“Green Harvest on 17th street. I always shop there.”
“Okay, that’s where I’ll start.”
“Oh, thank you so, so much,” Mrs. Pittman says.
They each open their purses, take out pen and paper and begin to write down names and phone numbers for me. I go to the Friedman’s desk and find a post-it and pen. I jot down a note of my own: Buy more birdseed.
Twenty-Four
I park Silver as far back as I can in the Green Harvest parking lot. I have a fear of shopping carts—they are no car’s friend. Green Harvest is one of those frou-frou organic stores that caters to the rich. Even though the type of people who shop here are mostly likely pacifists that would never dent another car, one can never be too careful.
As I make my way across the lot, I ponder everything I know about the dognappings. Three dogs (as far as I know) have been taken. They are all pedigreed and pricey. They all live in the same building. Maybe another resident is taking the dogs? Or is telling the dognapper about the dogs? Like when housecleaners or the building superintendent let their thieving friends know when the residents go on vacation.
I stop in the middle of the lot and scan my surroundings. Today must be my lucky day. I immediately spot four surveillance cameras up on light poles. Thank God, Green Harvest isn’t so peace-loving that they don’t believe in policing their parking lot.
I enter through the automatic doors and am engulfed in the smell of Sandlewood incense and some type of Indian music. It’s the type of music that makes you think of harems and belly dancing and little cymbals on your fingertips.
This is obviously a store where peace loving, pacifist, pseudo-hippies shop. Albeit rich pseudo-hippies. I’ve never shopped here. It’s way out of my price range. The store has a natural vibe to it—lots of unvarnished wood, big ceiling fans, visible duct work. Seems to me like they’re trying really hard to be an anti-grocery store.
I walk up and down aisles until I find what I want. I pick up a box of organic, kosher, gluten-free, pesticide-free, fat-free, grown and harvested by monks, birdseed. It is unclear whether it is meant for human consumption or parrot consumption or if it even matters.
I scan the lines of cashiers, looking for a friendly face. My goal is to get to the manager so I can ask about video surveillance, but I need an introduction. And I need to get to him or her through one of the employees he or she likes. That would make him or her more conducive to being questioned. Legally speaking, he or she doesn’t have to hand over the surveillance tapes without a warrant. I know that much from watching L.A. Law.
It doesn’t take me long to find my mark. I get in the number five line where a woman in her mid-forties works the register. She has a perpetual smile on her face as she scans and bags the groceries. She does her job ultra-efficiently, like she’s a Stepford cashier who has only one emotion—happy. But not too happy. She is baby bear happy—not too hot or too cold. She is just right happy. She is a manager’s wet dream employee.
As she smiles and scans the birdseed, I say, “Hi, I’ve never shopped here before and I was wondering if you could help me?”
“I would love to,” she chirps.
I study her expression looking for any tell-tale signs of sarcasm. I don’t notice any. This woman actually would love to help me. Gosh, I think shopping at Walmart has made me cynical and distrustful of the human race.
I take note of the cashier’s nametag. “Thank you, Penelope. You see, I’m a private detective.” I hand her my card. “My client had her dog stolen out of her car in your parking lot.”
“Oh my, how awful! That’ll be eleven seventy-eight.” I fork over a twenty spot and she starts making change while saying, “I have a rescue dog named Rosie. I would simply die if I lost her.”
I pocket my change. Organic birdseed is more expensive than I thought. “So, tell me, are those surveillance cameras in the parking lot functional?”
“Why yes. We don’t like to think that the bad element would shop in our free trade, organic-certified store, but we have had instances of theft and property defacement. It’s oh-so-sad but oh-so-true. Let me call Ralphie, he’s our manager. I’m certain he can help you.” She gets on the P.A. system and announces, “Code magenta, register five. Code magenta, register five.”
“Magenta, huh?” I ask.
She nods and says, “We don’t really have a color code system. I just like to pretend. And magenta is my signature color. It’s a happy color, don’t you think?”
I smile big and nod. Now I notice the strange look in the woman’s eye. I back up a few steps. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed how weird people can be. Used to be all the crazies were homeless and stood on the street preaching about the second coming and panhandling change. Now it seems like all the crazies work in the public sector—usually government jobs.
Ralphie arrives. He’s a fresh-faced, pony-tailed guy in his early to mid-twenties. Since when did managers get to be so young? I refuse to think I’m getting older. Instead, I reason that Ralphie must be a managerial prodigy. Like he’s the Doogie Howser of groceries.
“What can I do to help you?” he asks pleasantly.
“She needs to see the surveillance tapes. Someone stole a dog in our parking lot,” Penelope says between scanning a man’s groceries. She has just the right amount of horror in her voice because Ralphie’s eyes grow wide. I hand him my business card.
“How tragic! I have a Boxer and love him to death. We must stop this anus activity,” he says. “How can I be of help?”
“What did you say?”
He looks perplexed. “I said we must stop this anus activity. How can I be of help?”
“Anus activity? Did you really just say anus?”
He tilts his head like how dogs do when they hear a squeaky noise.
Penelope buts in, “I think he means heinous.”
“Oh,” I say. “That makes more sense.”
“I thought the H was silent,” he says. “Like in erbs.”
Penelope and I shake our heads.
“There’s a pretty big difference between heinous and anus,” I say.
“I’m so sorry. I have this word a day calendar and I use each new word three times that day. Today’s word was heinous. I’ve never been very good at those pronunciation guides.”
I cut to the chase. “Can I maybe take a look at your surveillance tapes?”
“Of course,” he says, “Follow me.”
He leads the way and I follow his heinous anus to the back of the store. (Sorry, but that was too good to pass up.)
By my calculations Green Harvest is charging about five times more than a super saver chain store. And the result of all that extra cash is staring me in the face. This manager’s office slash break room is amazing. It looks like a playroom for adults.
I point at a Lazy-Boy recliner with a space helmet attached. “What’s that?”
“That’s our nap station,” Ralphie explains. “Being a cashier is a very stressful occupation. It’s been scientifically proven that naps help relieve stress.”
I point to a bean bag chair with a big rubber box sitting in front of it. “What’s that?”
“That’s our foot rub station. Cashiers are on their feet all day. They have to sit at that station five minutes for every hour they work. It uses reflexology as a de-stressor.”
“I see,” I say. I point to a flat screen TV that takes up most of one wall. “And that?”
“Another de-stressor,” he says.
“Oh.” I look around and add, “And the ping-pong table, air hockey, massage table and ice cream machine?”
“De-stressors.”
That does it. If this detective thing doesn’t work out for me, I’m applying for a job at Green Harvest.
Ralpie says, “So when did this heinous activity happen?”
By my count, he’s used the word twice today. Only one more to go. “It happened yesterday afternoon.”
He pulls a flash drive out of file cabinet and sticks in direc
tly into the huge TV. Evidently this is no run of the mill flat screen T.V. It’s a high tech of the high tech version. In mere seconds I’m watching a larger-than-life video of the parking lot.
“Do you know the name of the customer?” he asks.
“Sure. Her name is Mrs. Pittman. Her dog Lucy is a beagle,” I say.
“Mrs. Pittman comes in every Tuesday at three o’clock,” he answers. He pushes a button on a remote that fast forwards the video.
“You know all your customers by name?” I ask.
He nods. “It’s part of our customer service policy. To know each customer on a personal level. It’s my job to not only sell them the groceries they need, but to anticipate their future grocery needs.”
“That’s freakin’ amazing,” I say. I leave off the part that it’s also freakin’ scary.
He slows the video down to real-time. He narrates the action play-by-play, “There’s her car. And there she is. She puts Lucy in the car. She opens her trunk. She puts groceries in her trunk. Puts more groceries in her trunk…” Suddenly, he clicks a button on the remote and the video goes to slo-mo. “Yes, there it is!” Ralphie says. “See?”
Bingo! The tape shows a man wearing a black sweatshirt and black cargo pants. He’s wearing a ball cap pulled down low over his face. I watch the man open a car door, pick up Lucy and walk casually out of the video frame.
Ralph frowns. “It’s not the best shot. But he definitely took Lucy.”
“Can we see what kind of car he got into?”
Ralphie punches more buttons and the camera pans back, showing more screen. “There he is! He’s getting into an SUV. Looks like a Lincoln Navigator. Black of course,” he says, glumly. “That car gets a bad rap. Between the mob and the drug dealers. Not to mention the heinous amount of fuel it uses."
“True, but I can’t imagine a dog thief driving a Prius.”
“I suppose you’re right. Do you want me to download the feed onto a disc for you?” he asks.
“That would be awesome.”
He sticks a DVD into the side of the TV and asks, “Will you let us know when Mrs. Pittman gets her dog back?”
That’s so sweet of him. He actually cares. “Sure.”
Ralphie continues, “That way I’ll know when to resume ordering her special dog food.”
Okay, maybe he’s not so sweet after all.
Twenty-Five
I drive around the block three times. I’m working up the courage to actually stop and go inside Juniper’s house. It’s not that I don’t love my sister, but sometimes I have a hard time liking her.
Sidebar: Juniper is not her real name. Her real name, the one my parent’s gave her at birth, is Julie. But for some odd reason she didn’t like that name. She said there were too many Julies in the world. So when she turned eighteen she changed her name to Juniper. I accidentally (okay, it wasn’t an accident) called her Jupiter, as in the planet, for about five years. Now I call her Juniper, but not without duress.
Sidebar number two: If you haven’t already figured it out, Juniper is a hypochondriac. She has what I call the disease of the year. Every new thing that comes out, she’s got it. She’s had ADD, sleep apnea, and gluten allergies. She spent several years with Asperger’s. I don’t know how her husband handles it. Oh wait, I know how.
Jenner has a job where he travels all the time. I’ve never actually met Jenner. I’m not sure if he really exists. My mother was distraught when Juniper called home to say she’d gotten married on a beach in Bali. If it weren’t for the normalcy of my parents (hah!), little Griffin wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance between the hypochondriac and the absentee father.
All of that is why I am so hesitant to go inside her house. You never know what you’ll find under the mountains of pill bottles.
I slow my car on the fourth pass by her house. I drove all the way to suburbia, I might as well ring the doorbell. And, I do need her help. She’s super good at computer stuff. I suck at computer stuff. I can barely check my email.
I park in the driveway and drag my feet to her front door. I knock. Griffin opens the door.
“Hey, buddy!” I say.
“A.J.!” he exclaims, wrapping my knees into a big hug. “I’m glad you’re here. Mom’s S.A.D.”
“Really?” I shut the door behind me. “Is your dad gone?”
“Yeah,” he says. I always have to stop myself from asking if Griffin has ever actually seen his father.
“Well, that’s probably why she’s sad, buddy,” I say.
“No, that’s not it.” He takes me by the hand and pulls me down the hallway. “She’s not sad. She’s S.A.D.”
“Oh,” I say like I understand. Which I don’t. All I can guess is that he means she’s like really, really big-time sad. “Why don’t you let me go talk to your mom alone, okay? And then afterwards we can play some of that video game I always beat you at.”
“Yay!” he says. “But I’m not gonna let you win this time.”
“Fair enough,” I say with a smile.
Griffin salutes me and runs into his bedroom. I sigh and tap on Juniper’s bedroom door.
“What?” she asks.
“It’s me. Jamie.”
“C’mon in.”
I open the door and am blinded by what seems like a thousand bright suns. I squinch my eyes shut and throw both arms over my face. I can feel my skin begin to blister. “What the hell?!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I hear a click and the light behind my eyes dims to a manageable level. I open one eye. Everything appears normal. Juniper is lying on her bed, hand behind her head, smiling. There is a big box, as large as a coffin, standing upright beside the bed. It’s plugged into the wall and aimed straight at Juniper. It is covered in red coils.
“What is that? What’re you doing?” I ask.
“S.A.D.,” Juniper spells.
Oh, no. This must be where she’s going to tell me that she’s depressed or bi-polar or something. “Sis, people get sad sometimes. It’s a fact of life, happens to everybody. I don’t think you’re sadder than most people.”
“No, Jamie, not sad. S.A.D.”
I move her legs over and sit on the edge of the bed. “I know how to spell. I may not have gone to college like you, but I did win a spelling bee in second grade, you know.”
“Seasonal Affective Disorder,” she says. “I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. It’s caused by not enough sunlight and vitamin D. It happens during the fall and winter. That’s why I got this light box. It gives me a whole day’s worth of sunlight in just twenty minutes.” She reaches over and clicks a toggle switch on the box. Bright light bursts out of the box and slams me back onto the bed.
“My God!” I yell, covering my face. “I’m burning! Turn it off!”
“It will make you happy,” Juniper says.
“You know what would make me happy? Turning that thing off!” I yell.
“But it’s good for you,” she says.
“Stay away from the light, Carol Anne,” I say, doing a dead-on impersonation of the little woman in the movie Poltergeist. “Don’t go in the light.”
I hear Juniper giggle. I peer between my fingers. The light in the room is back to normal.
It feels good to make Juniper laugh. I don’t think she laughs enough. Maybe because she’s married to a man who’s rarely, if ever, home and she has to do the single mother thing. It’s hard, I get that. “Sis, really, that box will fry you in about thirty seconds flat. It’ll burn your corneas. It will turn you gay. Oh wait, that’s me,” I joke.
She whaps my arm and sits up Indian-style. “Okay, Jamie, fess up. Why are you here?”
“Because I love you.”
“Uh huh,” she says. “You never come over because you love me. What else?”
“Um… I want to offer my mad babysitting skills so you can go out one night?”
“Not buying it, what else?”
“I need your magic?”
“Aha, now we’re getting
somewhere.”
I pull a disc out of my pocket and hand it to her. “Can you put this in your magic Apple box that sits on your lap and show me the mysterious moving pictures that are on it? Then can you make them appear one hundred times their normal size?”
She takes the disc out of my hand. “What kind of movie is this?” she asks. “Is it porn?”
“No!”
“Oh, too bad.”
Twenty-Six
Walking into the downtown police station is like walking into every cop drama movie I’ve ever seen. The place is filthy. The linoleum is cracked and peeling; the walls are smudged with dirt and grease and some of the stains look like blood. There’s a fat desk sergeant behind the counter who looks like a heart attack waiting to happen. The sound of typing echoes from down the hall. The whole place smells like doughnuts and tacos. Maybe because there’s a taco truck outside and a box of doughnuts on the counter.
I lean on the counter, feeling the stale air from a heat vent caress my exposed boobs. The fat desk sergeant doesn’t even look at my chest, which I think is extremely rude. Especially since I went to all the trouble of strapping my boobs into a push-up bra and a V-neck sweater special for this occassion.
I hand him my card. He doesn’t take it. I slap it down on his desk. He still doesn’t look at it. I’m starting to get pissed off. “The name’s Jamie Bravo. I’m a private detective. I’m looking for a dognapper. I’d like to look at your mug shot books.”
“Ain’t happening,” he retorts.
“It won’t take me long,” I say. “I have a photo of a guy who’s been stealing dogs and I just want to check it against your mug shots.”
“Nope,” he says.
“You let citizens look at mug shots when a crime has been committed. Why can’t I? Last I checked I’m a citizen.”
“Dognapping isn’t a serious crime.”
“Dogs, especially pedigree dogs, are expensive, that’s got to count as larceny,” I counter. I smile and take a deep breath. My boobs plump up even more. Fat man still doesn’t look at them. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s gay.
Worst In Show: A Jamie Bravo Mystery Page 11