Laying Down the Paw (24 page)

“Please,” Tessa said, holding out a hand in invitation. “Sit wherever you like.”

I took a seat on a boxy gray chair and pulled out my notepad. Tessa sat on the couch, positioning Oscar on her lap now.

I twirled my pen in my fingers. “I realize you were questioned already,” I told her, “but I'm hoping this follow-up will provide some new leads.”

“Me, too,” she said. “I haven't felt safe here since. I had a security system installed as you can see.” She gestured to motion sensors mounted on the ceiling in each corner of the room. “It cost a small fortune.”

“Smart decision,” I told her. “Security systems can be a good deterrent.” They could also be a pain in the ass. Fort Worth PD received dozens of false alarm calls each day, mostly people who'd accidentally set off their own alarms or whose motion sensor systems had been triggered by a pet or a floating helium balloon left over from a birthday party.

I launched into my questions and listened carefully to her responses. As Tessa had stated previously and repeated now, her house had been robbed when she'd flown to California to attend her cousin's wedding in the wine country. A meter reader had come into her yard the afternoon she left, noticed the broken window, and phoned police when his knocks on the front door went unanswered. Tessa had left her house around one thirty and the meter reader had found the broken window approximately three hours later. The burglary had obviously taken place in the interim.

“Who arranged your travel?” I asked.

“I did it myself,” she said, ruffling Oscar's ears. “The bride and groom had reserved a room block for guests at a specific hotel. I made my reservation online. Same with my plane ticket and rental car. I did everything on the Internet.”

“What airline did you take?”

“American,” she said. “I flew into San Francisco and drove to Sonoma from there.”

Though they'd made their reservations via different means, both the Bayers and Tessa had taken the same airline. Did that mean anything? Maybe. Maybe not.

“Was someone watching your house for you? Maybe babysitting Oscar?”

“No,” Tessa said. “I was only going to be gone for the weekend. I didn't think it was necessary to have someone watch the house.” She lifted her dog up an inch or two. “This little boy went to stay at the kennel.”

“Which kennel?”

“Paw Dee Da Pet Resort.”

I jotted down the name of the kennel.

“What about your mail?” I asked. “Did you have the post office hold it?”

“No,” she said. “It was only going to be two or three days' worth. Most of my mail is junk anyway. Sale ads and coupons, that kind of thing. I do all my bill paying online so I wasn't worried about anyone stealing my mail and getting a credit card number off a statement or anything like that.”

When she'd answered all my questions, she walked me and Brigit to the door. I told her the same thing I'd told the Bayers. “We'll let you know if we find anything out.”

“Thanks.” She looked down at her dog. “Wave good-bye, Oscar.” She grasped her dog's paw between her fingers like a puppy puppeteer and made him wave good-bye.

Poor dog. The sweater had been goofy enough, but he looked humiliated by this little command performance. Maybe it was time for him to put his itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny foot down.

My mind whirled in thought as I walked to the car. I pondered where to go from here as I opened the back door for Brigit.

Should I go speak to someone at the airline? No, that would be taking things too far. The airport and the airline headquarters sat miles away, outside my jurisdiction. I couldn't justify leaving W1 during a scheduled workday, especially for such a weak tip. However, I could call the airline from my phone without having to leave my district.

I slid into my seat and retrieved my cell phone. I placed a call to the airline's legal department and explained the situation, hoping my inquiry didn't sound accusatory. “The only commonality between the cases is that both of the victims had taken flights on American.”

The attorney was polite, but it was clear he not only thought I was barking up the wrong tree, but that, even if an employee of the airline had accessed the bookings, it would be impossible to identify who that person had been. “We have approximately 60,000 employees,” he said, “thousands of those here in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Around eight hundred flights a day take off from DFW.”

In other words,
needle/haystack/can we end this call now so I get back to more important things?

“Well … thanks for your t-time.”

I ended the call and decided, what the heck. Why not stop at the post office? Maybe the carrier who handled Tessa's route had noticed her mail stacking up in her box and realized she was gone. Maybe that same carrier delivered to the Bayers' house and knew they'd put a hold on their mail while they'd gone on vacation. Of course this could be another dead end, but the radio was relatively quiet this morning. It wasn't like I'd be neglecting my duties by making a quick stop at the post office.

I drove to the post office on 8th Avenue, parked at the end of the lot, and went to let Brigit out of the back. When I opened the mesh door to her enclosure, I found her mouthing the stuffed raccoon that belonged to Oscar.

“Brigit!” I wagged a finger in her face. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

First Tessa had been robbed, and now her dog had, too. Brigit had committed this misdemeanor act of thievery right under my nose. Some detective I was. I couldn't see clues when they were right in front of my face. Then again, Brigit was more at knee level.

Despite my admonishment, Brigit continued to mouth the raccoon, which she held between her paws. She looked up at me, not with shame, but with a look of indignation, as if she had every right to be chewing on the stolen toy. She even gave me her signature up-down
screw-you
tail wag.

I clipped her leash onto her collar and led her into the post office. She proudly carried the raccoon with her. I cut her a disapproving look. “I hope you know we are taking that back to Oscar when we're done here.”

We went inside, where a line of people a dozen deep waited for service.
Yeah, I'm not waiting in that line.
Pulling rank, I lifted a palm to the next available clerk and stepped forward to speak with her. “I need to talk with the manager of this branch, please.”

The woman looked down at Brigit, her eyes narrowed, her lips set in a firm line. Not a dog person, apparently. I supposed few postal employees were. Too many nips in the ass. “Let me get him for you.”

She left her spot at the counter and disappeared through an open doorway that led to the back rooms. A minute later, she returned, a man in a navy blue sweater-vest tagging along with her. He had salt-and-pepper hair, as well as a thick mustache that curved down on either side of his mouth. If he were a dog, he'd be a schnauzer.

He, too, sent Brigit a death glare. I'd heard of racism and sexism, but what was it called when people were prejudiced toward dogs? Dogism? Caninism?

Having sent his hate beams at Brigit, the man turned his attention to me. “Is this a private police matter?”

“Yes, it is.”

He gestured to his right. “Meet me at the door.”

I stepped out of the customer service area and back into the main lobby. The man's face appeared in a small glass panel in a metal door on the wall. There was a
clunk
as he released the bolt. “Come on back.”

He led me to his office, which was a small, windowless space. A dreary place to work, but the perfect place to hunker down in a tornado. Maybe I should reconsider my public service, resign from the police force, and take a job with the post office. It would probably be much safer than being out on the streets. And I could always buy a pair of chaps to protect myself from the ass nips.

The office was stuffy, with poor air circulation. The décor consisted of framed pictures of stamps issued through the ages and a metal desk with so many scrapes and scratches it looked like it had been in place since the branch opened decades ago.

I took a seat on a hard plastic chair. Brigit flopped down at my feet, perfectly content to chew on her contraband while I took care of business.

I pulled my notepad from my pocket and flipped through it until I found what I was looking for. “Can you tell me the names of the carriers who deliver mail to these addresses?” I held out my pad so the manager could see the streets and house numbers written there.

He logged onto his computer, and input the Bayers' address. “Their carrier is Stefan Nicolescu.” He input Tessa Gilpin's address next, hit enter, and consulted the screen for the results. “Same carrier. Stefan Nicolescu.”

Coincidence? Or not?
I turned my notepad back my way and jotted down his name, asking the man to spell it for me to make sure I got it right. “Any chance he's here now?”

“Depends on whether he's finished loading his truck. I can check.” The manager picked up his phone, punched a series of three numbers, and put the receiver to his ear. “Has Stefan headed out yet?” He paused a moment. “All right. Thanks.” He returned the receiver to the cradle and addressed me again. “He's already out on his route. I can give you his cell number if you want to try to catch him out on the road.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

The manager grabbed a green certified mail card off a stack on his desk and jotted the number down on it. He held the card out to me. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

Brigit and I returned to the cruiser, where I promptly dialed Stefan's number. The man who answered sounded like the count from Sesame Street. A Romanian, I surmised, given the name and accent. Maybe I could put clues together, after all. When I told the man who I was and that I had some questions for him, he agreed to meet me.

“Ten minutes,” he said. “At the corner of Edwin and Jerome Streets in Mistletoe Heights.”

Ten minutes later, I pulled my cruiser to a stop behind the postal delivery truck. I left Brigit in the car and walked up the left side of the truck. When I reached the window, I realized my blunder. Postal trucks were equipped with the driver's seat on the right side of the vehicle rather than the left, allowing carriers to stick mail into boxes without having to exit the truck. I wondered if it was difficult to get used to sitting on the other side to drive.

I circled around the front of the vehicle to the other side.

An odd-looking man looked down at me. He had a Jay Leno chin and the large, bulbous eyes of an iguana. His hair was thick and coarse and wavy and in need of a trim. His skin was the rich tone common to Eastern Europeans.

I gave him a friendly nod. “I appreciate your meeting me here.”

“You are a police officer,” he said. “Did I have a choice?”

Hmm. Why the defensive tone?

Assuming his question was rhetorical, I didn't bother to answer. Instead, I showed him the two addresses. “These homes belong to John and Elena Bayer and Tessa Gilpin.”

“I know,” he said.

“You do?”

His iguana eyes circled in their sockets. “I have had this route for seven years. I can tell you the names of everyone who has lived here for any length of time.” He pointed down the street in front of him. “Starting on the left are the Roberts, the Jeffers, and Justine Blevins. She is recently divorced.”

“How do you know that?”

“Her husband's mail is being forwarded to an apartment and she has received correspondence from attorneys. Also she joined a wine-of-the week club.”

Heck. This guy was better at putting clues together than I was.

He resumed his virtual trip down the street. “Then we have the Yousefs, Terrence—”

“Okay. You have a good memory. I get it. That's a great skill to have.” I cocked my head, eyeing him closely. “The Bayers and Miss Gilpin were both robbed recently. Do you know anything about that? Did you maybe see anything odd in their neighborhoods?”

“I knew someone broke into Tessa Gilpin's house,” he said. “Her street is one of the last on my route. The policemen were there when I drove up. Their car was blocking the mailbox. I had to get out of my truck to place her mail in her box.”

He seemed none too happy about the inconvenience, either.

“Were you aware that the Bayers and Miss Gilpin were on vacation?” I asked.

“I seem to recall that the Bayers asked for their mail to be held.” He narrowed his bulging eyes. “Why are you asking me such questions?”

“Because you're familiar with the neighborhoods and might have noticed something that looked out of place.”
And because you could be the burglar.

He stared at me for several seconds. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Are we done here? I have mail to deliver.”

I took a step back and swung my arm to indicate he could proceed. “Enjoy the rest of your day, Mr. Nicolescu.”

 

THIRTY-FIVE

WHAT A WEENIE

Brigit

Brigit had watched as the woman forced the dachshund to wave his paw.

Ridiculous.

She thanked her lucky stars she hadn't been born a wiener dog. They were the laughingstocks of the canine world, what with their disproportionately long ears and stretched-out bodies and too-short legs. They looked as if they'd been assembled with spare parts.

Yes, shepherds were a far superior breed. Stealthier, too. That's how Brigit had gotten away with that poor little schmuck's raccoon toy.

It was the law of the canine world.

Alphas rule.

Megan didn't seem to understand that rule, however. After taking Brigit to the place where everyone hated dogs and meeting with the mailman at the truck, she drove back to the house where Brigit had snatched the raccoon toy, forcefully taken the toy from Brigit, and left it on the porch.