He strutted a little, going back to his truck.
Rod parked his sports car in the motel lot, handed Marian ceremoniously into the right front door of her car, went around and got behind the wheel.
Steering expertly with one arm, he drove his wife back to their party. She had been away from it for an hour and ten minutes.
Murder Slick as a Whistle
by Arthur Porges
Martin Calder said cheerfully, “Goering, you are going to kill your master for me.” The big, gentle Doberman, one hundred sixty pounds of loyalty and affection, whined. Whether this was because he objected to “Goering,” when his real name was Siegfried, or actually understood the implications of the threat against Tracy Benton, was known only to himself. Calder patted the sleek head, and the dog licked his hand.
“You may say ‘no,’” Calder murmured, “but Pavlov says ‘yes’ — and my money’s on the famous Muscovite. The fact is, Hermann, he knew more about your species than you do about his. Goering, my boy,” he added wryly, “you’re living proof that dumb animals have no better intuition than people. If they did I’d be chewed to bits by now.”
Actually Calder had nothing against the dog, which belonged to his brother-in-law. If he called him by so obnoxious a name, it was merely to annoy Tracy Benton, who hated the idea. As an excuse, Calder had drawn Tracy’s attention to the Doberman’s excess poundage, for certainly the animal was overfed.
“Siegfried, my eye,” Calder had jibed some months earlier. “That hound looks more like Hermann Goering. He has the same fat-jowled, piglike face. All he needs is a gaudy uniform and eight pounds of medals.”
This was a fair return, Calder felt, for having to endure Tracy’s choice of music on the hi-fi. It was the kind of music, he complained sourly to Elsie, his sister, that made Sir Adrian Boult. Elsie didn’t get it, but the joke relieved Calder’s feelings.
Considering that Calder consistently sponged off her, his patronizing, thinly-veiled contempt for her slow-wittedness was hardly courteous; but until Tracy entered the picture, things had been perfect. Here was Calder’s sister, a pretty but brainless woman, recently widowed, and the owner of a quarter of a million dollars in income property, inherited from her first husband. It was not surprising that she had turned to her brother for help in managing this bonanza, and he had lived high on the hog for two years, pocketing a very unfair share of the profits. Since Elsie experienced difficulty in comprehending the economics of a one-cent sale, it had been ridiculously easy.
But then along had come Tracy Benton, a pleasant, charming bachelor, an accountant by profession, and Elsie had leaped into his eager arms as if jet-propelled. Before Calder realized that they were past the hand-shaking stage he was on the outside looking in, and the gravy train had been derailed.
No longer manager, he was merely an object of charity, permitted to live with the newlyweds, but on no better terms than Siegfried himself. He should have been grateful that Benton had refrained from exposing his criminal juggling of the books, but Martin Calder was not the grateful type.
But all that was about to change now, because Calder had an ingenious mind and few scruples. He intended to make Elsie a widow again. It was almost poetic justice. The dog, which both of them seemed to prefer to him, would bring about the death of Benton.
All Calder needed was a week or two alone with the animal, and that was in the offing right now. Tracy and his wife were leaving for New York on what Elsie liked to refer to as a “second honeymoon” and Calder would be left with Siegfried for at least a fortnight, which should give him plenty of time to complete the task he had in mind.
The isolated house, high in the new Laguna Hills development, would be a perfect spot. Few of the new, plush homes there had been sold yet, and the Bentons had nearly five acres to themselves, the nearest neighbor being several streets away. There was the cleaning woman, of course, but she came only twice a week for a few hours, and would find nothing amiss.
Once the couple were safely on a jet for New York, Calder hastened to implement his murder plan. The first item was a silent whistle, the kind pitched too high for human ears, but readily heard by a dog. That was the easy part. He bought it a number of miles away. Not that such a purchase was inherently grounds for suspicion; hundreds were bought yearly. But he was careful not to purchase it at a local store.
Calder then proceeded to work on the dog’s collar, a stiff leather affair with heavy brass studs. Since it was well suited to his purpose, he saw no point in purchasing a collar of a different type, which he could easily have done. Using a long extension cord of tough rubber, he modified the collar just enough so that the studs could be electrified from any outlet. Now he was ready.
Calder put the dog into an inner room of the big house, chaining him to a heavy steel fixture that protruded from the brick fireplace. The chain was so short that no matter how violently Siegfried struggled, he could put no strain on the rubber extension cord itself.
Since Calder did not want the dog to associate him with its discomfort, he loosened the fuse controlling the room’s three outlets before plugging in the cord. Then he went down to the basement, blew a hard but noiseless blast on the whistle, and tightened the fuse.
There was a yelp of agony above him as the big dog, in severe pain from the current at his throat, tore madly at the chain. Calder could hear him barking, whining, and thrashing about. He inflicted ten seconds of torment on the animal, then loosened the fuse again. Allowing Siegfried a few moments in which to calm down, Calder went upstairs.
To his surprise, the dog obviously associated his reappearance with the cessation of pain, and seemed to regard him as a rescuer. It almost battered him to the floor with affectionate attentions. So much the better, Calder told himself. If the dog continued to prove so friendly in public, that fact alone would prevent anyone from suspecting the truth of their relationship.
Every day for three weeks Calder continued this training. The dog could never know in advance when the whistle would sound, a prelude to ten seconds or more of almost unendurable torture. Long before the time was up Pavlov had been vindicated, since Siegfried no longer even waited for the actual shock, but went into a terrible frenzy the moment he heard a blast. The beast even frothed at the mouth.
Then, when Calder came in a little later, the animal would greet him in a fit of wild joy and relief. There was no longer any doubt in his mind about the plan’s effectiveness. The timing was a problem, but there was no statute of limitations on that. He could repeat the conditioning until everything clicked.
As a final step, he tested the effect of distance. Siegfried had no trouble hearing the whistle from two hundred yards away.
When the Bentons returned from their trip, there was no outward evidence of Siegfried’s unpleasant new reflex. The cord was safely back among the tools. Only the whistle was left, hidden from view deep in Calder’s trouser pocket.
On the day after their return, Tracy was to visit Los Angeles, a hundred miles from the Laguna Hills development. He usually made the trip twice a month to check over the rental and the occasional resale of Elsie’s city property. An hour before his brother-in-law was supposed to leave, Calder climbed into his own car, a beat-up MG, and set out to lay his trap.
When Tracy came to the first turn-off on the freeway just west of the town, Calder was waiting on the shoulder. He spotted the big Buick on the inner and fastest lane. There could be no mistaking either the car or the huge dog sharing the front seat with the driver. Calder’s scheme depended upon this habit of Benton’s — taking Siegfried along on the Los Angeles drive.