Rottweiler Rescue (3 page)

Maybe so, but I was right about this. “So did any of those people jogging and biking through Stonegate see a man in black clothes?”

“Ms. Brennan, I ask, you answer. We’re not sharing information here.”

He’d already shared the information, and we both knew it. No one had seen the killer. Had the investigators found anything at all? I glanced at Deputy Horton thoughtfully, and the lieutenant caught me.

“Don’t even try it. He likes ladies, and you all like him back because of his pretty face, but he’s not that young, and he’s not that dumb. He likes working here.”

Not only would Deputy Horton give Brad Pitt a serious run for his money in the looks department, he was years younger and inches taller. I tried to look like I hadn’t the foggiest idea what Lieutenant Forrester was talking about. So did Deputy Horton.

“Now, it’s going to take a while to get a statement typed up for you to sign. So suppose while that’s going on, you and your friend Deputy Horton there go and get this dog.”

“Not without assurances from your department and from the county attorney.”

He sighed heavily and leaned back. “What kind of assurances do you want?”

I’d had a lot of time alone to think about that and reeled it right off. “No confiscation, no impoundment, no quarantine except at my home, and no invasive tests.”

“What’s an invasive test?”

“Oh, cutting off a foot to preserve the pawprint, or removing his stomach to keep the contents, like that.”

He got up and went to the door. The muttered reference to a female dog I thought I heard just after he yanked it open and before he slammed it behind him had to be my imagination. It had to be.

When the door to the
interrogation room where I had once again been left alone with my thoughts opened, a tall man peered at me uncertainly through gold-rimmed glasses perched on a beaky nose. His body was thin and his hair was thinner.

“Are you Dianne Brennan?” he asked.

I nodded, wondering why anyone with such a diffident manner would choose a career in law enforcement.

“My name is Owen Turner. I’m an attorney with Simon, Perry & Simon. Judge Cramer asked me to see if I can help you out.”

This
was the cavalry that was going to rescue me? My spirits sank to my sandals and ran out onto the floor through the open toes. Sternly telling myself that the Honorable Horace Cramer wouldn’t have sent anyone less than qualified, I poured out the story of the events that had brought me to this chair in the Justice Center.

Turner listened intently without interruption, making notes in a cramped hand on a yellow legal pad. When I finally wound down, he stopped writing, looked me in the eye, and proceeded to give me a lesson in not judging lawyers by their looks.

“Do you understand why they brought you here, kept you, and didn’t just agree to have someone in Animal Control look at the dog and let you go?” he asked.

“Because I won’t let them see the dog unless they agree not to hurt him and to give him back, I guess.”

“Only partly. The fact is you committed what they consider to be a major crime, even though it isn’t on the books — you dissed a cop, refused to back down, mentioned friends in high places, and had a lawyer on tap so they couldn’t even give you a really hard time.”

His language alone made me do a rapid reassessment of Owen Turner, but what he was saying was even more striking than how he said it, and I wasn’t convinced.

“Half the world doesn’t cooperate with the police any more,” I said, “and everyone knows to say they want a lawyer.”

“The reason the police do profiling is that profiles are usually right, and the profile for a woman like you would be someone eager to cooperate and slightly intimidated by the police,” he said. “They realized you were unusual at exactly the same time they realized you weren’t going to cooperate.”

Turner was telling me I should fit in a profile labeled “Ordinary Woman in Her Thirties.” Did all the fellow members of my group have ordinary brown hair cut short for wash and go, ordinary blue eyes, and an ordinary figure, neither noticeably svelte nor plump? Was there room in my profile for blondes and redheads? Were we all fair-skinned? Considering the wrong conclusions I’d leapt to about Turner himself based on appearance, his conclusions as to my ordinariness served me right, but that didn’t occur to me at the time.

“And so what made them realize I’m not entirely ordinary?” I asked tartly.

“You’re a foster home for Rottweilers, and you’re suspicious enough of the police you hid the dog from them rather than take a chance they’d call Animal Control and haul him away. They don’t believe that excuse about the heat any more than I do, you know.”

“I was afraid they’d
shoot
him,” I said. “All it would take was one deputy who’s afraid of dogs. Jack was all torn up, and there was blood everywhere, and Robot’s pawprints were in the blood.”

Turner nodded. “Well, whatever they might have done, we’re past that now, so what are you willing to agree to? What if they want stomach contents, for instance?”

My answer was ready, of course, but I couched my reply more politely than I had to Lieutenant Forrester. “I have no problem with that. I really have no problem with any test that doesn’t hurt him, but I’m not willing to let them keep him locked up somewhere. I’ve been fostering him for over a month. I’ll keep him.”

“Even if they make an arrest, a trial and appeals could take years. Are you willing to keep the dog that long?”

“I’ve already accepted that this means I’m as good as adopting him. Yes, I’m willing, although I don’t see why I’d have to keep him through all that. He just made a few pawprints. Why couldn’t any adopter make him available?”

“They’re worried about what some slimy defense attorney might make of those prints,” said Turner with a hint of a smile, “and there’s the question of identification of the right dog. By hiding him, you’ve already brought that into question.”

“He has a microchip for identification. All our rescues are chipped before they go to new homes.”

“Ah, that’s going to make things easier, I think. Let’s go talk to the county attorney.”

An hour later, after signing my official statement, I also signed my name to an agreement with the county attorney as a representative of Front Range Rottweiler Rescue with only a small twinge of guilt. I am merely a volunteer, a foster home for the rescue group, which is a Colorado nonprofit corporation, but somehow Turner and the county attorney both got the impression that I was a member of the board of directors.

Susan would go along with the arrangement, I told myself. She would just take more convincing than I was willing to try doing by phone right then.

My new attorney had some more advice for me.

“You need to decide what you’re going to do about the reporters outside,” he told me.

“Oh, yuck,” I said. “Can’t I just sneak out of here and avoid them?”

“Yes, you can. But if you avoid them now, they’ll be on your doorstep in the morning, or even late tonight. They probably already have your name and address. I’d advise dealing with them now. If you’re careful you may be able to get away with telling them just enough so that they’ll leave you alone, at least for the near future. A lot depends on whether there’s better and more exciting news tomorrow and next week.”

“If they hear the word ‘Rottweiler,’ they’ll go crazy. If a Chihuahua bites someone they always put a picture of a snarling Rottweiler in the newspapers. They’ll want to see Robot and take pictures.”

“So don’t say the word ‘Rottweiler.’ Nothing says you have to bare your soul. Tell them as little as you can.” He paused, eying me thoughtfully. “Crying can help sometimes. Especially with the television people. They like visual emotion.”

No wonder people paid attorneys huge sums to help them deal with situations like this. For the first time thoughts of attorney’s fees skittered through my mind.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” Turner asked.

“Um, how much am I paying you?” I said.

Once again he gave me that controlled hint of a smile. “That should have been the very first thing you said to me, you know. But you’re in luck. Judge Cramer talked me into donating today’s time to your rescue group, which I understand is a tax-exempt charity.” He paused for just a second before adding, “My wife and I have two greyhounds.”

Greyhounds. One of the most abused and badly used of all breeds, greyhounds are killed by the thousands, sometimes in ways that don’t qualify as “euthanasia.” Dogs too old to race, dogs too slow to win — their bodies make pathetic mountains. Greyhound rescue is one of the oldest and most effective of all dog rescue groups, and if someone has a pet greyhound, they almost always have a rescue dog.

“My usual fee is three hundred dollars an hour.”

Turner pulled a small leather case from his breast pocket, extracted a business card, and handed it to me. “For next time.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“Mm.” His polite murmur was the essence of disbelief. “So suppose I help you face the press, and then if you’d like to ride with me, I wouldn’t mind meeting this dog.”

And I would like to ride in the front seat of whatever he was driving instead of the back seat of a sheriff’s car.

Turner was right. The pack of reporters outside the Justice Center already knew my name. As soon as we walked outside, they proved it at the top of their lungs.

“Ms. Brennan, Ms. Brennan, why are you here at the Justice Center?” shouted one.

“Dianne, are you a suspect in Jack Sheffield’s murder?”

The pack was smaller than what I’d seen on those tv crimes shows Lieutenant Forrester was sure I watched too much, but even so the group was intimidating, bristling with microphones and cameras, and I was grateful for Owen Turner’s steadying presence at my side.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to look as if talking to reporters were the highlight of my day, and began answering their questions. I was at the Justice Center to give a formal statement to the investigating officers, I told them. Since I’d seen someone leaving Jack Sheffield’s yard and through the open door seen blood on his kitchen floor and called 911, the sheriff’s office wanted to be sure what I’d seen.

So did the reporters, and I told them. Sort of. As soon as I finished describing how little I’d seen, they shouted more questions.

A black-haired woman with lipstick so red the color dominated her pale face had elbowed herself to the front of the pack.

“Were you afraid?” she asked. “Did you think he might attack you?”

Her voice was shrill enough that her questions were clear through the din, so I chose to answer her.

“Yes, I was afraid,” I told her. “For a few seconds I thought I might pass out. Then I ran back to my car and called the sheriff’s office from my cell phone.”

The voice of the woman in the front row carried over the rest again. “Why were you there? What were you doing there at Sheffield’s house?”

“I had an appointment with Jack Sheffield this morning to talk to him about adopting a homeless dog,” I said, choosing words with great care. “You must know by now that Jack was a professional dog handler. I went there to see him about a dog.”

So those reporters got the impression that I never went into the house, never saw Jack’s body, didn’t have a dog with me but only wanted to talk to Jack about a stray I’d found. Maybe I’d missed a calling as a politician because Turner was right — misleading the reporters was only a matter of choosing which questions to answer and answering carefully. Just let tomorrow bring some juicy scandal, I thought. Nobody hurt or killed, just a scandal so they never follow up with me.

When the shouting erupted again, I felt Turner’s arm around my shoulders. “Very good,” he said in a low voice. “They’ve got enough for now. Let’s get out of here.”

He hustled me through the crowd. The reporters trailed us across the parking lot to Turner’s Lexus. I sank back into the leather seat and closed my eyes with relief.

The deputies assigned to go along with me to get Robot led the way back to where my car was parked on the opposite side of the street from Jack Sheffield’s house. The drive seemed much shorter than it had when going in the opposite direction all those hours ago. The bustle of activity was over, but crime scene tape still marked off the front of the house, and two sheriff’s cars were still at the curb.

I left the air-conditioned luxury of Owen Turner’s SUV with reluctance, got into the oven of my own car, and led the way to Robot’s safe house.

The steering wheel was barely cool enough for me to leave my hands on it when I pulled up in front of the Inmans’ home and waited for Turner, Deputy Horton, and Deputy Carraher, who looked only slightly less sour than she had when taking notes back in Castle Rock, to join me on the doorstep.

Petite, blonde, and too pretty to be considered ordinary by anyone, Carey Inman answered the door as if she were used to welcoming such motley groups. Greta, the small Rottie she had adopted more than a year ago, stood at her side, well behaved and watchful.

Carey didn’t wait for introductions. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “I didn’t know whether to feed him or what to feed him.”

I didn’t tell Carey why it was a good thing she hadn’t fed Robot, but just introduced everyone. Carey disappeared for a moment to shut Greta in a bedroom.

“She isn’t too happy with a strange dog in her crate,” she explained. “I moved it out of our bedroom and into the family room, but she still doesn’t like it, and since he isn’t staying, there didn’t seem to be any reason to introduce them. You said he should stay in the crate.”

“That’s perfect,” I assured her as we all followed her down steps into the family room and over to the plastic Vari-Kennel crate, which I suddenly realized, was roomy for Greta but really too small for Robot, who had been squeezed in there for hours.

“It’s a tight fit,” Carey apologized again, “but you said....”

“You did just fine,” I told her. “Believe me, he was better off here with you in an air-conditioned house than in the heat for hours with me.”