Reed Ferguson 1-3

by Renee Pawlish

“Thanks,” she said, blushing. “And thanks for this,” she held up the note.

  I smiled back. There were tears in her eyes. Happy tears. It made my Monday.

  *****

  “Hey Reed, how ya doing?” Deuce said to me when I returned home late that afternoon. He was slouched back in a lounge chair on the porch, a can of Pepsi in his hand. His front door was open and the groovy sounds of reggae wafted out to us. “I’m waiting for Ace to get home. Hot enough for ya?”

  “Yep.” I sat down on the steps and stretched my legs out.

  “You finished work for the day?”

  I nodded.

  “You want a Pepsi?”

  “Sure.”

  He went inside and returned shortly with a cold soda.

  “We’re gonna play pool later tonight. You interested?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m kind of tired.”

  “You need any more help on the case?”

  “No, I wrapped things up today.”

  A funny look crossed his face, a mix of happiness and disappointment. “Does that mean I don’t get to help out anymore? Or carry a gun?”

  “Not this time, pal. But there’ll be other cases.”

  He brightened up. “Yeah, then I can quit working at the video store.”

  Willie Rhoden’s car pulled up, rescuing me from saying anything about the frightening idea of Deuce wielding a weapon.

  “Hi Reed. Hi Deuce,” she waved as she got out and locked the car door.

  “Hey, Willie,” Deuce hollered. “You want a Pepsi?”

  She strode up the walk, looking fine even in her scrubs. “Sure. I’ll take a Pepsi.”

  Deuce darted into the house.

  “You know he has a crush on you,” I said quietly.

  “Uh-huh. It’s cute,” she said, sitting down close to me. “How are you?”

  “Case closed, and I’m all in one piece,” I said with a smile.

  I heard the phone ring inside Deuce’s place, then him talking to someone.

  “Listen, about the other night,” Willie said. “I got scared.”

  I put an arm around her, and she didn’t resist. “So you still like me.”

  She pinched me. “I never said I didn’t. I just don’t want to complicate things.”

  “Dinner and drinks. That’s not complicated.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Deuce came back outside. “That was Bob. He’s coming over for dinner, and asked if you guys would like to join us. Barbecued ribs. He makes them really good.”

  I raised an eyebrow at Willie. She nodded. “That sounds wonderful, Deuce.”

  Deuce beamed at Willie, and she beamed at me.

  By the way she smiled at me, I could tell that things were looking up.

  The Maltese Felon

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Hello! Is this the Reed Ferguson Detective Agency?”

  The 40-ish woman with strawberry blonde hair rushed down the hall toward me.

  “It is,” I said. I unlocked the office door, feeling her impatience ooze out of her.

  “And you’re Reed Ferguson?” she asked as she pushed past me and stood in the small waiting room. She yanked off her coat and threw it onto a couch against the wall.

  “I am,” I said as I followed her in and shut the door. “And you are?”

  “Gail Saunders.” She whirled around to face me. “I need your help! Someone kidnapped my dog and I need you to get him back.”

  I stared at her for a moment. Words, Reed, use your words, I thought to myself.

  I finally found my voice. “You want to hire me for what?”

  “To find my dog,” she snapped. “He’s been stolen.”

  “So,” I paused. “A dognapping.”

  “Yes!” she said. “I can’t find anyone that will help me. Oh, I’ve got to get Fuji back!”

  “Uh, why don’t you come sit down?” I escorted her into the inner office.

  “Thank you.” She slumped into a wingback chair sitting across from my desk. “I’ve been to a number of detective agencies and none of them will help me.”

  I blinked. Was this some kind of joke? I glanced up at my prized vintage posters of The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon and at my cinematic hero, Humphrey Bogart, who stared down at me from the wall. I loved film noir and detective fiction, especially the classics by Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett. I’d turned that love into a career as a private eye and I’d even solved a few cases. I dreamed of being like Bogart, so cool, so suave. My gaze settled on Gail. “How did I end up like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective?” I silently asked Bogie.

  “I’m not sure I can help you,” I began as I moved around the desk and sat down. I laid my hands on the surface and tried for a serious pose. “A missing dog –”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Gail interrupted me. “Fuji isn’t just any dog. He’s a prize-winning Maltese. A show dog. He won Best of Breed at the Rocky Mountain Cluster Show.”

  “I see,” I said, even though I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue about dog shows.

  “The Rocky Mountain Cluster Show is the big show in Colorado. It’s held every year in February.” Gail contemplated me for a second. “How much do you know about show dogs?”

  Was I that obvious? I cleared my throat. “Not much,” I conceded.

  “Competitive dog showing is quite a sport,” Gail said.

  Okay, my knowledge wasn’t not much, it was nothing. I had no idea that showing dogs was considered a sport.

  “It’s really quite exhilarating,” Gail continued. “There’s the thrill of competition and the fun of seeing such beautiful and amazing dogs.”

  “I see,” I murmured again, even though I didn’t. I sighed. It was Tuesday, so why was it feeling so much like a Monday?

  “Fuji’s phenomenal.” Gail choked up. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was in the backyard. It was a nice day so I let him play outside. I usually stay with him but the phone rang. I ran inside to get it.” Gail wrung her hands “I was only on the phone for a minute and I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve left him outside like that before, for just a minute or two and nothing’s ever happened. When I hung up, I went back outside and he was gone. I looked all over, thinking maybe he was hiding in the bushes or in the garden, but I couldn’t find him.”

  “Did you hear him bark?”

  “No, but he’s a friendly dog and he doesn’t bark much.”

  “Could he have gotten out of the back yard somehow?”

  Gail shook her head. “No way. Because he’s a show dog and he’s valuable, we have our yard fenced, so there’s no way he could escape.”

  “No holes in the fence?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Excuse my ignorance,” I said. “But is it really worth hiring me to find your dog? How valuable is he?”

  Gail pursed her lips for a second before answering. “Fuji is worth over $200,000.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You heard me right,” Gail said.

  “What makes a show dog so valuable?” I asked. “Breeding rights?”

  “Exactly.”

  I mentally patted myself on the back. The detective figures something out.

  “But it’s not just about that,” Gail continued. “Fuji is like family. We’re all devastated. My daughter cries herself to sleep at night. My husband can’t believe someone stole our dog.”

  “So how did the kid – er, dognappers take Fuji?” I mused. “Could they have come through the back gate?”

  “No. We have a lock on the gate and it’s bolted from the inside.”

  “Is there barbed wire on the fence?” I asked. “Anything to prevent a thief from hopping over the fence to snatch your dog?”

  “If I did that, I’d be advertising that I have something to protect,” Gail said. “And my homeowners association would never allow that.”

  “How high is the fence?”<
br />
  She shrugged. “About six feet, I guess.”

  “So the dognappers would’ve had to climb over the fence to get your dog.”

  “That’s what I think,” Gail said.

  I looked at Bogie on the wall and thought for a moment. “You’d likely need two people.”

  “Why?”

  “Picture it,” I said. “The dognapper gets into the yard and takes the dog. Then what? How does he get himself and the dog safely back over the fence? If someone were waiting, he can hand the dog off, then climb the fence. They’d be in and out in less than a minute, and if they had a car right there, they’d be gone before anyone knew the difference.”

  Gail nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

  “Unless someone spotted them,” I said. “None of your neighbors saw anything?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Did you talk to them?”

  Gail sighed. “A few of them. Some work, so they wouldn’t have been home. We’re close to the neighbors next door and the couple across the street. But none of them were home when Fuji disappeared.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Yes, of course.” She grew angry again. “That went nowhere.”

  “Why? Someone still committed a crime,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s true,” Gail replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Since Fuji is worth so much, the crime is actually a felony. The department assigned a detective to the case, but we don’t have a suspect and there isn’t any evidence to speak of, so the detective said there isn’t anything they can do. Oh, I was so mad.”

  “Wouldn’t the people who took your dog need the registration papers if they were going to breed your dog?” I asked.

  “That’s correct. But that’s not the only reason to steal a dog. The detective said that dognappings are on the rise, especially with the economy being so bad. He said that thieves are taking dogs and then returning them for the reward money. Because of that, he advised us not to pay any money, but we had to try something to get Fuji back. So we posted flyers around the neighborhood offering a reward of a thousand dollars. We didn’t hear anything for a couple of days. And then we got this.”

  She pulled a note from her handbag and handed it across the desk.

  I read it. It was a stereotypical ransom note:

  Buy a new black Under Armour PTH Victory Team Duffle Bag from Sports Authority. Put $10,000 in unmarked twenties in it. Go to South Valley Park near C-470 on Wednesday. Leave the bag behind the rock outcropping on the west side of Coyote Song Trail at 9 PM and leave. We get the money, you get instructions to get your dog back. No cops or you don’t get your dog back.

  Wednesday. That was tomorrow night.

  I looked up at her. “When did you get this?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Did you tell the detective about this?”

  “Of course,” Gail said. “But I’d already opened the note, so there was no way to get fingerprints, and the department doesn’t have the resources to do much beyond taking a report. My husband and I talked about what we should do, and we decided to come to hire a detective.”

  “How did you know about me?” It wasn’t like my detective agency was advertised all over town.

  “I’ve been all over,” Gail said. “I can’t find anyone who’ll help me. I heard about you from the Smiths. My parents know the Smiths and the Smiths know you.”

  Ah, the friend of a friend referral. The Smiths were friends with my parents and two of the Smiths’ sons lived in a condo below me.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I don’t have the resources that the police do. I don’t know how I could find the dognappers.”

  “But you could go with my husband and me to the ransom drop. Follow the dognappers and see if you can find out who stole Fuji. And help us get him back.” Her voice got louder and more exasperated with each sentence. “The Rocky Mountain Cluster Show is this weekend and we’re supposed to show Fuji. On top of everything else, if we can’t show him…” her voice trailed off.

  I leaned back in my chair. Go to the ransom drop. That seemed simple enough.

  “Obviously, we’ll be paying you for your time,” she said.

  I hesitated. Investigate a dognapping? Oh, my mother would be so proud…

  “Please, you’ve got to help us. You’re a good detective, aren’t you?”

  “I like to think I am,” I said.

  “I’d like to think so, too,” Gail glared at me. “This should be an easy job. I don’t know why all those other detectives had reservations.”

  I couldn’t blame them. Investigating a dognapping would not be good for my image or my résumé. But other images cropped up, such as bills piling up on my desk. And my reservations disappeared.

  “I’ll take the case,” I said.

  This time I didn’t even look at Bogie. I was afraid he’d be shaking his head at me, or snickering. Or both.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cold air assaulted me as I got out of my car. Not surprising since a storm was expected later in the evening and the temperature was hovering in the twenties. I had parked the 4-Runner up the road from the north end of South Valley Park, a 900-acre open space in the foothills west of Denver. Two parking lots flanked the north and south sides of the hiking trail that made a loop through the park.

  Yesterday Gail had signed a contract and I’d gone to her house to check out her back yard. I found nothing exciting, and no way that I could see for Fuji to escape through a hole in the fence. I tried to talk to some of the neighbors, but ringing bells and banging on doors got me nothing but bruised knuckles. No one was home.

  That left me to assist with the ransom drop, which was why I was here. I traipsed down South Valley Road and into the north parking lot of the park. Dusk was settling over the foothills and the lot was empty. Nobody wanted to hike in the cold February air with darkness looming. I spotted a building that housed restrooms and nearby a shelter held maps of the park.

  The hiking trail consisted of a loop running north and south. The ransom drop instructions told the Saunders to buy a black canvas tote bag from Sports Authority. The dognappers had specified the exact model, which was kind of strange, but maybe they knew what size bag would hold $10,000 in unmarked $20’s. Knowing the exact model might also help them to know if we’d hidden a tracing device in the bag. The Saunders were to park at the south end of the trail and access the trail from there. They were to leave the bag behind a large rock outcropping a little less than a mile up from the parking lot on Coyote Song Trail, the east trail of the loop. They would know the site by the large pine tree with a broken stump that was across the trail from the rock outcropping.

  I strolled up to the shelter and studied the map. I had hiked the trail this morning, scoping out the terrain. I found the rock outcropping, but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. My plan was to spy on the drop site and intercept the dognappers as they retrieved the money. My finger traced around the loop of the trail. Another trail traversed a ridge to the east and intersected Coyote Song Trail north of the drop site, but I couldn’t imagine anyone trying to hike over the ridge in the dark, and in winter. That left getting to the rock outcropping from either of the parking lots.

  I checked my watch. Almost six o’clock. The Saunders were to deliver the money at nine. Once the dognappers safely retrieved the money, the Saunders would receive further instructions on where Fuji would be. I had talked my friend, Cal Whitmore, into watching the south parking lot, in case the dognappers parked there. Cal often played Watson to my Holmes, and he was in for another round. If he saw anyone hike the trail after the Saunders drove away, he would call me on my cell phone. I’d be north of the drop site, so I’d know if the dognappers came from that direction. Bases covered…now I needed to see how it played out.

  A breeze stirred dead leaves in the grass and chilled the air even more. I was wearing my ninja outfit: black jeans, black T-shirt, black coat and a black w
ool cap pulled down over my ears. I donned a pair of gloves, black of course, and tucked my head down into my coat. I strolled up the trail, past an imposing red rock formation on the north side of the trail loop.

  “They sure picked a great spot,” I murmured to myself as I huffed through a patch of snow to the top of a short hill. I turned right onto Coyote Song Trail.

  The sun vanished behind the foothills, leaving the western sky an orange glow. I started down a long hill with open fields on either side. Across the west fields, cars sped along South Valley Road. A pack of coyotes yapped in the distance. I paused and shivered, not just from the cold.

  Even though the park stayed open until an hour after dusk, I ran into no one. The trail took a slight jaunt and became more wooded. Ice and snow now covered parts of the trail where foliage and rocks blocked the sun’s rays. I traversed these areas carefully so I wouldn’t fall. A critter scampered off the path ahead of me and made me jump.

  “Be still my beating heart,” I whispered. My palms grew sweaty in my gloves. A few more minutes and I came to a short, open stretch of trail. Up ahead I spied the rock and the pine tree. Clumps of oak shrubs stood on both sides of the trail, their bare branches sticking out like skeletons in the dim light.

  I stopped and listened but heard only the breeze humming through the trees. I waited a few minutes and watched to make sure no one was around. Then I slowly advanced down the trail. I walked up to the rock outcropping and glanced around. No one. More tall oak shrubs grew near the rock, so I walked around to the back side of the rock, giving the brush a wide berth. I was trying to be as quiet as possible, but in the silence I sounded like a herd of deer thrashing through the foliage. My nerves were taut. If someone was hiding near the rock, I’d be a sitting duck.

  I trekked all the way around the rock but didn’t see the dognappers. I returned to the trail and hiked past the rock again until I came to the clump of trees on the opposite side of the trail. Earlier in the day, I had cleared out a spot behind the trees by removing the dead leaves. In the daytime, I’d be spotted in a second, but in the growing darkness it would be impossible to spot me unless someone flashed a light right at me. I sat down and waited.