This Dog for Hire

last month, fell in the ring and died just minutes later in the ambulance on the way to S;. Vincent’s Hospital, a representative of the Westminster Kennel Club said. Pending autopsy. the presumed cause of death was heart failure.
Mr. Gilmore, 47, of Greensboro, North Carolina, had been a professional handler for twenty-three years. He is survived by his wife, Marjorie, and his parents, Lloyd and Ellen Gilmore of Charlotte.

    I called Marty.
    “Shapiro. How goes it?”
    “Could be worse. How’s your case coming? I was going to give you a buzz. Rach, about that question you asked me, whether or not the victim hat semen in his anus.”
    “And?”
    “He didn’t.”
    I knew I’d be looking for clues there one day!
    “I saw in the paper Magritte’s handler died of a heart attack. Bummer. Was he heavy?“
    “This is why I’m calling, Marty. I got a call from the client, late last night. It wasn’t as the papers reported it.”
    “So what else is new?”
    “Marty, it was cyanide. He was murdered.”
    “No shit. Is this connected to your case, you think, or coincidental?”
    “I thought he was our man until I heard how he bought it.”
    I told Marty what I had found out about Gil and the frozen semen business, and about all the loose threads that were driving me crazy.
    “Be careful, Rachel.”
    “Hey, listen to you, playing with bombs day in and day out, the man tells me to be careful.”
    “You know something, kid, I feel much safer the seven years I’ve been doing this than I ever did the eleven I was on the street in uniform. At least no one’s taking potshots at me now. Say, how’s my boy Dashiell? He do okay on yesterday’s menu?”
    “Dog has a cast-iron stomach, Marty. Thanks for helping out.”
    “Hey, anytime, Rach. You know, the article upset a few of the guys. The heart thing. We fucking live on doughnuts around here. They’re pretty high in cholesterol, aren’t they?”
    “What am I, a fucking nutritionist? Read the box. It’s all there, in black and white.”
    When I hung up, I remembered one time when I w as talking to Marty and he was gesturing with a Powdered doughnut in his hand, the sugar falling everywhere, quietly, like snow. Dashiell’s head followed the doughnut’s every move, as if he were watching the ball at a tennis match.
    Exactly the way the dogs in the ring watch the bait.
    Now I knew what wouldn’t stop tugging at a corner of my mind, like a terrier peeling a tennis ball. I ran upstairs to my desk and started leafing through the Cole file. They had even called the piece “Witness to Murder.” Magritte’s picture accompanied it, his brow wrinkled, his dark eyes so alert.
    I read through the article quickly—artist dead, witness found, artist’s dog, undiscovered genius. Dr. Shelbert, Tracy Nevins, bingo!
    “As to whether or not Magritte could finger his master’s killer, Nevins was quoted as saying, ‘Definitely,’ ” giving the killer his motive.
    “ ‘We are still planning on having Magritte compete at Westminster on Tuesday,’ Kenton added. ‘Clifford would have wanted him to be there.’ ”
    The poison was in the bait.
    I was so blinded by what I knew that I hadn’t seen the simple truth.
    Morgan Gilmore had been murdered by accident.
    The poison had been meant for Magritte!
    The article even included the whereabouts of the potential victim, giving the murderer a perfect blueprint from which to work.
    If Magritte was the intended victim, whoever had tried to kill him knew by now he had failed. Gil’s death, though the cause was misreported, had been all over the news last night and was in all the papers this morning.
    That was no pervert in the john. It was the killer.
    He was out to try again, and now he knew Magritte was with me.
    It was tunnel vision, thinking the cyanide was meant for Gil. Just because we knew the practices at dog shows, it was the only way we were able to see the crime.
    But the most logical and obvious conclusion, which we never thought of, was that if you want to kill a dog, you poison something he’s going to eat. A five-year-old could have seen this clearly.
    I added Mike’s name to the blackboard. He had the key. Here was someone else who knew how Cliff felt about his dog. Maybe he had a motive, too. I’d have to call him. His number would be in Clifford’s address book, which I had copied.
    There were too many people I hadn’t spoken to. Now was the time to change all that. I ran back downstairs, double-locked