I tried to explain this to her as we drove off but she seemed distracted. In fact, she told me to be quiet. She couldn’t think with me jabbering away. First of all, I do not jabber. It is gauche. Second, I will be quiet. But I do not think she will like that.
Chapter 23
Jay was a total mess when we arrived at his house on Queen Anne. I’ve never seen him so agitated. He didn’t even invite us in, just stood there in the hallway, flapping his hands, looking like one of his birds with clipped wings.
“Oh, Geri!” he said, “I would offer you something to eat but I can’t!” He looked down at the peacock blue vest he was wearing over a pale green shirt. “Do I look all right? I just don’t know what’s appropriate for a jail visit!” He shuddered.
“Brad’s in jail?”
“Well, actually, I don’t know where he is. The person I spoke to at Forest Glen told me to call the Bellevue police. And they won’t release any information. My lawyer says this is a typical stalling tactic.”
“Si,” said Pepe. “It is a game the policia like to play. They isolate the prisoner to obtain a confession.”
“It’s good you have a lawyer,” I said, wishing I had someone I could consult with about this case.
“Well, strictly speaking he’s not my lawyer,” said Jay. “I called my lawyer and he referred me to his partner—.” He saw my look and clarified. “A partner in his firm who can take Brad’s case. It wouldn’t do for Graham to represent both of us.” He faltered to a stop. “Just in case.”
“Just in case Brad is guilty,” I said. “Surely you don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” said Jay, tears appearing in his eyes.
“We’ll clear his name!” I said firmly, giving Jay an impulsive hug. He suffered my embrace stiffly, dabbing at his eyes with a silk handkerchief he pulled out of his vest pocket as soon as I let him go.
“I need more information about Mrs. Fairchild,” I said. “Did he ever talk to you about her?”
Jay shook his head impatiently as he grabbed his car keys off a silver tray in the hallway.
“The dragon lady?” I followed him out and watched as he locked the front door.
“Oh, the dragon lady! Yes he complained about her all the time. She had no taste. She was totally stubborn. She was always asking for a discount. I totally understood. I have catering clients like that too. I told him not to back down, to use his best judgment, and never offer her a discount.” Jay stopped. “I also told him that in some cases it’s better to cut your losses than to keep on pursuing a client who’s so difficult.” He moaned. “If only he had taken my advice.”
“Maybe he did,” I said, following him to the driveway. His car, a shiny black Lexus, beeped as we approached.
“It seems clear he went over there to ask her for money,” Jay said. “At least that’s how the police made it sound.”
“It also sounded like he was standing in line with a lot of other contractors,” I said. “Do you know who else was working there?”
Jay shook his head. “Brad never mentioned any names.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I do know he sometimes hired other people to help him with tasks he didn’t enjoy.”
“Is there any paperwork here?” I asked.
“He kept everything at the shop.” Jay pulled open the driver’s door.
“The shop!” That reminded me about the rent. “Have you heard from the landlord?”
Jay shook his head. “No. Do you think they’ve started eviction proceedings?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And anyway,” I shrugged, “I don’t have enough money to catch up on the rent. The landlord told me Brad owes $12,000.”
Jay looked troubled. He wedged himself into the driver’s seat and put the keys in the ignition, but he didn’t turn the car on.
“What is it?”
“Brad asked me for the money,” he said in a low voice, “the day before he disappeared. I reminded him that I loaned him the money to set up his business but he was on his own to keep it going. That was our agreement.” He looked straight ahead as if the scene was playing out on the other side of the windshield. “We had a terrible fight. He stormed out of the house.” Jay gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles went white. “If only I had given it to him, none of this would have happened.”
“He is right,” said Pepe.
“You don’t know that!” I said.
“Now I will most likely spend that much getting him out of this mess,” said Jay grimly, reaching for the key and turning on the car. “But it will be worth it to have my sweet Pooky Bear back home with me.”
“Pooky Bear!” said Pepe. “I have never understood pet names.”
Pepe and I watched the Lexus back out of the driveway and speed down the street after I made Jay promise to call me and leave a message on my home phone as soon as he knew anything.
“We’ve got to go to the shop,” I said.
“Or canvas the neighborhood,” Pepe suggested.
So we did both.
As soon as we entered, it was obvious someone had been in the shop. Nothing was in its right place. The owl was no longer on top of the grandfather clock but was sitting in an armchair near the door. Pepe startled when he saw it and went running under a sofa.
“Scared of a dead owl?” I teased him.
He came out shaking. “I am a victim of my instincts,” he said. “An owl like that could carry off a little dog like me in its cruel claws.”
“Like the hawk!” I said, pointing up at the bird that soared above us, suspended from the ceiling by white cord.
“Do not remind me,” he said. “I once was carried off in the claws of a Mama Hawk who intended to feed me to her babies, but when she sailed out over the ocean, angling toward her nest on a nearby cliff, I managed to escape from her grip. And dropped into the water and was able to swim to safety.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute, Pepe,” I said. I know how much he hates water.
“It is true,” he said. “I was lucky enough to land in a school of dolphins and they shepherded me back to shore. Dolphins are very intelligent, you know. I learned a few words in their language. . . .”
“Right,” I said. “For instance?”
“‘Argerpolowarranfeel,’” said Pepe. It was sort of a watery grumble.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means ‘What a brave dog!’ in Dolphin,” said Pepe with great satisfaction.
I set the owl back up on the grandfather clock, then looked around. The sofas and chairs had all been moved and were cluttering up what was usually a passageway to the front.
“Someone’s been here!” I said.
“Si, it was la policia,” said Pepe, sniffing around. “I can smell that unpleasant man who likes to make jokes about me.”
“That means they must have gotten a search warrant,” I said. I pushed my way through the clutter of furniture towards the front room.
“Most likely,” agreed Pepe.
I pushed aside the heavy velvet drapes that shielded the mess in the back room from the front space that Brad uses to entertain clients. He keeps his papers in a file cabinet behind a tall, trifold, Japanese screen, its paper panels painted with graceful bamboo fronds.
The file cabinet itself was gun-metal gray. The four-drawer vertical cabinet had a couple dents in the metal and looked like it had come from the Boeing Surplus store. No wonder Brad hid it behind the screen.
It was clear that the police had also gone through the file cabinet. The drawers had been left open and most of them were empty except for a few fabric swatches and drapery catalogs.
I did find some envelopes on the floor that had been slipped through the mail slot. Each was addressed to Mrs Fairchild. She had written on them with a red pen “Return to Sender” and “No Longer at this Address.” A clever way to avoid payment but not too convincing because the address was the very address where Brad was working. I picked them u
p and put them on the desk, which had also been cleared of its usual jumble of papers.
I looked around for Pepe who had been unusually silent. I finally found him in the back of the shop, utterly still, his gaze fixed on a tall wooden armoire, his tail absolutely stiff and horizontal, one front paw tucked backwards, his whole body leaning forward. He looked exactly like a bird dog on point.
“What is it, Pepe?” I asked.
“Is it not obvious?” he asked. “I am pointing.”
“But you are not a bird dog!”
“I beg to differ. Have you forgotten that I was on that infamous bird hunt on that ranch in Texas with the Vice President of the United States? He may not have pointed his shotgun at the correct target, but I most certainly pointed out the right target to him!”
“Pepe, you know I don’t believe that story. You are not old enough to have been alive when Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face.”
“Well, believe this!” he said. “There is a clue in that armario.”
I looked at it nervously. “Is there a dead body in there?”
“Si, el cadáver,” said Pepe.
I shuddered. “Whose dead body?” I asked.
“Why do you think I am pointing like a bird dog?”
“A dead bird?”
Pepe gave a stiff little nod, never breaking his stance for one minute.
I approached the cupboard cautiously and threw open one of the doors. Inside was a stuffed pheasant. He was sitting on a little piece of wood, with a stuffed mouse at his feet. His yellow eye was staring straight at me.
“How is this a clue, Pepe?” I asked.
He sighed and sat down. “This is the last thing Brad touched. He hid it in this armario before he went out the last day he was here.”
“Well, I don’t see how this helps us,” I said.
“It is not accurate,” said Pepe, who had relaxed his posture and was studying the tableau critically. “Pheasants do not eat mice.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Si. They are vegetarians, like you, Geri. Although they will eat insects. I have never seen you do that.”
I shuddered again. “No and you never will.”
“You might be surprised,” said Pepe. “Such a morsel would be most delicious to a hungry Chihuahua crossing the Sonoran desert.” He actually licked his lips.
“I guess we have struck out here!” I said. “The police got any evidence that could have helped us.”
Pepe’s Blog: Birds Are Distracting
I am never happier than when I can illuminate the principles of private detection for my partner, or for you, my faithful readers. When you are looking for clues, there is nothing that is not significant. And I sensed that there was something in the shop that was muy importante.
Unfortunately, sometimes it takes my brain a little while to catch up with my intuition. And perhaps I was distracted by all of those birds. The memory of my almost-demise at the claws of a hawk was not pleasant. Nor was the memory of my time crossing the great Sonoran desert, when I had to subsist on locusts.
No, there was something there that I was missing and I could only hope that it would make itself known.
Chapter 24
We headed back to Mrs. Fairchild’s house to see if the neighbors had any ideas about who would want to kill Mrs. Fairchild. Unfortunately, it seemed every one did.
Several of the neighbors had witnessed fights between Mrs. Fairchild and her various contractors. A few had noted the names on the trucks: a plumbing company (Toilet Wizards) and a roofing company (Shelter from the Storm). According to one neighbor, a man who was clipping the box hedge along his driveway, he had witnessed a shouting match between Mrs. Fairchild and a guy he described as a “chunky Mexican dude” just days before her death.
“None of us were surprised around here,” he said. “It was just a matter of when someone was going to kill her. In fact, we’re talking about starting a defense fund for the guy who did it.”
“So she was not popular in the neighborhood?” I asked.
He shook his head. “She had fights with the Delcantos about the property line. She actually tore down their fence, claiming it was on her property. And she hired some tree cutters to top off the big evergreen that belonged to the people who live behind her house—don’t know their names, but I know there was a lawsuit involved in that.”
I wanted to talk to the Delcantos but no one answered the door. I left my card in their mailbox with a note on it. I used one of the Sullivan and Sullivan Agency cards that Pepe had insisted I make back when we worked our first case. No one could tell by looking at it that my partner was a dog.
As we headed back around the block, Pepe stopped to sniff some cypress bushes planted like guardians at the end of a straight sidewalk that led up to a smaller house, unusual for the neighborhood. The mustard yellow paint was fading, and the roof was covered with shaggy moss.
“Hurry up, Pepe,” I said.
“I am investigating,” he said, just as the front door opened and a skinny old lady came hobbling out, waving her arms and yelling: “Get that dog away from my bushes!”
I scooped up my dog and held him in my arms as she approached. She was wearing a shabby brown cardigan and it looked like her grey, curly hair was uncombed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “He was probably just smelling another dog.”
“He was going to pee on my bushes,” she declared, “just like all the other idiot dogs in the neighborhood.” She pointed to the base of the bushes where the leaves had turned yellow, her hand trembling.
“You have a very nice yard,” I said, even though it looked rather boring to me with its straight path lined with shiny white rocks and carefully trimmed box hedges, which enclosed rose bushes—only rose bushes—some still bearing a few limp blossoms.
“Tell her we are investigators,” said Pepe. “She is the sort of person who watches everything.”
“My dog is actually a working dog,” I told her. “We are investigating a crime that happened in your neighborhood.”
“Oh, Mrs. Fairchild,” she said. “Yes, the police were here asking about her too.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them about the cars I saw in her driveway that day,” she said. “A white van and a red and white MINI Cooper.”
Oh dear, Brad drives a red and white MINI Cooper. The very car the police found a day later at Volunteer Park.
“Ask what order they were parked in!” said Pepe.
“What do you mean order?” I asked.
“I didn’t say anything about order,” she said.
“Which car was in front and which car was in back,” said Pepe.
“Which car was in front?” I asked.
“Definitely the van,” she said.
This was good. “Great question!” I told Pepe. That meant someone else had been in the house on the day of the murder.
“I didn’t ask a question,” the woman said.
“Oh, but I have one for you,” I said. “Do you know who the cars belonged to?”
“Now how would I know that?”
“Well, maybe there was a sign painted on one of the cars. Or you recognized one of the drivers.”
The old woman shook her head. “I never saw the same people there twice. Except for her decorator. The guy with the little red-and-white car.”
“Oh, you know Brad?”
“Was that his name?” Her mouth curved down. “He was in a hurry that day. Stormed up the front steps. Heard yelling as soon as he got inside. If he had any sense, which I don’t think he did, he was probably telling her to shove it.”
“You know that she was murdered?”
“Couldn’t have happened to a better person,” she said with a satisfied smack of her gums. “If the decorator did it, then more power to him!”
“Did you hear anything? After the yelling?”
“No, I went back inside. It was time for Judge Judy.”
&nbs
p; “And did you notice the cars later? After your show?”
“They were both gone the next time I looked.”
So we adjourned to my house so I could use my computer to do some research. Pepe claimed he was going to help and headed for his iPad on the coffee table, but when I went into the living room to ask him a question, he was gazing dreamily at the photo of a good-looking Australian shepherd.
“A new crush?” I asked. “Don’t you have enough girlfriends?’
“Her name is Kiwi,” said Pepe, gazing at her image fondly. “She wrote to me because of my blog. She wishes to be a private detective as well. Perhaps she will apply for a position as my assistant.”
“What blog?”
“Oh, so you never found it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it is Number 2 in overall usefulness for blogs about private detectives who are dogs. Apparently some dog named Chet has beat me out and there’s a bedbug-finding dog named Doodle, who’s a close third. Got to keep my eye on him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have been writing down my thoughts about our cases, hoping you would find them since I could not talk to you.”
“Well, it would have helped if you had let me know about it.”
Pepe just gave me a look. If he had had eyebrows to raise, he would have raised them. Instead this chiding look was communicated with narrowed eyes and a slightly lowered muzzle.
“I’ll try to catch up,” I said.
“Bueno,” said Pepe. “Now tell me, Geri, what have you learned?”
“I have the contact information for five different contractors who worked for Mrs. Fairchild and for the three neighbors who filed lawsuits against her. Oh, and two of the five contractors have lawsuits pending in civil court against her. Two others, a handyman named Toby White and a painter named Eric French, won judgments against her last year and the year before. The old lady has left a trail of enemies behind her.
The Silence of the Chihuahuas Page 17