the dog, who, as he was dying, gave out a piteous howl. The sound was answered by the cry of a baby. The father soon found the child, safe and sound, hiding in another room. Nearby lay the body of the wolf Gelert had slain while bravely protecting his charge.

  Talk about a miscarriage of justice! Bedde of Gelert indeed! And wouldn’t you know? I was still sitting there mopping my eyes when Mel showed up. “You look upset,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I was just reading a poem about an Irish wolfhound.”

  Mel gave me a look of utter disbelief—as though I really were from the planet Dalvar. “Sure you were,” she said. “And I’m a monkey’s uncle. So why don’t you come into the kitchen and tell me about it while I fix something for us to eat. With you out of town, I missed lunch today. I’m starved.”

  Because she gets home so late most nights, we tend to eat our main meal at lunchtime. More often than not, our evening repast consists of gourmet peanut butter and jelly sandwiches prepared in our gourmet kitchen, where I was surprised to discover that Rambo loves peanut butter.

  Over the course
of making and eating the meal, Mel and I compared notes. It was while I was telling her about Max’s funeral and about Erin Kelsey being totally estranged from the man who had rescued her as an abandoned child in Mexico that I saw the similarity between what had happened to Pete Kelsey and what happened to that damned dog. That wasn’t fair, either.

  “So what are you going to do about all this?” Mel asked.

  “Tracking down Max’s literary agent is probably the first step,” I answered. “If the cops are wrong and the man really was murdered, the who and why may be found in something he uncovered in the course of working on the book. I’ll also want to check with some of my sources and see if I can get details on the fire investigation.”

  “Scott?” Mel asked.

  “No, definitely not Scott,” I replied. “If this ends up going sideways, I don’t want to have him hauled up on charges of providing unauthorized information to someone outside the department.”

  “Makes sense,” she agreed.

  “And since Erin said this may have something to do with Marcia Kelsey’s homicide, I should probably track down Pete, her widower, as well.”

  After dinner—I have a hard time calling PBJ sandwiches dinner, but there you are—we wandered back into the living room and sat down in our matching chairs by the fire, where Mel brought me up to date on the Ken Purcell situation. He’d been released from the hospital and was now in police custody, being cared for in the infirmary at the county lockup.

  “He’s scheduled to go before the judge tomorrow morning,” she said. “The prosecutor says that because it wasn’t a deadly weapon—BB guns are considered to be about the same danger level as a stun gun—the best we can hope for on the shooting is assault in the third degree.”

  “What about the domestic violence charge?”

  “That remains to be seen,” Mel said. “Serena is working on that. It depends on whether Nancy Purcell is willing to press charges and testify. So far she says she will, but you know how that goes.”

  Unfortunately I did. All too often, victims in domestic violence cases end up caving when it comes time to lock up their abusers. I didn’t know either one of the people involved personally, but I figured the odds were good that Nancy Purcell would pull the same stunt when it came time to put her asshole hubby in jail. What that meant was that Kenneth Purcell would be back on the streets in no time.

  “So he’ll be able to post bail?” I asked.

  Mel nodded. “Most likely,” she said, “and probably sooner than later, which isn’t good news for my department or for Nancy and her kids, either, especially if he ends up arming himself with something other than a BB gun.”

  “So maybe it’s not such a crazy idea for Nancy and her kids to have an oversized dog on the premises after all?”

  “Maybe not,” Mel agreed with a smile, “but that reminds me. I promised Serena this afternoon that I’d send her another photo.”

  When Mel and I had turned off the lights in the kitchen and gone into the living room to sit by the fire, Rambo had eventually followed us there. When she had entered the room, she had stopped by the sofa—black leather, by the way—where she paused for a moment, looking first at me and then at Mel. Then, without any further hesitation, she had hiked her long body up onto the seat and stretched out full length—using up a surprising amount of acreage on that six-foot-long couch. Obviously she was accustomed to being on furniture, and neither Mel nor I had bothered to tell her otherwise. Now she was apparently sound asleep.

  “Hey, Rambo,” Mel said, aiming the camera on her cell phone in the dog’s direction. “Look here.”

  Obligingly, Rambo opened her eyes and raised her head just in time for the flash to go off. When Mel examined the resulting photo a few moments later, she burst out laughing. “That’s not going to cut it,” she said, handing me the phone. “Take a look.”

  I did. Against the black background of the couch, the dog’s body was completely invisible. All that showed were a pair of eerily glowing eyes—two fiery orbs that seemed to float, like smoldering embers, in midair.

  “She looks more like a devil than a dog,” I observed, passing the phone back to Mel. “You should probably take one of her on the new bed in the kitchen. It’s blue and gray—better contrast.”

  “No,” Mel said. “I think I’ll send this one anyway. That way Nancy and the kids will be able to see for themselves that we’re not mistreating her.”

  Was that good for the dog? Probably. Good for the furniture? Probably not. But there you are—live and learn.

  CHAPTER 11

  THAT NIGHT MEL, RAMBO, AND I ALL MANAGED TO CRAWL into our respective beds without incident. Seeming to understand this new arrangement, Rambo settled down without complaint or objection on her old ratty bed next to Mel’s side of ours. As per usual, Mel went straight to sleep.

  Maybe she could sleep like a baby, all the while ignoring the possibility that Ken Purcell might post bail and come looking for trouble, but I could not. In my opinion and regardless of the caliber of weapon they use, people who go around shooting at cops need keepers and shouldn’t be allowed out on their own.

  After I’d tossed and turned, wrestling with that one for a while—to no avail, I might add—I turned my attention back to the Maxwell Cole situation. It was like approaching an investigation the way we did it back in the old days, long before DNA and the microscopic examination of trace evidence became the be-alls and end-alls of modern police work. Back then we started with the crime, a theory of what had happened, and worked from there, investing a lot of time, energy, and shoe leather along the way.

  In this case, since Erin’s theory that Max had somehow been murdered was completely at variance with the official findings, I would be doing my investigation with no legal backing or assistance. Clearly, my obvious first step was to talk to Max’s literary agent. Finding him wouldn’t be that big a problem, but before I spoke to him, I needed to know something about him. On that score, I had a powerful ally available to me, one I was reasonably sure I could bring into play, namely the only forensic economist I know, a guy named Todd Hatcher.

  Todd actually hails from the same neck of the woods where my friend Sheriff Joanna Brady hangs out—Cochise County in southeastern Arizona. The son of a waitress and a failed and consequently convicted bank robber, Todd saw his life forever impacted when his father was released from prison and into the care of his mother only after he had come down with early onset Alzheimer’s. The financial, emotional, and physical impact of caring for the impaired ex-con had proved to be too much for Todd’s mother, and she had survived her husband’s death by only a matter of months.

  Todd spent his summers as a cowboy in southern Arizona while working his way through college, earning both a B.A. and a master’s in economics. By the time his mother died, he was at the University of Washington, working on his doctorate. His thesis, a study of the long-term fiscal impact of an aging prison population, hadn’t won him a lot of accolades among the faculty at the U Dub, but it had brought him to the attention of the then state attorney general and my old boss, Ross Connors.

  Mel and I had been working for Special Homicide at the time, and that’s where we first met Todd Hatcher. He’s a geek, all right, but an unlikely-looking one—a long, lanky, bowlegged guy who prefers to dress in jeans, boots, and cowboy shirts and who looks, for all the world, as though he just stepped off a horse. He and his wife, Julie, and their new baby, Sabrina, live on a small farm down near Olympia where they’re raising quarter horses on the side.

  Even with Ross Connors out of the picture, however, Todd continues to do yeoman’s labor for any number of governmental agencies at state, county, and local municipal levels. He likes to say that when he gets tired of shoveling all the bureaucratic horseshit, he goes out to the barn and shovels the real kind to help get his mojo back.

  Since the family lives out in the boonies, I’m not at all sure how Todd manages to maintain a to-die-for Internet connection, but he does. And, b
ecause of the kinds of work he does, he has unlimited access to information about pretty much anything and everything.

  My last waking thought before I drifted off to sleep that night was that I’d check with Todd in the morning. I was relatively sure he could help me look up Maxwell Cole’s literary agent, Thomas Raines. I was also hoping he’d be able to give me some context on the man. That way, even before I started asking questions, I’d have some idea if what the literary agent told me was worth listening to or if I should take his answers with a grain of salt. I also hoped that, in addition to giving me background on the literary agent, Todd would be able to point me in the direction of John Madsen, formerly known as Pete Kelsey.

  As I’ve mentioned, Mel is your basic early to bed, early to rise kind of woman, and the next morning was no exception. She was up, showered, and dressed before I finished sawing logs. I stumbled into the kitchen as she was gathering up her purse and car keys and getting ready to leave. She paused long enough to give me a dual-purpose kiss that covered both hello and good-bye.

  “I already fed Rambo,” she warned. “Don’t let her trick you into believing she hasn’t eaten.”

  “Are we having lunch?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Mel told me, “not today. Ken Purcell’s arraignment is scheduled for late this morning. I want to put in an appearance at that. Then, at noon I’m scheduled to be the dog-and-pony show at a lunchtime Rotary meeting.”

  I didn’t envy her either of those chores. “Have a good one then,” I mumbled, making for the coffee machine and pressing the button. While the coffee dribbled into my mug, I glanced down at the dog. Rambo may have been lying on her bed, but she was watchfully keeping me in her field of vision.

  “How are you this morning?” I asked.

  Since there was no one else within hearing distance, Rambo seemed to understand that I was addressing her. She thumped her tail accordingly, forcing me to come to the inarguable conclusion that I had fallen so far down the rabbit hole that I was actually talking to a dog.