L.A. Kornetsky - Gin & Tonic 03 - Doghouse

by L. A. Kornetsky

  As though she knew what he was thinking, Stacy looked up and made a face at him. He rolled his eyes and continued pacing back and forth, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

  Ginny was ignoring them both, her research spread over the table they’d claimed as their own, handwritten notes with yellow and green highlighter marks on all of it. A lager, half drunk, and a glass of ginger ale, untouched, sat nearby, condensation beading along the sides.

  Georgie was under the table, gnawing on a rawhide bone, with the smaller puppy occasionally giving it a pat with tiny paws, as though considering taking a bite, as well.

  Teddy eyed his beer longingly. He had been listening with varying levels of patience, but this conversation had been going on long enough. “Look, I’m just saying, we need to get the kitchen fixed up. We’re not going to pass inspection this year unless we do.”

  There was another pause on his part, while the other person spoke at length. Teddy pressed fingers against the bridge of his nose, feeling another headache inch into the back of his skull. He really wanted to get back to work, not be having this idiotic conversation.

  “No, we can’t just slap some paint on it. We need a new fridge, and a new floor. Come on, man, just spend the money now and there’s less trouble later.”

  A renovation was going to be a massive pain in the ass, but less of one down the road than having to deal with the health department. But Patrick was so wound up planning his new bar, he kept putting off anything to do with his existing one. If Teddy heard “expanding my brand” one more time, he might be tempted to take a brand to the speaker.

  Another customer pushed through the door, looking around as though half embarrassed to be coming in so early in the afternoon. Mary’s didn’t do a rousing business before 5 p.m., since they didn’t have a TV to show the games, but Teddy was in no position to judge anyone who needed that 2 p.m. soother.

  “Yeah. Yeah, fine, all right.” He cut off Patrick’s latest rant about contractors without caring how it sounded. “I’ll do some research, get you the numbers. Yeah, fine.”

  He ended the call, and sighed, dropping the phone on the bar and putting his head down into his hands.

  “That’s why they pay you the big bucks,” Stacy said from where she was rearranging glassware at the other end of the bar. The new customer—he looked familiar, vaguely, so not a newbie—let out enough of a laugh to prove he’d heard their banter before, so Teddy just lifted his head enough to glare at her. “Don’t get sassy just because you’re on weekend shift,” he warned her. “I do the scheduling, and I can put you back on weekdays and floor duty in a snap.”

  “Yeah, but then you’d have to work with Jon all weekend, plus wrangle the paperwork.”

  Just the thought of it made his head ache even worse. “If I ever try to promote you?” he told her. “Quit.”

  “I hear ya there, boss.”

  He shook his head at her and went back to their table. Ginny was still intent on her tablet, so he reached down to the small bundle of fur, rubbing the pointed ears until Parsifal craned his entire body around to lick his hand. Overhead, there was an unhappy hiss. Teddy looked up and waggled a finger. “Penny, hush. He’s just a guest. Be nice.”

  To say that she hadn’t reacted well to the puppy’s arrival would be an understatement: she had taken one look and made for the top of the bar’s shelves and stayed there, no matter how much Ginny had tried to coax her down to meet the newcomer. Apparently, Mistress Penny-Drops was a one-dog cat. Although she hadn’t seemed happy with Georgie, either, for the first time ever.

  “You sure you don’t want a puppy?” he asked Stacy now.

  “You going to pay me enough to move to a larger place that takes dogs?”

  “Go fill orders, and leave me to my headaches.”

  She saluted him. “Quiet right now,” she said, casting an eye over the drinkers settled around tables in the back. “I’m going to bring up more vodka, ’kay?”

  “Bring up another bottle of Dalmore, too!” he called after her.

  The puppy scrambled to his feet at the shout, and looked up at Teddy with eyes that could probably have taken Attila the Hun down at the knees.

  “What?” he asked it. “You gotta pee, there’s your pad on the floor. And you’ve been fed already. Damned expensive food, too.”

  Behind them, Penny gave another hiss, but it sounded halfhearted.

  “Hey, little guy.” Ginny pulled herself away from whatever she was doing and pulled something out of her bag, holding it low in front of the puppy’s nose. “Here’s a chew toy more your size, so you can leave Georgie’s bone alone.”

  Parsifal took the toy—what looked like a small rubber mouse—and crunched it experimentally between his jaws. It squeaked, and Teddy sighed.

  “Hey,” Ginny said, looking around as though the sigh had reminded her. “Did Seth show up yet? I want to ask him something about Deke’s run-in with the law.”

  “No, he’s not scheduled to come in until later. How many toys do you carry around in that bag of yours, anyway?”

  “Oh, yeah, ’cause you never bought Mistress Penny up there any catnip mice. So what was all that about?” She meant the phone call.

  “Oh good Lord, don’t ask.” Being manager of Mary’s while Patrick went off and opened a new bar across town had never been in his career plan, but here he was. Then again, he’d never thought about private investigations, either. He supposed that was what happened when you refused to make plans: life made ’em for you.

  He sat down and picked up his beer, taking a hard slug. “I swear, between my family and Patrick, I’m changing my phone numbers. Anyway, that ate the time I planned to go over your notes, so just give me the Inigo Montoya summation.”

  “Right.” She took a sip of her ginger ale, then wiped the sides of the glass with her napkin. “First off, there’s no way that Deke didn’t know that there were dogs in his basement,” she said. “Right?”

  Teddy sighed again. “Yeah.” He liked the guy, from what he’d seen, but he’d been the one to find Parsifal, and there was no way the little guy had just wandered in from outside and gotten stuck in that basement. And Deke was still living in the house, at least for a few more days, so squatters couldn’t have set up, even assuming the landlord wasn’t keeping an eye on things, so they couldn’t blame anyone else.

  Plus, there had been that smell in the basement. The shelter case had been enough for him to recognize the smell of a kennel, even underneath the faded stink of industrial-strength cleansers. Animals had been kept in that basement. More than one small puppy, for more than one or two days.

  “Damn it.” Clearing someone of a false accusation was one thing. This… He had told Seth that if it looked like Deke was guilty, they were dropping the case. But the evidence of one puppy wasn’t enough to convict of illegal behavior, just dumbass lying to the people trying to help him.

  “But we’ve already established that he’s in denial,” Ginny was saying. “I’d love to spring Parsifal here on him and see what happens, but odds are he’d go into exactly the kind of meltdown Seth was afraid of. The only thing worse than a client who lies is a client who might not even be aware he’s lying.”

  Teddy would almost rather be dealing with his family than a depressed and disheartened Ginny. “So what do we have?”

  “While you were arguing with Patrick, I did some digging on the landlord. Public records, gotta love ’em, and then I did some real estate hunting.” She sorted the papers, and pulled one out. “The guy owns five different houses in greater Seattle: two in Lynnwood, another in Rainier Beach, one in West Seattle, and Deke’s. All of the houses are just on the edge of slumlordhood, but staying on the right side so there aren’t any formal complaints filed.”

  “Nice. So?”

  Ginny looked at him like he’d missed a clue somewhere. “He’s a slumlord. It’s not exac
tly whiffly, but it’s kind of whiffly.”

  “Whiffly? What the hell is whiffly?”

  “You know.” She made a vague gesture with her hand. “Off. Weird. Suspicious.”

  Teddy shook his head. “Hardly whiffly, Gin. Lots of people own property. And yeah, okay, borderline slumlord, maybe, or at least Bad Landlord of the Year. But that doesn’t mean he was involved in anything that was allegedly going down in Deke’s place. Hell, a couple–five years ago, real estate values were way down. Now they’re going up again, all over the city. He might be looking to flip them; that’s why he’s kicking Deke out.”

  Ginny had that expression on her face, the one that said she was going to be bullheaded stubborn. “You’re right. But do you have any other place to start? Some magical dog-hoarding connection I missed?”

  He sighed, and looked over to where the two dogs had collapsed in a joint nap. “No.” He finished his beer, and nodded. “All right. Fire up your spreadsheets and let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Penny curled herself comfortably on her perch, tail over nose, and watched the humans with one eye while keeping her ear cocked on the interloper. Georgie had tried to get her to come down and join them, but the cat had merely twitched her whiskers at the smaller dog in disdain, and stayed put.

  “C’mon, Penny.” Georgie tried again, hoping the cat would have changed her mind now that she’d seen the puppy wasn’t a threat. “Don’t be like that.”

  The tabby flicked her tail, and half slitted her eyes, still watching. She was going to be exactly like that. The newcomer was curled up against Georgie’s side, its ears twitching occasionally as it dreamed. Bad dreams, not good play-hunt dreaming.

  If that fact bothered the cat, she refused to let it show.

  “Penny.” Georgie was trying to be reasonable, but the whine at the end showed her uncertainty. Penny was never like this, she didn’t throw sulks. “Listen! They’re on a job. We can’t help them if we’re not talking to each other.” Her curled tail gave a single wag, and she looked hopefully up at the cat, while the puppy started and woke up, eyes blinking at Georgie, then turning to look up at Penny. “Pennnnnny,” Georgie coaxed.

  The cat’s ears twitched irritably. “Don’t do that. Makes my whiskers hurt.”

  “Then come down here.”

  Penny sighed, then uncurled herself and leaped gracefully from shelf to counter, and then down to the floor, pausing only long enough to allow Stacy to give her an absent pat.

  She came around the edge of the bar, and was greeted by a skitter of claws and a too-inquisitive nose. “Hi? Hi!”

  Penny lifted her paw and swatted the interloper. The puppy went down in a sprawl of limbs, and then bounced back up again, one ear flipped inside out, and its eyes bright with uncertainty. “Hi?”

  Penny sighed, and Georgie shoved her much larger paw out between the two of them. “Parsi, stop. Penny. Parsifal’s important. He’s evidence! Ginny said so!”

  Penny turned her gaze onto the puppy, coolly thoughtful. He whined a little, deep in his throat, but lowered his gaze and bowed his head in submission. He might be young and dumb, but he wasn’t stupid.

  All right, maybe she could work with that.

  Teddy barely spared a glance at the antics of the animals, watching Ginny instead as she tapped her fingers against the table, her eyes focused somewhere other than the screen of her tablet. They needed to get a large-screen monitor, so he could look at whatever she was working on, without standing over her shoulder.

  “What do we have that’s cold solid fact?”

  While he waited for her to answer, he took a quick survey of the bar. There were a half dozen or so people at the tables now, and another five bellied up to the bar itself. Stacy was taking orders while obviously, casually, eavesdropping on them. Penny, having deigned to come down, was now curled in her usual spot across Georgie’s front paws, the puppy sprawled on its tummy next to them, occasionally turning his head to look from one to the other. Nothing out of place, nothing he needed to worry about.

  “All of the houses are about the same size, zoned for residential,” Ginny said. “They all have fenced yards, no garages, street parking, and a single tenant: male, between the ages of fifty and eighty, most of them retired from a blue-collar field, or long-term unemployed. And not a single one of them could actually afford to rent out an entire house, even one that was a little run-down. Not based on their stated incomes, anyway. Not unless they’re picking up more than Social Security or unemployment.”

  “That’s not exactly building a case for the home team, Mallard. Huh.” He didn’t want to ask, but… “You got their names, and their income, off the Internet?”

  She gave him a look, like he should know better by now. Really, he thought, he should. “And a few phone calls, yeah. It’s not quite as easy as finding who lives where, but it can be done.”

  “Cold calls and favor-trading? Man, I hate the research part of this.”

  “Good thing I’m good at it, isn’t it?” Ginny finished her ginger ale and pushed the glass forward for a refill. “Now focus, please.”

  “Have you always been this bossy?”

  “Yes.” The answer came from both Ginny and Stacy, in unison, and Teddy laughed, getting up to refill their glasses. Stacy made a face at him when he leaned over the bar to hit the tap, but didn’t try to stop him.

  “So,” he said, lingering by the bar, “the next logical question is—was their landlord a generous angel who liked to make sure the faded end of society didn’t end up homeless, and Deke just got caught on a bad day, or was something else going on?”

  “Something else being, what?”

  Fair enough question. “The landlord freaking out because there’s dogfighting going on?” The accusation had to come from somewhere, and while Parsifal didn’t seem like a dogfighting kind of dog, he was still a stone on the “guilty” side of the weights.

  “I really doubt the guy didn’t know. I mean, Deke’s lived there how long, ten years? And the landlord never had a clue? So why now?”

  “You think the landlord’s involved somehow? I don’t know, Gin, it still feels reachy. I mean, why would the landlord be the one to accuse him, and kick him out? Wouldn’t he want to keep it quiet?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know.” Ginny made another face. “Although there are a lot more dumb people than there are criminal masterminds.”

  He raised an eyebrow and nodded, conceding the point. “Maybe he did just catch wind of there being dogs there. Maybe he’s looking to get a higher-paying tenant in. Unless we can prove that there are dogs in the other houses, and that the guy knows, we’re stuck on that front. We’re good, but I really don’t think we can bullshit our way in and ask strangers if they’re hiding vicious dogs in their closets. So we need to find another lead.”

  Ginny flipped through several pages of notes, and sighed. “Deke doesn’t seem to have anything else I can dig into. I mean, he doesn’t own a car, isn’t a member of any shopping clubs or delivery services, he doesn’t seem to have any memberships in anything except the Association of American Boxers, and a few magazines—Ring News, Sports World Weekly, and Playboy. Well, he’s got focused interests, anyway. No Pet Fancier or PETA subscriptions.”

  “But no Dogfighting Monthly?” Teddy shook his head, aware that he wasn’t going to beat Ginny’s PETA crack. “Maybe we should be focusing on the boxing angle? I mean, I like Seth, and Deke seems like an okay guy, if a little soft on the corners, but boxing’s a violent sport. It’s not inconceivable that someone there might get tangled up in watching dogs fight, too.”

  “Already on it,” Ginny said, her fingers flying on the tablet, comfortable as though she were working on a full-sized keyboard. Teddy, who could barely manage to text on his phone, just shook his head and watched. “Nothing’s coming up connecting boxers with dogfighting. Football players, yeah. Baseball players
, even, and a couple of race car drivers and”—her eyebrows rose—“some actors. But no boxers. Or hockey players, for that matter. So much for the stereotype of violent people playing violent sports. But I’ve put out a few more feelers, see if anything comes up from the depths of the Internet. And one of us should probably hit the news archives, just to cover our asses.”

  “Newspapers? Really?”

  “Don’t start, Tonica,” she said. “Just because I prefer the ’Net doesn’t mean that I ignore other alternatives. There’s still a lot of the world that hasn’t been digitized.”

  “And you consider that a personal affront,” he guessed.

  “Damn right I do. Meanwhile, you need to poke at Seth and Deke, see if they let anything more slip. I’m pretty sure, knowing Seth, there’re details he’s not sharing.”

  Teddy wanted to protest—it felt wrong, to poke at a friend, a coworker—but she was only dividing things up according to their strengths: she researched, and he, well, poked. “If either of them takes a swing at me, you’re paying for my ER visit. My insurance sucks.”

  “Hello, self-employed here,” Ginny said. “Mine’s not much better. They swing, you better duck.”

  Stacy had wandered to the other end of the bar to fill orders while they were talking, but came back then, pausing until they both looked up at her. “Hey, boss, I’m going to take a break before things start to pick up, okay?”

  He glanced at his watch. She was right, the rush would hit in about half an hour. “Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on things.”

  She nodded thanks, and then turned to Ginny. “You want me to take the pups for a constitutional?”

  Ginny checked her watch, too, while Teddy took over behind the bar, and then looked over at Georgie, who had raised her head as though she knew she was being discussed. “Yeah, that would be great, thanks.”

  Teddy didn’t think Georgie needed another walk already, but he wasn’t her owner. And maybe Stacy would bond with Parsifal, and solve that problem.