“But why?” asked Cheryl.
“I don’t know,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t know where Teri is.”
“I thought you said she called you!” Cheryl pointed out.
“Yes, but I haven’t been able to track her down,” I said. “Surely you’re not suggesting we exchange our sister for—”
“Your ex-husband’s new wife,” said Don.
“She’s not his wife,” I pointed out.
“Soon to be wife,” said Jeff firmly. “I know she’ll come to her senses.”
Tiffany gave a little sigh.
“We’ve got to go to the police!” That was Amber’s dad.
“That’s a great idea,” I said.
“Maybe they can canvas the neighborhood. See if anyone saw anything. Maybe someone got the license plate. Meanwhile, I have something I need to check out. Give the police my phone number and have them call me!”
I was pretty sure that Forest Glen held the key to Teri’s whereabouts. And if they weren’t going to admit me, I was going to admit myself. Couldn’t be that hard, could it? All I had to do was act really crazy. I thought I would have a good head start if I showed up in a wedding dress. And with Jimmy G.
Pepe’s Blog: Sniffing the Scene Part 2
You must give humans credit sometime for their ability to change. I would not have thought Amber, a spoiled and superficial young woman, ever gave a thought to anything but her own comfort. But in her moment of great stress, she tried to protect her Chihuahua, who goes by the unfortunate name of Party Girl. However, the evildoers—there were two of them—seeing her great devotion to her pet, decided to use that as a way to lure Amber into their clutches. And rather than run away she fought for her dog.
Amber and Party Girl, though they worked together most excellently throwing clothes (Amber) and snapping at ankles (Party Girl), were no match for the villains, who carried them both off shrieking and barking. I tracked their scent to the curb where their vehicle had been parked. It did not smell familiar. I was willing to bet my detective credentials that this was not the same car that I spotted outside of our casa just two days earlier. Likewise the scent of the bad guys was also new to me.
What to tell Geri? How to tell her? I still did not like to encourage her to talk to me in public. It was OK with Amber who was so drunk no one would ever believe her if she said she heard me and it was OK with Jimmy G who no one would ever believe ever. But around other people and the police, it was important for her to appear to be professional. Luckily, Geri took me to the one place where I could talk as much as I wanted.
Chapter 17
“Jimmy G, let’s go!” I said, marching back out to the curb. I thought about changing out of the wedding dress, but the quick glance through Amber’s suitcase had convinced me that she didn’t have anything I could wear.
HIMBA trotted along obediently. He smelled like an ashtray.
“What were you doing?” I asked, thinking about how everyone else had searched the place.
“Jimmy G was cogitating,” he said. “Best way to solve a crime!” And this is the man who is supposed to be training me in my field.
“And what did you conclude?” I asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Jimmy G concluded that his lighter was out of fluid and it was a good thing he found this book of matches on the front porch,” he told me.
“Book of matches?” I let my sarcasm show this time. “Is that the best you can come up with at a time like this?”
Instead of being insulted, he smiled like the Cheshire Cat. Pulling the wide matchbook out of his pocket, he proudly held it up for me to see. “It’s not any ordinary book of matches. Take a look, doll.”
I glanced at the matchbook. It advertised some place called The Broadway Bowl and Pool Hall. “So?” I asked. “Why should I care about bowling and playing pool?”
“It’s not what’s on the outside that’s important; it’s what’s written on the inside.” He flipped the matchbook open and showed me the inside cover. “Take a gander at that.”
A phone number was written on the inside. I almost said, ‘So what?’ Then it dawned on me. “That’s my cell phone number!” I blurted.
“So it is,” said HIMBA, still smiling ear to ear. “Good bet whoever grabbed Amber dropped this when they hauled her away. That is, unless the young lady liked to bowl and play pool.”
He was right. I couldn’t picture Amber as a bowler or pool shark. Besides, she didn’t even smoke as far as I knew.
“So,” said HIMBA, still puffed up with pride. “Your old boss did good, huh?”
“What to do? What to do?” I asked myself aloud. I had to find Teri, but I also had to help Amber. “I can’t be in two places at once,” I said.
“Don’t know which two places you’re talking about,” said HIMBA. “But Jimmy G can do surveillance on the bowling alley/pool hall, if you want. Meantime, all we have to do is wait for the ransom request. Might give us two ways to get our mitts on these kidnappers.”
“We already got the ransom request,” I said, “while you were smoking. And they want my sister, Teri, not money.”
“That’s peculiar,” he said.
“I have to find Teri,” I told him. “I’m sure she’s at Forest Glen.”
“That fancy schmancy nut-house?”
“Yes. I need you to take me there. And I also need you to back me up. I need them to admit me so I can find her. They didn’t have room for me the other day, but I’m going to act really crazy so they have to take me. If you come in with me and say I’ve worked with you for a long time, but I’ve gone nuts, it will help.”
“Well, you do talk to your dog,” HIMBA said.
“Then after I get into Forest Glen, you can go check out the bowling alley/pool hall and try to get a line on Amber’s kidnappers.”
“Boy, you sure need a lot of help from the boss you ditched,” he said with a gleam in his eye. “This mean you’re working for Jimmy G again?”
“No.”
“Oh . . .” He paused, then continued. “Well, there oughta be some kind of prod quo quid involved.”
“That is quid pro quo,” Pepe said, correcting him.
“I know what he means,” I told my dog.
“So how about we be partners, then?” HIMBA went on.
“Partners?” I asked. “As in the detective agency?”
“Sure. Something Jimmy G’s been mulling over for a while.”
“Full partners?”
“Well . . .” He hesitated. “Jimmy G was thinking more like a seventy-thirty split.”
“Fifty-fifty,” I told him.
“Hey!” Pepe interjected. “What about Sullivan and Sullivan?”
“Shhh!” I told him
“Ay caramba!” he said. “I finally start talking again, and now I am told to be quiet. This is turning into a lose–lose proposition.”
“Sixty-forty,” countered HIMBA. “Final offer. Jimmy G’s glad to help you out, doll, but he does have other fish to fry.”
“OK,” I said against my better judgment. I really needed his help and was secretly pleased at becoming partners in the agency. Cheryl couldn’t scoff at my job any more if I was a partner in a detective agency.
“Deal,” he said, spitting on his right hand and offering it to me.
“Why did you spit on your hand?” I asked.
“That’s the old-fashioned way they used to seal the deal,” he told me.
“I’m not spitting on my hand, let alone touching yours with spit on it.”
“We’ll just take it on trust, then,” he said. “Jimmy G will have the partnership agreement drawn up ASAP.”
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll take it on trust.”
“Fat chance,” said Pepe.
“We need to get going,” I said.
“To the funny farm, right?” Jimmy G turned the key in the ignition. “Where is it, exactly?”
I gave him the directions to Forest Glen.
 
; “I just can’t figure out why anyone would want to hurt my sister,” I mused as we took off.
“Perhaps because of the murder she witnessed,” said Pepe, who was in my arms.
“So you’re talking again, for sure?”
“It does not matter if Jimmy G thinks you are crazy,” said my dog.
“That’s why you haven’t been talking?”
“Si, I wanted to protect you from yourself,” he said. “But now it does not matter. Because it will be a good thing if the people at Forest Glen think you are loco. And your sister is there!”
“Teri really is at Forest Glen?”
“Si, I smelled her the first time we were there. She is in the cottage called Serenity, the one at the edge of the woods.”
“Are you talking to yourself?” Jimmy G asked.
“No, I’m talking to my dog,” I said. “He’s finally talking to me again.”
“Good thing we are heading for a loony bin,” said Jimmy G, stepping on the gas, as he headed toward a freeway onramp.
“Also, I wrote down the license number of the car outside our casa,” Pepe said. “It was a government-issued license. Federal. I saw a similar car the last time we were at Forest Glen.”
“So you think the Feds are looking for Teri? Why?” I asked. But as I asked, my heart sank. Teri had been mixed up in some seriously illegal activities when she was younger.
“I do not know. That is what we must determine,” said Pepe.
Soon we were zipping along on the 520, heading for Woodinville. It was too noisy to talk to Pepe. I just clutched him close to me (Felix would be furious that I was transporting him in a car without protection for him in case of an accident) and tried to keep the wind from blowing my hair into my eyes.
We finally got off the freeway at the Woodinville exit, and got onto a winding road that took us past some huge housing developments like the one my sister Cheryl lived in, alternating with stands of the few patches of forest still remaining out here in the suburbs of Seattle.
I thought about the last time I had seen my sister Teri. She was living under an assumed identity. She told me she was hiding from some gangsters who had committed a murder back in the late 1990s, which she had witnessed when she was a young woman dancing at a strip club they owned. She had been on the run ever since. Pepe and I had stopped the hit man hired to take her out, but she had disappeared again. Was it possible they had found her again? And what was she doing at Forest Glen?
Those were questions I could answer only if I could talk to her and I was determined to do that.
When we arrived at Forest Glen, HIMBA left the car in front and we marched straight up to Forest Glen’s reception desk. We must have been a sight—him dressed like he’d walked out of some forties noir movie, and me in a wedding dress holding a Chihuahua.
I recognized Lacey sitting at the reception desk wearing a bright blue polo shirt. “Wow!” she said, rising to greet me. “Did you get married, Miss Sullivan?” She studied my wedding dress and I figured she was noticing its bedraggled condition because her eyes got narrow and her lips scrunched up. “Congratulations,” she said half-heartedly.
“No, I did not get married,” I said.
“Oh . . .”
“Tell her you are loco,” said Pepe.
“My dog wants me to tell you that I’m crazy,” I told her.
“Oh!” she said again. She gave Pepe a frightened look.
“You are on the right track,” Pepe told me. “You are very convincing in your pretend loco-ness. Add something else to spice it up a bit.”
“My decorating partner is missing and a client of his was murdered and the police think he did it and somebody’s trying to kill my sister and she’s missing and this old lady in a retirement home has an unwelcome suitor after her and I told her to put flour on the floor by her front door and I only took her case because,” I pointed at HIMBA beside me, “‘He Who Isn’t My Boss Anymore’ wanted me to take it and I said I’d do it only if he went to my ex-husband’s wedding to Amber with me and—”
Lacey cut me off, addressing a question to HIMBA. “And who are you, sir? Are you a friend?”
“No,” he said. “Jimmy G is her boss, even though she doesn’t seem to realize that. She has definitely gone off the deep end. Thinks Jimmy G is going to make her a partner.”
I paid them no attention and kept on going. “But Jeff boffed one of the bridesmaids in the parking lot and Amber won’t marry him now and she’s been kidnapped because they thought she was me and they’ll kill her unless I trade her for my missing sister and my dog has started talking to me again and I’m being followed and spied on and threatened and—”
“So you’re feeling paranoid,” said Lacey. I saw her reaching for the phone.
“Of course,” I told her. “I’m having a nervous breakdown and I’m paranoid!”
“Tell her I am also in that agitated state,” said Pepe. “That will surely get some action.”
“So is my dog!” I said.
Pepe put on a show; he fidgeted and looked around nervously, like he was seeing danger everywhere, and said, “Tell her that paranoid perros can be muy unpredictable.”
“Paranoid perros can be muy unpredictable,” I told her.
“Let me call someone who can help you,” said Lacey. “You just need to be patient.” She glanced around nervously. Apparently they did not want someone really loco cluttering up the beautiful front lobby. “I’ll show you to a waiting room and contact the doctor on call.”
“He better hurry!” I said.
“Pronto!” said Pepe.
“I’m not sure how long I can hold it together!” I added as Lacey waved us into a little office alongside the reception desk. I noticed that she locked the door. Through the little window (which was intermeshed with wire to keep crazy people from breaking it), I watched her scurry back to the desk and pick up the phone, all the time darting nervous glances in our direction.
I paced back and forth, trying to act crazy but actually feeling pretty crazy.
“Jimmy G should leave and go check out the clue,” said Jimmy G.
“Well, you can’t now!” I snapped. “They’ve got us locked in here.”
“Jimmy G doesn’t like being locked up,” said HIMBA, getting up and trying the door. It was true. He couldn’t budge it. He rattled the doorknob and pounded on the door. Lacey seemed to get increasingly agitated.
Luckily, a few minutes later a white-coated doctor came hurrying down the stairs. It was Dr. Lieberman. He held a whispered consultation with Lacey who was pointing at us and talking rapidly, then opened the door and stepped into the waiting room.
“Dr. Lieberman,” I said. “I’m having a major meltdown. I need to be admitted.”
He looked me over thoughtfully. “Why, Miss Sullivan. . . Why are you wearing a wedding dress?” He glanced over at Jimmy G.
“No, I didn’t get married and no, I’m not getting married,” I told him. “Especially not to HIMBA.”
“She says she’s having a nervous breakdown and she was acting paranoid,” said Lacey from behind him.
“I’ll be the one to make those determinations, Lacey, not you,” Lieberman told her sternly. She nodded and went back to the front desk.
Dr Lieberman then addressed me again. “As it happens, Miss Sullivan, I came in this morning because we had a Situation and because of that we have an unexpected opening. So I actually can admit you immediately.”
That didn’t sound good. What sort of Situation would cause an unexpected opening? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I just wanted to get in and find Teri. “That’s wonderful,” I said.
Dr. Lieberman swiveled to look over HIMBA. “Who is this?”
“He’s my boss,” I said to Lieberman. “He was nice enough to drive me here.”
“Yeah, she’s nuts,” said HIMBA, still trying to help me out.
Dr. Lieberman sighed. I bet he was thinking that Jimmy G was probably as nuts as I was. “Well, we can take
it from here, sir. Although I would like to have your contact information. I assume you are willing to be her emergency contact.”
“Actually, it should be my boyfriend, Felix,” I said, then wondered what Felix would do if he got a phone call saying I was in the loony bin. Maybe I should call him myself. I would do that and try to explain what was going on as soon as I was settled.
It took a lot longer than I thought. HIMBA left with a wink of his eye, an awkward hug, and a promise to check up on me the following day. There were endless forms to fill out and information to provide. They took away my phone because, as Dr. Lieberman said, “we want our patients to focus on recovery without having to worry about what’s going on outside of Forest Glen.” They put a plastic arm bracelet on my left wrist with my name on it, I guess, in case I got so crazy I forgot my own name. I got increasingly agitated as I was thinking about Amber in the clutches of the kidnappers and Teri being hunted by men who were willing to kill a woman and her Chihuahua to get what they wanted. But finally, Dr. Lieberman gave me a little blue pill that he said would calm me down and had Lacey walk me over to Serenity.
Pretty soon I was feeling very tranquil indeed.
Pepe’s Blog: Locked in a Room
Geri was feeling tranquil thanks to whatever medicine the doctor gave her. She curled up on the bed in the room they assigned her and drifted off to sleep. But I was not tranquil. No, indeed. For it was clear to me that the room had previously been occupied by her sister! (Human siblings have remarkably similar scent profiles.) But how was I to find out what happened to her since I was locked in the room, along with Geri. They seemed to fear her when they should have feared my wrath.
From time to time an attendant peered in the little window in the door and then went away. The smells of dinner drifted under the crack in the door. I could smell hamburger and French fries, and that reminded me that due to all the consternation at the wedding I had never been able to sample the roast beef, which had smelled so divine. My stomach growled. I growled at the edges of the door. And that finally woke Geri up. At first, she seemed confused about where she was, but I was able to straighten her out.
The Silence of the Chihuahuas Page 12