“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” said Candace. She hugged Alberta and Louise and said, “It’s going to be okay. He’ll get his one of these days.” She put an arm over Rudy’s shoulder. As they walked away, I heard Rudy say, in a tone that made the hair on my arms tingle, “I hate him.”
Hutchinson took the rest of our statements. He also asked around and took the names and emails of five people who had gotten some or all of the incident on video. When he was gone and the day’s events were officially a wrap, Alberta, Louise and her father, and a few others decided to order a pizza and invited us to join them, but Tom and I were ready to go home. I started to get into the van, but passed the keys across the front seat and said I had something to tell Marietta.
I found her setting up the last of the obstacles for the next morning’s class. “Don’t look around or make a production of it, but be sure you lock everything up.” I nodded toward the empty restaurant across the street. Dog Dayz was well lighted, inside and out, but dusk was coming on fast and it was hard to see beyond the perimeter of lights.
“That’s him? The car over there?”
“He came back about ten minutes ago. He’s been there ever since.”
nineteen
The smallest dogs ran first on Sunday morning. Roman Markoff’s Toy Poodle, Monet, was on fire over the first three jumps, the dog walk, the tire jump, the weaves. Then he dashed into the tunnel, had a barkfest inside, and finally shot out the other end to finish the course just in time to qualify. He was followed by several Pomeranians, a Toy Poodle, Giselle Swann and her Maltese, Precious, and a long-haired Chihuahua.
“Do they seem slow through the tunnel to you?” Tom stood beside me, arms crossed and baseball cap pulled low against the sun.
“A little,” I said. The tunnel was set up with a ninety-degree bend in the middle, half of it running parallel to the dog walk, and the other part passing beneath the elevated horizontal board. “Maybe the light inside is funny?”
The last dog of the eight-inch class skipped the tunnel entirely, so didn’t qualify. Tom and I ran onto the course at Marietta’s signal to reset the jumps to twelve inches for dogs eleven to fourteen inches tall.
The first dog on course was a Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I didn’t know her, so assumed she was from out of town. She came in barking and earned an NQ—a non-qualify score—at the first jump, which she by-passed entirely. From there on, though, she ran as fast her as her short legs would carry her until she reached the tunnel. She entered it at a good clip but shot right back out the end she’d gone in, provoking pockets of laughter outside the ring. Her handler tried to send her back in, but no dice. They finished the rest of the course and left the ring.
Next up was Tess, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel from South Bend. I knew her and her owner, Joan something, from trials around the state. Tess ran at a steady pace, tail wagging the whole way. She seemed to take a long time through the tunnel, but at least she came out the correct end and finished her run within the time limit.
I was beginning to think there really was something wrong with the obstacle. Most dogs love the tunnel once they learn to run through it. A lot of agility people swear there’s a suction effect because so many dogs add an extra tunnel or two to their runs. Then again, light, wind, and setting can make familiar objects look strange, for dogs as for us.
The twelve-inch class wrapped up ten minutes behind schedule. Two more dogs, a Dachshund and a Miniature Schnauzer, negotiated the tunnel, and five others skipped it one way or another. I thought about taking a peek inside as we reset the jumps, but the judge seemed impatient to keep things rolling, so I let it go.
The first dog in the sixteen-inch class was Caper, a little red-tri Aussie from Toledo. I needed to get Jay ready for the next height group, but decided to watch Caper run first. Her owner, Bud Monroe, was a fire fighter. He was also a member of a wilderness search-and-rescue team, and Caper was his SAR dog as well as his agility teammate. I had photographed them during a training exercise a few months earlier, and I knew that Caper had recently found a missing four-year-old who wandered away from a campsite near Lake Erie.
Caper waited at the start line with her front end down, fanny in the air, nubby tail wagging. Her whole body quivered and she let out a series of staccato barks. Bud gave the signal and she was off, her red coat flashing like sparks in the wind. She cleared the first three jumps, sped over the dog walk, sailed through the tire jump, whipped through the weave poles, and shot into the tunnel. And then she backed out the way she had entered, lay down, and started to bark.
Bud, who was sprinting to the next obstacle, spun around and stared at his dog. The judge muttered something I couldn’t make out, and a collective sigh of regret rose from the spectators. If it had been any other dog, I would have seen just a performance slip-up, but I knew what Caper’s behavior meant in other contexts. I felt a little chill and thought, this can’t be good.
“What’s she doing?” Giselle had come up beside me.
Tom and I answered in unison, “Indicating.”
“What?”
Bud ran toward Caper. She stopped barking but held her position, flicking her gaze from the tunnel to Bud and back. Marietta Santini stood across the ring from me, one hand across her mouth.
I spoke just above a whisper. “She’s indicating a find. There’s something in the tunnel.”
“What do you mean?” asked Giselle.
“She’s an SAR dog,” said Tom. “There’s something in the tunnel.”
No, I thought. Not something.
Someone.
Bud signaled Caper to stay and knelt at the opening to the tunnel. He said something I couldn’t make out and disappeared into the vinyl tube. Marietta climbed over the rope that defined the ring and ran to the tunnel. Tom did the same. Marietta bent to look inside, then straightened, patted her pockets, and shouted something at the judge, then at whoever might be listening.
“Phone! We need a phone!”
My first thought was that an animal was in the tunnel, injured or dead. It was possible, I supposed, since the equipment sat out all night. Someone’s dog? One of the cats that lived in the alley? Oh, please, not the little rainbow mama. A raccoon or possum or … Vet, I thought. Marietta’s going to phone the vet on call for the trial.
I climbed over the rope and joined the little group at the mouth of the tunnel. “Here!” I said, offering the phone. “What is it?” From the edge of my vision I saw Tom crawl into the other end of the tunnel and then back out.
Marietta pushed the phone back at me and said, “Call an ambulance.”
My breakfast turned over and I felt my knees start to fold. Not again, I thought. I sank to the ground. I managed to hit 9-1-1, but when I tried to speak, nothing came out. Marietta took the phone from me and gave the operator the information, then tossed it back at me. The morning air was comfortable, but the night’s frost hadn’t completely left the grass and the cold seeped through my jeans and into my legs. But that wasn’t what made me shiver.
“I can’t believe this,” I said, mostly to myself. I’d been down this road twice in the past half year and as much I wanted—needed—to know who was in the tunnel and how badly hurt she or he was, I couldn’t ask. I looked the questions at Tom.
His mouth was tight, lips narrow, and when he spoke it was not to answer my question. “Call the police.”
“Tom?”
“It’s Rasmussen,” he said, his tone flat. “He’s dead.”
twenty
“What do you mean dead?” I heard a sudden ringing in my ears and felt as if my head might explode. It can’t be happening again, can it? I closed my eyes and tried to shake some clarity into my brain. My first half-century was completely murder free, at least among people I knew, but in the previous six months I had been close to several violent deaths. It can stop now.
“Janet, are you okay?
” Tom put his hand on my shoulder. “I think you need to sit down.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” I opened my eyes and looked at him, and my recent first-aid training kicked in. I stepped around Tom and crawled into the tunnel to see for myself.
Rasmussen was in there, all right. One arm stretched toward me, as if he had collapsed mid-crawl. Dark brown paw prints trailed along the vinyl floor from his head toward me, and a voice in my head whispered blood. The dogs who had made it through the tunnel had stepped in the man’s blood. My stomach heaved. I had learned a bit about crime scenes over the previous few months, and I tried not to touch the paw prints as I crept closer to Rasmussen. Maybe he had an accident, murmured a hopeful voice in my head, but as I closed in on the body, I knew that this was no accident. Besides, how the heck did he end up dead in the middle of a twenty-foot agility tunnel?
My instinct was to back out of that tunnel as quickly as possible, but another voice said you have to make sure he’s dead. As soon as I thought it, the macabre double meaning of the words hit me. I hadn’t wished violence on him, but I still didn’t like the man, and Janet demon urged, yeah, Janet, make sure he’s dead. I couldn’t keep myself from laughing even as I fought down nausea at the horror of it all. Reflex, I thought, trying to assure myself that I retained a morsel of compassion even for Rasmussen. Just a self-protective reflex.
My hand shook and my gag reflex continued to operate as I reached out to check for a pulse. Rasmussen’s head was covered in blood that appeared to have sprung from several gashes in the back of his head and his temple. Something about the shape of his skull looked odd, like the side of his face wasn’t right. It was hard to tell in the light of the tunnel, filtered as it was through red vinyl. I withdrew my hand and slid my sleeves as far up my forearm as I could, then reached again and pressed my fingers up under his jaw. His skin was cool, and no life beat beneath the surface.
I backed out, stood up, and said, “Dead.” I took four steps backward and sank to the ground.
Tom knelt and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Janet?”
“How can this be?”
“Do you want some water?”
“No, I’m fine.” I’m not fine at all. “Tom, how … Again?”
Marietta Santini stepped in close to us. “Are you sure he’s dead?” she asked, and I nodded. “Oh my God.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and as she punched in a number, she windmilled her other arm at the judge.
He slapped his thigh with his clipboard and glanced at his watch. “We’re already twenty minutes behind schedule,” he shouted. “Come on, let’s get rolling.” Marietta just kept gesturing for him to come on over as she spoke into her phone. He looked again at his watch, shoved his pencil behind his ear, and stalked across the course to join us beside the tunnel. Once he was informed, he wanted to tell the exhibitors, who were now clustered here and there around the ring trying to figure out what was going on.
“I don’t think we should say anything except that there will be a delay,” I said. “Not until the police get here.”
The judge glared at me. He had gone from annoyed to supremely annoyed, as if we had planned a death on course to insult him personally. “Why is that?”
“Because they won’t want people to leave until they say so.” At least I didn’t think they would, based on my limited but still too vast experience with murder investigations. If it was murder.
“I’m going to close the gate to be sure,” said Marietta, already headed toward the entrance. She signaled Jorge to help her.
The judge was still staring at me. He seemed to have one standard question. “Why is that?”
“Because, if this is a homicide, they will want to interview people.”
He rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, so you’re a cop now.”
Tom started to say something, but I cut him off. “They’ll want to talk to everyone. Including you.” I turned to Tom and said, “I need to see the boys.” A laying on of paws would, I knew, make me feel enormously better. Tom took my hand as we walked away from the tunnel.
Exhibitors and spectators were gathered around the ring, and there were questions from all sides as we left the fenced area.
“Is someone hurt?”
“What’s in there?”
“What’s the holdup? I have a three-hour drive …”
Tom finally said, “Please, just relax and play with your dogs. There’s going to be a bit of a delay. I’m sure someone will make an announcement soon.”
We cleared the ring-side crowd and were half way to my van when Alberta spotted us and scurried over. She had a plastic bag filled with packages of cat treats in her hand. “What’s happening?” she asked between wheezes. “I can’t stay, have to replenish the cat-treat bowl, we’ve handed out a hundred and fifty of these already, can you believe it?” She swung the bag toward us with one hand and adjusted her glasses with the other. “So what’s wrong with the tunnel?”
“Rasmussen. He’s dead.”
Alberta’s face went blank and her mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound came out. Finally she said, “Charles Rasmussen?”
Tom and I nodded.
“Couldn’t happen to anyone more deserving.” Alberta sounded as if she were approving the High in Trial winner. I couldn’t think of an appropriate response. I didn’t like the guy, and I wouldn’t miss interacting with him, but I couldn’t rejoice in a violent death, either. Trite as they were, the words it’s complicated were the only ones I could home in on.
A truck appeared from behind the training building and rattled over the sparse grass. His trajectory took him right by us, and I called to the driver’s open window, “You’re not taking them away already, are you?” In the bed, four plastic outhouses stood as if in casual conversation. Each of them, plus the door of the truck, sported the image of a dapper little man doffing his bowler under an arc of letters that spelled out “Johnny-Come-Early.” The tea and water I’d been drinking were starting to pressure me, and I was hoping the rest of the slogan wasn’t “Johnny-Leave-Early.”
The driver stopped the truck and said, “No, ma’am. Just switched these out for nice fresh ones. Do that every Sunday for Ms. Santini.” He grinned at us and drove on.
“Too bad Charles didn’t fall down in one of those instead of in the tunnel.”
“Alberta!” Okay, I admit that although most of me was horrified at her comment—a man was dead, after all—part of me loved the idea.
Alberta just shrugged and said, “Well, back to my display.”
Tom nudged me and pointed my attention back to the driveway. A police cruiser and a black sedan had pulled in. A third cruiser stopped beside the departing truck, then parked across the end of the driveway. The officer, lanky and well over six feet tall, walked to the truck’s driver, then waved him away. I turned to watch the other cars disgorge four more figures, three of them in uniform. The fourth, dressed in tan chinos, a plaid shirt, and a navy jacket, was Hutchinson.
“Oh, thank God,” I said.
“I thought you thought he was kind of a bumbler?” said Tom.
“But he’s our bumbler,” I said, then thought better of it. “Besides, I don’t think that anymore. He just works his own …”
A voice that needed no bullhorn said, “Excuse me!” We both jumped and turned. The officer who had spoken to the truck driver was coming up behind us. She gave each of us the once over and, without breaking stride, said, “Don’t leave the premises,” and followed her colleagues to the competition ring.
twenty-one
“I think I need to sit down for a minute,” I said. My legs felt rubbery, and my brain fluctuated between spilling over and completely empty.
When we reached the van, Tom and I checked the big boys first, and I felt 200 percent better as soon as the two doggy tongues touched my fingers.
“You relax for
a bit. I’ll take these guys for a little walk.” Tom kissed my forehead, then picked up Drake’s leash and went to the back of the van.
Leo had come along again. He wouldn’t be running agility, but I had offered to have him man, or cat, Alberta’s information table for a while. I figured it would be good practice for his competition debut the following weekend. I got him out of his double-wide carrier and settled the two of us into the front seat. Whoever says cats don’t care about people just never gave them a chance. Leo laid himself lengthwise along my torso and let his tail drape across my thigh. I looked into his eyes, all squinty with feline “I love yous.” He mewed so low I almost didn’t hear, then pressed a paw against my cheek. We stayed like that, Leo purring and me, eyes closed, counting my breaths. Inhale one-two-three, exhale one-two-three.
When the sound of a dog jumping into the back of the van opened my eyes, the dashboard clock said eleven minutes had slipped by. Tom loaded Jay and Drake into their crates and got into the seat beside me.
“Better?” He said.
“Much.”
Leo meowed at Tom, and Tom ran the backs of his fingers down the soft orange body and let his hand come to rest on Leo’s tail and my leg. We just sat like that for a few minutes, until I broke the silence.
“Everybody hated that guy, you know.”
“He was easy to dislike, that’s for sure,” said Tom.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Who killed him?”
“I’m sort of hoping he had some kind of bizarre accident.” Tom craned his neck for a look at the ring. “We should go find out what’s happening.”
As soon as I stood up and the sharpening wind sliced into me, I realized I needed to make use of one of those newly refreshed portable facilities. “Getting colder,” I said, more or less to myself. I put Leo back into his carrier, excused myself, and walked across the parking lot toward the front of the training building. The “Johnny” set up in the L-corner of the building there was probably the closest one. A woman I didn’t know was scurrying in a different angle and got there three steps ahead of me. She had an unfair advantage—two malamutes were pulling her along. I wondered how she planned to manage. There was no way she and those big dogs would fit into the telephone booth sized bathroom.
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