Teacup Tubulence

by Linda O. Johnston

  I hung up and returned to Carlie’s office, telling her what Dante had said.

  “Is it okay for me to exchange those boxes, as he requested?”

  “Sure, with one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You tell me what the heck is going on.”

  • • •

  I got in to see Dante right away. The price of my entry was toting back the box of collars in question. Sheila looked at me quizzically as she showed me inside.

  Dante greeted me, took the box and laid it on the corner of his desk, then began to pace his office, alternating his glares between the offending Bling and me. He wore a black shirt and matching trousers today—all dark, which added to the darkness of the room’s atmosphere.

  “Something’s really strange, Lauren,” he told me unnecessarily. “I decided to wait until you got here, but I’m heading to the factory this afternoon. Problem is, I’m not really sure who to talk to.”

  “Who let you know about the . . . er, problem with these collars?”

  “One of the shift managers. But I had a sense that he was just repeating what he’d been told, and I couldn’t trace it to the source of the matter. Yet.”

  I drew in my breath. He needed to know the worst of it, too. “There does appear to be a real problem with these collars, Dante.”

  He stopped pacing. Now the glare in his intense brown eyes centered on me, as if I was the cause of whatever was going on. “What?” he demanded.

  I related to him what Carlie had told me. “I can’t be sure, of course, but she felt her cameraman had the right kind of background to recognize and test real jewels. You might want to have those collars checked out before you head to the factory.”

  “What? That makes no sense, but, yeah, I’ll look into it, just in case. I’ve got some contacts in the jewelry business.” He had contacts everywhere, so that didn’t surprise me. “Which are the collars that you think have the real things attached?”

  I repeated what Carlie had told me about that, too, pointing out the ones with tiaras and dog noses. “I saw some with these designs in the boxes taken to Las Vegas the last time, too. I’ve no idea if they had actual jewels in them, of course. One of the boxes had been sealed with red tape, like the one I just brought back from Carlie’s. I saw one like it in a room at the City of Industry plant, too.”

  “Looks like I’d better find out if there are any more boxes like that around.”

  Another thought struck me. “Do you suppose some of the collars with real jewels could also have been on the first flight?”

  He was apparently on the same wavelength. “I just thought about that. I’ve no way of knowing for sure. But—”

  “But if so, what if Teresa Kantrim somehow knew or suspected it? That might have been what she was goading the Faylers about.”

  “Yeah.” His tone was grim, and the rage in his expression would have worried me if I hadn’t gotten to know him a bit, as my employer and the HotRescues benefactor, over the years. He wasn’t directing his anger at me.

  But if he had been, more than my position could have been in jeopardy.

  “Are you going to question them about this?” I asked. I probably should have backed off, but even though I was only peripherally related to this situation, I wanted answers, too.

  “Of course. But . . . well, I’d be surprised if Tom was behind this. Trouble is . . . well, hell. I don’t want any of them to be behind it.” He had stopped pacing and slammed a fist down on his desk. It must have been a hard blow, because the sound reverberated and made me jump.

  I took a couple of deep breaths. Something had occurred to me.

  “Were you planning to come to my party at HotRescues tomorrow to honor the latest batch of little dogs, who’re finally out of quarantine?”

  His glare ended in a blink, as if he was incredulous about the non sequitur. But it wasn’t a non sequitur. In fact, it was very much related to what we’d been talking about.

  “Yes,” he said slowly. And then he stopped.

  The rage on his handsome face was slowly replaced by a smile. “Interesting idea, Lauren,” he said, his mind obviously retuned to the same wavelength as mine. “I’ll check on how genuine those stones are. And I won’t push anyone for answers, not yet. But what I will do is make sure that everyone at HotPets who has anything to do with the Bling line comes to your party, too. Do you know how to approach this?”

  “No. I just got the idea. But why don’t we brainstorm ahead of time, see what we can come up with.”

  “Gladly.” He came around his desk and put out his hand for me to shake. “I like the way you think, Lauren. And not just about animals.”

  I smiled back even as my mind raced. Could I live up to his expectations and figure out a way to get the results we wanted?

  • • •

  When my kids were little, I used to love to cook for them. I’d try all kinds of recipes, and, often to my surprise, they liked most of them. Maybe it was because the things I tried contained ingredients that I already knew were their favorites.

  But I hadn’t seen either Tracy or Kevin for over a month now. Their being away at college did that. Kevin used to come home around one weekend a month, but now his visits were less frequent.

  And I hardly ever cooked for myself.

  I’d invited Matt over for dinner that night, though. After dropping off the box of neutral Bling collars that Dante had given me for Carlie, I spent a little time at HotRescues, then Zoey and I headed home.

  I had decided to make my own version of chicken escabeche, a conglomeration of several recipes I’d found online, one with the meat ultimately resting on seasoned black beans. There’d be a salad first, and store-bought cupcakes for dessert.

  I’d also told Matt to bring Rex along. That was an automatic invitation for them both to stay overnight.

  I was just finishing the chicken dish when my phone rang. Matt was at my complex’s gate. I buzzed him in, and a few minutes later my doorbell sounded. Zoey, as always, started barking, and we both headed toward the front door.

  “It’s okay, girl,” I told her. “You’re having company tonight.”

  To my delight, not only did Matt look handsome and sexy in his work shirt and jeans, but he also surprised me by handing me a small bouquet of daisies. “Thanks for inviting me, Lauren,” he said. And when I closed the door behind him he gave me such a hot, sexy kiss that I figured I could have cooked the rest of the chicken by holding it in my overheated hands.

  Not that I tried.

  I sent Matt into the backyard with the dogs until I had set the table and was ready to serve dinner. I’d considered eating in the dining room, but Matt was practically family. Instead, I set things up to dine in my kitchen at the small table.

  I called the gang inside, checked the water bowl for Zoey and Rex, and gave them each a biscuit. Then I directed Matt to sit down.

  He dug into the salad with gusto, then complimented me profusely on the chicken dish.

  Then he said, “Okay, Lauren, what’s going on?”

  I’d been eating without looking at him . . . yet. But now I met his gaze with an expression I hoped looked completely innocent. “I miss my kids, but I enjoyed cooking for you tonight. Do you really like the chicken?”

  “I love it, but that’s not what I meant. I know you have an ulterior motive for softening me up with food. That’s not something you usually do.”

  “No, it isn’t, but it doesn’t mean—”

  “Sure it does. We’ve known each other long enough now that I can read at least some of your signals, intentional or not. Is this something about your looking into that latest murder?”

  I thought about denying it, but I’d have a hard time backing off the lie later. I’d promised before to at least let him know what I was up to so he could back me up—or at least worry about me. In fact, that had been a major reason for this dinner.

  I pasted a rueful smile on my face—not rueful about my intention o
f looking into those collars and who was responsible for them . . . and if their existence could somehow have been related to Teresa Kantrim’s murder. No, I was rueful that I’d been so obvious.

  But on reflection, just serving a dinner at home shouldn’t necessarily have been a clue about anything. It was actually more of a statement about my relationship with Matt that he had correctly interpreted it that way. Wasn’t it?

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re right. Will you promise not to say anything to anyone but me about this? There’s something going on at HotPets that I’m helping Dante with.” It might expand into the murder investigation, but it might not, too.

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you promise?”

  He laughed. “Of course.” He reached across the table and put his large, firm hand on my wrist as I used my fork to cut my chicken. He squeezed gently. “Am I going to be mad about this?”

  “That’s up to you,” I said, “but I hope not.”

  “Okay. Tell me.”

  “Well, you’re coming to the HotRescues party tomorrow, aren’t you?” I was only equivocating a little as I decided on the best way to approach this with him.

  “Of course. I may not be there for the whole thing, though, since there’s a SMART training session tomorrow.” And the Specialized Mobile Animal Rescue Team was one of the L.A. Animal Services teams that he supervised.

  “That’s fine. I’m not sure what the timing will be for my inquiries, anyway, or how I’ll handle them.”

  “What inquiries?”

  I took a deep breath, and said, “Dante’s still having them checked out, but there’s . . . an issue about some of the HotPets Bling collars, and I’m going to see if I can find out anything about their origin tomorrow by asking some questions.”

  “What issue?” His tone and expression were so suspicious that I’d have laughed if I hadn’t known that would only make him madder.

  “Well . . .” I told him then about Carlie’s cameraman’s discovery of the not-so-fake jewels in some of the collars. “Dante has some friends who know about jewels and all, so he’ll confirm whether that’s true or not by tomorrow. But if so, it’ll be kind of fun to check out what some of his folks know at my party tomorrow. I’ve invited a bunch of people from HotPets who are involved with the Bling collars, like I did last time.”

  “I get it. Maybe I can help, too, at least while I’m there.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, relieved at his tone. He wasn’t angry. In fact, his expression had turned thoughtful. And he looked so good while thoughtful that I considered going over to his side of the table and giving him a kiss.

  “I’m figuring you’re somehow going to turn this into part of your investigation into who killed Teresa, right?”

  Damn. He was at least as observant and intuitive as Dante. Probably more so. I knew that. And I should have known better than to think he wouldn’t realize how I was potentially equating the two maybe-not-so-separate issues.

  “And if I am?” I intoned belligerently.

  “If you are, I’m definitely going to get involved,” he said. This time, his expression was so intense—and caring, at the same time—that I did stand and approach him.

  Fortunately, we were both done with our meals. I whisked our plates into the sink so the dogs couldn’t get to them, and then I took Matt’s hand and led him from the table.

  Chapter 29

  Here we were again. It was another Saturday, a few weeks after the last party, and HotRescues was about to host another similar event.

  I’d be releasing the next batch of little dogs from quarantine so they’d be available for adoption.

  And I still didn’t know quite how to question the people connected with HotPets for information I sought, for Dante’s sake and maybe the Faylers’ if they truly weren’t involved.

  I sat in my office now with Zoey at my feet. I’d spent a delightful night with Matt, fed all of us breakfast, including the dogs, and sent him on his way to his job. Of course I anticipated he’d be here at HotRescues a little later, for moral support at least.

  At the moment, I faced my computer and looked at which of the latest teacups had been given which names of tea varieties. We had Breakfast and Earl Grey, Yorkies; Chai, a Pekingese; Chamomile, a Pomeranian; Citrus, a bichon frise; Greenie and Lemon, Chihuahuas; English and Irish, silky terriers; Icy, a poodle; Jasmine, a shih tzu; and Oolong, a Maltese. All were healthy. All were adorable. And all were highly adoptable.

  That process would start today at our debut party for them. In the meantime, we’d adopted out all of the little dogs from our past rescue. This was all working, as it should have.

  The ads for HotPets Bling collars continued on billboards and on TV.

  But what was the real story behind the Bling collars that contained not fake, but real, bling?

  And did that have something to do with Teresa Kantrim’s murder here at HotRescues after our last party?

  I admitted to myself, but not anyone else, that I was a little nervous about this gathering. Surely no one else would wind up dead . . . would they?

  Enough of that. To make sure the Bling was a topic of conversation at the upcoming party, I was wearing my Bling necklace over my HotRescues blue staff T-shirt. I was about to change out of my usual jeans into nicer slacks, and I’d wear a dressier shirt with my tee underneath.

  As I stood to begin removing my pants, a knock sounded on my closed door. Good thing it hadn’t happened three seconds later.

  Zoey stood from where she’d been lying on the rug and approached the door, but she didn’t bark. She did look from the door to me expectantly, though.

  “Yes?” I called out, not inviting whoever it was in, although it was most likely Nina.

  It was. She poked her head in as she opened the door. “Guests are starting to arrive, Lauren. I’ll stay here to greet them, but I’d like to get a stream of volunteers started to come up here and show them into the back.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Give me a minute to change, and I’ll go get the stream started.”

  That was easy enough. I even helped show people into HotRescues myself, along with Mamie, Ricki, Bev, and more volunteers, plus Pete and even Angie, Gavin, and Dr. Mona. Most of my regular gang was here for the party, which made me feel good. Nina and Mona were wearing their HotPets Bling necklaces, like I was.

  I was surprised to see Pam here. She was the volunteer who’d apparently given Mark Black an alibi for the night of Teresa’s murder. She hadn’t been back here since then.

  When I spared a moment to try to take her aside, the young, pretty volunteer’s pale brown eyes teared up as she said, “I know what you want to talk about. I only spent a little while with Mark, and I didn’t like the way he acted, so I got away from him. I don’t know what he did after that. I didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t come back here—but I missed this place.”

  “You’re always welcome,” I told her, and didn’t ask any more questions. She’d told me enough, and I assumed she’d done the same with the authorities.

  Quite a few of the people who arrived were strangers who’d come because they had heard on the news and online that we had more of those cute teacup dogs like the ones in those ads for sparkling HotPets collars.

  Yeah, those sparkling collars.

  The next time I walked people into our busy kennel area, where the volume of conversation was increasing exponentially, there happened to be two college-age boys who just couldn’t wait to see our little pups. Really? As I took them past our medium-to-large-sized dogs who greeted them from behind their own glass-fronted enclosures, both appeared delighted to see the animals I’d have considered more the type for these guys, who undoubtedly wanted to appear macho to attract lovely young women. Even so, they only smiled and looked at the front-end dogs, then both looked at me expectantly, and I led them through the increasingly dense and chattering crowd.

  Soon, I had them just outside the building where the tiny dogs were kept, now t
hat they were out of quarantine. “We’re going to have a little ceremony in”—I looked at my watch—“twenty minutes. For now, I’d suggest that you hang around here, grab some refreshments.” I pointed toward some tables in our outdoor dog-meeting picnic area. It was even more crowded over there. I supposed everyone was wasting time there until the unveiling.

  Why weren’t they visiting our animals?

  Actually, a lot of them were. It probably wasn’t easy to get up close to the kennel doors, even in this area around the corner from our entry. And I did see people waiting in line to get inside the cat house.

  Some of those people milling around where the refreshments sat were EverySecurity personnel, undercover to watch and make sure no one poisoned what we were serving—just in case some random poisoning was what had happened to Teresa. Which was very unlikely.

  I left the college guys and started maneuvering through the crowd, stopping to say hi each time I got near a volunteer or staff member who was also trying to be a host.

  Senior volunteer Mamie was gabbing with three young people, a guy and two girls. One looked familiar, even though there was something different . . .

  Oh, yeah. The guy looked like the young man who had adopted Onyx, the black Pomeranian who’d been one of the first of our initial group of teacups to find a home. I didn’t recall his name, and I could be wrong—although I seldom was. He looked around the same height and somewhat heavy weight, and his facial features appeared at least similar. As I recalled, he’d dressed somewhat upscale for wearing a T-shirt, with vests each time he had come here. This guy had on a tank top. And didn’t the first guy have light brown hair? This one’s hair was longer and darker.

  Maybe he didn’t look much like Onyx’s new dad at all.

  I approached him and his friends, though. Just in case, I asked, “How’s Onyx? Or did you keep that name?”