Bessie Mae’S Dog: Dog Gone

By Sabra Kiani

Bessie Mae and Julia grew up together, became secretaries and married; Bessie Mae to a lawyer who became a district court judge (who died of a heart attack as the story was beginning), Julia to the owner of a boutique. Julia had three children (the youngest, Aaron was a lawyer), and Bessie Mae had none so she and her husband became spare parents for Julias family. When Harold died, Julia suggested that Bessie Mae get a pet as a companion, and so the story began with Julia narrating.
Imagine a dirty, bedraggled waif of a puppy in an animal shelter as the central figure in a case of fraud, intellectual theft, murder and destruction of a major pharmaceutical companys laboratory.
It wasnt his fault, but he was a central figure when a young researchers formula for a cure for certain types of cancer was stolen and patented by the owner of Rogitech Labs. When it became apparent that the formula was valid but would need at least two years work before FDA approval, Weldon, the owner of the labs, decided he needed money now and sold spaces on the list of people who would get first dibs on the formula to those who had no other chance for survival. The treasurer Jeffrey Katz was aware that money was being siphoned off but had no way to prove it. He was told to make a second set of books that would show massive increases in costs to the lab, but he had no paperwork to back it up and assumed that he was being set up and was planning to get out. He was also aware that the formula that was supposed to be costing so much belonged to the young man who had brought it in and wasnt aware that Weldon had patented it as belonging to Rogitech. When it became clear to Weldon that his dream of instant money was two years in the future, he decided to take what he had already scammed and get out after, making it look like Olaf Dalgren, the oncologist he had hired to do the work, had destroyed the lab and run off with the money. That worked until the body of the man was found in a Dumpster twenty-two miles away, but Weldon was gone by then, and Katz was on the hook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466933552

Sabra Kiani

She is trained in psychology, has experience in hospitals both as a nursing assistant and as an administrator. The mother of five, she has suffered misscarriage as well as the death of a child at birth. At present, she teaches children to read in a village in South America.

Book preview

Bessie

Mae’s

Dog

DOG GONE

Sabra Kiani

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© Copyright 2012 Sabra Kiani.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3354-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-3355-2 (e)

Trafford rev. 05/18/2012

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Contents

Book 1

Chapter 1  How It Started

Chapter 2  Aaron Sorts Things Out

Chapter 3  Identification; Puppies and Katz

Chapter 4  A Change of Family Venue

Chapter 5  Poppy Tales

Chapter 6  Noah’s Answers

Chapter 7  Weldon’s Last Stand

Chapter 8  The Last Word

Chapter 9  Sorting It Out

Chapter 10  Do We Know ‘Who Done It’?

Book 2

Chapter 1  Settling In

Chapter 2  New Beginnings

Chapter 3  On our Way

Chapter 4  A Picture is Worth More Than Words

Chapter 5  A Successful Interview

Chapter 6  Surprise! Surprise!

Chapter 7  Like Dominoes Falling

Chapter 8  The New Judge

About the Author

Book 1

Chapter 1

How It

Started

Bessie Mae’s dog disappeared—just like that! One minute he was snuffling around under some bushes in the park and the next he was gone. Bessie and I were talking about the piles of paper work we’d been plowing through and we weren’t paying much attention to Poppy. Yes, that’s his name! Stupid name for a male dog if you ask me but Bessie Mae didn’t, so that’s his name. When we decided it was time to go home for lunch she called Poppy, come to mama baby, but he didn’t come. We looked all over the little playground and asked kids and parents if they’d seen him. No one had and that kind of surprised me because even if I think she makes too much of him, he is a cute little thing; a Lhasa Apso, and people usually notice him and want to pet him. We walked all around the park with Bessie almost in tears calling him but no Poppy appeared.

Bessie got Poppy when she lost her husband. Well, she didn’t lose him, he died. Just plopped down on the couch after dinner and sort of gasped and then he just sat there looking like he was frozen. My husband, Joseph was on a buying trip so I was there for dinner and being the only one with their wits about them, I called 911. An ambulance and a police car came right away—probably because Harold was a very important district court judge. The emergency medical team checked him over and pronounced him dead and took him away. The police asked us a lot of questions about his health, what he ate, and did he have any allergies—although at this point I can’t see why that would matter. What were they going to do? Give him a last supper? Later I found out that if people have certain food allergies they can have a bad reaction that will kill them. How was I supposed to know that?

Anyway, we buried Harold and Bessie just couldn’t stand living in that big house alone so after a few days I suggested a cat. Bessie got very huffy with me at that, Is that how you see me, as a silly old woman surrounded by dozens of cats?

I couldn’t let her go on like that, after all we’ve been best friends since we were in grade school so I said, Bessie, you’re too lonely, and since you never had any children and mine are too far away to share, why don’t you get a pet. You know they take pets to visit sick people all the time because they make them feel better. Now I know you’re not sick, but you are sad and lonely and it would give you something to care for and look after. What do you think; shall we go shopping at the animal shelter for some little creature that needs to be loved?

Well, Bessie thought about it for a bit and then went for her hat and I knew we were in business—but what business I was yet to find out.

I drove; Bessie has gotten used to having Harold drive all the time so she’ll need a little practice to get comfortable behind the wheel again. She can drive all right but she hasn’t had much chance since she and Harold got married and that’s been quite a while—not quite horse and buggy days but not too far from it.

We arrived at the SPCA shelter at feeding time so it was quieter than usual. We looked around. There were all kinds of animals—all sizes and shapes too and I asked Bessie if she saw anything interesting. She kept going back to a cage with a little dog with long, tangled, not very clean hair that was curled up in a corner not eating his food. He looked sick to me and I tried to get Bessie’s attention elsewhere but she was completely captivated by that poor little specimen of an ‘almost’ dog. She finally asked the girl who was feeding the animals if she could hold him. The girl said, Sure, but he’s just been brought in so be careful that he doesn’t get away from you. She opened the cage and Bessie reached inside and picked up that quivering little bundle of bones and hair.

You poor baby, she crooned to him. The pup just looked up at her and snuggled down in her arms with an audible sigh.

That’s all she wrote, that puppy was home free and Bessie was in love with the first tiny creature that had ever needed her in her life.

He needs a bath and grooming, said the girl who knew a done deal when she saw one. There’s a grooming place just down the street called ‘Pups Paradise’, they’re good and quite reasonable.

Of course, that’s exactly where we went and I was more than surprised when that dirty, tangled mess of a pup turned out to be a very pretty, silky haired Lhasa Apso and apparently a ‘purebred’. The groomer sold Bessie a special comb for keeping the dog’s undercoat combed out so he wouldn’t get all tangled again. I never knew dogs had ‘undercoats’ but these dogs come from Tibet where its very cold and the long silky hair you see isn’t warm enough—hence the ‘undercoat’ you don’t see. It’s sort of like long johns for people but it gets matted and balls up if you don’t keep it combed out.

Back to the original subject; Bessie has had Poppy for a little while now and treats him like her baby—and believe me Poppy loves it. He’s a pretty brave little guy, though; one day we were walking down the street and a man with one of those big Irish wolfhounds came towards us and I said, Bessie, you’d better pick Poppy up or he’s likely to be that big guys lunch. Before she could even bend down Poppy marched right up to this towering grey creature and barked at him once, brave as could be. I was thinking, Oh, oh, goodbye Poppy, but the big guy backed up and sort of stepped aside as we passed. I was impressed and surprised to hear Poppy bark because he usually doesn’t—bark I mean.

Enough about Poppy, I was going to tell you about Bessie and me. We both grew up in fairly normal families with brothers and sisters to fight with and share with and mothers and fathers with the usual problems of housing and feeding and educating all those children. We both went to Community College and learned how to be efficient secretaries. I went to work for an accountant and Bessie took a ‘position’ with a law firm—which is where she met Harold Alford. He was a young and rising attorney and she was assigned to the desk that took care of secretarial work for three of the young lawyers.

Sometimes working on cases that go to court takes more than the usual 9 to 5 day so Bessie would work late and then whoever she was working for would send out for food and they’d have dinner in the office then get back to work. It seemed she worked with Harold most of the time and they became a good team; she learned to know what information he would need and he learned to depend on her. That’s how they got started—as a good team—and eventually they decided to make it permanent and they married.

Bessie continued to work with Harold and as he rose in the firm, so did she. He became a partner and she became his Executive Assistant.

Me—I didn’t marry the accountant but one of his regular clients asked me out several times and we made a good pair so we eventually got married too. Joseph had a small but fancy dress shop called, ‘J. Masoni’s Chic Boutique’ and I ended up as his business manager using all the things I learned on my first job. Bessie and I saw each other regularly for lunch and after Joseph and Harold became friends we all went out for an evening on occasion until I started popping babies—three in all, Sharon, Miriam and Aaron.

I still worked but did more of the book work at home since I didn’t like to leave my kids with someone else if I could help it. After they went off to school I went back to work with Joseph during school hours and we were doing fine. By then we had a nice house in a good part of the city and a housekeeper who helped me generally with house and cooking and kids as needed—a very satisfactory arrangement.

Bessie and Harold had an even better house in a slightly nicer part of the city but we still remained friends—Joseph and I realized that a District judge had to make a good impression and that was what Harold was by then. He tried very important cases and sometimes there were people involved who were not very nice—you know, scary!

Sometimes Bessie and I talked about what was going on in Harold’s courtroom—it was always in the papers or on the TV—and we worried that possibly one of those scary guys or their friends might try to pressure Harold. He told us we were silly to worry about that because it was the prosecuting and defending attorneys, and finally, the jury, that made the difference between whether these guys went to jail or not.

He was right, of course. No one (that we knew of) ever tried to coerce him and he died of ordinary heart failure at the age of sixty three leaving Bessie a lonely but financially comfortable woman.

I helped Bessie clear up Harold’s things at home and in the office and believe me that was a job. Bessie, how in the world did you find your way around all this stuff? I’d have gone nuts trying to sort out these torts and affidavits and all these motions from the case lawyers. Can’t we just junk it all?

Heaven’s, no, Julie, I’ll have to go through all of this and make sure none of it is still needed for an ongoing case or one that’s up for appeal. It would be terrible if an important piece of information got lost and an innocent person suffered because of it.

That’s why we spent, I don’t know how many days, reading through reams of papers—most of which I frankly didn’t understand—and that’s how we happened to find the little note from Noah Conecki stuck in a folder with information on the Rogitech Company trial—still ongoing but delayed until another judge was appointed.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Noah Conecki; you know, the singer. I can’t imagine how he got involved in the Rogitech case unless he was doing singing commercials. We read the note and Bessie gasped, Look at this! It says that the formula that Rogitech built their business on was stolen.

I wasn’t impressed, What does that have to do with Noah Conecki and who stole it from them anyway? Is that what the case is about?

No, I mean yes, but it’s the other way around. Noah says THEY stole the formula from his brother and had it patented under their name. That’s how they made all that money and it isn’t even theirs! Bessie was wide-eyed, We need to tell someone about this right away."

Who should we tell it to? I asked, It was in Harold’s file so it should go to the judge and you said the new judge hasn’t been appointed yet.

Bessie nodded and made a little distressed sound, You’re right but I don’t quite feel right about having this here in the house—in case someone comes looking for it.

Who’s going to come looking for it—and what if they do? I asked, getting irritated with all the drama. Bessie was always a bit over the top when there were things she didn’t know how to deal with so, as usual, it was time for me to step in.

Should you tell the Lawyer defending Conecki? I suggested with all my TV learned law knowledge.

Bessie looked at me like I was crazy, There’s no lawyer defending Conecki. He has nothing to do with this case.

Now I didn’t get it, Then what does his note have to do with the Rogitech case and why did it send you into a snit?

Bessie sat down with a sigh, I’m sorry, Julie. I was so disturbed by this note that forgot that you don’t know what’s going on here. Have you ever heard of the Rogitech company?

Well, I read the papers and watch the news just like everybody else so I knew what most other people knew. They’re a new company that’s selling everyone on the idea that they can prolong life for people dying with incurable diseases if they buy their ‘miracle’ product that the FDA hasn’t yet approved, right?

More or less, agreed Bessie. The problem is that Rogitech is getting sick people to invest heavily in the business so they can finish their testing and get FDA approval to sell it. People who are scared for their lives have been buying into this and now one of those investors has died and the family is suing Rogitech because there wasn’t enough money left to properly care for the man while he was still living and now they can’t even afford to bury him properly.

I shook my head, Why did they invest in the first place? Surely he would have been able to get the treatment after they got approval to use it. Why sink all their money in this thing at all?

Bessie sighed and began to explain as if I was slow on the uptake, They said they needed the money to complete the testing the FDA requires before they will give their stamp of approval. They convinced people that the stuff worked. They gave it to an animal that had cancer and it was cured so lots of people who wanted to live but didn’t have much chance came on board to help and they signed a contract saying that if they contributed they would be first in line to get the treatment that everyone would want. The problem was that the money seems to have disappeared along with the Doctor who was doing the testing.

Wow, that’s pretty bad for all those sick people. Do they think he took the money?

They thought so, said Bessie, until his body showed up in a garbage dump fifteen miles away from the lab. Now they’re looking for the CEO who is conveniently out of the country.

I guess I’d better let you know what we found out later about the demise of the good Doctor. Doctor Olaf Dalgren was a reputable man deeply involved in the work of the Netherlands Oncology Research Institute. Oncology—that’s cancer. With the announcement of the opening of an oncology research program and a new miracle drug at Rogitech came an offer Dr. Dalgren couldn’t refuse; to head up the program. Until he was sure that this was possibly a true cure he didn’t want to sever all his ties to his previous work at the institute so he made arrangements to work with Rogitech until the formula was approved by the FDA. Then he would decide if he would stay on or hire the proper replacement personnel.

That sounds like a mystery story on TV, I contributed. What does this all have to do with the note from Noah Conecki? Do you think he killed the Doctor?? And if he did, how would that stop them from getting someone else?

Bessie said, I don’t know how much you’ve read about Conecki’s connections—his ‘family’—but they have a very unsavory reputation. Any way, if this note is important I’d better get it somewhere safe until I can give it to the proper person. What say you and I take a little trip to the bank and my safe deposit box.

I don’t have a safe deposit box so I went along to see what it was all about. I decided Bessie was right about keeping it safe and I wouldn’t want anyone coming after Bessie to get it. Best she doesn’t have it in the house.

After we went through all the rigmarole of getting into the ‘secret place’ and the box was out on the table I asked, Bessie, do you think those people actually know about the note? You could be in danger.

Bessie laughed, Those Conecki people wouldn’t hurt me. It’s the people from Rogitech I’d be worried about and I’m pretty sure they don’t know anything about the note. She tucked the note into a blank envelope and put it into the box and locked it back into its slot. "Now, I’m done with it. Let’s get Poppy and go out to the park.

I’d forgotten about Poppy in all the excitement of finding the note. That’s how it happened that we were in the park when Poppy disappeared and we couldn’t find him.

Later I asked, Bessie, what if they took Poppy to get at you—because of the note?

Bessie looked shocked, Why would anyone do that? I don’t think anyone knows about the note—or that I found it. Oh, God, do you think they’d hurt him?

My TV information kicked in again so I answered, What if they held him for ransom in exchange for the note.

Bessie gasped, You mean they might kill him if I didn’t give them the note? Oh, Julia, what am I going to do? The police would never believe such a thing unless I was really contacted and threatened. Oh, my poor puppy!

I could see that she was getting really upset so I suggested, Let’s go to your house and try to figure this out. Maybe we could come up with something to help us.

When we finally got there we sat down to try to think of some reason for Poppy to have disappeared—hopefully non-fatal. I sat Bessie down in her favorite chair in the living room and went to make tea. I spend almost as much time here as I do in my own house so I know where everything is. I made the tea and took it in to Bessie. She was sitting there fingering Poppy’s blanket and gazing off into the distance as if she might be able to see where he was.

Come on, honey, let’s have our tea and think of who might be able to help us—other than the police. Do you know any Private Eyes?

She brought her mind back into the room from wherever she had been wandering and looked surprised, Private who?

I mean private investigators, I told her detectives who might help us figure this out.

Bessie shook her head, What do you think they could figure out, Julia? Where my Poppy disappeared to? The note is in my safe deposit box and we don’t know if anyone else knows about it at all.

Well, what about the Conecki family? Wouldn’t they be interested in protecting the note? Maybe they’d help you.

Bessie gave an exasperated sigh, Why in the world would they want to help me find my dog? The note is safe and that’s the only thing they’d be interested in. Julia you watch too many TV mysteries. This is real life and I want my Poppy. She started to cry.

I felt real bad about that and I went over and put my arms around her shoulders, I’m sorry, Bessie. I’m just trying to help and this is the only way I know how.

She finally stopped crying and said, I know, Julia. You’re my best friend and I know you don’t know any more than I do about what to do. Why don’t we just put a ‘lost dog’ ad in the paper and contact the shelter in case he ends up there again.

We headed to Harold’s office to write the ad and call the shelter. Bessie stopped just inside the door and asked, How long do you think we were gone when we went to the park?

I answered, I guess about an hour and a half. Why do you want to know that? Then I followed her into the room and I knew why. The papers we had stacked and sorted so carefully were spread helter-skelter all over the place like a mini whirlwind had come through.

All the desk drawers were open and books were flung from the bookshelves as though someone in a paroxysm of anger at not finding what they wanted had tried to do as much damage as possible. The little laptop computer was on the floor, open and upside down. I turned it over and found that it was still on and apparently still functioning so I cleared a space on the desk and sat it down.

Bessie screamed, Oh, no! Don’t touch anything! We have to have the police forensics people here to check for fingerprints so we can find out who did this. Maybe they have Poppy.

I couldn’t believe she was still thinking about that puppy after all this until I realized that Poppy was all she had left in the world to love. I’ll call the police, Bessie, you just sit down and rest for a minute. I called 911 and reported a break in. When they heard where it was the police were here in a matter of minutes. It doesn’t hurt to be a judge’s wife, even if he is dead.

We let