Oodles of Poodles (19 page)

He nodded. “Will we be able to take Hope home?” He sounded as if he’d take her right away if he could.

“Not yet,” I said. “There are a couple of kinks in her background I want to get clarified. But I’m nearly positive she’ll be available within the next week or two.”

I became even more determined to make sure she was.

When they were gone, I called Brooke, who had no more specific information for me on Councilman Randell’s dog ownership—or not. But she did have something else that intrigued me.

As I hung up I realized that, despite my noninterest in showbiz, it was consuming me these days. I now had to show up before a local talk show was filmed tomorrow.

Not only that—but I got a call from Carlie. She really wanted to have dinner with Matt and me tonight.

To discuss the Hans Marford situation? She dissembled, but I had a feeling that murder, and perhaps her status as a suspect, would be topics of discussion.

I could hardly wait.

Chapter 19

Fortunately, Matt was available to join us for dinner, along with Rex. They both came to HotRescues to pick Zoey and me up.

It had been a good weekend. We’d adopted out three dogs and two cats into great-looking families, plus had another four applications submitted. I was in the cat house on the new part of the HotRescues property when Matt called to say that Rex and he had just pulled into our parking lot.

I’d left Zoey in my office since some of the cats got nervous around dogs, even one as sweet and mellow as she is. I’d been playing with a few of the kitties, teasing them with feathers dangling from narrow plastic rods. I loved watching them study the feathers then swipe at them with their curled paws.

They grumbled when my cell phone rang. I pulled it from my pocket and looked at the caller ID.

“Hi, Matt,” I said as I answered. “You here?”

“We sure are. The office is empty, though, so we can’t get in.”

It was late on Sunday and I’d let all of the staff leave. Brooke would be sending one of her security people to remain here overnight, but whoever it was wouldn’t arrive for another hour.

“Be right there,” I said.

I said my farewells to the cats, most of whom seemed quite blasé about the situation. I made sure that the carpet-covered cat trees were all lined up for them to play on, grinned at them, then left, hurrying toward the main welcoming building.

It was March, so despite the time being near six o’clock the grounds were naturally lit, not from our security lights. I got to say quick greetings to the medium- to large-sized dogs in our kennels. Most of the smallest were in one of the buildings near the cat house. I’d visited them before, and now I felt bad that I couldn’t take time to acknowledge each little dog as I went by. Which was silly, in a way. We’d had a lot of volunteers here this weekend, and most had spent time sitting and playing with and socializing our dogs. The pups might feel neglected at the moment, but they’d been spoiled. As they should be.

I let Zoey out of my office before I opened the door for Matt and Rex. They both strode in, and the two dogs sniffed noses as Matt and I kissed.

“Where are we going?” he said in a minute, and I was
glad to hear his breathlessness. Guess he’d enjoyed our kiss, too.

“We’re going to meet Carlie and, I think, Liam, at Ira’s Deli.” Ira’s was a delicatessen on Ventura Boulevard that had been around forever, a popular place that served good food.

And, it had an outdoor patio in the back and welcomed dogs. Otherwise, it would have been far off my radar.

Matt drove us all there in his Animal Services–issued vehicle. He’d already had a chance to change out of his official uniform, and he now wore nice gray slacks and a button-down blue shirt. I’d also changed quickly before my final rounds at HotRescues, when neither staff nor volunteers would be able to see how I’d bent the rules a little for myself. My shirt was white, and I wore a light blue vest over it to go with my navy slacks.

Carlie and Liam were waiting for us in the patio area. Carlie hadn’t brought Max, though. They both rose as we approached the table.

Carlie’s face looked drawn, her expression sad, despite her effusive greeting to all of us—especially the dogs. She was wearing a nice rust-colored pantsuit, one I thought I recognized from an episode of
Pet Fitness
. “So glad you could make it, Lauren.” Her tone, too, had an edge of too much gaiety, so I knew her mood wasn’t a good one.

Liam held her chair out for her again, and she sat. Unlike Carlie, he was dressed casually, in a KVKV-TV T-shirt and jeans. He was a cutie, with a wide smile and curly brown hair all mussy on top of his broad-browed head.

Although he worked for the local TV station, I was
never quite sure of his function there. I knew he appeared on-camera now and then, on certain pseudo-newsy shows, probably more paparazzi-related than genuine topical information. But he was apparently more of a station executive, helping to plan its schedule and make sure that all went well.

For someone as opinionated as me, I wasn’t especially comfortable around Liam since I hadn’t decided whether I liked him or not. But he apparently made Carlie happy, so my view didn’t really matter. Maybe I wouldn’t hint for her to reconsider seeing him after all.

We all ordered beer and sandwiches as the dogs sat tableside, their noses in the air. The patio wasn’t too crowded, but the other nearby customers all had food in front of them, which kept the dogs’ olfactory nerves in play.

“So,” I finally said after we finished pleasantries and our beer was served. “How are things?”

I looked at Carlie, knowing that things for her couldn’t be going all that well—the reason for this hastily-called get-together.

“I’ve been asked—no, told—to go to the Devonshire police station tomorrow for some additional questioning,” she said bluntly. “I’ll have that nice lawyer you referred me to, Esther Ickes, along. But…Lauren, how’s your investigation into Hans’s death going?”

I glanced toward Matt and met his gaze. He’d sucked his lips into a grimace, but his eyes looked a bit sympathetic. Good. He wasn’t going to scold me for getting involved. Not now, at least.

“I’ve been asking a lot of questions,” I said. “It’s helped that I’ve been on the studio lot and otherwise at filmings.”

“Thanks to your buddy Dante DeFrancisco, I presume,” Liam said.

I didn’t like his snide tone, but I nodded. “It helps to have a wealthy producer in my corner. Anyway, here’s what I learned yesterday.”

I described my conversations with studio exec Morton Lesque and competing director Erskine Blainer. “So far, Erskine has reached the top of my suspect list and I’m keeping him there for now. He wanted to be the director of
A Matter of Death and Life
, and with Hans gone he was a shoo-in. But that just seems too easy.”

“Just because the other murders you solved turned out a bit more complicated doesn’t mean the easy answer here isn’t the right one,” Matt reminded me.

“Could be. But…Look, Carlie. What I’d suggest when you’re at the station tomorrow is—first, do you know what detective will be questioning you?”

She nodded solemnly. My good friend was usually so vivacious and outgoing that I hated to see her like this…scared.

But could it be because she had reason to be scared?

Had she killed Hans Marford?

I wished I’d found something concrete to exonerate her. Or proof that someone else had committed the crime.

But I had neither.

“It’s Detective Lou Maddinger,” she said.

“He seemed intelligent and willing to listen to other possibilities,” I said. “At least tell Esther about Hans’s argument with Blainer, and his sometimes difficult relationship with his boss, Lesque. It would be better if she threw out other possibilities than if you did. Meantime, I heard on the
lot yesterday that there will be more filming involving the dogs later this week—a good reason for me to go there. I’ve done some Internet searches and didn’t find any ex-wives listed for Hans, but from what you’ve said, Carlie, I suspect he’s got other past relationships that went south. I’ll ask more questions of some of the crew as subtly as I can. I’ll also try to follow up with less visible crew personnel since they might hear things without being noticed. We’ll get to the bottom of this soon.”

“I hope so,” Carlie said with a sigh.

She did manage to eat half of her sandwich. My corned beef was quite good, and the guys scarfed theirs down a lot faster than we did.

Our conversation turned in other directions, which was a good thing. Even Carlie seemed to cheer up.

We talked some about Hope and her suspect origins. I wondered if I should have kept quiet with media-guy Liam present. After all, I was potentially slandering a city councilman.

“I’m hoping to get a chance to ask his former girlfriend a few questions tomorrow, on the sly,” I said. “Assuming I get to see her. She’s going to be interviewed for some political show that’ll be aired on cable TV and the Internet.” Brooke had given me the information earlier when she called. She’d offered to go there and see what she could learn, but I had decided to do it myself.

“I’m invited to go there, too,” Liam said. “KVKV might buy the rights to air it on local television. Would you like to come as my assistant?”

I grinned at him. “Heck, yes!”

Liam Deale suddenly rose a lot higher on my evaluation scale.

Matt and Rex stayed at my Porter Ranch home with Zoey and me that night.

Yes, he managed to get some scolding in, both on the way there and before we went to bed, about my nosing around yet another murder investigation.

“But you’re going about it in a good, thorough way,” he told me late that night. “And you know I’m only saying something because I worry about your safety.”

I smiled at the good-looking guy who’d already showered and now only wore his underwear.

“I appreciate it,” I said just before I kissed him.

We didn’t say much more before heading to bed. And not even the dogs bothered us that night.

Chapter 20

The next morning, I drove over Coldwater Canyon to Sunset Boulevard. Even this early, there was a lot of traffic. Or maybe because it was early on a Monday morning and a lot of people used canyon streets rather than the San Diego Freeway to get to their jobs.

The interview of Katrina Tirza, Councilman Guy Randell’s ex—or whatever she was—was scheduled first thing, unfortunately too early for me to pay a visit to HotRescues.

I’d been intrigued by the idea of the interview when Brooke had let me know about it. She had already learned how private the councilman attempted to keep his private life—and how he fired people for daring to talk to the media without his okay.

But if Katrina was an ex-girlfriend, she’d already been fired. Was she about to blab his secrets to the world?

Would she talk about Hope—or Ginger, which apparently had been the poor dog’s prior name?

If she didn’t do so during the official interview, I might still be able to get her to answer questions off the record—but ones that would give me sufficient answers to know how best to deal with Hope’s potential adoption.

And if it was as sleazy as I believed the situation to be, I might find a way to make it public. After all, there were a lot of animal lovers in the councilman’s district. They might not want to reelect someone who abused his own pet that way.

The studio was on Sunset, in an area where I hadn’t realized there were any film studios. But in L.A., studios mushroomed everywhere, so I wasn’t surprised.

I had to park on the nearby street, but fortunately the meter accepted credit cards. I had a bit of a walk, especially since I’d worn shoes with two-inch heels to go with my official-looking black suit. But fortunately, when I got into the lobby and saw the security desk, Liam was already there.

“Ah, here she is,” he said, gesturing toward me. “My assistant. Come on, Lauren. It’s nearly time for the interview to begin.”

I smiled at him, showed my driver’s license to the guard, and was hustled through the entry gate and toward the nearest bank of elevators.

“Thanks,” I said softly to Liam as we waited. He was dressed in a suit today, too, and carried an impressive-looking video camera. “I doubt I’d have come up with a story good enough to get me upstairs. And if I waited for…our subject myself, I’m not sure I’d even recognize her.”