Nothing to Fear But Ferrets

by Linda O. Johnston

  “I noticed him right away, of course,” she’d told me. “But at that point I was really interested in Chad. When I learned why Chad was really there, heard about his ongoing thing with that Trudi, well …”

  She hadn’t had to finish.

  That evening, Friday, I sat at Jeff’s kitchen table, the dogs on the floor at my feet, as I checked over the voluminous lists I’d made containing my thoughts about Chad’s murder.

  But though the info expanded, the list of suspects hadn’t: Trudi; Chad’s and now Trudi’s geeky but probably ambitious roommate Dave; swiveling singing sensation Philipe Pellera; and Sven Broman—though he was a long shot since, as he was the next-to-the-last guy standing before Charlotte had made her decision, I wasn’t sure why he’d kill Chad once the show was over. I even checked out a few of the show’s producers and production staff. And then, of course, there were Charlotte and nonexistent Yul.

  I sighed. Maybe Jeff was right. This wasn’t my area of expertise, despite my success when my own butt was on the line. I should leave solving murders to experts like Noralles. That’s what Detective Ned would want, after all.

  In your dreams, my brain shot back to the absent detective.

  Would he arrest Charlotte? He hadn’t yet, so even though she felt threatened, he obviously didn’t have enough evidence to haul her in and support a successful prosecution. And despite how I’d come to revile the relentless detective when he’d been after me, I had to admit there’d been plenty of evidence indicating my guilt. Of course, it had been planted.

  With Charlotte, there might be evidence, too, and she could be as much a subject of a frame-up as I’d been, but Noralles had either grown wiser, or whoever was framing her wasn’t as good at it as my persecutor had been. Making nasty calls and greasing steps were another matter.

  I sighed again—and heard the sound of a key in the front door.

  Instantly, the dogs leapt to attention and, barking, barreled through the house in that direction. I followed, a huge smile on my face. Jeff was home. I could dump my ideas and frustrations on him, brainstorm a bit, and see where it all led.

  Only it wasn’t Jeff who entered.

  “Hi, Kendra,” said Amanda Hubbard. Last time I’d seen his ex, I’d been struck by how beautiful she was, though then she was fragile-looking and teary as she’d spilled her story of a stalker to the P.I. she’d been married to.

  Now, her tall, slim body was clad in slender jeans and a fuzzy beige sweater with a rolled collar—the only part not clinging to ample curves. Her blond hair spilled over her shoulders. She carried a handbag, and an overnight case on wheels hummed over the hardwood floor behind her.

  No fragility. No tears. No hesitation.

  She had a key.

  My cue to pack up and go home. “Your timing is good,” I said, as if she didn’t know. “Jeff’s due back later tonight.”

  “That’s right,” she acknowledged. No apology for barging in, but hey, why should she? I was only Odin’s pet-sitter.

  “Well, since you’re here, I’ll take off. You can tell Jeff for me that we can settle up my bill tomorrow.” Not that I’d want to see him then, or any other time.

  Odin was another matter. Lexie would be crushed not to see her big Akita pal again, and I didn’t need to give up a pet-sitting client just because he was apparently reconciling with his onetime wife.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. Passing the kitchen, I piled my files back together and stuck them into the briefcase I’d used to bring them here.

  Despite the tumult that resulted from Amanda’s earlier appearance, I’d gotten used to sleeping in more comfort here than when I’d stayed in the guest room. As a result, I bundled up belongings spread all over Jeff’s bedroom, ignoring my embarrassment. Amanda could deal with changing the sheets on the bed if she chose.

  As I tossed stuff into my bag, muttering imprecations against Amanda and her irritating ex under my breath, Lexie hung about my feet. My pup acted anxious, so I picked her up, hugged her, and said, “Looks like we’re heading home again, kiddo.”

  I only hoped no one had spit-shined our stairway again.

  GOOD THING I’D come home, I told myself when I spied the folded package in my mailbox and saw who it was from: the title officer. I’d have some titillating material to read in bed that night—as long as detailed real estate documents turned me on.

  I wouldn’t consider what else I could have been doing in bed if I hadn’t had to come home. Or whom I might have been doing it with. Or how turned on I could have been …

  I unpacked, then took Lexie back downstairs for her late-night constitutional. No problem navigating the stairway. No one had messed with it again.

  But I was still aching and kept my defenses on overdrive, as this was where someone had sabotaged my own surroundings to injure me. Or worse.

  I pushed in the code to open the front gate, then jumped when I heard a sound behind me. Lexie lunged on her leash and began to bark.

  “Good girl,” I told her. If someone intended to harm me, the more noise accompanying it, the more likely that a neighbor would hear and intervene. Or at least call the cops.

  Only—“Hi, Lexie.” It was Charlotte. “Hi, Kendra. I wasn’t sure when you’d be home, but I’ve been watching for you. Your friend Detective Noralles has been nosing around again.” Under the dim security lights, she looked scruffy, with sunken eyes, old clothes, and a haggard expression showing premature lines in her skin. Hunks of hair escaped from her habitual long braid. “He said he’d gotten another anonymous tip and needs to talk to me about it. I made an appointment with him for Monday, and I’m bringing my lawyer Esther along. Your lawyer. Our lawyer.” Her long sigh was a soft shudder that only remotely resembled a laugh. “Anyhow, I’m throwing another party, tomorrow night. It might be my last. Can you come?”

  Yul would surely be there, and I could buttonhole him and ask the questions for which neither Althea nor I had found answers. Some of my other murder suspects would probably be there, too. Sure, I was still sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, but I still believed that my pretty, erstwhile effervescent tenant was being railroaded.

  Just maybe, I had one more chance to get that particular train off the track.

  MY PHONE RANG at ten that night. I figured I knew who it was even before I saw the caller ID, and once again considered letting it roll to voice mail. But that would be the cowardly way. I was a litigator. No way was I lily-livered or spineless. Not a single part of my anatomy was anything but gutsy.

  So I answered. “Hi, Jeff. Welcome home. I trust that Amanda and Odin got along okay after I left. I’ll fax you my bill tomorrow. I think I know how much time Althea spent doing computer research for me, so I’ll deduct that at the rate of—”

  “Bullshit!”

  “I don’t know how to calculate that currency,” I continued smoothly, proud of my unaffected aplomb. “But I’ll try.”

  “Look, Kendra, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I’d been married. I didn’t think it was important, since I’m divorced. And if you think I’m a jerk for making that assumption, then … well, hell.”

  I swallowed the spiteful rejoinder my lips had started to form. He had, after all, apologized. Kind of. His ending sort of spoiled the effect, which lent justification to my staying incensed.

  “I definitely didn’t invite Amanda here tonight,” Jeff continued. “She left as soon as I got home. She said I’d helped get rid of her stalker and wanted to thank me personally.”

  I decided to respond solely to that last, significant statement.

  “I’m sure she did.” The sweetness that streamed from my tone must have smelled great, for Lexie sat up where she’d slept at the foot of my bed and slithered up to lay her head on my arm. She licked me, then looked up with her tongue lolling as if it awaited something luscious.

  Or maybe she was simply sensing my miserable mood and trying futilely to make me laugh.

  “Look,” he said. “I have catch-up work
to do at the office tomorrow since I’ve been out of town. Can we grab dinner together tomorrow night?”

  “Amanda, you, and me? I don’t think so.”

  “Only the two of us,” he shouted, as if raising his voice would somehow erase the mistaken impression from my mind.

  Only the impression I had was far from a mistake. Amanda was moving back in, one way or another.

  She’d had a key. She probably had his alarm code, since she hadn’t hesitated about heading right in.

  “No, the four of us,” Jeff corrected. “We’ll walk the dogs and talk after we eat.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been invited to a party tomorrow night. Maybe another time. Right now, I’m beat. Pet-sitting can be tiring, and following it by pretending to be pleasant to someone I hadn’t even known existed … well, that’s even more exhausting. Good night, Jeff.” I hung up before he could jump in with more unwelcome suggestions.

  I wondered for a long while afterward, though, where Amanda was while Jeff invited Lexie and me for a frolic tomorrow.

  I didn’t really want to know.

  SINCE SLEEPING WAS an occupation that eluded me, I instead read the title report that had been messengered to me that day.

  “Well, what do you know!” I exclaimed as I ploughed productively through it. Too bad it was well past midnight, too late to call Jon Arlen, in case I’d awaken him.

  Thank heavens for e-mail. I booted up my computer and sent Jon a message instead: “Interesting development in the matter I’m looking into for you. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

  Though I wasn’t set up for an instant message, I got a reply almost immediately. “Anytime. Is it something good?”

  “Good enough to convince your neighbor to talk to us,” I responded, then went once more to bed. Tomorrow would be an interesting day.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I LEFT LEXIE at home that morning, not looking back at her sad face as I crept carefully down my steps. As I did every day now since last Sunday’s scary fiasco, I checked them out before proceeding. Today, they weren’t slick.

  Neither was my mood. Poor Lexie had gotten used to keeping company again with Odin during the day, and now I’d had to leave her alone. But I didn’t dare bring her on my late-morning mission, and I wasn’t sure I’d have time to stop either here or at Darryl’s to drop her off.

  After nearly a week, the bruising on my body had fortunately faded, as had the related pain. I faced the morning’s routine and my round of dog walks with more spring in my step each day.

  Or I would have today if I’d maintained a mind-set that stayed far from Jeff Hubbard and his key-carrying ex.

  Damn! No way would I let that frustrating man make hash of a perfectly good mood. I forced myself to consider instead how I would present the potentially excellent news I had to Jon Arlen. Despite all good intentions, I was running late when I reached Jon’s home by Lake Hollywood, along the hill beside Barham Boulevard. It was one-story, small, gray stucco and nondescript except for an elderly gnarled oak that dominated the front yard—rather amok for property possessed by the proprietor of a tree-trimming company like Jon Arlen.

  I wondered how old the oak was. Had it been witness to the situation I was about to mention to its owner?

  Okay, Ballantyne, wrap up the whimsy.

  I heard his Welsh terrier, Jonesy, bark in response to the doorbell, and the bearded ball of energy nearly bowled me over when Jon opened the door.

  “Kendra, come in,” Jon said in his regular raspy voice. As I followed him straight inside to the cozy living room, I considered how disproportionate this large, casually clad man was to his relatively small home.

  A decanter and mugs sat on a square coffee table before the faded plaid sofa, and Jon poured us each some coffee as I took my seat. Jonesy joined me till I darted him a dirty look. Not that it made him cower, but he leapt down, licked my leg, then took his place on the chair, crowding his more welcoming master.

  Though I took a polite sip of the strong brew when Jon handed me my mug, I put it down and wasted no time before pulling out the papers I’d brought. “I haven’t fully researched the implication,” I told him. “At best, you can keep the treasure. At worst, someone else altogether winds up with it—possibly the government. But since neither you nor your neighbor are likely to want that, what I’ve found should at least make it more palatable to her to palaver with you first, if she’s got any sense at all. Tell me her full name.”

  “Beatrice Flores.” The way his thick, stubby fingers plowed through his short curly hair suggested that she gave him a headache. Beatrice the Bitch is what he’d called her before.

  “Interesting. Her last name suggests a Latina heritage, which might work against you here.”

  “Figures. With her, I doubt anything’ll work for me.”

  “Do I detect a history here you haven’t told me about?”

  Jon gave a careless shrug that suggested I’d scored a hit. “We met at a neighborhood party when she moved in last year. Went out a couple of times.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Then she started getting possessive and I stopped taking her calls.”

  Interesting. “So this squabble could also be based on hard feelings.”

  “Could be. Only—”

  “Only what?”

  “Only I missed her after a while. I asked her out again a month or so after we broke up. That time, she snubbed me.”

  “I see,” I said, and I did. Hmmm. That added a new dimension to this trespassing situation. “Let’s go over the papers, then I want Jonesy and you to take me to the yard and show me where he dug up the loot.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we headed down a small hall and out a door to the backyard.

  The area was along the hillside, and it wasn’t fenced. Neither were most neighbors’ yards, which had undoubtedly led to the current dilemma. The trees here, mainly eucalyptus and walnut, looked better trimmed than the front yard’s oak.

  “Over here.” Jon headed down the hill, through the unkempt weeds behind his home onto property with short, green grass shadowed by a white multilevel house that looked architecturally advantaged. He’d dumped a damsel with that kind of good taste? Too bad.

  With a happy yap, Jonesy bounded onto a path amid abundant landscaping at the foot of the hill.

  As I hurried to join Jon and Jonesy, I heard a noise behind us. A woman in pressed linen pants emerged from the house, preceded by a sand-colored mutt of a dog that made Jonesy look like a midget. The dog barked at the same time the slender, scowling lady yelled, “What are you doing there?”

  “Showing a friend where Jonesy found the treasure,” Jon replied mildly, following the script we had discussed inside.

  “It’s on my property. It’s my treasure, and I want it back,” the obviously riled property owner responded.

  “Hi, Ms. Flores,” I said, extending my hand as she reached us. “Jon told me how pretty you are, and he was right. Oops. I think I spoke out of turn.” I ignored Jon’s scowl meant to shush me, continuing, “Too bad things didn’t work out between you. It would have made things easier.”

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded as icily as if my comments had carried us to Antarctica in midwinter.

  “I have something for you.” I reached into the envelope I’d brought outside and handed her a copy of some of the chain of title info I’d shown Jon.

  She shrank back as if I’d tried to stick Pansy the potbellied pig in her hand, or maybe Py the python. Her short black hair ruffled in the mild November wind.

  “I think you’ll find this interesting,” I told her. “By the way, have you hired an attorney yet?”

  “No, but believe me, I will,” she said stonily.

  “I believe you will do anything that’ll—” Jon began before I stepped in front of him to hide his angry expression.

  “Jon’s made it clear,” I interrupted, “that he regrets how badly things turned out when you were dating. In fa
ct, he’s said how much he still misses you. But that’s another story.”

  I felt fury radiating from Jon and motioned him to silence by sticking my hand behind me and flicking my fingertips.

  “Meantime,” I continued, “I need to let you know that I’m a lawyer, though I’m not acting in that capacity right now. But let me tell you what I’ve learned by doing a little research.”

  I described the fascinating facts I’d found. It seemed that the property behind both of their houses, as well as many others in that area, had been part of an old Spanish land grant that showed up on the chain of title. It had been a roadway, and today it would be considered an easement reserved for the benefit of the Catholic Church or the government, or both.

  That was where Jonesy had dug up the treasure.

  The reserved rights had never been vacated, so arguably the government succeeding the Spanish one could have kept the same interests. Under today’s law, a person couldn’t obtain property by adverse possession or gain prescriptive easements—legal ways of stealing property of others simply by using it—of property interests owned by governmental entities and not even equitable easements applied where there were no improvements to the part of the property in question. As a result, California might in effect own that strip of land. The treasure could be the state’s, and not Beatrice’s or Jon’s.

  Or the coins might be deemed lost property. In that case, Beatrice might be considered their trustee until their true owners could be found—descendants of the Spanish settlers who buried it there. If that was the decision, said descendants would undoubtedly descend en masse to make a claim once word got out—genuine or illegitimate.

  There was a good argument, of course, that the treasure belonged to the ostensible owner of the property where it was found—Beatrice. Of course, when Jon asserted his finders-keepers argument, he might be the one to prevail.

  Years of litigation later, after the value of the treasure was already spent on the lawyers, the court would decide who owned the coins—one or both of them … or someone else altogether.