Hannah West: Sleuth on the Trail (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

by Linda Johns

  “Nice job, Hannah,” Leonard said, even though he still made some edits to the ad. “Working on another sketch of Izzie?”

  “She’s a good model for me,” I said, showing Leonard the latest of the dozen drawings I have of Izzie. I closed my sketchpad and put it back in my messenger bag. “May I take Izzie for another short walk and then help with her bath?”

  “Sure. I’ll let Meredith know you’re bringing Izzie in for a bath and a nail trim. And Hannah,” Leonard said, “I know how hard it is to say good-bye to animals, but you have to keep in mind that our job is to find them homes where they’ll be safe and loved for the rest of their lives.”

  I smiled at him, but I still felt like my moist eyes were giving away the fact that I was pretty close to tears. I had been coming to the Elliott Bay Animal Shelter every week for the past couple of months, giving me more than five times as many hours I needed for my community-service requirement at school. Not that community service should even be a requirement. I felt like I should be paying the shelter for the opportunity to be here. In fact, I decided to set aside half of the money I make from dog-walking for the rest of the year and donate it to the shelter.

  Fifteen minutes later Izzie and I were back at the shelter and waiting for bath time. A volunteer in the grooming room was finishing up with a huge dog the size of a real-life Scooby-Doo. When she turned around, I realized it was the volunteer who I saw at The Perfect Pet yesterday—Meredith.

  “Meredith? Are you ready for us?” I asked tentatively.

  “Just finishing up with Cyrano, here,” she said. She towel-dried him and clasped a wide collar around his massive neck. I brought a ramp over to the table so that Cyrano could walk down from the grooming table.

  “Cyrano is about to go home with a new family,” Meredith said. She sighed a long, deep sound that sounded so sad.

  “It must be really hard to say good-bye to dogs, even when you know they’re going to good homes,” I said, paraphrasing what Leonard had just said to me.

  “It’s not just that,” Meredith said, all doom and gloom. “I’d say only five percent of the people who have dogs are worthy of them.”

  I laughed nervously. She was kidding, right? Oops. I guess not, because she glared at me. I pretended to cough.

  “I guess I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.

  “I don’t have any exact figures. No one’s ever bothered doing a scientific study on something as important as responsible dog ownership. But I see way too many dogs in my job who are neglected,” she said.

  “Do you mean your job at The Perfect Pet? I think I saw you there,” I said.

  She glared at me.

  “Did you? Hmmm. Why don’t you bring Izzie up here?” she said. I noticed she used a soft, sweet voice to talk to dogs. Her voice to me wasn’t nearly as sweet.

  Izzie pranced easily up the ramp, but then she seemed a bit scared. Cyrano sat patiently next to me.

  “Your new family is here, Cyrano,” Leonard said, taking the dog’s leash.

  “I’m going to miss that big guy,” Meredith said. “Do you live in Fremont? With a dog?”

  “I’m dog-sitting there,” I said. I automatically reached for one of my business cards. I couldn’t exactly hand one to Meredith when she was up to her elbows in water and soap.

  She raised her eyebrows at me.

  “Um, maybe you know him? I’m dog-sitting Elvis. He’s a basset hound. A tricolored basset hound,” I rattled off quickly. I didn’t want to go into the whole thing about house-sitting and everything. Mom and I have to be careful who we tell. We don’t want the schools to label me as a transient, because if that happens I won’t be able to keep going to Cesar Chavez Middle School with all my friends.

  “I think I know him,” was all Meredith said.

  Okaaaay …

  “Does Elvis go to The Perfect Pet?” I asked. I don’t know why, but the silences in this conversation were making me uncomfortable.

  “Don’t you know? I would think that a responsible dog sitter would know all of these details,” she said. She had a hose in her hand, so I didn’t want to say anything that would bug her.

  “It sure seems like there are a lot of dogs in Fremont,” I said. Why did I keep talking?

  “Too many, if you ask me,” she said.

  That seemed like a weird thing for a dog lover to say.

  “I don’t know what you mean by that. Is there something wrong with Fremont?” I asked.

  “There’s nothing wrong with Fremont. It’s a great neighborhood,” she said. “I’m just not so sure that city dogs get the attention and exercise they need. I’m not convinced that any dog gets the attention and exercise it deserves. Every dog could use more walks.”

  Izzie’s ears perked up at the word walk. So did mine. If we were in a cartoon, there’d be a thought bubble above Izzie’s head with a person walking her down the street. There would be a thought bubble over my head with a lightbulb and dollar signs inside. I took this opportunity to pull out a business card.

  “That’s where I can help,” I said. “I’m a reliable dog walker with good references.”

  Meredith took the business card and shoved it into the front pocket of her jeans without even looking at it. Then she looked at me. Intently.

  “Keep a close eye on that basset. You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him.” She went back to rinsing Izzie.

  What a weird thing to say.

  CHAPTER 6

  MOM PICKED ME up right after Izzie’s bath. I really wanted Izzie to have the best home ever, but my gut ached every time I thought about not seeing her again. I know it’s selfish. I tried not to get too emotional. Dogs can pick up on these things, and I wanted Izzie to be confident and happy when prospective new owners came to check her out.

  Moms pick up on these emotional things, too. Mine put her arm around my shoulders as we walked to the car. I didn’t even pay attention when she pointed the remote control key toward our Honda and clicked “unlock.” But I had to smile as Elvis popped up in the front seat. This time I braced myself to stay steady when this drooling hound hurled his body at me.

  “I’m never going to forget you, just like I’m never going to forget Izzie,” I said, pushing his long wiggly body into the backseat of the car.

  “I got the photo from Ted,” Mom said. I’d offered to make a crisp black line drawing based on the photo of Boris. Mom thought it was a truly thoughtful idea and had called Ted to ask for a new photo. She handed me a framed picture of Boris, the bichon frise. “The photo on the flyer definitely didn’t do him justice.”

  “I guess this means Boris didn’t magically appear while I was at the animal shelter,” I said.

  Mom’s silence was all the answer I needed. I pulled out my sketchbook and started drawing Boris. Drawing in a moving car isn’t ideal, but I felt like I needed to do something. If Boris’s owner wanted people to be on the lookout for him, it was clear to me that a better picture was needed on the flyer. Sure, the bright yellow paper and the word “Reward!!!” would get people’s attention, but the photocopying process had turned Boris’s fluffy white head into a muddy, blurry mess.

  I kept working on the Boris drawing when we got back to the apartment. I wanted something unique about Boris to come through, but I needed to keep it simple enough so that it would copy well.

  By three o’clock, I had it. I scanned the drawing and redesigned Ted’s original flyer. Then I printed it on Piper’s laser printer. Mom and I took it to Ted’s apartment, 403, just down the hall.

  “Did you say you’re in middle school?” Ted asked. “That’s hard to believe because this is so good. You really captured his personality, just from that photograph. It’s uncanny.” Ted was getting a little choked up. I would choke up, too, if my pet was missing.

  “If it’s okay with you, I could get this photocopied and we could put them up in the stores and restaurants around the neighborhood. We can go to all the same places where you put the flyer yesterday,�
�� I said. Putting up flyers would also give me an excuse to go into all the local shops, maybe even ask people some questions about the last time they saw Boris.

  Ted seemed exhausted, and his voice was hoarse—probably from walking up and down the streets calling for Boris. He thanked me and handed me twenty dollars to make copies.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about when he disappeared,” I said. “Maybe I might find something because I’ll have fresh eyes in the area.”

  “There’s not much to say. He was there one second, gone the next. Boris was patiently waiting for me outside The Perfect Pet while I picked up—”

  “The Perfect Pet?” I interrupted. “I thought the flyer said something about Joe’s Special.”

  “I was inside Joe’s Special picking up a clubhouse sandwich. I’d called my order in earlier so I wouldn’t be inside too long. I tied Boris to a metal post outside The Perfect Pet next door,” Ted said.

  “How was the leash secured to the post?” I asked, using my best inquiring-detective-wants-to-know voice. Ted grabbed a thin leash from his inside doorknob, looped it around a coatrack, pulled the hook end through the loop, and tightened it. It’s the same way I’d secure a leash to a pole or a bench.

  “The leash was gone, too,” Ted said, confirming my suspicion. There’s no way a dog could undo a loop that secure. If a dog had simply run away to follow a squirrel or to find food, the leash would have stayed behind.

  “You know, my friends think I’m blowing this all out of proportion,” Ted said.

  “I don’t think you are,” I said.

  He smiled in that way that says, That’s nice of you, kid.

  “Did you know that in most dognappings small dogs are taken,” I said. I mentioned how the thieves go after small dogs, partly because they’re portable but also because they’re the hot dogs of the moment. “People pay a lot of money for small purebred dogs, and not all people care where the dogs come from,” I said.

  Uh-oh. I was getting that warning look from my mom again.

  “I’m just sharing what I learned on the Internet …” I trailed off.

  “I have a feeling you’re on the right track,” Ted said. “Small dogs are hot, as you say. Bichon frises are known as a highly desirable breed. Hypoallergenic. No shedding. Easy to train. Sweet and loyal.”

  No one had called to collect on the reward, which makes the dognapping-for-ransom scenario a little weaker. Yet it had been more than twenty-four hours since Boris had disappeared. That seemed to increase the chance that Boris was stolen. The dog thief might have already sold him for a ridiculous amount of money to someone who wanted a cute white dog as a fashion accessory.

  “Thanks for all your help,” Ted said wearily as Mom and I headed back down the hall. “I’m tempted to have you make one slight change and put the amount of the reward money on it. Perhaps that would help.”

  I was tempted to ask how much the reward was, but I didn’t have to. Ted told me.

  No wonder there were three exclamation points after “reward.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “FOUR THOUSAND, two hundred, and fifty dollars?” Lily practically screamed into the phone. “That is a huge amount of money.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “If someone knew that Ted would offer that kind of money, why didn’t the dog thief just pretend to find the dog and collect the money?”

  “Exactly,” I said again.

  “Suddenly this case is much more interesting.”

  “So now you agree that we have a case?” I asked.

  I didn’t quite catch what Lily said next. She was calling me on her mom’s cell phone while they were driving from the Maple Leaf section of Seattle (my old neighborhood) to Fremont. Lily’s dad, Dan, wanted to pick up some more organic vegetables at PCC. I’m not sure if the Shannons really needed to come to PCC, but they always go out of their way to make sure Lily and I can spend lots of time together. It takes considerable more coordination now than it did when we lived down the street from each other, and I appreciated the effort.

  It wasn’t the money that made the case seem more real. Not directly, anyway. It was the fact that the amount of money was so large and still whoever had Boris hadn’t tried to collect on it. But then again, people didn’t know how big the reward was yet.

  “We have to keep the option open that Boris is lost, plain and simple,” Lily said. She was in our apartment looking at the flyer.

  I gave her a look.

  “Yeah, I don’t believe it either. But it is still a possibility.”

  It was already four o’clock on Sunday afternoon. Most stores would close in an hour or two. We needed to get going if we wanted to hang the posters. Also, there was this little thing called homework that I’d successfully put off all weekend. I’d have to find time for that, too.

  “Stop fiddling with that thing,” Lily said. I was back at my laptop.

  “Oh, I’m finished with Ted’s flyer. I had another idea.”

  “Of course you did.” Lily sighed.

  “Here we go,” I said, as Piper’s printer spit out another flyer. Lily picked it up. She raised her eyebrows at me. “That’s good thinking,” she said.

  “Let’s go get them printed,” I said, grabbing Elvis’s leash.

  “He’s coming with us?” Lily asked.

  “Of course. He’s tracking Boris.”

  Lily rolled her eyes.

  “You have to admit that he gives us an excuse to talk with people,” I said. “He’s our cover.”

  When we got to the copy shop, I gave Lily the choice of standing outside with Elvis or going inside to get copies made. Not surprisingly, she chose the inside job.

  “Okay, make forty of each of these. Get the one for Boris on that same fluorescent yellow paper and get this other one on bright green.”

  “Well, hello, young Elvis.” An elderly man walking down the street tipped his hat to us. He was the sixth person in five minutes to call Elvis by name. The man stopped and looked at the flyer that said Boris was missing. He made a tsk-tsk sound. “Such a shame, such a shame,” he said.

  “Here you go,” Lily said, coming out with a stack of yellow papers and a stack of green. She pulled the old Boris flyer down.

  “Now just a minute, young lady … Oh, I see,” he said, as he read the new-and-improved flyer. “That is a much better likeness of Boris. You two must be helping Ted out.”

  This neighborhood was starting to feel like a small town in a movie where everyone knows everyone else’s business. You’d think that would make it easier to find a dog. Whoever took Boris would have caught someone’s attention. Sure, lots of people come to Fremont to eat and shop, but Boris was a local. They wouldn’t just stand around while a stranger walked off with him. Unless the person who took Boris was also a local …

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.” I realized that the man in the hat had continued talking while I was mulling things over.

  He chuckled. “I was just saying that this is a fine idea,” he said, nodding toward my green flyer that Lily had just taped to the window.

  Does Your Dog Hate to Shop?

  You’ll get your errands done faster if you leave your canine with me.

  No more barking outside of shops, no more worrying about a tail-wagger breaking something inside a store.

  Call for an experienced dog walker’s help.

  References available.

  235-6628

  I’d illustrated the flyer with cartoon scenes with Elvis, Mango, and Ruff, three of my star clients. Each vignette showed a happy dog walking alongside a responsible-looking twelve-year-old Chinese girl (me).

  “Do you have a dog?” I asked.

  “Me? No, I don’t,” he said. He sounded kind of sad. “I love dogs, but I’m afraid my wife was quite allergic. She was fine around cats, but sneezed up a storm around canines. I still have five cats. We had six at one time.”

  I noticed he talked about his wife and
her allergies in the past tense. See? Always thinking. Always gathering information. Maybe this seemingly nice man was a crazy cat person. Maybe he actually hated dogs.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I’d missed whatever he’d said. Again. Lily looked at me puzzled. He looked at me puzzled, too.

  “I was saying that this is a fine idea, especially given recent events in the neighborhood. I’ll be sure to spread the word. If people tell you ‘Mack sent me,’ you’ll know it was me. That’s me. I’m Mack.” He tipped his hat again. It was one of those old-fashioned bowler hats, the kind that men wore with suits in old movies. His seemed authentic, like he’d had it since the 1950s. “Good day,” he said, and moved down the street.

  “Nice man. Reminds me of my grandfather,” Lily said.

  Our next stop was Joe’s Special. Lily took another turn inside and I stayed outside with Elvis. I looked at the metal pole outside The Perfect Pet, where Ted had tied Boris’s leash. It looked as secure as Ted said. Lily made a face at me through the restaurant window as she taped up our flyers.

  “You might as well keep holding him because I’ll just pop in here while I’m in the taping mode,” she said. She turned the knob to The Perfect Pet, but it was locked. “Weird,” she said. The sign was still turned to “Open.” According to the hours painted on the door window, they were open another twenty-five minutes. I didn’t think it would be polite to tape something to the outside of the shop’s windows without their permission. Instead, I slipped two copies of each flyer through the mail slot next to the door.

  Our final stop was Peet’s Coffee, on the corner of Thirty-fourth and Fremont. I handed the leash to Lily.

  “I don’t see why we can’t both go inside and Elvis can wait for us outside. No offense to the hound, but I don’t think anyone would snatch him.”

  I glared at her.

  “I mean, not that he’s not adorable and wonderful. But he’s rather heavy, so someone can’t just pick him up and run. He’s also rather vocal, and I think we’d hear about it if someone tried to take him,” she said.