Notoriously Neat

by SUZANNE PRICE

  I squeezed my new monkey friend against my chest for comfort, and listened to Connors continue to fill in Chief Vega.

  “. . . think we have a suspect,” he was in the middle of saying. “Caught him trying to make tracks. It’s the kid who works there . . . He’s talking a mile a minute in Spanish and we need you to translate.”

  A second passed. Dr. Pilsner’s kennel assistant, Orlando, was a Dominican immigrant who barely spoke a word of English. But he’d always seemed very sweet, and Gail had adored him—I must have heard her mention how gentle he was with the animals a dozen times.

  I sat there looking stunned. It was hard to imagine Orlando hurting anyone, let alone her.

  Then Chief Vega said, “I don’t speak a word of Spanish.”

  Connors looked at him, mystified.

  “But I figured—”

  “My father came from Mexico,” Vega said. “That doesn’t mean I speak Spanish. Any more than my mother being Irish American gives me a brogue.”

  Although it did explain his sexy emerald green eyes, I thought but didn’t say.

  Connors had flushed with embarrassment.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Right,” Vega said.

  “But we need somebody who—”

  “I speak it,” I said, breaking a hand free from the monkey’s hug to wave it in the air. “Fluently.”

  The two men looked at me.

  “You do?” asked Vega.

  “College minor—and I lived in New York,” I said with a nod.

  He looked at me for a moment. The monkey reached for my upraised hand, tugged it down by the wrist, and pressed my palm against the top of its head, making an improvised monkey cap out of it.

  Then we heard a terrific bang somewhere in the restaurant, followed by an exclamation that I’d phonetically approximate as, “Gua-ooo-laaah!” I think it was bestial in origin, but it might have been a person who was really upset.

  Chief Vega grabbed my elbow and started toward the patio door.

  “We’d better hurry up,” he said.

  I hurried.

  Its cheek pressing against mine, my monkey pal hung on for the ride.

  SKY TAYLOR’S GRIME SOLVERS BLOG

  Bry the Wonder Guy’s

  Awesomely Cool Cleaning Tips

  for Pet Owners

  When it comes to cleaning, Sky’s the Limit and I’m not. But it ain’t like I totally bite—I mean, Skyster never would’ve made me her apprentice if I didn’t have the clean gene in my cells. Or somewhere. Anyway, I cooked up these hints for pet owners, and now she says I gotta be a sharer. So check ’em out. You’ll stress less over Cuddles’s next mess.

  1. Fleas were put on this world for a single, solitary reason, namely, teaching us how to hate living things that’re way smaller than we are. My advice is to keep your carpet flea free, since that’s where they lie low waiting to hop aboard the Cuddles Express.

  The best way to obliterate ’em is with old-school mothballs. Pop a couple into your vacuum cleaner bag before turning on the machine. Then go ahead and vacuum. Most of the fleas you suck up are gonna be instant toast—and the rest are gonna wish they were. When you’re done vacuuming, take the bag out of the vac right away, close it up in a plastic bag, and trash it. Sayonara, bloodsuckers.

  2. Listen to me, ppl, litter ain’t just for cats. Say your dog has an overshare moment in the house—i.e., goes poopsie-doopsie on the rug. You can either stand there screaming, “Urgent!” or deal with it. Pouring cat litter on the mess makes pickup a snap by drying some of the moisture and . . . well, I don’t hafta get any more graphic. Try it. Nobody sez you’ll like it. But you’ll wanna thank me once you quit holding your nose.

  3. While we’re on the subject of accidents, here’s a tip for when Cuddles leaves a puddle on a concrete floor—say in your garage or basement. Kinda like what golfers call a water hazard, except for your foot instead of a ball. To zap the eau de urine, soak the floor with equal parts vinegar and water. That’ll also keep your furry little bud from coming back to that spot to do its business.

  4. Y’know that cheapo grooming brush you bought and never use? The rubbery one that pulls Cuddles’s fur, and makes him stare at you like you’re some freaked-out dom chick whenever it comes out of the drawer? I suggest you resist the urge to chuck it in the trash, since it’s good for getting pet fur off upholstered chairs and couches. Run it over the cushions and it’ll clump the fur for easy pickup. Big plus: Unlike your dog or cat, the couch won’t nip, scratch, or scram into the next room.

  5. Don’t get caught without a pickup bag when walking your dog—unless you’re into paying fines and getting the one-finger howdy from poop-phobe neighbors. I buy small black scooper bags at the pet shop, take a few out of the pack, fold ’em lengthwise, and tie them to the handle of my dog Tat’s (yeah, that’s short for Tattoo) retractable leash. Usually I put about four of them on for starters. Since I hang the collar and leash on a coat hook near the door, I can’t miss noticing when I’m down to the last bag. That’s when I substitute new ones for the bags I’ve used.

  While I’m talkin’ retractable-leash utility: I know people in the Cove never lock their doors, but it ain’t so in Gloucester, where my apartment door’s got a spring lock that bolts on its own. If yours does too, I’ve got some advice. Put a spare house key in some plastic wrap, lay it flat against the side of the leash handle, and then wind some duct tape around it. If you’ve got an inner and outer door, use both sides of the handle, one for each key. The plastic keeps the tape from gumming up your keys. Some night when Cuddles drags you out of bed on an emergency run, you’ll realize you forgot your keys and be glad I kept you from freezing to death in your pj’s.

  6. One for the birds, ha-ha. Spread a layer of wax or parchment paper on the bottom before you line the cage with newspaper. How come? you ask. ’Cause it keeps the newspaper from sticking to the bottom of the cage after Pretty Boy does his thing (and does it and does it and does it, if you know what I’m sayin’). Besides that, it makes scraping history. Spray the cage bottom with pet-safe cleaner and wipe dry. Done.

  7. Final words: Be effective, not defective. And, uh . . . later for monkey tips, sisses and bros.

  Chapter 2

  Dr. Gail Pilsner’s veterinary clinic and pet-boarding kennels were on the first floor of an expansive three-story Colonial that doubled as her home.

  As I went rushing over with the two policemen and the clingy brown monkey, I saw an EMS vehicle from Addison Gilbert Hospital parked out front behind a couple of patrol cars and the coroner’s station wagon. To my surprise, Corinne Blodgett from City Hall stood out front talking to an officer with a notepad, her yappy little Lhasa apso running tangled circles around her legs on an extendable leash. But I was too busy breathlessly keeping up with Vega to wonder what Corinne was doing there.

  Dr. Pilsner’s residential entrance was beyond the vehicles at the curb, set slightly back on a low hill with a half dozen wooden steps climbing to the top. She had used a door at the side of her house for her veterinary practice, where yet another cruiser sat with its roof hurling off strobes of red and blue light. Sawhorses had been hastily thrown up in the cross streets to detour traffic away from the place.

  “We got the assistant in the kennel,” Connors said, hustling along between Vega and me. “The body’s in the front foyer . . . at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Vega glanced over at him.

  “You’re sure this wasn’t an accident?”

  “No way,” Connors said. “She went clear through the rail.”

  Vega picked up his pace. It was somehow odd to see him acting every bit the top cop in his dress clothes, racing along in an expensive charcoal suit, his necktie flapping in the wind. “I want to have a look. Bring Sky around to the clinic and wait for m—”

  “Hey, Chief!”

  Vega looked uphill to where another of his cops stood looking down at us.

  “What is it?”

  “Those EM
S guys are making a fuss.” The cop jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder. “They claim they’re in some kind of hurry.”

  Vega put on a sudden burst of speed. He reached the sidewalk, took the steps leading uphill two at a time, and disappeared into the house.

  I tried to stay close on his heels. Although I couldn’t have explained why, not at that moment, I couldn’t resist the urge to see what had happened with my own eyes.

  “Whoa . . . hold on, miss!” Connors said from behind me. I’d reached the bottom of the wooden steps. “We’re supposed to be going—”

  I knew where we were supposed to be going, and didn’t care. Rushing up the steps, I followed Vega through the entrance—and almost crashed into a pair of white-uniformed emergency technicians standing just inside the vestibule.

  Both turned to face me as I came to a halt. I was back to feeling congested—with the sinus-opening wasabi having worn off, the dash from Shoko’s Minka left me gasping for breath.

  “You again,” one of them said with a frown.

  “Her again.” The other scowled.

  I recognized them immediately. The first guy was named Hibbard. The other was named Hornby. Hibbard had brown hair, Hornby blond. Hibbard was about fifty and pudgy, Hornby thirtyish and thinner. Hibbard was a certified paramedic, while Hornby’s training qualified him only as a basic emergency tech. The men would often insist on pointing out there was a difference, a para being able to administer injections, IV drips, and the like to a patient, whereas a tech couldn’t legally stick a needle in anyone. It seemed to me that Hornby deferred to and admired his older partner, possibly hoping to someday rack up the hours and test scores needed to attain his specialized rating.

  “Me again, right,” I said, wondering why they seemed so unhappy with my arrival. “Is something wrong with that?”

  “Nope,” said Hibbard.

  “Not a thing,” stressed Hornby.

  “Except,” Hibbard said, glancing at his partner.

  Hornby returned the look and nodded.

  I stared at the mellifluously paired EMTs. “Except what?”

  Hibbard hesitated but didn’t say anything.

  “What?” I repeated.

  The para was silent another moment. Then his eyes abruptly grew large. “Hey!” he said. “There’s an animal hanging on to you.”

  “It took you this long to notice?”

  “Don’t pull his leg,” Hornby said. “He’s serious.”

  “I’m not pulling anybody’s leg. Of course there’s an animal hanging on to me.”

  “Is it a baby chimpanzee?” said Hornby.

  “Or a possum?” said Hibbard.

  “How about a koala? I heard koalas have strong grips like this one’s got.”

  “He’s a monkey.” I tried to look past the EMTs toward the staircase, but they were standing right in my line of sight. “Now would you two please excuse me . . . ?”

  “I don’t know,” Hornby persisted. “That thing looks to me like one of those Aussie marsupials I saw on the National Geographic Channel. Like maybe a wombat. Or a kangaroo, I’m not sure which . . .”

  “I told you, he’s a monkey,” I said impatiently. “How in the world can you two not tell he’s a monkey?”

  “Before you get started on that, how can you tell it’s a ‘he’ and not a ‘she’?”

  I looked at him.

  “You’d kind of have to be blind not to know,” I said. “It isn’t as if he’s wearing monkey pants.”

  The techs stared at me. Okay, make that stared at “us.” Me and my monkey friend, I mean. I hitched him defensively up in my arms.

  “Look, you don’t have to get snippy,” Hornby said. “We’re emergency responders for when humans get in trouble, not veterinary techs.”

  “Meaning we can’t identify every single creature in the animal kingdom,” Hibbard said.

  “Which, come to think, the victim probably could’ve done if she wasn’t deceased . . .”

  “Something we can officially state is her present condition, being that a coroner’s assistant accompanied us to the scene this time. As opposed to last time we were all together under similar circumstances,” Hibbard said. His eyes beaded on me. “Or the time before that. When Dr. Maji didn’t have an assistant to send along with us. Which he does now, probably because we’ve had a big spike in suspicious deaths since a certain somebody came to the Cove.”

  Hibbard and Hornby went back to exchanging meaningful glances. We’d had two murders—and maybe three now—in town since I moved up from New York. There was poor Abe Monahan at the Millwood Inn last spring, and then Kyle Fipps at the Art Association’s Christmas party. The common thread being that I’d just so happened to be the person who stumbled on the bodies. Well, okay, I shared the ghastly honors with my best friend, Chloe, when it came to finding Kyle. The thing was, though, that I didn’t like what Hibbard had implied any more than I appreciated the looks he kept swapping with his pal.

  “Are you saying I’m some kind of jinx?” I asked.

  The EMTs shifted uncomfortably on their feet.

  “You hear anybody use that word?” Hibbard replied. “I know I didn’t use that word.”

  “But say he would’ve used it. He might have also pointed out that you’re two for two so far . . . three for three if you want to count the present occasion,” Hornby said. “Not that either of us believes in jinxes. As technical personnel we aren’t superstitious types.”

  I stared at him. The monkey reached a finger up and strummed my lower lip. I pulled his hand, or paw, or whatever it was, away from my face so I wouldn’t blubber.

  “If it wasn’t too idiotic to even discuss, I could point out that you both showed up ahead of me tonight,” I said. “But I won’t. Considering there are more important things going on.”

  They seemed taken aback.

  “There you go getting touchy again,” Hibbard said.

  “We’re just trying to do our job,” Hornby said.

  “Something you might want to explain to your, uh, good friend Chief Vega, since his officers seem clueless about what that job happens to be.”

  That was enough for me. I’d had it with those two big galoots.

  I frowned and pushed past them into the hallway.

  Seeing Dr. Pilsner’s body near the foot of the stairs came as a huge shock. It didn’t matter that I’d expected it. There was no way to avoid being shocked when you saw someone who’d been full of vitality with his or her life suddenly and prematurely snuffed out. And when a life was snuffed out by what looked to be a terrible, vicious act, the insult to the senses seemed all the worse.

  Gail Pilsner had handled the creatures entrusted to her care with a gentle kindness that made her the most popular vet in town, endearing her even to people who weren’t animal lovers or pet owners. But it was clear at once that there was nothing kind or gentle about how she’d met her end. She lay in a heap amid broken, splintered pieces of the banister, wearing a lab coat that had been partially torn off to reveal the plain plaid blouse and khaki slacks she had on underneath. Bent into unnatural positions, her outspread arms and legs looked almost boneless—but, of course, I knew that just meant a great many of Gail’s bones had been shattered.

  As shattered as the rail and spindles that had gone crashing from the stairs to the floor with her.

  I emerged from between Hibbard and Hornby to find the new assistant coroner crouched over the body, a suitcase-sized metal crime-scene kit open on the floor beside her. A slim woman in her mid-thirties with narrow black-rimmed eyeglasses and blond hair pulled severely back from her face, Liz Delman had been working under Dr. Maji for a couple of months now. Though she’d bought a saltbox home not far from the Fog Bell Inn, where I was staying on with Chloe and her husband, I hadn’t gotten to know her too well . . . and neither had anyone else in the Cove. Liz mostly ignored people and seemed almost motorized in the way she’d hurry past you on the street.

  “She’s only been dead a short tim
e,” she said to Chief Vega and two or three other officers standing around her. “My estimate would be less than an hour.”

  “Any ideas about the COD?” Vega said. In police jargon that was short for “cause of death.” Though I don’t suppose anyone would have confused it with “cash on delivery” given the circumstances.

  Liz was packing away her equipment. “There’s serious damage to the C-three vertebra.”

  “A broken neck,” Vega said.

  “In layman’s terms, yes.”

  “You think it happened before she went through the rail? Or as a result of the fall?”

  “I don’t do instant reports, Chief,” she said curtly. “That’s why we conduct autopsies at the hospital.”

  Vega watched Liz latch her kit shut and rise to her feet. I didn’t think he appreciated her condescending attitude. But I also didn’t think he intended to call her out on it . . . not at that very inappropriate point in time.

  The two EMTs chimed in before I could find out for sure.

  “This is exactly what we’ve been telling your boys, Chief,” Hibbard said. “Thanks to the assistant coroner, we can state for the record that we have a deceased, nonresuscitable person here.”

  “Meaning there’s no sense in us hanging around,” Hornby said. “If it’s all the same to you, we’d like to load her up in the wagon and be on our way—”

  Vega cut him short with a glance. He seemed ticked, putting it politely. “A woman’s been killed. As of right now this is a crime scene,” he said. “You’ll wait till I’m finished inspecting it and collecting evidence.”

  In fairness to the techs, I thought they looked sort of contrite. They went back to shuffling their feet, finally stepping aside as Liz Delman shouldered past them to the door.