Sleeping Dogs Lie wfm-1

by Sharon Henegar

  “Wait a minute. You said you were in the kitchen, looking toward the front of the house, and you saw him outside by your car?” I nodded and she went on. “And from that distance you could tell he had a gun in his britches?”

  “When he turned toward the house I saw the sun glint off of metal. At his waist.” The more I talked the less sure I was that I had ever seen the sun glint off anything in my life. I couldn’t remember if I had said anything about the sheers still being across the windows. Nothing would drag that detail out of me now.

  “I thought it was raining.”

  “It started after we ran away. Earlier it was sunny.”

  “Louisa! It could have been his belt buckle or something! Jeez, I don’t believe this. You must have gotten really spooked last night.” She shook her head and picked up her sandwich.

  “Well, I did,” I admitted. “And it's been more than twelve hours and I haven’t heard from Bob.”

  “Have you checked your message machine at home this morning?” she said around a bite of sandwich.

  I shook my head. “I haven’t been back home, remember? I came straight here.”

  “Use my phone and call your machine and have it play your messages.”

  “It can do that?”

  She stared at me. “What planet have you been living on? Just call it up and when the machine picks up, punch in your code—” She broke off when she saw my expression. “You have no idea what your code is. Of course.”

  I ate another carrot stick. Finally I said, “Can you drive me to Bob’s so I can get my car back? Or I guess I should call the police from here and tell them about the guy that chased me.”

  “In a few minutes. First I want you to go over again what happened last night. You stopped at the Food Right, and he went in and you stayed in the car?” I nodded. “What time was this?”

  “I wasn’t wearing my watch. We went to the four o’clock movie and had dinner out at the winery, so it was probably eight thirty or a little later.”

  “How long before he came out?”

  “Maybe five minutes. I don’t know. I was playing with the radio.”

  “And he came out with a woman?”

  I described again how they had been walking close together and gotten in the same side of the car, and that I had followed as soon as I was able to get into the driver’s seat.

  “And you’re sure it was that Mercedes you followed all the way to the highway?” She took a bite of sandwich and frowned as she chewed.

  “I'm sure,” I told her, “though I didn’t see if they got on the highway or went straight because I was busy with your police chief. Why do you ask?”

  She swallowed. “He’s not my police chief. And I'm just grasping at straws. It's no wonder Ed couldn’t do anything, there’s nothing to get hold of. How about when you were at Bob’s house this morning? Did you see any clues?”

  I shrugged. “How the heck would I know if something is a clue or not?”

  “But you searched the house?” I nodded, and she asked, “What did you see?”

  “He doesn’t own much stuff. Or maybe he didn’t move it all here from High Cross. I was sort of looking for his computer, in case he had contacts listed on it, but I didn’t find one.” I thought about Bob’s house. “I didn’t go through everything, but I didn’t see any pictures, no photos I mean, no letters, no bills even. I looked in his dresser—”

  “Any interesting undies?” she asked brightly.

  “No,” I made a face at her. “Just normal old boxers, although one pair did have pictures of canaries on the fabric. But they looked pretty new so maybe he doesn’t wear them.” I remembered the ostentatiously expensive silk briefs that my husband had preferred. Boxers with canaries on them seemed incredibly wholesome by comparison.

  “How about his checkbook? If we got his old address in High Cross from the checks we might be able to find out something about him.”

  Her question made me realize something. “You know, I've never seen him pay for anything that wasn’t with cash.” I thought back over the past two weeks. “I mean, I use my debit card all the time, and before that I always wrote checks. And I use my card to get cash at the ATM.”

  Kay was nodding. “Hmm, no credit or debit cards used. Could it be a guy thing? How did Roger pay for stuff?”

  “He preferred to have someone else pay if he could manage it. Otherwise he used his American Express card.”

  “One more way Bob is nothing like Roger,” she said. “When someone is on the run in books and movies they avoid using cards for fear of being traced that way.”

  “On the run?” I repeated. “What are you suggesting?”

  She shrugged and gave me a quick look. “We don’t know a whole lot about Bob,” she said. “He could be anyone or anything. He seems to have plenty of free time, and he’s a little young to have retired. Maybe he’s a writer, and maybe he’s not. I think you’re wrong about him being a reporter. I couldn’t find anything on the Internet in any paper by someone with that name—”

  “Kay! You looked him up on the Internet?” I decided not to mention that I had done the same thing.

  “Of course. He has an awfully common name. It could be an alias.”

  “If it is, he could actually be a reporter. Or the prince of a small Balkan country for all we know.”

  “Right. A prince would be good, you could be Princess Louisa, that has a nice Victorian sound—” She broke off as I made gagging gestures, then went on, “—or maybe he’s independently wealthy like you and wants to keep it quiet—”

  “Hardly wealthy,” I countered. “I just have low expenses. Having no house payment makes a big difference.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I like Bob, but being kidnapped out of a grocery store is not normal behavior, at least not for anyone I've ever known.”

  This was a telling point; Kay’s circle of acquaintances is wide.

  “I still think it's odd that I couldn’t find a computer,” I said. “How can anyone can be a writer these days without one?”

  “That is strange. I guess some people still write in longhand but wouldn’t a freelance writer need to be online? Have you seen him with a laptop? How about in his car?” I shook my head, and she continued. “The prince theory is looking better. Could a laptop be what the guy was looking for in your car? Maybe Bob has files on one that he’s blackmailing someone with—”

  I sat up straighter in my chair. “Bob is not blackmailing anyone,” I said, scowling at my cousin. “Maybe that man was a panhandler looking for loose change. Maybe—”

  “Okay, okay, keep your shirt on,” she said. “I don’t think Bob’s a blackmailer. I'm just speculating. We know next to nothing about him, and only what he himself has told us.”

  We ate in silence.

  “How about the guy searching your car?” she finally asked.

  “What about him?”

  “What did he look like? Could he have been Bob?”

  “No. Why would Bob search my car? Plus, this guy had a completely different body type, and anyway, Jack was really growling. He’d never growl at Bob. This guy was as tall as Bob but way wider.”

  “Wider like fat?”

  I shook my head. “No. Broad shoulders and long arms. He had on a sport coat and khakis, but you could put him in a gorilla suit and he’d be completely convincing.”

  “And he really followed you?”

  “Yes. I'm sure it was him. We found this old barn built into a hillside, and I was on the upper level when I heard someone downstairs. So we hid, and then the door opened upstairs just a few feet from where we were.”

  “Good lord,” Kay breathed, patting her chest.

  “Jack knew it was the same person. I've never heard him growl before. I was scared,” I admitted.

  “Sheesh, I'm getting scared too. You hid behind some hay?”

  I nodded, recalling the sheer terror I'd felt crammed behind those bales, waiting to be found by a large man with a gun in his waistb
and. Or a really shiny belt buckle. Either would have been enough to subdue me.

  “How did you hide well enough that he couldn’t find you?”

  “If he’d kept looking, he’d have found us.” I stopped and shuddered, remembering. “I was about to sneeze and had to pinch my nose shut.”

  “Sneeze? Isn’t that kind of a cliché?”

  “Totally,” I said, “but my nose has no shame. When I moved, one of the boards squeaked, and a mouse ran out and he must have thought that was the squeak. Oh, and then a dog barked outside, close by. And he left.”

  “Well, I hate to say it, but I would have wet my pants if it had been me,” Kay admitted. “Not that I'd have run off in the first place, but still.”

  I suddenly remembered what I'd been doing when I'd discovered the stranger going through my car. “Hey, I did find something at Bob’s house.” I reached into my pants pocket, which was empty. “It’s in my other jeans. Hang on.”

  My discarded clothes lay in a damp heap on the bathroom floor. I fished the matchbook out of the pocket where I'd shoved it. It was quite wet.

  “Uh oh,” I said aloud.

  “What?” Kay demanded. I turned to find she had followed me.

  “I found this on Bob’s kitchen table. A name and number are written inside, and now it’s wet.” I held up the matchbook.

  She grabbed it and flipped it open. “Too dark here. Come on.” She hurried back to stand by the living room windows. “Still readable, I think,” she said, tilting it toward the light. “Luvie? Frieda?”

  “Trixie,” I said, taking the matchbook back. “Do you think that could be the woman in red?”

  “If it is, it would certainly put a different spin on things. Let’s call the number. Can you read it?”

  “I think so,” I said, and gave her the digits. She went to the phone on the kitchen counter.

  “Tell me the number again,” she commanded. She dialed, listened briefly, and made a face as she hung up.

  “Busy. Damn. Hey, where’s the matchbook from?”

  I handed it to her. She studied it, and shook her head.

  “I don’t know this place,” she admitted.

  “Isn’t the address out by the highway?”

  “Yeah, near the town limits. Maybe their customers are commuters coming home from High Cross. You work all day in the city, drive most of the way back sober, and stop in for a drink when you’re nearly home.”

  “Call them up and see if they know this Trixie,” I said.

  She picked up the phone again and dialed. She frowned as she listened, then hung up. “Message machine,” she said. “Apparently they open at eleven a.m. and happy hour is from five to six.”

  “Couldn’t you leave a message?”

  “Yeah, but what am I going to say? Is Trixie there and did she kidnap Bob? Let me try her number again.” She redialed, but the line was still busy. “Pooh. I wish she’d written an address instead of a phone number.”

  “Let’s see if we can find the address. Fire up your computer.”

  Her expression brightened, and she led the way downstairs to her office. The computer was on, though the monitor had powered down. When she touched the mouse, the machine crackled and came back to life. Soon she had logged onto the Internet and typed in the phone number on a site that did reverse look ups. We both groaned at the message that there were no matches for that number.

  “Yes there is,” Kay groaned, “and we’ve got the real matches to prove it. Shoot.”

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Time to call the police?” She saw me shake my head. “Louisa, Bob has disappeared and you were followed by a man with a gun.” I looked at her. “Well, maybe with a gun.”

  “I thought of something else…” My voice faltered. She gave me a quizzical look. “Well, it occurred to me that, um, maybe Bob wouldn’t want us to call the police.”

  “You’re the one who was so sure he isn’t blackmailing anyone,” she reminded me.

  “Well, he’s not,” I maintained. I was operating purely on instinct and instinct is hard to defend. But Kay gave a slow, thoughtful nod.

  “You know,” she drawled, a crafty gleam beginning to shine in her eye, “if we could find out what’s going on by ourselves, it would really piss off Ed.”

  “Do we want to piss off Ed?”

  “He called you lady, didn’t he? Of course we want to piss him off. Come on, it's time to ride.” She hit keys to log off the computer.

  “What?”

  “Let’s go get your car back. At least we can do that much. After that we’ll figure out something else. We’ll go check your phone for messages. Maybe we should do that first. No, let’s get your car. Hell, maybe Bob will be back by then. I still expect him to walk in any minute.”

  We climbed the stairs to her apartment. “I do too. Even though I saw him drive off in that Mercedes, it still feels so unlikely.”

  “Let me try Trixie one more time,” she said, and went to the phone.

  “What about the dogs?” I asked, as she began to dial.

  She paused to look at them. Emily Ann was a perfect circle on the sofa. “Bring Jack along. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Bob will be home and we can give him his dog back. I'll call his place again before we leave too.” She finished dialing Trixie’s number, and put the receiver to her ear.

  I told Emily Ann to be a good girl and that we’d be back soon.

  “Still busy,” Kay growled. “Let’s call Bob’s house. What’s the number?”

  I can rarely remember phone numbers, but I was able to rattle off Bob’s without hesitation. As she dialed, I clipped Emily Ann’s leash onto Jack’s collar, since his was still in my car. He started spinning, stopping to wag when I fished a handful of chocolate chip cookies out of the Mickey Mouse cookie jar next to the flour canister. “Sorry, these are people cookies,” I told him. I wrapped them in a paper towel and turned to Kay.

  “No answer, just the machine,” she said. “Let’s go.” She whirled around, yanked open the refrigerator door, and took out a bottle of water.

  “What about the store?”

  “I put the sign on the door saying I'd be back in an hour. No one will know what time I put it up. Rainy Tuesdays in October aren’t our hottest times anyway. And what’s the point of working for myself if I can't close when I want to?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  We strapped on our seatbelts, and Kay took off from her parking place behind the building. Jack planted his sturdy feet between the bucket seats and leaned into the turn as she sped around the corner onto Main Street. “Tell me everything you know about Bob. Maybe it will help us figure out what’s going on.”

  “I've told you everything already. It's not like I haven’t talked to you every day.” I picked up one of the cookies I had laid on the dashboard and took a bite.

  She glanced at me. “I bet there’s some detail you haven’t told me. Just talk. Free associate.”

  “Okay. Um, he’s tall and thin and wears plain clothing except for the All Stars.” This came out thickly through the nuts and chocolate chips.

  “What about his character?” She looked over her left shoulder before she changed lanes, then held out a hand. “Give me some of that. You’re a whole sandwich ahead.” She grabbed the cookie, chomped out a big bite, and handed it back to me.

  “Yes, but I had no breakfast.”

  “Bob. Tell me about Bob.”

  “He’s kind,” was the next thing I thought of. “He talks to everyone at the dog park, even the people who are boring. He never gets impatient if someone says something dumb. And he’s really good to his dog.”

  Kay made the turn onto Hofenstadter Boulevard and sped up to cruise past an SUV. “Ah, the most important thing about a man: how does he treat his dog. Well, you’re probably right at that.”

  I looked over at the dog in question, who had retreated to the back seat and sat looking out the window on the driver’s side. We stopped for a red light at the intersection
with North Street and Kay reached for the cookie again. The movement caught Jack’s attention, and he licked his lips at the sight of the cookie. It was down to a single bite, which she ate.

  “All gone, Jack.” The dog looked at me when I said his name, and I added in the tone one uses on funny dogs with big floppy ears, “He’s just an old hungry dog, isn’t he? A big old sweet hungry boy?”

  Evidently ‘hungry’ was another word that Jack was familiar with, for he cocked his head and looked at me hopefully. I went back to my normal voice and told him, “Later, big Jack.” I turned back to Kay, pushing up my glasses to rub my eyes as I thought. “Bob’s also patient. He thought it was cool when I told Emily Ann to go to you at the store that first day, so we’ve been teaching both dogs to go back and forth between us at the park. He said he’s never trained a dog before but he’s really good at it. Or maybe Jack’s just extra smart.”

  I picked up another cookie from the dashboard as the light turned green. Kay accelerated smoothly, her right hand confident on the gear shift as she moved it through its positions until she was in fifth. I took another bite as I reached for the bottle of water. I twisted off the top and was taking a swig when I realized she had flipped on the turn signal and was slowing down.

  “Where are you going? This isn’t the way to Bob’s house.”

  “I know. I just realized we could turn here and go by that bar first. Maybe Trixie will be there and we can find out what’s going on and save Bob.”

  “You don’t want to just call again?” Bars hold even less attraction for me than telephones.

  “They’ll have the message machine on,” she said firmly, “and this will only take a few minutes. What were we talking about?”

  “Bob training Jack to go to me.”

  “Well, you’d never trained a dog before Emily Ann either,” she pointed out as we passed the next intersection.

  “That’s true. You should have seen Emily Ann at the park yesterday. She was playing with the other dogs and I told her to go to Bob, and she tore off to find him. He hid behind some trees when she wasn’t looking and she had to search for him. She was so excited when she found him that she jumped straight up in the air.”