That Doggy in the Window

by Jaye Watson

  "Good luck. I wouldn't know where to begin."

  "Me neither." He entered her office and came to peer across her desk. "What are you working on?"

  "Know anything about digitalis?"

  "Only that it's used in heart medicine. My granddad took it." He pulled her visitor's chair behind the desk and sat in it, looking over her shoulder.

  "Then you know more than I did. Look here. It says that foxglove is also known as dead man's bells and witches' gloves because of its toxicity. Aren't plant names great?"

  He leaned over her shoulder. "Foxglove? Isn't that a weed?"

  Since Roger called anything a weed that wasn't a tree or a shrub, she didn't bother to answer. Instead she tapped her pencil on the fifth paragraph. "More than just a weed."

  "Really?" He leaned over her shoulder, pointed at a chemical structure diagram. "What's that?"

  "Digoxin. Scary stuff. One tiny mistake in the dosage and Bingo! You're toast." She clicked on a hyperlink. "Look here. It is used on dogs."

  After a moment, he pulled the guest chair over beside hers and stared at the screen. "Hmmm. Why would flower color matter?"

  "I've no idea. Old wives' tale?"

  "There's something... Got a photo?"

  She clicked on another open window, showing the distinctive pink flowers of foxglove, then on a second hyperlink that pictured it growing in the wild. An entire hillside was pink with it. "That one was taken in a clearcut in the Coast Range. I didn't realize it was so abundant in Oregon, but apparently it's become naturalized here."

  "Go back to the article."

  She clicked again. When he pointed halfway down the fifth paragraph, she nodded. "I saw that, but listen: 'Digoxin, the potent cardiac drug, is derived from Digitalis lanata Ehrh....' What's... Oh, here. Grecian foxglove. '...more potent than digitalin, but not that dissimilar, chemically. '" She sat back. "Interesting. You'd be amazed at what I've found. It's remarkable any of us are alive. There are poisons all around us."

  "Tell me about it. We had to have Rusty's stomach pumped a few years ago. He ate several handfuls of fruits from something called Chinaberry. There's a whole hedge of it next door to Cathy's folks' place." He grabbed his sweater from where he'd laid it on her desk. "Have fun. I'm off to pick up Rusty at basketball, and Amber at her dance lesson."

  She waved absently, her attention on a new article about digoxin in the treatment of congestive heart disease.

  There were lots of other compounds that could cause cardiac problems in humans and animals, but she kept going back to the articles on digoxin, mostly because of the link to a paper that specifically mentioned it in relation to dogs. I'm taking the easy way out. But just because it's easy doesn't mean I should discount it.

  Had anyone visited Mrs. I since she opened the package? Could one of them have contaminated Perky's food?

  Emaline knew her elderly neighbor had a niece and nephew who were prone to borrow money from her. Since the Irvington children all lived far from their mother, Mrs. I was inclined to cling to her sister's children, both of whom lived in the Portland area. In Emaline's opinion, they were a couple of spongers.

  As for Martha's husband, she wouldn't put anything past him. To say she disliked him was grossly understating the case.

  She kept reading, one article leading to another, until she knew way more than she'd ever wanted to know about compounds that were toxic to dogs. Lead, for instance. Well duh! Grapes and raisins. Coffee and tea in addition to chocolate. Milk--there were dogs with the same lactase deficiency Amy had. Raw fish and liver. Eeuuw. What self-respecting dog would eat those anyway?

  Of course, any animal that would eat cow pies would-- She shut off that line of thought. Her first visit to a farm as a child had grossed her out in more ways than one.

  The early dusk of late winter had fallen when she heard someone come through the front door. Curious she went to her door and poked her head out. "Stan! Just the man I want."

  The skinny blond lab tech waved. "Just came in to pick up my bike. Don't let me interrupt."

  "You're not. Have you got a few minutes?"

  "Sure. Let me tell Bobbie." He held the door open with his foot while he spoke to someone outside.

  "Bobbie?"

  "Cousin. She and her husband are in town for my uncle's sixtieth birthday. That's why the bike's here. They picked me up yesterday." He removed his parka and hung it over the back of her guest chair. "What can I do to you?"

  "A favor. Can you do a food analysis? Determine what ingredients are in something?"

  "You mean like actual ingredients? Pasta and tomato sauce and stuff like that? No. Not easily."

  "No, like sugars and alkaloids and aromatics and stuff like that. Specifically I'm looking for any one of several compounds. I could probably do it, but it would take a lot of study for me to get up to speed. It's been years since I did any chemical analysis."

  "Sure. I can do that. Can you give me a list of what I'd be looking for?"

  "Absolutely. I can have it ready for you the first of the week."

  "What kinds of foods are you wanting analyzed? Were you serious about pasta?"

  She chuckled. "Not really. I've got some samples of dog food and I need to know what's in them."

  He was clearly curious about her reasons for wanting to know what was in dog food, but said only, "Do you have the packages? It would help if I knew what I'm supposed to find."

  "I do. But I want to run some tests on them, too. How about if I give you the lists that are on the packages?"

  "Works for me. Look, I've gotta go. Can we talk more about it next week?" He rose.

  "Sure. Have a good one."

  "You too." She waved him off.

  Well, that will help a lot. I really, really didn't want to have to relearn my analytical chemistry.

  * * * *

  March arrived like a very soggy lion. The big Douglas-fir in the yard across the street blew down, a victim of saturated ground and a fifty-mile-an-hour gust. Fortunately it missed doing serious damage to its owner's house. Unfortunately it fell into the street, where it squashed his car, took out Emaline's front and side fences and broke her dining room window. What with dealing with cleanup and the insurance companies, she forgot all about the dog treats.

  Stan stuck his head in her open doorway on Friday afternoon. "Hey. You still want me to run some tests?"

  "Huh?" She had to think before she remembered what he was talking about. "Yes, I do, but--" Leaning back in her chair, she forced her shoulders to relax. "I haven't even thought about it. Can I get back to you next week?"

  "Sure. No hurry. How's the clean-up coming?"

  "Oh, lord, don't ask. Do you know what haulers charge? And how busy they all are after that storm? I've still got the top of a tree lying in my front yard. And plywood over my window. The window people think they can get to me by next Tuesday, but I still don't have approval from Lisa's insurance company."

  "At least you got the window covered. Look, I'm free tomorrow if you want to get those samples ready. First thing in the morning?"

  Emaline groaned silently. She hated getting up early on Saturday, particularly after Friday night with the girls. "Sure. Is nine early enough?" She'd have to get here before eight to repackage and mark the samples and make the ingredient lists.

  * * * *

  Stan opened one of the numbered sample bags she handed him. He sniffed the contents. "If I didn't know better, I'd say this was dog food."

  "It is. I'm following a hunch."

  Reclosing the bag, he bounced it in his hand a couple of times. "My mother's old dog died last week. It wasn't really unexpected--he was fourteen--but what she said about how he died... Look, would you have any objection if I analyzed his food along with these?"

  Emaline's stomach clenched. "You think he was poisoned?"

  "Nah. Not really. But I'd feel better, knowing."

  "Exactly. Just promise you'll give me the results along with mine, okay? And bring me the packages, if
you still have them."

  His face took on a sheepish expression. "I do. Mom would've given Sampson's food to her neighbor, but I told her I had an unemployed friend who would appreciate it."

  A little while later, he brought her the bag of left over dog food and a small, half-full package of treats. A different brand from any she'd bought. "You've got the ingredient lists off of these?"

  "I do. What are you going to do with the packages?"

  "I'm not sure. In fact, I'm not sure I'm not chasing a whole flock of wild geese." With a huff of frustration, she tossed the treat packet onto her desk. "I've now heard of nine separate incidents of dogs dying unexpectedly. In four of them, a veterinarian said they'd had heart attacks."

  "Dogs?"

  "That's what I said, but apparently sudden deaths aren't all that uncommon in elderly, over-indulged dogs. And I know two of them were both."

  "Weird. Just weird." He left.

  For the next hour, Emaline compared ingredients from the treat packets. Rearranged the lists. Grouped them by similarity. Regrouped them by percentage. And came up with exactly nothing. At last, disgusted with her lack of progress, she picked up the paper bag holding the treats packets and headed for the gross characteristics lab. There was a good dissecting scope in there.

  She didn't know what she expected to find, but she wanted a better look at the packages than she'd gotten with a magnifying glass.

  Inch by inch she examined the outer surface of the packet she'd gotten from Mrs. I. It was wrinkled and, in a couple of places, torn. She circled all the tears that went through both the inner and outer layers with a marker. Close to the bottom of the packet, she found a tiny, round tear--or was it a puncture? She reached for an inspection light on a flexible neck and stuck it inside the packet. Light shone through the hole, showing it to be perfectly round. Definitely not a tear.

  "Well, well." Sitting back, she took a deep breath. The Tylenol Murders. Could this be something like that? A long time ago--more then twenty years, she was sure, several people had been poisoned by Tylenol. She couldn't remember the details, but she did recall that the pill bottles had been opened and poison had been put in. The reason behind kid-proof lids. And those impossible-to-tear seals on vitamin bottles.

  Was it possible someone was poisoning dogs by putting poison into treat packages? And if so, how? Where? Good God, how widespread might it be?

  She marked the puncture with a circle of a different color and picked up the smelly packet Martha had brought her.

  She looked close to the bottom first. Sure enough, she found a tiny puncture after only a few minutes' inspection.

  An hour later, she had found punctures in all three of the packets she'd bought at one grocery store, one in the packet Stan had given her. She put each of the punctured packets into its own labeled plastic bag, hoping an analysis would show residue inside. Once Stan gave her his results, they'd know what to look for.

  "Em? Where are you?"

  She went to the door. "Down here. Have you found something already?"

  "Yeah. You're not gonna believe this. I lucked out." He shoved his fist into the air, as if he'd won a race. "I've been working on cardiac glycosides--that insurance case--and just because the procedure was already set up, I ran a sample through it."

  "Cardiac glycosides? Wait a minute. Let me guess. Digoxin?"

  He gaped. "How'd you know?" Both hands went up in a gesture of negation. "Nah, you knew, didn't you?"

  It took her a good ten minutes to convince him she'd only suspected, because of the papers she'd read about treatment for cardiac problems in dogs. "How many samples have you run?"

  "Just the one. But now I know what I'm looking for, the rest won't take me long."

  "Good. And while you're doing that, I'm going to make a phone call." She started to turn away, then paused. "Stan? Thanks. I was beginning to wonder if I'd developed into a conspiracy theorist or something."

  Emaline cleaned up the mess she'd made around the dissecting scope and took everything back to her office. Once there, she called up her phone list. The name she wanted wasn't under P for police, so she looked under D for detective. "Gotcha. Richard Armbruster." She dialed the number.

  Apparently detectives didn't work on weekends. "Detective, this is Emaline Banister. We met when you investigated a murder at BioLogic Labs. I have a question about a possible crime and I'm hoping you can help me. Please call me at my office any weekday during regular working hours." She recited the number and hung up.

  Unable to sit still, and frustrated because she couldn't think of anything else to do, she wandered down to the analytical lab. After fifteen minutes of looking over Stan's shoulder, she realized she was probably distracting more than helping, so she went back to her office. Just in time to answer the phone.

  "Dr. Banister, Armbruster here. A possible crime?"

  He certainly got right to the point. "Yes, um, at least I hope it's a crime."

  A dry chuckle came over the line. "I've never heard anyone say that before. Why don't you tell me about it and maybe I can eliminate the possibility."

  "I think someone is killing dogs." There, she'd said it and hadn't felt like a fool. Not entirely, anyhow.

  "I'm afraid I can't help you then. Anything to do with animals comes under the jurisdiction of Animal Control."

  "Oh, well, then, I'm sorry I bothered you. Thanks for returning my call." She started to hang up.

  "Wait!"

  "Yes?"

  "Look, you're a friend of Harry's. You'd have called him if you could, right?"

  So he knew Harry wasn't available. Well, of course he does. They work together, don't they? "Yes, I'd have asked him first. Not officially, but more in curiosity."

  "But you really think someone is killing dogs? What makes you think so?"

  She tried to decide if he was really interested, or just being a nice guy. "It's a complicated story. I don't want to take your time if it's not something you'd ordinarily deal with." Actually, she did, but saying so wouldn't be polite.

  "You know, Dr. Banister, I remember what a good witness you were. No unfounded suppositions, no qualified statements. I also remember we might not have solved that case without your help. I think I'd like to know why you think someone's killing dogs. What are you doing this evening?"

  They agreed he'd come to her house at eight that night. After she hung up, Emaline had to smile. It wasn't a date--he was a good twenty years younger than she--but it would sure beat watching her latest Netflix thriller.

  * * * *

  She laid it all out for him. Showed him the results of the analyses Stan had run. "He's going to try a different approach, but won't have time until next Saturday. This is non-reimbursable, so we're on our own. Dr. Burton is okay with our using the equipment, but we have to pay for any reagents or solvents we use." Pointing to the printout showing the gas chromatograph for digoxin, she said, "This is what we're looking for. As you can see, Stan's preliminary results show the same peaks."

  "How'd you find out it was--what did you call it? Dioxin?"

  "Digoxin. It's a cardiac glycoside, a fairly common one. It's used to treat an assortment of heart conditions in humans, and in some animals. It's also a pretty strong poison, and it's easy to get."

  His ears perked up at that. "How?"

  She showed him the Wikipedia article she'd printed out. "That's yours. To summarize, though, anyone with a kitchen can derive enough digoxin from foxglove--in impure form--to kill a small dog. It's a common weed."

  "Tall, with pink flowers like bells, right?" When she nodded, he said, "My mother has it in her garden. Wonder if she knows."

  She sat silently while he leafed through the folder she'd put together for him. Aside from a couple of hmms and a grunt, he was just as quiet. After a good quarter hour, he tapped the papers into line and closed the folder. "I'll talk to Animal Control on Monday. Any idea how the poison is getting into the dog food?"

  "I thought you'd never ask. I wasn't going
to show you these unless you believed I wasn't crazy." Reaching over the arm of the sofa, she pulled up the large plastic bag holding the dogfood packets. "Just a moment."

  She didn't have a lamp as strong as the inspection light at the lab, but she did have a halogen flashlight that had belonged to her grandfather. Why he'd felt he needed something as bright as a small spotlight, she'd never understood, but now she was glad he'd had it.

  "I removed the packets' contents so I could inspect them. It's all in my office, in marked sample bags, if you want it. Each of these packets is numbered to correspond with the numbers on those bags. Now then..." She pulled out the packet she'd gotten from Mrs. I and stuck the flashlight inside it.

  "It's too bright in here. Get the lamp, will you?"

  As soon as the room went dim, the tiny breaks in the packet could be seen as spots of light. "Most of those are cracks, probably from handling, but this--" She pointed to the minute gleam close to the bottom seal. "This is perfectly round, with smooth edges. It's a puncture. From the size, I'd bet it's from a small gauge hypodermic needle. I found four other packets with similar punctures. They came from three different stores, and none are the same flavor. Only three are the same brand." She handed him a ten-power hand lens. "Take a look."

  Detective Armbruster spent several minutes peering at the punctures in the packets. When he was done, he said, "May I have these, along with everything else you've collected? I think you have a case here, but I want to have all the evidence when I go to Animal Control."

  "Of course. Can you come by Monday morning to pick up what's in my office? Or do you need it sooner?"

  "Monday's fine." His teeth flashed in a wide grin. "You're quite the detective. Ever think of going to work for the Police Bureau?"

  "I'd rather be a consultant. I've got too short an attention span to do the same task over and over." She finished gathering all her evidence into the shopping bag she'd used to carry it home. "More coffee?"

  "Thanks, but no. I've been at it since early this morning, and tomorrow I've got a family thing. With my family, I need to be well-rested." He rose and picked up the bag and the folder. "I'll be in touch about this."