Hot Dog (18 page)

“O
h no,” I breathed softly.

Momentum carried me into the room. I walked over to the corner where Dox's crate had been and stared at the empty space longingly, as if hopeful desperation could bring the Dachshund puppy back.

“What's wrong?” Jill asked. She and Rich crowded up beside me. “What are you looking at? I don't see anything.”

“That's the problem. There should be a crate sitting there with a puppy inside. It's gone.”

Rich's eyes widened. “You mean he's been dognapped?”

“It looks that way.”

Jill was scribbling on her pad. “Dox, that was his name, wasn't it?”

It annoyed me to see her looking so happy about this unexpected development, and I didn't bother to answer. Instead I turned away and checked out the rest of the room. My jewelry box hadn't been touched. The drawers in dresser and night table didn't appear to have been opened. Not that I had a lot that was worth stealing, but most burglars would have at least had a look.

Jill followed me around, pen poised to make more notes. “How much was the puppy worth? Lots of money, right? Was it a show dog like your other two? And how come the thief took only the one dog and not all three?”

Good question.

“Let's all go back downstairs,” I said. “I'll answer your questions, and you can answer some of mine. But first I want to go get Davey and the Poodles.”

I'd told my son to wait in the car. He hadn't exactly obeyed me, but at least he'd come close. He was shooting hoops in the driveway. Faith and Eve were his appreciative audience sitting side by side on the front seat of the Volvo. Nose prints were smeared everywhere; I could see I was going to have some serious window cleaning to do.

“That took long enough,” Davey said when I reappeared. He tossed the ball to me, and I shot it through the hoop.

Before going out to fetch him, I'd stopped in the kitchen to sweep up the glass and make a call to the Stamford police. They'd promised to send somebody by, but since the break-in had already occurred and the robbers were long gone, I wasn't counting on a particularly timely arrival.

“Sorry about that. You can come inside now.”

I opened the car, released the dogs, and brought them into the house, too. Not unexpectedly, both Poodles made a dash for the water bowl.

“I need you to do something for me,” I told Davey. “Can you go upstairs to my bedroom, call Aunt Peg, and ask her to come over?”

“We just saw Aunt Peg.” No flies on this kid.

“I know, but I need to see her again. Tell her it's important.”

“Okay,” Davey said cheerfully. There's nothing he likes more than being trusted with a mission.

When Davey had gone upstairs, I beckoned the two reporters toward the living room. Jill was quivering with excitement.

“Isn't this great?” she asked. “All right, so it isn't a murder, but it's not your usual, run-of-the-mill burglary, either. Remember that important stallion that got stolen in Ireland? That was big news for weeks. Maybe we can build up the glamor angle of the dog show world in the report. That ought to be good for some bonus points in the ratings. . . .”

Oh brother. Was it just me, I wondered, or did everyone who knew her wish that Jill had an off switch?

“What time did you arrive at my house this morning?”

My question interrupted her flow of words. She sputtered to a stop, then considered for a moment. “I don't know. Ten-thirty, maybe eleven? I mean, it's Sunday for Pete's sake. I have a life, too.”

Rich raised a brow at that. It wasn't hard to guess what he was wondering. I ignored him and followed up with another question. “And what were you planning to do here?”

“You know, keep an eye on things. Just in case.”

“Like you've been doing for the last week?”

Jill's head tilted to one side. I took that as an assent.

“Except that I haven't seen you around since Thursday.” Faith came trotting into the living room. I patted the couch beside me. The big Poodle hopped up on the cushion, turned twice, lay down, and rested her head in my lap. “Last time we talked, I told you I'd call you if there was anything you needed to know.”

“All well and good,” Jill said defensively, “except that you didn't call, did you? You didn't even get back to me after I left you a message last night. So I figured it was time for me to stop by and have a look around.”

“The reason I didn't call you,” I said, keeping my tone carefully neutral, “was because I didn't have anything to say. Just because you want my life to be some big exciting story doesn't mean it actually is one.”

“I don't know.” Rich hazarded a grin. “Suddenly things are beginning to look a whole lot more interesting.”

Yes, they were. Now that Jill was back in the picture.

“My point exactly.” I stared hard at both of them.

Jill's cheeks flushed pink. Her eyes grew angry. “Wait a minute. You can't think that I had something to do with your dog's disappearance.”

“I don't know, did you?”

“That's crazy. Why would I want to do something like that?”

The answer to that was pretty obvious. I was interested to see that even Rich didn't look as though he entirely discounted the possibility.

“Supposing I did take your stupid dog,” Jill snapped. “Where would I have put him?”

“I don't know,” I said again. It was depressing the number of answers I didn't have. “Davey and I were gone for almost two hours. Maybe you watched us leave. That would have given you enough time to take Dox, stash him somewhere else, come back and pretend to rescue the Poodles.”

Even to me, the theory sounded like a stretch. Which was a shame, because right about then I was looking for someone convenient to blame for all the recent turmoil in my life, and Jill was awfully handy.

After a moment, I sighed and blew out a breath. “All right, scratch that. You got here between ten-thirty and eleven. Did you see anything unusual?”

“You mean aside from the fact that there were two big, black hairy Poodles running around outside your house?”

I supposed I deserved the snippy tone. “Yes. Aside from that.”

She shook her head. “ Whoever was in here must have been gone by the time I arrived. All I saw were your two dogs outside by themselves. That seemed pretty strange to me because I didn't think you'd be that careless. So right away I began to wonder if maybe something was wrong.”

She would, I thought. It was just the way her mind worked. And probably mine as well, I admitted grudgingly.

“What did you do then?”

“I got out of my car, walked up to your house, and rang the doorbell. When nobody answered, I looked in the window.”

There wasn't much I could say to that. I'd have done the same thing myself.

“Then I rounded up the dogs, which took a while. They're not very well trained, you know. A little basic obedience would work wonders for those two.”

Faith lifted her head. I think she knew she'd just been insulted. Actually my Poodles were quite well trained. They just didn't take commands from strangers.

“It turns out your puppy likes Egg McMuffins.” Jill looked quite pleased with her ingenuity. “I had one with me that was supposed to be my breakfast, but I ended up using it as a bribe. Once I got hold of the puppy, the other dog gave up and came along too. After I had both of them stashed in the car, I called Rich.”

“I grabbed my stuff and got over here as soon as I could.” He picked up the story. “We were both worried about you. I was thinking we might have to break into the house to make sure you were all right.”

Much as I could fault Jill for her macabre brand of enthusiasm, it sounded as though their intentions had been good. Not only that, but Jill had gone out of her way to catch my dogs and put them in a safe place, even donating her breakfast to the cause in the process. If nothing else, I had to be intensely grateful for that.

“Now it's my turn to ask questions,” she said eagerly. “Tell me about the missing puppy. Is he some kind of super show dog or something?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I replied. “But no. Dox might be a show dog someday, but right now he's only a baby. He won't even be eligible for the show ring for another several months.”

“Then why take that dog?” Rich asked. “Why not one of the others? Why not all three?”

The first answer that came to mind was that whoever had broken in had been specifically looking for Dox. If that was the case, I was placing my bet on the culprit being one or the other of the battling Firths. I had no intention, however, of telling their story to KZBN Cable News. So I offered a couple other possibilities.

“Maybe whoever was here couldn't catch the Poodles,” I said, thinking out loud. “Jill saw for herself that's not easy to do when I'm not around. Or maybe they were intimidated by the bigger dogs. Could be they simply thought the little Dachshund was cute. For Pete's sake, he was sitting right there in a crate, I might as well have packaged him to go.”

“Do you think they took anything else?” Jill asked.

“Not that I've noticed so far.” My gaze swept around the room. “There's not much in here to steal.”

“TV and VCR,” Rich pointed out. “Most burglars would rather have that than a puppy.”

All too true. But then, why should I expect to be robbed by normal burglars? Was there ever anything in my life that proceeded along even remotely normal lines?

Jill's pad was still open, though she hadn't written anything for a few minutes. “What will you do now?”

“Talk to the police, for one thing. Tell the people whom I was keeping the puppy for that he's gone.”

“What are their names?” she asked. “Maybe I should talk to them, too.”

“You shouldn't.”

“You don't know that. Maybe they want us to run a picture of the missing puppy on the news. Maybe they have videos—”

“Maybe you're dreaming,” said Rich, sounding ready to wrap things up.

My sentiments, exactly.

 

 

Aunt Peg arrived while I was next door talking to my neighbor, Edna Silano. The tall wooden security fence around my backyard blocked its view from almost every direction, a fact which I was sure had not been lost on my intruder. The gate to the fence, however, was beside my garage on a little grassy strip of land between my house and the one next to it.

Mrs. Silano was an older woman who'd been born in the mountains of Italy and now lived alone in the house she'd come to as a war bride just after World War II. In her years in the United States, she'd raised a family, buried a husband, forged a new life, and never traveled more than fifty miles from the little neighborhood where she'd originally settled with her G.I. sweetheart.

Mrs. Silano was addicted to soap operas, trashy talk shows, national public radio, and looking out her front windows. I was sure there were days when the goings-on at my house added gray strands to her suspiciously dark hair. Which seemed to make her the perfect person to ask if she'd seen anything odd that morning. Unfortunately, Mrs. Silano had nothing to add to the little I already knew.

“I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles,” she told me. Her voice was scratchy from years of smoking and still accented with the language of her youth. “But Sunday mornings I'm on my knees in church. I go over to St. Michael's in Greenwich.”

She leaned closer as if confiding a great secret. “They're a little more progressive over there than some of the local parishes. At my age, I want to get the best information available, you know? Any new tips they have on getting into heaven, I figure I should take note.”

Considering Mrs. Silano had been to confession more times in the previous month than I had in the last five years, I doubted she was going to have any trouble on that score. I thanked her for her time and walked back across the yard to my driveway, where Aunt Peg was just pulling in.

She stepped out of her van and let her gaze sweep up and down imperiously. “I'm glad to see the house isn't on fire.”

“Did you expect it to be?”

“Considering what little Davey told me, I thought I should be prepared for the worst.”

Aunt Peg had made good time on the trip from Greenwich. Having dropped whatever she was doing to rush to my aid, she'd obviously expected to be confronted by severed limbs, mass mayhem, or aliens on the front lawn. You know, the usual stuff I get involved in.

She was scowling by the time her eyes came to rest on me. “What on earth is so important that you needed to see me immediately, especially since you left my house no more than an hour ago?”

“Someone broke into my house while Davey and I were with you. Dox is missing.”

That got her attention. It probably made her feel better, too. “Faith and Eve?”

“They're both fine.” We headed inside. “Though they were left outside running loose in the neighborhood.”

Aunt Peg stopped abruptly. “You mean Dox is still out there somewhere, and you just haven't found him yet?”

“No, Dox was crated.” I kept walking. “He couldn't have gotten away. I'd left both Poodles loose in the house. I assume they slipped out the back door.”

Out of habit, we headed for the kitchen. I would have offered to fix us a couple of sandwiches except that the cold cuts I'd intended to buy were still at the supermarket. Which reminded me that I still hadn't called to cancel my credit cards.