Doghouse (7 page)

“Have you always been this bossy?”

“Yes.” The answer came from both Ginny and Stacy, in unison, and Teddy laughed, getting up to refill their glasses. Stacy made a face at him when he leaned over the bar to hit the tap, but didn't try to stop him.

“So,” he said, lingering by the bar, “the next logical question is—was their landlord a generous angel who liked to make sure the faded end of society didn't end up homeless, and Deke just got caught on a bad day, or was something else going on?”

“Something else being, what?”

Fair enough question. “The landlord freaking out because there's dogfighting going on?” The accusation had to come from somewhere, and while Parsifal didn't seem
like a dogfighting kind of dog, he was still a stone on the “guilty” side of the weights.

“I really doubt the guy didn't know. I mean, Deke's lived there how long, ten years? And the landlord never had a clue? So why now?”

“You think the landlord's involved somehow? I don't know, Gin, it still feels reachy. I mean, why would the landlord be the one to accuse him, and kick him out? Wouldn't he want to keep it quiet?”

“Yeah. I don't know.” Ginny made another face. “Although there are a lot more dumb people than there are criminal masterminds.”

He raised an eyebrow and nodded, conceding the point. “Maybe he did just catch wind of there being dogs there. Maybe he's looking to get a higher-paying tenant in. Unless we can prove that there are dogs in the other houses, and that the guy knows, we're stuck on that front. We're good, but I really don't think we can bullshit our way in and ask strangers if they're hiding vicious dogs in their closets. So we need to find another lead.”

Ginny flipped through several pages of notes, and sighed. “Deke doesn't seem to have anything else I can dig into. I mean, he doesn't own a car, isn't a member of any shopping clubs or delivery services, he doesn't seem to have any memberships in anything except the Association of American Boxers, and a few magazines—
Ring News, Sports World Weekly,
and
Playboy
. Well, he's got focused interests, anyway. No Pet Fancier or PETA subscriptions.”

“But no
Dogfighting Monthly
?” Teddy shook his head,
aware that he wasn't going to beat Ginny's PETA crack. “Maybe we should be focusing on the boxing angle? I mean, I like Seth, and Deke seems like an okay guy, if a little soft on the corners, but boxing's a violent sport. It's not inconceivable that someone there might get tangled up in watching dogs fight, too.”

“Already on it,” Ginny said, her fingers flying on the tablet, comfortable as though she were working on a full-sized keyboard. Teddy, who could barely manage to text on his phone, just shook his head and watched. “Nothing's coming up connecting boxers with dogfighting. Football players, yeah. Baseball players, even, and a couple of race car drivers and”—her eyebrows rose—“some actors. But no boxers. Or hockey players, for that matter. So much for the stereotype of violent people playing violent sports. But I've put out a few more feelers, see if anything comes up from the depths of the Internet. And one of us should probably hit the news archives, just to cover our asses.”

“Newspapers? Really?”

“Don't start, Tonica,” she said. “Just because I prefer the 'Net doesn't mean that I ignore other alternatives. There's still a lot of the world that hasn't been digitized.”

“And you consider that a personal affront,” he guessed.

“Damn right I do. Meanwhile, you need to poke at Seth and Deke, see if they let anything more slip. I'm pretty sure, knowing Seth, there're details he's not sharing.”

Teddy wanted to protest—it felt wrong, to poke at a friend, a coworker—but she was only dividing things up according to their strengths: she researched, and he, well,
poked. “If either of them takes a swing at me, you're paying for my ER visit. My insurance sucks.”

“Hello, self-employed here,” Ginny said. “Mine's not much better. They swing, you better duck.”

Stacy had wandered to the other end of the bar to fill orders while they were talking, but came back then, pausing until they both looked up at her. “Hey, boss, I'm going to take a break before things start to pick up, okay?”

He glanced at his watch. She was right, the rush would hit in about half an hour. “Yeah, I'll keep an eye on things.”

She nodded thanks, and then turned to Ginny. “You want me to take the pups for a constitutional?”

Ginny checked her watch, too, while Teddy took over behind the bar, and then looked over at Georgie, who had raised her head as though she knew she was being discussed. “Yeah, that would be great, thanks.”

Teddy didn't think Georgie needed another walk already, but he wasn't her owner. And maybe Stacy would bond with Parsifal, and solve that problem.

The younger woman picked up the leashes, one worn and pink, the other brand-new and black, from where they were coiled on the table. “Hey, Georgie, you want to go for walkies? C'mon, pup, let's introduce you to the wonders of hydrants, huh?”

“Parsifal isn't really up for a long walk,” Teddy warned her. “You're going to end up carrying him most of the way.”

“Yeah, well, my pocketbook weighs more than he does. I think we'll be okay. C'mon, guys, walkies!”

“She should try that at six a.m., see if she's so cheerful about it,” Ginny said, watching the younger woman clip leashes to both dogs and usher them out the door, Parsifal barely managing to keep up.

“I don't think Stace has even
seen
six a.m., unless it was from the other side.” It was a side effect of their job: you worked late nights, not early mornings. And her other job was working as an artist's model, and he didn't think artists were much for 6 a.m., either.

“Hey, Seth,” he heard her say as she went out the doorway, which gave Teddy just enough time to put on his work face before the older man came inside. He had Deke in tow, both men looking exhausted.

“Good morning, ladies,” Teddy called to them. He reached over and pulled two bottles from the chiller and popped the tops, sliding them across the bar. “You guys look like you could use this.”

“Thanks.” Seth took it, drained half the bottle. Deke merely held his, his thumb rubbing back and forth across the label.

“You guys look like a few miles of bad road,” Ginny said with an utter lack of tact, frowning at them. She wasn't wrong, although it wasn't as though either man was a commercial for clean living and bright eyes, even at his best.

“They fired me,” Deke said, his voice carrying exhausted outrage, as though he'd been saying it over and over and it still didn't make sense to him. “Why did they fire me?”

“We talked about this, Deke,” Seth said, and Teddy was pretty sure he hadn't ever heard the older man sound so
much like a worn-down patient. “You knew the job was short-term. And they gave you two weeks' notice.”

“But everyone there liked me. They said so.”

Seth rubbed his face with his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose between his index fingers. “Nonprofit center, Deke. Budget ran out, and you were low man on the salary pole. It's not about . . . anything else. Just bad timing. C'mon. Take your beer and help me get the kitchen set up, okay? Leave these people to their work.”

Teddy and Ginny watched the two older men head into the back, and then Ginny shook her head. “That is a man who wouldn't have any luck if it wasn't for bad luck.”

“I'm almost afraid to stand next to him, yeah. Considering the news, I think I'm going to take a rain check on talking to them about . . . anything right now, okay?”

“It's not going to get any easier to ask them,” Ginny said, and then held up her hands in surrender when he gave her a look. “Hey, you're the schmoozer; you pick your moment. Just don't wait too long.”

Ginny could
have argued for going in after Deke right away—hit him when he was down, which was an asshole thing to do but probably effective—but part of their deal was that she gave way to Tonica in things like this. Anyway, Parsifal was getting walked, so they couldn't drop him into the older man's lap just then, anyway.

She had a sudden spurt of guilt—intentionally surprising a guy they already knew wasn't tight-wrapped, on what
sounded like a particularly bad day, wasn't cool. But it was for his own good, and what else were they going to do?

She turned back to her work, entering the names of the renters into a grouped search, hoping that something might jump out and trigger a revelation.

As usual, working put her into a slight fugue state. She was aware of Tonica dealing with someone who wanted a refill, of the murmur of conversation, but none of it really reached her. When there was a change in light when the front door opened, though, she looked up, expecting to see Stacy and the dogs returning. Instead, a figure lurked just in the frame, leaning forward as though uncertain of his welcome. “Excuse me?”

“Hey,” Tonica called, a professional smile on his face. “Come on in, we're open. Quiet right now, but open.”

The man stepped inside, looking around the place. He seemed to like what he saw, giving it a small smile and a nod. “I'm looking for, um, Seth Wilbernosky?”

“Wilbernosky? Huh.” Ginny looked up at that, tilting her head as she took in the newcomer. Short, blond, pale even by “we never see the sun” Pacific Northwest standards, and that was saying something. He wasn't wearing a suit, just a jacket over slacks, and a button-down shirt, no tie. Hair was a little shaggy for a G-man or cop, too, although that wasn't a deal killer. “What did Seth do this time?” she asked, anyway.

“What? Oh, no.” The guy came all the way into the bar and reached in his pocket, handing Ginny a business card.

“Larry Zimmerman. I'm with the county social services.
Mr. Wilbernosky was down as the contact person for one of my clients, and I wanted to speak with him, but he wasn't answering his phone, so . . .” Zimmerman gave a half-apologetic shrug, like he did that a lot.

“Yeah, he doesn't have a cell phone, so you were reaching his landline. Seth!” Tonica half turned, and called toward the back. “Get your scrawny backside out here. Please.”

“So why did you need to talk to Deke?” Ginny asked, making a wild guess.

Zimmerman gave her a long look. “Are you a family member?”

“No,” she admitted. “A concerned friend.”

“Well, as a concerned friend, I'm sure you understand that such things are private.”

As shutdowns went, it was pretty polite, but definite. Ginny nodded, acknowledging that she'd stepped over a line, and things might have gotten awkward, except Penny took that moment to appear, stalking toward Zimmerman with her tail erect and her whiskers quivering, in full investigative mode.

“Oh hey, honey.” Zimmerman leaned down to pet Penny as she wound herself around his legs. “And who are you?”

“That's Penny,” Tonica said. “Hope you're not allergic.”

Before Zimmerman could answer, Seth came out, and Stacy came back in with the dogs, the puppy, as predicted, cradled in her arms. “Everyone did all their things,” the younger woman announced, handing Georgie's leash to
Ginny and depositing Parsifal on a stool, interrupting anything Seth or Zimmerman might have said to each other.

“And who are these pretties?” Zimmerman asked, as the shar-pei sniffed happily at the stranger's outstretched hand.

“This is Georgie,” Stacy said, “and that bundle of cute is Parsifal.”

Ginny started to say something about Parsi looking for a forever home, if Zimmerman was dog-inclined, when Deke came out, an apron wrapped around his waist and the bottle of beer still in his hand. “Hey, Seth—oh. Hi, Larry.”

“Hi, Deke,” Zimmerman said, masking any surprise he might have had at finding the other man there. “You missed our meeting last month.”

“'S'not mandatory.”

“No, but it does help keep you focused. How are things?”

“Crap. I lost my job, and I don't have anywhere to stay.” Deke's voice managed to be both placid and bitter, as though he'd accepted that life wasn't ever going to give him anything nice.

Zimmerman went into alert mode, the same way Georgie did when she heard an unfamiliar sound. Ginny could feel her stomach tense, even though she didn't know what he was reacting to.

“What happened to the place you were renting?”

“Landlord kicked me out.” Deke's face screwed up, like he was about to go into the entire story, and you could hear the thud of the other shoe dropping. Ginny didn't know why Deke rated a social worker checking up on him, but
she was pretty sure Larry was going to want to know
why
Deke was about to become homeless, and that meant talking about the accusations, and odds were that would create exactly the mess they were trying to avoid. She lifted her gaze to Tonica, hoping he'd have an escape route, but before either of them could say anything, Seth jumped into the conversation.

“They're having a disagreement about the specific terms of the lease. Nothing serious. We expect it to blow over in a few days.” Seth lied like a champ. Either that, or he really had that much faith in what she and Tonica could do.

“You're still there, then?” Zimmerman asked. “Do you need an advocate to help you? I can arrange someone to come in—”

“No, we got it handled,” Seth said. “Really.”

Zimmerman had flipped open his notepad and was writing something down. “He's staying with you, in the meanwhile?”

Seth scowled, then looked at Deke and nodded once.

“All right, I'll need your address, then, since someone who shall remain Deke failed to inform me of this.”

“It's not my fault,” Deke said, protesting, but with the resigned voice of someone who isn't surprised he's in trouble again. “It's because of the dogs. I didn't do nothing wrong!”