Nothing to Fear But Ferrets

by Linda O. Johnston

  Which was the conclusion probably the entire viewing world would draw, even with ferrets sitting there like furry scapegoats.

  I turned again toward Helene, who seemed to grow noticeably cool in her warm sweats despite bouncing her increasingly fussy baby. “Did anyone mention at the party Chad’s roommate threw—?”

  “Are you from around here?” she suddenly demanded. “I don’t remember seeing you before.” She must have realized they were wasting perfectly good gossip on a total stranger.

  “Actually, I live in the Valley.” I waved vaguely north. No way did I intend to spill that Charlotte, her boyfriend, and the suspect ferrets were my tenants. “I’m a pet-sitter,” I continued truthfully, pulling on Lexie’s leash so she stood and eyed me attentively. “Do either of you have dogs you’d like walked during the day? Or pets that need care while you travel?” Were they stay-at-home single moms? Did they travel? For once, I hoped for a nice, nasty negatory. Not that my business cards contained an address that would arouse anyone’s suspicions about my unrevealed ulterior motive, since I only had my cell phone number printed on them. Still, I’d kept my pet-sitting services confined to the Valley, for ease of jaunting between clients as fast as possible. Palms was way too many miles away to take on assignments here.

  “Not me,” Helene sniffed. “Allergies.” She looked around her kid and down her long, mean nose at Lexie, who took a step backward before settling into a sit.

  Dee let out a sorrowful sigh. “I had a cat, but she was old and I had to have her put down last year. I think Tommy was too young to understand and haven’t wanted to take on that heartache again. But if I ever do, I’ll be sure to think about you. Do you have a card?”

  Discretion seemed a better course than truth. I patted one pocket, then the other. “Not with me, but next time I’m around I’ll bring them. Hopefully we’ll run into each other again.”

  They’d given me a lot of food for thought. Would I need a second helping from them? Brazenly, I asked for their last names and addresses.

  Wisely, both demurred giving out vital statistics to this nosy nonneighbor.

  Well, I’d probably gotten all I could from these particular people. They’d mostly known Chad from his fleeting stardom.

  I’d need more than awed fan info to figure out his murder.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BACK AT THE Beamer, still sitting in the tight parking space, I let Lexie leap into the front passenger seat beside me. I turned the engine on long enough to crack open the windows to let in some air, for despite fall’s having supposedly arrived weeks ago, the car’s interior had morphed into a ceramics kiln while we were out canvassing the neighborhood.

  I reached beneath Lexie’s seat to extract notes I’d been accumulating in response to Charlotte’s appeal for assistance. I added the names Helene and Dee to my growing list of players in the Chad Chatsworth ferret fiasco.

  Not that they were suspects, but they were witnesses of sorts. Maybe their kids, too—but they weren’t talking. Helene and Dee had added to my short supply of information that might eventually clear Charlotte and Yul and their little furry buddies.

  The ferrets. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them, too. They’d gnawed Chad, sure, but they’d most likely been set up. I wanted to visit them in their ominous incarceration, ensure they were being treated humanely.

  Humanely euthanized. The phrase from the animal control officer reverberated in my miserable mind. No, that had to be a last resort, only if they were found guilty in the court of animal control evidence of more than chewing the food left for them.

  I was eager to rescue them, if humanly possible.

  But not now. This afternoon, I had a person with a pet problem to talk to—Jon Arlen, Fran Korwald’s friend.

  And as I studied my schedule, I was bluntly bashed in the face with one little calendar detail that I’d unsuccessfully attempted to store deep in the recesses of my mind.

  This was Wednesday. The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam—the test that had for so long seemed much too far off for me to wait to resume my law license—was now only two days away. It was scheduled for the second Friday in November, starting early afternoon. I’d elected to attack it at the Cal State Northridge campus.

  Or rather, it might assail me, with lots of questions I might not be able to answer, particularly without adequate preparation.

  “Let’s go, Lexie,” I said with a shaky sigh. Her black-and-white tail beat a keen cadence that showed her pleasure at being addressed. I started the car like I meant it this time, and slowly eased my Beamer from its tight space.

  Before I stepped harder on the gas, I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Time for Widget’s early-afternoon walk. Then, to Darryl’s for my meeting with Jon Arlen. My discussion with him would be the final frolic and detour I’d undertake before immersing myself for final hours of uninterrupted ethics study. Or rather, interrupted only by scheduled pet-sitting services.

  An excellent reason to ignore one big gorilla-like invitation that had been constantly crouching at the edge of my thoughts, even when I’d purposely turned my focus in far-away directions.

  Should I move in with Jeff?

  Bad idea. Hadn’t I already convinced myself that my preferences in picking lovers were the pits?

  But I’d also asserted to myself that Jeff was the exception. He was a great guy. A super lover. Someone unlike my last long-term lover, “Drill Sergeant” Bill Sergement, who’d used his influence as mentor at my former law firm to seduce new female associates, including me and many since I’d extracted myself from his attentions. He was a louse. A user.

  And I was already living a lot of the time at Jeff ’s. Lexie and I both were, since it was the optimum place to be while watching Odin.

  Was I honestly considering it?

  Maybe. But not now. I had Widget the terrier to tame for a while, a meeting with someone named Jon Arlen, more pets to tend, then total immersion in studying.

  That was enough to fill this fool’s thoughts for the next few days.

  AS I LEFT Widget’s later and headed for Darryl’s, my cell phone sang out, “It’s My Life!” I hummed along as I lifted it and said, “Hello.”

  “Kendra, it’s Avvie. How are you?”

  “Fine,” I answered, surprised. I hadn’t heard from my former protégée at Marden, Sergement and Yurick since I’d made it clear that, once my license was restored, I had no intention of returning as an associate to the law firm that had been less than supportive during my prior problems.

  Not that they’d actually offered …

  I’d called Avvie a couple of times after our last get-together, tried to schedule another lunch, but she’d always been too busy.

  Firm loyalty, I’d figured, won out over our friendship.

  “Are you still pet-sitting?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “Unless you’re calling to offer me my old job back.” I knew full well that Avvie wouldn’t have the authority to tender that offer, even if I was tough enough to want it. I was just having fun at her expense. Mainly because I was irked. She’d acted so supportive before, then had absented herself from my life for months.

  Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that, last time I’d seen her in person, I’d all but accused her and her lover, Bill Sergement—yes, Avvie was one of his current associate conquests—of being involved with the murders I’d been trying to solve.

  I had intended to upset them then, hoping one or both would spill something helpful. Like a confession.

  As it turned out, something Avvie said had in fact helped me figure out who’d done it.

  “Are you really interested in coming back here?” Avvie asked. “If so, let me warn you. Things aren’t great.”

  “No?” So much for my assumption of firm loyalty. I’d have thought she would be singing the Marden firm’s theme song while standing on her head, if it would help her stay on partnership track.

  Or maybe w
hile lying on her back, while Sergement and she …

  Bag it, Ballantyne!

  “Then you hadn’t heard. I told you before that old Borden Yurick had gone off the deep end. He’s gone through with his withdrawal from the partnership. And he’s taken all his clients with him. The firm tried to stop him, and it’s gotten ugly.”

  I didn’t want to hear the awful details. Only … “So are there any clients left?”

  “Fewer than half,” she said with a sigh. But then, resuming her perkier self, she continued, “But that’s not why I called. I want to hire you, if you’re still pet-sitting.”

  “You have a pet?” That was a surprise. She’d enthusiastically visited once while I’d stayed with a mama dog but had acted more excited about meeting Jeff than the pups.

  “Yes,” she said. “Bill hasn’t had as many evenings free lately for us to stay late and work together.” I was amazed that she said the word work without a hint of hesitation. “I’ve started taking more things home to do instead of staying in the office, and to keep me from getting too lonely, he bought me the cutest potbellied pig. Pansy is her name.”

  “Really? That’s sweet of him.” I had to say something nice, after all.

  “We have a trip coming up—some depositions in Las Vegas.”

  How convenient. I wondered if Bill’s wife would come along to gamble while the two attorneys diligently deposed witnesses. At least Bill hadn’t been married when he and I had been a clandestine couple.

  “Would you watch Pansy for me?” Avvie ended pleadingly.

  “Of course, if I can,” I hedged. “When is your trip, and for how long?”

  It was next week, for four days. I agreed to make myself available, promised to get the particulars from her, and gracefully gestured away her profound gratitude.

  She’d be a paying customer, after all.

  What did I know about caring for a pig?

  As much as I’d known about caring for a python, before I’d gotten lessons on Pythagorus.

  Avvie would teach me what I needed to know.

  WHEN I ARRIVED at Darryl’s, he was in his office convincing an indecisive canine owner that Doggy Indulgence was the Valley’s prime resort for her pampered, pompadoured poodle.

  I knew this because my thin, spectacled friend, appearing more frazzled than he was prone to, ducked out long enough to greet Lexie and me. He explained his situation and motioned for his most obnoxious assistant, Kiki, the bleached-blond self-styled starlet, to take Lexie to play with the pups in the penned-in sports area at one end of the resort’s big room.

  Darryl told me Jon Arlen was already waiting. He’d planted Fran Korwald’s latest referral in the kitchen to talk to me. It was the most private area in the place, except for Darryl’s office, which was occupied, and the bathrooms, which were hardly suitable for our meeting.

  I headed that way. Dwarfing the table in the tiny room where the resort’s staff ate lunch was a very large man with dark, curly hair. He stood as I entered, as did a sturdy russet-and-black dog at his side. The dog had a wiry coat and a squared, bearded face.

  “Hmmm,” I deliberated. “He’s not an Airedale. And he’s not a wire-haired fox terrier. Give me a clue.”

  “The breed used to be called black-and-tan wire-haired terriers,” the man said in a rumbled rasp. “They were originally bred for hunting in the British Isles.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What is he—he is a he?”

  “Yes, that’s Jonesy. I named him after Tom Jones, the singer, because—”

  “Ah!” I interrupted. “That’s the clue I needed. He’s a Welsh terrier.”

  “You got it!” The man held out his hand. “Jon Arlen. You’re Kendra?”

  I acknowledged I was as we shook hands. His grip was what I’d anticipated in such a large man: firm, focused, and fast. When it was ended, I knelt to jostle Jonesy a bit, which quickly got out of hand when the dog decided I was fair game for a round of let’s-wrestle-the-human. My kneel soon ended when the pup pinned my shoulders to the linoleum, licking my face proudly with a long, wet tongue.

  “Jonesy, no!” Arlen commanded.

  “It’s okay,” I assured him. “He’s just being friendly.” But I didn’t object when Jon jerked his terrier off my face and into a sit.

  “So,” I said when I’d risen and planted myself on a molded plastic chair, “Fran Korwald suggested that you talk to me?”

  “Yes.” Jon wore a short-sleeved shirt as wrinkled as the edges of his eyes. Its whiteness emphasized the man’s tan, and if I’d had to guess, I’d deduce Jon’s job kept him outdoors. He rested thick, bare arms on the small slab of wood that was the table. “It has to do with Jonesy, and something he did.”

  I glanced down at the culprit without yet knowing his crime. His tan tail was covered in wiry hair and stuck straight up. As I eyed him, that tail began to wag, and I had to smile. “And what was that?” I asked.

  “Well, as I said, Jonesy’s ancestors were bred to hunt. That included badgers, which live in underground tunnels, so—”

  I guessed. “Jonesy has a digging addiction.”

  “That’s right,” Jon said.

  “And he’s pissed off some neighbors or your landlord by leaving holes in their property?”

  Jon sighed. “If it was something as simple as that, I could handle it. I have a tree-trimming company, so I’m used to dealing with yard issues. I’d work something out.”

  So I’d been right about his outdoors occupation, but not about his problem.

  “So what did Jonesy do?” I asked.

  “He’s discovered some buried treasure,” Jon said, “but it wasn’t buried on my property. I need to figure out how to keep it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I SAT SPELLBOUND at that little table, my mind filled with visions of ancient Spanish doubloons and their valiant and determined doggy digger, Jonesy. Jon’s tale wasn’t complicated, though his dilemma might defy satisfactory solution.

  “I live in the hills over Cahuenga Pass,” he said. “My home’s near Lake Hollywood reservoir. There’ve been rumors forever that when the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed back in 1847, ending the Mexican-American War in California, some Spanish-ancestry Californians left for Mexico in such a hurry that they couldn’t take all their belongings with them. Supposedly, they buried a bunch of gold.”

  “And you found it? Rather, Jonesy did?”

  “Some, at least. The thing is, it wasn’t on our property. Jonesy was digging one day in the yard next door. Fortunately, I found him and was ready to shoo him home and replant the evidence when I happened to look in his hole. And there they were—a bunch of old coins. I dug ’em out, all I could find, took them in small loads to my place, and was just finishing when the neighbor came home. I’d already been calling her Beatrice the Bitch, at least in my mind, since she keeps a dog that howls like a coyote. And she complains about Jonesy’s barking, and his skill at finding ways out of my yard. When she saw Jonesy’s hole that I’d expanded, I thought she’d have a stroke.”

  “But you offered to fill in the hole with a tree,” I surmised.

  “Sure, or whatever landscaping she liked. At first, I thought that would satisfy her—till she spotted a coin I’d missed. She picked it up, and like a fool, when she asked if I’d found any more, I admitted I had. She held out her hands for it. Of course, even if I had been inclined to give it to her, she couldn’t have held it all.”

  My head began to throb. That much unburied loot?

  “I told her where she could put those greedy hands, and she didn’t like it. She said whatever I found, it had been on her property so it was hers. But I just recited that old adage we all learn as kids.”

  “Which is?” I prompted.

  “ ‘Finders, keepers, losers, weepers.’ Of course that didn’t satisfy her. She’s promised to sue me.”

  I sighed. “Jon, what you’ve described is a legal matter. I warned you over the phone, just as I told Fran. I’m a lawyer,
yes, but right now I can’t practice law.”

  “But Fran said you told her you’re taking an exam this week, and when you pass it, you’ll get your license back?”

  “The deity of legal ethics willing,” I agreed. “But it’ll take weeks before scores are released, and even then I’m no longer affiliated with a firm.” Which meant no malpractice insurance, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to practice law naked. “I can refer you to someone, but—”

  “I want you,” he interrupted. The way his rasp had turned into a roar, and his body half rose from his too-snug chair, reminded me that this was far from a miniature man. Still, I didn’t feel threatened—too much. “Who wouldn’t? Have you heard Fran Korwald sing your praises? She says you’re a legal genius. And a nice person. And a pet-lover to boot. Plus you helped her put one over on her bastard of an ex-husband—and made him think it was all his idea. Genius!”

  I’d liked the guy before. Now, I adored what he was doing to my ego. But that didn’t reframe reality. “That was something practical that didn’t involve the practice of law,” I said.

  “That’s what I’m asking for, too. Something practical that will make Beatrice the Bitch get down on her knees and beg me to keep those old coins Jonesy found in her yard.”

  “But—”

  “Besides, this all just happened a couple of weeks ago. I can keep Beatrice busy for now by ducking her phone calls, pretending to play along. Then when you can practice law again, you can send her one hell of a letter on my behalf telling her to butt out. Jonesy found the treasure fair and square.”

  I should have told Jon Arlen to go elsewhere to endeavor to keep his buried treasure. But the issue was too enticing for me just to throw away.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I can’t even think about this until after Friday—that’s when I take the exam. Then I’ll do some legal research—for myself, not you. If I think you’ve a legal leg to stand on, I’ll hand what I find over to someone who’s licensed now, and—”