Wailing sirens on my end made it impossible to hear what Jenx said next. I assumed that the EMTs had loaded Ramona aboard the ambulance and were heading to the nearest hospital. Probably in Elkhart.
By the time I could hear again, Jenx had disconnected. MacArthur was still with me, his considerable bulk squeezed sideways between tidy rows of yellowing cornstalks. He hadn’t yet answered my question about Kori. So I asked him again where she had gone.
“She had an emergency,” he said.
“What kind of ‘emergency’?”
Given what I knew about Susan’s niece, I could imagine a wide range of crises, from scoring dope to stealing cars.
“Kori had to counsel her sponsoree.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She’s a sponsor in a step-program. The woman she sponsors was ‘right on the edge,’ so Kori gave her a reason to live.”
“Kori… advises people… how to fix their lives?” I couldn’t buy it.
MacArthur nodded. “She’s good. I heard her on the phone. Then she went off somewhere to talk in private.”
What kind of step-program would designate Kori as an advisor? Was there a self-help group for irresponsible women inclined to crash cars? And, if so, had Kori graduated?
Did MacArthur actually believe that story or expect me to? I wondered if the cleaner was determined to cover for Kori, even to the extent of bamboozling me. Was she that good a kisser?
Then I had a troubling thought: Kori currently lived with Susan and Liam. In Itasca. If she had a cell phone, it might have a 630 area code.
But why would Ramona call Kori? And even if she did, was the call relevant? I strained to imagine how Ramona’s phone conversation could be connected to her getting shot in the tush.
“MacArthur, you said you were inside the exhibit hall just before Silverado got loose. Did you see what happened?”
“Sorry, no. I do have a theory, however.”
I parted a couple cornstalks in order to lean closer. He cleared his throat.
“I believe Susan set it up. After Kori’s unexpected win in the show ring, Susan wanted to save face by making Kori look bad.”
“But why sacrifice her own championship dog?” I objected.
“You’re assuming Susan doesn’t know where her dog went.”
“Her dog is with my dog! And my dog is notorious for leading other dogs astray.”
“Here’s the thing,” MacArthur said. “Unlike you, Susan would want her dog back. Silverado is well trained and worth considerable money. I suspect that he had an objective.”
“We all saw his ‘objective’! He wanted Abra!”
“I mean, Silverado may have been coached to run somewhere specific. Think about it, Whiskey. In the commotion surrounding Ramona, nobody followed the dogs.”
“Matt did-“ I began. And then I got it. “Matt is on Susan’s side. Nobody’s on Kori’s side.”
MacArthur said, “It’s a theory.”
“Back up. I need to know how you met Kori.”
He smiled innocently. “I’m here to guard you and Susan-and those close to you and Susan. Kori is Susan’s niece, so I’m guarding her. And now, if you’ll excuse me, duty calls.”
Kori was about as close to Susan as Avery was to me. But MacArthur might have missed that irony. Not because he was dim, but because he was a man. He turned away, crashing noisily through the corn. Was he heading back the way we’d come? I didn’t think so, but I’d already lost track.
Fortunately I didn’t get lost, and I didn’t follow MacArthur, either. For once in my life, I trusted my own instincts. I started back the way I thought I’d come and soon heard a voice raised in anger. I stopped to listen and instantly recognized the voice as Susan Davies’.
“What do you mean, it was an ‘e-mer-gen-cy’?” She separated the syllables as if translating from a foreign language. “I’m not interested in your excuses!”
There was no other voice. And nothing more from Susan. I was still too deep in the corn to see beyond the stalks in front of me. Had I overheard the tail end of a one-sided phone conversation? Was she yelling at Kori or belittling someone else? I waited a few moments for her to either speak again or be gone. Then I emerged from the field.
Blood soaked the grass where Ramona Bowden had fallen. Although I tried not to see the dark red stain, I couldn’t ignore it. My stomach clenched and gurgled in response. Everyone, including Susan, had departed. Would Perry Stiles insist that the show must go on?
I needed to speak with him about several issues, starting with the little matter of returning Yoda, a.k.a. Boomgarden, to his rightful owner. That would break Peg Goh’s heart. Now that the damned Devon rex was tattooed on her arm, she’d have a permanent reminder of the pet she’d only briefly been allowed to love. I hoped that Perry would find a way to make her sacrifice bearable. Selfishly, I also hoped he’d tell me who among those present might have had a motive to kill Mitchell Slater and injure Ramona Bowden.
Before my Walk of Shame was aborted, Perry had suggested we meet at the concession stand. He might be there now since it was the most likely gathering place for agitated attendees. I, for one, was in urgent need of refreshment, both to keep up my strength and to shut up my growling tummy.
With a dog missing and a breeder wounded, the event chairperson had to feel like the kid with his finger in the leaking dike. Pretty much how I felt at that moment. Or at any moment when Abra was out of control.
Rounding the building on my way to the side entrance, I nearly collided with my former nanny Deely Smarr. Trained by the Coast Guard in Damage Control, that was precisely what she was doing now. For the Other Side. First and foremost, Deely was a Flegger. She was also in love with Dr. David, so her role here was to disrupt the dog show. Posted at the propped-open side door, Deely used a megaphone to blast an antispeciesist message into the exhibit hall.
“What if human beauty pageants were like dog shows? Think about it! The judges could check out any part of your anatomy. And they would make you jog around the ring, naked! You would have to prove you had the ‘right’ heritage to be considered beautiful. Could any of you be ‘best in show?”
Deely had a point. An obscure and irrelevant point as far as this crowd was concerned. She was still holding the megaphone to her lips when I tapped her shoulder and suggested she step away from the door before someone called Security. Someone like Perry Stiles.
Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I spun around to face Kori Davies. She looked past me at Deely.
“You got cojones, sister! I like your style.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” replied Deely.
Hastily I made the introductions. “Kori, this is Deely Smarr, former Coast Guard nanny and founding Flegger. Deely, this is Kori Davies. She’s… um-”
“I’m a Bad Example,” Kori said. “But I have way more fun than those tight-asses.”
She indicated the people in the arena… who were moving rapidly toward us. Like a lynch mob.
“Silverado ran away,” I told Kori. “With Abra.”
“Yeah. I heard.”
Kori blew a whopping big pink bubble. Angry Afghan hound fanciers, led by Perry Stiles, were closing in on us; I could almost see the whites of their eyes. Standing between Deely the protestor and Kori the rogue handler suddenly seemed like a bad idea.
Deely spoke into her megaphone again: “We come in peace, but we stand in opposition! We see you for who you are: two-legged animals enslaving four-legged animals! Repent now! Set your fellow creatures free!”
“You don’t really mean that, do you?” I whispered. “If they set the dogs free, they’d be strays.”
“Not ‘strays,’” Deely corrected me. “Independents. Animals in possession of their full rights and privileges.”
“Yeah, well, Abra and her brand-new beau are ‘independents’ already. They set themselves free.”
“I know,” Deely said. “Dr. David and I saw them run by while we were setting up.”
Before I could ask which way they had gone, Kori tugged on Deely’s arm.
“Perry Stiles is gonna throw your ass in the slammer!”
“Not if I can help it, ma’am. I’m wearing running shoes.”
“Me, too,” Kori said. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
I waved at Perry, and then I ran, too.