Double Dog Dare (8 page)

I supposed I’d better check with her. Or not. Turned out that astute Althea gave me the answer herself. “You mean about that murder at The Clone Arranger? Was Jeff investigating that outfit?”

“How did you know . . . ? I mean, I have to check with someone before I can say anything, but—”

“Lois Terrone? You know I can’t give you any particulars, Kendra, but I used my usual resources and found out she was interrogated by the Glendale P.D. for that homicide. I’ve never met her, but know she’s a good friend of Jeff’s family. His cell phone records suggested they spoke recently. And I followed up on his credit card records and learned he flew back to Ontario Airport. I put two and two together—did I add it up correctly? You don’t have to say yes, but if you don’t say no, you won’t have revealed anything that might be confidential, right?”

I’d been the beneficiary of several of Althea’s adept online hackings—er, investigations.

“Four,” I said.

“For what . . . ? Oh, you mean my two and two is on target. Good!”

I heard a honk behind me. A different car sat there, apparently awaiting my departure. Well, I actually did have better things to do with my time than spend much more of it sitting in the Glendale Galleria parking garage. But I didn’t want to humor the ill-willed motorist in his attempt to move me prematurely. So, before I pulled out, I said into the phone, “I’m not saying anything affirmative, Althea. But if you happen to learn anything interesting about The Clone Arranger or any of its employees, it wouldn’t be out of line for you to pass it along to me. I can’t say that it might help locate Jeff, but I won’t say that it won’t, either.”

“Got it. Thanks, Kendra.”

“Thank
you
,” I said, then turned the key in the ignition, ignoring the line of cars that had formed behind the bozo waiting for my space. Hey, that was
his
bad.

I didn’t even get to the 134 Freeway heading west before my phone rang. I glanced down at the caller ID, inevitably hoping for Jeff’s number. Nope, not his, but another familiar name appeared on my cell phone screen.

“Hi, Kendra,” said a sweet, senior female voice. I’d learned well that Esther Ickes might be a mite beyond middle age, but she was one heck of an attorney.

She’d helped me through a bankruptcy a while back, and then had been my choice for criminal defense when I was accused of a couple of murders.

After I caught the real killer, I wound up referring a number of friends and acquaintances to Esther during their dark hours as murder suspects.

And I’d just done the same with Lois Terrone.

“I owe you another dinner,” she said after I greeted her effusively.

“Lois called you?” Oops. I’d intended to warn Esther.

“She did. She’s another friend of yours?”

“Actually of Jeff’s.”

“Oh, yes, honey.” Her tone turned suddenly sad. “How are you getting along?”

I was fortunately—or unfortunately—making a merge onto the freeway, so I didn’t have time to sigh or sob or react in any other way to her obvious assumption of the worst about Jeff.

“I’m fine. Hold on just a second. . . . There. I’m in a lane. Anyway, I’d love to get together with you for lunch or dinner or whatever one of these days.” I kept my voice so perky I could puke, but I wasn’t about to go all maudlin. Not now. Hopefully, not ever—since I refused to assume there was a reason to mourn.

“Great,” she said, and we made tentative plans. And then, always-supportive Esther added, “And, Kendra, you know I’m always available if you need to talk.”

Good thing I didn’t anticipate another lane change for a couple of miles, since suddenly my vision blurred with tears.

IT WAS TIME to take back more of my own pet-sitting duties, so I hurried home to meet up with my assistant, Rachel, and retrieve a bunch of keys and instructions I’d left with her.

Idling briefly on the street, I pushed the control I’d put inside the rental car to open the wrought iron gate, then drove up the short driveway to my carport. That’s when I saw a stranger working in the yard. I parked, exited my vehicle, and headed up the front walk toward my rented-out mansion.

I’d called Rachel to alert her, and she immediately opened the front door. As she exited, so did an excited Beggar, who ran to me as if expecting my usual dog accompaniment, but I hadn’t yet retrieved Lexie and Odin from Jeff’s house. Obviously disappointed, the gorgeous Irish setter commenced loping around the yard. She stopped beside the stranger, who didn’t appear to be gardening. Nor had I noticed the usual gardener’s beat-up truck along the street.

“Who’s that?” I inquired.

The guy didn’t look much older than Rachel, late teens or early twenties. He wore a white muscle shirt and frayed jeans, and his bronze skin, black hair, and jutting cheekbones suggested a Hispanic background. And it wasn’t weeds he appeared to be pulling up with a big basket on a stick, but doggy do-do.

“He’s with our new poop-scooping service,” Rachel said, regarding the eye-candy guy with appreciation. “I’d heard some of the neighbors talking about it. It’s called What’s the Scoop, and when I was walking Beggar, I saw the guy who appears to be the owner talking to Phil Ashler.”

My silver-haired senior citizen neighbor had recently adopted a medium-size mutt named Middlin from one of the animal shelters. I’d worked with them a little to help ensure Middlin was potty trained properly. He was a sweet-natured rescue dog, and I adored Phil for taking him in.

“Phil told me what a great job the new scooper was doing for Middlin and him. He recommended the new outfit, so I said I’d give them a try. The owner sent his helper here this afternoon.” She gestured toward the young guy now scouring the yard for errant piles of poop. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

“I’ll bet,” I interjected dryly.

Rachel’s gaze was irritated as she added, “I mean, since I’ve let him onto the property. I think he’s doing a good job.”

“We’ll see how many piles he misses,” I retorted. But I felt too distracted to perform any poop patrol and figured I’d let Rachel do any feces reconnaissance. I had pet-sitting to complete this evening, my own canine and Jeff’s to go home to hug—and that same man to stew about. Again. Still.

I’d call Althea again to see if she’d gotten any additional leads for me to follow regarding some connection among Jeff, Lois Terrone, The Clone Arranger, and the death of Earl Knox.

What if Jeff was still alive and he’d staged his own vanishing to hide that he’d been about to off Knox for reasons of his own?

I considered that absurd allegation as I headed my car back toward his home an hour later, after my evening pet-sitting visits to Abra, Cadabra, and Stromboli, and a quick visit to Meph, Stromboli’s neighbor and my clone cohort, and his human mama, Maribelle, just for fun.

I’d decided to spend some time the next morning taking Stromboli and Meph, along with Lexie and Odin, to a dog park. They deserved some extra exercise and attention.

And I deserved some additional distraction. Assuming it would get my mind off Jeff.

But for now, my brain kept brimming over with questions and ideas that led . . . nowhere.

Where could I go next in my investigation into Jeff’s disappearance?

Chapter Six

I’M A CONFIRMED listophile. A listaholic. That was how I handled all of my litigation. My pet-sitting. My life. But I had no idea how to list a plan of attack to locate Jeff.

That night before bed, I sat on Jeff’s white sectional sofa, in his sunken living room, surrounded by sympathetic dogs. Lexie’s head was on my lap, and Odin’s butt abutted my leg on the other side. I held a pad of paper and a pen in my hands, and the news on Jeff’s big-screen TV near the huge stone fireplace was on mute. I’d turned it on in case there was something more about the murder at The Clone Arranger.

So what did I have to jot down? Not a lot, yet much too much.

A missing lover whose Escalade was located at the bottom of an aqueduct canal. A missing lover whom I really missed. . . .

Okay. Next was a friend of that lover, Lois, who’d been put in touch with me by that lover’s mother, Irene. Irene belonged on the list only peripherally. Lois, on the other hand, seemed of central significance. She claimed to have set Jeff on a supersecret investigation of The Clone Arranger.

I’d visited there to commence my own look-see into the secretive place. Met a quasi-famous lady there, Beryl Leeds, star of a long-ago TV show, who’d brought her Lab to be cloned. She’d had a prior good experience with The Clone Arranger.

I also met two Arrangers—CEO Mason Payne and Earl Knox. The latter was subsequently and swiftly murdered. Because of me? Unlikely. But didn’t his death smack of some too-incredible coincidence?

Well, hell. As much as I despised giving credibility to such stuff, my whole life had shifted into a series of incredible coincidences. Once again, I’d become a murder magnet. Too many people I knew became victims or suspects.

Like Lois Terrone, now an apparent suspect. I didn’t really know her any better than I’d been acquainted with Earl, but she had the advantage of Irene Hubbard to vouch for her. And, presumably, Jeff—once he was found.

Unless . . . could Lois have killed Jeff, then gone after Earl? But though she had an apparent motive for killing the guy at The Clone Arranger who’d failed to clone her elderly dog before its demise, why dispose of Jeff?

Okay, this list was way incomplete. Assuming Jeff’s disappearance had even a slight relationship to his investigation into The Clone Arranger, I needed to know more about that organization and its personnel, and people with grudges against them—especially against Earl.

I swiftly woke the dogs and displaced them as I stood and headed for Jeff’s home office, where I got on his computer. I checked my e-mail. Nothing from Althea, so I sent her an inquiry: Anything new to report? Her immediate response? Negative.

Shaking my head, I headed for bed.

AND DIDN’T SLEEP much, not even after taking a relaxing, warm shower.

I got up early, groggily and grumpily, but I wouldn’t take it out on Lexie and Odin. “Let’s take a quick walk,” I said to them. “Then I’ll let you come pet-sitting with me. And romping in a dog park. I owe that to some of our slightly neglected clients.”

Lexie cocked her cute head until one of her long ears nearly swept the rug. Odin simply stood and wagged the tail curled over his back, his tongue hanging out as if suggesting starvation. I couldn’t help laughing and giving them both big hugs. At least I wasn’t alone on this disconcerting morning.

My cell phone rang before I loaded canines into the car. It was Tracy Owens, my friend and fellow member of the Pet-Sitters Club of Southern California. In fact, she was the PSCSC pres.

“Good morning, Kendra,” she said. “Are you still up for that dog park visit you mentioned yesterday?”

“I’m on my way there now. Care to come?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. I’ll only have Phoebe with me, so I can help if you have some extra dogs along.”

We agreed to meet in forty-five minutes. Our choice for our canine outing was a dog park nestled high in the hills above Lake Hollywood, midmountain beneath slopes including the one that houses the famed Hollywood sign. It was a relatively central meeting place between Tracy’s abode in Beachwood Canyon and Jeff’s home in the San Fernando Valley.

I parked at the curb on the steep street and sat for a few seconds, attempting to calm the extremely excited dogs. Since Lexie and Odin had been here before, they knew where they were. And I’d picked up Stromboli, whom I was sitting, and his next-door neighbor Meph.

Four pups to exercise? Was I nuts?

Maybe, but I had Tracy’s promise of assistance. Plus, the more stuff I had to keep my mind on, the less I’d think about things I didn’t want my brain wrapped around.

It was Friday—still a weekday, and therefore a workday. I had to get to my law office later. Sometime.

I saw Tracy at the edge of the park almost immediately. She had the adorable puggle Phoebe on a leash. She must have noticed me at the same time, since she started toward us.

“Kendra!” She sounded extremely happy, but why shouldn’t she be, with only one well-behaved baby in her charge? She looked almost chic, wearing slim khaki slacks and a short matching jacket over a white knit top.

Me? Well, I had to head to work later, so I’d worn nice slacks, too, but they were charcoal and not extremely new, and my pink print blouse had seen some significant wear.

I’d noticed often, since meeting her, that Tracy stayed slender yet managed to appear somewhat chubby thanks to full cheeks. But their fullness seemed to be a result of her frequent smiles.

And why not, when she was no longer a murder suspect? All the other problems in her life seemed behind her, too.

She threw her arms around me in a big bear hug, no mean feat considering I was attempting not to let four separate leashes get tangled despite the fancy footwork of the dogs to which they were attached.

“I’m so glad to see you.” She stepped back, examined me with intense brown eyes, then reached for a leash. I complied, giving her Meph’s. Despite the sudden pressure on her arm she remained still except for shaking her head. “You don’t look so good. Still no word about Jeff?”

This time I was the one to shake my head. “Only his car.” I filled her in on the wet Escalade escapade in the aqueduct canal as we walked toward the busy, grassy area.

Though this was usually used as an off-leash park, we kept our exuberant pups under the best kind of control. We left their leashes clipped on, despite many a glum doggy stare when they noticed they were in the distinct minority here, where canines mostly ran wild. We watched our steps as we proceeded, past picnic benches and children’s play equipment, to traverse the large lawn area.