Rottweiler Rescue (17 page)

As Gary put the puppies back in their run, I returned to the subject of Jack Sheffield. “Did Jack ever say anything to you, maybe in a joking way along the lines that you’d regret it if you didn’t let him show Carter?” I asked.

“To the contrary, he tried to influence me by saying if I let him show Carter, I’d never regret it,” she said, “and now that he’s gone maybe I wish I’d agreed. It would have meant a lot to him.”

“Did he ever tell you about anyone else who was upset with him, even if he didn’t think they should be?”

“No, he did not,” she said. “If a handler wants to stay in business, he does not discuss one client with another.”

“Was there another dog like Carter coming along in the area that he hoped to be able to talk the owner into campaigning nationally?”

Erich had been staying quietly in the background, letting Joyce show me the dogs and do the talking, but he spoke up now. “Dogs like Carter do
not
come along every year in an area the size of Colorado. My wife’s dogs are outstanding, and no one would expect to find their like at the snap of fingers, and Jack knew this. Now, you must excuse us. We are meeting friends for luncheon, and I must shower. Gary will show you back to your car.”

Joyce gave me a small smile as if to say, “Isn’t he sooo strong,” but I wasn’t fooled. She was letting Erich send me on my way because that’s what she wanted. The way she had plucked my list out of his hand without giving him a chance to even look at it told me who was in control of this odd marriage.

I thanked Gary and assured him I didn’t need an escort to walk to my car. Joyce might not like my poor, sad rescue dogs setting foot on her property, but I let Sophie and Robo out of the car to walk them around for a few minutes anyway.

To my surprise, Sophie shot out of the car so fast she almost pulled the leash from my hand. She circled around, nose to the ground, intent on interpreting some doggy message left there. When she didn’t quit on her own after a few go rounds, I pulled her away and took her to walk on the grassy area beside the driveway, scolding her out loud as we went.

“Yes, other dogs live here, and yes, they have all sorts of testosterone and estrogen to leave in their scent, but they’re none of your business, and believe me, you wouldn’t trade places with them if you knew how they live.”

I had plastic bags in my pocket ready to pick up after the dogs but didn’t need to use them. As I loaded the dogs back in the car and set off for home I felt virtuous anyway, even if Gary would have been the only beneficiary. At a guess neither Joyce nor the boy toy even knew how to use a pooper-scooper, but I wondered if he knew how to use a knife, and if his wife would ask him to use one for her, and what his answer to such a request would be.

Back at home, I put
Millie out in the yard where she could play with Sophie and harass Robo. My plan to call Susan and ask her why she hadn’t saved me a lot of embarrassment by warning me about Erich faded away as I played the lone message on my voice mail.

“This is Myron Feltzer,” the booming voice said. “If you want to see me, I can give you a few minutes this afternoon at home. Five to five-thirty. I’ll expect you unless I hear to the contrary.”

Feltzer’s voice was curt and rough enough to fit my image of a man who would import an adult dog from Germany and have her tail amputated so she could be shown successfully in this country, a man who would collect large sums for injuries to the dog and then order her destroyed because she was of no further use to him. Myron Feltzer, in fact, sounded like someone I wouldn’t mind seeing go to prison for the rest of his life, and if he couldn’t be convicted for mutilating and discarding dogs, murder would do.

Since all the cheese was gone, there was nothing in the house I wanted in a sandwich. Balancing an apple on top of a carton of yogurt in one hand and carrying a glass of iced tea in the other, I went upstairs to the computer and ate my quick lunch while getting directions to the Feltzers’ on Mapquest.

The trip would be more than a two-hour drive west into the mountains. I always avoided driving unfamiliar roads after dark if I could, and driving unfamiliar mountain roads after dark was even less appealing. Still, I calculated leaving the Feltzers’ house by six would have me close to home before full dark. I would be able to tuck myself and the dogs safely away for the night with gun at hand and sheriff’s deputies driving by now and then.

Gnawing on the apple core, I stared at the computer screen thoughtfully. The machine couldn’t answer the questions swirling through my head for me; it could organize the information I’d gathered so far.

I opened my spreadsheet program and started a new document, listing everyone I’d talked to so far in the first column, titled “Suspects.” Carl Warmstead, Dorrie and Lee Stander, Harry and Lannie Jameson, Ty and Tawana Mullin, Joyce Richerson and Erich Kohler. My second column was for “Alibi,” and there I put a check mark across from the name of Carl Warmstead.

Next came “Physically Able,” and Carl Warmstead, Lee Stander, Harry Jameson, and Erich Kohler were definitely physically able. The next column was for “Lied,” and I checked Harry, who hadn’t mentioned stolen clients, and Ty, who hadn’t mentioned drugs.

Across from Joyce Richerson’s name I put a question mark. Maybe she was telling the truth about Jack accepting her decision to send Carter to a different handler. Yet everything I’d learned so far indicated Jack Sheffield had been determined to find a client to support him in a national campaign and willing to pressure clients to get his way. Yes, Joyce Richerson was a tough woman, but so was Tawana Mullin, and Jack had tried pressure on the Mullins.

I backspaced over my question mark and changed it to a check mark. Joyce’s denial wasn’t believable. Jack must have tried in some way to get her to allow him to continue showing Carter.

After staring at my chart for a while, I deleted the lines for Carl, Dorrie, Lannie, Ty, and Tawana. Then I reinserted Carl’s name. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to see if Lieutenant Forrester would tell me where Carl had been when Jack was killed and whether there was even the slightest chance he could have snuck back to the house and killed the lover who was trying to push him out.

Joyce had mentioned money as a motive. Did Carl now own the entire house outright? Had Jack had a will that left Carl his worldly goods? Who did inherit, and how much was there to inherit?

My next column was “Heard Gossip,” and I checked every name but Carl’s. Then after a moment, I put a check by his name too. If Lee Stander could have heard an exaggerated version of my encounter with Jack’s killer third- or fourth-hand from a customer, Carl could have heard it from a friend who had known both Jack and Carl and had contacts in the dog show world. All it would take was a comment in a friendly phone call.

“Afraid of Dogs” caused another inner debate. Carl’s allergies didn’t necessarily mean he was afraid of dogs. Then again, if he had avoided dogs all his life.... In the end I put a question mark in that column for Carl. Both Lieutenant Forrester and Susan had shrugged off my contention that the killer had to be afraid of dogs. However, I was the one who had seen him run, knife and all, from a totally non-aggressive Robo in Jack’s backyard. He had also panicked in the King Sooper’s parking lot. I had heard that fear-filled gasp and felt the man freeze behind me. I was the one who was alive because of the frenzied way he had thrown me toward the dogs while trying to slash my throat.

In the same situation an experienced dog man like Harry Jameson or Lee Stander would have used the extra seconds necessary to kill me, then thrown my
body
at the dogs. And whether Erich Kohler had been merely an employee at the German kennel where Joyce had met him or, more likely, a member of the Rottweiler breeder’s family, he would also have known he had time to kill me and still escape the dogs.

The last column was “Motive” and across from Carl’s name I typed, “spurned and/or money.” For both Lee Stander and Harry Jameson, I typed “revenge,” then added, “stop customer loss” to Harry’s entry. Harry would be far more likely to kill to stop future ruination of his business than merely for revenge for past losses. For Joyce, motive was “avoid blackmail,” and for Erich, “obey rich wife.”

My chart made Carl, the only one who supposedly couldn’t have killed Jack, the best candidate to have done just that. I called the sheriff’s office and asked for Lieutenant Forrester. He wasn’t there. I left a message asking him to call me in the morning.

Before saving my spreadsheet, I added a line for Myron Feltzer, then went back downstairs and called the dogs in. Thankfully, Millie hadn’t learned any of Sophie’s guilt-evoking tricks yet. She settled down quite happily with a large black rubber kong toy with its hollow center stuffed with biscuits and kibble embedded in peanut butter.

Sophie and Robo followed me out to the car and hopped in the back as if they hadn’t already spent most of the morning confined there, and I started for Feltzers.

Hours later, as my little car puffed up another long grade, I finally approached the Feltzers’ house. No houses were visible on their road. Mailboxes marked openings in the wall of pines where driveways had been hewn out of the forest.

When the Feltzer mailbox appeared, I turned onto the gravel drive and left the car in first gear as it struggled almost straight up. Did these people stay home from the first snow until the spring thaw? Or did they travel on snowmobiles all winter?

The house had been built into the side of the mountain, garage underneath, living space layered on top. Dark brown siding and decks emphasized the lack of light under the trees. Buttoning a light jacket over my sweatshirt didn’t add enough warmth in the chilly mountain air. Before I convinced myself that the whole place was too sinister-looking to approach and got back in the warm little box of my car, a cheery female voice called out from over my head.

“Are you Dianne Brennan? Come on up. The only way in is up the stairs.”

Reassured by her friendly welcome, I climbed the steep wooden stairs to the deck above. Ginny Feltzer’s freckled face was as friendly as her voice. Her curly reddish hair matched the freckles and glowed against the dark gold of a bulky knit sweater. I envied her that thick sweater and the black wool slacks underneath almost more than the trim figure the outfit showed off.

“Come on in,” she urged. “You haven’t got enough on for this weather, and the wind’s starting to pick up. Don’t mind the dogs. She loves everyone, and he’ll just hang back until he decides you’re okay.”

She opened the sliding glass door and led me into a living room with oak flooring and wall paneling that was almost as dark as the exterior of the house but far more inviting. Area rugs and plump upholstered furniture in deep red with gold patterns added color and warmth.

The dogs were Rottweilers, of course. After the sterility of Joyce Richerson’s house and with my preconceived ideas about Myron Feltzer, I hadn’t expected to find dogs underfoot and treated as beloved family members here. The female was heavy in the last stages of pregnancy and put her head in my lap as soon as I sat down. As predicted, the male took up a position near Ginny where he could keep an eye on me.

I rubbed the head in my lap, and the bitch immediately climbed up beside me on the couch.

“Nadia get down,” Ginny ordered.

Nadia showed no sign of having heard and made herself comfortable beside me with her head in my lap.

Ginny started toward me. “If you give her any encouragement at all, you’ll have an eighty-pound lap dog — more than that now with the puppies. I’ll get her off you.”

“Don’t make her get down,” I protested. “She’s fine here.”

“Okay, if you’re sure, but that head can get awfully heavy. Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? Or a cold drink, but you look like you need warming up.”

“That would be great,” I said. “Anything hot.”

My expectation was that Myron would show up and tell me what I wanted to know while his wife was in the kitchen, but there was still no sign of Myron when Ginny returned. I held the steaming cup she handed me out to one side and leaned over to sip so that the hot coffee couldn’t spill on the trusting head in my lap. Maybe it was time to give up on Myron and see what his wife had to say. Ty Mullin’s wife had certainly been worth chatting to.

“Did your husband tell you that I’m trying to learn as much as I can about Jack Sheffield and who might have wanted to kill him?” I asked.

“He sure did. And I heard all about how you saw his killer leaving his house that morning.” She gave a dramatic little shudder. “I’d have fainted dead away and he could have cut my throat too with me just laying there.”

“That’s all too close to what happened,” I told her. “But I only almost fainted, and I had a dog with me that’s almost as impressive as your boy there, and the killer ran.”

“But you
saw
him,” she said. “You saw him and now you’re looking for him everywhere so you can call the cops on him.”

I wondered how much time Ginny had spent in the ladies’ room during the specialty show. “I saw him, and he seems to have decided I’m a threat to him somehow, but the truth is I couldn’t identify him if he walked in this room.” And when was her husband going to do exactly that? “That’s why I’m trying to learn enough about Jack to figure out who would have wanted to kill him.”

“And you think it could be Myron?” she said with amusement.

“Not really, but do you know where he was that morning?”

“At his office,” she said. “At least that’s where he almost always is on a weekday morning, and I don’t remember anything being different then. I can’t even remember when it was now, but we saw it on the news when it happened. Does he need an alibi? The police have never talked to us.”

“If the police haven’t talked to him, he certainly must not need an alibi,” I said, thinking evil thoughts about Lieutenant Forrester. “Mostly I’m hoping he might tell me something helpful. You were clients of Jack’s for a long time, weren’t you?”

“It depends on what you mean by a long time. We started with Jack, let’s see, about four years ago.”