Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf (5 page)

Marissa and I spent the next hour locked in her room, trying to decide how to get me out of the mess I was in. But since I didn’t really want to skip town or murder anybody, I finally decided to start digging for answers at the Pup Parlor.

Vera was in the middle of hosing down a schnauzer when I came clanking through the Pup Parlor door. She took one look at me, turned off the spray, and said, “Did you find her?”

I shook my head and said, “No.”

“I should never have asked you to show her, Sammy, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Vera, I—”

“But I know what a pain in the neck that woman is! Every time she brings Marique here, she’s got to boss me around. The water’s too cold, I’ve got the blower on too fast, I’m brushing her precious baby too hard. She makes me a nervous wreck.”

“Holly told me about the business license. Can she do that?”

Vera wagged the nozzle in my direction. “Lilia Landvogt seems to be able to do whatever she wants.”

“But you didn’t even touch her dog!”

The schnauzer shook out all over her, but she didn’t seem to care. She turned the water back on and started spraying him down some more. “That’s the whole point. She says if I had been in charge, Marique wouldn’t have run away. She’s gotta blame someone, so she’s blaming me.”

Very quietly, I said, “She’s also blaming me.”

Vera looked over her shoulder at me. “But there’s not much she can do to you.”

I looked down.

She turned off the water and watched me toe some dog hair around the floor. “No …!” Finally she shakes her head and blasts the schnauzer with water again, muttering, “How does that woman find these things out?”

“Hudson says that money can start a pretty good fire, for paper that’s green.”

Vera snaps the water off again. “She’s not bribing people, I can tell you that. Lilia Landvogt is as tight as a tailor. She’s come back after four days and said, ‘You didn’t get the smell out,’ and made me wash that prissy dog all over again.”

“Did she pay you for it?”

“Are you kidding? She’s always to the penny. I think I’d have heart failure if she ever tipped me.”

I thought about this a minute. “So you don’t think she’d pay fifty thousand dollars to get her dog back?”

“Fifty thousand … what?” The schnauzer drenched her again. She grabbed a towel. “What are you saying?”

“Marique’s been dognapped. They want fifty thousand dollars for her.”

A canary could’ve flown in Vera’s mouth. “Fifty thousand
dollars!” She dried off an arm. “That’s unbelievable!”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

She got the schnauzer out of the tub and said, “So why doesn’t she call the police instead of threatening you?”

I helped towel the dog down and put him in a drying cage while I told her about the ransom note and how I had to find Marique.

She got the blower going and said, “This is ridiculous. She’s ridiculous. How can she expect you to find her stupid dog? I have a good mind to call the police myself.”

“You can’t, Vera!”

She looked at me and sighed. “No, of course I won’t.”

“I was hoping that maybe you had some ideas.”

“About who stole the dog?”

I nodded.

She shook her head. “Anyone that knows Lilia knows how nuts she is about Marique. And that she’s got money.”

“So you do think she’d pay it?”

“She’s not real stable when it comes to that dog.” Vera swatted some fur off her pants with the dog towel and laughed. “Maybe she just needs some grandchildren.”

I tried to picture the Crocodile as a grandmother, but I couldn’t see her shaking any kind of rattle that wasn’t on the end of a snake. I sighed. “Vera, I have to find that dog. Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

Vera scowled. “Half this town could’ve. Who
wasn’t
at the parade?”

I shook my head. “How am I ever going to find her? I’ve got nothing to go on!”

Vera started sweeping up. “Maybe Lilia’s bluffing. Or maybe she’ll cool off.”

I watched her flick hair across the floor. “What about people who hate her?”

Vera threw back her head and laughed. “Land sakes! That’s got to be a long list. And you can add me to it. After that noise about revoking my license …!”

I could feel a little tingle dancing around my brain. “It must’ve been real important for her to have Marique in the parade.… I mean, it doesn’t sound to me like she lets that dog out of her sight much.”

“True …”

“And having Marique jump off the float right in front of the judges would’ve been really embarrassing if the cats hadn’t kind of covered that up for her.”

She studied me and said, “What are you getting at, Sammy?”

“I’m not sure.…” I looked up at her and asked, “Where’s Mr. Petersen’s print shop?”

“Mr. Petersen! Why do you want to talk to that pill?”

I shrugged. “Maybe he has some ideas. About the other dog owners. They didn’t seem too crazy about Marique being the star. Maybe one of them’s behind this.”

She picked up the dustpan and said, “His shop’s out on West Main—six or seven blocks down. I don’t think he works Sundays, although we are gettin’ close to Christmas so he might be there. Why don’t you call first?”

I grabbed the broom and helped her pick up the dog hair. “No, I think I’ll just walk over there and check.”

She gave me a worried look. “Why don’t you take Holly
with you? She went out to get some Jell-O and soup for Meg, but she should be back fairly soon.”

“Meg’s still sick?”

“She’s on the mend now, but that was one nasty bug.” Vera scooped up the dustpan of hair and said, “Why don’t you have a seat? Holly’ll be back in a bit.”

Now, I’m not very good at sitting and waiting, so I said, “I think I’ll just head over there.”

“I’d feel better if you waited.”

“You’re not afraid of him, are you?” I laughed and said, “I mean, how seriously can you take a guy who looks like a stinkbug?”

She practically spilled the dustpan. “A what?”

“A stinkbug. Didn’t you think he looked like a stinkbug last night with those tails and that hair slicked back?”

All of a sudden she just busted up. And she laughed so hard that she wound up sitting on the floor with tears running down her cheeks. “A stink … a stinkbug!” She pushed the tears away and said, “I’m never ever going to be intimidated by Royce Petersen again. The next time he starts bossing me around I’ll just tell myself … he’s a big stinkbug!” That started her laughing all over again, so I said ’bye and clanked out the door.

The whole way up Main Street I tried to put a finger on that tingle in my brain, but it was like chasing an itch in the middle of your back—you scratch all around it and it kind of fades away, but you never really get it.

Now, the seven-hundred block was farther than I’d ever walked. Down West Main, anyway. And it’s not that seven blocks is a long way to go, it’s just that after about
Melvin’s Jewelers in the one-hundred block, West Main starts going downhill in a hurry.

All along Main there are dingy little one-room shops. Carpet stores and bridal shops and travel agencies—and you wonder, who goes there? I mean, there are big carpet stores and bridal shops and travel agencies right up the street in the mall—who’s going to get their wedding dress at a place where the mannequins are missing fingers and noses?

Petersen’s Printing wasn’t hard to find. It was the first shop past a service alley in an old two-story brick building. The windows were kind of milky with dirt and covered with burglar bars, and there were bamboo window shades resting cockeyed on stacks of books and papers.

The sign propped up in the window was dusty and torn, and said Closed. But there were some fluorescent lights on, so I tried the door anyway. It was locked. I whacked at the window with my knuckles and waited. I did it again, and waited some more. Then I peeked past the shades, but all I could see was a desk buried in papers. I decided to see if there was a back door somewhere.

The service alley didn’t look too inviting. I mean, even though it was the middle of the day, no sunlight was getting in, and garbage seemed to ooze up through the gravel. And I had almost convinced myself to just try back later when I noticed a car parked in front of a roll-up door. I took a few steps down the alley, and when I got a good look at the car, I knew right off—it belonged to Mr. Petersen. It was shiny black with edges that were kind of rounded and side panels that half covered the wheels. It looked like a giant stinkbug.

I circled the car, wondering what a guy who worked in such a messy place was doing with such an immaculate vehicle. The bumpers were like mirrors, and the body didn’t have a fingerprint on it.

I didn’t mean to touch it. And I swear I only brushed against the bumper, but all of a sudden that car starts wailing and beeping like an ambulance. I jumped a mile in the air, and before I’d even had a chance to come down, the roll-up door whips open and there’s Mr. Petersen, leveling a giant handgun right at my heart.

I threw my hands up in the air and said, “I’m sorry! I swear! I didn’t mean to touch it!”

His eyes pinched closed a bit and he lowered the gun. “Well, well, well. If it’s not the brain surgeon that lost the dog.” He unlocked the car and turned off the alarm.

I guess my adrenaline was pumping pretty good, because my mouth popped off with, “Me? Who’s the guy who kept right on driving?”

“Hey! Watch your mouth!” He tucked the gun inside the belt of his pants and muttered, “Like I don’t get enough of this from the Wicked Witch.”

“Uh … that would be Mrs. Landvogt?”

“You didn’t hear that from me.”

“What’s she doing? Threatening to put you out of business, too?”

He eyed me like I was a guppy swimming around his toilet. “She’s already pulled that one on me. What are you doing here, anyway?”

I ignored the question. “But you’re still in business.”

He kept eyeing me. “If you call slaving here twenty-four seven being in business, then yeah, I guess I am.” He shook his head. “Look, kid, I don’t know what you’re nosing around here for, but if you got any brains at all you’ll leave and not come back.”

My brain was racing, trying like crazy to put some pieces together. “I’m … I’m not really nosing, it’s—” All of a sudden something clicked. “It’s just that anyone could figure out she’s got something on you.”

“And why do you say that?”

I scratched the back of my neck. “How else does a pedigree wind up on the cover of the Santa Martina calendar?”

I could tell by the look on his face that I had hit the bull’s-eye. And it about made him short-circuit, because he says, “That witch sent you here to harass me! That’s what you’re doing here! Well, you can tell her it’s a sad day when you have to send a kid to do your dirty work. You can also tell her it’s not going to work. I’m not caving in to her anymore!” He went back inside, and I could see the grip of his gun sticking out of his waistband as he reached for a large chain dangling from the door. He yanked on it, and as the door rumbled down he yelled, “Get away from my shop, you hear me? And don’t ever come back!”

As I watched the door clang closed, I realized that any chance I’d had of getting information out of him was gone.

Royce Petersen had just flushed me down the drain.

I thought about going back to the Pup Parlor to tell Vera what had happened, but there was so much stuff jumbling around in my brain that I needed a minute to think. So instead, when I got to Broadway, I looked both ways for Officer Borsch, then jaywalked across the street.

I cut across the grass to the Senior Highrise and started up the fire escape, and for the first two flights I thought about Mr. Petersen and his temper and how scary he looked with that gun in his hand. But the farther away from him I got, the safer I felt, and by the time I was on the fifth floor, my stomach wasn’t flipping with fear anymore, it was hungry.

So my brain was busy putting together a gigantic ham and cheese sandwich when I got to our hallway and remembered—no Mrs. Graybill to worry about. For once I got to go trucking down the hall and open the apartment door like I lived there.

Grams was still dressed in her church clothes. She whispered, “Hello, Samantha,” over the receiver of the phone, then said, “That’s why the gal in Outpatients switched me over to you.” She listened for a minute. “Well, when is
he
supposed to be in?… When do you
think
he’ll return?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Fine. I’ll try around two o’clock.”

She got off the phone and said, “They’ve lost her. Nobody seems to have any idea where she is.”

“Who?”

“Daisy!”

That sounded like good news to me.

Grams looped an apron over her head. “I’ve been on the phone for forty-five minutes and all they can tell me is that she’s been released. They won’t give me any details because I’m not family, and they don’t seem to care that a friend might want to see how she’s doing.”

“A
friend?
”

“Oh, Samantha, come now. The woman was hurt—the least I can do is check in on her.” She tied the apron behind her and said, “Maybe she’s on her way home now.”