Case of the Poodle Doodle

by Erik Schubach

  The two things that caught my eye was the shattered coffee table in the seating area directly below the railing of what was likely the bedroom loft, and the fact that a good number of the paintings were slashed up like someone had hacked at them with a knife or something.

  The art was of blocky, simplistic shapes, but amazing in that simplicity, the colors seemed to make a deliberate shocking statement which moved me. And I was horrified that someone would vandalize such emotion evoking imagery. It was somehow very familiar to me, but I couldn't put my finger on why.

  I started wringing my fingers again, physically forcing myself to not move over to start sweeping up the glass and wood splinters on the floor. I asked Jane as I drug her to a halt, “Will the... is... is anyone going to clean this up before...”

  She sighed and exhaled loudly, “You're here for the mutt, Finnegan. Focus.”

  Yes, right, the dog. I pried my eyes from the mess and looked up at her. She was the first person to accept all my little quirks, and she somehow... got me. I kept on task. “So where is this beast that has you all running, scared?”

  Ok, I may have been a little apprehensive. Some dogs do have a bad disposition, and if they have a neglectful owner, or are nurtured to be violent, then they could be dangerous. But for the most part, dogs are people too and have the same reactions we do in stressful situations, though a lot of people can't understand that. They think they are just stupid animals, or dangerous animals when they react poorly in a situation that is out of their control.

  She brought me up to the door and hesitated when a tech and a uniformed officer stepped up to us. She signed something on an electronic pad for the tech, and told the officer, “Ok, button the place up after you canvas the area. Two block radius... though I doubt anyone will have seen anything, the Kitchen usually polices its own.”

  The uniformed officer nodded and followed the crime scene techs out, shutting the door after him. I glanced back at the mess the paramedics had made next to the broken table... wrappers from the various supplies they had used, all cast carelessly aside. And I swallowed when I realized there was a little blood mixed in with the wood and glass splinters.

  Focus Fin.

  I turned to the bathroom door and then had to eye Jane when her hand went absently into her leather jacket, where I knew her shoulder holster was. I asked with a cocked eyebrow, “You want to call in backup? Or maybe go sit down in a cruiser while I...”

  She dropped her hand, then shoved my shoulder as she rolled her eyes. “You're not as cute as you think you are, walker girl.”

  I gave her a pout, and she sighed again. “Ok, you are, just leash up Cujo in there, and let's get you on your way before I change my mind and call Animal Control.”

  With an imperious look, then grin at her, I stole a quick peck on her lips, then formed a loop with one of my spare leashes I carried with me just in case of emergencies. Everyone mocks me about it, yet here we were, needing one. Ha! Take that!

  I slowly opened the door, telling Calvin, “Heel.” He moved to my left and let me slip through the door first as I called out in a sweet tone, “Mr. Doggie sir, we're coming in. Nothing to be scared of.”

  Jane stayed out in the loft, and a moment later, I was chuckling as I crouched and was mauled by the tongue of a goofy looking pup. I called out, “Really, Jane? Mutt? This sweet boy is your man killer?”

  She looked into the bathroom, then her brow creased as she looked confused at Calvin and me saying hi to the super fuzzy pup with curly copper colored hair. He and Calvin broke away from me to follow each other in a tight circle, smelling each other's nether regions. Dogs be weird, eww.

  She sputtered out, “He was growling and posturing before.”

  I asked, “Did any of you doom troopers actually try being nice to him?”

  Her silence spoke volumes.

  I muttered, “I swear, I'm going to have to get you trained up on dog behaviors. I don't know how you've survived so long without...”

  “Ok, Doctor Dolittle. Spare me the lecture. Let's get you and the mutt on the way. I have the forms that you'll need to sign on my pad.”

  I looked up at her and asked, “Mutt? This big guy is a purebred poodle, lady. And he's still just a puppy. He can't be a year old yet.”

  She shook her head and was squinting her cop eyes at me, looking for deception. “I know what a poodle looks like, love, and that ain't it. And a puppy? He's bigger than Calvin.”

  I sighed and looked down at the happy, fluffy, boy who was looking up at me as I scritched his ears. I asked, “Do you think poodles are born shaved with those silly pom poms and mane? This is what they look like before they get trimmed. And yes, he's still in the goofy puppy stage where he's not sure where he's putting his paws yet and doesn't realize how big he is.”

  Her lips pressing into a thin line told me she realized how silly she was. She really hadn't thought about what a poodle in its natural state would look like.

  I smiled then looked at the pup. “Who's a good boy? You're a good boy!” Then I looked at the tags on his collar. “Floof is a good boy, isn't he?” His tail whipped around at the mention of his name. I cocked an eyebrow at my girl. “You said his owner was male?” She nodded, and I arched the other brow. Floof isn't a name I could see a man choosing. But this was New York.

  It took a minute to get him into a harness and clip on the leash. Then as Calvin and I led Floof out into the main loft, I asked, “So what happened here?”

  She gave me 'the look,' I know she isn't supposed to talk about cases. But she sighed and said, “It'll be on the news anyway. This new, up and coming artist, Darryl Beckett has been prepping for an art showing at one of the Upper East Side galleries.”

  She looked around. “Some man broke into his loft here and started destroying the paintings. Mr, Beckett surprised the man. He had been asleep up in the loft. After a short skirmish, Beckett was thrown over the railing and was injured as the assailant fled.”

  I looked from the loft above to the coffee table directly below it. Then I looked at the paintings. Something was off. Something Jane had said wasn't right, but I couldn't for the life of me see what had that feeling cropping up.

  I watch too many cop dramas on TV. Sometimes a platypus is just a platypus.

  After she had me sign a release for the pup, and of all things, a chain of evidence form, she walked us to the door and opened it. The officer stationed there had already left, so she walked me outside. There was just one cruiser left there, and I figured it was the officers she sent off to canvas the neighborhood for witnesses.

  She asked, “Walking to CPT?”

  I smiled and nodded back. “It's such a wonderful day, and it's only a few blocks away.”

  She nodded, then captured my lips with hers. I closed my eyes and savored it as I moaned. She was such a good kisser. She whispered as she ran a thumb along my lower lip. “Ok, see you at home love. I have to write this up and do the preliminaries. I'll be home around six or seven?”

  I nodded and sighed as she let me go, her dark eyes twinkling as I backed down the sidewalk, with two silly boys in tow.

  Chapter 4 – Doodles

  As we walked, I looked around the area. Hell's Kitchen was slowly gentrifying. It had once been the rough and tumble part of town, but it was becoming something different altogether as more money was moving into the area.

  I hesitated at an alleyway when some graffiti caught my eye. I backed us up and stepped into the alley to look. New York has more than its share of people tagging just about any vertical space with graffiti. Some are simple, defacing property with just a couple simple strokes of spray paint to mark territories of the gangs we still haven't been able to divest the city of. But some are more eloquent and artful works.

  Some are borderline genius artwork on canvases the scale of which some artists only dream of. What can be created with cans of spray paint can sometimes boggle the mind. This was pure art, which had cause
d me look back in the direction we had come. This was why those canvases in the loft had looked so familiar to me. This simplistic yet emotional angst evoking art is sprinkled all around the alleyways and dumpsters in the city. Mostly dilapidated or obscured by newer graffiti. There was one piece up in the Bronx that the neighborhood preserved and painted a virtual frame around a decade ago when the apartment block was being converted into condos. It was dedicated to the anonymous artist.

  It gave the impression that the artist had abandoned the city a few years back. But this? This was fresh. As in I could still smell the paint on the air. It hadn't fully dried yet. Was this Darryl Beckett guy the artist? Why had he abandoned his work for so long before taking it back up again? He must have just done this one before the attack for it to be so fresh.

  I smiled and looked down at Floof. “Looks like your daddy is famous.” Now I wanted to meet the man. I just had to be careful not to say anything about my suspicions to Jane, because she is all cop, and sees graffiti, no matter how brilliantly done, she calls it, how does she put it? “Glorified doodles defacing private property and inviting more social unrest among the populace.” And she'd get the poor man arrested.

  I blew a mental raspberry at her, though I knew, for the most part, she was right, but art like this was a whole different category in my opinion. He seemed to understand my fears and anxiety and flung it out into the world for all to see. It was sort of freeing.

  The boys and I continued on, to the northeast, and a few minutes later, we entered Columbus Circle. Instead of heading right to CPT, we detoured to the right, to Central Park so the boys could do their thing. Floof and Calvin got along great, and the pup sort of mimicked Calvin, every time he complied to a verbal or hand sign, so would his poodle-y accomplice. It reminded me that poodles were actually among the smartest breeds.

  If he hung around with us a couple more days, I'd wager a bet that he'd be mostly all trained up. As it was, I was sure his owner would be happy to know that Floof knows to sit and heel now. After I cleaned up after them, we made our way to the rescue.

  My smile grew as we entered the airlock of doors at the entrance, designed so only one set of doors could be open at a time to prevent any escaped pooches. Mom was in there talking with the crew as Killer terrorized the other dogs, by running circles around them. Ok, so there wasn't anything a tiny Yorkie could do to terrorize anyone. But he certainly was trying hard to get them all to play, the goof.

  When we stepped inside, and I unclipped Calvin to go to his adoring, tail wagging fans, who all thought he was their alpha. I asked mom when she turned to grin at me and the goofy boy I had in tow, “How was dessert?”

  She smirked and said, “Sinfully good.”

  By the swishing tail and lolling tongue, mom was just as bad as Jessie and Kerry at times. I shook my head at her then turned away, mock ignoring the upstart fifty-something who raised me, when she asked who my new friend was. She kissed my cheek as I told Ralph, the assistant on duty today, “This is Floof, he'll be staying with us a day or two until his father is released from the hospital.”

  He nodded and took the leash from me as he asked, “Standard intake protocol?”

  I nodded back. “Yup. Is Doc in today?”

  “Yup, she's restocking the veterinary room.”

  I smiled at that and started filling out the intake form as he brought the newcomer to see our vet. I knew it wasn't wholly necessary, but you don't break procedure. Until he got a clean bill of health, he wouldn't be released into the general pup population... ooo pupulation.

  Then I turned to grin at mom, and spread my arms wide and crumpled back onto the floor, just to break out into giggles as a dozen pups ran up to take turns mauling me with their tongues as I called out, “Dogpile!”

  Mom looked overly amused as I grabbed an excited Killer before he got crushed in the onslaught and held him above my face as I blew a raspberry on his silky belly fur. This was Finnegan Nirvana, and I could feel all the stress and anxiety bleed out of me.

  After I extracted myself from the furry celebration and sat on one of the couches, I looked around the rescue with the same wonder I did every time, amazed that it was mine and Calvin's.

  The rescue was like no other kennel. When we designed it, I insisted there be no cages in it. If a dog is homeless, it is just bigger stress to throw it in what amounts to a doggie jail with concrete floors and chainlink cages. CPT was different, the entire place was made up to resemble a big home. The main room had a half dozen couches, various dog beds and throw rugs in open spaces, and dog doors out to the small yards. There were a couple of isolation rooms in case we got temperamental dogs in who needed to be socialized, and even those rooms were set up like small bedrooms.

  The only room that didn't look like it belonged in a house in the suburbs was the exam room, which looked like any other veterinary clinic. And that was out of both practicality and necessity, as well as letting the dogs get used to how things would be at the veterinary visits they would be subjected to their whole lives.

  We had two full-time employees, and the rest, including our vet and groomer, were volunteers. For the most part, each dog got at least one walk a day, sometimes two, and they were walked by the professional dog walkers of New York City. Over the course of any given day, ten or twenty of the thousands of dog walkers in the city would show up to walk the dogs.

  We... are legion.

  Mom asked, “What happened to the big guy's father?”

  I shrugged. I wasn't really supposed to talk about it since it was one of Jane's open cases. But like she said, since he was sort of famous, it was bound to be on the nightly news. “Someone broke into his loft and vandalized his paintings and pushed him over the loft railing. He's at the hospital now, Jane didn't seem too concerned, so it must not be serious.”

  Something nagged at my brain again when I shared what had happened. It was a little wonky to me for some reason. I pictured what I saw in my head and couldn't pinpoint what it was. And then I thought about Jane's tone and realized that she didn't fully believe what she was telling me either. I had been obsessing over the mess too much to notice it then. Hey! I'm not OCD... ish. Shut up.

  She shook her head. “What is this world coming to?”

  I shrugged, there were so many people out there doing bad things, but I had faith that there was more good in this world than bad. She sighed, then said, “Well, I have an article to write before my morning deadline. I'm sorry lunch didn't work out like we planned. But I'll drop by your place tomorrow to see how the nursery turned out.”

  I stood and shuffled over to her as I whined, “It's not exactly finished. I'm not satisfied fully with the paint on the...”

  She kissed my cheek and smirked. “By all accounts from the witnesses present, it's just fine Tempe. You're just a little... persnickety.”

  “Moom.”

  “Love you, dear.” She made kissy sounds toward the dogs milling about as she held her shoulder bag open. Killer bolted out of the crowd of waggy tails like a shot. I blinked when he used his momentum to basically run up mom to settle himself in her bag. When had she trained him to do that? I'm sure I looked like some cartoon chibi version of myself with big bulging hearts in my eyes. It was almost squee-worthy.

  “Love you too, mom. And Killer? Keep her out of trouble.”

  As she headed to the doors, I called after her, “So when do I get to meet Sam? You promised weeks ago!”

  She didn't look back and just gave a royal wave as she left, chuckling. I keep telling Jane she needs to use her detective-y ways to find out who this Sam is, but she goes and throws words like ethics and rules and laws at me, the jerk. Though I did have a certain appreciation for rules. They can be put onto lists, and laminated... and I loved me some lists, so I let her win.

  When Ralph returned, I told him, “Cal and I are going to head out, anything happening we should know about?”

  The man shook his head, shrugged, and
spread his hands wide all at the same time. He was so weird, but I loved him just the way he was. “Weirdo.”

  He nodded and grabbed a clipboard to look over as he said purposefully loud enough for me to hear as Cal followed me to the doors, “Says the lady who wears dresses every day.”

  I looked back at him, trying not to smile. He nudged his chin at my outfit, “What happened? All your dresses in the wash?”

  Ok, I smiled. “Yuck it up, buttercup. I might just think about Kayleigh's request to alternate shifts with you every other week.”

  His eyes widened, and I teased, “A few night shifts would be good for you.”

  “You wouldn't.” “Fin?” Finnegan?”

  We shut the door behind us, a smirk on my lips. Bantering with him felt like bantering with Garrett. I clipped up my boy but didn't bother picking up the leash as I released him out onto the world... then I promptly tripped on the door threshold and stumbled into a couple passing by. “I'm so sorry!”

  I could hear muffled laughter from CPT. After the bemused couple moved on, I exhaled and flipped off the smirky chuckler in the building as Calvin, and I headed home.

  A few minutes later we arrived at the tenant access door of the four-story block building on west 57th, across the bricked patio courtyard from the old fifties style Brooklyn Diner and the 57th Street subway station. Home sweet home. I noticed Mrs. Kim outside her corner convenience store on the far end of the building, she always had a wave and a smile for Calvin and me. I waved back and looked around before stepping into the skinny hallway that led to the stairs and freight elevator.

  The Jess-Mobile wasn't up front, so either the ladies were still out terrorizing the city, or the shop, Ethyl's Five and Dime. They rode their motorcycles there early this morning to pick up the old BMW. If they were home, then their bikes were tucked into bed in the basement storage cages.