twenty-one

“I think I need to sit down for a minute,” I said. My legs felt rubbery, and my brain fluctuated between spilling over and completely empty.

When we reached the van, Tom and I checked the big boys first, and I felt 200 percent better as soon as the two doggy tongues touched my fingers.

“You relax for a bit. I’ll take these guys for a little walk.” Tom kissed my forehead, then picked up Drake’s leash and went to the back of the van.

Leo had come along again. He wouldn’t be running agility, but I had offered to have him man, or cat, Alberta’s information table for a while. I figured it would be good practice for his competition debut the following weekend. I got him out of his double-wide carrier and settled the two of us into the front seat. Whoever says cats don’t care about people just never gave them a chance. Leo laid himself lengthwise along my torso and let his tail drape across my thigh. I looked into his eyes, all squinty with feline “I love yous.” He mewed so low I almost didn’t hear, then pressed a paw against my cheek. We stayed like that, Leo purring and me, eyes closed, counting my breaths. Inhale one-two-three, exhale one-two-three.

When the sound of a dog jumping into the back of the van opened my eyes, the dashboard clock said eleven minutes had slipped by. Tom loaded Jay and Drake into their crates and got into the seat beside me.

“Better?” He said.

“Much.”

Leo meowed at Tom, and Tom ran the backs of his fingers down the soft orange body and let his hand come to rest on Leo’s tail and my leg. We just sat like that for a few minutes, until I broke the silence.

“Everybody hated that guy, you know.”

“He was easy to dislike, that’s for sure,” said Tom.

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Who killed him?”

“I’m sort of hoping he had some kind of bizarre accident.” Tom craned his neck for a look at the ring. “We should go find out what’s happening.”

As soon as I stood up and the sharpening wind sliced into me, I realized I needed to make use of one of those newly refreshed portable facilities. “Getting colder,” I said, more or less to myself. I put Leo back into his carrier, excused myself, and walked across the parking lot toward the front of the training building. The “Johnny” set up in the L-corner of the building there was probably the closest one. A woman I didn’t know was scurrying in a different angle and got there three steps ahead of me. She had an unfair advantage—two malamutes were pulling her along. I wondered how she planned to manage. There was no way she and those big dogs would fit into the telephone booth sized bathroom.

“You go ahead,” the woman said.

Normally I would have thought that unfair, but my bladder felt ready to explode, so I accepted. When I came out, I asked, “Would you like some help with those guys?”

She stepped into the plastic tube and fiddled with her retractable leashes, letting the cords play out to full length and laying the plastic handles against the inside of the door frame. “No, we’re fine. We’ve done this before. But thanks.” She pulled the door closed over the leashes, anchoring the dogs to the johnny.

Bad idea, whispered the voices in my head. They were right. I wouldn’t have tried that stunt with my fifty-pound herding dog, let alone two hundred-plus-pound animals designed to pull heavy sledges across long miles of snow. I started to ask if she was sure, but the “Occupied/Occupado” indicator snapped into place, so I shivered, zipped my jacket to the top, and walked away.

The uniformed police officers were standing near the tunnel and a man with a bag was preparing to crawl into the tunnel.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Coroner, probably. Or forensics?”

The police had removed everyone else from the area, and I scanned the observers standing around the ring. Marietta was talking to Jorge near the opening that served as a gate, and the stewards were gathered a few feet away. To my surprise, Hutchinson was outside the ring, leaning against the stewards’ table.

I pointed toward Hutchinson and said, “What’s he doing?”

“Or not doing,” said Tom.

We approached from the side and Hutchinson turned.

“What’s up?” asked Tom.

“You know who that is?” Hutchinson gestured toward the tunnel.

“You mean the dead guy?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” Tom and I answered together.

“I took myself out of the investigation,” said Hutchinson.

“Because of what happened yesterday?” I asked.

Hutchinson snorted. “That, and the complaint he filed against me.”

“Really?” It made sense, I supposed, for Hutchinson to bow out, but I thought back to my first uncomfortable encounters with Hutchinson and his former partner, Jo Stevens. Suddenly I felt a little less secure about what might be coming. Okay, a lot less secure. I pressed on. “But that isn’t that big a deal, is it?”

Hutchinson pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket and began clicking it with his thumb. “Could be a conflict of interest,” he said. “Jerk took it to the next level. Plays—played—golf with the mayor.” He stabbed the tip of his pen into the picnic table top and turned to look first at me, then at Tom. “I might have been heard to react with a comment about ‘dead meat.’ So, yeah, conflict of interest.”

“Probably a wise move,” said Tom.

“Something weird, though. I know the guy didn’t like animals, especially cats, but there’s fur all over the front of his slacks.” Hutchinson looked at me. “Like when Leo or Gypsy rub against my legs.”

I started to answer, but a movement over Hutchinson’s shoulder caught my eye, and I shifted my gaze. Jorge was standing near some shrubs near the front of the training building not far from where I had left the malamute owner. He bent over and reached toward the shrubs, and a small cat emerged from the evergreens and rubbed her head against his hand. I couldn’t see well at that distance, but assumed it was his little rainbow cat-mama. Jorge stood up, and I could see that he held something in his hand. He seemed to be talking to the cat, who was watching him closely, tail flicking. He started to walk toward the tree line where he had told me he thought the cat had hidden her brood of gatitos, and I smiled to see that the thing in his hand was a bowl. He was feeding the little family.

I turned back to Hutchinson and asked, “So what happens now?”

“They’ll want to talk to people, so don’t leave yet.”

I sighed and muttered something even I couldn’t make out. Tom started to say something, but a crazy loud banging and muffled yells and a duet of loud “awwooos!” snapped our attention toward the front of the training building.

Hutchinson jumped up, turned, and said “What the heck is that?”

For a long few seconds there was nothing to see other than the training building’s calm facade, but the racket was getting louder. Then the malamutes appeared, their gazes fixed on the two figures I had been watching. Both dogs were woowooing and, judging by their postures, pulling hard into their collars. The cords of their retractable leashes stretched taut behind them, and everything about them screamed “get the cat!”