Through the dreary haze of his existence, Cory realizes he is on the home stretch, that he is probably going to make the milestone and demonstrate the scalability of his methodology. It's a joyless experience at this point.
Two sommeliers are brought in during the final week of training to provide the wine sets. The controls are similar to the test samples, but not identical to any of them. The test will measure how closely the dogs' matches correspond to those of the sommeliers.
The dogs are tested against sets of pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and zinfandel. Both dogs’ matches are in complete agreement with the choices of the sommeliers.
The final test is a double blind tasting which Price, Goodwill and Darington have put together with Stefano's help. For this test, Doug Price and Bob Darington are present and have invited Stefano to attend also.
The two advising sommeliers attempt the match first. They agree that the control is a cabernet sauvignon, but the first sommelier thinks sample number two is closest to it, and the second sommelier doesn't think any of the samples are sufficiently close to the control to warrant a match.
Both dogs immediately choose the fourth sample, after receiving the control's imprint.
A smile of deep pleasure crosses Stefano's face, and the two investors beam at the dogs and at Cory.
"I guess dog trumps man here," Stefano chuckles, giving the two fellow sommeliers a friendly expression. "The control is a 2003 cabernet from Bear Claw Vineyards in Washington state. The fourth sample is also a 2003 cabernet from a small winery in Santa Cruz county, Delilah Family Winery. The grapes are clones taken from a block of Bear Claw's old vines. The new owner of Delilah didn't even know of this relationship, but I learned of the connection through a long-time Napa vintner. We had UC Davis run an analysis on the two samples, and they are indeed clones."
"So the human experts didn't converge in this case, but the dogs did. It means they found a deeper connection, consistency, despite different terroirs and different winemakers. Pretty amazing."
Bob Darington exchanges a glance with Doug Price.
Cory leaves the room to let the investors have some privacy with their team. He scans his messages for news of Snoots, it's become a dismal hourly ritual.
Bob and Doug discuss the results with the two professional trainers. One is a specialist in canine narcotics detection and the other in canine forensic identification. They confess their initial skepticism to Cory's approach and did not expect the kind of breakthrough demonstrated so clearly by the two dogs. But, now they are converts and believe they can screen and train more dogs to match wines, both identical and similar, using Cory's methodologies.
Doug Price places a call to Dave Wenchel at Heubler's. The deal is going through.
Seven weeks and three days after the initial meeting between Blind Tasting and Price, Goodwill and Darington, a check is written for the remaining sum of the deal -- nearly eight megabucks. An evening which should have been a triumphant celebration for Cory, Dawn and Rob is, instead, another round of calling shelters and combing the Internet for lost dogs.
The investors, in a magnanimous gesture, offer Kirby, the blonde shepherd-lab, as a gift to Cory. It's significant because it leaves them with only one trained dog at this point, but if Cory agrees to continue as a consultant at Heubler, they'd like him to have the dog.
Cory is moved by the kindness of this offer, but also saddened by its implication of finality about Snoots' disappearance. Kirby is affectionate and energetic, he's a little larger than Snoots, and has a beautiful golden feathered coat. But, Cory knows he can't take the dog. There is no replacement for Snoots.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Cory wakes up disoriented by the light. It's morning and his phone is ringing. He fumbles for it next to the bed, but he's too late.
Julie sits up, shaking herself awake.
The message indicator pops up on the phone icon. Cory calls his voice mail and listens, riveted.
Julie, now fully awake, stares at him but cannot read his expression.
"Shit!" he whispers aloud, dropping his head in despair.
"Cory, what?"
His brown eyes look intensely at her. "Someone thinks they had Snoots. They got him to come into their fenced yard, but he got loose again somehow. He's gone."
"Are they sure it was Snoots?" Julie is pulling on clothes.
"Black-and tan male shepherd-lab mix. No tags, though."
"Where?"
"St. Helena."
Three cars head up 101 toward Napa. They are all driving well over the speed limit, Rob leading the pack. He gets pulled over by the Highway Patrol and issued a ticket. It's only a short setback and he catches up with his friends.
The man who called Cory is a retired physics professor who recently moved to the wine country. He's tall and lean, mid-sixties, with a high forehead and an intelligent, friendly expression. He shakes hands with the four friends who are clustered around him, he can see they are hanging on his every word.
"Gary Baylor. So you're the fellow who trained the wine dog? It's quite impressive. I'm sorry I don't still have the dog that came here yesterday -- on the chance that he was yours. I was installing solar panels on my roof when he came trotting up my driveway, a fairly large black-and-tan shepherd."
"Male?" Cory asks quickly.
"I believe so. He looked hungry, but not fearful, and he wagged his tail as I descended my ladder and approached him. His fur was matted and dirty, but I assumed he was someone's lost pet based on his behavior.”
"What time was that?" Dawn asks.
"About ten in the morning. I brought out a bowl of water and he drank the whole thing. I brought some more for him, and some bread and cheese which he devoured. He wasn't wearing a collar so there were no tags with information."
"Was your gate closed?" Rob asks, noting the fenced yard.
"I closed the gate before I went back inside the house to call our local dog officer. I thought he might know of a pet reported as lost. He said no, but agreed to come by and take the dog to the local shelter. When I went back outside with more food, the dog was gone. I assume he jumped up on my woodpile over there," he points to neatly-stacked logs, "and cleared the fence that way."
"How did you find my number?" Cory asks.
"I told my wife about the dog when she returned from the city last night. She remembered reading in the local paper about the disappearance of the celebrity wine dog. We phoned some friends in the area and one of them finally obtained your number this morning from their neighbor who is a local winemaker."
"Did you notice whether the tips of his ears flopped over?" Cory asks him, feeling intoxicated from the first shred of positive news. "Was his face light around the eyes?"
The retired professor considers this carefully. "I don't remember the color of his face, but I remember that his eyes were expressive, dark, so perhaps a lighter color around them would contribute to that?" He tries to conjure up a vision of the dog. "Yes, I'd say his ears were not quite standard shepherd. It made me think he was a mutt. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to keep him, it never occurred to me he'd jump the fence."
"If it is Snoots, he can't have traveled farther from here than what he could cover in twenty-four hours," Dawn says, realizing that is still a lot of territory for a dog.
The physicist nods. "As a first approximation, assume he averages five miles an hour. That's the default trot for a wolf. He was in my yard approximately twenty-four hours ago, so that gives an upper-bound radius of a hundred and twenty miles. Assuming he traveled in a straight line from here, which is highly improbable."
"He might still be around St. Helena," Julie says. "And hopefully, other residents are now on the lookout for him, including the dog officer."
"How the hell did he get up here from San Francisco?" Cory wonders, rapidly formulating a search plan for the immediate present. "Guys, we need to spread out, we can't all hang around St. Helena. But, which directions are most pl
ausible?"
"Well, he went opposite the direction of home," Dawn observes. "Unless he was taken up this way by someone."
"Dognapping again." Julie sighs. "It seems more plausible than before, if this dog is Snoots."
"The motive would not appear to be money if that's true," Cory replies, staring unhappily into the distance.
"Core, it's a long shot, but there is a possibility that Snoots headed for Lake Hennessey. If this dog is Snoots. That's only a few miles from here."
Cory looks sharply at Rob. "Why there?"
"The night of the first tasting I took him up there for a walk along the lake. I thought he deserved some fun after his big success, and...I wanted to make sure Dawn got home safely."
Dawn flashes an intense look at Rob, but he's not making eye contact with her.
"I drove out there from St. Helena and then I drove back to Trella, to find Dawn." Rob sighs. "The point is, that route from here to the lake and back again is a route he knows."
Cory looks at Rob with urgency in his face. "Let's take your car. It's faster."
"Want me to follow you in your Honda?" Julie asks him.
"One of us should stay here in St. Helena. Someone else may have fed him, he isn't shy about approaching people," Dawn says.
"I'll stay then," Julie tells Dawn. "Maybe you should look in nearby towns?"
“Yeah, do that, Dawn," Cory says. “We've all got our phones. Let's check in every hour with each other, sooner if you hear anything or have any new ideas."
Cory jumps into Rob's car.
"I'm going to drive down Route 29 toward the Trella turn-off," Dawn tells Julie when the guys have gone.
"Let me help you," Gary Baylor offers, smiling at Julie. "I'll show you a map of the town so we can divide the search space."
While he disappears to fetch the map, Julie confesses to Dawn, "I can't let myself hope about this, but I can't stop trying." Her green eyes are hollow, haggard. "I don't want to lose Cory, too."
Dawn has no consoling words for this. She believes that Cory and Julie are falling in love, but it's a new and still-fragile love. How long can it thrive in the fog of guilt, frustration and anguish that is now smothering it?
She reflects bitterly on the cruelty of events beyond one's control, on their power to demolish one's happiness so quickly.
Her thoughts remain dark thinking of Rob; she hadn't known he'd come back for her. Had he seen her in the hot tub with Toby?
A darker thought crosses her mind, excessively paranoid. Could Toby have stolen Snoots? What would be his motive? She can't accept this idea, Doping wine glasses is one thing, the guy is a macho winemaker whose pride got ruffled. But Toby is not a monster. Stop the melodrama and start driving.
An hour later, Cory checks in with Julie. He and Rob are scanning the nearby terrain and bushes as they walk the shoreline of the lake. They are calling out Snoots' name as they walk. None of the hikers and joggers they have encountered have reported seeing a dog.
Julie reports talking to two people in St. Helena who saw a dog yesterday that might have been Snoots, a dark shepherd is how they described him. She's going to search the area of these sightings more carefully in the next hour.
Cory calls Dawn who is now in Rutherford and has turned up nothing. She's phoned veterinarians in the area, but no one has information. She's going to drive down toward Yountville now.
She hopes her voice doesn't sound as defeated as she feels; their search is probably Cory's one tenuous and remaining link to his dog.
Suspicions creep back into Dawn's mind as she drives south on Route 29. The vineyards are green and beautiful and memories of Toby come into focus: rugged, sensuous Toby. Angry, mistrustful Toby.
What he did at the Pillar tasting was brazen, was it criminal? It seems highly probable that he followed Snoots' continuing publicity, He might even know about the deal signed by Blind Tasting at this point. Would this expansion of using dogs in this way be threatening to him? Maybe. But, he couldn't have known about the training before the deal was signed and Snoots disappeared over two weeks ago.
Dawn, in a sudden flash of anxious reasoning, pulls onto the shoulder of the road and stops her car. Toby has never forgiven her or Cory; their last encounter was hostile. She knew part of her attraction to him was his decisive temperament, his emotional passion for his work. But, emotional passion could be directed toward other things as well.
Suppose he dognapped Snoots. Then he also committed auto theft. No, he would hire someone to do that for him, but he would still be an accomplice to a felony. What would he do with Snoots, though? He couldn't keep him, someone in Sonoma would surely learn of it. Would he have him destroyed? But, it's possible that Snoots was in St. Helena yesterday, which would imply the dog escaped from Toby.
Feeling barely sane amid her anxiety and rush of wild speculations, Dawn is aware that she's now calling Toby. Without any idea of what she's going to ask him.
"Toby Rovati."
She freezes for a moment. "Toby, it's Dawn."
There's a pause on his end. Then, "Hello. I think I know why you're calling and the answer is ‘no’. I don't have any useful information. Sorry."
"What are you saying?" She isn't going to tip her hand.
"You're calling about the dog, right? A friend of mine in St. Helena called me this morning for Cory's phone number. She told me about the newspaper story and that someone up her way thought they saw him. I hope you find him, he was a nice pooch."
"It seems very strange that he was spotted all the way up here. St. Helena is a long way from San Francisco, and it's the opposite direction from his home." She pauses, holding her breath, waiting.
"It does seem pretty strange. Are you sure it was Cory's dog?"
"It's almost certain." That's a real stretch, but she wants to stay in control here.
"Is there some way that I can help you with this?" Toby sounds ready to end the call. She can't afford to dally around. Just get it over with.
"Toby, did you take him? I'll pay you a lot of money for his return and Cory never has to know. But if you did and he escaped, you probably still have some idea where he might be. Are you working with someone in St. Helena? Is that the connection?"
She hears a gasp of exasperation through the phone.
"Stop, just stop. Dawn, I did not take your dog. Is that why you called me?" She can here the forthright incredulity in his voice and it's reassuring.
"I don't know what to believe," she says flatly, honestly.
"I'm not especially proud of what I did at the Pillar tasting. But, steal a car to steal a dog? What kind of a man do you take me for?" He adds, a little less harshly, "You should know me just a little."
"I'm not good at reading men," she says, absurdity beginning to replace paranoia. "You are someone who could have a motive in this. You can see that, can't you?"
"Motive? You called me, Dawn. If I were a dognapper, wouldn't I have contacted you or Cory, demanding a ransom?"
"Not if you wanted the dog's skills for your own use, or to just eliminate him from-"
"Listen to yourself! I can hear that you are really stressed, but I'm just a winemaker. And, I think you know that, at some level."
"God, Toby! Then why is Cory's dog running loose up here? In wine country."
"I have no idea. You're the scientist. You told me scientists have to live with uncertainty, acknowledge it when it's there."
She had told him that, with her head resting against his chest in the wee hours of the morning in the guest cottage at the Trella winery.
"Okay." She needs to get going, keep searching.
"Are you up this way?"
"I'm just outside of Rutherford. I’m on my way to Yountville."
"I'd offer to meet you, help you look for him, but I've got to measure the Brix levels in some blocks of syrah today. It's getting close to harvest."
"I want to believe you."
"I'd like that, too." He laughs, a reassuring, throaty masculine
laugh.
"I'm rather good at screwing things up," she declares. "Go test your glucose and fructose levels." She ends the call, leans back in her seat and sighs deeply. Okay, so there is uncertainty here. The goal is to remove it.
She turns the ignition switch of the Mini Cooper and pulls back onto the highway toward Yountville.
Cory and Rob pause along the shoreline and Rob scans the horizon with a pair of binoculars. They are both a little hoarse from calling the dog's name so many times.
Cory's phone rings. It's Julie.
"Cory, the San Francisco police department just called me."
"What?" He feels his pulse pounding in his head.
"They've arrested a man who has confessed to two car thefts. They caught him in the act of stealing one of them. And he has a stitched-up hand from a dog bite."
"The other car he stole, what was it?"
He hears her sigh. "Probably mine. New black BMW coupe parked near the Mission District."
"Julie, what about the dog?"
"The detective says the guy claims a dog jumped out of the car and attacked him, so that's why he got in the car and drove it off."
Cory shares her cynical laugh.
"Snoots bit him. Good fucking dog!" Cory's voice is full of emotion. "No thief could operate that car with Snoots in it. He either bit the bastard and jumped out, or jumped out and bit him, hopefully with all seven hundred and fifty pounds per square inch of force that his jaws can deliver. But, that means he may still be roaming the city, not up here in Napa."
"How could he evade being caught for so long?"
"Easily. He could live off trash cans in alleys, restaurants. He was a half-starved shelter dog when I got him, he knows how to forage for food. He's related to wolves, Julie."
She hears the new passionate desperation in his voice.
"Shall I drive down to San Francisco and meet you there? Maybe we go all through the Mission District again?" Julie is trying to sound motivated, but Snoots did not disappear yesterday and they've followed time-consuming, possibly false leads already.
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