Full Bodied Murder

by Christine E. Blum

  “Oh, I wasn’t scared. I just held on tight to my handsome Greek man, closed my eyes, and thought about all the different ways that I could wear my ‘worry beads.’ I once got them so caught in my hair that I had to cut them out!”

  I was glad to hear that “College Cassie” wasn’t a total stranger from the one I know and love.

  “I have to ask you about those dogs, Cassie. I’m afraid you can’t fool Bardot’s nose, it goes up in the air each time we walk by your house,” I said, changing the subject. I figured that thoughts of Giorgo might lull her into being more forthcoming.

  “Okay, okay, I have adopted two cute Chihuahuas. They’re really fun to dress up and we all paint our nails the same color.”

  She held out her hands and I shuddered, thinking of those dogs’ paws sporting “Jungle Red.”

  “Were they Rosa’s?”

  “I don’t know, they came to my door and didn’t tell me where they came from. They were shivering so I let them in, what else was I supposed to do? You know how I love animals of all kinds.”

  Of course. They were Rosa’s.

  “Did they have anything on them, scratches? Blood?”

  “No nothing. Then all hell broke loose with the murder and I figured that they had been through enough, so I kept it quiet. I was going to make my debut with them in time.”

  “I was thinking that you should tell someone, the cops maybe? But if there was any evidence, it is long gone by now. It’s not like they are going to tell us what they saw.”

  “Oh, but they will. Carl and I found this medium that can talk to dogs. He’s coming by next week. This will crack the case wide open!”

  The next thing I knew, the Prosecco was gone and Cassie was on a quest for a coffee with Ouzo. I wasn’t sure if she’d taken those dogs from Rosa or found them just like she described. Either way it was a tad suspicious, especially since she was keeping it a secret. Cassie was the kind of girl Facebook status updates were created for, she tells you every little thing.

  Before we parted on Rose Avenue, she handed me the SD card from Carl’s camera. I promised to offload the photos in a few days and return it before Carl got back.

  Needless to say I did not make it back to work during that day and had to spend the night playing catch up. I couldn’t help myself, I wasn’t comfortable being in the office alone this late despite having Bardot to guard me. I couldn’t count on her nose sending an alarm to the rest of her deep sleeping body which was so sprawled out that she looked like a passed out snow angel.

  So I set the alarm in the house and worked from bed on my laptop. When I could no longer coherently write code, I switched to an e-book and a glass of Croft’s Fine Ruby Port wine.

  Chapter 17

  “Good morning, Manny,” Aimee singsonged while unlocking the door to Chill Out. I’d dropped her off as her car was being serviced and she’d promised me a cup of sumptin’ sumptin’.

  “Morning,” returned Manny as he hosed off the front patio before setting up the little café tables and chairs for today’s guests.

  We were the only ones in the strip mall working at such an early hour. Aimee had told me that this was the favorite part of her day. With only the sounds of waking birds expanding their little lungs with enthusiastic chirps, Aimee had time to think about the rosy future she hoped she and Tom were working toward. Oh, she said that she planned to keep working even once Tom got his practice, but hopefully doing something that allowed her to be home and have days off the same time Tom did. Right now, she relayed that if they managed to have even one dinner together it was a good week.

  Manny finished rinsing the patio and went around back to the shed to get out the tables. At that same time Aimee had the door unlocked and flipped on the lights.

  “ARGHHHH!” Aimee screamed.

  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Easter Bunny,” I yelled, not sure where the hell that came from.

  The yogurt shop looked like it had been ransacked by a band of marauding pirates. Serving cups were strewn all over the floor, shredded into tiny pieces. Some of the cute neon-colored chairs lay on their sides amid plastic shavings from gnawed legs. Framed photos from a shelf displaying “Chill Out’s Biggest Fans” had toppled and lay broken where they fell. Nonperishable toppings while in canisters had been opened and gotten at. And forget about the napkin dispensers. Manny ran in and contributed another scream.

  “I thought we’d been robbed,” Aimee said, hyperventilating. “We never keep more than a hundred dollars in the register overnight, so that would have been okay.” She was now also crying which made it really hard for her to catch her breath. “This is much, much worse,” she said in a whisper, fearfully scanning the restaurant.

  “Who or what did this?” Manny was now whispering out of deference as well.

  “Looks like rats on ’roids,” I said, gagging a little.

  I looked around and couldn’t believe my eyes. In addition to the destruction of goods and furniture, the floor was littered with rat droppings about the size of Tootsie Rolls. I shuddered when I thought about the size of the animal that did this.

  “You think somebody did this to us? How? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Manny replied. “But these are no ordinary rats, they’re not from around here. I know the rats around here and they are fat and slow. This was a feeding frenzy.”

  “OH GOD,” Aimee shrieked as a rat the size of Shaq’s shoe leapt from the counter and disappeared under the cabinets. When a second varmint joined chase, Manny, Aimee, and I raced to the door and had a Three Stooges moment trying to all fit through at the same time.

  “I don’t understand, we have a rat control service. I have never so much as seen one dropping! How could we have an infestation all of a sudden?”

  She was getting close to a pitch that only dogs could hear.

  “I may know how,” Manny said, heading toward the shed at the back. Aimee and I slowly followed, she resting her hand on her forehead.

  * * *

  “What exactly did the police say?” asked Sally.

  She and Cassie were plying giant brooms and disinfectant all over Chill Out. Cassie, always one to rise to the occasion with fashion, was dressed accordingly in a “Rosie the Riveter” denim shirt and red bandana loosely holding her hair back. A man’s wide brown leather belt over white jeans completed the picture, but never one to sacrifice fashion, her wedge open-toed sandals seemed a little off.

  “They said since there was no forced entry, that I should look at the people who have keys to the place. That would be Tom, Manny, and Kimberly, and I trust them like the back of my hand,” Aimee explained, actually looking at the back of her hand.

  “Of course you do, there has to be another explanation.” I’d seen rats in New York eating egg rolls with chopsticks, so I was not quite as horrified as my friends.

  “What about the broken shed and the roof, did they check that? Seems obvious that’s how the rats were put in here,” Sally said conclusively.

  “They kinda checked it, but I don’t even think they actually went up on the roof,” answered Aimee. “Manny’s going to help me get up there tonight and check it out. Although I don’t know if I’m ready to face the possibility that this was done to me on purpose.”

  “Whaaa? Can’t you hire people to do that? Should I call Augie?”

  Cassie seemed to think that now that she’d heard his voice mail Augie was hers for all police matters.

  “Completely different division, Cassie,” Aimee clarified.

  “Why wait, let’s go up there now and check it out,” I decided and headed out the back door. Sally, Cassie, and Aimee went into the back to look for the stepladder.

  * * *

  “What are these crazy girls doin’?” I heard Ali Baba say. I’d noticed that he and Zeke were sitting out front of their shop, having a smoke as I headed out back. Now was a good time to listen in and maybe get something on Ray.

  “Don’t say nothin’, Ray wants us to stay clear awa
y from them,” whispered Zeke.

  “The yogurt lady always been nice to us, let us set there and feeds us. . . .” whined Ali Baba. “She let me try every flavor, angel food, German chocolate, pecan praline, watermelon grape, red velvet, key lime-”

  “She so nice, why she gonna go climbing on the roof, snooping all around? You go up there? They gonna find anything?” I heard Zeke’s urgent voice say.

  “I ain’t been up there, I swear, Zeke.”

  “And how come you can remember all those yogurt flavors, but you forget to tell me that our supplier missed a shipment?”

  I inched as close as I could to them without being noticed.

  “I didn’t forget, he tol’ me that the storm in Mexico made them a day late,” said Ali Baba, with his hand on his heart.

  “Well, you didn’t tell me that and now we have to play catch-up. Work even harder.”

  “I can do dat Zeke, I can do dat, anything you need me to do I do. You know dat, right?”

  Ali Baba’s blind ignorance and dog-like willingness to please gnawed at me.

  “I know that, Ali Baba, we just got to tighten up our act a little bit. We are getting close to a big payday, as long as we keep Ray and his partner happy.”

  “Woo, ‘I need mon-ey, that’s what I want, I need mon-ey,’ ” Ali Baba sang while slapping out a beat on his thighs.

  * * *

  “What was that,” said Cassie, taking her steadying hands off the stool we were using to climb from the shed up to the roof. Aimee started to teeter as she was reaching for Sally’s hand to hoist her up.

  “CASSIE,” we all shouted. Cassie went back to her duties and Sally pulled Aimee up onto the roof.

  I’d been the first up, pretty easily scaling the side, thanks in part to the rock wall classes I’d taken during a snowstorm one winter.

  “Okay, let’s look around, but don’t touch anything,” said Sally, channeling her best TV crime detective.

  “Wow, look at the view up here, I should do rooftop seating,” said Aimee, desperately looking for a silver lining to this dire situation.

  The building wasn’t tall enough for them to see all the way to the ocean, but it did offer a nice bird’s-eye view of the neatly kept residential neighborhood just south of the mall. The Jacaranda trees were just starting to bear their lavender flowers.

  “Rat poop,” observed Sally. “Someone must have dropped them down this vent. And is this a cigarette or”—she sniffed—“mary-wanna!”

  “And not just the lone doobie, check out this stash.” I’d kicked over an orange Home Depot bucket because it looked so out of place. A quart baggie was lying there fully expanded. Inside, the dried leaves and broken branches looked like a swollen, used scouring pad.

  “That is not chia seed,” Sally said upon closer inspection.

  “Are you saying that someone deliberately brought a bunch of rats up here and had a pot party while dropping them into my shop?”

  “This isn’t yours, Aimee?” I asked.

  “Oh my God no! I have never—”

  Aimee was too shocked even to cry.

  “I want to see,” said Cassie, pulling herself up to the roof. “It is sorta nice up here, and look there are your shop neighbors out front. Hieee.” She waved.

  Zeke and Ali Baba quickly got into the El Camino and drove off.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” said Aimee.

  I think I can cross Aimee off my list of suspects, I said to myself. She’s never smoked pot so I doubt she’d help sell it, and it seems to me that this shot over the bow was a warning sign of things to come if she and we didn’t stop poking around.

  Chapter 18

  I was excited at the prospect of spending the day in fresh air after dealing with all the rat detritus at Aimee’s. I’d finally acquiesced to Jack’s offer of taking me on a CARA training session.

  I know, resuming anything with Jack was trouble with a capital T, but since when do I listen to the “good Halsey”? Plus, I was dying to know what he’d found out about Ray. This was our first date since our “time out” period, and I figured that it was a good way to start getting to know each other. Jack delicately suggested that maybe Bardot should sit this first one out so that I could focus on what it all entailed.

  Translation: it is highly possible that Bardot’s exuberance could result in us all needing to be rescued.

  I thought hard about what to wear. I certainly didn’t want to show up as “Carrie Bradshaw goes hiking.” I was determined to keep up and show Jack my athletic prowess. I also didn’t want to dress too butch and send him running back to his old girlfriend.

  I settled on a “G.I. Jane meets Jane Rizzoli” look. Need more of a mental image? From the bottom up: hiking boots, neon yellow socks, fatigue skinny jeans, white wifebeater (I tried on but decided against a black bra), a beige cotton bolero sweater, and hair in a sexy, loose bun. Bardot watched me examine the finished product in the mirror, and I swear I saw her mouth the words, “keep trying.”

  Jack had said that we would be working in the Santa Monica Mountains, but that was about all I knew. When the time for him to pick me up had passed, I decided to wait outside so we could get going as soon as he arrived. That was when I saw Jack sitting on Marisol’s stoop, showing her photos on his Smartphone. What the—?

  “Hey,” he said, waving at me. “You ready?”

  I looked from him to Marisol who seemed disappointed at my arrival.

  “Are those flowers for me?” I asked, spying a bouquet on her stoop.

  “Nope, he brought them for me, on account of last time and his noisy truck,” she said, gloating at me.

  “You look hot,” he whispered as he put his arm around me and we headed to his truck.

  If I’m jealous, I’m an idiot.

  I assumed we were headed for the freeway but Jack turned into the Santa Monica airport. I looked at him questioningly and he just grinned. We pulled up to a gate and Jack punched in a code. Next thing I knew we were driving onto the runway.

  “Cool.” I beamed.

  Jack raised his eyebrows and gently nodded. He was enjoying this.

  “Here we are,” he said, parking by a helicopter fired up and ready to go.

  Jack was wearing his official CARA attire, which made him look like a paratrooper or, with his shaved head, a lost member of the Village People. He grabbed a gear bag and his dog Clarence who hopped out and as usual, stood at attention.

  “The first thing Bardot would have to learn is how to be calm and comfortable getting on and off a copter,” he shouted over the noise of the rotor blades. “Clarence, come.”

  Fat chance, I thought.

  We boarded, sat, belted up, and put on headsets to hear each other.

  “Say hello to our pilot, Sydney,” Jack introduced. Sydney was a woman, an attractive woman, and I suddenly regretted nixing the black bra.

  “And this is Neil, he’s in charge of running the rescue lines,” Jack informed me.

  I suddenly had a bad feeling about what was coming.

  We took off vertically and headed up the coastline.

  “Approaching Malibu Colony,” Sydney said in my headphones. “Special fly-by tour just for you, Halsey,” she added.

  It seemed that Jack had orchestrated some preferential treatment for this date. We flew over one mansion after another. You had dreaded faux Mediterranean style monstrosities, super modern boxes that I named “Walmart by the Shore,” and thankfully some white and blue Cape Cod homes that seemed just right. Note to self, when I win the lottery I’ll take my realtor on a plane ride and point out the ones I would consider.

  “See anything you like?” Jack asked me, grinning.

  “I need to see some of these close up,” I replied. “Think they’d mind if we dropped in?”

  We took a turn and headed inland to the mountains. I knew this was going to be work and I tried to imagine having beachside cocktails with Cher instead. We coasted up a mountainside and at the top, I saw a clearing a
nd some people and their dogs.

  “This is where we’ll set down for the moment,” informed Sydney.

  Neil started to pull out ropes and other gear I did not recognize and got busy preparing.

  “These teams are all getting ready to take their Wilderness Trailing test for certification. They’ve been training for over two years,” Jack explained as we disembarked from the helicopter.

  This was hardcore. The handlers were dressed similar to Jack and had backpacks stuffed with gear, first aid supplies and plenty of water. And I did not see one dog sniff another’s butt or randomly pee. The dogs were all wearing red vests with a white cross on them. The bigger ones were also carrying supplies. I decided I’d just tell Bardot that her beauty and talents would be wasted with CARA. . . .

  Jack outlined how this was going to go.

  “There are three participants in this test, the CARA evaluator, the K-9 team, and the subject needing rescue. In this case the subject’s gone on ahead and left ‘evidence’ at four locations along the way. In this bag is a scent pad that was rubbed across his arms, neck, and hair. That’s what the rescue team has to go on. They must find at least three of the clues and then the subject within ninety minutes.”

  “And this is all volunteer?” I asked incredulously.

  “Pretty much—we rely on donations for training materials, transportation expenses, and other supplies,” Jack told me while heading back toward the helicopter. “We usually average about three hundred rescues a year.”

  I followed Jack back into the helicopter, took my same seat and belted up. Over the headphones, I heard him say to the group, “K-9 team is off and running, let’s follow them.”

  We lifted off and hovered low over the trees and terrain. Jack had an aerial map of the wilderness, showing the sites where evidence had been left. In the team below were a German shepherd and her female handler. They were moving at quite a clip using mostly nonverbal communication.

  “This is all about scent tracking,” said Jack. “We chose this course because of its natural obstacles. The heavy brush we are over now, up ahead is a creek, and toward the end there is a rock quarry. Jodi has her dog Macy on a long lead so that they can work together as a team. Jodi told us up front that when Macy finds scented evidence she barks once and lies down a few feet away from it. We’ll be able to see that from up here.”