Doug Allyn - v108 n03-04_1996-09-10

As the car moved out of the inky shadows and the road began to climb, Inspector Opuu indicated the gendarmerie with a nod of his head. “Why don’t you let them look for your missing dog? They never seem particularly busy to me.” As a member of the police judiciaire of the city of Papeete, Inspector Opuu was not overly fond of the national police, who came mostly from France and whose jurisdiction began outside the city limits.

“Too busy climbing through the mountains looking for plantations of pot,” grunted the chief of police. “Besides — this one is in town, so it’s our jurisdiction.”

“Who does this dog belong to, anyway, the President of the French Republic?” The Citroen was moving carefully along the narrow twisting road cut into the dark red earth of the hillside. Below they could catch occasional glimpses of Papeete through the thick green blanket of trees that swept down from the mountains. A few taller buildings ringed the edge of the U-shaped harbor, while out against the Pacific a small plane could be seen lifting off the runway of Faaa International Airport and climbing up across the jagged backdrop of the neighboring island of Mooréa. “Either that, or it’s Lassie.”

Alexandre Tama snorted, then pulled an enormous red bandanna from his pants and ran it across the drops of sweat that were already beading his forehead. He reached out to turn up the air-conditioning. “This dog’s even more valuable than Lassie. Can’t you guess? It’s the sniffer.”

“The sniffer? What—”

“The dog our dear colleagues in the customs service use to sniff out dope at the airport.”

“Ah,” murmured Inspector Opuu, “that dog. Now it begins to make sense.”

“I’m so glad you agree with me. Just keep going until we come to the top of the crest. There should be a sign by the road where the handler lives. Blanchard is the name.”

The road had narrowed still further and the pavement was badly broken. Most of the houses were behind them; ahead loomed the towering volcanic mountains of the interior, their peaks shrouded in dark clouds. Mango and ironwood trees clustered along the road, and an occasional house could be glimpsed behind thick hedges of hibiscus and false-coffee.

“This is where the dog was stolen from?” asked Inspector Opuu. “Not out at the airport?”

“Here. Didn’t you see that article about him in the papers? Or on TV?”

“I didn’t pay much attention. I don’t like German shepherds — I was bitten by one once.”

The Commissaire snorted. “The canine’s revenge! Just deserts for all his poor cousins you used to eat up there in the Tuamotus. Anyway, if you bothered to keep up with the news instead of wasting your time playing pétanque with all of your lazy cronies, you’d know all about this particularly noble specimen of man’s best friend. Although I must say,” admitted Tama, “that I myself always thought the only really useful purpose dogs served was to sniff out truffles—”

“I thought that was pigs.”

“— dogs, too. But that show on television convinced me otherwise. They really can find heroin and cocaine wrapped up in all sorts of containers or plastic foam and hidden in the middle of boxes and suitcases. At least they can in France and New Zealand, which is where this particular dog comes from. I don’t know if this one has found anything at Faaa yet.”

“God knows there’s enough of it coming through,” muttered Inspector Opuu as he came to a halt to scrutinize a faded sign mostly hidden by a tangle of hibiscus bushes bursting with white and pink blossoms. “Does that look like it might say Blanchard?”

“Close enough. Drive on in.” Inspector Opuu got out of the car to push open a sliding gate, then maneuvered the Citroen into the neatly tended garden beyond. The driveway ended in a carport attached to a small concrete-block house of recent construction painted a bright pink. Violet and scarlet bougainvillea climbed up one wall and across a covered porch that ran the length of the house and offered a fine view of Mooréa and of the mountains on the west side of Tahiti.

At the sound of the car a slim young man dressed in the khaki-colored uniform of the customs service moved out of the shadows of the porch and strode briskly into the harsh glare of the late-morning sunlight.

“You’re Monsieur Blanchard?” asked Tama as he pulled himself from the Citroen with the aid of a six-inch length of steel tubing welded to the fender just in front of the passenger’s door.

“Oui, Monsieur le Commissaire.” Blanchard was a demi-Tahitien in his late twenties, with wavy black hair and a complexion of pale ivory. His Adam’s apple was nearly as long and bony as his hawklike nose.

“My adjunct, Inspector Opuu.” The three men shook hands, then climbed into the dark shade of the porch. Sliding glass doors opened onto the living room and, further along the porch, onto what Tama supposed were bedrooms. He scowled at the open doors and the cheerful disorder of the living room. “Did you keep this dog here in the house with you?”

Blanchard’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Oh no, sir. He’s a very nice dog, but he has his own quarters out back. It was supposed to be safer that way.”

“For you, or the dog?” muttered Tama as they followed Blanchard along the porch and around the side of the house. Here a large kennel had been carefully constructed against the cement wall of the house using three-inch galvanized pipes and heavy cyclone fencing. The fencing was set into concrete footings; it extended as well across the top of the enclosure, just beneath a sloping wooden roof. The sole door into the kennel was made of the same sturdy pipe and fencing and was secured with a massive brass padlock.

Tama and Opuu stepped closer to peer into the shady kennel. A large wooden doghouse stood in one corner, with a water dish and a food dish just before it. The floor of the yard was of poured concrete sloping towards a drain in the center; a coiled hose was attached to a faucet against the house. Two well-gnawed leg-of-lamb bones and half a loaf of crusty French bread lay nearby.

“All the comforts of home,” observed Tama. “How many people know the combination of the padlock?”

“That’s what I thought when I first saw he was gone,” said Blanchard, “but look over here.” They moved around to the far side of the kennel, but even then, standing in the deep shade, it took Tama a moment to spot where the fencing had been neatly snipped open in two directions to form a large flap.

“And they’ve wired it together again with baling wire,” said Inspector Opuu.

“So it wouldn’t be so noticeable,” agreed Tama. “I can’t believe that many Tahitians would bother to do that. If they wanted the dog they’d just come in and get him.”

Inspector Opuu snorted sceptically. “Every Tahitian I know is like me — scared to death of dogs, especially big ones. The dogs smell the fear and bark like crazy. I don’t think any Tahitians could get near this cage without the dog going crazy.”

But as Tama discovered by walking slowly around Blanchard’s property, the house was almost totally isolated by its position against the hillside. The slope fell away so sharply that it was nearly impossible to build here; the closest neighbor was more than a hundred yards away and totally cut off from sight by the curve of the hill and a dense cluster of bourau trees.

Normally, Blanchard said, he worked Saturdays and Sundays, which were the days of heaviest traffic at the airport. This last weekend, however, his wife’s sister had gotten married at the far end of the island. Early Saturday morning he and his wife and two children had driven off for the wedding and subsequent feast. Afterwards they had spent the night at yet another sister’s home in the districts. The dog had been well supplied with food and water; when Blanchard had returned home late Sunday evening he had done nothing more than check that the door to the kennel was properly locked.