The Untreed Detectives

by J. Alan Hartman

  “Are you sure?’ Mary Jane reached down and gave Dessie a pat on the head.

  “The pig? Please, be serious. She’s a pig. Besides I think we should call the vet about her. She’s not acting right.”

  Jeremy nodded his head in agreement.

  *

  “She has a microchip implanted in her. I can track down the owner if you like.” Doc Martin, the town’s vet had Dessie on his examining table. Kaitlin, Jeremy and Mary Jane hovered at her side.

  “We know who owns her. Her owner left town soon after she came to live with us.” Kaitlin had little hope finding the owner would be of any help in solving the dilemma of Dessie’s odd behavior.

  “Maybe the guy wasn’t her real owner. He might have gotten her from somebody. Let’s take a look at the data base.” Doc Martin typed the necessary information into his computer. “Interesting. Look at this. It says here her owner lives in Rye, New York and his name is Dion Sarducci.”

  Mary Jane stopped petting Dessie. “Well, his name may be Sarducci, but he doesn’t live in Rye, New York. At least not now. He lives in Clinton, New York.”

  All eyes shifted to Mary Jane, including Dessie’s.

  “How do you know that?” Kaitlin asked.

  “He’s one of my dad’s old friends. Twisty Fingers Sarducci or Twisty for short.”

  Kaitlin knew Mary Jane’s father had done business with the mob, but she didn’t expect Dessie to have mob connections. “Twisty?”

  “Yeah. Back in the day he got a little too close to a rival family and they rearranged his fingers.”

  “Ugh.” Kaitlin didn’t want to hear anymore. “I can’t see what any of this has to do with Dessie’s problem.”

  Doc Martin continued to stroke Dessie’s head. “Well, it’s a long shot, but I think it might be helpful if you could talk to this twisted fellow. Dessie’s lost weight, and I’d say she’s depressed. You need to get some answers. This guy might help.”

  “Wait a minute. You say he lives in Clinton, New York? Isn’t that where the state correctional institution is located?” Kaitlin was beginning to think maybe there was some way they could talk to Twisty and get some answers. Jeremy was heart sick about his pig, and Kaitlin had to admit she felt the same.

  “He’s there on a murder charge, although I can’t believe he did it. Or so Dad said.” Mary Jane paused. “You aren’t thinking of visiting him, are you?”

  “It can’t hurt.” Kaitlin looked at the doctor. He nodded.

  “Please, Mom. Let’s try. Dessie’s really sad.” Jeremy’s eyes filled with tears.

  Mary Jane sighed and nodded her agreement. “I don’t know how we can accomplish this. I don’t think just anyone can visit him. Wait a minute. How about…”

  “If you’re thinking I should use my connection with Jim on this one, then…”

  “No, I’m thinking I’d lean on Mac. Maybe challenge him to a pool game, beat the pants off him and ask for a favor. How does that sound?”

  It sounded great and happened about the way Mary Jane had outlined. She beat him three games out of four, and Mac agreed to contact his old buddies in the New York State Troopers. Of course, when Jim heard about it, he was mad, mad at Kaitlin for dragging a pig into a prison and mad she hadn’t asked him to help her do it.

  *

  Mary Jane, Kaitlin and Dessie (Mary Jane refused to allow Jeremy into the prison) drove into the prison parking lot, left the car there and entered the complex. They were searched for weapons, Dessie undergoing a body scan which gave a bip.

  “Your pig armed?” The guard with the scanner looked serious.

  “No, it’s her microchip, but if you don’t believe me, you can search her pockets.”

  Dessie gave Kaitlin a look filled with anxiety.

  “Only kidding, little gal.” She patted Dessie on the head to reassure her.

  The guard seemed to get the joke. He smiled and waved them into the visitors’ waiting area where the other visitors seemed delighted to make over Dessie as everyone usually did when they met her. She squealed her delight and accepted with Kaitlin’s approval a slice of birthday cake meant for one of the inmates.

  “He won’t mind. He hates cake anyway. I just think it’s funny bringing a cake to a convict, don’t you?” The woman had an odd sense of humor, thought Kaitlin, but maybe that’s what it took to endure time away from your husband.

  Another guard, this one walking with Dessie at his side and talking to her, showed them into a room. A man sat at the table, his legs in shackles, his handcuffed hands resting on the table in front of him. Kaitlin noticed his fingers were twisted and bent, reminding her of someone with severe arthritis. When Dessie entered the room, the man arose, but the guard cautioned him to sit. Dessie propelled her porker’s body across the room and rubbed against the man, clearly delighted at seeing him.

  “You’re Mister Twisty, I guess.” Kaitlin watched the pig rub and push at the man’s legs. She introduced Mary Jane and herself. He immediately recognized Dessie and reached down to pat her.

  “Call me Twisty. This is great. No one thought to have Dessie visit me until now. I miss the little gal. More than I miss my wife.” He patted Dessie’s flanks and chucked her under her chin.

  “So she is your pig.” Kaitlin felt maybe he could give them some answers.

  “Yup, my gal. Had to give her away when I was sent here. You guys the owners now?”

  “Mary Jane’s son really is. He loves her. We all do.”

  “I’m glad she went to a good home. She seems happy with you.”

  “Well, she seemed to be until recently. She tries to crawl into corner, closets, tight spaces as if she’s looking for something. Then she seems real down, as if she’s failed or something. As if she’s bored, or worse, depressed.”

  Twisty gave a loud guffaw. “I’m not surprised. Dessie is a working pig. She is bored, and she’s got no goal in life if she can’t work.”

  “What work did she do?” Kaitlin worried that he might say she was one of those racing pigs in the circus. She didn’t want to lose her to a circus act.

  “I wouldn’t tell you if it weren’t for my being in here anyway.” He paused as if he was reluctant to talk in front of the guard. “Oh, what the hell. I trained her to tell good coke from cut coke. She was a drug sniffing pig.”

  *

  Kaitlin and Mary Jane drove back home in silence. Dessie, obviously energized by seeing her old owner, sat on the back seat making a contented noise in her throat. It almost sounded like purring.

  Finally Kaitlin spoke. “Well, we can’t sell her to a drug lord just to give her a job sniffing out the quality of the drugs he buys.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “There must be something…” Kaitlin suddenly swerved onto the shoulder of the road. “That’s it.”

  “What?”

  She took her cell out of her pocket and called Jim. “How’s the case coming? Got a suspect in custody yet?”

  “We have someone we’re sure is the guy, but we’d sure like to put some pressure on him and could if you could pick him out of a line-up. But you can’t do that, can you?”

  “No I can’t but I have someone who can. How soon can you put a line-up together?

  *

  Dessie charged into the room where the five men stood holding numbers in front of them. All the men wore leather jackets and looked identical to Kaitlin. She was right. She couldn’t pick the shooter out of the five, but Dessie hesitated only a moment, then rushed up to the man holding up number “three” and sniffed his shoes, then began shoving and pushing at his legs, squealing and snorting.

  “Hey, get this damn animal off me.” He swatted at Dessie while the officers pulled her away from him and led him from the room.

  “I’ve got an ID from a pig? Kaitlin what are you doing to me?” Jim was angry at her. His brown eyes lit with icy fire.

  “That’s your suspect. Right?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “And I’ve even
got a motive for you.” She held up her hand to silence him until she finished speaking.

  “It was a drug deal gone bad. If you haven’t discovered this already, that car is filled with drugs, hidden in the upholstery, in the door panels, everywhere. Do a search and you’ll find them.”

  Jim looked at her, his anger turning to amazement then to disbelief. “We’ll see about that.” He signaled to one of the officers. “We’ve got the car in impound and haven’t gotten a look at it yet. We thought it was a gang hit, one gang member kills another, but drugs too? That could be a find.”

  Several minutes later while Kaitlin and Dessie were sharing a peanut butter cracker out of the vending machine in the hallway, Jim returned, a plastic-wrapped package in his hand. Dessie looked up and charged him, her usual pushing and snorting beginning.

  He held up the package. “We took this from the car. A drug sniffing pig. I’ll be damned. How did you find out?”

  “It’s kind of a twisted tale.”

  “You can tell me over dinner.” He smiled at her. Maybe Mary Jane was right. Maybe those pheromones were dancing around the room.

  “Great. But first, I’ve got to pay a visit to the principal of the high school, and I think you’d better come along. Dessie can tell you where those drugs are being distributed and how. Some nasty, greasy haired jerk with a penchant for hitting my pig needs to have his locker cleaned out. Maybe you can help him.”

  “Do you think Jeremy might be willing to let us use Dessie every now and then?” Jim grinned, delighted at how the case was coming together.

  “We’ll ask him tonight. It would be a service to the police and it will give Dessie work, something every potbelly can appreciate.”

  “She’ll need to be sworn in, and she should have a rank. What do you think of Sergeant?”

  *

  The following Monday the local newspaper’s headline read “Pig Solves Murder and Takes down Drug Ring.” In the afternoon there was a swearing in ceremony at the local New York State Trooper Barracks. Dessie seemed to know it was all for her. She swaggered down the aisle led by Jeremy. Jim Wallace declared her to be Sergeant Desdemona, Official Drug Sniffing Potbelly for the State of New York. He then pinned a gold shield on her new red collar and gave her a celebration cake made of corn meal and molasses, a bouquet of lettuce leaves and carrots decorating the top. The Cappuccino Café had prepared it just for Dessie. Dessie gave Kaitlin a questioning look which Kaitlin returned with a nod indicating she could dig right in with no need to share with anyone. Most of the residents of Aldensville attended and applauded loudly, although not loud enough to drown out Dessie’s burp of appreciation when she finished her cake.

  Dog Is in the Details

  By Neil Plakcy

  Steve Levitan has returned to his hometown of Stewart’s Crossing, Pennsylvania, after a brief prison term for computer hacking followed by a bitter divorce. The last thing he needs is custody of Rochester, a large, lively golden retriever. But when his next-door neighbor is murdered while walking her dog, he takes the year-old puppy in and the two of them launch a career in crime solving that now spans four books. The idea for the first book, In Dog We Trust, was nudged into my head by my own golden, Samwise, who spent the better part of twelve years curled around the back of my chair or sprawled on my bed. What better way to pay back all that love than with a book that immortalized him?

  At two years old, my golden retriever Rochester was still a big puppy, with a habit of sticking his wet black nose where it didn’t belong. When I heard the sound of something falling downstairs, I hurried to the staircase. From the landing I saw him scratching his paw against the packing tape on one of the boxes stacked along the living room wall.

  The row of identical cardboard boxes had been there since I moved in. While I was serving a brief prison term in California for computer hacking, my father passed away, leaving me a townhouse in my home town of Stewart’s Crossing, Pennsylvania in his will. At the time, I thought I was going to sell the place, so I hired a company to clean and pack up.

  My marriage also fell apart while I was in prison, so I returned to Bucks County with my tail metaphorically between my legs, trying to start over. I’d been in the house for over a year and I still hadn’t unpacked the boxes of my dad’s stuff.

  Maybe Rochester thought he was giving me a kick start. By the time I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away, he had detached a strip of tape and one side of the box had popped open.

  “I don’t have time for this now,” I said, reaching down to press the box closed again. “Lili’s going to be here any minute.”

  But a strip of buttery light-brown suede caught my eye, and I opened the box instead of resealing it. The item on top was a sports jacket, softened from wear, that my father had often worn on cool fall afternoons when he, my mother and I prowled the flea market in search of bargains.

  I tried it on, and it fit perfectly. The lining was torn and a button was missing, but that could all be fixed. Rochester sat on his haunches watching me, and I wondered if it was the smell of the leather that had attracted him to that box.

  Suddenly he jumped up and skittered across the tile floor to the front door, and he was there by the time my girlfriend Lili opened it.

  It seemed strange to use the word ‘girlfriend’ to describe our relationship, when we were both over forty, but the English language had not caught up to modern life. In Lili’s case, though, the term worked, because she had an enthusiasm for the world that was almost girlish, despite the years she had spent as a photojournalist covering danger spots.

  “Hi, Steve. Nice jacket,” she said. “New?”

  We met halfway to the door and kissed. “Nope, it belonged to my dad. Rochester decided it was time for me to start unpacking the boxes he left behind.”

  “Rochester has good instincts. Don’t you boy?” She handed me the large sealed plastic container she was carrying and reached down to pet the dog’s silky head.

  I lifted one corner of the container and sniffed. “Smells delicious,” I said. “Lemon chicken. Capers, too?”

  She and Rochester followed me to the kitchen. “Just something I threw together,” she said. “You still have that bottle of prosecco? Why don’t you pour while I put the food out.”

  “Sure.” I opened the bottle as she took the chicken out and put it on a platter. Rochester nosed around us in the kitchen, eager to sample our dinner. “You said you had some big news. What’s up?”

  “Let me finish this,” she said. “I’ll tell you once we sit down to eat.”

  She was a tall woman, a couple of inches shorter than my six-one, with an exuberant mass of auburn curls held in tenuous place by a series of brightly colored barrettes. She wore a pair of black slacks and a tan long-sleeved man-tailored shirt. “You’re losing a butterfly,” I said, picking off a yellow-and-brown barrette just before it fell into the chicken. “I don’t think it would add much to the flavor.”

  She took the clip from me and replaced it. “Probably not,” she said.

  She carried the platter out to the table in the breakfast nook, where I’d already set the table, and I followed her with the wine. She sat down across from me, and Rochester snuggled up against her chair hoping for a handout.

  “So, nu?” I asked, reverting to the Yiddish expression I’d heard thousands of times as a kid, as I helped myself to the redolent chicken.

  She took a deep breath. “Van called me this morning. He’s about to head out to Albania to report on another cruise ship problem, and his photographer came down with dysentery.”

  “Van? Van Dryver? Your ex-boyfriend?”

  “I told you, Steve, he wasn’t really a boyfriend. We had a fling, a hundred years ago. Now we’re just colleagues.”

  “How are you colleagues? You’re a professor and he’s a reporter.”

  “In this case he’s a reporter and I’m a photojournalist,” she said. “He asked me to come with him and take pictures, and I said yes.”

&nb
sp; “But what about your job?” Lili was the chair of the fine arts department at Eastern College, where I handled press relations for the college’s fund-raising campaign.

  “The trip is just for a week or two.” She frowned at me like I was a student who wasn’t getting the point. “Van called me this morning. A cruise ship on its way to Corfu broke down in the Strait of Otranto late last night. There are a lot of questions about what it was doing so close to the Albanian coast, and Van heard a rumor some sophisticated electronics on board might be part of a spy operation. He got an assignment from the Wall Street Journal for a business story about the rash of problems with cruise ships lately—but he’s hoping there’s something more.”

  “Okay, I get that part. But why you?”

  “What do you mean, why me? I used to do this for a living, you know.”

  I waved my hand. “I don’t mean that. But there are a lot of photographers he could call. Why you?”

  “Van and I used to talk about bucket lists a lot,” she said. “Places we wanted to go before we died. Albania was on both our lists. He remembered, so when this other guy got sick he thought of me.”

  “Are you sure he’s not just trying to get back together with you?”

  “Oh, you’re jealous. That’s sweet. But I outgrew Van a long time ago. This is just business.” She waved at the meal. “Eat.”

  As we ate, I made appreciative noises about the food, but my mind was going in a hundred different directions. Should I be jealous of Van? Worried about Lili heading to what might be a dangerous assignment? She didn’t need my permission, but she hadn’t even asked for my opinion before deciding to go, and that bothered me.

  Finally, Lili put down her knife and fork and looked at me across the table. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about,” she said.

  I waited as she scooped up the last piece of chicken and fed it to Rochester, who wolfed it down greedily.

  Then she nodded toward the stack of boxes. “Sometimes, when I’m here, I feel like there’s no space for me. We’ve both been keeping each other at a distance, because of our past, but I feel like I’m moving forward and you aren’t. You need to come to terms with everything that’s holding you back.”