Ricci was looking past him through the door at the head of an enormous, large-boned German shepherd.
“Long as your friend won’t mind,” he said, nodding at the dog.
Anagkazo smiled.
“Bach’s fine,” he said. “Won’t bother anybody who doesn’t bother me.”
They followed him into a living room with a strong Southwestern feel — earth-toned geometric patterns on the rugs and upholstery, hand-crafted solid-wood furniture. The shepherd trailed behind them, waited for Anagkazo to lower himself into his chair, and stretched out beside him, nuzzling a leather chew toy on the floor.
“It must’ve been quite a ride for you out of San Jose,” Anagkazo said. “I can put up some fresh coffee…”
“Thanks, we’re okay,” Ricci said. “I’d kind of like to get right to why we came.”
Anagkazo shrugged. He waited.
“We’ve been trying to get some information about black longhaired shepherds,” Ricci said. “From what we hear, you’re the only local person who breeds them. And gives them Schutzhund training.”
Anagkazo nodded.
“At every level,” he said, “including specialized training. I’ve been at it a while, and about sixty percent of my business nowadays is with police and fire departments all around the country… I’m very proud of that.”
And the pride looked real. As did his friendly, helpful demeanor. Ricci had studied his face and body language for any changes and seen none indicating he might be on the defensive.
“So, what sort of questions have you got?” Anagkazo said. “I need to tell you right off there’s a wait on long-coated sables.”
“They’re that popular?” Glenn said.
Anagkazo shrugged.
“It isn’t really about popularity for me.” He reached down over the armrest of his chair and scratched his dog’s neck. “Black-and-reds like Bach here are very well established lines in this country, and we’ve got a wide pool of sires and dams. But I just introduced the sables a few years ago — four generations into it now — and I don’t want to risk overbreeding my stock. That’s how you pass along congenital diseases, temperament problems, a whole bunch of weaknesses you’d rather see go away.” A pause. “A dog has to be at least a year and a half old to qualify for basic Schutzhund classification. There’s a litter of blacks due in January, plus two sixteen-month-olds that are almost ready for placement and have full deposits on them. Which is too bad—”
Ricci broke in. “You sell any lately?”
“That’s just what I was about mention,” Anagkazo said. He was still scratching his shepherd. “If you’re interested in blacks I’d have to say this is crummy timing. The deposit on the pair of dogs came a few days ago from a big-time movie director who’s got a South Hampton estate in New York. And I sold my only other three beauties a couple weeks back to a photographer who’s staying right over on the Peninsula… well, actually, drove out and delivered them to his cabin, way off the beaten path in Big Sur country. Three dogs. Some guys who work for him had prepaid last month. I guess while he was getting settled into the place.”
Ricci looked at him.
“He have a name?”
“Estes,” Anagkazo said. “Nothing confidential. He’s new in the country, I think… from Europe.”
Ricci kept looking at him.
“Where in Europe?”
“Didn’t say. Or I don’t remember him saying, anyway. But I got the sense he’s one of those people who’s lived everywhere. Money to spend, you know. Has an accent you can’t place… sort of a worldly mix, reminded me of how Yul Brynner, the actor, used to sound. It’s why he could play the part of a pharaoh, the king of Siam, or a Mexican bandit, and it always seemed believable.”
Ricci felt something unnameable rear inside him. Felt its teeth.
“The photographer,” he said. His eyes were on the breeder’s face. “Describe him to me.”
Anagkazo straightened a little in his chair. The curiosity he’d first shown at the door had become laced with a certain unease.
“Square chinned. Tall. Strong-looking… a real hard-body type.” He moved his hand up from his shepherd’s neck to his armrest. “Has this fella done anything wrong?”
Ricci’s jaw muscles worked. It was as though, suddenly, his brain had locked around whatever words he might have given in answer, perhaps even his ability to articulate any response at all.
Glenn glanced his way, saw his fixed expression, and turned toward Anagkazo.
“John,” he said. “You’d better tell us exactly where we can find him.”
Thibodeau had spent the morning at his desk answering phone calls, but as each hour passed he had grown increasingly convinced the one call he’d been hoping for wouldn’t come.
When his latest jump at the receiver proved him wrong, he immediately found himself wondering whether to be glad or sorry.
“Ricci. Where’re you now—?”
“Never mind,” Ricci said. “All you need to worry about’s what I tell you.”
“I been leaving messages on your voice mail, waiting to hear from you for hours,” Thibodeau chafed. “Same goes for Megan—”
“Save it and listen.”
Thibodeau reddened. “We got Erickson poking around, trouble piled on top ‘a trouble. And you act like keepin’ in touch be something gonna stunter you—”
“You want to find Julia Gordian and the murdering scum you like to call the Wildcat, you better shut up and listen.”
Thibodeau fell silent, breathing hard. After Erickson had phoned him that morning to ask questions about a break-in at the animal clinic, he’d immediately known Ricci was in it up to his neck… known and only wanted some sort of accounting before he could hang that miserable neck from a rope. But he’d taken care not to alert the detective. Even in his anger, he’d wondered if Ricci might have found something to go on.
Julia, he thought. The Wildcat… le Chaut Sauvage.
Thibodeau would not in his wildest stretch of imagination have believed he would hear them mentioned in the same sentence.
“Go on,” he said. He was almost panting now. “Can’t waste time.”
“I’m headed to Big Sur. It’ll take me maybe an hour to get up there, and I’ll need support. Ed Seybold from my old team. Newell and Perry if you can get hold of them. Maybe a half a dozen other men, but no more… have Seybold pick the rest.”
Thibodeau swallowed. “Big Sur cover a lot of ground, you gonna narrow it down—?”
“Just make sure those men are pulled together, I’ll be in touch with you,” Ricci interrupted.
And then the line went dead in Thibodeau’s hand.
Siegfried Kuhl was pensive.
Looking out through his terrace doors into the rain, watching it spill down the precipitous wall of the cliff in windblown whirls and ripples, his mind had returned to his abduction of the robin who was now bound to a chair across the room from him, his mind bringing him back to the moment Lido had been attacked by the greyhound.
The bite had done little to injure the Schutzhund, its thick coat preventing the other dog’s teeth from sinking too deeply into its flesh. And Kuhl had been quick to finish things with his weapon. Yet he had wondered ever since if the true harm might have been to his plans, occurring the moment the animals made contact.
The dead flesh and bones of the dog he had shot — might it not hold clues that could eventually lay a path to him? He had been unable to dismiss the thought that there might be blood, fur, or other traceable physical evidence that could identify the shepherd. It was an uncommon creature, after all. And if the evidence were direct enough, and the breeder Anagkazo spoke to those in search of Gordian’s daughter…