“The First 48,” he said. “One of my favorite shows.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It is a reality TV show which follows homicide detectives as they try to solve murders. I find it instructive in my study of police procedures, but it would also be a great benefit to criminals if they watched it.”
“What would they learn?”
“Never talk to the police. Ask for a lawyer right away.”
“Well, apparently Brad isn’t talking,” I said.
“Maybe he also watches The First 48,” said Pepe.
The Seattle Police Department headquarters were downtown in an imposing building in the area that houses all the government offices including the jail, the courthouse, and City Hall.
Unfortunately, they were adamant about not letting a dog into the building.
“But he’s just a little Chihuahua,” I said. I didn’t dare try to claim, as I have in the past, that he’s a therapy dog because I assumed the police would have some way of checking on that.
“Chihuahuas are the worst!” said the rather humorless black woman at the front desk. “You’re safer around a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler.”
“You can say that again!” said Pepe who was indignant. And then he growled.
“See what I mean,” she said, narrowing her eyes and pointing to the sidewalk.
I didn’t know what to do, but luckily as I stood there, I saw Jay exiting the building.
“Jay!” I shouted.
He seemed surprised to see me. “How did you know Brad was here?” he asked.
I told him about my phone call with Sanders. “Did you get a chance to talk to him?”
“Briefly. I just dropped off some street clothes for him. He was wearing only a bathrobe.” Ah, the famous Forest Glen complimentary bathrobe. “They’re holding him for questioning. But I got him a lawyer and hopefully he’s not saying anything.”
“You don’t think he did it?”
“How would I know?” said Jay. “I don’t know where he’s been for the past week. And he won’t tell me.”
“He’s not talking?”
Jay shook his head sadly. “He barely seemed to know me.”
I remembered Brad’s dazed look at Forest Glen.
“Probably for the best,” said Pepe. “The police listen to everything you say when you are in jail.”
“Do you think he would talk to me?” I asked.
Jay shrugged. “I don’t know. You are his best friend.” He said it grudgingly. Jay and I have never been close.
“Here!” I said, thrusting Pepe into his arms. “I can’t take him inside, but I’m going to go try to talk to Brad.”
“I need a drink. I’ll be in there,” said Jay, pointing at a bar across the street.
“Great!” said Pepe. “I am a big fan of bar food.”
I went back into the police headquarters and passed through the security system without a problem. The uniformed officer at the Information Desk called the homicide unit and soon my friend Detective Sanders appeared. He was all dressed up in a black shirt with a pearlescent tie and pressed black pants that fell perfectly to the floor to reveal the pointed toes of some fancy cowboy boots. Ostrich, perhaps.
“Going some place special?” I asked, wondering why he looked so fancy on a Sunday afternoon.
“I take pride in my appearance is all,” he said with a brief once over for me. OK, so I was still wearing my sweatpants and a t-shirt. That’s my normal Sunday attire.
“I’m here to see my friend, Brad,” I said.
“He’s in a world of trouble,” Sanders said. “And he’s not talking to anyone.”
“Perhaps that’s smart,” I said.
“Only if he’s guilty,” said Sanders. “We want to clear his name and send him home. But we can’t until he tells us what he knows.”
“Maybe he would talk to me,” I said.
Sanders shook his head. “I doubt it, but it’s worth a try. That’s why I invited you to come down.” He set off down a long hall and I followed. Couldn’t help but admire his fine form as he loped ahead of me. But I reminded myself that I have a boyfriend. Which reminded me that I still had not called him.
Sanders turned left at another corridor and we passed a kitchen area containing a refrigerator, a table, and a vending machine. A man in a suit was on his cell phone, pacing back and forth. Just beyond that was a conference room with one glass wall, and I saw Brad sitting at a table, looking down at the table, his whole posture drooping. He was wearing a pair of tight red corduroy pants and a black t-shirt with a mesh inset. He looked like he was ready to go clubbing. It told me something about how Jay viewed Brad. Maybe that was how Brad was dressed when they first met. Which was probably back in the eighties.
I was so overjoyed to see Brad that when Sanders opened the door to the room, I rushed in and hugged him.
Brad seemed happy to see me too. Tears sprang into his eyes and he smiled at me wistfully. But he didn’t say a word when I asked, “How are you?” I sat down next to him and grabbed his hand. He seemed so frail. His hand was shaking.
“Hey!” said a man at the door. It was the man in the suit I had seen pacing in the kitchen area. “Who are you?”
“Geri Sullivan,” I said. “I’m Brad’s friend.”
“Chuck Caster,” he said. “Brad’s attorney. I’ve advised him to say nothing.”
Sanders rolled his eyes. “Not that it matters since he’s not saying anything anyway.”
“My client is suffering from traumatic amnesia. We’re going straight from here to a hospital to have him evaluated. He doesn’t remember a thing about the events of the past few days,” said Caster.
“But you do know who did it,” I said to Brad. “You saw it happen, didn’t you?”
Brad shook his head no. But I could see the fear in his eyes.
“Please stop talking to him,” said the lawyer. “He’s in no shape to answer questions.”
“Was it someone you hired?” I asked again. “If you could give us a name, the police would go after him instead of focusing on you.”
Brad opened his mouth.
“Don’t say a word!” said the lawyer. He turned to Sanders. “Is he free to leave? You don’t have any grounds for holding him.”
“Not at the moment,” admitted Sanders. “But we still need to check his alibi.”
“What alibi? He’s not talking.”
“That’s precisely my point,” said Sanders. “We can’t clear him until we know where he was on Tuesday afternoon when Mrs. Fairchild was killed.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Brad. It came out as a mumble. We all turned around and looked at him. He looked frightened. “I am so sorry.”
“Be quiet!” said the lawyer.
“Sorry about what?” said the detective.
“You were totally right,” Brad said to me.
“Right about what?” I asked.
“I told you to be quiet,” said the lawyer.
“About the color,” he said. “It was the wrong color.”
“What’s he talking about?” asked Sanders.
“I don’t know,” I said. But then a memory stirred. “The color of the kitchen at Mrs. Fairchild’s house?”
Brad nodded. “Very unflattering!” he said. “She hated it!”
“He’s talking about a paint color?” asked Sanders.
“Apparently so,” said the lawyer.
Pepe’s Blog: Seahawks or Chihuahuas?
I had never before realized the intricacies of this game called football until the fans of our local team kindly instructed me in the strategies employed by the players during our sojourn at the Sportz Bar. The team is ineptly named the Seahawks. Since I do not believe such a creature exists, I propose to nominate myself as the team mascot. Can you imagine a team named the Seattle Chihuahuas? I can. And I think a bobblehead of me would bring in much revenue. Who would not like to have a Chihuahua guarding their car? Perhaps, if I can say this witho
ut blasphemy, more effective as a theft deterrent than a plastic statue of the Virgin Mary.
But I digress. Geri and I were on the home stretch, or should I say “in the red zone” when it came to solving the murder of Mrs. Fairchild.
Chapter 27
The police agreed to transport Brad to Harborview for evaluation and Chuck went with them to make sure the transfer was handled properly. I told Sanders I had some additional information and he ushered me into an interrogation room where I told him about the white van and my theory that the killer was someone Brad had hired to work for him.
“So all you have to do is figure out who Brad had hired to help him,” I said eagerly.
“Well, thanks for that tip,” said Sanders, setting down his pen. “I’m sure we’ll hop right on that.” He looked tired.
“Oh,” I said, recognizing the sarcasm. “You’ve already done that.”
He nodded. “And came up with a big fat zero. Brad doesn’t keep very good records. We couldn’t find any indication that he was working with anyone else.”
I winced.
“We’re still combing through the records,” he said. “We haven’t found his cell phone, but we can get those records. And bank statements. Those might help. We can see who he was paying.” He shook his head. “Meanwhile, I suggest you stop poking your nose into this. If Brad isn’t the killer, and you find the person who is, you could become a victim. And we don’t want that happening, do we?”
I agreed that we didn’t want that.
After talking with Sanders, I headed across the street to get my dog. The bar was noisy and crowded, filled with big screen TVs and people wearing blue-and-green Seahawks jerseys. Pepe was roaming up and down the bar begging for snacks—and getting them too. Jay sat on a bar stool with one empty seat beside him, practically right under one TV where men in blue jerseys and helmets scrambled around in the rain, clashing with and running away from men in white jerseys and white helmets.
Jay saw me coming. He looked around for Brad, then realized I was alone, and cast his eyes back down on the glass of amber liquid in front of him. Pepe came trotting down the bar dodging glasses and schooners, carrying a French fry in his mouth. He laid it down in front of Jay. I thought that was a sweet gesture, until I saw that he had placed it there so he could gnaw on it, breaking it down into small bites.
Jay asked if I wanted anything to drink and I thought that sounded like a good idea. I ordered a Cosmo in honor of Amber and her liberation. We drank silently for a while. Then the whole room erupted in screams. I startled, then saw they were all on their feet looking at the screens where I saw a lone man in a blue uniform, dodging and twisting and heading down the field, all alone, the ball grasped in his hands.
“That’s a one hundred and one yard kickoff return for Leon Washington!” shouted the announcer and the whole room cheered. People were pounding each other on the back and clinking glasses. Pepe did a victory lap along the bar.
“Let’s get out of here,” whispered Jay. “I can’t stand all this happiness when Brad is suffering.” He tossed back his drink and I did the same.
After gathering up Pepe, we threaded our way through the crowd, almost as gracefully as Leon Washington. Pepe was disappointed at leaving his new friends, but I just wanted to get home.
Rain was falling as I drove home with Pepe curled on the seat beside me.
“How are we going to prove that Brad is innocent?” I asked Pepe.
“Have you considered that he might be guilty?” Pepe asked.
“How can you say that?”
“A detective must be willing to look at all the facts, even if they do not please him,” said Pepe.
“Well let us assume it was not Brad, for a moment,” I said.
“Then it must be the man who smells like Budweiser and Camel cigarettes,” said Pepe.
“What are you talking about?”
“So you have still not read my blog? Which I wrote only for your edification?”
“Pepe, we’ve been busy avoiding thugs and getting out of loony bins and rescuing runaway brides. Poor Teri!” My mind went to my sister. “I hope she is safe. Anyway, what’s this about Budweiser and Camels?”
“Those are the scents I smelled on the corpse of Mrs. Fairchild,” said Pepe.
“So we just need to find a contractor who smells like Budweiser and Camel cigarettes,” I said. “That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
As usual, Pepe missed my sarcasm. “Indeed!” said Pepe. “We will do a scent lineup.”
“Pepe, there’s no way I can get all the suspects to come in and stand in front of you. And, anyway, even if you could identify the murderer—-”
“Your lack of confidence is most disturbing to me,” said Pepe. “It is not if but when.”
“Even when you identified the murderer,” I continued, “the police could not take your word for it. Because you don’t talk!”
“Rather, it is they who do not listen,” declared Pepe
Back at home, I turned on my computer to do some research while Pepe went scrambling for his iPad, doubtless to write another blog entry. I decided to search for his blog and found it pretty quickly. I was shocked to find his latest entry, recruiting attractive female dogs to work with him. It sounded like he was planning to go off on his own. I couldn’t believe my own dog was plotting to eliminate me.
It was a dark moment. Was it possible my best friend had killed a woman simply because she didn’t like the paint color he had chosen to paint her kitchen? Was it possible that my dog was planning to replace me? Was it possible my boyfriend was falling in love with an attractive pet therapist from Laguna Beach? And was my sister about to be killed by the Gang who Couldn’t Shoot Straight?
That reminded me that I had never done any searching to see if I could verify the Marshall’s assertion that my sister was a key witness in a murder trial. I entered a few key words and quickly found what I was searching for. Phil Pugnetti, the ostensible head of the Pugnetti gang, was going to appear in Federal court on Tuesday (only two days away) to face conspiracy charges for a murder that happened in 1992 in one of the strip clubs he owned. The suspected trigger man who had allegedly committed the murder had been killed the following year and his murder was still unsolved. I was shocked when I read his name: Ted Lister. He was supposedly a smalltime drug dealer who worked for Pugnetti and whose girlfriend danced in one of Pugnetti’s clubs. I knew that name because I knew his girlfriend. Teri had been living with Lister when she disappeared. She must have either been present when Pugnetti was instructing Lister to commit the murder or she had learned about it later from her boyfriend. Either way, she was obviously the key to putting Pugnetti away, because, as the article made clear, law enforcement had tried for years to indict him on many charges—extortion, money-laundering, and prostitution—but they had never been able to assemble enough evidence to press charges against him.
As I was heading out to the living room to share what I had learned with Pepe, and confront him about his treachery, my phone rang.
“Geri, where are you?” It was Felix.
“Where are you?” I asked, suddenly thinking I had totally missed a promised dinner or a date.
“At Rebecca’s for the wrap party. We’re about to watch the rushes. Are you coming?”
“Oh, sure. I can be there in fifteen minutes.” All I had to do was change my clothes, rush out the door, and drive up the hill to Rebecca’s grand mansion.
I found a place to park about a block away and walked back through a misting rain with Pepe, who found it necessary to leave his mark on several stone walls and tree trunks and rhododendron bushes. A huge van with the name of a lighting company on it was parked in Rebecca’s driveway, along with a trailer that I assumed was used for costumes and make-up. We passed through the wrought-iron gate and between the stone lions and mounted the steps to the front door. I remembered the first time we came to Rebecca’s house when the door had been open and Pepe had scampered inside to find
the corpse of Rebecca’s husband lying in the living room.
Now the living room was full of glamorous people in glamorous clothes: women wearing tight, sparkly dresses and high heels, men in designer suits. I was really underdressed in a simple black cocktail dress from the fifties and black tights. I wished Felix had told me it was a fancy affair. I stood on the threshold, afraid to enter, while Pepe went running off as soon as he saw the precious Pomeranian, Siren Song, who was basking on an orange velvet pillow under the baby grand piano.
Then Rebecca spotted me and came hurrying over.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Geri,” she said, giving me the quick air kisses she had adopted after many months in Hollywood. “Just wait until you see how well Felix did in his segment.” She paused and looked around, then spotted him in the corner, talking to Caro. She was wearing a short magenta satin dress which showed off her long legs. They were laughing together. I felt a little pang in my heart. Had I lost Felix to the glamour of the life he had left and the beautiful women in it?
Rebecca grabbed me by the elbow and hurried me over there.
“Felix, just look who I found!” she declared. “Caro, this is Geri Sullivan. She’s a private detective!”
“Oh, really!” said Caro. She looked surprised. “I had no idea that’s what you did. That must be so interesting.”
“She’s being modest,” said Felix. I thought for a moment he was referring to me and would brag about all of the murders I had solved. But instead he said, “Caro has had some success, as well, solving crimes that involve animals.”
I tried to smile. “I’d love to hear all about it,” I said. And so she proceeded to tell me about some woman who had been shot in her car, leaving her famous Siamese cats as orphans, and another client who had been murdered in his house and it was his dogs who alerted everyone to the identity of the murderer. I tried to look impressed.
Where was my dog who was supposed to be helping me figure out who murdered Mrs. Fairchild? He seemed to getting busy with Siren Song under the piano. Maybe I should ask Miranda Skarbos to help me figure out who killed the dragon lady. I saw the famous pet psychic on the other side of the room, this time dressed in a long black dress with voluminous chiffon sleeves that fluttered as she waved her arms about. Her brightly hennaed hair was gathered up in a messy bun on top of her head.
The Silence of the Chihuahuas Page 19