Teacup Tubulence

by Linda O. Johnston

  I had previously warned Mark that we’d have our dogs with us, but not any that Teresa had flown with. Matt and I had changed out of our respective uniforms and were both dressed casually.

  So was Mark, in jeans and a St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt. Elsa, though, wore a skirt and blouse.

  When I had met her before, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to her appearance—mostly because I’d only seen her around her cousin Teresa, whose personality, as abrasive as it was, far overshadowed the quiet Elsa. Or so I’d thought.

  Now, though, Elsa seemed more outgoing. As Matt and I sat down at the round table and the dogs lay down at our feet, Elsa said, “It’s good to see you again, Lauren. I really liked visiting HotRescues. How is the shelter doing? Have you gotten rid of many of the dogs that Teresa brought here?”

  I didn’t contradict her and say that her cousin hadn’t brought any of the teacup pups here, but had accompanied them while griping over the fact that they were being flown to La-La Land. “About half of them have been adopted so far,” I said, looking up from the menu to watch for her reaction. “We also have adoption applications on a few more. So although we don’t consider that anything like ‘getting rid’ of them, we’re happy to say that we’ve been able to find quite a few of them new homes already.”

  She didn’t comment on that but seemed to have all her attention suddenly grabbed by the menu. I took the opportunity to study mine as well. When the server came by, I ordered a diet soda to start with.

  After the server left, I exchanged glances with Matt. He never liked it when I got involved with attempting to solve a murder, no matter how involved my friends or I happened to be. We’d exchanged more words over the current situation, since I barely knew the Faylers. But I’d done as he’d previously asked and let him know what I was up to, and why.

  He did understand my concerns about HotPets, Dante, and the dogs marooned halfway across the country after their rescue. But he had insisted on joining me here tonight.

  Which was fine with me. Although I seldom admitted it to him, I appreciated his concern. I appreciated him. I still wasn’t sure where our relationship was going, but it was definitely a relationship.

  “So,” Matt said, looking toward Mark, who sat beside him. “I understand that you’ve been questioned by the police about what happened to Teresa.” I’d already told Matt about my discussions with Mark, but it didn’t hurt to go over the subject again. And again. Maybe the answers would change. “Is that why you’re still in town? I know she was your girlfriend, and I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “I’m still here partly because I’ve been told to hang around, but I’m also hoping to learn the truth. Or get it confirmed.”

  “That’s right,” Elsa cut in. For the first time, I actually studied her. It didn’t surprise me that I hadn’t taken in her appearance before. Her looks were plain, and she hardly wore any makeup. Her nose stuck out a bit, her lips were narrow, and her cheeks were a little sunken. Even her hair wasn’t particularly memorable, a pale brown, unstyled mop. “Getting what happened confirmed is the key.” She picked up the glass of water the server had put in front of her and took a drink. “We all know what really happened.”

  “Actually, I don’t,” I informed her mildly, although I found her attitude almost as irritating as her cousin’s had been. Was she now sliding into Teresa’s shoes? “What do you think happened?”

  “It was those pilots who killed poor Teresa.” She took another swig of water as if she wished it were alcoholic. “When she got here, Teresa didn’t stop talking about how awful her plane rides here had been, especially the last leg. She kept saying things were really off in Las Vegas when those Faylers met up with her and the dogs. They didn’t even talk to her at first, mostly just meeting up with a bunch of people who were evidently there from some pet stores, even though she’d been waiting awhile for them to arrive. After that, she said things were really miserable. She hinted that she’d seen some pretty nasty stuff but wouldn’t tell even me what it was.”

  “Me, neither,” Mark cut in. “I had the same impression, and she usually told me everything, but not this time. But I had no idea what she was hiding.”

  I determined to speak with the Faylers again as soon as I could, to see if they had any idea what Teresa had been talking about. Or not talking about, as the case may be.

  “She was just so . . . well, so preoccupied this trip,” Elsa went on, then shut up as the server brought our meals.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes—at least at our table. A couple of other tables near us had children and their parents at them, and several of the kids seemed very wound up and vocal. That didn’t seem to faze either Rex or Zoey, though. That was partly because they both were good dogs . . . and partly because Matt and I rewarded them with treats we had brought along to encourage them to stay down and quiet.

  Then I asked Elsa, “Did Teresa visit here often? You seemed to be pretty close.”

  “No, she didn’t.” Elsa looked down at her plate, which held a double hamburger. “We saw each other now and then. I just wish—well, she didn’t give me much notice that she was coming this time, which I, of course, understood under the circumstances. I’d been glad, since we used to be closer. But this time . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, which only made me more curious. “Did you feel less close to her?”

  “Of course not,” Elsa snapped, then seemed to regain her temper. She sighed. “Look, I have a life, too. I’m a schoolteacher, and although it’s August and classes don’t start for another couple of weeks, I’ve still needed to work, show up at school for meetings, work on lesson plans and all. I really didn’t have time to be Teresa’s chauffeur while she was here, but she didn’t have a car and she was so nervous about driving around big L.A., since she comes from a small town . . . well, I decided to help her out.”

  “I’m sure she was very grateful,” I said mildly, suspecting that what I said wasn’t true but wanting to gauge Elsa’s reaction.

  “She should have been but she wasn’t,” Elsa snapped, and then bent her head. “Teresa . . . she was used to getting her way. About everything. And she didn’t get her way about starting her own pet shelter back in Missouri, at least not yet. She was rather difficult while she was here. I sympathized, of course.”

  “Of course,” I echoed.

  “You think I didn’t,” Elsa snapped once more. “I did. But I really hated having to just act like, well, her servant.”

  “So why did you?” That was Mark asking. He’d been living at Elsa’s, too. Hadn’t he seen this? Why was he asking?

  “It was a good thing you arrived when you did,” Elsa said. “I’d been all ready to kick her out of my place, tell her to go rent a room and a car and all. But then you started chauffeuring her around in your car, so things were a little less crazy.”

  “But you still argued with her a lot,” Mark persisted. “Why?”

  “You heard,” Elsa all but shouted. “She kept telling me what to do, how to live. Why did I have such a small apartment? Why did I give her a hard time when, during the school year, I undoubtedly was a doormat to kids, so I was used to listening to other people? Why didn’t I have a dog? And all that.”

  She picked up a French fry and dipped it into the ketchup on her plate, staring at it instead of at anyone at our table.

  “What did you tell her?” I asked.

  “I told her to go and . . . well, I’m not going to repeat it here, but it was pretty nasty. And she, she . . . she just laughed.”

  “I see,” I said. Elsa had clearly been pretty angry, because I gathered she’d used swear words—perhaps some that everyone heard these days, but as a teacher she clearly found them upsetting.

  “But I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Her tone was belligerent, and she stared from me to Mark to Matt, and back to me again.

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” I lied. “But . . . well, you were at the party at HotRescues that night. Were
you arguing with Teresa then?”

  “None of your business,” Elsa said. And that was pretty much the last thing she said for the rest of the meal, except for asking people to pass things and anteing up for her part of the bill.

  I had a strong feeling that Elsa Martin was moving up several notches on my suspect list as soon as I got home.

  But as it turned out, I didn’t get anywhere near the computer that night.

  Matt and I discussed the dinner conversation on the way back to my place, both dogs in the back of his car.

  “So . . . I think either of those people could have killed Teresa,” he said, “not necessarily the Faylers.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I said. We talked over Elsa and her attitude, and how Mark had pressed her some when I wasn’t doing it—but was that just to move our suspicions away from him and onto Teresa’s cousin?

  “But we’ve heard more than once,” I said, “about how Teresa and the Faylers argued on the flight from Vegas. Elsa mentioning how Teresa kept grumbling about the Faylers without saying anything specific could have been her way to shift blame elsewhere, just as Mark may have been doing.”

  “Agreed,” Matt said as I used the electronic gadget I’d brought along to open the gate into my secure community.

  I knew what I wanted to do next. And that involved Matt’s staying the night, which he did.

  But as soon as possible, I had other plans in mind for pushing my investigation forward.

  Chapter 19

  I’d checked with Dante first, of course, but he had no problem with my talking to Tom Fayler alone in the HotPets Bling area of the corporate offices the next day. I’d been honest with Dante. I wanted to talk not only about the upcoming weekend’s rescue flight, but also more about Teresa Kantrim and what had happened to her—as well as the Faylers’ conversations with her.

  I headed for Tom’s nice corner office at the far end of the area dedicated to the Bling label. On my way there, I peeked into a number of open doors and also looked at the name cards on the walls outside the rest. Since this was a subsidiary of the major organization, they didn’t seem to have a separate accounting staff, but the people officed here apparently included planners and retail liaisons and an advertising staff, as well as designers besides Chris Mandrea.

  When I reached Tom’s office, the door was open. I knocked on it as I peeked in.

  Tom stood up from behind his very messy desk and walked over to me. “Lauren, how good to see you. Sheila told me you were on your way.”

  I figured that Dante must have told his assistant to let Tom know what I was up to once I’d called him. “I hope you have a minute,” I responded. Or five or ten.

  “Of course. Please have a seat.”

  I’d already rehashed in my mind the results of the conversation we’d had during lunch a couple of days ago. Naya had done most of the talking for the Faylers. As I recalled, she’d said that Teresa kept making odd references and accusations that they hadn’t understood, but she wouldn’t explain them.

  “I’m here for a couple of reasons, Tom,” I began, sitting in the un-blingy green upholstered chair across from his desk. “Mostly, I want to help Naya and you. At least that’s what I want if you aren’t, in fact, Teresa’s killers. But if you are, I don’t really expect you to admit it to me.”

  “Understood. But whether you believe it or not, it wasn’t us.” I was used to seeing Tom smiling, but he wasn’t grinning now. His cheeks didn’t look as wide now, and his face looked gaunt beneath his short graying hair.

  I leaned forward, wanting to look as sincere as I felt. “I want to believe you. You save animals and you work for HotPets, and those add up in your favor. But I don’t really understand what went on between Teresa and you, and—”

  “Neither do we,” he interrupted. “Look, Lauren. We’re a pretty tight group here at HotPets. Dante has talked a lot about you and all the great things you’ve done for HotRescues. He’s also mentioned that you’ve gotten involved as an amateur in solving murders, of all things. I was really glad to hear you were coming today, because I was hoping to . . . well, ask you to solve this one. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Naya, so if you could figure out who really killed Teresa, that would be fantastic.” He half stood, raising his moderate-sized body, clad in a similar dressy shirt and slacks as I’d seen him in the few times we’d been together lately. Although he still wasn’t smiling, I read hope in his gaze.

  “I don’t do it by choice, exactly, and you’re right. I’m an amateur.” I wanted to warn him. I couldn’t exactly say I’d be able to figure things out and save Naya and him—and I now believed, since he’d asked me to get involved, that neither of them was likely to be the killer.

  Although I knew what Matt would say to me right now. Tom might be attempting to put me off guard, so I should watch my back and assume nothing.

  But that was Matt. “Why don’t you tell me all you remember from the time you met Teresa,” I said. “Maybe something will give a hint as to why she acted so belligerently and strangely with you. And that might give a hint about what she did or said with other people—and led to her murder.”

  • • •

  I sat there with Tom for maybe three quarters of an hour, listening and asking questions.

  And drawing no conclusions.

  He had someone bring refreshments, so I sipped on black coffee and nibbled on cookies as I listened.

  Naya and he had arrived at the Las Vegas airport a little late the day they were transporting the dogs. “There was a backup taking off in Van Nuys because of mechanical troubles one plane developed while taxiing.” I hadn’t known that, because I’d left when they’d entered their plane. “Everything worked out all right, but the rest of us had to wait.”

  All the other Airborne Adoptions flight segments had been on time—Missouri to Oklahoma City to Albuquerque. By the time the Faylers had arrived in Vegas, the last plane before theirs, the one from Albuquerque, had been there for probably an hour. The pilots had walked the dogs, had made sure they had water, and had generally taken good care of them.

  But they hadn’t been the only ones on that plane. Teresa had been along for all of the flight segments.

  According to the pilots on the flight from Albuquerque, she, too, had helped to take care of the dog passengers. But she had apparently gotten bored. She went inside the terminal and the nearest hangars, claiming she’d needed to find restroom facilities, and maybe she had. But she had spent more time away from the plane than she had helping the dogs she’d professed to care about.

  When the Faylers landed, they met the Albuquerque pilots right away, who’d described how they had cared for the dogs while waiting. They had acted suitably impressed about the HotPets connection and had oohed and aahed over the HotPets Bling collars.

  It had soon been time to transfer the little dogs to the Faylers’ plane. “And talk about oohing and aahing,” Tom said with a wistful smile. “Naya and I . . . well, we were so pleased to see all those little dogs and knew we were helping to save them.”

  They’d left them alone in their Cessna, but only for a short while.

  “Those pilots warned us that there was someone from the Missouri shelter traveling with the dogs, and that we should wait for her before taking off again.”

  Which had been fine with them, despite it being unexpected. They hadn’t intended to leave immediately anyway.

  They had called ahead, so the four managers of the local HotPets stores knew they’d be late and had arrived at the airport around the same time. The Faylers hadn’t checked for where their unexpected passenger was; instead Naya and Tom had done as they’d originally planned: they brought out some boxes of the HotPets Bling dog collars to show the store managers and give them a few samples. They’d discussed marketing and promotion strategies inside a nearby hangar where there were seats.

  The private-flight section of the airport had been busy, with lots of landings and takeoffs, as well as local personnel helping to
load and unload the planes, including the Faylers’.

  Eventually, a strange woman had come up to them at their meeting. She had introduced herself as Teresa Kantrim from Missouri, and said she had flown in on the plane from Albuquerque and intended to ride to L.A. with them to ensure that the dogs were being well treated.

  “And how was Teresa during that initial meeting?” I asked.

  “At first, she was friendly. Smiled a lot. Shook hands with the HotPets store managers and acted charmed about the HotPets Bling necklaces which we showed her. We’d brought a lot to show these guys but were taking some back with us. When we got ready to go, we did as asked and made room for her in the back of our plane, and she helped as we walked the dogs once more. The other Airborne Adoptions pilots had already left, but we said good-bye to the HotPets people and got on our way.”

  It was on the plane toward L.A. that Teresa had first gotten snippy. “She started poking us by saying she knew what we were up to, she wanted more, she wouldn’t tell anyone if she was treated right—but she wouldn’t explain. And then she totally shut up, after saying it wasn’t over.”

  “Hi, Lauren.” Chris Mandrea had just entered the office. He sat down in one of the chairs beside me. “You’re all talking about Teresa Kantrim again, aren’t you?”

  This was a good opportunity for me. “Yes, we are. I don’t suppose you know what she was hinting about.”

  “Not really, but she kept pushing about it after I first met her, too, and when I asked her what she was talking about she got really nasty.”

  “Same here.” That was Sheila Sheltron, who had just walked in the door. “I’d never say anyone deserved what happened to Teresa, but if she acted that way to everyone she met here in California, I can’t say I’m surprised. She was also complaining all the time about you, Lauren, and how you’d been pushy about getting the dogs here and that, even though HotRescues had a good reputation, you’d never be able to take care of all of those rescues and find them suitable homes. What a nasty piece of work she was.”