Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel (4 page)

Sofia has finished shuffling the cars behind our office and lays my car keys on my desk. “I parked her car in front of yours. Is that OK? It was the only space available.” She is talking about Brauer’s Prius.

“It’ll have to do.”

She glances at me as she messes with Emma Brauer’s smart key from the car. “I have to go get the dog. I’ll leave this with you.” She sets the key on the desk. “You wanted to have Herman take a look at her car, maybe get some pictures in case the police come to take it away. What are you guys gonna see tonight?”

“Don’t know. Joselyn always chooses movies with Fandango,” I tell her. “The little bar code on her phone. It’s magic for tickets.”

“QR code,” says Sofia.

“What?”

“It’s called a QR code: quick response code,” she says. “You’re going to have to learn to do tickets. Otherwise you’re gonna spend your life watching chick flicks.”

I look up at her. She winks at me. Twenty-something going on forty. The young men she is dating don’t have a chance. In terms of maturity, she has twenty years on them, all wrapped up in a package the maker designed for male seduction. Nature’s most efficient lure.

“I don’t mind,” I tell her. “Romantic comedy is my speed.”

“My kind of date.” She smiles. “The guys I used to go out with were into heavy action.”

The way she talks about her dates, in the past tense, makes me wonder if she’s joined a convent.

“All that fast action on screen gives me motion sickness,” I tell her.

“It wasn’t the action on screen I was worried about. It was their hands I had to watch,” she says.

It seems we’re talking at cross-purposes. The age-old conflict between men and women, that blurring boundary line between lust and love.

“You should try streaming some movies on your iPad,” she tells me.

“I don’t have an iPad.”

“Why not?”

My door starts to open.

“I wouldn’t know how to use it.”

“Tell Joselyn to buy you one. I’ll set it up, show you how.”

“She has one,” I tell her.

“What do I have?” Joselyn breezes through the door and closes it behind her.

“An iPad,” I say.

“Then she can show you how to use it,” says Sofia.

“Yeah, I love it.” Joselyn crosses the room and gives me a kiss. “What are you two up to? If I didn’t know better, I’d be jealous.”

“I have to go pick up a dog.”

“Are you getting a dog?” asks Joselyn.

“It’s a long story,” I tell her. I look at my watch. It’s almost five. Joselyn and I have dinner reservations at six.

Sofia shouts: “Damn it!” Her hand goes to her mouth as she sucks the tip of her finger.

“What’s the matter?” Joselyn turns.

“Broke a nail.”

“Oh, jeez! Let me see.” Joselyn is on her like a mother hen examining her finger. “Ouch, that’s bad.”

If I had a coronary I would have to wait. Female code blue. Bring on the crash cart, nail files, and emery boards.

Joselyn wastes no time. She digs in her purse. “How’d you do that?”

“I don’t know. I think I snagged it on that ring from Emma’s keys. Getting the key to her car off of it.”

“Who’s Emma?”

“Part of the long story,” I tell her. “I’ll fill you in over dinner.”

Joselyn comes up with a package of those little wooden sandpaper files from her purse and goes to work on Sofia’s finger.

“Those things are treacherous. With nails like these what are you doing messing with key rings? You should let Paul do that.” Joselyn is looking at the wounded appendage, but she’s talking to me.

“Sorry. I didn’t realize,” I tell her.

“You think the police will come looking for her car? You said the police might impound it,” says Sofia.

“Almost five o’clock, they won’t come again today. Which reminds me. When you get to her house, if the cops are there, they could still be executing the search warrant.” We haven’t yet seen a warrant for her car. “Give me a call on my cell if they’re still there.”

“Sure.”

“If they give you any trouble, take one of your business cards, tell them you’re with the firm and that you’re there to pick up the dog. There shouldn’t be any.” I am guessing if the young men in blue are still there, she and Dingus will get a police escort to the car, with the cops all collecting business cards. I am hoping that they haven’t already called animal control. If so, we will have to retrieve the pooch from the pound.

“There you go. Best I can do,” says Joselyn. “How’s it feel?”

“Fine. Thanks.” Sofia gives her a hug and says, “Bye! Have a good time at the show,” as she heads for the door.

“Drive carefully,” I tell her. “You have her address, right?”

“Keyed it into my iPhone. Trust me, I won’t get lost.”

By all rights I should have Herman doing this. He’s the firm’s investigator, a burly six-foot-three black man who’s been part of the firm’s family for more than a decade. But he’s out of the office this afternoon, working another case.

“Give me a call if there’s any problem. I’ll leave my phone on vibrate just in case.”

“I’ll be fine. See you Monday morning,” she says.

“And Sofia!”

She turns to look at me.

“Thanks, you were a huge help. Brauer was upset. She didn’t expect to be arrested, not here, not today. You being here made it easier on all of us.”

“Thanks.” She beams a smile at me from the open doorway. It melts me in my chair. Then she’s out the door. A few seconds later I see her jogging, long-legged in her short skirt, down the walkway out in front toward her car.

FIVE

T
he female voice from the maps on the iPhone told her that she had arrived. Her destination was “on the right.” It was a good thing. Sofia was having trouble finding or reading any of the numbers on the houses. The single cone of light, the naked ray from a vapor lamp that hung off one of the telephone poles halfway down the street, offered little relief.

What poor illumination punctured the darkness came here and there, soft yellow emissions filtered through slatted blinds and closed living room curtains from the houses that lined both sides of the street. The homes looked as if they were shoehorned onto the narrow lots and piled up against the wooden fences or the occasional brick walls that separated them.

Once she confirmed the address from the four brass numbers on the wall next to the garage door, Sofia swung her car into the narrow driveway. She put it in park, turned off the engine, and doused her headlights. It had taken her more than an hour to follow the snaking directions north from Coronado. She had been bucking the end of the traffic bulge from the evening rush all the way out, and she was tired. She was anxious to pick up the dog and get home.

As she stepped from her car, the flicker from a television screen in one of the houses across the way stabbed the darkness with blue flashes. Like distant lightning, the thunder followed. Climactic bars of muted music from the sound track and the noise of canned explosions carried on the cool evening air. Signs of life in the suburbs.

None came from Brauer’s house. Like its owner, the place looked every inch its age, worn and forlorn. It stood deserted and dark behind the small island of dying Bermuda grass. Two dead and fallen palm fronds lay in the planter bed between the grass and the front of the house. Emma wasn’t much of a gardener, it seemed.

Except for the fact that Sofia had talked to one of Emma’s neighbors during the drive from the office, she would never have guessed that little more than an hour earlier the place had been crawling with cops. Emma had given her the neighbor’s phone number as she and Sofia chatted in the bathroom before the police took Emma away.

And a good thing, too. Because when Sofia called, the neighbor told her that the police, who were just finishing up their search, were making an issue over the dog. They insisted that Dingus had to be taken by animal control to the pound.

The neighbor offered to take charge of the dog and to care for it until Brauer came home. But the police said no. This was out of the question. Protocol required animal control to take custody unless the owner gave express authority in writing to transfer the dog to someone else. There were no other family members living in the house, so that was it. They told her that Brauer or anyone she designated could pick the dog up at the pound later, as long as they did it within thirty days. After that the dog would either be put up for adoption or be put down.

Sofia’s blood was up. They were not taking the dog. Not if she had anything to say about it. She could have called the office for instructions, but she didn’t. Harry had left in the afternoon and by now Paul would be at dinner. She had Madriani’s phone number, but why bother him? She could handle it. Sofia told the neighbor to grab one of the detectives in charge and have him come into her house and get on the phone.

She licked her dry lips and took a deep breath as she waited. When the cop came on the line Sofia identified herself, and then in a cold, measured tone she told him: “I’m with the law firm of Madriani and Hinds. I am informing you now that under the terms of a signed retainer agreement
our firm
represents Emma Brauer. I understand you’ve got a problem with Ms. Brauer’s dog.”

“No problem,” said the detective. “It’ll be taken care of by animal control.”

“I am instructing you now that when you have completed your search of the premises you are to leave the animal in the house and lock the door. Do you understand?”

There was no reply from the cop.

“The firm has made arrangements to have the dog picked up and to provide for its care. Do I make myself clear?”

Mostly what the detective heard was the level of assurance and the command tone coming from the other end. His cop’s ego wanted to tell her to go to hell, to call in the pound and let them take the dog. Better yet, he could have shot the beast while the mouthpiece on the line listened to it yelp.

He didn’t need the grief. Not over a yapping four-pound ball of fuzz. He waited a second and then genuflected. “Fine! It’ll save us the trouble of a phone call and we won’t have to wait for animal control. But understand that if something happens to the dog, it gets killed or lost, once we leave here it’s no longer our responsibility. It’s on you. Do I make myself clear, counselor?”

She wasn’t responsible for the man’s sketchy assumptions. Sofia never told him she was a lawyer. So before he could ask how to spell her name, she said, “Thank you, Detective,” and hung up.

She listened as she stood out in front of the house. There was no sign or sound of the dog. Still, unless the cop got pissed off after they talked and had second thoughts, Dingus should be somewhere inside the house.

Sofia walked to the front door. She used her phone like a flashlight to illuminate the buttons on the touch pad for the lock. As soon as she hit the first one the pad lit up. She punched the other three numbers and watched as the little green light flickered. She heard the locking mechanism as it released and turned the knob sliding the dead bolt back. She tried the latch and the door opened.

Inside it was pitch black. She closed the door and waited for her eyes to adjust and listened for the dog. Nothing. She wondered if maybe there was a doggie door in the back, in which case it might be out in the yard. If so, she wondered why it didn’t bark when she pulled up into the drive.

Sofia didn’t want to turn on too many lights in the house and risk drawing attention, in case neighbors saw it and called the police. The one neighbor, the woman she talked to earlier, wasn’t home. She had an appointment and was already running late when Sofia talked to her. Otherwise the woman would have taken the dog herself, gathered everything else, and held it for Sofia until she arrived. As it was, Sofia was on her own.

She pressed the button on her phone and used the light to navigate past the opening to the living room and down the hall toward what looked like the kitchen, at the back of the house. The leash and the dog food were supposed to be there in a cupboard on the right-hand side near the kitchen table. Emma may have been frazzled but her directions were spot-on. In less than a minute Sofia found everything she was looking for, including the dog’s bedding, one of those padded igloos.

But still, there was no sign of Dingus. She called for him and listened. She heard nothing except the hum of the motor from the refrigerator on the other side of the kitchen. Sofia was getting worried. Maybe the cops left a window open and the dog got out. She remembered the ominous words of the detective that the animal was now her responsibility.

There was a doggie door at the back of the house. She looked through the kitchen window into the tiny yard outside. It was nothing but concrete with a small strip of grass. She flipped on the back porch light and peered out through the window. No sign of the dog. The yard was enclosed by a six-foot cinder-block wall. Unless he was an Olympic-class jumper there was no way he could have gotten out there.

She headed out of the kitchen, down the hall, and checked the two bedrooms she had passed on her way in. The doors were both open. If he was there he could have come out. Maybe he was locked in one of the closets. Dogs get into trouble, especially small ones.

The first room obviously belonged to Emma. Her clothes were in the closet, but no dog. Sofia checked under the bed, flashed her light just in case. She checked the other room. There were items belonging to a man inside: a few shirts and trousers and some old shoes on the floor. It felt a little eerie standing there knowing that the old man was dead. Maybe the dog was hiding under his bed. She checked. No Dingus.

Sofia’s worry was approaching panic mode. How would she tell Paul that she lost him? Who was going to break the news to Emma? Sofia should have allowed the cops to take the dog. Instead she had played smart-ass with the detective and now she and the dog were paying the price. She wondered if the cop had turned him loose out of spite. She should have used a friendlier tone, less authority, more warmth. Then she thought, Why would he do that? It was her fault for assuming the responsibility. At the very least she should have called Paul for instructions.