Nothing to Fear But Ferrets (7 page)

Just like Chad would have said, had he been able.

“But, Kendra,” Tilla protested, “you’ve got to warn us. This is our neighborhood, too. If someone’s been attacked by a burglar or something, we all need to know so we can stay alert.”

“That’s right,” Phil Ashler seconded, his mouth full of sub sandwich.

I doubted they needed to fear ferrets sneaking in during the night to feast on them. But I still hesitated to cast verbal stones at the furry little creatures.

“I don’t know what happened,” I dissembled, though it was far from being a big, fat lie. “I’m sure the police will tell us what they can.” Now
that
was a large, obese prevarication.

“We need to call a Neighborhood Watch meeting,” Lyle suggested, still blotting his bleeding leg with a tissue.

“As soon as we know what to discuss,” Hal Thomason agreed.

They all stared at me once more.

This time, what saved me wasn’t an awkward bicyclist but an even more awkward situation, for a small sports car came up to the driveway and the gate began to slide open.

Charlotte and Yul were home.

Yul was driving, and I stood nearer the passenger side as the car started through. The window rolled down, and Charlotte shouted out, “What’s going on, Kendra?”

I wasn’t about to reply in front of this entire assemblage that someone she’d argued with had died in her den.

I didn’t need to, for even as I inched forward after the car, the front door opened and Detective Ned Noralles leached out. Even from this far away, I could make out the crocodile-snide smile on his face.

“Oh, Charlotte,” I whispered after them. “Yul, too. I don’t envy you your next few minutes.” Or days. Or even weeks.

Even though I’d not become best buddies with my huggy, gushy, rich reality show graduate tenant or her strong, silent, and possibly smarter-than-he-acted boy toy, my sympathy definitely swayed me, for now, into their corner.

But if it eventually turned out that either or both had actually conspired to kill someone in my beloved house, heaven help them!

 
NOT THAT I was surprised, but less than five minutes later the media descended. Actually, I wondered what had kept them.

The vans that appeared looked prepared to lift off and hover if their dish antennae on top started rotoring like helo blades. They jostled for the few remaining prime parking places on the constricted, twisting lane. Before they could negotiate the street or settle their pecking order, swarms of reporters leapt out and thrust microphones in front of whoever didn’t thrust them back. Camera jockeys followed, gesturing cues to their on-screen personalities.

My cue to leave.

“Let’s go, Lexie.” I gave my trained pup a small jerk on her leash to let her know to stand and heel.

That apparently was a cue for one of the untrained reporters to swoop and shove a mike at my mouth.

“You’re Kendra Ballantyne, aren’t you?” The short-skirted TV newsmonger flashed me a nasty grin of the Cheshire cat variety.

“Never heard of her.” I turned my back.

“What happened, Ms. Ballantyne?” came the shout from behind me. “Was someone killed in your home? Who was it?”

Too bad it wasn’t one of you,
I thought, immediately retracting the ungenerous thought. Dead was dead, and I’d seen enough death lately to last for several litigators’ lifetimes. I didn’t wish permanent termination on anyone, even my worst enemies—which included reporters.

A little well-directed damage, though, like someone else snatching up their news scoops . . . that was a taste of just deserts that I’d eat up, given the opportunity.

I hustled Lexie and me back inside through the gate, ignoring the hapless uniformed officer assigned there to hold back the hovering hordes.

“Hey,” he called, hurrying after me.

“Sorry,” I said to him softly. “I live right there.” I gave a fast gesture with my head toward my upstairs apartment. “Feel free to check with Detective Noralles.”

“I’ll do that.” Harried dismay turned the young man’s forehead into one big frown as the reporters took his momentary distraction for invitation and started spilling through the gate.

Ignoring me, he gestured for backup and began shooing them all back again, his hand hovering over another item on his belt—his holstered weapon—that attracted everyone’s attention a lot more pointedly than his radio. The group began to recede.

For that moment. But cops would be combing my property for clues for the rest of the night. And wherever law enforcement engaged in a homicide investigation, the media wasn’t about to slink away.

I had a phone call to make. Only, my wall phone rang even before I’d let Lexie off her leash.

Did I dare answer? My only caller ID was on my cell phone. One of the diehard reporters could have somehow latched on to my unlisted number, and simply saying hello could lead to beating off a whole new barrage of questions.

But I was once a litigator. Would be again, soon. My mouth was my most skilled instrument, and I readied it to spew curses and threats if the caller was someone I didn’t want to hear from. I snatched up the receiver and growled, “Yeah?”

“Kendra?”

My braced body nearly buckled. “Jeff, I’m so glad it’s you.”

“I’ll bet. What’s happened? The news is full of pictures of your house and speculations you’re involved in another murder.”

“Tell me about it. No, on second thought, don’t. I’ll tell
you.
At your house, in about half an hour. Do Odin and you feel like a couple of overnight guests tonight?”

I could hardly have felt more relieved when he assured me they did.

Chapter Eight

OTHER THAN WHEN Jeff had initially hired me to pet-sit for Odin—he’d been my first customer when I’d begun to wonder whether Lexie and I would wind up begging on street corners—I can’t recall a time I’d been so happy to slip my Beamer into the driveway at Jeff ’s home.

The pseudo Mexican ranch-style house was located in the flats north of Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. It had become my home-away-from-home, even when—especially when—Jeff was out of town, since I was Odin’s surrogate human and usually moved in to look after the Akita along with my Cavalier.

Of course there were many times since initiating our business relationship when I’d been more than a little happy to see Jeff himself. Even aside from the sex, he’d become pretty important to me.

And counting our definitely delightful sexual exercises, he was even
more
important to me. But who was keeping count?

Odin greeted Lexie at the door with a woof and a house-thorough romp. Jeff greeted me at the door with a glass of wine and a kiss that tossed into oblivion the day’s most terrible trials and tribulations. Temporarily.

“Do you want to talk first or eat first?” he asked. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up unevenly, exposing unmatched lengths of hair-sprinkled arm. Sexy.

Then there were his faded jeans, snug in all the sexiest places. Okay, so it wasn’t just refuge and a repast on my mind. Not after that kiss.

“Let’s talk while we eat,” I replied, tearing my stare from his big and beautiful bod.

For an instant, I thought of Chad and how good-looking he’d been. What a waste—even if he hadn’t been the great guy my initial impression suggested.

Jeff had brought in Peruvian takeout, some
lomo saltado
sautéed beef for him, and
pescado sudado,
steamed fillet of fish, for me. Good stuff, and filling, with aromas obviously enticing to our respective imploring canines.

But unlike Lexie and Odin—whom we made settle for simple dog food despite their exceptional begging efforts—I hadn’t a huge appetite as I told Jeff about Lexie’s earlier excited behavior, leading to the discovery of Chad’s unenviable end.

“Ferrets?” he said after swallowing a chunk of bread. “Chewed on a corpse?”

“Or converted a living person into a dead one,” I replied.

“Is that in their nature?”

“Doubtful, but . . . have you ever read ‘Sredni Vashtar’?”

Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t, so I described the century-old story that had been circulating through my synapses since I’d discovered Chad Chatsworth with the ferrets in my den.

“And the ferrets killed the kid’s guardian?” Jeff said as I finished, his dusty blond brows dipped dubiously.

“That’s the implication.”

“We’ll see.”

I wondered for a minute if he intended to find a few ferrets and test their fondness for human flesh—not an easy task in a state that turned ferrets into fugitives.

Instead, he headed for the Internet, used some of the most-sought-after search engines, and spent an hour checking out ferrets on some websites I’d visited before and many I hadn’t.

We learned that ferrets are in a classification of mammals known as mustelids, along with weasels, wolverines, badgers, polecats, and similar sorts.

Like their cousin skunks, they have simply awful smells unless their scent glands are removed, which is often done when they are pets.

Fortunately, the ferrets Charlotte and Yul had brought into my house had apparently been deskunked, since I hadn’t smelled anything putrid the first times I’d seen them. And the last time, what I’d smelled had most likely been human corpse.

Speaking of which, we found nothing at all that suggested that ferrets are lethal to anything but small animals such as rabbits and birds, including some endangered species of the latter—which I’d already learned was what rendered ferrets unwelcome in California. But the long, furry, mostly masked-looking little buggers are definitely adorable.

And are not reputed to be homicidal.

Eventually, we got our fill of finding out about ferrets. Especially when, sitting beside him, I rested my chin on Jeff ’s shoulder. He turned, I turned, our lips locked and . . .

Well, you can guess what we did for the remainder of the evening.

 
THE NEXT DAY, Tuesday, I got up later than I should have—I was distracted from getting dressed upon awakening in Jeff ’s bed—and kissed him goodbye. Lexie and I practically flew out the door toward my pet-sitting rounds.

I’d be more prompt next week, I promised myself, when I’d wake up only with Odin and Lexie around. Jeff would be gone on business.

The early routine went well, despite a couple of disgruntled housebroken hounds all but attacking to get outside to do what they’d been waiting for.

Late morning snuck up on me all too soon. I’d picked up a new client a couple of weeks before—a cute terrier mix named Widget. Widget’s temperament was of the manic kind, which was why I’d been hired to step in a few afternoons a week to give him a midday walk. Better yet, a run, to burn off his excess energy. Heck, the ten-month-old pup was
all
excess energy. And unfortunately, the word
training
had eluded his owner’s vocabulary, so Widget bounced all over the place even on a leash.

That meant leaving Lexie at home or dropping her at Darryl’s while I dug in for a little Widget discipline. That day, she was already along for the ride. Since I didn’t want to take more time fending off any dawdling reporters with manners worse than Widget’s, I eschewed my apartment and left Lexie at Darryl’s doggy resort. He was out when we got there, probably a good thing since I still needed to hurry.

I’d cry on his shoulder later about finding Chad Chatsworth among the unwelcome ferrets.

Widget’s owner lived in a small stucco home in the northern Valley. That house, and all its identical neighbors, abutted a flat, broad boulevard with a nice-sized sidewalk. That day, I felt especially energized when the whiskered black fireball that was Widget finally sat, for the first time, on my command. Not that he stayed more than a millimoment. But Widget’s temporary obedience hyped my pet-minder’s self-confidence nonetheless.

Too bad it didn’t carry over to my lack of confidence about the pending ethics exam. I’d passed it before, years ago, as part of the California Bar Exam. That was right after I’d graduated from law school and was still used to studying—and nothing in my life interfered with my immersing myself in the study guides.

Certainly nothing like a murder in my own off-limits house.

“Okay, Widget,” I finally said to the terrier, who was tugging so hard on his taut nylon lead that he was choking himself on the training collar.

I scooped the wriggling thirty-pound pup into my arms. My annoyance with his wayward disregard for my training evanesced when he looked at me with his huge brown eyes and licked my chin.

“You’re welcome,” I said with a laugh, settling him back in the small storage room that was also his dogdom when his owner wasn’t home.

Then it was time to retrieve Lexie from Darryl’s.

I delayed leaving there when he pulled me into his office to ask questions about the latest newsworthy incident to impose itself into my life.

“Yes, another murder,” I told him, rolling my eyes and spilling my guts once again. I explained who Chad Chatsworth was and how I’d found him.

“You’re not a suspect this time, are you, Kendra?” Darryl demanded, holding the edges of his desk with bony fingers as if to brace himself.

“Only if Detective Noralles gets stumped and needs a scapegoat,” I said with a sigh. “But before me, he’s got some ferret suspects. And their owners, since they’re the ones with easier access to the house where Chad was found, plus a grudge against him. Or at least that’s what I gathered at Charlotte’s party.”

“So Charlotte LaVerne might have offed the guy she’d once chosen as her perfect lover? You really believe that?” Darryl’s thin brows rose skeptically over his wire eyeglass frames.

“To keep a million dollars and the possibility of a lot more? I’d hate to think so,” I said with a sad shake of my head, “but that’s easier to believe than the ferrets decking Chad and chewing him to death on their own.”