The Free Press newsroom was a sprawling affair with artificial light overhead and industrial carpeting underfoot. Cubicles that were defined by dark oak laminate cabinets lined the walls, and tables with multiple computers filled the middle. The building stood beside a city park thick with moss-draped oaks and magnolias, and their shade made the walk from the parking lot tolerable.

The crime and investigation editor, Grant Telford, was a man in his fifties, and the fire in his belly had been extinguished years before. My enthusiasm puzzled him, but he took advantage of it, giving me lists of names and questions to ask. I was to do the initial footwork, then hand my notes to a staff reporter in the fall before I left.

After Becky Drake’s body was found in a pond near the Quayle family home, John Quayle had become an immediate suspect. When the police had tried to question him, they had noticed a woman’s scarf on the floor of his car, similar to the description of one Drake had worn at the fund-raiser. When confronted, Quayle had disappeared into the night. A K9 deputy, Mateo Santiago, and his German shepherd, Bismarck, had tracked him to a tree stand in the woods behind his house, and after Deputy Santiago scrambled up the tree to confront him, Quayle had surrendered for questioning.

Mateo, known as Teo, was on my contact list. During the murder trial, he’d testified that on the ride back to the sheriff’s office, Quayle had told him he was going to be found guilty.

“Everything is my fault,” Quayle had said at the time. “I don’t make these kinds of mistakes.”

I found Teo’s photo on the sheriff department’s website, but not his dog’s. The man was young, with a cocky, lopsided smile and a military haircut. By the time I called to set up an interview, I had already spoken to Drake’s grandmother and her stepfather, who had been a suspect early in the case. On the phone Teo sounded a shade too confident. He corrected my pronunciation of his name, from tee-o to tay-o, and told me since tio meant uncle, only his nieces called him that.

“Tio Teo?” I asked. “Catchy.”

“Try saying it fifty times.”

He invited me to a K9 demonstration that his unit was doing for a local women’s club, and promised we could talk afterward.

The demo was at a local soccer field, fenced and sprawling. Rain had fallen as I parked, and I wondered if the demonstration would go on. But as we waited in line, the clouds dispersed and feeble rays of sunlight appeared. I explained who I was to the woman ushering people into the bleachers, and she motioned me inside. Three deputies, in the same green-shirted uniform as the deputy I’d spoken to today, were on the grass with their dogs, all German shepherds.

Judging from what I remembered of his voice, I tried to guess which of the men was Teo. All were about the same age, and since I was too high in the bleachers to see faces, I made a guess that he was the beefiest, a guy with a weight lifter’s body, who moved with an obvious swagger and seemed to think he was in charge. That man’s dog was slightly lighter in color than a similarly colored dog at the end of the line, and he held his tightly against him, as if to prove how tough he was to be able to control such a powerful animal. From my perch, the third dog looked to be coal black, although I learned later he was a bicolor, because he had a few small patches of brown. His handler seemed the most relaxed, as if he and the dog were so deeply in tune, they were chilling together until it was time to work.