Dial C for Chihuahua

by Waverly Curtis

  “What’s that?” I asked, still backing towards the door.

  “Well, you would need to dance with him,” she said. “That’s the whole premise of the show—owners dance with their dogs.”

  “I thought you didn’t have the money to do the show,” I said.

  “I’m not giving up,” she said firmly. “I’ll figure out a way to get some of it down to the producers. I just hope they give me the time I need.”

  I couldn’t help but think this woman was the sort of ruthless person who would kill her husband. It seemed she wouldn’t let anything get in her way when she wanted something. And now she wanted Pepe.

  “So, will you do it?” she asked. “We can start training on Monday.”

  “I have a job,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her what was really bothering me, which is that I can’t dance. Not at all. No rhythm. “I’m working as a private investigator now. Remember?”

  Rebecca thought about that.

  “Even better,” she said. “I can train you and your dog, and you can help me sort through David’s papers and track down the funds I need.”

  Pepe piped in. “Geri, if we are here in the house, we can do some investigating of our own. Then you can clear your name. And mine.”

  “I’ll pay you an hourly rate. Whatever you get for your detective work,” Rebecca said. “It might take a while since David has a lot of papers. And then we’ll come up with a list of people you can interview. It will be better if you do the interviews than me. Makes me look suspicious.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said.

  “Say yes, we want to do it,” said Pepe.

  “I don’t know,” I said to Rebecca. “I just don’t get your attitude. I mean your husband was murdered, and all you’re thinking about is the money for your show.”

  Rebecca looked offended. “Well, I’m sorry I’m not grieving the way you think I should.” She crossed her hands over her chest. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have people telling you how you should behave at a time like this?”

  “Well, yes I do,” I said. “My parents were killed in an automobile accident when I was sixteen.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Rebecca. Her blue eyes filled with sympathy. “That must have been dreadful.”

  “Pobrecita,” said Pepe. He stuck out his long pink tongue and licked my cheek.

  “I do understand that everyone grieves in their own way,” I said. Everyone kept encouraging me to cry after my parents died, but I didn’t shed a tear for over a year.

  “I need to stay busy,” said Rebecca, clenching and unclenching her hands. “I just can’t afford to think about what happened to David. Not for one moment.” Her voice caught, then she went on. “I have to be proactive. David encouraged me to pursue this passion of mine, and I can’t help but think he wouldn’t want me to give it up, despite the circumstances. You might say I’m doing it for him.” She shook tension out of her hands with an impatient gesture. “Will you help me?”

  “Geri, this will be good for us,” said Pepe. “It will make our reputation.”

  “Please,” said Rebecca.

  “OK,” I said. “Yes, I’ll help you.” But I wasn’t planning to dance.

  “Great! Be here at 1 PM on Monday.”

  Chapter 21

  “What was that all about?” I mused as I drove away from Rebecca’s house. It had started raining again. By the time I reached my car, my socks were soaked. I peeled them off and tossed them into the back seat.

  “Can you turn up the heat please?” Pepe asked, shaking the water off his fur.

  “It takes a while,” I said, trying to peer out past the windshield wipers. “The car has to warm up first.”

  Pepe made a disapproving sound.

  “What did you find out when you investigated?” I asked him.

  “Geri, that woman is muy loca,” said Pepe. “I could not leave the room. She kept me trapped down there.”

  “Is she so muy loca she would kill her husband?”

  “She is capable of anything,” said Pepe, shuddering. “When Siren Song did not move fast enough for her, she hit her on the nose!”

  “Perhaps that’s a common training technique,” I observed. “Perhaps I should use it on you.”

  “That is dog abuse, Geri!” Pepe was indignant. “Someone should report her to the authorities.”

  “Then why did you want me to work for her?” I asked.

  “Is it not clear?” Pepe asked. “I must rescue Siren Song. Like in the soap operas. And the best defense is a good offense. Now we have access to the house. We can scope out the situation and plan our next move.”

  I went home to get some shoes—my Dansko Mary Janes—then took Pepe with me and headed over to Brad’s shop. Brad stuck his head out of the back room when he heard the bell ring that was attached to the front door.

  “Geraldine!” he sang out.

  “You know that’s not my name!” I said crossly. He knows I hate it. Besides my parents did not name me Geraldine. They named me Geri.

  “And the Pepperoni!” he said, spotting Pepe at my feet.

  “Hey, that is not my name, mister!” said Pepe.

  “Call him Bradley,” I suggested to Pepe. “He hates that!”

  “Ola, Bradley,” said Pepe.

  “Isn’t he cute!” said Brad. “It’s almost like he’s talking.”

  “You can hear that, too?”

  “What? His cute little barking? Of course, it’s adorable.”

  “Sometimes I think he really is talking to me,” I confessed.

  Brad got a worried look on his face. “Is this after you’ve had a glass or two of wine?”

  “No! I mean, yes! Sometimes. But I hear him talking all the time.”

  Brad shook his head. “I think you might want to talk to your counselor. She might need to up your meds.”

  “Brad, you know I’m not taking any meds.”

  “Well, maybe you need to. They’ve done wonders for me!”

  “What are you working on?” I asked.

  “Come with me. I’ll show you.”

  We followed him into the back room, Pepe giving the stuffed bobcat a wide berth.

  “Voilà!” said Brad, gesturing at his work table in the center of the room. “What do you think?”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Pepe took one look and dashed under a sofa.

  Arranged on the table was a tableau of stuffed hamsters, all dressed in sixteenth-century garb. They wore various shades of silk and satin costumes, and all wore stylized masks. Center stage was a larger, stuffed guinea pig, arms outstretched, holding a tiny knife in his right hand. He was dressed all in white, with big, puffy black buttons down his flowing shirt, like an Italian commedia dell’arte clown. At his feet was a prone hamster wearing a flowing gown. There was something very familiar about the tableau.

  “For heaven’s sake,” I said. “This is from the opera Pagliacci! ”

  “Yes,” Brad said proudly. “I knew you’d recognize it.” We had seen it together the previous season at the Seattle Opera.

  Pepe looked up at me and asked, “All these small rodents gave their lives for this?”

  “It’s the penultimate moment of the opera,” Brad continued. “Canio has just killed his unfaithful wife.”

  I stared. Everything was right, from the poses to the costuming to the staging, even though I’d never seen Pagliacci done with stuffed hamsters and a guinea pig before.

  “It’s a bit weird, but it does have a strange fascination,” I said. “What made you think of it, Brad?”

  “Well, you know Mrs. Fairchild.” She was one of Brad’s regular customers. “Her guinea pig died. And she wanted him stuffed. Since she’s quite the opera buff, she had named him Pagliacci, so I promised to dress him in a little clown costume.” He carefully readjusted one of the hamster figures. “You know me. I had a bunch of extra stuffed hamsters, and got carried away and created the whole scene. Do you think she’ll like it?”

&nb
sp; “I do not think so,” said Pepe, with a shudder.

  “I bet she’ll be delighted,” I said.

  “Good,” said Brad. “I’m almost done. Let me clean up and we can go out and get something to eat. I’ve got some gossip for you.”

  We headed over to an Italian restaurant where Brad knew the owner. They let us bring Pepe in, as long as he stayed under the table and under the tablecloth. Pepe was having none of that but I found if I put him on my lap, I could conceal his presence.

  I ordered the spaghetti with butter and garlic sauce, and a side of meatballs for Pepe. Brad went with the clam linguini and chose a decent bottle of Chianti for us to share.

  “I wish Siren Song was here with me,” said Pepe. “I would share a plate of spaghetti and meatballs with her like in the Disney movie about the two perros in love.”

  “You’re talking about Lady and the Tramp?” I was amazed.

  “Sí, it is one of my favorite movies.”

  “Yes, it does remind me of Lady and the Tramp,” Brad said, waving his hand at the plastic grape clusters hanging down from the restaurant’s latticed ceiling. The tables were covered with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths and decorated with wax-covered wine bottles with candles stuck in them. “Just look at the decor. It’s just so—”

  “Retro,” I said. “There’s not another place like it in town.”

  “I know, but—

  “Enough of this bickering,” said Pepe. “I want my meatballs.”

  “Anyway, Brad, are you doing anything for Easter?”

  “No,” he said taking a sip of his wine. “We never do anything for Easter. It’s just not a holiday we celebrate and, God knows, we celebrate as much as we can. Why? Are you inviting me to Easter dinner?”

  “Yes,” I said. “At my sister’s house.”

  “Oh, nooooo,” he said, elongating the no for emphasis. “Not with her. Fate worse than death.”

  “You’re right—that’s why I don’t want to go alone.”

  “Once was more than enough. There is nothing that could induce me to accompany you to that house of horrors. And endure the ravages wrought by those two rug rats. Or the inane patter of the dental husband.”

  “I know they’re boring, Brad. But she’s family!”

  “It’s hard for me to believe you are related,” Brad said. “You must know someone else you can inflict your sister on. Some gullible innocent who has no idea what’s in store for them.”

  “Perhaps that man you just met,” Pepe said. “You could inflict your sister on him!”

  Chapter 22

  “No, I couldn’t invite Felix!” I said.

  “Who’s this Felix?” Brad asked, pausing with his wine glass half raised. “Are you holding out on me?”

  “Just a man I met while walking my dog,” I said.

  “I told you it would work!” crowed Brad. It had been his theory that if I had a dog I would meet other dog owners at parks and on walks and at doggie day care, and some of them would be single men. “What’s his name? Tell me all about him.”

  “Well,” I was blushing, “his name is Felix Navarro, and he’s really good looking. Olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes, tall, well-built.”

  “Sounds delicious!” said Brad with a dreamy look in his eyes.

  “I hardly know him!” I said. “I certainly wouldn’t inflict my sister and her family on him. That would be cruel and unusual punishment.”

  Luckily, our meals were served at just that moment.

  “Ah, there is a meatball with my name on it,” said Pepe, his nose snuffling as he licked his lips.

  I put one on the napkin on my lap for Pepe to eat.

  “Yum!” he said. “This meatball is preferable to Felix Navarro any day of the week.”

  “So, what’s the gossip?” I asked Brad, hoping to change the subject.

  “I told Jay you were mixed up in the Tyler murder, and he gave me the scoop on Rebecca Tyler.”

  “Yes, and—”

  “Well, did you know she’s been married three times?”

  “So David Tyler was her third husband?”

  “Yes. She’s been sleeping—or I should say marrying—her way up the social ladder. Her first husband was a construction worker. He died in an accident on the job site, and she married his boss, a real estate developer. Husband number two died of a heart attack. Shortly afterwards she met David Tyler at a charity fundraiser. She hit the big time with him. Retired at age forty. A Microsoft millionaire. He was looking for ways to invest his money, and she was looking for someone to invest in her.”

  Brad paused to take another sip of his wine.

  “So she’s sort of a black widow.”

  “I would say so. Those first two deaths could be considered suspicious. And now a third! And get this! Except for her first husband, all the guys were married when she met them. She actually convinced them to divorce their wives and marry her. Yet Jay says she’s incredibly jealous. She always thinks that other women are trying to steal her man.”

  “It takes one to know one,” said Pepe.

  “The party he did at her house? She accused the beverage manager of having sex with David Tyler in the basement! Threw the woman out! Jay said David was just showing her where the extra refrigerator was located.”

  “These could be important clues, Geri,” said Pepe.

  “I had no idea,” I said to Brad.

  “Let’s just say, I’d watch out for her, honey. She’s dangerous.”

  “Well, I think I’m pretty safe. After all, I’m not after her husband.”

  The phone was ringing when I walked in the door. If I hadn’t had three glasses of wine, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. But I was feeling a bit frisky. I could see the caller was F. NAVARRO and I was surprised that he was calling again. On a Saturday night, no less.

  “Hello, Geri, it’s Felix Navarro. The guy with the dog who damaged your car the other day.”

  “Sure, I remember you.” He was sort of hard to forget.

  “Did you have a chance to think about my offer?”

  “Actually, I did,” I said. I had been thinking over Pepe’s suggestion.

  “And?”

  “Well, I’ll let you off the hook, in terms of paying for my car, if you agree to go with me to my sister’s house for Easter dinner.”

  There was a long silence. I started to get nervous.

  “OK, I was just kidding,” I said. “I know that’s ridiculous. I don’t even know you.”

  “No, actually I’d be happy to do that. It sounds like fun.”

  “Believe me, Felix, this will not be fun.” I told him a little about my relationship with my sister. And how she had invited my ex-husband. And his new fiancée. “So you see, it’s going to be very awkward.”

  “That’s perfect,” he said, “I’ll use it for research.”

  “Research on what?”

  “I’m writing on a book about how to apply the training techniques I use for dogs on people. It sounds like this dinner might offer some opportunities to apply my techniques and see how they work.”

  I had to laugh at that. I couldn’t help thinking about how shocked my sister would be if I showed up with a date. Especially a date who looked like Felix Navarro. I thought again of his honeyed skin, muscular form, and prominent cheekbones.

  “OK,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Great. Tell me where you live and what time to pick you up.”

  When I hung up the phone, Pepe was shaking his head. “Who was that, Geri?” he asked. “Was it that guy with the rude dog?”

  “My date for Easter dinner,” I said.

  “I thought I was your date for Easter dinner,” Pepe said.

  “No, you’re my dog, and dogs don’t get invited to Easter dinner,” I said.

  “That is not true, Geri,” Pepe said. “When I was working at the tamale factory, I was an honored guest at the Easter table. They said I brought them good luck.”

  “Good grief, Pepe,” I s
aid. “Not another preposterous story about your past life.”

  “Very well, Geri. I suppose you would rather go and listen to el Gato. He must have some pretty stories to tell.”

  “Actually Albert has never learned to speak English,” I said. Which raised a new question. “How do you do it, Pepe?”

  “I am a student of languages,” he said, with a mighty sniff. “Every place I go, I make a great effort to learn the language of the locals. What is so odd is that they never seem to understand me.” And he hung his head and looked sideways at me out of his big brown eyes. Nothing looks as sad as a sad Chihuahua.

  “Oh, Pepe!” I said. “That must be terrible! Do you mean to say that I’m the only person who’s ever understood what you’re saying?”

  “Sí!” he said, his ears perking up. “So you see why you are so important to me, and why I must insist on going to the Easter dinner with you.”

  I sighed. “Very well. You can go to Easter dinner with me.”

  Chapter 23

  I woke up on Easter morning feeling blue. Even though I had stopped going to church back when I was in college, I still missed the ritual of worship. It was especially true at Easter. I loved seeing all the women and girls in their brightly colored dresses, listening to the exuberant singing of the choir, hearing the message of hope and resurrection.

  My morning was quite different. After a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, I headed back to Mrs. Snelson’s with Pepe. With any luck, Bruiser would transgress again. I would get my photo of him and be able to salvage my reputation as a detective.

  At the Gladstone, I found a parking place with a good view of both Bruiser’s home and Mrs. Snelson’s flower beds. There was a bunch of little kids, all dressed up in fancy clothes and clutching baskets, on the lawn in front of the building. It looked like an Easter egg hunt.

  I thought about the Easters of my childhood, how we used to hunt for Easter Eggs inside the living room. My mother never remembered how many eggs she had hidden and so, inevitably, one was missed and only found a month later, when it began to emit an awful stench.

  The kids at the Gladstone were all lined up on the patio. Someone gave a signal and they ran down the hill, shrieking with delight and poking around in the bushes. One of the residents, or perhaps the management, must have hidden candy or eggs for the kids to find. Every once in a while, one of the kids would shout and hold up an object that glittered in the sun.