Fox took a swig off the bottle and handed it to me. It was chilled. I followed his example and tried to take a delicate sip but got a little more than I expected. It ran down my chin. I felt so decadent. Fox leaned over and licked the extra champagne off my chin. I almost swooned.
“Hey,” Pepe told me. “I am the only one who can lick you.”
“Shhhh,” I told him.
“What?” said Fox, drawing back.
“Oh,” I told him. “I was, uh, just stifling a sneeze, that’s all.”
“Bless you, then,” he said.
“Well thanks, Fox,” I said.
He smiled.
I smiled.
There was an awkward silence. The mood had somehow changed. It was almost like a first date that had started to go south (except for the fact that I was clad only in my underwear while sitting beside a naked rock star).
“We should try and get some information from him,” Pepe told me. “Since Senor Fox has been coming here for a long time, he may know something that could help our case.”
“So, Fox,” I said, “how long have you been coming here?”
“Almost ten years,” he said thoughtfully, taking another swig of champagne before passing the bottle along to me.
“So you have been a Dogawandan for a long time?” I asked, taking another swig from the bottle. The bubbles fizzed through my brain.
“Yes, I attribute all of my success to Dogawanda. I was a nobody when I first met Crystal. It was Dogawanda’s advice that got me to where I am today.”
“Wow!” I said. “Like what kind of advice?” I handed back the champagne bottle.
“Dogawanda encouraged me to play the guitar instead of writing songs and singing. That was the turning point in my career.”
“Oh! I didn’t know you sang!” I said. He was famous for his guitar riffs.
“Yes, well, I’m getting back into that,” he said.
“I’d love to hear you sing,” I said.
Fox smiled. He had a wolfish face in the moonlight: a long snout and glittering golden eyes. “I’ll write you a song,” he said.
Wow! I almost swooned.
“It’s nice to meet someone who isn’t judging me. Or trying to put me in a box,” he said. “Everybody thinks they know me. Nobody listens except for what they want to hear.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Fox.”
“Nobody hears me either,” said Pepe.
“I really appreciate your listening, Geri,” Fox said, putting his arm around my bare shoulders. Pepe growled softly. “Your little dog is very protective,” Fox said with a laugh.
“The moon goddess is not amused,” said Pepe.
I felt the sudden urge to tell Fox about my talented dog. Maybe it was the wine talking. “I guess I am good at listening,” I said. “For instance, I can hear my dog talking.”
“That’s amazing!” Fox said, putting his fingers under my chin and tipping it up. “I wish you could teach me how.” He studied me, his eyes half closed, those big, luscious lips so close to mine. The moonlight poured down on us, and the warm water surged around our bodies. All thoughts of Pepe evaporated. Only he was talking.
“Geri!” said Pepe. “You are about to be interrupted.”
I waved my hand at him, trying to shut him up. I didn’t want to spoil the moment.
“I think you might want to back off!” said Pepe.
“Never mind,” I said. “You were saying, Fox?”
“I was saying—” He moved his lips closer to mine.
“What a surprise!”
I looked up. It was my sister. She was standing in the moonlight, just a few feet from the hot springs, completely nude.
Chapter 26
“Having a party, are we, Fox?” she asked as she stepped down into the hot springs. The steam enveloped her lithe body. Fox had moved away and taken his arm from my shoulders. He passed the champagne bottle to Terry.
“Why are you wearing your underwear, Geri?” she said, glancing over at me after taking a swig of champagne.
“I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” I said a bit defensively.
“No one wears swimsuits here,” she said. “We like to soak au naturel.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you two look alike?” Fox said, looking from one of us to the other. “You two could be sisters!”
“Oh, come on, Fox,” said Terry. “You know we are.”
“What? How does he know that?” I asked.
“Star told him,” Terry said. “She has a dossier on everyone who comes up here.”
“How do you think Dogawanda knows all the things he knows about people’s lives?” asked Fox.
“You mean Star does some kind of background check on people?” I asked, still not believing what I was hearing.
“Not Star. Artichoke. She’s the only one who has access to a computer.”
“Did she do research on me before I came?” I asked Terry.
She shrugged. “I assume so.”
“Then she must have learned about me,” said Pepe. “Perhaps that is why she invited us.”
I suddenly got a chill. Did Star know that I was working for Jimmy G? That would mean Artichoke would know that as well.
“Did she know we were sisters?” I asked Terry.
“No, she couldn’t possibly have known that,” said Terry. “She doesn’t even know my real name.” She took another swig of the champagne, then handed the bottle back to Fox. “Or at least she didn’t.” She seemed glum.
“Do you have a lot of money?” Fox asked me.
I looked at him, stricken.
“Actually, yes,” I said, thinking of the rather large reward Pepe and I had received after our last case.
“So now you know why you’re here!” said Fox, raising the champagne bottle in a toast to me. “Star has a certain type she likes and she likes them loaded.”
“Doesn’t that seem dishonest?” I asked.
“What?” asked Fox.
“What?” asked Terry.
“What?” asked Pepe.
“That she gathers information about people and then uses it to con them into believing in Dogawanda?”
“A little deception is good for the soul,” said Fox. “We can’t handle too much reality.”
“So you believe the end justifies the means?” I asked.
“Yes!” said Fox. “If the end result is more money.”
“What about murder?” I said. “Is murder ever justified?”
Terry looked at me in horror. “What do you mean, murder?”
“Tammy was murdered,” I said.
Terry reared back like she had been punched. “What makes you think Leaf was murdered?”
“Just the way the police questioned me,” I said, realizing quickly that to say anything else would betray my true motivation. Talk about a means to an end. My end was to discover who had killed Tammy. Even if it meant grilling my own sister.
“You do have an active imagination, Geri,” said Terry. “She was killed by wild animals in the woods while she was trying to sneak away from the ranch. Isn’t that obvious?”
“Not to me,” I said.
“Poor Leaf!” said Fox.
Terry motioned for Fox to pass her the champagne bottle and took another sip. “So the sheriff thinks someone killed her?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Well, that makes sense now,” Terry said. “They just kept grilling me over and over again about that last conversation.”
“What did you talk about?” I asked.
“Basically she was homesick. She wanted to leave,” Terry said. “She was going to go home and get her dog. She said it wasn’t fair that you could bring your dog and she had to leave hers behind. But she said she had to get her money back first.”
“Did she get it?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Terry said. “I told her she had to talk to Artichoke about that. She handles all of the bookkeeping. But we kept on talking and after a while, s
he calmed down. She agreed that she needed to do more work on herself. After that, I didn’t see her.”
There was a long silence. Fox looked strained.
“What?” Terry asked. “Did you see her?”
Fox looked abashed. “She showed up at the hot springs late that night after everyone else was gone.”
“And what sort of mood was she in?”
“She was weepy,” said Fox. “Unsure of what to do. I tried to console her.”
“And how did that go?” Terry asked.
“She didn’t want to be consoled,” said Fox.
Terry was curious. “So you might have been the last person to see her alive?”
“I guess,” said Fox. He looked very uncomfortable. He shifted around on the rock.
“I warned her about you!” Terry said.
“What about him?” I asked, looking from him to her.
“Oh, he always seduces the new women,” Terry said.
Now it was my turn to shift around on the rock, moving away from Fox.
“You know Star has asked you not to mess with the betas,” Terry said. “They’re too vulnerable.”
“Star uses me to lure them here,” said Fox. “I don’t know why she objects to rewarding me for my efforts.”
I was beginning to resent being talked about like I was a dog treat. I waded across to another rock.
“So what happened to Leaf?” I asked.
Fox shrugged. “She was still here when I left. Crying. That was it.”
“And she was alone?”
“Yes.” He took back the champagne bottle and took another deep swig. “I feel totally guilty. Maybe she drowned herself out of despair.”
He really thought a lot of himself if he thought a woman would kill herself because he rejected her.
“I thought she was killed by wild animals,” said Terry.
“Maybe they came upon her body floating in the water and carried her off,” Fox suggested.
“Did you hear anything that would make you suspect that?” I asked.
“I was a little bit preoccupied,” Fox said with a big grin.
“What do you mean preoccupied?” I asked, then got a sinking feeling.
“Hey, what can a fox do when he meets a hen right in his path?” He spread out his hands wide. “And for your information”—he turned to Terry—“it wasn’t one of the new women.”
Chapter 27
“Who was it?” I asked.
“A gentleman doesn’t tell,” said Fox.
“As if you were a gentleman!” said Terry, giving him a playful jab in the ribs. She grabbed the champagne bottle out of his hands and took another sip. “Hey, it’s empty!”
“I’ll go get another one,” said Fox. He lifted himself out of the water. His pale limbs flashed silver in the moonlight. I turned my head aside but not before I got a good view of his private parts.
“Not bad,” observed Pepe, “but proportionally, a Chihuahua has the advantage.”
“Hush!” I said.
Terry lay back in the pool, her head tilted up toward the night sky. She looked around at the tops of the trees, which stood like dark sentinels around us. She gave a deep sigh. “I’m going to miss all of this,” she said.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you coming home with me?” I was overjoyed.
“No, Geri!” She straightened up and looked at me. Her eyes glittered in the darkness. “You’re the reason I have to leave.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I guess I can tell you now,” she said, “since you’ll never see me again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was in the witness protection program, but then I left. It’s a long story.”
“I want to hear it!”
“Well, you remember I was dancing at a strip club?” she asked.
I nodded. That’s why Cheryl had kicked her out of the house.
“Why was she protecting witnesses?” asked Pepe.
“I was dating one of the bouncers. And the club owner hired him to do a hit. My boyfriend killed the guy, but the police caught him. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he agreed to testify against his boss. It was a big takedown because his boss was the head of a crime family. The feds had been trying to make a case against him for years. They put me in the witness protection program because they thought I might be in danger.”
“And you couldn’t call me or Cheryl and let us know that?”
Terry winced. “I could have contacted you, but I was scared. Afraid that someone would make the connection between me and you guys. And then you’d be in danger. I figured it was safer if I just disappeared.”
“So you’re still in the witness protection program?” The Dogawanda Center seemed like a strange place to hide a witness.
“No, after my boyfriend got out of prison, things got a little weird. I had been to a Dogawanda seminar and realized the Center was the perfect place to hide. No contact with the outside world, a new name . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“So you weren’t rich when you came here?”
Terry laughed. “Far from it. But I worked hard to make myself invaluable. And for a while, it all seemed wonderful. But the closer I got to Crystal, the more I realized she wasn’t the perfect person I thought. Of course, it’s Dogawanda who’s perfect. I mean, humans are always frail.”
“Yes, it is dogs who are perfect,” Pepe agreed.
“But still, it’s hard to respect someone who’s so selfish and greedy.”
“So you’re going to leave because you’re disillusioned?”
“Not just that,” she said. “But once you told the police my real name, they tracked me back to the witness protection program. The marshalls came and talked to me. They offered me a chance to move again and start a new life. It might be my one chance to get out of here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Before she could answer, we heard the sound of voices on the path, and Fox came tripping back, carrying another two champagne bottles, with a naked woman on each arm.
I stood up, thinking it was time to leave. I felt a little foolish about my assumption that Fox would be interested in me. He was just flirting. It was part of his nature.
Pepe, to my surprise, didn’t tell me “I told you so.” He was eager to get back to our room in the Beta Barn and show me what he had found. I left my sister in the hot pool with Fox and his friends, sharing the second bottle of champagne, and followed my little white dog back to our new quarters.
“There’s something tucked into the mattress,” he said, once the door was closed. He sniffed at the edge of the mattress, and I poked my hand in a tiny hole and felt around with my fingers. The mattress was stuffed with something like kapok, and it came out in puffs. But eventually I felt some pieces of paper and pulled them out.
Unfortunately, it was hard to tell what they were. There was no light in the bedroom, except what came from the moon shining in the window, and there was little privacy in the bathroom. I finally locked myself in a stall. Pepe joined me by scooting under the door.
“It looks like a copy of a money order,” I said at last. It was signed by Tammy and the amount was clear: $5,000. But the payee’s name was not, although I could tell it started with a B. “I’m not sure this is important at all,” I told Pepe. “This is probably just what Tammy paid for her beta-level training.”
“But there is more than one,” Pepe pointed out.
“That’s true.” They were all for the same amount and made out to the same payee, but there were five money orders with five different numbers.
“All in all, it adds up to twenty-five thousand dollars,” I said. “This must be the money Mark was so upset about. But we still don’t know if this is significant.”
“If not, why would it be hidden?” Pepe asked.
“Good question,” I said. “Maybe we should ask Jimmy G.”
Chapter 28
The sun was just coming up as Pe
pe and I drove down toward Fern Lake to make our report to Jimmy G. The countryside was beautiful in the burgeoning light, but my mind was on other things—so much so that I took a turn too fast and almost ended up skidding into a tree.
“You have much on your mind, do you not, Geri?” Pepe asked.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “First of all, I’m worried that Star is onto us. Maybe she knows we are PIs working this case undercover.”
“Que sera, sera,” he said, adding Italian to his repertoire of foreign languages. “Even if she does, she has not acted upon it. As Dogawanda himself says, ‘Bite only when there is something to sink your teeth into.’”
I laughed. “You’ve really been studying this stuff, haven’t you?”
“Of course,” my dog told me. “I want to be successful. What else is bothering you?”
“What is Artichoke going to do when I don’t show up for my rock duty?” I asked.
“She will probably put you in the doghouse,” said Pepe. When I did not laugh, he added, “That was a joke, Geri.”
“I would not be surprised if they actually had a doghouse,” I said.
“Is there something else?” Pepe wanted to know.
“Those money orders,” I said. “Why would Tammy pay someone twenty-five thousand dollars?”
“Perhaps there is a training that costs that much.”
“It’s true,” I said. “It may be that the next level costs twenty-five grand. But they don’t seem to be made out to Crystal Star.”
“Perhaps Crystal keeps it in a shell,” Pepe said.
“A shell?” I was confused. “Oh, you mean like a shell corporation? Something set up to hide her assets.”
“Sí, I heard about it on television,” said Pepe.
“That’s a good thought, Pepe,” I said. “Let’s check out the name again on the money orders and see if we can find it online. There must be Internet access in town.”
Pepe stared out the window for a minute. “Do you know, Geri,” he said, “I think there is something else bothering you.”
The Big Chihuahua Page 12