The Big Chihuahua (16 page)

Back to the Fern Lake police station we went.

“It is beginning to feel like home,” said Pepe.

My dog was obviously unhappy about being dragged in for questioning once again. I’m sure the same held true for all the Dogawandans.

“Why does everybody have to give a statement?” asked Pepe. “We all saw the same thing.”

“The sheriff is just being thorough,” I told him. “Even when it’s the same thing, everyone sees it differently.”

“I suppose that is true,” said Pepe. “If you and I see a pig, you see a pig, but I see bacon. And if you and I see a cow, you see a cow but I see a cheeseburger.”

“Enough already. I get your point.”

“I was only agreeing with you,” he said. “Don’t be so touchy.”

“Sorry.” I gave him a pat on the head, realizing I was being a bit touchy. And it wasn’t just that I sometimes had problems understanding a dog’s logic. No—it was the whole situation.

The Dogawandans had their philosophy about living in the Now in which case Tammy and Mark were both fine. But in my world, this was a tragedy. And what would Jimmy G say? Probably something like, “Hell’s bells! There goes our meal ticket. We’ll never get paid now!”

There were not enough rooms at the station for the sheriff to put us all into other rooms, so all the Dogawandans were lined up on the benches in the waiting room. Alice was directed to keep us all quiet, and she enforced this rule by glaring at us over the top of her cat-eye glasses. Even my talking to Pepe triggered a reproving look.

The sheriff, probably out of deference, had questioned Crystal first, and she swept out after only a few minutes. Artichoke and Terry were also in the first batch and dismissed rather quickly. Terry gave me a quick look of sympathy as she passed. Artichoke frowned when she saw me but did not stop to chastise me. Whatever punishment I was going to suffer for being “off leash” was being postponed.

I was the last person to be called into the sheriff’s private office, and he seemed exhausted. He motioned me to a chair and sighed.

“So what do you know about this tragic incident?” he asked.

“I know quite a lot!” I said, eager to spill what I knew. I told him about finding the money orders and my visit to Broadbent and how I had last seen Mark storming into the city hall.

“And you think that had something to do with his suicide?” the sheriff asked.

“Not suicide,” I said. “Obviously the man was murdered.”

“What makes you think he was murdered?”

“Motive, means, and opportunity,” said Pepe.

“Broadbent had a motive,” I said. Though come to think of it, I couldn’t think what it was. “Something to do with the money.”

“Why would Tammy Darling be giving Barry Broadbent such a large sum of money?” asked the sheriff.

“Exactly!” I said. “And he had the means. All those guns in his office. I think you’ll find the gun that killed Mark Darling was one of Broadbent’s guns. Plus he had the opportunity. He was the last person to see Mark Darling.”

“Except for our boss,” said Pepe.

“Oh yes, except for our boss, Jimmy G. He was heading over there the last time we saw him.”

“Which was?”

“I don’t know exactly. Maybe about two p.m.,” I said.

“So about an hour before Mark killed himself,” the sheriff said.

“He didn’t kill himself,” I said. “Why would he?”

“I think it’s obvious. After finding out about his wife and the councilman, he went up to the spot where she died and shot himself. Trying to join her in death, or something romantic like that.”

“Mark was not the romantic type,” I said.

“You seem to know him pretty well,” the sheriff observed. He looked tired.

“It’s just that he was always more concerned about money than his wife’s happiness,” I said.

“Or Fuzzy’s,” said Pepe.

“Oh my God, poor Fuzzy!”

“What?”

“Mark’s dog! Or rather, Tammy’s dog. She’s in the impound.”

“How did she get there?”

“I don’t know. We noticed her when we went to get the wolves.”

“Can we get her out, Geri?” Pepe asked.

“Can you get her out?” I asked the sheriff. “Write a note or something and say we’re empowered to take care of her?”

“We?” The sheriff looked all around.

“Me and my dog,” I said.

Pepe nodded.

The sheriff chuckled. “Sure!” He scribbled something on a piece of letterhead. I clutched it in my hand.

“So are you going to question Broadbent?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said the sheriff. “Perhaps he will have some insight into the guy’s frame of mind. He might be able to tell us why the guy would go shoot himself. Got to talk to Frogeyes as well.”

“Frogeyes?”

“Oh, that’s what we all called James Gerrard at Fire Base.”

“Ha!” said Pepe. “Now we know Jimmy G’s Dogawandan name.”

Pepe and I went by the vet’s office to see if we could get Fuzzy out of impound, but the front door was locked and a sign read CLOSED. We circled around back, through an alley. We could peer over a wooden fence and see into the kennel area. Fuzzy had been moved into one of the big cages where the wolf had been the day before. When she saw us, she began barking, rapid, high-pitched barks, while leaping into the air.

“Can you pick locks, Geri?” Pepe asked.

“No,” I said.

“It is a skill you need to learn,” said Pepe.

“It’s not covered in
The Private Detective’s Bible
,” I explained.

“I will tell her we are coming back for her,” said Pepe, edging closer to the fence. I couldn’t tell how he communicated with the frantic dog, but she eventually stopped barking and settled down, her head between her paws.

“Did you tell her?” I asked. “About Mark?”

“She already knew,” said Pepe.

“How?” I asked.

“We
perros
know these things,” he said.

“Is she sad?”

“She is more upset about losing Tammy than Mark, but she is also very scared about what will become of her.”

“I hope you told her—”

“That we will take care of her,” said Pepe. “Of course. We cannot leave a good dog in prison.”

“I thought you didn’t like her,” I said as we headed over to the Wagon Wheel to see if we could find Jimmy G.

“Her courage has most impressed me,” said Pepe.

“Courage?”

“Searching for her mistress. She would have done anything to protect Tammy. That is how she got lost and ended up in the dog prison.”

Unfortunately, we had missed Jimmy G. No answer when we knocked on the door of his room at the motel. I guess he was probably at the police station talking to the sheriff. So we headed over to the resort to find Felix. It was quite a contrast to the town and to the Dogawanda compound: an ultramodern version of an old-fashioned lodge, five stories tall and sprawling, on the banks of the Cle Elum River. I parked my old Toyota at the far end of the vast parking lot, and Pepe and I trudged across to the entrance. The lobby was enormous, with huge windows that looked out over a stunning view of forest and mountains.

We took the elevator to the sixth floor and located room 602. I knocked. There was no answer. Felix could be out eating dinner. There was a restaurant off the lobby. What now? Felix had given me a room key. Should I just use it to let myself in? I had a momentary fantasy of slipping into his bed and surprising him when he returned.

Pepe seemed to be reading my mind. “Bad idea!” he said. “You should call him on your cell phone.”

That was a good idea. Unfortunately, that wasn’t any more effective. The call went straight to voice mail.

“Well, he gave me the key for a reason,” I said to Pepe, “so I’m going to use it.”

Pepe just shook his head.

It took me a few minutes to get the door open. I had to experiment to get the card facing the right way so it lit up the green lights and I could turn the knob. As soon as I got into the room, I could tell why Felix had not answered the knock or the cell phone. He was in the shower. I could hear the water running.

The room was beautiful. It occupied a corner of the hotel and had windows looking out over the forest on one side and the river on the other. The bed was rumpled—it looked like it had been slept in—and a white terrycloth bathrobe was lying across it.

Once again, my imagination leaped into action. I contemplated shedding my clothes and sliding behind the shower curtain with a soapy Felix. Hmmmmm! Of course, we hadn’t quite gotten to that stage in our relationship. But maybe it was time to start.

“No, Geri!” said Pepe, jumping up on me with his sharp little claws.

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” I asked.

“It is not thinking that you are doing,” said Pepe. “You must know that we dogs are experts at reading body language. You are like a moth circling around a white flower at night.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“The Nature Channel,” said Pepe. “But there is an important distinction here. My keen sense of smell tells me that this is not the flower you want to fly into.”

And at that moment, the door to the bathroom opened and Chloe walked out in a cloud of steam, a white towel wrapped around her body. She screamed and the towel fell off. Now she was naked, and shivering again.

“What are you doing here?” she screamed.

“Where’s Felix?” I asked, looking behind her and thinking maybe they had been taking a shower together.

“What are
you
doing here?” she asked again. There was a pounding at the door.

“Are you OK in there?” It sounded like Felix.

“It is Felix,” said Pepe.

I pulled open the door. There was a moment of confusion as Felix took in the sight of the naked Chloe and then me, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of us.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“That’s what I want to know!” I said.

“She busted into the room while I was taking a shower!” Chloe complained. She didn’t seem uncomfortable being naked, just cold. She strolled over to the bed and pulled on the white terrycloth bathrobe that was lying on the rumpled coverlet.

“What is she doing in your room?” I asked Felix.

“This isn’t my room,” he said.

“Well, then, why did you give me the key to this room?” I asked. I showed him the key, which was still in my hand.

Felix looked horrified. “I guess I gave you the wrong one,” he said.

“So you have a key to her room?” I asked.

“It’s not like what you think,” said Felix.

“Ah, that is a great line,” observed Pepe. “And it is always like what you think. At least in the telenovellas. Not so in a sitcom, however.”

“Is this a sitcom? Or a telenovella?” I asked.

“What do you think, Geri?” asked Pepe. He seemed especially wise at that moment.

“Chloe thought there was bad energy in her room, so we switched rooms. We must have mixed up the keys,” Felix said.

“Sounds more like a sitcom,” I said, answering my own question.

“Or
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
,” said Pepe. I’m always a little bit surprised by his love for Shakespeare. You can’t say that about too many dogs.

I looked at Chloe. Her eyes narrowed. “Something awful happened in that room! I just know it!” So it seemed to be true.

“Come on! I’ll show you my room,” Felix said. “You can tell me what you think. I have to admit I don’t think it’s any different than this room.”

Felix’s room was right next door, which didn’t actually allay my concerns. In fact, I noted that there was a communicating door between the two rooms, so presumably any bad energy could leak through to the other room, and presumably the two of them could visit each other late at night.

“Ah! Miss Chloe is right,” said Pepe, trotting into Felix’s room and beginning to sniff around the edges. “A big dog was here recently and left many evidences of his occupation.” He began to lift his leg.

“Don’t do that!” I said sharply.

“Very well,” said Pepe, putting his leg back down. He continued sniffing, but this time the air. “Bad cologne. Old pizza. Cheap beer. I believe Chloe is correct. There is definitely an aura of unhappy male energy in this room. And it was not just the Rottweiler.”

“How do you know it was a Rottweiler?” I asked. Pepe shook his head. “How do you know a rose from a lilac?” he asked. “All flowers smell different. So do all dogs.”

“What’s going on?” asked Felix, who had been watching us.

“Pepe is telling me what he can smell in the room,” I said.

Felix looked at me sideways.

“You mean, you’re guessing by looking at his body language?” asked Felix cautiously.

I guess it was time for me to come clean with Felix. I had been trying to tell him the truth about Pepe for months. “No,” I said. “I can actually hear what he’s saying.”

“But he’s not saying anything,” said Felix. He looked worried.

I sighed. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I can hear him as clearly as I can hear you.”

“More clearly,” said Pepe to Felix, “since you are often concealing your true feelings behind your words.”

“What true feelings?” I asked.

“I really care about you, Geri,” said Felix, taking me into his arms. “And so if you tell me your dog speaks to you, I will have to believe you.”

“You will? You do?” I asked. It seemed too easy. But looking into Felix’s dark eyes, which were full of love, and feeling his arms around me, well, it made everything OK.

Felix drew me down to sit beside him on the wide double bed.

“Watch it!” said Pepe. “He is like the white flower and you are the moth.”

“I have something I have to tell you,” Felix said. He looked down at the ground as if searching for words on the carpet.

“It can’t possibly be as weird as having a talking dog,” I said with a nervous laugh. I still could hardly believe that I had finally told Felix my secret and that he seemed OK with it.

“I wish it was,” said Felix. “It’s really bad.” He winced. “It has to do with why I left
L.A.
and stopped working in the film business.”

I was quiet. There was really nothing I could say.

Not so my dog. He said, “I am not weird.”

“You see,” said Felix, “the last time I worked with wolves, it didn’t go so well.” He sighed. “I was working with real wolves, not hybrids, on an adventure movie that was supposedly set in Alaska. But we were filming it on a sound stage in Burbank. Anyway, the female lead was Rita Knight—”

“Really?” She was one of my favorite actresses. But then she had a terrible accident and hadn’t appeared in public since. A wild animal had mauled her during a film.

“You?” I turned to Felix, horror in my eyes. He misinterpreted my response and got up and walked away.

“Yes,” he said, standing at the window and looking out at the dark woods. The sun glinted off the water of the river. “I was the trainer on that film. She was feeling so confident about the animals that she went to kiss one of the wolves on the snout and it bit her. Almost ripped off her chin.” He shook his head. “She had to have reconstructive surgery, but she will never look the same.”

“But that wasn’t your fault!” I said, going up to stand beside him. I put my arms around him. He let me but did not respond.

“It was my fault!” he said. “I’m responsible for setting the standards so people on the set know what is safe and what is not. That’s why it freaked me out so much when you did what you did today.”

“So that’s how you became an expert witness,” I said.

“Well, yes,” said Felix. “Rita sued the film company, and I had to explain that what the wolf did was instinctive. It didn’t save the animal, though. He was killed. And the movie was never completed. The company went bankrupt trying to pay the legal fees.”

“So that’s why you left Los Angeles,” I said.

“I wanted a new start,” he said. “So I was really reluctant when Tavo tried to get me involved in this film. He thinks I should get back into the film industry. He thinks I need a challenge. I tried to tell him that you and your dog are enough of a challenge for me.” He hugged me close. “I have enough on my mind, worrying about you being a private detective and getting mixed up in all these murders.”

“It is good he does not know of the most recent one,” said Pepe.

“I’m just not feeling comfortable about these hybrids,” Felix went on. “I wish we could call off the shoot. But with everyone counting on me . . .”

“You’ve been doing great with them,” I said. “You saved their lives. You would think they would know that.”

“With a wild animal, you never know what it’s thinking,” said Felix.

“I can tell you what they are thinking,” Pepe offered.

“Perhaps my dog can help,” I suggested.

“Geri!” Felix tipped up my chin with his fingers. His eyes were shining. “You don’t know what it means to me that you are always on my side.”

“But you are always on my side—” I started to say, but he cut me off with a long, lingering kiss. Felix is a good kisser. No, rather, Felix is a great kisser. I get lost in his kisses. And that first kiss was followed by another, while we entangled our arms and legs around each other, and pretty soon, we were staggering toward the bed and then landing on it, all the while kissing and unbuttoning and moving against each other in ways that were breathtaking.

I worried for a moment about Pepe and what he might see as Felix helped me out of my Dogawandan shirt and then pulled off his own T-shirt, but I noticed he had disappeared from sight. Perhaps hiding under the bed? Or holed up in the bathroom?

I trusted he could take care of himself. It seemed like the moment I had been waiting for was finally arriving and Felix and I would be able to satisfy our desire for each other as we sprawled across the luxurious bed.

I sank back against the covers, shivering as I felt Felix’s bare flesh against mine and then his lips on my breasts, licking and then blowing gently, a sensation that was driving me wild.

Then there was suddenly a cold breeze in the room and another shriek. It was Chloe, standing in the doorway between the rooms, still wearing only the bathrobe. To my surprise, Pepe was right by her side, and not growling.

“What is she doing here?” Chloe said to Felix, who sat up abruptly. I grabbed my shirt and clutched it to my bare chest.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I thought you were going to give me some lessons,” she said.

“Yes, why don’t you give her some lessons!” I said, pushing Felix aside.

“Wait, Geri! You don’t understand,” Felix said.

“How often can you use that line?” I asked, pulling on my shirt and grabbing my purse. “Come on, Pepe, let’s get out of here.”

I was furious and blinded by tears as I headed out of the room, with Pepe at my side. All the time I could hear Felix and Chloe arguing in the room.

A ping announced the arrival of the elevator, and as the doors swooshed closed, their voices were cut off. I was left alone with my own pain.

“Why did I trust him?” I said to Pepe.

“He made himself vulnerable to you,” Pepe said. “Like falling on the ground and baring your throat.”