Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 2 - Stellium in Scorpio

by Andrews

  I, of course, couldn't see the connection. I could see, however, as we got on the elevator, that there was something about 29 critical degrees in the Eighth House that seemed to lock up her mental hard drive. She repeated again and again that in Scorpio, those 29 degrees meant something was imminent, perhaps something sexual or secretive.

  "Something that's already happened, or is about to happen, in or to this hotel; that's what I feel, but that should only apply to the past when this chart was created, so I don't know..." Callie mused.

  I assured her that the imminent sexual event involved the two of us. I slid the electronic card into its metal slot, and our hotel room door clicked open. I immediately dumped the plates onto the dining room table and turned to greet Elmo. His cage door was open, his toys were scattered around the room, but Elmo was nowhere to be seen.

  "He's gone! Oh, God, he's gone!" I wailed.

  Callie was on her knees looking under the bed and into cramped spaces where we both knew Elmo was far too big to hide, and furthermore, would never think of hiding. I ran into the bathroom and looked around. No Elmo. Callie grabbed the phone and rang the front desk, telling the clerk on duty that our dog had been stolen. In other circumstances, I would have taken time to savor her having called him "our dog," but right now, he was my missing puppy, the guy who took road trips with me, listened to me, even slept with me, and someone had taken him.

  Chapter Five

  The desk clerk told Callie she'd check with the front office, and maid service, and security, and see what she could find out, reminding us that no dogs were allowed in the hotel. Callie hung up and hurried out into the hallway and banged on the adjacent hotel room doors. I heard a door open and Callie interrogating someone in a slightly elevated voice.

  A man said loudly, "Never saw him. Didn't know dogs were allowed."

  The thought crossed my mind that since dogs weren't allowed maybe they'd discovered him and confiscated him, hauling him off to the pound.

  After talking to half a dozen people in the hallway, Callie returned to the room, plopped down on the bed, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead with her small, pale hands. My heart was pounding, and I felt like I might burst out crying.

  I picked up the room phone and called maid service myself. I asked for the supervisor, quickly told her what had occurred, and said that if her entire crew would search all the hotel rooms, I would gladly pay several hundred dollars to whoever located my dog. The women on the phone said she would contact the maids right away.

  "I'm feeling we should find that woman—at the front desk—I see her face when I close my eyes—dark hair—older, trim, well dressed."

  I headed for the door, willing to follow any lead, do anything to see Elmo again. We were in the elevators in no time, not saying a word to one another as we rode, afraid we might voice our fears that Elmo was gone forever.

  Is there some hideous group working at the hotel who eats dogs, or sacrifices dogs, or maybe it’s just some horrible guy who steals them and sells them to biology labs or...

  "Stop that!" Callie said as if reading my mind. "We're going to get him back."

  Fear was turning to anger in me, a male trait, my mother often reminded me. Regardless, it had the advantage of turning a passive emotion that caused weakness and trembling into an active one that produced results.

  "I'm fully capable of killing anyone who hurts Elmo," I admitted out loud, my jaw clamped shut.

  "I know," Callie said, and I heard no condemnation in her voice.

  I launched myself from the elevator across the sun, moon, and stars of the lobby floor like a meteor headed for the front desk. The stars were aligned. The tense and impeccably dressed front desk manager, wearing a name tag that said Ms. Loomis, was standing at attention in conversation with another guest. She looked exactly like the dark-haired woman Callie described. I interrupted. "My dog is missing from my room. Someone has taken him!"

  "Just let me finish with this guest and—" she began.

  "No, this is an emergency. My dog has been stolen from my room, and I want this entire hotel to begin a search and find him!"

  The woman guest whom Ms. Loomis was helping stepped back out of reverence for an animal in distress and for fear of being trampled by an out-of-control pet owner.

  "If you'll just step over there to the concierge, she will help you." Ms. Loomis tilted her thin, black-rimmed glasses down her long, narrow nose and waved to the small, silky-haired Asian woman at the concierge desk.

  "Did I hear you say you lost your dog?" the Asian woman asked as I dashed toward her, fear making it difficult for me to breathe.

  "I didn't lose him. He was taken from my room—stolen! Who had access to my room today? Who has a master key? I want to see those people."

  "We can't, of course, let our guests interrogate staff for legal reasons. It would be inappropriate—"

  "Get everyone who has a key to my room out here now, or I'm calling the police and my attorney!"

  Ms. Loomis realized that the concierge didn't have me under control. She darted out from behind the marble counter, waved her off, and personally herded me back to the front desk.

  "Ms. Richfield, we want to help you, but you must keep your voice down—" Her sentence snapped like a twig when I grabbed her by both forearms and held her in my grasp so that she could feel my agony.

  "Find my dog!" My voice cracked, and I could feel tears falling over the edge of my eyes.

  "Let go of me or I will call security."

  "Call security, that's who in hell I want to see!"

  As she moved a few yards down to pick up the phone, Callie, who had remained silent and removed from the dialogue, suddenly dashed behind the desk, pushed the door open, and shouted loudly, "Elmo! Elmoooo!"

  "You can't go back there!" Ms. Loomis called after us, but I was already through the door, following Callie down the rabbit hole of the hotel's interior offices.

  There was a low, muffled bark. I whirled. Ms. Loomis froze. People in the corridor turned and stared. It was an EF Hutton moment. Callie was moving rapidly past row after row of offices shouting Elmo's name. His barking had become louder and incessant. At the very last office, she flung open the door, and there was Elmo standing in the middle of the room. Callie fell to her knees as he rose up on his hind legs and put his short, stubby front paws on her shoulders. She threw her arms around his big middle and tears ran down her cheeks.

  "Who took this dog and put him back here?" I demanded loudly of the staff at large.

  One of the clerks seated behind a mound of paperwork said, "A guest complained that he was howling, so the assistant manager brought him in here to avoid any conflict and to keep him safe until you arrived back in your room."

  "We just had a shift change. I assure you, Ms. Richfield, that we had only his, and your, best interest at heart," Ms. Loomis apologized. "Our assistant manager should have left a note in your room, or a message on your phone. He will be reprimanded. It seems you've had a very difficult stay, what with the situation in your bathtub, and now, thinking your dog had been kidnapped. We would like to comp your meals and bar tab for the remainder of your stay and offer you complimentary show tickets, and of course, Mr. Elmo is more than welcome to complete his stay with us, although, in the future, he might be more comfortable at home."

  It was that last comment that set me off. "I'm going to give you my cell phone number. If anyone feels compelled to put anyone in my room or to remove anyone from my room, I highly recommend that they phone me first."

  "Of course," she said with a polite bow that, in contrast to my own explosive anger, made me appear to be a maniac.

  I leaned over and gave Elmo a big kiss on the snout and rubbed his head. "Let's get him out of here," I said, ignoring Ms. Loomis, who was standing in the doorway.

  We talked, and cooed, and patted Elmo during the entire elevator ride up to our room. Several guests who'd been caught up in the drama said nice things to him as we wal
ked past. By the time we got to our room, I felt weak and exhausted from the realization that I could have lost Elmo for good.

  "You found him, Callie. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know what would have happened," I said, my voice shaking.

  Callie held me in her arms and kissed me without saying a word, seeing that I was getting more upset after the fact. Elmo nudged the plates of what was now limp and uninviting food. We plopped down on the bed, unwrapped the food, and quickly handed it over to him. He gobbled it down voraciously. We both agreed that what we all needed was a good night's sleep.

  The front desk's explanation of why they took Elmo bothered me almost as much as their having taken him. They said he was howling and someone had reported it, and they'd removed him until they could find us. I knew for a fact that Elmo didn't howl at just anything. It made no sense.

  "Somebody wanted him," Callie said. "At least that's what I'm getting."

  "You mean like a hotel employee who just wants to own a basset hound? That means he's not safe here at all. I wish I'd taught him to bite the hell out of people!" Elmo let out a low growl as if to assure me that should the need arise, he was up for the challenge.

  "They won't bother him again," she said. "Too many people in the hotel have been alerted."

  "How did you know to go back there?" I asked.

  "I knew that's where Loomis's office must be," Callie said.

  "But why Loomis?"

  "It was her face I saw when I meditated. She called you Ms. Richfield. She knew your face. How? She wasn't there when we checked in."

  I was silent for a moment, thinking about that. "You're right. She said, 'Ms. Richfield, I want to help you.

  There was a knock at the door. The front desk had sent a bellman up to our room to move us. Callie balked, saying she was too exhausted to pack, but I wasn't spending another night in a room from which someone had tried to steal my dog. I packed everything and helped the bellman load it up.

  We followed him down the hallway with all of our belongings hanging off the side of his clanking metal cart. I thought about the bag lady who lived in L.A. and pushed her metal grocery cart filled with bags of clothing from street corner to street corner. Now our metal cart filled with bags of clothing was being pushed from room to room. And I realized that the only difference between a bag lady and a lady with bags is the person pushing the cart.

  Room 1250 was a newer version of our last room. Every room in the hotel had a different theme. This room was snowy white from top to bottom, and fit Callie to a T. She swooned over it. All the furnishings were Italian Provincial, which was really French Provincial with improved posture, the delicately curved chair legs having been replaced by straighter chair legs exhibiting slight thigh muscles. The bed was covered in white quilted brocade, and I made a mental note to pull back the bedspread on Elmo's bed since, when stressed, he was capable of sleeping in a drool state. The bathroom was done up in rich browns, and the TV was the finishing touch that gave it the look and feel of a small den sporting a tub and shower.

  I tipped the bellman, slung our luggage onto the racks, and set up Elmo's wire playpen.

  "I've been in more rooms than a hooker," I groused.

  Callie cocked her eyebrow at me and yanked my shirt out of my pants, kissing me on the back, derailing the task at hand. I turned and wrapped my arms around her, returning her kisses.

  She pushed me away playfully in favor of getting ready for bed and I wondered if Callie's sex drive had been impaired by so many years of abstinence or if there was something else she wasn't telling me. Spontaneous lovemaking didn't seem to be on her agenda, just spontaneous foreplay. We were in dress rehearsal with absolutely no opening night in sight.

  Callie's idea of getting ready for bed was far more complicated than mine. Hers involved face scrubbings that bordered on Rolfing, and vigorous brushings of the head to stimulate hair growth, not to mention the slathering of face creams and body lotions. Then there was the issue of getting the blinds drawn just right and creating subdued lighting, but not total darkness, assessing the direction in which the heat or air was blowing, and examining the bedclothes for possible vermin. It made me realize that for forty-odd years I had never really "gotten ready" for bed but had merely fallen into it.

  Callie disappeared into the bathroom. After a few minutes I heard the water shut off as she no doubt toweled off and dried her hair before peering around the corner at me and Elmo, just to see if we were both still there. She didn't want to admit it, but Elmo's disappearance had upset her, evidenced by the fact that she insisted we lift Elmo up on the bed and allow him to wedge himself between us.

  "Could you move over, Elmo? You're getting all the soft spots that, frankly, I consider mine. I can't believe a woman of your overwhelming fastidiousness is allowing this!" I said as he burrowed down into the covers.

  She laughed good-naturedly. "He was traumatized, so we have to make an exception."

  "I was traumatized too," I replied, "and I'm getting nothing."

  "Not true," she said and leaned across his body to kiss me warmly on the lips, pressing up against Elmo in doing it. Elmo let out a couple of short grunts, flopped over, put his big nose in Callie's cleavage and his paws against her chest, let out a sigh, and went fast asleep.

  "I am going to need another bath," she whispered, giggling.

  "He loves the way you smell. I have to say, I agree." I draped my arms over Elmo to reach Callie. "This wasn't what I had in mind for tonight," I muttered.

  "We'll let him stay for a little while longer, and then we'll get up and—"

  "Hose off!" I finished her sentence. "Do you think it's true that someone complained about him?"

  "They could have," Callie said.

  "But did they?" I pressed.

  "No," she said softly. "Ms. Loomis said the assistant manager should have left us a note or a message. How did she know that he hadn't?" Callie asked.

  "She assumed he hadn't because we were in the lobby screaming at her," I offered.

  "Maybe," Callie replied, more suspicious than I.

  I sat up in bed unable to take another close-up whiff of Elmo, whose basset glands had been working overtime due to the stress of his harrowing ordeal. He'd secreted enough basset oil in his skin to make him as shiny as a seal and as smelly as one. Callie sat up and asked Elmo to hop onto his bed, giving him one last pat. He let out a disgruntled groan. Callie got up to strip the bedcovers and shake them before disappearing into the bathroom again. I could hear the valves in the showerheads squeal as she turned the water on.

  "I'm so happy about sweet Elmo," she called out.

  "Me too," I said, and surprised her by stepping into the shower with her. "These hotel rooms have more surprises in the bathrooms than you ever thought possible, don't they? We have Elmo to thank for this opportune moment. You don't want to sleep with someone who's slept with Elmo, unless she's showered." I wrapped my left arm around her soapy, slick waist and held her steadily as I slid my hand down her tight little buttocks, letting the warm water pound her breasts as I gently massaged between her legs and sighed over the softness.

  "That feels so good," she moaned.

  Suddenly the TV in the bathroom turned on, apparently the result of a preset timer, startling us and giving us an unasked-for late-night recap of the local evening news. The news anchor's voice was blaring over an aerial shot of a sheriff's helicopter flying low over the stark desert terrain outside the city and landing at a remote, rocky site. On the ground, several medical personnel were loading a body into an ambulance as the news anchor said, "The body of Bruce Singleton was found tonight at this remote desert location northeast of Las Vegas. Mr. Singleton apparently died of drowning some eight hours before his body was discovered."

  "Died of drowning in the desert? Now that's a trick," I said as the camera moved in on the dead man, his arms folded across his chest. I reached with one arm out of the shower to turn off the TV, not wanting more dead men interfering in my love lif
e.

  "Wait! That's the man who was in our bathtub!" Callie squealed. I jerked the shower curtain back as if getting a better view of the screen would make the video frames slow down, but the photographer was already rolling on something else.

  "How can it be the same guy?" I tried to calm Callie, telling her we were both just tired and nervous. It couldn't be the dead guy.

  "I mean that it's his clothes, his hands, his body...I don't know. Singleton was murdered, that's what I'm getting," she said and hopped out of the shower, grabbing a towel.

  "Getting from whom?" I asked, knowing full well from whom. Callie was inexplicably plugged into the cosmos, and apparently her lines were up and running.

  We dried off and climbed into bed, Callie disturbed and preoccupied. I was disturbed and preoccupied too. I couldn't believe we were about to go to sleep without making love.

  "I'm sorry," she said, hugging me close. "I'm just exhausted and a little freaked by this."

  "No problem," I lied, thinking Barrett and Mary Beth and probably two or three other women would love to be lying here in front of me, but I wanted the woman with her back to me.

  Callie rolled over, wrapped her arms around me, and held me tightly, in one tender touch erasing my doubts and increasing my desire.

  Chapter Six

  At dawn, Callie burst into the room having gotten up, dressed, and hit the lobby without my ever stirring. She plopped down on the edge of the bed, jarring all of my synapses into firing at once while I tried to remember where I was. Callie had the morning paper so close to my face I could smell the type. I rose up on one elbow.

  "Check the photo!" she said excitedly. I tried to focus. There was Bruce Singleton's tanned body on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.

  "Look, he's wearing a tuxedo!" Callie said.

  "Like half the dealers in Las Vegas," I replied. I wasn't sure why Callie was so excited over Bruce Singleton, since we didn't know the man. The photo of him didn't really show his face but merely gave us a side view of his belt, right shoulder, and arm.