by Alan Russell
Becker shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“Did you see her over the weekend?”
“Do you think I keep tabs on my neighbors?”
It wouldn’t have surprised me if he did, but I didn’t say so. Becker thought a moment and said, “I don’t believe I have seen or talked to her for several days.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I am not a person who makes up stories. I did try calling her very early on Monday morning. In fact, I left several messages.”
He wagged a finger in Angie’s direction. “That bothersome dog was making enough noise to wake the dead a few nights ago. I would have called Burbank PD to lodge a noise complaint, but I know your department would have just given me the runaround.”
I didn’t bother to tell him I was with LAPD. “So, what did you do after calling Miss Moreland’s number and leaving messages?”
“I came over to see what was causing her dog to make such a racket.”
“And did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
He shook his head. “The dog was making a ruckus for no good reason.”
“What happened then?”
He averted his gaze. “I’m not sure I understand your question.” His voice had lost its challenging edge.
I was sure he did understand my question. “A six-foot fence surrounds the sides of the house and the backyard. How is it that Angie got out?”
“What you need to understand is that this dog was barking pretty much nonstop from two in the morning until around three thirty or four. All that noise made me sleep deprived.”
“I understand,” I said. I understood he was establishing an excuse.
“I didn’t think to bring a flashlight,” he said. “And the dog was yammering, so I tried to quiet her down, but like I said, she was riled up. Since I couldn’t see what was bothering her, I opened up the gate just a crack. She pushed by me and took off.”
He still wasn’t meeting my eyes. I wasn’t sure whether he was embarrassed at being the cause of Angie’s escape, or whether he’d opened the gate wide enough for her to “accidentally” run off.
I pretended not to be judgmental. “And that occurred Monday morning at around four?”
Becker nodded. I thought about the time frame. Angie had turned up in my neighborhood less than forty-eight hours later.
“Was it usual for Angie to be home by herself?”
“No,” he admitted.
“I’m assuming Ms. Moreland works?”
He nodded.
“So what does she do with Angie on those days she works?”
“I think she drops the dog off at some kind of kennel. But two or three days every week, she works from home.”
“Do you know where Ms. Moreland works?”
“At the Mickey Mouse building downtown,” he said.
He meant Disney Studios, which was located in Burbank. “Do you know what she does there?”
“I think it has something to do with accounting or finances.”
“Do you happen to have her work number?”
Becker was quickly returning to acting put upon. “It’s over at my house.”
“I’d appreciate your getting it for me.”
While Becker went off sighing, I tested the front door and found it unlocked. From the stoop I looked inside; nothing appeared out of place. Still, I wasn’t reassured. Too many alarms were going off in my head.
I decided not to go inside the house, knowing Burbank PD would probably look unfavorably upon my tampering with a potential crime scene. That didn’t prevent me from asking Becker more questions when he returned, though.
“How long have you known Ms. Moreland?” I asked.
“She bought the house a little more than a year ago.”
“Do you know where she moved from?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think it was very far. My wife said she was in the process of getting a divorce from her husband.”
I was jotting down notes when Becker added, “She was the perfect neighbor at first. But that was before she brought home that damn dog.”
Not for the first time, I thought about how lucky I was to have Seth for a neighbor. Becker was no Fred Rogers.
I took down his phone number and thanked him for his help. He was grumbling when he left, so he didn’t hear the singsong under my breath: “Won’t you be my neighbor?”
I decided to take a look at the backyard prior to calling Burbank’s finest. Before opening the side gate, I told Sirius to sit and stay. Angie was enough of a handful. She pulled me into the backyard and came to a stop at a bedroom window. On the ground beneath the window lay its screen. I moved my face close to the glass so that I could better see inside. The bedroom was in disarray: the bedspread and pillows were strewn about, and there was an overturned lamp on the floor. I couldn’t spot any blood, but it appeared a struggle had taken place in the room.
While I did my eyeballing and snapped pictures with my cell-phone camera, Angie did her sniffing. Neither one of us looked satisfied with what our senses were telling us.
I decided not to call the Burbank police until I made sure Heather Moreland wasn’t at work. My call went to her voice mail, where a pleasant and professional voice said, “This is Heather Moreland, assistant director of corporate accounts. I’m sorry I am unable to take your call, but please leave your name and number, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.”
I didn’t leave my name and number. Instead, I used my phone to look up the number for Disney’s corporate and shared services section in Burbank. When the company operator answered, I offered up my name and title and said that I needed to be directed to one of Heather Moreland’s coworkers.
Thirty seconds later an anxious-sounding woman came on the line. “Is Heather all right?”
“That’s what I am trying to determine,” I said. “Who am I talking to?”
“Katie Rivera,” she said. “I work with Heather.”
“You sound concerned about her well-being. Why is that?”
“Heather didn’t come into work yesterday. That’s not surprising; she telecommutes. But it was strange not hearing from her. And when she didn’t come in today, I got worried. Between yesterday and this morning, I must have left half a dozen messages for her.”
“I have Heather’s dog, Angie,” I said. “I believe she’s been on the loose for the last two days.”
“That bastard,” whispered Katie. “Heather said he was all talk. I told her not to discount his threats.”
“Who was making threats?”
“Her soon-to-be ex,” she said. “Emilio Cruz. If you found Angie wandering the streets, then I know something is wrong with Heather. She loves that dog more than anything.”
“Is there any chance we can meet away from your workplace? I’d like to ask you some questions without unnecessarily alarming your coworkers. I don’t want everyone jumping to conclusions about Heather’s absence from work.”
“I can meet you during my lunch break in about an hour if that works for you.”
I told her it did. “Do you happen to know any dog-friendly restaurants in town?”
“Heather is one of my best friends,” she said. “That means I probably know every dog-friendly place in town.”
Love me, love my dog. I was getting to know that about Heather.
“Are you going to bring Angie Arrow?” Katie asked.
“I’m going to bring my K-9 partner, as well as Angie. Did you call her Angie Arrow?”
“Heather sometimes called her that. I think she got the name Arrow from some dog in an old movie.”
“The Point,” I said.
“That’s it. She was always humming a song from that movie. Heather said it was a favorite of hers.”
“Me and My Arrow,” I said.
“Yes! She loves that song.”
Harry Nilsson sang it, but I didn’t tell her that, nor did I offer up its refrain. Katie gave me the name of the restaurant and i
ts address. It was only after we said our good-byes that I found myself humming Heather’s favorite song. The Point is a short, cute animated film. Its hero is Oblio, the only roundheaded person in the land. Oblio’s faithful companion is his dog, Arrow. I didn’t really know Heather Moreland, but what I did know about her I liked.
Angie and I made our way back to the front of the house. I closed the gate behind us while Sirius made a fuss about our return. I added some music to our celebration.
Sirius and I were like Heather Moreland and Angie. We both had our Arrow.
Judging by Angie’s perked-up interest, she knew the song. I wasn’t Oblio or Heather, but she still rewarded me with some tail wagging.
CHAPTER 10
LOST DOG ANSWERS TO NAME OF LUCKY
Sergeant Sergio Reyes arrived at Heather’s home twenty minutes after I put the call in to Burbank PD. He was wearing a uniform that made him look doughy, but no one looks svelte wearing a Kevlar vest. Reyes limped up to the porch where I was waiting.
“Gout,” he said by way of explanation. “It’s a bitch.”
“The disease of kings,” I said.
“Maybe there’s something to that,” he said, “seeing as my last name is Reyes.”
I knew enough Spanish to know his surname translated to “kings.”
“The doctor says my uric acid is sky-high. He recommends I lose twenty-five pounds and drink less. I asked if he could give me a prescription for a new job.”
“If he’s handing out those kinds of prescriptions, there will be a long line of cops waiting for them.”
Reyes leaned against the wall, putting his weight on his good foot. I had told him Heather’s story over the phone, or at least given him the bullet points.
“Where’s the dog?” he asked.
“She’s with my K-9 partner in the car.”
My vehicle is equipped with a special AC system to keep Sirius cool in the car even on very hot days. It also has what’s referred to as a Hot-N-Pop, which is a system that sets off an alarm if it gets too hot in the car. And if for some reason I can’t respond to that alarm, a door automatically pops open.
“So you say this woman”—he looked at his notes to get her name—“this Heather Moreland didn’t show up for work the last two days, and her neighbor said he hasn’t seen her for a few days?”
I nodded, and then did my Vanna White imitation, pointing to the mailbox and then the motion detector. “The mail hasn’t been collected. And if you look at the motion detector, you can see it appears to have been purposely disabled. I was told Ms. Moreland was finalizing her divorce and the ex wasn’t happy about that and supposedly was making threats.”
Reyes winced, but not from what I’d told him. He was still trying to get comfortable. “So did you enter the house?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He stared at me. “I’d hate to find out otherwise and have that come back and bite me in the butt if I find anything that makes this look like a crime scene. You sure about that?”
“I’m sure. I did go in the backyard, but I didn’t touch anything. Angie—that’s the dog—was anxious to get back there.”
That information didn’t sit well with Reyes. “You’d think an LAPD detective would know better than to potentially dirty the waters, but you just couldn’t wait to snoop around, could you?”
Little brother had a chip on his shoulder. “I could wait, and I did. I had cause to go inside the house, but I didn’t.”
“This is Burbank, not L.A., just in case you might have forgotten that.”
“And just in case you forgot, I came here to return a dog.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, not even making a pretense of hiding his doubts.
It was probably his gout talking, or at least I hoped it was. I handed him my business card and said, “If you don’t need me for anything else, I’ll be taking off.”
It would be up to him to canvass the neighborhood, see if he could locate any surveillance cameras at nearby homes, check on the status of Heather’s credit-card purchases, and start a missing-person search. I would gladly leave that to him.
“Where’s the neighbor you talked to?” he asked.
I pointed to Becker’s house.
“And where did you say this woman works?”
“The happiest place on Earth,” I said.
At his blank expression, I added, “Disney Studios Burbank.”
“What are you planning to do with her dog?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Right now that’s still giving me paws for thought.”
He didn’t get the pun, which was just as well. My escape was delayed another ten minutes when Sergeant Reyes asked me to wait while he did a quick inspection outside and then inside the house. When Reyes returned, he wasn’t as convinced as I was that a struggle had taken place.
“No blood,” he said. “And the master bedroom is kind of a mess, but I’ve seen worse. It could have been she was just entertaining someone.”
I decided not to argue.
“Here,” he said, handing me a blue dog collar with tags. “You can use this more than I can.”
He’d evidently found Angie’s collar in the house. I did a quick inspection. One of the tags was a record of rabies vaccination; the other identified Angie by name and supplied two telephone numbers.
“Where did you find this?” I asked.
“It was on the floor next to her bed. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ms. Moreland just took off for a long weekend, and the dog got out without her knowing it. Nine out of ten times these kinds of situations turn out to be big fuckups. But I’ll do whatever needs to be done to locate her.”
“Keep me in the loop,” I said.
“I’ll do that.”
I didn’t believe him, and he didn’t believe me. And I didn’t mention that I was leaving to have lunch with Heather’s friend and coworker Katie Rivera.
I arrived at Moore’s Delicatessen on Orange Grove Avenue right at the agreed-upon time. With two dogs in tow, I headed toward the deli’s patio area. Angie identified Katie Rivera before I did and started yanking hard on the leash and pulling me toward her.
“Heel!” I said.
Sirius immediately responded; Angie kept tugging until she was greeted by an attractive dark-haired and -complexioned woman who looked to be about thirty. Until now Angie hadn’t expressed much enthusiasm for anything or anyone, but she was excited to see Katie. The woman bent down and hugged her, and appeared unmindful of Angie’s slobbering.
When she finished with their reunion, Katie extended a hand my way, and with a lilting Latina accent said, “Katrina Rivera.” Then she sounded like an Anglo when she added, “But everyone except my parents calls me Katie.”
As we shook hands, I said, “Michael Gideon and Sirius. I’m Michael. He’s Sirius.”
“Thanks for clarifying that,” she said.
We took our seats; Sirius settled next to me while Angie leaned next to Katie.
“At the onset I should say that I’m here more in an unofficial capacity than not,” I said. “The Burbank Police Department is now looking into Heather Moreland as a potential missing person. It’s their jurisdiction and their case. I’m with LAPD.”
She frowned. “I thought you wanted to ask me questions about Heather.”
“I do, but officially I’m only working the Angie angle. I’m not going to let jurisdictional restraints stop me from looking for Heather.”
“I called the Burbank Police yesterday afternoon,” said Katie, “and told them I was worried about Heather because she hadn’t come in to work. When I admitted she sometimes telecommutes, they said I’d need to wait another day before they could take a report. I guess you need to be missing for a certain number of hours before you can officially become a missing person. But I still knew something was wrong. Heather is hyper-responsible. At a minimum, she would have called me with some explanation. And as soon as you told me Angie was wandering the streets, I began fearing the worst. I’m pray
ing Emilio hasn’t killed her.”
“He’s your prime suspect in this?”
“I don’t know anyone else who could possibly wish Heather ill. She acts like a saint in a nonpious kind of way.”
Heather’s life story was interrupted by a server who took our orders: Katie went with the Cuban sandwich; I had the meatloaf sandwich. While I ordered, I couldn’t help but notice Katie staring at the keloid scarring on my face. I try to not be self-conscious about it even though I know it’s the first thing people notice about me. My scars also seemed to jar her memory.
“Do I know you?” asked Katie. “You look familiar.”
I shook my head and said, “I would have remembered you.”
It was both flattery and fact, not to mention evasion. Sirius and I had gained unwanted notoriety when we brought Ellis Haines in, and were still remembered for that by lots of Angelenos. I never help people make that connection; to my thinking it’s better to keep the Haines genie bottled up rather than let him spill out.
“You were telling me about Emilio Cruz,” I said.
“I think he was the first male to pay attention to Heather. I suspect she was vulnerable to someone like Emilio, especially given her life history. I knew Heather for years before she finally opened up to me. I always assumed she led a charmed life because of her upbeat and happy personality. That’s why I could barely believe it when she told me she spent her teen years in foster care. As bad as that was, Heather said her home life before foster care was much worse. Her father was abusive; when Heather was twelve, she saw him beat her mother to death.”
My profession brings me in contact with the worst stories of humanity. Cops get desensitized because we hear too many bad things. But we’re still human.
“God,” I said, shaking my head. It was half curse for what had occurred; half sanction asking for providential blessing.
“Heather told me she wanted to work at Disney more than anywhere else because as a child Disney films gave her hope when her own life didn’t. That’s what drew her to Disney Studios.”
“The House That Snow White Built,” I said.
“That’s us,” said Katie.
More than a half century ago, Walt Disney had used the profits from his animated blockbuster Snow White to buy acreage for his studio in Burbank.
