Worst In Show: A Jamie Bravo Mystery

by Layce Gardner

  As I munch on my toast I use my phone to google the name Gloria. I lock onto the song Gloria by Van Morrison on Youtube. I blare it as loud as my phone speakers allow. It gets me up and moving, and before I know it, I’m doing the Risky Business underpants dance—sliding in my sock feet across my living room floor. It feels good to let loose and boogie in just my skivvies.

  When the song ends I hear loud, slow clapping and turn around to find Travis has been watching me all along.

  “Thank you, thank you very much,” I mutter in my best Elvis voice.

  “What’s got into you?” he asks.

  “Sorry if I woke you,” I say. I scoot back into the kitchen and pour a cup of coffee to go.

  “Are you in love?” he asks.

  I shoot him a “what me” look. “Why do you ask that?”

  “The only time you ever dance is when you’re in love,” he says.

  “It’s been nice chatting with you, Trav, but I gotta go,” I say. “I’m late.”

  “So, who’s Gloria?” he asks.

  “There is no Gloria. It’s just a great song is all.” This conversation is too close for comfort. I grab my trench and fedora and head out of the kitchen. I’m almost out the front door before I realize my mistake. I traipse back through the kitchen, past Travis, with my head low, smiling sheepishly. “Almost forgot my pants.”

  “Mmm Hmmm,” he says.

  Even the embarrassing scenario with Travis isn’t enough to dampen my high spirits on this fine day. Neither is the cold wind or the wet snow.

  I don’t even mind the fact that I have to go by Mrs. Friedman’s and feed the evil parrot.

  Okay, that’s a lie.

  I do mind.

  I mind very much.

  But this time I’m prepared. I made a pit stop at Walgreen’s on the way over and bought everything I thought I might need to outsmart a parrot. A shower cap, a doctor’s mask, gloves, a blow dryer, a butterfly net and the book “How to Kill and BBQ a Parrot for Dummies.”

  Just kidding about the book.

  I walk past Jonathan in the lobby. He’s got his nose in the newspaper and doesn’t even see me. I could be a serial parrot killer for all he knows. Geesh, do I have killing parrots on the brain or what? I need a serious attitude adjustment. I get in the elevator and push the button. This gives me seven floors to transition from bird-killer to bird-care giver.

  Two floors go by before I begin to wonder what roasted parrot tastes like. Chicken? Or is it gamier like quail? Okay, I’m not doing so hot at the attitude readjustment thing.

  I’m well past the third floor when my eyes land on a flyer that’s scotch-taped to the elevator wall. I bend down closer to inspect. Uh oh. It’s another lost dog flyer. And this one has a cute picture of a beagle. I have a soft spot in my heart for beagles. It’s all about those big, baggy jowls and sad, saggy eyes. This beagle’s name is Lucy and her owner is Mrs. Pittman. The flyer says Mrs. Pittman lives in apartment 7C. That’s right next door to the Friedman’s.

  The elevator dings and my body gets off on the Friedman’s floor, but my mind is still hung up on the lost beagle. This is the third lost dog in this building in the past few days. A German Shepherd named Lady Sybil, a weiner dog named Max and now the beagle. What’re the odds? Things are starting to look fishy… in a doggie sort of way.

  I stop outside the Friedman’s apartment and put on the shower cap, mask and gloves. I hope nobody sees me going in like this or they’ll think I’m a burglar—an OCD burglar who’s afraid of bird germs.

  Sidebar: I will freely admit that bird poop does creep me out. For one thing, it’s white. Why is their poop white? It’s unnatural. I’ve seen white dog poop, too, but that’s only when it’s been bleached in the hot sun for several days.

  Okay, enough about poop.

  Now that my head, hands and face are covered, I slowly open the Friedman’s door and peek inside. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find. I guess I’m hoping not to be dive-bombed by a mad bird. When there is no noise, no explosions and nothing weird, I open the door all the way, and step inside. I ease into the living room and peer through the shadows.

  Yep, Lebowitz is still there. He’s sitting in his cage over in the far corner of the room. And he’s glaring at me like he wants to rip off my ear and swallow it whole. Part of that may be my imagination, but definitely not the glaring part. That stare makes me thankful there’s bars between us.

  “Hello there, Lebowitz. Are you a hungry birdie?” I ask. I say it in a baby voice, hoping to pacify him.

  “Hello, hello, hello,” he squawks. “Pretty birdie.”

  So far, so good. I pick up the box of birdseed from the coffee table and shake it like a maraca. “Pretty birdie hungry? Does Lebowitz want some birdie num-num?”

  “Somebody stole my dog,” Lebowitz says.

  “Huh?” Did the bird just talk to me? And by talking, I mean conversing back and forth like he understands what he’s saying.

  “Somebody stole my dog,” he says again.

  He is talking to me! I freeze in my tracks with my mouth hanging open. How can this be happening? How can a bird be talking to me? I’ve seen movies where this happened. There was one movie where a man turned into a shaggy dog. But I don’t think he talked, he only barked. Then there was that Dr. Doolittle guy. But he understood animals in animal-speak, they didn’t actually converse with him in English. Then there was that movie Ted where the teddy bear did obscene stuff to real live women and he did talk.

  “Can you actually understand what I’m saying?” I ask.

  Lebowitz begins to cry. Big boo-hoos, too. There’s no tears or anything, but he is unmistakably on a crying jag.

  “Don’t cry,” I say. “Please, don’t cry.”

  Lebowitz stops with the boo-hoo sounds as suddenly as he began. He tilts his head at me, blinks one eye and says, “I should call Jamie Bravo.”

  “Me?’

  “Jamie Bravo. Jamie Bravo. Where’s that card? Jamie Bravo will find my Lucy,” he says.

  This is getting super weird. The bird not only knows my name, but he thinks he has a stolen dog named Lucy and that I can find it. Can birds go crazy? Can they actually go insane? Is there some loony bin for birds somewhere?

  “I found it! I found the card!” I hear. At first, I think it’s Lebowitz who says it. But then I realize his beak didn’t move. He couldn’t have said that unless he’s also a trained ventriloquist.

  Then I hear, “I’m going to call Jamie Bravo right now. Hire her to find my poor Lucy.”

  It isn’t the bird. Not this time. The voice I’m hearing is coming from the far wall. I walk over next to the wall and press my ear to a bare space between two hanging pictures. I hear the noise an old rotary phone makes when somebody dials it.

  Aha! I get it! The apartment walls are thin so I can hear everything that’s going on in the apartment next door where Mrs. Pittman and Lucy live. Since Lebowitz’s cage is right by the wall, he was hearing her talking and crying and he was simply repeating everything she said.

  Whew, that’s a relief. I really didn’t want to be the star of a Twilight Zone episode right now.

  My cell phone rings making me jump a mile high. I pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen. It’s from a number I don’t recognize. I answer in my professional voice, “Jamie Bravo speaking.”

  “Jamie Bravo speaking,” Lebowitz echoes.

  “Ssshhh,” I say to him.

  “Miss Bravo, you don’t know me,” I hear from both my phone and through the thin wall. “I got your card from Mrs. Myers.”

  “And you have a lost dog,” I answer.

  “Yes!”

  “You lost Lucy and she’s a weiner dog,” I continue.

  “You’re psychic? I didn’t know that!”

  “No, I’m not psychic.”

  “Then how did you know it was me calling? I didn’t tell you who I was.”

  She’s got me there. “Um…” I hesitate. I don’t want her to know I wa
s eavesdropping through the wall. “Um…” I say again. “It was just a good guess?”

  I tuck the phone between my shoulder and cheek so both my hands are free. I open Lebowitz’s cage door.

  “Are you sure you’re not psychic? What number am I thinking of?” Mrs. Myers asks.

  “Eighty-seven?” I say. I shake some birdseed into the little bowl inside the cage.

  “No. Guess again,” she says.

  “Four hundred and eleven?”

  “No, wrong again,” she says.

  Lebowitz suddenly spreads his wings, squawks and flies straight at me. I duck and screech, “Holy cannoli!” He zooms out of the cage.

  “What happened?” she asks. “Did you think of the number?”

  “No,” I say, watching the parrot fly in circles around the room. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not psychic.” I then hiss at the bird, “Get back in the cage!”

  “I’m calling about my dog, Lucy. She’s been stolen,” she says.

  “I know, Mrs. Pittman.”

  “How’d you know that? How’d you know my name? You are psychic!”

  I plop down on the sofa. This is too much. I’m battling with an angry, loose parrot and an old woman who won’t believe I’m not psychic. Things can’t get much worse. “No, I saw your flyer in the elevator.”

  “I see.” She sounds disappointed that I can’t read her mind. “I want to hire you to find my Lucy.”

  Lebowitz chooses that moment to fly over my head and drop a bomb. It hits its mark. Perfect bullseye. Only I have my shower cap on so game-set-point on that one. I say into the phone. “I’m not a pet detective. I find people, not dogs.”

  “I can offer you a retainer of one thousand dollars,” she says.

  I sit up straight. Well, that certainly changes things. “When’s the last time you saw Lucy?” I ask.

  “We need to meet as soon as possible. I can you bring photos and hair samples of Lucy. And a check, of course.”

  I watch in amazement as Lebowitz flies back into his cage and begins to peck at the bird seed. I quickly run to the cage and slam the little door. I lock it and do a quick victory dance around the coffee table.

  “Miss Bravo? Are you there?” she asks.

  “I’m here,” I say into the phone. “Tell you what. Meet me at the Friedman’s apartment in ten minutes. I’m taking care of their parrot.” That should give me enough time to deal with the poop on my cap and take off all my gear. All in all I’m pretty pleased with myself—bird in cage, money in hand.

  “Very good. Good bye, Miss Bravo.” I hear her hang up the phone next door before I hear the dial tone on my phone.

  “You’re lucky I don’t fry you up for dinner,” I say to Lebowitz. If I’m not mistaken, he laughs at me.

  Twenty-Three

  Ten minutes later, on the dot, I answer the Friedman’s front door to find three weepy, red-eyed older women. I recognize Mrs. Heinz. Her dog, Lady Sybil, was the first to have gone missing. Standing beside her is Mrs. Meyers who lost Max the weiner dog at the newspaper kiosk. The third lady must be Mrs. Pittman, owner of Lucy the Beagle.

  Mrs. Myers takes charge of the introductions. I bet she was a schoolteacher back in her heyday. She steps inside and leads the way to the living room, saying, “Miss Bravo, I believe you have met Mrs. Heinz. This is Mrs. Pittman who husband died two years ago and Lucy her dog is also missing.”

  I gesture for them to have a seat.

  Mrs. Pittman is a black lady with short steel gray hair and bifocals perched on the end of her nose. She’s plump and her dress hikes up when she sits, showing support hose that are rolled down to just under her knees.

  All three ladies huddle together in the middle of the sofa like they need the body warmth to keep them from freezing to death.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say to Mrs. Pittman.

  “Don’t be sorry for me,” Mrs. Pittman says. “Hubert was no great loss, believe you me. I used to stay awake at night and pray for the s.o.b.’s death.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I meant I was sorry for your loss of Lucy.”

  Mrs. Pittman gasps. “You think Lucy is dead?”

  “No, no, no, no,” I say, waving the air to dispel any bad thoughts. “That’s not what I meant at all. I’m actually thinking she might have been stolen.”

  “She’s psychic,” Mrs. Pittman explains to the others.

  “No, I’m not. I’m a detective.”

  “Can you find my Lucy?”

  “And my Max?”

  “And my Lady Sybil?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” I say. I sit on the chair facing the three ladies. I clear my throat. “How did you lose Lucy, Mrs. Pittman?” I ask.

  “Well, that’s the thing, I didn’t lose her. She was sitting in the passenger seat of my Volvo and I was loading groceries in the trunk. I heard a door slam but didn’t think too much about it. After all, it was in a parking lot. I finished putting the groceries in the trunk and took the cart to the cart corral. When I got back into the car Lucy wasn’t there! It almost gave me a heart attack. I looked all over the parking lot but no one had seen her. I’ve been pasting flyers all over and Mrs. Myers saw one, gave me your card, and now here I am. I brought Lucy’s little sweater in case you want to smell it.” She held out a little red sweater. It had green trim and Christmas wreaths on it.

  “Smell it?” I ask.

  “So you can track her scent,” Mrs. Pittman explains.

  “I’m not a hound dog, I’m a detective.”

  Mrs. Myers clucks her tongue at Mrs. Pittman. “Psychics don’t smell things. They touch them and then see with their middle eye where they are.”

  “I’m not psychic,” I say one more time. This time firmly. “I’m just a detective. That means we look for clues, gather them up, study them and figure out who did it through the power of deductive reasoning. That’s all.”

  “Can you tell who took my Lucy?” Mrs. Pittman asks.

  “Jews and Gays! Jews and Gays!” Lebowitz squawks.

  All three ladies turn their heads and peer at the bird. He blinks back.

  “What did he say?” Mrs. Pittman asks.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Him,” Mrs. Pittman says, pointing at Lebowitz.

  “Oh, him. I didn’t hear him say anything.”

  “Jews and Gays!” he squawks again.

  The three ladies look at me. I shrug innocently. “Not my bird.” I grab a crocheted afghan off the back of a chair and sling it over the birdcage.

  “Goodnight!” Lebowitz says one last time.

  I sit back down, force a tight smile at the three ladies and say, “Now, back to Lucy. Are you absolutely certain she didn’t run away?”

  “I know the car door was unlocked but I know she couldn’t have gotten out on her own,” Mrs. Pittman says.

  “Lady Sybil seems to be the only one who may have gotten out on her own, but I think someone would have read her tag and called, or have at least taken her to the animal shelter,” I say.

  Mrs. Heinz gulps, “Animal shelter? Not Lady Sybil! She couldn’t survive it.” Her face turns white as a sheet and she fans herself with her hand. “Lord help me, I’m going to faint.”

  Mrs. Myers picks up the box of birdseed, shakes it into an empty candy dish that is sitting on the table and holds it out to Mrs. Heinz, saying, “Eat something, dear. You’re having a low blood sugar moment. Have some of these little nuts.” She evidently didn’t look at the label very carefully.

  I open my mouth to object but I’m too late. Mrs. Heinz grabs a fistful of birdseed and throws it into her mouth. She chews noisily and swallows.

  “Feel better, dear?” Mrs. Myers asks.

  “Much. Thank you,” Mrs. Heinz says, grabbing another handful of birdseed.

  I think my best move here is not to say anything. I don’t think birdseed can actually hurt anyone. She might have more fiber than usual in today’s diet, but at her age that’s probably a good thing. I’m jer
ked back into the conversation when Mrs. Pittman asks, “Do you think you can help us?”

  “I’ll certainly try. Never fear, I usually get my man.” Did I really just say that? Wasn’t that Dudley Doright’s motto? I need to spend less time watching cartoons.

  “Oh, thank you so much,” Mrs. Heinz says through a mouthful of birdie num-num.

  I stand and pace. I tug on my right ear lobe. I call this my thinking pose. I perfected it by watching Phillip Marlowe movies—he did the earlobe tugging thing. “I have a few more questions before I begin. Now, none of you have been contacted by anyone? No ransom? No response to any of the flyers?”

  “No, and I put an ad in the newspaper too,” Mrs. Heitz says.

  “And I put up a flyers at Petsmart,” says Mrs. Meyers.

  “All right then, it seems to me that someone is definitely stealing dogs,” I say. I quickly look at Mrs. Pittman and say, “No, I’m not psychic. Just call it gut instinct.”

  “But why do you suppose people would steal our babies?” Mrs. Myers asks.

  “They could be selling them on the black market, after all, they are pedigree dogs,” I answer. “They might plan to use them for breeding purposes.”

  “Why, that’s sex trafficking!” Mrs. Myers says.

  Mrs. Heinz bursts into tears. “Not my Lady Sybil, please not my baby.”

  Suddenly, three hands reach into the candy dish and grab birdseed. The ladies munch as if their hearts depended on it.

  Mrs. Myers is the first to regain her composure. She pats the other two on the knee, saying, “It’s all right. Miss Bravo is a trained professional. She will find our babies.”

  Now did not seem the right time to argue the particulars of my training. Or my professionalism. Instead, I give them my biggest, most trustworthy smile. “I will do my best. Now, I’m going to need phone numbers, the vets you use, and the groomer’s and anybody else who comes into regular contact with your pet. Also, Mrs. Pittman, what grocery store were you at when Lucy disappeared?”