Drop Dead on Recall

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  “Yes.” Ginny’s voice seemed to be back under control. “They were friends long before they hit big time in obedience, you know, and still were, I think, despite the occasional sniping at one another.”

  “Do you think maybe things didn’t work out? With the fiancé, I mean?”

  “Possible, I guess. But Suzette wouldn’t kill herself over a man. She was excited about breeding Fly. Her first litter and all. Besides, she would have made sure Fly was safe before she ever did anything to herself.”

  That certainly made sense to me. Then I remembered something else. “Someone told me Suzette bred Fly last year.”

  “She was going to. When it fell through, I encouraged her to wait until she finished Fly’s obedience championship.”

  “That was probably wise.”

  “Guess so. But she was so excited about having a puppy of her own breeding.”

  “Why did the earlier breeding fall through?” I figured that if anyone had the scoop, it would be Ginny. Whether she’d tell me was another matter.

  “The stud dog she was planning to use had close relatives with some serious health problems. The dog himself is healthy so far, but there are too many risks too close in his pedigree. Neither one of us knew about the problems until Fly was already in season, so there was no time to find a different dog.” I knew that a responsible breeder would spend many hours investigating health and temperament and other traits of a dog’s whole family before deciding on a match.

  “How did you find out about the dog’s problems?” I knew that it wasn’t always easy to ferret out negative information about individual dogs and their bloodlines if the people in the know didn’t cooperate.

  “The owner of one of his brothers called Suzette. Said she’d heard about the planned breeding and figured the dog’s breeder wouldn’t divulge that there were problems in the line, and she thought Suzette would want to know.” Ginny didn’t say a word about DNA or suspect parentage. Maybe Abigail had kept that under her hat.

  “What kind of problems?”

  “The woman who called said her dog had CEA—collie eye anomaly—and she said there was another puppy from the same litter with inherited epilepsy. She said that their sire had produced puppies with epilepsy and eye problems in other litters, too.” She put her napkin on the table and leaned back against the red upholstery of the booth. “So Suzette backed out of the breeding. The stud dog’s breeder was furious. She sent Suzette a couple of nasty e-mails about what a fool she was, and threatened to sue her for slander if she talked about the health problems in her dogs.”

  “You can’t slander an animal. Besides, attitudes like that hurt the whole breed.”

  “Right. But the breeder imported the dog’s sire from Australia and his dam from Scotland. She had a fortune invested, all down the tubes if word got out. Anyway, Suzette said she didn’t plan to launch a campaign against anyone, but she wasn’t going to go through with the breeding.”

  Ginny picked up an unused spoon and balanced it across her index finger. “Next thing you know, the stud’s breeder launched a campaign against Suzette and Fly. Posted to Internet lists and told people that Fly had health issues, and claimed that the stud owner refused to breed her dog to Fly, not the other way around. Very ugly.”

  Although I already knew that she was talking about Abigail Dorn and Francine Peterson, I had to ask. “So who owned the stud dog?”

  She gave me a “not important” wave of the hand.

  “It was Pip, wasn’t it? Abigail’s dog.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Suzette told Abigail about the issues in Fly’s bloodlines. Fly’s maternal aunt produced an epileptic pup. Only one I know of in the close family, but Suzette was determined to stay away from any dogs known to have close relatives with epilepsy.” Ginny plunked the spoon onto the Formica table. “I mean, come on! All dogs carry the genes for something we don’t want. You just don’t double up on bad genes if possible. Pip is a fine dog, but not a good match for Fly.”

  “Makes sense to me.” Wow, I thought. Another one who doesn’t know about the really big obstacle to using Pip at stud.

  “If everyone were open about these problems, we could get a better handle on them.” She took a long drink of water. “Francine has always tried to cover up issues in her dogs. I think the lines Pip comes from actually are pretty healthy all told, but Francine used to have some serious temperament issues. In her dogs, I mean—she still has some of her own!”

  I couldn’t dispute that.

  “Anyway, for years she denied that her dogs weren’t perfect, then suddenly those dogs disappeared and she started over with new bloodlines.” I wondered whether the dogs had actually disappeared, or if Francine had continued to breed them and fudged the puppies’ papers.

  “There’s something you should know about Pip.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s neutered.”

  “No!”

  I nodded.

  “Whoa!” Her eyes were enormous. “I bet Francine doesn’t know that.” She started to laugh. “You know, that sounds like something Abigail would do. Neuter the dog, avoid the hassle of telling Francine.” She giggled some more. “And who could tell with the coat that dog has?”

  We switched to more pleasant topics. Dogs mostly. After I got her mailing address and promised to send her the photos I’d taken for Suzette, Ginny and Fly drove west toward Chicago, out of the storm of murder and deceit. I headed the other way.

  68

  Jay and I spent a couple hours wandering along the Tippecanoe River and shooting photos in Potowatomi Wildlife Park. I’d hoped for a glimpse of an osprey or bald eagle, or a river otter like the one I spotted on my last trip, but there were no endangered-species sightings on my plate this time.

  The sun was skimming the treetops by the time I pulled into my driveway. I let Jay out of his crate and he made a beeline for Goldie, who was deadheading grape hyacinths in her front yard. I thought he would dislocate a hip the way he was wriggling his butt.

  “Where ya been?” She followed me into the house and I filled her in.

  “Push those photo boxes out of your way,” I told her as I scooped a cup of dry dog food into Jay’s bowl.

  She picked up a big old plastic dumbbell that was standing on end next to the pepper grinder. “New kitchen tool?”

  “Cute.”

  “Heavy sucker.” She tested it against her biceps.

  “Yeah. I have a lighter one I like better.”

  She clucked at me. “You really should start tossing things you don’t use anymore. Give it to someone who can use it if you don’t. Get rid of some of the clutter in here.”

  “Oh, okay, Mom. Sure thing.” I made a rude noise as I took the dumbbell out of her hand and into the living room. I supposed I could have put it away somewhere, but I settled for the end table by the couch. I’d find a place for it later. Goldie rolled her eyes at me when I got back to the kitchen. “Something else?”

  “I’m just suggesting.”

  “You never know when something like that will come in handy.”

  “Uh-huh.” She tapped the side of one of the photo boxes. “May I?”

  “Help yourself. Old photos from doggy school.”

  She popped the lid and flipped slowly through the photos. “Doesn’t this look like fun? All those lovely dogs. Oops!”

  Leo was straddling the box of photos and head-bumping Goldie’s chin. I stepped to the table and started to reach for the cat. “Hey, Mister, mind your manners. No kitchen table for you.”

  “I don’t mind,” Goldie protested, wrapping a protective arm about Leo’s tawny body.

  I looked more closely at Goldie’s face and physique. Even in baggy sweats I could see that she had lost a lot of weight, and there were new hollows in her cheeks and the smud
ges beneath her eyes had darkened. “Goldie, are you really okay?”

  “Oh, I’m fine.” She hugged Leo and focused her eyes on the contents of the box.

  I was about to press the issue when the phone rang. Jo Stevens lost no time on small talk. “I have an unofficial opinion from the coroner on Ms. Dorn and Ms. Anderson. Your friends were both poisoned.”

  “What?” My voice sounded shrill in my own ear. I mean, the thought had danced around my mind, but having it confirmed was something else.

  “We’re not sure yet about the source, but Mrs. Dorn had ingested lethal levels of some sort of alkaloids. And preliminary evidence suggests that Ms. Anderson was also poisoned.”

  “But we knew that. I mean, she took the Tylenol.”

  “No, the medical examiner doesn’t think so. The autopsy hasn’t been done yet, but the M.E. took a quick look and thinks it was something other than acetaminophen.”

  I pulled a chair away from the table and sank into it, not sure my knees would hold me since they’d turned to jelly. An image popped into my brain. “Wait a minute.” I started slowly, speaking more quickly as I continued. “That container I took from Abigail’s setup at the show. The one I washed.” A hot wave of embarrassment at my own stupidity crept from my chin to my cheekbones. “I thought it smelled funny.” I tried to remember what I did with the contents of the bag. “I don’t think I cleaned out the trash from the tote bag, you know, paper plate and napkins and stuff. I don’t remember taking the plastic bag with the trash out of the tote bag. Maybe there’s still something there.”

  “There was. They haven’t run the tests yet, but the lab guy said there may be some traces.” For a long moment I thought she might not tell me the rest. Then she did. “They lifted your fingerprints from the container.”

  69

  Detective Stevens made my heart skip a beat or three when she told me they’d found my fingerprints on Abigail’s food container, but I tried to calm myself. “Of course they did. I gave it to you.” Then another thought hit me. “How did you know which fingerprints were mine? I’ve never even had a parking ticket!” I considered putting my head between my knees, but the urge to black out faded and curiosity, spiced with a dash of anger, to charge.

  Detective Stevens’ voice softened a tad. “Hutch, er, Detective Hutchinson, snagged a pop can you tossed. Anyway, we know how your prints got there. The question now is how the poison got there.”

  Neither of us spoke for a moment, and I could hear computer keys clacking through the receiver. A realization that had been flitting around the dark forest of my mind emerged into the light and landed with a whump. Someone I knew was a murderer. And there was something else.

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “Officially, yes, it’s a possibility. But,” her voice softened, “not really. And in view of the whole picture, especially your dog, I thought you should know about the possibility of poison.”

  “Thanks. Thank you.” I thought I might have to run to the bathroom, but the feeling passed. “Sorry, I just … I guess we all suspected something, but having it confirmed …”

  “It gets worse. That was indeed blood on the stuffed dog. Bovine.” We were both silent for a moment. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, but in the meantime, watch yourself, and your pets. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Wait! Do you have any serious suspects?”

  “We’re looking at some people. I can’t go into that.”

  I had a couple ideas of my own. Too many, in fact, and I didn’t like most of them one little bit.

  Goldie waited, eyes wide, arms wrapped around Leo and chin resting on his back. I filled her in.

  “Did she say what kind of poison?”

  “Alkalines?”

  “Alkaloids?”

  “Sounds right.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Oh, you know, alkaloids are what make a lot of poisonous plants poisonous. Deadly nightshade, the hemlocks, Jimsonwe …”

  “Hemlocks?”

  “Yes, water hemlock and poison hemlock. Both are actually poisonous.”

  “Ohmygod! You showed it to me at Greg’s house!”

  “Not at his house. In the empty lot. But Janet, the stuff grows all over the place. Fields, along roads.”

  “I can’t believe Greg …” The rest of the thought lingered, unspoken.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. Besides, the policeman didn’t say it was poison hemlock, right? Just an alkaloid.”

  “Woman,” I answered, distracted by my muddled thoughts.

  “What?”

  “The policeman is a woman.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Goldie chirped, “Did you get to go on your photo safari on the way home from Valpo?”

  I told her about my side trip to Potowatomi Wildlife Park. She went back to looking through the box of photos while I talked, and pulled one out of the box as my saga wound down. “Whoa!”

  “What?”

  “Who’s this woman with the daggers in her eyes?” She leaned toward me, pointing at a face in the photo.

  “Giselle Swann. Why?”

  “Oh, the look on her face stopped me. Could stop several big clocks, I’d say!”

  I studied the photo more closely. Giselle did look angry. Or was that hatred on her face? Definitely more than her perpetual misery. I went to my desk and came back with a magnifying glass. “I want a better look.” I focused on the enlarged image of Giselle. She was in the background, as usual, in the center of the photo. Abigail was in the forefront, looking at something or someone out of the frame to the left.

  Greg was at the front right of the photo, near Abigail but facing the other way, smiling at another someone I’d mostly cut out of the shot except for the arm of a cable knit sweater and the end of a blonde braid visible at the shoulder seam. I scanned down the arm to the hand, held slightly away from the body, flexed upward, fingers reaching backward toward Greg. His own hand in turn reached out, the index finger nearly touching the back of the sweater owner’s hand. And Giselle’s ocular daggers were aimed outside the photo, just where the blonde braid must originate.

  “Goldie, did you see any photos with this person in the frame?” I showed her the sweater and braid. I knew who it was, but wanted to be sure.

  “I think so. Hang on.” She flipped through several photos, pulled one out, and handed it over. Suzette was in the foreground, her blonde braid resting against the cable of her sweater. Two slightly out-of-focus figures stood in the background. Abigail and a red-head. Francine Peterson. I hadn’t realized I had a photo of her, although how I’d missed her with that hair was a good question.

  “Who’s that?” Goldie tapped Suzette’s image.

  “Suzette Anderson.”

  “Oh! Isn’t she one of the dead women?”

  “Right. And this is the other one. Abigail Dorn. And,” showing her the first photo again, “this is Greg, her husband.”

  She took it all in. “I’d say there was a love quadrangle here.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “You know, I think I’ve seen that one.”

  “Which one?”

  “Her.” She indicated Francine. “Who could miss that hair?”

  “When?”

  She pursed her lips and shut her eyes for a few seconds. “I can’t remember when it was, not long ago, but I’m sure I saw her at your house, when was that?” She tapped her fist against the top of her forehead. “Yesterday?” Another tap. “Yes, I’m sure it was yesterday.”

  “When?”

  “Why, you didn’t see her? I’m sure you were home. Your car was in the driveway.”

  70

  After Goldie went home I nuked a frozen dinner and sat down to eat and check my e-mai
ls. The pile of unread discussion-list digests was depressing, so I deleted them all unread, along with several opportunities to donate my life savings to Nigerian widows and to assist a friend who had lost her wallet while traveling in Europe between last night, when I saw her at Dog Dayz, and now. Do people really fall for these schemes? I wondered. Then I googled poison hemlock.

  Goldie had been correct. The active toxin in poison hemlock was an alkaloid related to nicotine. Coniine to be precise, in case I ever made it onto Jeopardy. I didn’t find much about hemlock killing people other than Socrates, but there was plenty of information on livestock poisonings. Assuming that it affects most mammals in similar ways, the signs of poisoning by poison hemlock sounded all too familiar. Within a couple hours of eating the plant, the animal becomes nervous and uncoordinated. Didn’t Connie say that Abigail was a regular jitterbug before her class, and that she was stumbling around on her heeling pattern? Eventually the animal becomes unable to breathe, and its heart rate slows. A vision of Abigail’s stricken face filled my mind.

  The sites I checked also said that while the plant’s toxicity is lower in the spring than later in the growing season, it’s probably also more palatable when young, although they mentioned a “mousy smell” from the crushed leaves. So it would be easier to slip it into some … “Oh my God,” I mumbled. “The cream cheese.” I pictured the flotsam of Abigail’s breakfast, including the remains of a bagel and remnants of a spread full of … what? I’d assumed it was spinach or dill or something. Yes, dill, I smelled dill, I remembered. And mice. The spread had made me think of mice.

  I dialed Jo Stevens’ number.

  As her phone rang I read that the ancient Greeks considered hemlock a “humane” means of execution. How civilized. I wondered whether Abigail would agree.

  _____

  Dog Dayz was hopping with people and dogs preparing for upcoming obedience trials, and all the usual suspects were there. Unless they were top ranked, and dead. Jay was full of energy and not so full of attentiveness, so we had a happy but not exactly accurate session. But what the heck, we do this for fun. If my dog sits a little out of position but acts happy, that’s a perfect performance to my mind.