“Actually, he named himself. His name is Pepe!”
Brad frowned. “Isn’t that a bit too obvious, Geri?”
“I suppose you have a better idea,” Pepe said.
“You should call him Angelo! Then you could dress him up in wings and a halo.”
“No way, José!” Pepe said.
“He doesn’t really like to be dressed up,” I told Brad.
Brad looked hurt. “But all those designs we sketched . . .” One rainy afternoon we had amused ourselves by drawing pictures of dogs in disco togs and pirate costumes.
“He seems to have strong opinions of his own,” I said. “We can talk about it later.” I didn’t really want to discuss this subject in front of Pepe.
“Once he sees what we have envisioned, he will come around,” said Brad, setting Pepe down on the floor. Pepe sniffed around the legs of the sofa and behind the oil paintings stacked against the wall.
“No marking your territory in here!” I told him.
Brad looked concerned. “I hope he understands English!”
“Actually he speaks Spanish,” I said.
“Oh, well, then tell him not to pee in Spanish,” Brad said.
“I don’t really know how to say that in Spanish,” I said. “It hasn’t come up before.”
“Well, he’s adorable,” Brad said. “I’m so glad you brought him over to show me. I was just closing the shop and heading home so your timing is impeccable. Jay has some big event at the Seattle Art Museum he’s catering tonight, and he wants me to do the table designs.”
I was disappointed. Brad and I usually hang out together after work. Often we go to a nearby restaurant for cocktails and dinner. Since Jay runs a catering business, he is usually gone until late in the evening and Brad is often on his own, like me. I wanted to complain to him about Cheryl’s cruel invitation and also tell him about my new job.
“You didn’t even hear my biggest news!” I said.
“What is it, if not me?” asked Pepe, emerging from behind the Victorian sofa.
Brad raised his eyebrows.
“I got a job! I’m working as a private investigator.”
Brad’s eyebrows fell. “Darling, that just doesn’t sound like you!”
“Actually I’m well suited to the job,” I said. I laid out all the talking points I had rehearsed for my interview. “When I worked at the sewage treatment plant, I learned how to do research and write reports. That will come in handy for writing up my cases! And, you know, we learned a lot about interviewing and working with clients in the interior design program. Plus as a stager, I’m used to reading all the clues in an environment.”
“If you say so,” said Brad. He sounded dubious.
“And my boss is the most eccentric character! You’ll have to meet him. He totally thinks he’s living in the fifties. Or maybe the forties. He calls me ‘doll!’ Can you believe it?”
“I’ll call you doll, if it pleases you so much,” said Brad. “I just don’t know about this, Geri. It sounds like it could be dangerous.”
“It is muy dangerous,” said Pepe, “but luckily she has me as a partner.”
“You’re so right!” I said. “On my first assignment, Pepe and I actually found a dead body.”
“No!” said Brad, falling back in feigned horror, rattling all the crystal in the china hutch.
“Seriously! We got sent on an assignment—”
“You think of your dog as your partner?”
“I am her partner!”
“He is my partner!”
“I thought I was your partner!”
“No, I am,” said Pepe.
“You’re my business partner,” I said. I could see that even though Brad was joking, he was a little jealous at being left out of my new life. “And Pepe is my detecting partner. Anyway, we went to interview a woman whose husband was missing and found him dead on the living room carpet. In the middle of the most god-awful white on white decorating scheme you’ve ever seen!”
“Melissa did that home,” Brad said. Melissa was one of the other students in the interior design program and our nemesis. We hated her work, which managed to be both opulent and trite.
“Oh, that explains it,” I said. “But how do you know that?”
“It was David Tyler. Right?”
“Yes.”
“It was all over the news last night. Microsoft millionaire slain in his home! Did you know that Jay did a party for them last Christmas?” Brad didn’t wait for me to answer but just kept on going. “Jay couldn’t stand the wife. Said she was a total bitch. Jay said they’d probably find out it was suicide. The poor guy no doubt killed himself because it was the only way he could get away from her nagging.”
Chapter 14
When we got home, Pepe went straight to his food dish. But he cleared out of the kitchen fast when Albert came wandering in looking for his own dinner. Pepe headed for the living room and in a few minutes, I heard the click of the TV.
After pouring myself a glass of Chardonnay, I drifted into the living room to see what he was watching. He was channel surfing, clicking through all the channels.
“There is nothing on TV on Friday night,” he complained.
“Just don’t watch anything On Demand,” I told him. “I’m not going to pay for it.”
I checked my home phone, hoping for a message from my sister, apologizing for inviting Jeff without telling me. But she hadn’t called. I did have two messages.
One was from Sherman Foot. He sounded annoyed. He wanted to know why I hadn’t called him.
“It’s urgent that I speak to you, Miss Sullivan,” he said. “Contact me as soon as you receive this message.”
I didn’t think Foot would answer his phone on a Friday night but I tried the number anyway. I got voice mail and left a message.
The second call was from Felix. He said he had enjoyed meeting me and my dog, although he was sorry about the circumstances, and he hoped I would call him. I thought about it. He had a nice rich baritone voice, and it sounded soothing. I imagined that calm, confident tone really worked on dogs, but the last thing I needed was an attractive man in my life.
As I was considering this, the phone in my hand rang, shaking me out of my reverie. My caller ID said the caller was F. Navarro. Well, if he was going to be persistent, I might as well end it quickly.
“Hello?”
“Hello. Is this Geri Sullivan?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Don’t you have caller ID?” he asked.
“Oh!” How did he know that? I have to admit, I’m not a very good liar. It might be a problem in my new career. I imagined there were plenty of circumstances when lying would be a great way to get information. “Yes, I do,” I said.
“So you know it’s me, Felix,” he said.
“Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have answered.” I wasn’t sure if I should have said that. But he laughed.
“Well, I’m glad you did,” he said.
“Oh really? Why?”
“I felt terrible all day because of what happened. I want to make it up to you. Can you get an estimate and let me know how much it will cost to fix your car?”
“Felix,” I said, “it would cost a lot to fix my car. Didn’t you notice the moss growing on the rubber?”
“Well, yes, I did,” he said. “I thought it was rather charming.”
He must be kidding. Guys never thought my neglect of my car was charming.
“Really, the car is a hand-me-down from my sister, and I’m trying to drive it into the ground. I don’t plan to have any work done on it.”
“How about if I pay for the cost of the repairs, even if you don’t intend to do them?”
“I couldn’t accept any money from you under those circumstances,” I said.
“Well, it doesn’t seem right,” he said. “Can I make it up to you in some other way? Dinner? Or a free training session for your dog?”
“Pepe could certainly use some training,” I
said.
Pepe said “Hey! I heard that!”
I noticed the way Felix had slipped in the dinner invitation. Was he asking me out? It had been so long since I had been asked out, I wasn’t really sure.
“Can I think about it and call you back?” I asked.
“Sure, I’ll be looking forward to that,” he said. He repeated his number and then said good-bye. I stood there looking at the phone.
“Who was that?” Pepe wanted to know. “The guy with the rude dog?”
“Yes, it was,” I said.
“He is trying to get closer to you by using me,” Pepe said. “That is a clever strategy. I have used it myself to good effect.”
“I’d actually like to see him train you,” I said to Pepe.
“What would you like to see me do?” Pepe asked. “I can already jump through a ring of fire.” He looked around the living room. “But you do not appear to have one nearby.”
“When did you learn to jump through a ring of fire?” I asked.
“When I performed in the circus,” Pepe said, with great dignity. “A Mexican circus. The very best kind.”
I needed to go to Pete’s Market to get ingredients for dinner. I was hoping Pepe would insist on going along, but he had gotten really involved in an old episode of Law and Order. He told me he wanted to pick up some pointers on interrogation techniques.
“Do not forget we are out of bacon,” he said, as I headed out the door.
It was still raining, and I got soaked, though the market is only a few blocks from my home. I picked up ingredients for nachos, thinking Pepe might enjoy it, but he just turned up his nose.
“Beans give me gas,” he said.
Luckily I’d also purchased some fancy dog food that looked like stew. Pepe seemed to approve of this. He danced around as I was spooning it onto a saucer and polished it off within a minute.
I’d picked up some books from the library between Brad’s shop and home, so I opened up The Idiot’s Guide to Being a Private Investigator while I was eating. It was very informative. I learned that careful note-taking was the most imperative task so I got a blank notebook out of my desk drawer and labeled it CASEBOOK NUMBER 1.
I started recording all that had happened since I first went to meet Rebecca Tyler. While I was writing, a commercial came on and Pepe strolled over to see what I was doing.
“Geri, how long have you been a PI?” he asked.
“Not long,” I said.
“That’s obvious,” Pepe said. “What did you do before?”
“I was a stager.”
“Is that like an actress?”
“No, a stager decorates houses that are for sale to help attract customers.”
“So you create a false appearance to produce a positive impression,” said Pepe thoughtfully.
“I guess you could say that. But I don’t really think of it that way.”
“How do you think of it?” Pepe asked.
“I think of it as bringing out the inherent personality of the place so people will see its possibilities.”
Pepe seemed perturbed. “I do not see how that will be of benefit in our current case.”
“I suppose I might notice something that seems out of place that other people might not notice.”
“Did you notice anything at the Tyler residence that was out of place?”
“Come to think of it, yes! I did think it was odd that David Tyler was in the living room. It didn’t seem like the sort of room where someone would be sitting and relaxing. I would expect him to be in his office or bedroom or even the kitchen.”
“Yes, but what if he surprised an intruder?” Pepe asked.
I nodded. “A possibility. But why would an intruder stand in the middle of the room? One would expect he would be looking for something to steal. There was nothing of value nearby.”
“Unless something was taken that we do not know about!”
“Very nice, Pepe. I’ll put that in the casebook as one of the questions we should try to answer to-morrow.”
Chapter 15
It was shortly after noon when we got to the Tyler residence. I drove by it slowly, scanning to see if there was any police activity around it. Seeing none, I found a parking spot up the street.
“Do you see any policía at the Tyler casa?” Pepe asked, as I parallel parked.
“How do you know where we are?” I asked. He was curled up in the passenger seat and had barely lifted his head. “You can’t possibly see out the window.”
“We dogs have the uncanny ability to know where we are at all times,” he told me. “It is a vestige of our survival skills from ancient times.”
“Oh, come on,” I said.
“If that’s true, tell me exactly where we are right now.”
“We are at 648 Fourteenth Avenue East.”
“Ha! Gotcha!” I wagged a finger at him. “That’s not the Tyler address.”
“I did not say it was. You asked me to tell you exactly where we are, and I have done so. Specifically, we are four houses north of the Tyler casa, thus the address of the house we are parked in front of is 648 Fourteenth Avenue East.”
I looked out Pepe’s passenger side window. He was right. The number set in tile on the stone pillar of the large Tudor mansion read 648.
“How did you know that?” I asked.
He stood up and took a stretch. He put his little paws down and stretched his butt and tail up so that he looked like a comma. “Geri, what if I were to tell you that, even lying down, I could see the address in big bold letters on the front gate of the house on your side of the car—”
I swiveled around in my seat. It was true: the house on the other side of the street was elevated from the sidewalk, and the address was plainly visible.
Pepe continued, “And that I knew that the casa on my side of the car would be the even number, 648, which I remember is four houses north of the Tyler residence. Would that not have spoiled your sense of wonder and amazement at my uncanny abilities?”
“Oh, good grief.”
“Just as I thought,” he said, looking smug. “Now, I ask you again—do you see any signs of policía at the Tyler residence?”
“No, no, there aren’t any cops around.”
“Ah, muy bien.”
Regaining my composure, I said, “I don’t see any cars in the driveway either, so let’s hope Rebecca Tyler’s not home.” I reached over, rolled his window up and grabbed my purse.
“Let’s go and see if we can find any clues, Pepe.”
I managed to get a leash on Pepe by persuading him that we had to pose as a dog owner and pet out for a walk. The Tylers lived just a few blocks from Volunteer Park, the oldest Seattle park, a spacious green landscape of sweeping lawns and tall trees designed by the famous Olmstead brothers. There were plenty of other dogs and their owners heading towards the park or coming home. Pepe growled at every one he saw, and I had to scoop him up and tuck him under my arm to keep him from lunging at the other pets. The other dog owners gave me sour looks. Apparently they didn’t find Pepe as amusing as I did.
“Now here’s our plan,” I said to him, as we got close to the driveway of the Tyler residence. “I’m going to set you down on the ground. I have surreptitiously unhooked your leash. You’re going to pretend to run away from me and dash into the Tyler yard. I’ll chase after you and that way we’ll be able to look for clues.”
Pepe regarded me with amazement in his dark eyes. “Geri, that is a very good plan,” he said. “You are turning out to be more devious than I thought.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I wasn’t sure that was a compliment.
“It is a very good trait for a private detective,” he said, as I plunked him down on the ground. “Luckily, I have a talent for it myself.” He shook himself, then took off running up the Tyler driveway.
I wasn’t sure whether to call his name or not, to establish our pretext, but decided against it and followed him, trying to look harried and worried. Tha
t was easy.
The house seemed to be closed up. Blinds were drawn in the windows facing the front.
Pepe dashed across the lawn, rounded a big rhododendron at the corner of the house and headed towards the back yard. I followed reluctantly. A yew hedge shielded us from view on one side but I crept along cautiously, afraid someone inside the house would notice me passing by.
Pepe headed straight for an azalea bush, bright with red blooms, and dug into the earth. But he ran back quickly, squeaking, “Ow! Ow! Ow!” He was jumping up and down and circling around, trying to rub his nose against the ground.
“What is it, Pepe?” I whispered.
“Someone has done a very bad thing!” he said. “Ow! My nose! Ow!”
“Hold still, Pepe,” I said, kneeling down to see what was wrong. He squirmed under my hand but eventually I saw tiny splinters of redwood bark in his nose. I set him on my lap and took out my tweezers from my purse and extracted them one by one. He made a lot of noise during this process, but luckily no one seemed to hear him.
When I was done, I patted his nose with a Kleenex. There were tiny spots of red on the Kleenex as I folded it back up.
“Blood!” he said and seemed to sway on his feet.
“It’s OK, Pepe, you’re fine,” I said. “But don’t go back under there.”
“It’s muy malo,” said Pepe. “Someone has put this nasty stuff everywhere under the bushes to prevent us from looking for clues.” I saw that fresh redwood mulch had been heaped at the bases of all the trees in the back yard, and all the rhododendrons and azaleas which edged the house. The smell was overpowering, even for my human nose.
“It looks like it was done recently,” I said.
“Today,” he insisted. “It was not there two days ago. This is where I smelled the bad smell, but it is buried under this stuff. Luckily I can track it away from here.”
He put his nose to the ground and sniffed the grass.
“Do you not see?” he said. “Right here—the faint outline and depression made by a pair of shoes.”
I squatted down and gave the area a close inspection. “Well, maybe I can see what you’re talking about. Are you sure?”
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