Finding Christmas Read online

  I sipped my coffee and tried to go more deeply into my friends list. I knew a lot of people in Rescue, but I couldn’t think of a single one who would do what my secret Santa had been doing. I supposed there was Houston, but he was even less in to Christmas than I was. That left… no one. I couldn’t think of anyone who would have delivered Christmas decorations to me in what was almost the middle of the night.

  Still, the gifts were fun. I smiled as I lifted the lights out of the box. I thought of Nick Clauston’s encounter with the “real Santa,” and for a brief moment I let myself consider the possibility that my early gifts might have been delivered by the jolly old man in red himself.

  ******

  I cleaned the barn and the cat boxes and drove over to Harley’s. I’d called Houston to confirm that he’d meet me around noon for Kojak’s training session, which left me a good three hours to call in a favor and put my training session into play, and to and work with Brando on some basic commands. I wanted to check in at the shelter before heading over to Houston’s office, but that wouldn’t take long. I hoped Harley wasn’t having too difficult a time with the energetic pup. He’d been such a good sport, agreeing to take him, and he’d already done so much for the strays in town. I hated to take advantage of his good nature.

  I found Harley outside with Brando, playing tug-of-war with a thick rope. Both man and dog seemed to be having a wonderful time. I smiled as I parked my old Jeep and climbed out.

  “It looks like you’re having fun,” I said as the pup ran to me. I could see he intended to jump up on my leg, so I took a step forward, which caused him to stop running and sit in front of me. “Good boy, Brando. Nice greeting, buddy.” I ruffled the dog’s ears, then gave him a treat I had stored in my pocket.

  “How do you get him to sit every time?” Harley asked. “He jumps all over me.”

  “I step into his path, which interrupts his momentum and makes him sit. Learning not to jump up is an important thing to teach a pup. At least in the beginning. After he gets older and can begin to discriminate between welcome and unwelcome jumping up, you can teach him the jump up command.”

  “Why would I want him to ever jump up?”

  “Some people enjoy being greeted that way, and it’s fine for a dog to do it if invited. But at this point it’s best to teach him to sit when he approaches a person. He’s going to be a big dog and you don’t want him jumping up on every person he encounters.”

  Harley lifted a brow. “You talk about this eating and chewing machine as if I’m going to have him with me when he is a full-grown dog.”

  I smiled. “Not at all. I was referring to the universal you.” The pup got up and ran back over to the rope. “Should we get started?”

  “I’ve been playing with him for a good thirty minutes, so hopefully, he’ll be tired out a bit and willing to pay attention. Is that Yukon in your Jeep?”

  “It is. I brought him along to help with the training. I’ll fetch him and you go get Brando’s leash.”

  Brando adored Yukon and was more than happy to ape his every move. When I asked Yukon to heel, Brando fell into line alongside us. When I gave Yukon the command to come, Brando followed happily along. He likewise sat and stayed when Yukon did so. I knew that at some point we’d need to remove Yukon from the sessions, but for an introductory lesson, Yukon’s example was invaluable. After we’d run through commands for about thirty minutes, we went inside to give the dogs a rest and the people a chance to warm up. Harley poured me a cup of coffee as Brando and Yukon settled by the fire.

  “Brando’s picking up on the training commands pretty quickly,” he said.

  “He’s doing a wonderful job,” I agreed.

  Harley grinned. “I knew he was smart. Maybe I can train him to be a stunt dog.”

  “It appears Brando has a strong play instinct, and he wants to please you. If you decide to keep him, and really do want to train him as a stunt dog, I think he’ll be an excellent one. It seems to me, based on what we’ve done so far, he’d probably make a good service dog as well.”

  Harley glanced at Brando, who was curled up with Yukon. I couldn’t help but notice a softening in his eyes.

  “How’d he do last night?” I asked.

  “He woke up once, around two. I took him out and he peed, then came right in and went back to sleep. He didn’t wake up again until I went to him at around eight. I’d prefer it if he slept all the way through the night, of course, but I felt like he did pretty well.”

  “I think he did very well too. He’s still young and may not have the bladder control you’d like quite yet, but if you limit his water after seven and take him out right before you go to bed, I think he’ll make it through the night. Has he chewed anything else?”

  “Just a sofa pillow. I still don’t know how he got hold of it. I was sitting in the den watching a movie and he was sleeping at my feet. I might have dozed off for just a minute because I never even saw him get up and pull the pillow down.”

  “Sounds like he woke up and got bored. A bored puppy is a destructive puppy, but we can work on helping him to understand what it’s okay to chew on and what he can’t once we finish our coffee. You bought him a lot of toys and rawhide bones you can distribute around the house. When he learns to discriminate, he should do better about inappropriate chewing.”

  After we finished our coffee, I showed Harley how to correct and replace when Brando went for an object that wasn’t his to chew. We used a pot holder, a sock, and a pillow as temptations. When he went for them, he was corrected and told that they didn’t belong to him. Then we replaced those items with one of his toys to chew on and carry around. Harley had been right from the beginning; Brando was smart. Thirty minutes and a handful of treats later, he was able to respond to a cue to get his toy. When I returned the next day, we’d work on the command to “leave it.”

  At Harley’s I noticed he’d placed several real trees around the house that he’d decorated like Christmas trees, small firs he planned to plant in the yard when the ground thawed in the spring. On impulse, I asked him if I could buy one of them from him so I could give it to Houston for his office. I suspected he hadn’t done a thing to decorate, and for some reason, I felt bad he hadn’t found a way to embrace the holiday spirit, even though I’d gone years after my parents’ death avoiding the trappings, much the way he was doing now. Harley, being the generous guy he was, gave me two of his little trees, one for Houston and one for my dining table at home.

  After thanking him and promising to come back the next day, I headed to the shelter. The volunteers on duty assured me everything was fine, so I took my dog and my little tree home, and then headed to Houston’s office for our usual Monday training session.

  Chapter 8

  “I’ve come bearing gifts,” I said to Houston, placing the small decorated tree on his desk. “I know you aren’t really in to the holiday thing, but we wouldn’t want the residents of Rescue to think their chief of police was a Grinch, would we?”

  Houston glanced at the tree and then back at me. “You bought me a Christmas tree?”

  “Actually, this is one of Harley’s trees; he has a bunch and he said it was fine.” I adjusted the tree just a bit so the ornaments were displayed in the most pleasing manner. “There. A little Christmas cheer for your office, and the best thing is that it’s a real tree you can plant outdoors in the spring.”

  “So I’m going to need to water the tree until then? Seems like more of an obligation than a gift.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a little tree. I doubt keeping it alive will be too taxing. Are you ready to head out?”

  “Almost. I just need to finish my notes on my follow-up interviews with the ski group.”

  I sat down at the desk across from Houston. “Did you learn anything new from the interviews?”

  “From the interviews, no. The men seemed to have clammed up more than they did that first day. I did find out from the guys at the lab that the blow to Piney’s throat, which
sliced through his windpipe and has been confirmed to be the cause of death, looks to have been delivered by someone who thrust the ski pole into his neck with his left hand. When I was at the inn this morning, I noticed the only left-handed member of the group is Reggie.”

  “So Reggie must have killed Piney.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Houston confirmed. “He was the one who organized the trip, and he also admitted to being the one who paid for Piney to come because he was unable to afford the trip on his own. I suppose it could be argued that he set things up to create a situation in which he could make it look as if Piney had gotten lost and fallen to his death.”

  I frowned. “That makes sense to a point, but why? If Reggie wanted to kill Piney for some reason, why go to all the expense of bringing him here? Why not just kill him at home, wherever home is.”

  “The men all live in the Seattle area. And in answer to your question, I don’t know why. And I’m going to need more than a hunch based on hand preference to arrest Reggie. So far, I don’t have more.”

  I sat back in my chair and considered the situation. “We can figure this out. Let’s go back through what we know to see if we can come up with a motive. We know Reggie and Piney have worked together on several projects.”

  “Actually, we don’t know that,” Houston corrected me. “Landon found evidence that Reggie worked with Drake, Anton, Lucas, and Colin on past projects, and he’s currently working with Drake on the low-income housing. It appears Piney may be involved in that, but we don’t know for certain, and there’s no evidence he was involved in prior projects.”

  I frowned. “Yeah, you’re right. We decided Piney was most likely still in law school when the other projects were developed. It appears the law firm Piney works for is defending the other five in the class-action lawsuit that’s been brought. Maybe Piney knew something pertaining to it. Maybe he had damaging evidence that would have cost the others dearly, and they didn’t trust him to keep it to himself because he wasn’t personally involved, so they killed him. Or Reggie killed him on behalf of the group.”

  Houston leaned forward on his forearms. “Then why the ski trip? Why Alaska? Again, I have to wonder why Reggie or the group or whoever wanted Piney dead, would bring him all the way here to kill him. Killing him in such an isolated situation makes the five others look guilty.”

  I bit my lower lip. “Yeah, you have a point. If one of his friends wanted him dead, it would have been a lot smarter to shoot him while he walked the streets of Seattle. Why bring him here to do it when that would call attention to the members of the group?” I glanced out the window. It looked like the snow had stopped, at least for the moment. That was good, I supposed. “Still,” I said, “despite the fact that it makes no sense one of six friends who were on a ski trip would be killed by another in that specific time and place, it stands to reason that’s what happened. I honestly doubt anyone else was there on the mountain.”

  “What if it wasn’t premeditated?” Houston asked. “What if something happened while they were on the mountain that caused one of them to stab Piney in the throat with the sharp end of a ski pole?”

  “Did the lab find blood on any of the poles?”

  Houston shook his head. “No. But that doesn’t mean one of the men didn’t kill Piney. There was time for the pole to have been bleached clean or even replaced. I probably should have collected everyone’s ski gear right off the bat, but I didn’t know Piney had been murdered when we brought the others down the mountain.”

  I steepled my fingers, then rhythmically tapped my tips together. “Okay, so how do we figure this out? The odds are very much in favor of Reggie, Drake, Anton, Lucas, or Colin being the killer. We suspect Reggie based on his left-handedness. In my opinion, all of them seemed to be either lying or at least protecting the truth when you spoke to him the day of the murder. I can’t say one stood out over the others as being the probable killer other than that. The fact that they did business together and money was involved in their relationship, lends itself to motive, especially given the large dollar amounts involved in these projects.” I took a moment to gather my thoughts. “Reggie is the money man. It stands to reason he could conceivably have the most to lose if things went south. He’s the one who brought in the investors. I’m sure those investors aren’t happy that something has happened that might cost them their investment.”

  “A lawsuit that seems to point toward negligence would do that.”

  “Exactly. Still, Piney’s firm is representing the defendants. Even if he had proof of misconduct on the part of the contractor, developer, or others, it seems as if attorney/client confidentiality would prevent him from sharing what he knows. There has to be something else going on. Something that would lend itself to an act of rage. That’s the only thing that really makes sense given the timing of the murder.”

  Houston sat back in his chair. “I suspect one or more of the group have an idea who the killer might be. I need to find a way to get them to open up about whatever they’re obviously trying to hide.”

  I stood up and paced around the room. “What if you lie? What if you speak to each man separately, and during the course of that interview, we tell each one that Piney has been murdered and he’s been fingered by his friends as the killer? That might cause one of them to spill it if they know something.”

  “Sure, if they’ve never watched a cop show on TV. Seems contrived, and these men are both smart and sophisticated.”

  I sat back down. “I guess you’re right. If they’re all in on this, they probably have their stories down pat. What about physical evidence on Piney’s body? Might he have struggled with the person who killed him? Maybe there’s DNA evidence under his fingernails.”

  “The medical examiner is looking for that, and the crime lab is going over the clothes he was wearing. If there’s evidence, they’ll find it, but so far, they’re coming up dry.”

  It seemed finding out who killed Piney was both easy and complicated at the same time. On one hand, we only had five suspects, which would seem to make finding the killer easier than some cases Houston and I had worked on together. On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be a way to conclusively identify which man was the killer, and the fact that all the men seemed to be lying was making it even harder to herd out the guilty party. Reggie as the killer made a lot of sense, but I was far from feeling confident about that conclusion. The whole thing was giving me a headache. I glanced at Kojak, who was still curled up next to Houston’s feet. “Do you still want to go out?”

  “Yeah, let’s go. Maybe the fresh air will clear my mind.”

  I’d decided it was time to try a long-distance retrieval with Kojak, so I’d had Wyatt walk a route I provided that would take us deep into the woods. At the end of the trail, he’d left clothes he’d worn recently. I also had several pieces of clothing with his scent on them that I’d have Houston use to provide Kojak with the scent he was to follow. The dog was doing so well, I felt he was ready for this test despite his young age.

  I handed Houston the plastic bag with Wyatt’s undershirt in it. “Today we’re looking for Wyatt. Or at least Wyatt’s clothes. You’ll provide Kojak with the scent and then tell him to find Wyatt, just like we did on shorter retrievals. Wyatt walked the route I gave him before I showed up at your place, so the scent should be fresh.”

  “What if he heads on the wrong direction?” Houston asked.

  “We’ll give him a minute to self-correct. If he doesn’t, you’ll give him the scent and the command to find Wyatt again. If he still can’t find the correct direction, you’ll provide a hint to get him going. Ready?”

  Houston nodded. He looked as nervous as Kojak looked excited. I understood that. I remembered being nervous about Yukon’s first big test when Jake was helping me train him.

  Houston took the undershirt out of the bag. “Kojak, this is Wyatt. We need to find Wyatt.” He let the dog take a good long sniff. “Find Wyatt.”

  Kojak snif
fed the air and the ground and then took off to the north. Houston glanced at me. I nodded. It was important for Houston not to know the location of the clothes so he didn’t unintentionally provide subtle clues to Kojak that wouldn’t be available to him in a real rescue.

  Kojak traveled for about a quarter mile in the correct direction before he paused and looked around. I almost laughed at his expression, which seemed to say he suddenly had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. “Give him the scent and the command to find Wyatt again,” I told Houston.

  He took the shirt out of the bag. “Kojak, this is Wyatt. Find Wyatt.”

  Kojak took another good sniff, then sniffed the area for a couple of minutes. Eventually, he continued on his way. Houston looked at me once again, and once again, I nodded. The dog was nailing this test. It wouldn’t be long before our two-dog search-and-rescue team would have three dogs. It was important to have as many dog and human rescue teams as we could manage to train. During the worst storms of the season, it wasn’t unheard of to have two or even three rescues going on at the same time. The most dangerous storms seemed to come early in the season, storms that came at the end of a day that had started off sunny. Storms that left hikers and skiers unprepared for the change in weather most never saw coming.

  When Kojak was less than a quarter mile away from the spot where I’d had Wyatt leave the clothes, he stopped walking. He sniffed the air, then began to growl. Houston looked at me and asked what he should do. I was about to tell him to give Kojak the scent again when I had a flash.