The Big Chihuahua (13 page)

“Having a party, are we, Fox?” she asked as she stepped down into the hot springs. The steam enveloped her lithe body. Fox had moved away and taken his arm from my shoulders. He passed the champagne bottle to Terry.

“Why are you wearing your underwear, Geri?” she said, glancing over at me after taking a swig of champagne.

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” I said a bit defensively.

“No one wears swimsuits here,” she said. “We like to soak au naturel.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you two look alike?” Fox said, looking from one of us to the other. “You two could be sisters!”

“Oh, come on, Fox,” said Terry. “You know we are.”

“What? How does he know that?” I asked.

“Star told him,” Terry said. “She has a dossier on everyone who comes up here.”

“How do you think Dogawanda knows all the things he knows about people’s lives?” asked Fox.

“You mean Star does some kind of background check on people?” I asked, still not believing what I was hearing.

“Not Star. Artichoke. She’s the only one who has access to a computer.”

“Did she do research on me before I came?” I asked Terry.

She shrugged. “I assume so.”

“Then she must have learned about me,” said Pepe. “Perhaps that is why she invited us.”

I suddenly got a chill. Did Star know that I was working for Jimmy G? That would mean Artichoke would know that as well.

“Did she know we were sisters?” I asked Terry.

“No, she couldn’t possibly have known that,” said Terry. “She doesn’t even know my real name.” She took another swig of the champagne, then handed the bottle back to Fox. “Or at least she didn’t.” She seemed glum.

“Do you have a lot of money?” Fox asked me.

I looked at him, stricken.

“Actually, yes,” I said, thinking of the rather large reward Pepe and I had received after our last case.

“So now you know why you’re here!” said Fox, raising the champagne bottle in a toast to me. “Star has a certain type she likes and she likes them loaded.”

“Doesn’t that seem dishonest?” I asked.

“What?” asked Fox.

“What?” asked Terry.

“What?” asked Pepe.

“That she gathers information about people and then uses it to con them into believing in Dogawanda?”

“A little deception is good for the soul,” said Fox. “We can’t handle too much reality.”

“So you believe the end justifies the means?” I asked.

“Yes!” said Fox. “If the end result is more money.”

“What about murder?” I said. “Is murder ever justified?”

Terry looked at me in horror. “What do you mean, murder?”

“Tammy was murdered,” I said.

Terry reared back like she had been punched. “What makes you think Leaf was murdered?”

“Just the way the police questioned me,” I said, realizing quickly that to say anything else would betray my true motivation. Talk about a means to an end. My end was to discover who had killed Tammy. Even if it meant grilling my own sister.

“You do have an active imagination, Geri,” said Terry. “She was killed by wild animals in the woods while she was trying to sneak away from the ranch. Isn’t that obvious?”

“Not to me,” I said.

“Poor Leaf!” said Fox.

Terry motioned for Fox to pass her the champagne bottle and took another sip. “So the sheriff thinks someone killed her?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Well, that makes sense now,” Terry said. “They just kept grilling me over and over again about that last conversation.”

“What did you talk about?” I asked.

“Basically she was homesick. She wanted to leave,” Terry said. “She was going to go home and get her dog. She said it wasn’t fair that you could bring your dog and she had to leave hers behind. But she said she had to get her money back first.”

“Did she get it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Terry said. “I told her she had to talk to Artichoke about that. She handles all of the bookkeeping. But we kept on talking and after a while, she calmed down. She agreed that she needed to do more work on herself. After that, I didn’t see her.”

There was a long silence. Fox looked strained.

“What?” Terry asked. “Did you see her?”

Fox looked abashed. “She showed up at the hot springs late that night after everyone else was gone.”

“And what sort of mood was she in?”

“She was weepy,” said Fox. “Unsure of what to do. I tried to console her.”

“And how did that go?” Terry asked.

“She didn’t want to be consoled,” said Fox.

Terry was curious. “So you might have been the last person to see her alive?”

“I guess,” said Fox. He looked very uncomfortable. He shifted around on the rock.

“I warned her about you!” Terry said.

“What about him?” I asked, looking from him to her.

“Oh, he always seduces the new women,” Terry said.

Now it was my turn to shift around on the rock, moving away from Fox.

“You know Star has asked you not to mess with the betas,” Terry said. “They’re too vulnerable.”

“Star uses me to lure them here,” said Fox. “I don’t know why she objects to rewarding me for my efforts.”

I was beginning to resent being talked about like I was a dog treat. I waded across to another rock.

“So what happened to Leaf?” I asked.

Fox shrugged. “She was still here when I left. Crying. That was it.”

“And she was alone?”

“Yes.” He took back the champagne bottle and took another deep swig. “I feel totally guilty. Maybe she drowned herself out of despair.”

He really thought a lot of himself if he thought a woman would kill herself because he rejected her.

“I thought she was killed by wild animals,” said Terry.

“Maybe they came upon her body floating in the water and carried her off,” Fox suggested.

“Did you hear anything that would make you suspect that?” I asked.

“I was a little bit preoccupied,” Fox said with a big grin.

“What do you mean preoccupied?” I asked, then got a sinking feeling.

“Hey, what can a fox do when he meets a hen right in his path?” He spread out his hands wide. “And for your information”—he turned to Terry—“it wasn’t one of the new women.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“A gentleman doesn’t tell,” said Fox.

“As if you were a gentleman!” said Terry, giving him a playful jab in the ribs. She grabbed the champagne bottle out of his hands and took another sip. “Hey, it’s empty!”

“I’ll go get another one,” said Fox. He lifted himself out of the water. His pale limbs flashed silver in the moonlight. I turned my head aside but not before I got a good view of his private parts.

“Not bad,” observed Pepe, “but proportionally, a Chihuahua has the advantage.”

“Hush!” I said.

Terry lay back in the pool, her head tilted up toward the night sky. She looked around at the tops of the trees, which stood like dark sentinels around us. She gave a deep sigh. “I’m going to miss all of this,” she said.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you coming home with me?” I was overjoyed.

“No, Geri!” She straightened up and looked at me. Her eyes glittered in the darkness. “You’re the reason I have to leave.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I guess I can tell you now,” she said, “since you’ll never see me again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was in the witness protection program, but then I left. It’s a long story.”

“I want to hear it!”

“Well, you remember I was dancing at a strip club?” she asked.

I nodded. That’s why Cheryl had kicked her out of the house.

“Why was she protecting witnesses?” asked Pepe.

“I was dating one of the bouncers. And the club owner hired him to do a hit. My boyfriend killed the guy, but the police caught him. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he agreed to testify against his boss. It was a big takedown because his boss was the head of a crime family. The feds had been trying to make a case against him for years. They put me in the witness protection program because they thought I might be in danger.”

“And you couldn’t call me or Cheryl and let us know that?”

Terry winced. “I could have contacted you, but I was scared. Afraid that someone would make the connection between me and you guys. And then you’d be in danger. I figured it was safer if I just disappeared.”

“So you’re still in the witness protection program?” The Dogawanda Center seemed like a strange place to hide a witness.

“No, after my boyfriend got out of prison, things got a little weird. I had been to a Dogawanda seminar and realized the Center was the perfect place to hide. No contact with the outside world, a new name . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“So you weren’t rich when you came here?”

Terry laughed. “Far from it. But I worked hard to make myself invaluable. And for a while, it all seemed wonderful. But the closer I got to Crystal, the more I realized she wasn’t the perfect person I thought. Of course, it’s Dogawanda who’s perfect. I mean, humans are always frail.”

“Yes, it is dogs who are perfect,” Pepe agreed.

“But still, it’s hard to respect someone who’s so selfish and greedy.”

“So you’re going to leave because you’re disillusioned?”

“Not just that,” she said. “But once you told the police my real name, they tracked me back to the witness protection program. The marshalls came and talked to me. They offered me a chance to move again and start a new life. It might be my one chance to get out of here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Before she could answer, we heard the sound of voices on the path, and Fox came tripping back, carrying another two champagne bottles, with a naked woman on each arm.

I stood up, thinking it was time to leave. I felt a little foolish about my assumption that Fox would be interested in me. He was just flirting. It was part of his nature.

Pepe, to my surprise, didn’t tell me “I told you so.” He was eager to get back to our room in the Beta Barn and show me what he had found. I left my sister in the hot pool with Fox and his friends, sharing the second bottle of champagne, and followed my little white dog back to our new quarters.

“There’s something tucked into the mattress,” he said, once the door was closed. He sniffed at the edge of the mattress, and I poked my hand in a tiny hole and felt around with my fingers. The mattress was stuffed with something like kapok, and it came out in puffs. But eventually I felt some pieces of paper and pulled them out.

Unfortunately, it was hard to tell what they were. There was no light in the bedroom, except what came from the moon shining in the window, and there was little privacy in the bathroom. I finally locked myself in a stall. Pepe joined me by scooting under the door.

“It looks like a copy of a money order,” I said at last. It was signed by Tammy and the amount was clear: $5,000. But the payee’s name was not, although I could tell it started with a B. “I’m not sure this is important at all,” I told Pepe. “This is probably just what Tammy paid for her beta-level training.”

“But there is more than one,” Pepe pointed out.

“That’s true.” They were all for the same amount and made out to the same payee, but there were five money orders with five different numbers.

“All in all, it adds up to twenty-five thousand dollars,” I said. “This must be the money Mark was so upset about. But we still don’t know if this is significant.”

“If not, why would it be hidden?” Pepe asked.

“Good question,” I said. “Maybe we should ask Jimmy G.”

The sun was just coming up as Pepe and I drove down toward Fern Lake to make our report to Jimmy G. The countryside was beautiful in the burgeoning light, but my mind was on other things—so much so that I took a turn too fast and almost ended up skidding into a tree.

“You have much on your mind, do you not, Geri?” Pepe asked.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “First of all, I’m worried that Star is onto us. Maybe she knows we are PIs working this case undercover.”

“
Que sera, sera
,” he said, adding Italian to his repertoire of foreign languages. “Even if she does, she has not acted upon it. As Dogawanda himself says, ‘Bite only when there is something to sink your teeth into.’”

I laughed. “You’ve really been studying this stuff, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” my dog told me. “I want to be successful. What else is bothering you?”

“What is Artichoke going to do when I don’t show up for my rock duty?” I asked.

“She will probably put you in the doghouse,” said Pepe. When I did not laugh, he added, “That was a joke, Geri.”

“I would not be surprised if they actually had a doghouse,” I said.

“Is there something else?” Pepe wanted to know.

“Those money orders,” I said. “Why would Tammy pay someone twenty-five thousand dollars?”

“Perhaps there is a training that costs that much.”

“It’s true,” I said. “It may be that the next level costs twenty-five grand. But they don’t seem to be made out to Crystal Star.”

“Perhaps Crystal keeps it in a shell,” Pepe said.

“A shell?” I was confused. “Oh, you mean like a shell corporation? Something set up to hide her assets.”

“
Sí
, I heard about it on television,” said Pepe.

“That’s a good thought, Pepe,” I said. “Let’s check out the name again on the money orders and see if we can find it online. There must be Internet access in town.”

Pepe stared out the window for a minute. “Do you know, Geri,” he said, “I think there is something else bothering you.”

“What would that be?”

“It is Felix. You fear that he will not believe you if you tell him that I can talk.”

“Well, of course he won’t believe me,” I said. “Dogs don’t talk.”

“Except for me,” he said. “And Dogawanda.”

“Right, and Felix doesn’t believe in Dogawanda. I’m not even sure that I do.”

“Is it important to you that he believe you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Wait! Are we talking about Dogawanda or Felix?”

“Felix, of course,” he said. “And why is that important?”

“I don’t know, Pepe,” I said. “Maybe just that it’s important to have someone else believe in you, even if their belief is misplaced.”

“I must say, Geri, that it is
muy importante
to me that you listen to me. No one else ever has. And perhaps it is only because no one else believes it is possible.”

“A good point, Pepe,” I said. “I just have to convince Felix that it is possible for dogs to talk. That should be easy!”

“
Sí
,
muy facile
,” agreed Pepe, who never gets my sarcasm.

 

 

Jimmy G was staying at an old motel on the outskirts of town called the Wagon Wheel. It was one of those old-fashioned motels, two stories and L-shaped, with doors arranged in a line. A giant wagon wheel sat propped up against a rock in front of the office and a huge trapezoid-shaped sign displayed the name in cursive letters.

Jimmy G had a room on the ground floor. “Geri and rat-dog!” said Jimmy G expansively as he opened the door for us. “Come on in.”

The room was fairly small and quite old, its walls paneled entirely with varnished knotty-pine. A double bed—with a rumpled blue comforter on it—occupied most of the room, except for an ancient TV with rabbit ears chained to a chest of drawers and an armchair that had seen better days in the far corner. The room reeked of cigar smoke. An almost-empty bottle of Jim Beam stood on the nightstand, two small water tumblers beside it.

“We’re here,” I told my boss as he closed the door behind us. “But we can’t stay long. We’ve got to get back to the ranch before they miss us.”

“Good news!” Jimmy G said, pulling out one of his ubiquitous cigars. “It turns out Jimmy G knows the town’s sheriff!”

“Sheriff Pager?” I asked.

“Yeah. Ray was an MP at Fort Benning when Jimmy G took his jump training for the airborne division.”

“I thought he said he was in supply in the army,” Pepe told me.

“I thought you were in supply in the army, boss,” I said.

“Never jumped. Fear of heights,” he said, sitting on the bed and lighting up his stinky cigar. “That’s why Jimmy G was in supply. Anyway, your boss saved Ray’s bacon one night.”

“That is a friend, indeed, who does not eat the bacon himself,” said Pepe.

“Ray got jumped by three soldiers at a bar in town, and Jimmy G helped put the kibosh on them. Ray said he’d never forget it. So, here we are. Through serendipity, we got an in with local law enforcement. Got any aspirin with you?”

“Afraid not,” I said.

“Oh well.” The boss frowned. “Guess the only remedy is a little hair of the dog.”

“Lay a hand on my fur and I will bite you severely!” Pepe warned.

Jimmy G poured the last of the whiskey into one of the tumblers, about two fingers’ worth, then raised it to his lips, saying, “Down the hatch.”

“He speaks
muy
strangely,” said Pepe.

The boss drained the glass in one huge gulp. His face contorted as he shook his head and made a sound like a donkey braying. “There, that’s better.”

“If that is better,” said Pepe, “I would not want to be worse.”

“Have a seat,” said Jimmy G. “Tell the boss about your progress.”

I told him what I had learned from talking to my sister and Fox Black.

“Fox Black?” Jimmy G sat bolt upright and grinned so wide I thought the corners of his mouth might tear. “He’s here? Lead guitarist for The Spikes? Man, I listened to them all the way through Iraq. See if you can get Jimmy G an autograph.”

“Well, I’ll try—”

“Do more than try,” the boss commanded. “Anyway, back to the case. You said they last saw the victim at around midnight.”

“Yes.”

“Interesting,” said Jimmy G. “Because Ray said the coroner had finally established the time of death.”

“And it is?”

“Approximately midnight.”

“We need to find out what happened right after Fox left the hot springs,” I said.

“Which means finding out who would have a motive to kill Tammy,” Pepe added.

“Oh, that reminds me. We found these papers in Tammy’s mattress,” I said, pulling the copies of the money orders out of my pocket. I smoothed them out on the bureau. “Looks like the name is Broadbent. Maybe B. M. Broadbent?”

Jimmy G took the copies and peered at them, holding them up to a light as if looking for secret messages. “Now why does that sound familiar?”

“I don’t know, boss,” I said.

“Hey, I know,” he said. “There was a guy drinking in the bar with us last night. Ray said he owns the local gas station. Introduced us. Said his name was Broadbent. Apparently his old man was the guy who founded Fern Lake.”

“Why would Tammy be giving a money order to the guy who owns the gas station?” I asked.

“Don’t ask Jimmy G! Maybe she was buying a gas station,” Jimmy G said. “Tell you what, though. Ray was very impressed by the fact that Jimmy G had an operative in the compound. I’ll pass this along to him. Meanwhile, Jimmy G will do some discreet sleuthing in town.”

“Ha, discreet! Not likely with that tie!” Pepe was amused.

Jimmy G was wearing a bright red tie with crazy green and blue squiggles all over it. “What do you think of this?” he asked, holding it up.

“It’s fine, boss,” I told him, thinking that he was probably the only man in the world who actually wore all the bad ties that were perennially given as gifts.

“Yep. This is a good one,” said Jimmy G. “If you spill ketchup on it, no one will notice.”

“I think there
is
ketchup all over that tie,” said Pepe, sniffing. Suddenly he darted under the bed. “Aha!” he exclaimed, dragging out a cellophane bag. “Half a bag of fried pork rinds!” It made crinkly noises as he pulled it along the carpet.

Jimmy G glanced down at the bag Pepe had in his teeth. “Hey!” he said. “Those are Jimmy G’s pork rinds!” He jumped to his feet. “Gimme!”

“No way,
hombre
,” said Pepe, standing over the bag like it was a prized kill. “You will have to fight me for them. They are the next best thing to bacon!”