High in Trial (3 page)

Now his expression turned incredulous. “Did you leave your purse there, too?”

I arched an eyebrow. “My mother always said all a lady needs when she’s with a gentleman
is a lipstick and a twenty.” I snatched the phone from him. “After all, you’re paying
for dinner, right?” I turned on the camera function and zoomed in. “Who knows when
I’ll get another chance to video a run like this. People pay hundreds of dollars to
go to one of Neil’s workshops.”

“Of course you’ve heard the stories about him,” offered Aggie, lowering her voice
a little.

The dog show circuit abounds with stories about everyone, but you know what they say:
If you can’t say anything good about somebody, come sit by me. I was no more immune
to gossip than anyone else, and I turned to her, immediately interested. “What?”

“He dopes his dogs,” she confided.

There are a few respectable breeders in this world, those who are dedicated to improving
the health, temperament, and function of their chosen breed, who monitor the welfare
of their puppies for a lifetime and take full responsibility for making sure they
always have the best possible homes, care, and training. These people aren’t in it
for the money, but for the love of the dog, and they deserve our respect. Maude believed
Aggie Connor was just such a breeder, or she never would have loaned her one of her
dogs for stud. Whatever she had to say, therefore, automatically gained credibility
with me.

To a point, of course. The thing to remember about competition, any competition, is
that everyone has an agenda.

Miles said, “Steroids? For dogs?”

I shook my head impatiently. “Not steroids.”

“Thyroid supplement,” supplied Aggie.

I explained, “It amps your dog up. Not exactly illegal, but not very smart, either.
The dog’s heart can literally explode.”

“Steroids for dogs,” Miles repeated.

I started to argue, but then admitted, “I guess so. Kind of.”

He tilted his head toward me skeptically. “You’re sure Vegas isn’t involved in this?”

I ignored him, studying beautiful Flame and her tall, wiry handler. “I don’t believe
it,” I said. “Look at her focus. Besides, who would take chances with a dog that good?”

Aggie shrugged. “People will do all kinds of things for money, and this year’s Standard
Cup is worth a hundred grand. They’re only inviting MACHs, you know, and Neil’s a
shoo-in with either Flame or Bryte. He only needs one more double-Q on each of them.”

Miles said, “What’s a MACH?”

“Master agility champion,” I said. “It’s as high as you can go in the sport, and not
many dogs make it that far.”

Miles raised an eyebrow. “A hundred grand, huh? I thought you said there weren’t any
cash prizes.”

“I meant in competitive agility. Standard is a pet food company,” I explained, “and
the Standard Cup isn’t a sanctioned agility trial. Every year they put together a
trial with the top competitors from each region, and the winner gets a big silver
cup and a check. ESPN usually carries it, and last year Animal Planet did a whole
series of shows about the dogs that were competing.
The Road to the Standard Cup
.”

He nodded approvingly. “Now that makes sense. I knew somebody had to be making money
somewhere.”

I spared him a disparaging glance. “It’s always about money with you.”

“Sweetheart,” he assured me, and gave Aggie a smiling wink, “it’s all about money
with everything.”

Sometimes I really wonder why I even like him.

“Flame is up,” called the gate steward as the crew scurried from the ring.

I pulled Cisco between my knees, crossed my ankles in front of him, and wrapped his
leash securely around my palm, focusing the camera phone with the other hand. There
was about to be a lot of shouting. “Watch this,” I told Miles. “They’re amazing. And
if I had any money, I
would
bet on her.”

“I’d take a piece of that, girlfriend,” said Aggie.

Neil stepped to the start line, slipped Flame’s collar and leash over her head, and
put her in a sit-stay. He walked confidently away from her, past the first two jumps,
past the chute, past the tire, to the jump spiral, a five-obstacle lead out. I held
my breath, but the little dog sat like a statue, her eyes boring holes into his back,
every muscle in her body coiled to spring. He turned, made eye contact with his dog,
and raised his hand. Almost before he completed the motion she had taken two jumps,
the chute, and another jump in the precise correct sequence and was by his side, both
of them in motion. The crowd was on its feet, cheering them on, as he pivoted to guide
her through the spiral, over the bar jump, up and over the A-frame—perfect contacts!—to
the pause table for a flawless five-second down-stay. He never said a word. It was
as though they were telepathically linked. I’d never seen anything like it. A one-eighty
into the weave poles, the seesaw, the broad jump, then into a blind cross around the
A-frame and into the tunnel. With only four obstacles to go, the unthinkable happened.
Coming out of the pivot that had sent his dog into the tunnel and swinging the opposite
way to meet her on the other side, Neil lost his balance and went down in the dirt.
A collective cry of dismay went up from the spectators.

Flame came flying out of the tunnel with her handler nowhere in sight. But this is
what makes a championship team. Before his dog exited the tunnel Neil called, “Over,
over, walk it!” He couldn’t see Flame and she couldn’t see him, but he was guiding
her through the course and she was doing what she was trained to do. He regained his
feet just as she touched the down contact zone on the dog walk, but he was still three
obstacles behind her and there was no way he could catch up now. Amazingly, Flame
looked as though she would take the last two jumps on her own, and we were all on
our feet, cheering in anticipation as Flame raced toward the finish to the kind of
applause and cheers usually reserved for Olympic athletes breaking a world record.
We were all competitors, of course, and we all wanted the blue ribbon, but when you
see something like that you start to understand why people say it really is all about
how you play the game.

And then the most astonishing thing happened. As she made the turn toward the last
jump and the finish line, the border collie stopped so suddenly that a cloud of dust
flew up around her. She spun and barked—a typical sign of frustration in this high-strung
breed—then ran back over the jump she had just taken to return to Neil and leapt into
his arms. A groan of disappointment rose up from the crowd as the judge blew her whistle
to indicate an elimination. I lowered the camera in disbelief. They were out.

“I guess that means they didn’t win,” observed Miles, holding out his hand for the
phone.

“What a shame,” exclaimed Aggie, settling back into her seat. “She must have spooked
after he fell.”

“I guess,” I murmured. I returned Miles’s phone to him absently, watching Neil limp
out of the ring with Flame in his arms. “It’s just that…”

“What?” Miles, who was learning to read me too well, glanced at me curiously.

I shook my head. “Nothing. I thought I saw something, but it’s silly.”

“Oh, look,” said Aggie, waving happily to someone below as the ring crew came in to
set up the equipment for the next class. “There’s Ginny.”

“I’m going to help set up the ring,” I said, handing Cisco’s leash to Miles. “Stay
right here. Keep your eye on him. And no food.”

Miles tucked his phone back into his pocket and held up his hand in a solemn promise.

“And don’t let Cisco play with the other dogs.”

“I won’t.”

I started down the stairs. “And don’t let anyone pet him.”

He gave me a long-suffering look. “Maybe Cisco and I should just wait in the car.”

You see, if I had an RV I wouldn’t have this problem.

“Just stay here.” I hurried down to the ring.

~*~

THREE

Hansonville, North Carolina

Twenty-eight hours before the shooting

T
he sign on the door said “Sheriff” in bold, stenciled letters and below that “Buck
Lawson,” written in black marker on a piece of poster paper taped in place. It was
just another reminder, as if he needed one, that he wasn’t the real sheriff, and his
place in this office was only temporary. Some days that suited him just fine. Other
days, like today, it got under his skin like a bad rash.

Buck was currently serving out the unexpired term of Roe Bleckley, who’d been elected
sheriff of Hanover County nine consecutive times and whose well-worn boots, to put
it mildly, were hard to fill. Roe had retired after a heart attack and it surprised
no one that Buck had been tagged to step into the job, not only because he was the
senior man on the force, but because, having been married to Roe’s niece
Raine
for over ten years, he was practically family. The fact that his marriage to Raine
had been over long before Roe’s unexpected retirement hadn’t figured into most people’s
thinking. Neither, if truth be told, had the possibility that Buck might not want
the job.

Buck Lawson was a good law officer, but he hated being sheriff. He hated working fourteen-hour
days and spending twelve of them behind a desk. He hated drawing up duty rosters and
filling out payroll forms. He hated attending budget meetings. And he hated opening
piece after piece of mail addressed to “R.O. Bleckley, Sheriff.”

“Rosie!” He ripped open yet another envelope addressed to the former sheriff, leaned
toward the open door, and shouted more loudly, “Rosie!”

Her reply came distantly over the buzz and hum of activity from the outer office.
“Yes, your lordship!”

Rosie’s official title was Head Dispatcher, but she’d been with the Sheriff’s Department
even longer than Buck and was the only person
on board
who really knew how everything worked. The budget, as Buck discovered all too soon,
didn’t allow for an office manager, so Roe had solved the problem by changing Rosie’s
job description, but not her title. It was that kind of creative thinking that was
sorely missed around here by everyone, including Buck.

She appeared at the door, a middle-aged woman with a poufy faded-brown hairdo that
hadn’t changed in twenty years and too much eye makeup. She wore a wireless telephone
headset in one ear and a pair of glasses pushed into her hair. “You bellowed?” she
inquired politely.

“Sorry,” he muttered. His former desk had been only steps from hers, and it had been
easy to call over to her when he needed something. He couldn’t get used to being stuck
back here in the middle of a hallway with a door between him and the department he
was supposed to be running. “Did you call Roe to come pick up his mail?”

“I did. He said he’d stop by after lunch.”

Most of the mail that came through the office was official business that Buck would
end up handling anyway, but he kept an ongoing stack of personal notices, magazines,
brochures and the like addressed to Roe. The man had been in office for thirty years,
and it was starting to look as though it would take at least that long to get his
address changed on all those mailing lists.

Buck frowned a little as he glanced over the contents of the most recent letter. “You
know anything about a felon by the name of Jeremiah Berman?”

“Can’t say that I do,” she replied. “But then
,
I know so many felons.”

“I wonder why the pardons and paroles board would be notifying Roe about his release.”

“Sounds routine to me. He must have put the guy away.”

“No, it says here, ‘At your request, we are notifying you…’” He gave a little grunt
and put the letter aside—in his pile, not Roe’s. “See what you can find out, will
you?”

“Sure thing. Do you want me to call the—” He could tell by the way she broke off that
she had been about to say “the sheriff.” It was a common slip, and it didn’t even
bother him anymore.

“Just pull the file,” he suggested, saving her the embarrassment of correcting herself.

“Will do.” She started to leave and then turned back. “By the way, did you see the
election forms I left on your desk?”

“Yeah, I saw them.”

“Did you get a chance to fill them out?”

“Not yet.”

“The deadline for filing is Monday, you know.”

“I know.”

“Do you want me to fill them out for you?”

“No, that’s okay.”

She hesitated, looked as though she wanted to say something else, but settled on,
“Well, give me a holler when you’re finished. I can run them down to the county clerk’s
office in a jiff.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

“Because the deadline’s Monday.”

“Got it.”

“What deadline is that, young lady?” a familiar voice came from behind her, and Rosie
broke into a broad smile as she turned.