I figured there was an outside chance that the Poodles might have played a part in its disappearance.
“First things first,” said Aunt Peg, unperturbed by the fact that, between them, one child and four Standard Poodles had disposed of more than a pound of coffee cake. “Let me give you some cash to tide you over until you can get things sorted out. How many credit cards were you carrying?”
“Only two or three, thankfully. I’ll call and cancel them as soon as I get home. They all have limits on how much I’m at risk for. Plus I had about forty dollars in cash. It’s not so much the financial loss as the inconvenience. I’ll be standing in lines and making phone calls all week, trying to get everything replaced.”
“Are you going to file a police report?”
“Where?” I asked. “Greenwich? Stamford? New Jersey? I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to tell them. Besides, you know as well as I do, this stuff is gone for good.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Aunt Peg left the room briefly. Upon her return, she handed me a more than generous sum of money.
“Aunt Peg, what are you doing keeping this much cash around the house?”
“Preparing for emergencies, what do you think?”
Sad to say, the biggest emergencies in my aunt’s life were probably due to the misadventures of her chronically unpredictable relatives.
“Are we going back to the supermarket now?” Davey asked when we were once again in the car.
“No, we’ll go later. I have some phone calls I need to make first.” I glanced at him across the seat. “You’re not still hungry, are you?”
My son’s cheeks colored slightly, but he didn’t answer. Considering the amount of starch that had crept into his diet lately, I was lucky he burned calories with the dispatch of a Whippet.
Davey was gazing out the window when we turned onto our road. I figured he was probably looking for Joey Brickman. Maybe I’d try to get the two of them together for a couple of hours that afternoon.
“Hey!” he said, pointing. “Why is that lady waving at you?”
The lady in question was Jill Prescott. She’d jumped out of her car when she saw us coming and was now standing in the street, waving her arms above her head. As if the sight of a woman in the middle of the road wasn’t arresting enough.
“Melanie, stop!” she called. “I have to talk to you.”
I knew Jill was desperate for a scoop, but this was carrying things way too far. What could possibly be so important that she had to flag us down in the street? I rolled to a stop beside her and opened my window.
“What’s up?” Maybe my tone wasn’t as friendly as it might have been. So sue me for wanting a private life.
“Look.” Jill gestured toward her car.
The blue Mazda was parked in the shade. It took me a minute to figure out what I was seeing in the car’s semi-dark interior. When I did, I gasped.
Two black noses were pressed up against the mostly closed windows. Two black, pom-ponned tails were wagging furiously. Faith and Eve were hopping up and down on the back seat of Jill’s car.
My stomach plummeted, even as I went cold all over. Quickly I shifted the Volvo into park. “Davey, stay right here. Don’t move.”
“Right, Mom.” He was staring too.
Luckily our road gets little traffic. I didn’t bother pulling over. I simply got out of the Volvo and left it where it was. “What are my dogs doing in your car? What happened? Where did you get them from?”
In two quick strides, I reached the door and yanked it open. The Poodles came tumbling out. Eve’s greeting was unrestrained; she twirled in place, delighted to see me.
Faith’s reaction was more reserved. Her tail was up, but she pressed her nose into my hand and whined softly. The older Poodle knew what the puppy hadn’t grasped yet: that the two of them were never supposed to be loose when I wasn’t with them. Somehow Faith had broken a cardinal rule; this was her way of apologizing. Too bad she couldn’t offer an explanation.
I gave my Poodle a reassuring pat, then spun around to face Jill. “What the hell is going on?”
“Hey, don’t yell at me. I was just trying to help.”
“Help what? How did you get my dogs?” I walked back to the Volvo and put both Poodles inside. “When I left this morning, they were locked in my house.”
“Well when I got here, they were running in the road.”
My heart sputtered at the thought. “That’s not possible.”
“Ask your neighbors if you don’t believe me,” Jill said. “Instead of yelling at me, you ought to be thanking me. If I hadn’t caught them, who knows where they might be by now.”
The answer to that was chilling, horrifying. Even faced with unexpected freedom, I was almost positive that Faith wouldn’t have run away. She knew better. But Eve? With a puppy her age anything was possible. Not only that, but neither one of the Poodles knew the first thing about cars. Their survival skills in traffic were nil.
This was every responsible dog owner’s worst nightmare. And somehow—for reasons I couldn’t yet begin to fathom—it was happening to me.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . .”
Just what? I wondered. Confused? Shaken? Scared half to death? All of the above?
Behind the Volvo, a car horn tooted gently, asking for my attention. I was blocking the street and someone needed to get by. I waved to the driver and opened my car door.
“Jill, would you come inside with me so we can talk?”
“Sure. Let me just lock my car.”
In my quiet neighborhood, the thought had probably never occurred to her before. Now it seemed like a very good idea.
I pulled the Volvo into my driveway and parked. Davey reached for his door handle, but I stopped him. “Hang on a minute, okay? I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on. Why don’t you keep Faith and Eve company out here while I check out the house. As soon as I’m sure everything’s okay, I’ll be right back out to get you.”
Jill joined me by the front steps. The door was closed and locked, just as I’d left it. The Poodles hadn’t gotten out this way.
I hopped down and started around the back.
“You might want to wait,” said Jill. “Rich should be here any minute. He can go inside with us.”
“Rich?”
“I called him when I got here. As soon as I saw that the dogs were loose and realized you weren’t home. That’s when I began to think maybe something was wrong.”
I frowned. “And you called for a camera so you could document the problem?”
“Sure, why not? I’m a reporter, you know that. That’s what I do.” Her gaze shifted past me and down the street, settling on an old Volkswagen Beetle that was going at least twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. “Good, here he comes now.”
Rich pulled the VW along the curb in front of the house and hopped out, camera in tow. “Hey guys, what’s up?”
“We don’t know,” Jill told him. “We were just about to go inside.”
Leaving them to discuss the issue, I headed around back. I wanted action, not talk. The only way my Poodles could have gotten loose was if someone had been inside my house and let them out. I shuddered at the thought.
What would burglars want with my small Cape? It was just a little house, like all the other little houses in the neighborhood. If anything, I’d have thought that the sight of two big dogs inside would have made it the least attractive target on the block.
The gate to the tall cedar fencing around the back yard was open. That was hardly surprising. If it had been shut, the Poodles would still have been inside.
I walked through the gate and rounded the corner of the house. My back screen door was standing open. The inner door was wood on the bottom, with a multi-paned window on top. One of the small, square panes of glass near the dead bolt was missing. There was no doubt now, if indeed there’d ever been any. Someone had broken in.
Drawn forward on
reluctant feet, I climbed the steps and had a closer look. The door had been closed, but it wasn’t latched. A shove of my hand pushed it open.
I hesitated a moment, then stepped inside the kitchen. Shards of glass from the missing pane crunched beneath my feet. Other than that, the kitchen looked undisturbed.
“Hey, wait!” Rich came scrambling up the outside steps. “Let me go first.” The camera was up on his shoulder. Presumably he’d turned it on. “You don’t know what’s in there.”
I reached out and placed my hand over the lens. “Whatever we find, you don’t need a picture of it.”
“Yes, he does.” Jill joined Rich on the step. “What if somebody’s been murdered in there? The police will want Rich’s tape for evidence.” Her eyes were glowing with excitement. No doubt she was already envisioning Rich’s footage with her lead-in on the evening news.
As for me, I was beginning to get annoyed. It was one thing to want company walking into a house where I knew an invasion had taken place. It was another for Jill to start suggesting all sorts of horrible possibilities in that hopeful, breathy tone. Thank God Davey wasn’t there to hear her.
“Nobody’s been murdered,” I snapped. “There wasn’t anybody home. That’s probably why whoever was here thought this looked like a good place to hit. Besides, if there was a dead body in there, the police wouldn’t want your tape, they’d want us to wait outside and not contaminate anything.”
“You would know,” Rich said. He lowered the camera.
As if I were the expert. As if I discovered dead bodies every day of the week. What was wrong with these two? Did they actually believe my life was that exciting? I wondered if I should tell them I’d picked up most of my expertise watching Law & Order.
“Turn that back on.” Jill gave Rich a poke. “We’re reporters. We have freedom of the press and First Amendment rights.”
“Not in my house, you don’t.” I pulled the door around and began to close it between us.
My initial concern that someone might still be inside was fading. Any burglars foolish enough to hang around until I got home had probably climbed out a window while we’d been arguing. Now I just wanted to look around and assess the damage.
“Jill, cool down.” Rich set the camera on a counter. “If she doesn’t want me to film in here I’m not going to.” His gaze shifted over to me. “But you still shouldn’t be alone, just in case . . . you know.”
Unfortunately, I did. “Thanks. Let’s go have a look.”
I strode through the kitchen and into the hallway, checking the living and dining rooms as I passed. I’d always found the quiet solitude of my little house comforting. Now it seemed eerily still.
I saw no one, and yet someone else’s presence seemed to permeate the space. My space. Nothing looked different, but I couldn’t help wonder what had been touched, handled. The thought of some unknown person walking through my rooms, going through my things, made my skin crawl.
“Someone messed this place up pretty good,” Rich said, pausing by the living room.
I went back and had another look. A collection of toys—human and canine—were strewn around the floor. Magazines and books were piled haphazardly on tabletops. Two chairs were overturned in one corner. Davey had made them into a fort the night before.
“Nope.” My small smile came as a relief. “That’s pretty much normal for us. Try living with two dogs and a seven-year-old—” I broke off suddenly, spun away from the living room and sprinted for the stairs.
“What?” Rich was quick, I had to give him that. Even caught unaware, he didn’t lose a step. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t have two dogs right now, I have three.”
Poor Dox. In all the excitement of finding Faith and Eve outside, I’d forgotten all about him. When Davey and I had left to go shopping that morning, I’d left the Dachshund puppy locked inside his crate in the corner of my bedroom.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been left crated in the four days he’d been living with us. It was, however. the first time he hadn’t begun to bark impatiently upon my arrival home. Usually he’d be scratching at the wire-mesh door, clamoring to be let out immediately.
I reached the top step, grabbed the newel post, swung a U-turn, and headed for my bedroom. “Dox?” I called. “Hey buddy, what’s up?”
There was no answering whine, no sound of scrambling feet. I reached the door to my bedroom and immediately saw why. The corner was empty. Only a slight indentation in the rug marked the spot where Dox’s crate had been.
Now I knew what my intruder had been after.
The Dachshund puppy was gone.
18
“Oh no,” I breathed softly.
Momentum carried me into the room. I walked over to the corner where Dox’s crate had been and stared at the empty space longingly, as if hopeful desperation could bring the Dachshund puppy back.
“What’s wrong?” Jill asked. She and Rich crowded up beside me. “What are you looking at? I don’t see anything.”
“That’s the problem. There should be a crate sitting there with a puppy inside. It’s gone.”
Rich’s eyes widened. “You mean he’s been dognapped?”
“It looks that way.”
Jill was scribbling on her pad. “Dox, that was his name, wasn’t it?”
It annoyed me to see her looking so happy about this unexpected development, and I didn’t bother to answer. Instead I turned away and checked out the rest of the room. My jewelry box hadn’t been touched. The drawers in dresser and night table didn’t appear to have been opened. Not that I had a lot that was worth stealing, but most burglars would have at least had a look.
Jill followed me around, pen poised to make more notes. “How much was the puppy worth? Lots of money, right? Was it a show dog like your other two? And how come the thief took only the one dog and not all three?”
Good question.
“Let’s all go back downstairs,” I said. “I’ll answer your questions, and you can answer some of mine. But first I want to go get Davey and the Poodles.”
I’d told my son to wait in the car. He hadn’t exactly obeyed me, but at least he’d come close. He was shooting hoops in the driveway. Faith and Eve were his appreciative audience sitting side by side on the front seat of the Volvo. Nose prints were smeared everywhere; I could see I was going to have some serious window cleaning to do.
“That took long enough,” Davey said when I reappeared. He tossed the ball to me, and I shot it through the hoop.
Before going out to fetch him, I’d stopped in the kitchen to sweep up the glass and make a call to the Stamford police. They’d promised to send somebody by, but since the break-in had already occurred and the robbers were long gone, I wasn’t counting on a particularly timely arrival.
“Sorry about that. You can come inside now.”
I opened the car, released the dogs, and brought them into the house, too. Not unexpectedly, both Poodles made a dash for the water bowl.
“I need you to do something for me,” I told Davey. “Can you go upstairs to my bedroom, call Aunt Peg, and ask her to come over?”
“We just saw Aunt Peg.” No flies on this kid.
“I know, but I need to see her again. Tell her it’s important.”
“Okay,” Davey said cheerfully. There’s nothing he likes more than being trusted with a mission.
When Davey had gone upstairs, I beckoned the two reporters toward the living room. Jill was quivering with excitement.
“Isn’t this great?” she asked. “All right, so it isn’t a murder, but it’s not your usual, run-of-the-mill burglary, either. Remember that important stallion that got stolen in Ireland? That was big news for weeks. Maybe we can build up the glamor angle of the dog show world in the report. That ought to be good for some bonus points in the ratings. . . .”
Oh brother. Was it just me, I wondered, or did everyone who knew her wish that Jill had an off switch?
“What time did yo
u arrive at my house this morning?”
My question interrupted her flow of words. She sputtered to a stop, then considered for a moment. “I don’t know. Ten-thirty, maybe eleven? I mean, it’s Sunday for Pete’s sake. I have a life, too.”
Rich raised a brow at that. It wasn’t hard to guess what he was wondering. I ignored him and followed up with another question. “And what were you planning to do here?”
“You know, keep an eye on things. Just in case.”
“Like you’ve been doing for the last week?”
Jill’s head tilted to one side. I took that as an assent.
“Except that I haven’t seen you around since Thursday.” Faith came trotting into the living room. I patted the couch beside me. The big Poodle hopped up on the cushion, turned twice, lay down, and rested her head in my lap. “Last time we talked, I told you I’d call you if there was anything you needed to know.”
“All well and good,” Jill said defensively, “except that you didn’t call, did you? You didn’t even get back to me after I left you a message last night. So I figured it was time for me to stop by and have a look around.”
“The reason I didn’t call you,” I said, keeping my tone carefully neutral, “was because I didn’t have anything to say. Just because you want my life to be some big exciting story doesn’t mean it actually is one.”
“I don’t know.” Rich hazarded a grin. “Suddenly things are beginning to look a whole lot more interesting.”
Yes, they were. Now that Jill was back in the picture.
“My point exactly.” I stared hard at both of them.
Jill’s cheeks flushed pink. Her eyes grew angry. “Wait a minute. You can’t think that I had something to do with your dog’s disappearance.”
“I don’t know, did you?”
“That’s crazy. Why would I want to do something like that?”
The answer to that was pretty obvious. I was interested to see that even Rich didn’t look as though he entirely discounted the possibility.
“Supposing I did take your stupid dog,” Jill snapped. “Where would I have put him?”
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