Dial C for Chihuahua (2 page)

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Authors: Waverly Curtis

BOOK: Dial C for Chihuahua
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Chapter 2
A cold, wet breeze was blowing from the south as we approached my green Toyota sedan, which was parked on the street. The day, like most April days in Seattle, had been fickle: rain showers alternating with sun breaks. But now a huge, black cloud hovered over the gray waters of nearby Lake Union, promising to fulfill the weatherman's prediction of a cold and stormy night.
“Are you sure we are in Seattle?” Pepe asked, as he sniffed at a dozen different spots on the grass of the parking strip. “It feels more like Nome, Alaska,” he added with an extended shiver.
“I suppose I should get you a rain coat,” I told him, fishing my car keys out of my purse. It was one of the things I was anticipating with pleasure. Chihuahuas look so cute when they are dressed up.
“No.” His tone was authoritative.
“Why not?”
“Real dogs do not wear coats.” With that, still shivering, he went to my car's rear, curbside tire, lifted his hind leg and peed all over the hubcap.
“Pepe! Stop that!”
“I had to mark my territory,” he said, walking up to me.
“Fine,” I said. “But you didn't have to do it on my tire.”
“It is the very best place, Geri.”
“Why is that?”
“It is a little trick I picked up from my cousin, Chico,” he explained. “If you park your car near our hacienda, all the senoritas in the neighborhood will soon know that I live here. But your car, it also gets around—this means that senoritas all over town will know of Pepe el Macho. It is simple.”
I couldn't argue with his logic, but I told him, “Don't do it again.”
“If it makes you unhappy, I will not do it anymore. I solemnly promise.” He said this with an overblown sincerity that made me nervous. “Now can we get in the car already?” he asked, shivering mightily. “I am freezing my tail off.”
I opened the rear passenger door for him, but he didn't budge.
“I ride only in the front,” he said.
I didn't have time to argue with him.
I closed the rear door and opened the front one. “OK, you win. Just get in,” I told him, then remembered how short he was. “Here,” I added, bending down, “I'll help you.”
“I can do it myself.” With a mighty leap he launched himself from the pavement to the floorboard of the car, and from there another jump took him to the passenger seat.
I got in and started the engine. As I put on my seatbelt, I looked over at my canine passenger and had to say that he looked quite handsome. He sat up straight, his head lifted, though I doubted he could see over the dashboard.
“Well,” I asked him. “Ready to go?”
“
Sí,
” he answered. “But there is just one thing.”
“What's that?”
“Crack open my window a bit,
por favor,
” he said. “I get carsick.”
 
 
The woman I was supposed to interview, Rebecca Tyler, lived on Fourteenth Avenue East, a street also known as Millionaire's Row, because it's lined with huge, turn-of-the-century mansions built by Seattle's early merchants and timber barons. It was a wide, stately street, lined with tall elms and horse chestnut trees. The houses were set back behind manicured lawns and wrought-iron fences, all well preserved in styles of the past: Southern colonial, Tudor revival, neoclassical. The people who built them had big money back then; the people living in them now had big money today.
I didn't know much about my client, just that her husband was missing and instead of calling the police she had called Jimmy Gerrard. Perhaps her husband had run off with another woman, and she didn't want to expose herself to the public scrutiny a police investigation would involve.
As we pulled up in front of the Tyler residence, Pepe, who had been talking non-stop the whole way there, said, “Are we here? Is this the place?”
“I think so.” I took out my notes to double-check the address.
Pepe stood, putting his forelegs on the armrest so he could see out the window. “The house number—what is it?”
“It's 640,” I told him. The house sat behind a wrought-iron fence with pointed barbs. Huge stone pillars flanked the driveway with the house number displayed in tile on either side.
“
Sí,
” Pepe told me. “
Seis cuatro cero
. This is the correct casa.”
Casa
seemed a misnomer, I thought. It wasn't just the biggest home on the block, it was a gigantic white wedding cake of a mansion. Four huge white Corinthian columns on either side of the entryway supported a gracefully curved upper deck. Gold-painted lion statues guarded the wide stairs leading up to the front door.
“I do not like those big lions,” said Pepe.
“They're not real.”
“Still, they give me a sense of unease.”
“Fine. Just be quiet for a minute,” I told him. “I want to make sure I'm prepared.” I grabbed my big brown leather purse and rooted around to find my pen.
“You tell me to be silent? I am insulted.”
“Look, Pepe, your mouth hasn't stopped during this whole trip. You talk more than any dog I ever knew.” I stopped, realizing how absurd that sounded.
He hung his head. “Perhaps it is because you are the only person who has ever listened to me in my whole life.”
That stung me—I certainly knew what it was like when nobody would listen to you. I gave him a gentle pat on the head.
“I apologize,” I told my tough little
hombre
with the delicate feelings.
He perked right up, his tail wagging. “Then I can talk?”
“Yes, you can talk.”
“Look there, Geri,” he said, looking out at the house again. “The front door—it is ajar. Is that not strange?”
“Yes, it is,” I said. I watched the door for a minute, but saw no sign of activity. “You stay here.” I opened the car door. “I'm going to check it out.”
“Me, too.” Before I knew it, Pepe had scrambled across my lap and out of the car. He ran up the stairs and into the house in a flash.
“Pepe!”
Chapter 3
How could such a tiny dog run so fast? And how would I explain his presence to the client? I scrambled to catch up with him.
I paused at the open front door and caught my breath, hoping Pepe would appear in the entryway. The foyer was all white marble and crystal chandeliers, with a huge semicircular staircase as the centerpiece. I rang the doorbell, which produced a mournful series of chimes but no human response. I didn't know if I could just walk in. What were the rules about that?
I rang the doorbell again. Still no answer. But this time I did hear a faint and distant yip coming from somewhere to the right. It was the first time I'd ever heard Pepe bark. Although it didn't really sound like a bark. More like the sound a tiny Chihuahua might make right before being gobbled up by a tough pit bull.
That thought got me moving. I dashed through the foyer and headed right, finding myself in an all-white living room, one of the largest I had ever seen. The carpet was a snowy white, the walls were papered in white damask, the curtains were clouds of white satin. Even the grand piano in the corner was white. It desperately needed a spot of color, something like the bright red throw rug under the glass coffee table.
It took a second before it sank in. That wasn't a rug, but a pool of blood. As I got closer, I saw that it surrounded the body of a man who lay face down on the white carpet. Pepe was sniffing the bottoms of his shoes. The man wore Birkenstocks, those clunky sandals so popular in Seattle, over green socks.
Pepe lifted his head. “You should not be here,” he said. “We must leave right now.” He headed toward me, leaving a trail of tiny red footprints behind him.
“No, we can't leave!” I said darting toward the prone figure. I bent over and put my fingers against his neck. “What if he's still alive?”
“Believe me, he is
muy muerto!
” Pepe said. He was right. The man's skin was gray and felt cool beneath my fingertips.
I willed myself to study the corpse. He had sandy-colored hair pulled back into a short ponytail at the base of his neck. He wore a pair of khaki pants and a yellow T-shirt with some sort of lettering on it, hard to read now because it was mottled with brown stains.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“I do not know,” said Pepe. “All I know is we must get out of here! Something stinks about this situation, and it is not just the smell of death.” He wrinkled his nose expressively.
A gun lay a few inches from the man's right hand. “This must be the murder weapon,” I said, picking it up.
“Do not touch that!” said Pepe. “Do you not know anything about crime-scene investigation?”
Too late. It was already in my hand.
“How do you know about crime-scene investigation?” I asked, turning the gun over to examine it.
“I am a big fan of TV crime shows,” he said. “
CSI
.
Forensic Files
. I watch them all.
CSI: Miami
is the best. Now put that down!”
But before I could put it back, somebody behind me yelled, “Drop it, lady!”
“Set it down nice and slow,” another voice commanded.
I turned and saw two uniformed policemen. Both had pistols trained on me.
“I said drop it!”
Without even thinking, I did as they said. The gun slid from my grasp and fell onto the glass coffee table, which shattered into a million pieces.
“
Policía
. . .” I heard Pepe mutter as he slunk underneath the sofa.
 
 
In no time, the police had put me in handcuffs. They had taken a quick look at the corpse and then called for backup. Soon the room was full of policemen, four or five in blue uniforms, two in suits, and three or four in white jumpsuits and blue paper booties. A pair of detectives (the ones in suits) took me into the dining room, which was just as huge as the living room, but all done up in gold, from the gilded coffered ceiling to the bronze satin on the chair seats. I shuddered to think about the rest of the color scheme in the house. I was willing to bet there was a bathroom done all in shades of purple.
One of the men looked a bit like my father, with his wire rim glasses and thinning brown hair combed over a bald spot. He wore a rumpled navy suit. The other one was a handsome black man with a shiny, shaved head. His suit was gray, paired with a blue silk shirt and silver cufflinks. The older man said his name was Detective Earl Larson; the other guy was Detective Kevin Sanders.
“Did you find Mrs. Tyler?” I asked. It occurred to me that she might be somewhere in the house, perhaps in one of the upper rooms, as dead as her husband. (I had learned from overhearing snippets of conversation that the body in the living room belonged to David Tyler). But the police had fanned out and searched the house and grounds without finding any other bodies or any trace of Rebecca Tyler. “She was supposed to be here.”
“Why were you meeting her?” Larson wanted to know.
“I'm a private investigator,” I said. I didn't want to say more. I knew from reading detective novels that PIs had the right to keep their conversations with their clients private, just like priests and lawyers.
Larson asked to see my license.
“I don't have one yet,” I explained. “I was just hired. This is my first assignment.”
“Who's your boss?”
“Jimmy Gerrard of the Gerrard Agency.”
“Why isn't he here?”
“He's in Portland right now, working on another case.” I thought it sounded good that he had trusted me with such an important assignment. But Larson shook his head. I could tell he didn't believe me.
“We're going to have to take you down to the precinct for questioning,” he said. Sanders motioned for me to get up, and they walked me towards the front door, one on each side as if they were afraid I was going to make a dash for it.
“I'm not leaving without my dog,” I said. I hadn't seen Pepe since the police had first burst into the room.
“What dog?” Sanders asked.
“He's a little white Chihuahua,” I said. “He was in the living room with me. Maybe you missed him because he's the same color as the room.” That was supposed to be a joke but apparently they didn't think it was funny. It's one of my faults, at least according to my ex, that I tend to make jokes when they're not appropriate.
Sanders went into the living room and talked to some of the other men there. A man with a large camera was wandering around, taking photos of the shattered coffee table and the gun.
One of the guys in the white jumpsuits pulled aside one of the white satin curtains and came up with a small white object. He held it in front of him with gloved hands, as if it were contaminated.
It was Pepe! I could tell he wasn't happy. He pedaled his feet in the air, as if trying to find firm ground.
“That's my dog!” I said, rushing towards him. But Larson blocked my way.
The photographer stepped forward and snapped a photo. The flash went off in Pepe's face and he flinched.
“You can't touch him, ma'am,” the technician said. “He's evidence.” He pointed to Pepe's paws, which were caked with blood. “We're going to have to take him to the lab to be processed.”
“No way, José!” I heard Pepe mutter. He squirmed around and bit the technician on the wrist. The man dropped him with a cry of pain, and Pepe hit the floor, making his own little yelp as he landed. Then he dashed between Larson's legs and darted out through the open front door.

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