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

by L. A. Kornetsky

  If there was, why hadn’t he been chipped? Why hadn’t anyone put up missing dog notices for him?

  Ginny stared down at the two dogs. The reality was that nobody was missing Parsifal, not even the men who had abandoned him. And now that the house he’d been found in had burned, there was damn little chance they’d ever find out… anything.

  But why had it burned? Her mind slipped from the question of missing pets generally and back to the specifics of the case. She would believe that Deke absentmindedly left the stove on or something, but from what Shana had said, they hadn’t been home long enough, and the timing of it having been left on for days and only then… . No, the fire had to come from another cause.

  But was it an accident, an empty house and a bad fuse? Or had someone set it on purpose, hoping to destroy evidence? If these people came and went when things got too hot for them—and she winced at the pun—then it made sense that they’d want to clear out any evidence. They’d moved the dogs… and a fire in the house of a guy who didn’t have the best rep in the world, who had just gotten evicted?

  “Enter Deke, practically a ready-made patsy. Damn it.”

  If the cops found proof of arson, there was no way they wouldn’t be talking to Deke. Not even his being injured would protect him, not with everything else going on. The landlord had filed eviction papers, but he hadn’t specified… but if he was questioned, too, and he would be, because it was his property…

  She and Tonica needed to know what had happened there, and that meant talking to Shana—and Deke, if he was willing—and seeing if she could dig up any official reports yet, before the cops acted on anything.

  Even for her, that was going to be a challenge and a half.

  She flicked Georgie’s leash. “C’mon, kids. Mom needs the rest of her coffee, and we all need breakfast.”

  And she had a lot of work to do, fast.

  Teddy parked his car in Mary’s lot and sat behind the wheel for a moment, enjoying the quiet. He might gripe about having to wake up earlier, now that Ginny had him chasing leads at ungodly hours, but there were some compensations. The morning hush was a marked contrast to the usual sounds coming from the bar, even before they officially opened. Too late for the cleaning crew, who came in around four in the morning, and too early for any of the delivery trucks to arrive. He half expected to hear the crash and clatter of Seth loading up the recycling bins, or the squeaky wheels of the dolly truck hauling supplies, voices raised in the store next door, where the owner was forever yelling at his teenage daughter, who worked afternoons at the counter, or the skateboarders who had decided their side street was a safe place to practice.

  Instead, he heard birds in the trees, and the hum of traffic on the main road as people headed to offices, the occasional shudder of the downtown express bus as it pulled in and out of the stop, and that was about it.

  It felt wrong somehow.

  “It’s quiet,” he said softly, and then, “Yeah, too quiet.”

  He laughed at himself, then rolled up the window and got out of the car, feeling his leg muscles protest. He’d gone for a run this morning, but his body still felt like he was moving at half power. Spending a full shift on his feet was starting to take its toll. He could have tried for a parking space closer to Ginny’s apartment, but he’d only have to move the car again later, unless he wanted to walk back after shift, and stretching his legs now would be a good thing.

  “You’re getting old, old man,” he said. “Time to get a job that has actual medical benefits.”

  Mrrrp?

  He looked down and saw Penny heading toward him, her tail upright and quivering slightly at the tip.

  “Good morning, sweetheart,” he said, bending down to let the tabby sniff at his hand. “I didn’t expect to see you awake this early, either.” He’d read up enough to learn that cats slept most of the day, but he supposed there was good hunting early in the morning, too. Penny always ate the food he put out for her, but never seemed particularly in need of it, more like a polite guest eating what her host offered.

  The image that put in his mind made Teddy grin.

  Remembering her insistence on trying to come with him the night before, he said, “I’m going to see Ginny. Want to come along?”

  He hadn’t expected an answer, obviously, but she put her paws up on his knee and indicated quite clearly that she wanted up.

  Once she was settled on his shoulder, her claws carefully digging into his shirt, he took a few steps forward, making sure that she didn’t suddenly object to leaving the parking lot. She didn’t.

  He felt somewhat self-conscious walking along the street with a tabby cat perching on his shoulder, but when other pedestrians barely seemed to notice, he eased up a little. He supposed, for Seattle, that one cat walking her human wasn’t that big a deal. He paused once as they crossed the park to let Penny switch shoulders, and noticed that a few tourists taking pictures of the Witness Tree took a picture of him, instead. Patrick would probably tell him to pitch the bar, bring in some new money, but Teddy just smiled at them and went on. He didn’t want tourists wandering into Mary’s.

  By the time they got to Ginny’s apartment building, Penny had given up on his shoulder, and was riding cradled in his arm. He felt a little more self-conscious about that, but since she was purring quietly, and this was easier on his back, he just smiled again at anyone who gave him an odd look.

  When he rang the buzzer to let Ginny know he was there, Penny finally leaped down from his arms and disappeared.

  “Hey!” he said. “Way to dump your date!”

  “What?” came through the speaker grid.

  “Not you. Hi, it’s Teddy. You decent?”

  The door buzzing him in was answer enough.

  Ginny met him at the door to her apartment with a coffee mug in hand, shoving it at him with a raised eyebrow. She was in what he thought of as her “off duty” clothes—jeans and an old university sweatshirt, her feet bare and her blond curls loose around her shoulders. He wrapped his fingers around the mug, took a sip, and went inside after her, fending off an inquisitive shar-pei at his knees, the puppy at his heels. Parsifal still looked like a reject from a Muppet factory.

  “Have you heard from Seth since last night?” she asked.

  “No. Although I didn’t expect to. He’s not exactly the reach-out-and-touch-someone kind of guy. You?”

  “Seth calling me? Not likely. I heard from Shana, though. They made it home okay last night, and Deke’s still sleeping in her guest room, not a wiffle of trouble out of him.”

  “Want to take bets on how long that’ll last?”

  “Not really.”

  There was a loud thump, and Georgie abandoned them both, trotting off into the kitchen. Parsifal let out a high-pitched yip, but stayed with the humans, leaning against Ginny’s ankle and tripping over her bare feet.

  “I see he’s made himself right at home. Good to see you’ve made it clear that it’s only temporary.”

  “Oh shut up,” she muttered, reaching into her pocket and tossing a treat onto the floor for the puppy, who fell on it with the grace of a greased penguin. “What’s gotten into you,” she called to Georgie, heading into the kitchen after her. “You better not be into the garbage again!” Teddy followed, leaving Parsifal gnawing on his treat.

  When he walked into the kitchen, he started to laugh. Georgie had her nose pressed to the window, and on the other side, sitting on the fire escape, was Penny.

  “Is that—” Ginny said, gesturing helplessly at the window.

  “Yeah,” Teddy said. “She came with me—and then abandoned me at the door. I guess fire escapes are more to her taste than elevators.”

  Ginny shoved Georgie aside and opened the window just enough to let the small cat slip inside. Georgie lowered her head and allowed the tabby to touch noses, then Penny twined around the dog’s l
egs, tail erect and quivering slightly. “These two,” Ginny said, “I swear…”

  And then there was a scrabble of claws on the floor, and Parsifal skittered into the room, tail wagging and eyes bright. Penny took one look and hissed, and the puppy thumped his backside down on the floor as though he’d been slapped, looking mournfully at the other two animals.

  “Penny, that’s not polite,” Ginny said, but Teddy laughed. “One cat to rule them all…”

  “Do not get your geek on my dogs,” Ginny said. “Dog.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m not keeping him. Sorry, Parsi.”

  “Your objections are getting weaker, and they weren’t real strong to start, Mallard.”

  “They’re not objections, they’re facts. This is a one-dog apartment, and a scruffy terrier isn’t the image I’m looking for.” She glanced down. “Sorry, Parsi. I’m sure with a manicure and a wash-and-set you’ll be fabulous.”

  Parsifal ignored them, his eyes still downcast, waiting for Penny to let him get up again.

  “C’mon, my stuff’s in the living room, might as well get comfortable.”

  They left the animals in the kitchen sorting out their pack hierarchy issues, and went back into the main room, settling on the sofa. Teddy was starting to feel more comfortable in her living room than his own apartment, which was a sad commentary.

  Of course, she also had more comfortable furniture. He sank into the sofa with a groan of comfort. Definitely getting older.

  “Before we even start talking about the fire, and what it might or might not mean,” he started, “I called a friend of mine last night.” He put his coffee mug down on the table after looking in vain for a coaster. “She works for the city attorney’s office.”

  Ginny took her usual armchair, curling her legs up under her. “Useful friend to have.”

  “Not really.” He made a face. “Friend of my sister’s. I have a strong suspicion she was told to keep an eye on me.”

  He couldn’t blame Ginny for snickering. It probably sounded ridiculous, a man his age being monitored. But explaining would require explaining his family. He’d managed to avoid doing that for years, and wasn’t about to start now. Not even to Ginny.

  “Anyway, I asked her, in a roundabout way, if she had any dirt, confirmed or otherwise, about the owners of the boxing gym, the place where Deke tried to beat the answers out of another guy. Because I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something seriously hinky about the place. I mean, yeah, the guy Deke tried to shake down’s obviously connected somehow, since he gave me a name, but maybe there was a reason the guy who knew that name happened to be there? Especially since all the tenants of those rental properties also had a connection, however brief, to the gym?”

  “What?” She sounded pissed that she’d missed that. He managed not to grin too smugly. “Oh, did I not mention that?”

  “Connection how? And what did you find out?” She put her own coffee mug down, gesturing for him to stop with the suspense and get on with it.

  “They all, within the past ten years, had a membership at the gym. Which really isn’t that much of a coincidence, since if you’re a serious boxer or ex-boxer who doesn’t want to be working alongside some hipster, your choices are probably limited. But what made it very interesting is that, according to my source, the owner of said establishment, one Samuel Donner—presumably the Sammy for whom the gym is named—had a bad and very illegal habit of running fight clubs out of his back room. Or rather, it’s not so much the fighting that’s illegal as the sizable number of bets being placed on such fights. The state bans all amateur gambling, so I’m betting none of this was ever reported to the IRS… .”

  Ginny blinked at him, and he could practically see the bits fall into place the same way they had for him. Probably better, with whatever she knew adding to the puzzle. That was why they worked so well together, why he kept coming back for more: because he could feel the energy building, even as her brain attacked the new information. He knew his strengths, but he also knew his weaknesses, and one of them was that he was, at heart, lazy. It took someone else lighting a fire under him to get him going. And Ginny, he’d discovered, was the best kind of match.

  “Once you get your fingers dirty, it’s easier to shove all the way up to your elbows,” Ginny said. “I’d bet that it’s a pretty quick jump from arranging fighters to beat the crap out of each other to getting dogs to do the same. Especially… if he’s taking money in from the bets, you can be sure the fighters wanted a cut, too. But dogs…”

  “Dogs are cheap,” Teddy agreed.

  “Especially if they’re stolen,” Ginny said thoughtfully.

  “What?”

  “This morning, when I took Thing One and Thing Two for their walk, I talked to a guy who was walking his dog, an ex-cop. The guy was, not the dog. Although… beside the point. He warned me about leaving them tied up unattended, that the number of dognappings around here has gone up recently. I don’t know if he’s right or just paranoid, but… he was talking about people stealing them for illegal lab testing, but what if someone’s stealing them for dogfights, too? The research I did, that’s a thing. People’s pets end up in the ring, after they’re treated badly enough to make them vicious.” Parsifal ran into the room, clearly looking for people, and she scooped the puppy up onto her lap, cuddling him. “Who does that sort of thing, Tonica?”

  He had no answer to give her.

  “So you think maybe someone’s got a dognapping ring for a dogfighting scheme, and was stashing them in Deke’s basement?” He made a face, aware of how insane that sounded.

  “It would explain the dogs being brought back and forth—in after they’re stolen, then out to… you know.” Labs, or dogfights, or some other fate that probably did not involve a loving home and chew toys.

  “But why store them at all?” Teddy asked.

  “Do I look like a dognapping mastermind?” Her hazel eyes widened in exasperation. “I don’t know. But someone was.”

  Ginny with her teeth in the facts was a fearsome thing to behold.

  She ticked off those facts on her fingers, tapping each blunt-filed nail with her thumb. “So now we have a potential cause, a potential suspect, and a potential connection linking all of these things to Deke.”

  “And, if this fire turns out to have been arson in fact, we have actual cops actually interested in the potential suspect—or suspects,” he pointed out. Their gazes met, worry shared. “We need to be careful, or Deke’s back in it again. Even if they don’t like him for the bad guy, they’ll still pull him in for questioning if he knew what was going on. And you know how that will end.”

  With Deke pulled back into the system, no matter how innocent he might be. Zimmerman might have his heart in the right place, but once wheels started turning, Deke could easily get crushed underneath.

  “Which means keeping our connection to him out of any poking around we do.” Ginny tapped her thumb and forefinger together, and then flicked them out, as though getting rid of a disliked thought. “Insurance claims. Those should be easy enough to lay hands on, at least, compared to anything else. That plus the crime report should give us an idea of the cause, if nothing else.”

  “I doubt we’ll be able to get anything from the insurance company right away, no matter what contacts you pull,” Teddy pointed out. He’d had to fill out a few dozen insurance claims over the years, and he knew that even a house fire didn’t get done in any hurry, especially when not much of value was lost. And if there was a pending investigation… “So in the meanwhile, we follow up on the dogs?”

  Ginny stroked Parsifal’s fur, pursing her mouth in thought. “The first rule of research is start where you have an in, and see where it goes. Assuming we’re not going to confront the guy your informant gave us… ?”

  “Not until we know more, no.” He was determined about that. “A
nd we’re waiting on your informant for that, right?”

  “Right. Well, other than the potentially evil podiatrist, Williams was our best in, seeing if the vet community had any alerts, but we already tapped that and came up dry. So who else might know about missing dogs, or a potential dogfighting run on the area?”

  Teddy rubbed his eyes, then ran his hand over the top of his head. “You think it’s time to talk to our friends down at the shelter? See if they have a line on things?”

  “Maybe.” Ginny made another scrunched-up face. “Yeah. Flip a coin to see who has to talk to them?”

  They’d solved the shelter case, but nobody there had been particularly happy with what they discovered—the petty theft they’d been hired to uncover had turned out to be the least of it. They probably wouldn’t get thrown off the premises, but they weren’t going to be welcomed with open arms, either.

  “Sure.” He reached into his pocket to get the coin he always carried with him.

  “Yeah, forget about it, I know about that coin of yours,” Ginny said. “I’ll do it. I should rebuild fences, and I’m going to be taking Parsifal down there, anyway, eventually.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “Are you?”

  “Don’t start that again. Why don’t you adopt him? Your hours aren’t any crazier than most people’s; he’d adapt. And you’d have a running companion.”

  “Yeah, with those legs?”

  “So you could carry him. Like weights!”

  He rolled his eyes, and she held up her hands, indicating that she would drop the topic if he did. He sighed, and nodded. It was rare he could hold something over her like this, but it really wasn’t fair: she was obviously getting attached to the little furball and didn’t feel she could keep him. Teasing was fair game, but not when it hurt.

  Teddy put his coffee mug on the table. “You know what, this is stupid. We’ll both go. This is business; we work better as a team—you distract them with annoying questions, and I charm them into telling us what we really wanted to know.”