Nothing to Fear But Ferrets

by Linda O. Johnston

  “Hello, Ms. Ballantyne. My name is Jon Arlen. I’m a friend of Fran Korwald’s. She referred me to you.”

  I remembered running into Fran at Darryl’s. She’d said she was sending someone my way who needed help handling a homeowners’ association complaint. But wasn’t that someone a she, not a he?

  “Hi, Jon. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, it’s kind of a difficult situation. Would it be possible for us to meet to talk about it?”

  “A homeowners’ association dispute?” I asked.

  “No, no. That’s not me.” Jon Arlen’s chuckle sounded like static over the cell phone. “You’re thinking of a mutual friend of Fran’s and mine, Marie Seidforth. Have you heard from Marie? She’s afraid that getting an outsider involved will only make things worse, though Fran and I tell her they can’t get much worse. Not if she wants to keep living where she is and not get rid of her house full of boxers.”

  “No,” I said, “I haven’t heard from her. And the thing is, Jon, I hope Fran told both of you that though I’m an attorney by background, I’m temporarily not practicing law.”

  He chuckled again. “Fran’s so enthused that she’s talked about little but you and your background lately. She told us you helped to psych out that psycho ex-husband of hers so she got custody of her pug. You’re the famous lawyer who was in all the papers not long ago. You had your license suspended for something you didn’t do, and when you set out to prove your innocence, you also solved some murders. Right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And your license hasn’t been restored yet? That sucks.”

  I suddenly liked this guy a lot. “Sure does,” I said. “As long as you understand I can’t give legal advice, I’ll be glad to get together with you to talk over your problem.”

  “Tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Sure.” I set it up for him to meet me at Darryl’s, since Fran had referred him there, too, and he was going to start leaving his dog during the day.

  I slipped the cover shut on my cell phone and sat grinning, till Lexie leapt over and gave me a slobbery kiss on the cheek.

  “Okay,” I told her. “Next stop, Darryl’s.”

  AFTER LETTING LEXIE off her leash so she could zoom around the playroom, I asked Darryl for an audience in his office.

  “Sure, Kendra.” He motioned for me to take my regular seat in the chair facing his overloaded desk. “What’s up this time?”

  “Are you ever going to dump your problems on me?”

  “You wanted to see me to ask me to dump on you?”

  I grinned. “Not hardly. I’m here to dump on you. I just thought I’d give you the chance to get back at me first.”

  “Dump away.” He nudged his wire-rims down his thin nose and peered at me over them.

  I informed him about my call from Fran’s latest referral, and asked if he knew anything about the matter Jon Arlen had in mind for my sage nonlegal counsel. He didn’t, and since Fran hadn’t left Piglet at the resort today, he wouldn’t be able to ask.

  He seemed amused that Fran kept recommending me. Not that she was the sole client he’d sent my way for services beyond pet-sitting.

  Take a doggy stud fee disagreement, for example. About three months ago, soon after I’d helped Fran resolve her problem with Piglet’s custody, Darryl had directed to me a different resort customer’s dilemma. Cheryl Sallar’s champion Bedlington terrier, Lamb Chop, had retired from the show ring in favor of showering stud service on panting female Bedlingtons … for a fee, or pick of the litter. In this case, it had been the latter, but the damned owner of the Bedlington dam had reneged. Even if I’d had my law license back, it didn’t make economic sense for Cheryl to hire an attorney to recoup the stud fee or the prize puppy, though the principal of the dispute drove her to desperation. So of course I had to help—indirectly. I’d suggested that Cheryl sue for the disputed pick-of-the-litter’s value in small claims court. And sure enough, the clash was quickly resolved once the filed action was served on the bitch’s bitchy owner.

  Then I told Darryl of the quasicommitment I’d made to Charlotte. “I think Jeff’s decided I’m nuts. He’s willing to let me play P.I.-in-training under his license—or at least he didn’t order me not to—but he doesn’t seem to understand how much I don’t want to see someone else, even ferrets, get framed for murder.”

  Darryl pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose again and leaned his lanky body back in his chair. “Oh, I think he understands just fine. The guy’s crazy about you, Kendra. He doesn’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all.”

  “That’s too much,” I grumbled, almost spilling my guts about Jeff ’s invitation to cohabit. But to my surprise, I wasn’t ready to spill those particular beans yet, not even to my dear buddy Darryl. “Anyway, I’m going to do what I can to help Charlotte out.”

  “I thought you didn’t like your ditzy tenant.”

  I admitted to Darryl that she’d grown on me. “The main thing, though, is that since I was there myself—”

  “You hate the idea of anyone being railroaded. I get it. So how are you going to investigate, Ms. P.I.?”

  “Jeff’s going out of town, so though I’ll get some help from him, I’m mostly on my own. Care to brainstorm?”

  He did and we did, and though we didn’t come up with much I hadn’t mulled over myself, I appreciated the opportunity to solidify my strategy.

  I took notes to rearrange later into one of my more interesting lists. As I’ve said, I’m a confirmed listaphile. It’s how I got through my days as a litigator, and the practice assisted immeasurably in keeping a log of my pet-sitting clients.

  Besides, strategically speaking, sticking all my ideas onto a list helped me keep track of them.

  I gave Darryl’s skinny bod a big hug when we were done. And then I looked for Lexie. She was lying in the area filled with human furnishings, finally worn out enough to sleep on the sofa.

  “Do you want to leave her awhile longer?” Darryl asked.

  “Thanks, but not today. I have to go give Widget his midday walk, and then Lexie and I are going to take our own stroll around the area where Chad Chatsworth lived, assuming Charlotte knows where it is.”

  SHE DID. WHILE I sat in the shade in the Beamer, outside Widget’s home with Lexie in my lap, Charlotte also gave me a preview over the phone of the lists of potential enemies that Yul and she had been preparing. She was underscoring those she particularly considered ferret foes.

  In addition, she prepped me on the identities of some important people in Chad’s life, or at least those he’d told her of while off camera during the throes of their reality show.

  “He has an apartment mate. They’ve been in the same flat together in the Palms area—on the west side—for about a year. His name’s Dave Driscoll, and he’s a techy nerd. Not even interested in The Industry.” Charlotte made it sound as if anyone not totally immersed in the business that was Hollywood had to have a screw or two loose. Or maybe, since the guy was apparently a computer geek, his silicon chips were cracked.

  She gave me the address in Palms, and I planned to head there next.

  “Anyone else I should know about?” I asked.

  She mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out over the phone.

  “Pardon?”

  “That damned ex-girlfriend of his,” Charlotte grumbled again, this time loud enough that I could hear. “Or not so ex, as it turned out. Her name is Trudi Norman.”

  “And where does she live?”

  “In la-la land.”

  “Where in L.A.?” I prompted.

  “Not Los Angeles. Her la-la land is in her head. The woman is just too sweet to be believed for a dirt-bag, scheming bitch.”

  Charlotte had said that Chad plotted with his girlfriend to reach the top male spot on their reality show, planning all the time to shun what was to appear as true love for reality show fame and fortune.

  Might she have had a reality of her own that cause
d her to kill her fellow plotter, the handsome cad Chad?

  “I need a better address,” I told Charlotte. “Phone number, too, if you can get it.”

  “I’ll try,” she said with a sigh.

  I gave her a bracing pep talk to buck up her obviously sagging morale, then hung up.

  Commanding Lexie into her copilot’s place in the Beamer, I checked my map book and proceeded south toward Palms.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE STREET IN Palms where Chad Chatsworth lived before becoming an alleged ferret feast was an apartment-laden urban avenue.

  I squeezed the Beamer into a spot barely longer than its bumpers, snapped Lexie’s leash securely to her collar, then slid out, Lexie leaping over me to be first.

  I noticed right away that a couple of the scanty parking spots were occupied by police units—a marked vehicle and a crime scene van.

  I figured the police presence was related to the investigation of Chad’s murder and then was convinced of it when I saw one cop head out of the building where Chad had lived and another go inside. I doubted I’d have any luck checking out his flat and neighbors sans hassle, so I decided, for now, to walk the streets to see what I could learn. That tactic had served me well before, while searching for clues in the murder investigations I’d conducted to save my own skin. Plus, I’d gained another pet-sitting client that way, as well as the idea that had helped me solve Fran Korwald’s pug custody problem.

  Lexie and I started strolling the sidewalk.

  Greenery and flowers were scarcely to be seen, though some property managers had gamely attempted to grow gardens in the narrow setbacks between sidewalk and buildings. The five-to six-story structures were distinguished from one another mainly by the shade of beige of their stucco facades. The smell was of musty heat radiating from the irregular pavement, interspersed with diesel fumes from delivery trucks rumbling by.

  Surprisingly, no gawkers blocked the area. Maybe parked crime unit cars were so common around here that a couple more failed to capture an excited crowd.

  I, on the other hand, needed to get a dialogue going with someone with something helpful to say. I noticed two sweats-clad women striding determinedly toward us on the sidewalk. Their quick clip—despite the fact they each pushed baby strollers—suggesting they were out for exercise. I took a small step to plant Lexie and me in their path. Ignoring their irritated stares as they separated their strollers to swing around me, I called, “Is that where that poor Chad Chatsworth lived?”

  That stopped one in her tracks—the one whose hot athletic outfit blazed magenta. She was maybe mid-thirties, with blond hair that might have looked natural if not all a single shade, and large brown eyes with laugh lines scoring her skin. Only she wasn’t laughing now. The kid sitting in her stroller looked about two, and his hair was definitely dark.

  “Oh, yes,” the woman said. “He was quite the neighborhood celebrity. It’s so hard to believe he’s gone.”

  “Did you know him?” I maneuvered Lexie a little on her leash, then gave her the signal to sit so she wouldn’t get trampled if the strollathon continued without my leave.

  “Who didn’t?” she asked, looking infinitely sad, as if she’d lost her best friend.

  The other woman glared at her and grumped, “You didn’t, Dee. Unless you call waving as he jogged by knowing him.” She was shorter and younger-looking. Her black hair formed a wind-tossed cap, and her sweats were a nondescript gray—like her attitude. Her kid was a sleeping baby in pink.

  “You could have introduced me,” Dee countered. She turned back to me. “Helene lives in his building. She knew him well enough that he and his roommate invited her to a party once.”

  I must have reacted without realizing it, since Helene said defensively, “We’re both single mothers.” Only then did I dare a surreptitious glance toward her empty ring finger.

  I definitely liked Dee better than her chum, for she moved past her stroller, stooped on the sidewalk, and held out a hand for Lexie to lick—giving me a glimpse of her bare finger, too. “You’re so sweet. Look at the doggy, Tommy.”

  The kid repeated “doggy” and his mom laughed.

  “So Chad had a roommate?” I asked to get back on the subject, knowing the answer. “Was his roommate in show business, too?”

  “Hardly,” huffed Helene. “I never did figure out why someone as good-looking and charismatic as Chad roomed with a boring computer geek like Dave Driscoll.”

  That conformed with what Charlotte had told me.

  “Probably because the last guy standing on Turn Up the Heat didn’t want any competition,” Dee said drolly, earning her a glare from her companion.

  Turn Up the Heat. So that was the reality show Charlotte had been on. I’d not paid much attention to it while it was airing, and had other things on my mind when I’d taken her application to lease my house. But I’d definitely heard about the show. A lot about it. Who, with any hormones, hadn’t?

  Helene confirmed my impression of it in her next aggravated riposte, one hand on a skinny hip. “Well, there isn’t much competition for Chad Chatsworth … or wasn’t.” Her blazing gaze dimmed again to gloomy. “I mean, he was definitely the most creative of all the guys on that show as far as coming up with sexy and romantic dates to tempt Charlotte. I was certainly tempted, and I wasn’t even there.”

  “Do you think she actually sampled all the contenders on the show?” Dee asked with interest. Her son stretched his hand out toward Lexie, who sniffed it.

  “That was the whole point,” Helene said scornfully. “Of course she did.”

  “That makes the producers of the show p-i-m-p-s, then, don’t you think?” Dee said, glancing down as if assuring herself that her son hadn’t comprehended.

  “Of sorts,” Helene agreed, with the first grin I’d seen on her otherwise dour face. It disappeared promptly.

  “I’m sure the speculation didn’t hurt the ratings,” I chimed in, then faced Helene. “At the party you went to, was anyone from the show there?”

  Before she replied, I noticed a few people exit Chad’s building—in suits. Cops? Could be—the detective kind. I kept my eyes peeled for my old nemesis Detective Noralles. But this area was in a different L.A.P.D. division—West Bureau, I thought. I was unlikely to be recognized by anyone there.

  “Not Charlotte, that’s for sure,” Helene said, answering my question. “Did you see the last week? It was really something. Talk about hot—and I don’t mean sexy. Hot tempers, because of a lot of cool cash.” Her baby fussed, and she bent down.

  “But Chad had no hint ahead of time that being the last guy standing wasn’t enough?” I persisted. I wasn’t sure how well she’d known her neighbor, but she might have heard some gossip and snickers while at the party at his place.

  “No.” Helene stood, her baby in her arms. Cute. Even cuter, the tot wasn’t crying. “The guy really seemed upset at being dumped like that, and who could blame him?”

  Yeah, but was it real or just for show? Or had he been upset because it ruined his well-conceived plan—the one he’d made with his real girlfriend?

  “How well did you know him?” I asked Helene. “Did he live around here long?”

  A uniformed cop by the car glanced toward our neighborly conclave. I bent toward the still-occupied stroller, not eager for him to notice me, let alone describe a loitering pet-walker in his report.

  “Actually, no,” Dee said, kneeling at her kid’s other side. “He moved here between the time the show was filmed and when it aired. At least that’s what everyone here who met him said.”

  She looked up at Helene, who nodded haughtily, as if she felt her importance was being usurped by a blabbing interloper who’d never even met the man. Still, she stayed quiet.

  “Everything was taped ahead but the end of the last show,” Dee continued. She stood again, and I did, too. “Charlotte had already chosen Chad, but they weren’t allowed to get together till the final episode was aired for fear they’d give the e
nding away. But neither knew the final twist till the live part at the end, after they showed the clip where Charlotte chose Chad. Did you see it?” She looked at me.

  “Sorry, no, but I wish I had.” Both women eyed me as if I’d claimed not to have showered for a week.

  “Well,” Dee continued, “there he was all over Charlotte, pleased as punch to see her again, vowing eternal love. And she seemed happy, too. Who wouldn’t? I mean, she’d made the best choice. Chad was a total hunk, and I figured she’d had sex with him before the last episode. But then, in that last show the host came in and told her about her final choice. So what if the sex had been super? Chad became history immediately.”

  “How sad,” I said, then turned to Helene. “Did he tell you at the party how awful it felt when he thought he’d won the woman’s heart, and instead she booted him for the booty instead? Embarrassing, wasn’t it? In front of the entire country—maybe the whole world.”

  “I didn’t know him well,” Helene admitted. She swayed back and forth as her baby’s little hands clenched the air. “But at that party—it was Dave Driscoll who invited some neighbors, to make sure the place was packed. He didn’t want Chad to feel worse because no one wanted to come to his condolences get-together. Anyway, Chad seemed depressed. Drowned his sorrows in so many pints of Guinness that I lost count. Kept talking about how much he’d cared for the Big Bad Bitch—his words, not mine.” She flushed a little and gave a guilty look toward her sweet-faced daughter. “His old girlfriend showed up to try to make him feel better, but I don’t think that helped.”

  Aha! The co-schemer, Trudi, right on the spot.

  “Since it sounds as if he was pissed at the Big Bad Bitch,” I said, not reluctant to repeat her epithet and run with it, “any idea why he happened to show up in that same bitch’s house?” Alive first, then dead, though I didn’t say that.

  “Revenge,” Dee crowed. “The rules said they weren’t to see each other afterward or Charlotte would forfeit everything.” Nothing new in that. “He probably wanted to latch on to her like glue so she’d wind up with nothing, too. Charlotte would have been furious. No wonder she killed him.”