That Doggy in the Window

by Jaye Watson

  That Doggy in the Window

  A Mystery Novel Byte

  By

  Jaye Watson

  Uncial Press Aloha, Oregon

  2010

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-101-1

  ISBN 10: 1-60174-101-4

  That Doggy in the Window

  Copyright © 2010 by Judith B. Glad

  Cover design

  Copyright © 2010 by Judith B. Glad

  All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  Published by Uncial Press,

  an imprint of GCT, Inc.

  Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

  That Doggy in the Window

  February. Her least favorite month.

  Emaline buttoned her coat and pulled up her hood against the chill, wondering why she insisted on being environmentally responsible and riding the bus, instead of driving her nice warm car to and from work.

  The stop was three blocks from her house, and she hated every damp, splashing step of those blocks.

  Streetlights were shimmering gleams in the rain, yellow sodium vapor lamps pretending to be sunlight, but failing to be anything but garish imitations. When she turned the corner onto her street, she automatically looked up toward Mrs. Irvington's front window. For all the years she had lived with her grandfather, Mrs. I and her babies had been faithful about welcoming her home.

  Sometimes that had been the only good thing about coming home.

  Mrs. I's drapes were open as usual, but no one was there. Not even Scooter and Archibald.

  The dogs, an ugly-as-sin Pomeranian-Daschund cross and a mostly-Yorkie, were always perched on the window sill, watching passers-by with great interest. Scooter liked to bark at his friends, of which she was one, but Archibald was more dignified, and simply waggled his whole fuzzy butt when one of his special friends walked by.

  Must be suppertime.

  She let herself into the house thinking, for perhaps the hundredth time, that she ought to sell the big old barn, and buy herself a nice modern condo, preferably somewhere closer to work.

  The message light on the answering machine was blinking. She pushed it, and did her best to deny she was hoping for a message from Harry. He'd said, back in December, that once the anniversary of his wife's death was behind him, he would be ready to look toward the future.

  Emaline had hoped that future would include her, not necessarily on a permanent basis, but for a while, at least. She was lonely, and Harry was good company.

  The fact that it had been far too long since a man had done more than shake her hand was beside the point. A man besides Harry, that was. She was ready to see what came after the first kiss.

  Was he?

  "Message 1: We are calling to remind you to attend the neighborhood meeting next Monday. The city council is proposing to build a professional hockey rink in Selden Park. Such a move would have severe negative effects on the quality of life in the neighborhood. Please be there to show support for the committee to prevent devastation of Selden Park."

  "Message 2: Em, I've been assigned a pisser of a case. Don't know when I'll be able to get away. Just wanted you to know I haven't forgotten you."

  "Message 3: Hi, Em. I'm not going to be able to do the Girls' Night Out this week. You guys have fun, and think of me sitting home with a sore throat and three sniffly kids."

  Of the three messages, she couldn't decide whether the second or the third was the worst news.

  "Oh, come on, you know you're disappointed about Martha, but you'll still have a good time with Amy and Jerri." She pushed the erase button. Did Harry really have a bad case, or was he letting her down easy? And if he was, why should she care? They were as much associates in solving crime as two mature adults who happened to have had a few dates.

  She had her head halfway through the neck of her purple cowl-necked sweater when the phone rang. Uninterested in the usual dinnertime survey, she let the machine pick up. The caller sounded near tears, so she didn't recognize Mrs. Irvington's voice right away.

  "I think Scooter is dead But Archibald is still breathing. Oh, Emaline, I don't know what to do. The lady at 911 said that a sick dog didn't qualify as an emergency. But Scooter... And Archibald..." The worlds dissolved into an anguished keen.

  Emaline understood. Scooter and Archibald were Mrs. Irvington's children, as much as the sons and daughters in distant cities were.

  She remembered to grab her keys before she dashed out the front door.

  Scooter was indeed dead. The ugly little dog was sprawled in a puddle of urine on the kitchen floor. "Where's Archibald?"

  "I've got him wrapped in a towel in the parlor." Mrs. I said." He was so cold."

  "I'll take you to Safe Pets. Maybe they can figure out what happened." The emergency animal hospital wasn't all that far away. She'd never been there, but she'd seen their sign in the strip mall near the freeway.

  "I'll get ready." Mrs. I caught Emaline in a fragrant embrace. "Oh, Em, I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been at home. Who I would have called--"

  "I'll be just a few minutes," Quickly she extricated herself from the embrace and headed for home. It took a matter of seconds to make sure the back door was locked and return the bag of lettuce to the refrigerator. Her car, as usual, resisted starting. She really should drive it oftener than once a week. Still, five minutes later she was parked in front of Mrs. Irvington's house. The door opened as she got out. Mrs. I had her arms full of a blanket-wrapped bundle. Emaline made sure the front door was locked behind her, and escorted her to the car. "Shall I lay him on the back seat."

  "No, I... I'll hold him. I don't want..."

  "I know. Don't worry. We're doing all that's possible."

  The combination of scattered lights in the misty rain and the glare from wet streets made Emaline drive more slowly than she ordinarily would have. They were about halfway to the vet's when Mrs. I said, "I hated leaving Scooter just lying there. It seemed...irreverent."

  A memory of how her grandfather had looked, lying dead on the kitchen floor, came to Emaline. "Yes, I'm sure it does. I should have covered him."

  "Oh, I did that. I laid his favorite blanket over him. But still, the floor is so cold."

  Emaline reached across and squeezed Mrs. I's hand. "We're almost there."

  * * * *

  The veterinarians could tell them nothing beyond the fact that Archibald's heart was pounding like a triphammer and his breathing was abnormally rapid. "We'll have to do tests." The young woman frowned. "If I didn't know better, I'd say he was having a heart attack."

  "A heart attack? A dog?" Mrs. Irvington's tone made her disbelief clear. "Dogs don't have heart attacks."

  "They do, but most people aren't aware of how common they are." She deftly inserted a tiny needle into an all-but invisible vein in the dog's shaved foreleg. "How old is... You said his name is Archibald?"

  "He's four. And he's healthy. I had him in for his annual checkup just last month. There's nothing wrong with his heart."

  "Mrs. Irvington, it's really too soon to know anything for sure. Why don't you wait outside and we'll let you know as soon as we can what we find out."

  For the next two hours and more Emaline and Mrs. I sat, paced, stood, and sat som
e more in the brightly lit waiting room. It was a busy place, with a constant stream of patients brought in by worried-to-frantic owners. The young man at the reception desk was sympathetic each time Mrs. I asked him if there was any news about Archibald, but he could tell them nothing beyond "Dr. Finestein will let you know as soon as she can."

  Sometime around nine, Emaline decided food was in order. She assured Mrs. I that she'd be back as soon as possible and headed across the street to the nearest fast food place. Fifteen minutes later she returned with a bag containing roast beef sandwiches, some deliciously fragrant French fries and a couple of soft drinks. Not what she'd have preferred for dinner, but sustenance, nonetheless.

  Mrs. I protested that she couldn't eat a bite, but she managed to do away with one of the sandwiches and more than her share of the fries.

  The flow of patients had tapered off. Emaline was wondering if she should prepare Mrs. I for the worst when Dr Feinstein came through he doors from the treatment area.

  "Mrs. Irvington?"

  Mrs. I leapt to her feet. "Yes? Archibald?" Her voice trembled.

  "Will be fine. We're got him stabilized. I'd like to keep him until tomorrow evening, just to be sure. But I'm optimistic."

  "What make him sick?"

  "We still believe it was his heart. Dogs do have heart attacks, you know. You'll want to take him to his regular vet for tests, but for the time being we believe he'll be all right."

  "Thank goodness."' She wiped the tears from her soft, sagging cheeks. "But what about Scooter?"

  "Scooter"

  "My other baby. He's dead. But before he died, he was acting the same way Archibald was. Short of breath and his little heart was just pounding so badly his whole body was shaking."

  Dr. Feinstein frowned, then cast a quick glance at Emaline. "When did this happen?"

  "This evening. I gather they took sick about the same time. But Scooter is...was an old dog. Thirteen, I think. I believe he went fairly quickly. Isn't that right, Mrs. I?"

  "Yes, they both start acting funny just after they'd had their dinner. I feed them every night at six, you know. It's good for doggies to have a regular schedule."

  "What did they eat?" Emaline said, before the vet could speak.

  "The same as always. Their kibbles, but first they had their tiny treat. I buy them the little soft nibbles--doggie whiskey I call it--so they can share my cocktail hour."

  "No chocolate or anything else that might have made them sick.?"

  "Oh, my, no. Never. I was very particular about what I fed my babies. Only the best."

  "Doctor, why don't I bring in some samples of what the dogs were fed tomorrow? I'm sure Mrs. I...Mrs. Irvington is exhausted. And she will still want to take care of her other dog. We...we left him lying on the kitchen floor."

  "Of course. Please let me know what I can do to help. I'll come on duty at six tomorrow."

  By the time Emaline had helped Mrs. I wrap Scooter in his favorite blanket and had dug a grave under the orange azalea in the back yard, it was close to two in the morning. Both she and Mrs. I were drenched when at last the elderly woman said a prayer over her ugly little dog.

  She made sure Mrs. I was warm and dry and safely tucked into bed and staggered off home. Before she went to her own bed, she called the office and left a message that she was taking a day of sick leave. She'd be worthless in the lab with only four hours sleep.

  * * * *

  Ordinarily Emaline didn't read the newspapers, preferring to get her news online. Someone had left the Oregonian on a bus seat one morning about a week after Scooter's death, and she picked it up. The book she'd been reading on her iPhone wasn't very exciting, and she'd been lazy about adding more, so she was desperate.

  She wasn't really interested in City Hall's latest scandal or the continuing argument about who was going to pay for a new interstate bridge across the Columbia. International news depressed her, given her feelings about both Iraq and Afghanistan. The A&E section, usually worth a quick read, was missing, but the Metro section was still intact. She browsed.

  Tucked in a lower corner, next to an ad for Umpqua ice cream--somehow ice cream pictured in black and white held little appeal--was a short article titled "Dog Heart Attacks?" Curious, she read it.

  There wasn't much information. Some veterinarian in Hillsdale had mentioned to a friend who was also a reporter that he had recently seen an unusual number of dogs exhibiting symptoms of heart problems. Most of them had been overweight and, in the veterinarian's opinion, under-exercised. "Pets have the same needs for regular exercise and healthy diets as humans," he was quoted as saying.

  "Dogs do have heart attacks, you know." That's what the veterinarian at Safe Pets had said when she was explaining what they'd discovered about Archibald's condition. Emaline let the paper drop to her lap and stared out the window. The day after Scooter's death, she had taken samples of all the dog food Mrs. I had in her house to the clinic. And that had been the end of it.

  Mrs. I was still mourning Scooter, she knew. On Saturday she had called out to Emaline to tell her that she'd ordered a little headstone for him. "Archibald is still under the weather, but he's ever so much better today. I took him to my regular vet, and he thinks it was just a tummy upset. They were outside for a while that afternoon, and he believes they found something that had been thrown into the yard. Not poison, but maybe a piece of rotten meat or something."

  Emaline hadn't said anything, but she had wondered if the man had simply been trying to soothe Mrs. I. The cause of the dogs' illness had been, in her opinion, something more deadly than rotten meat.

  So why haven't I gotten the results of the analyses? I'd better follow up. Digging her Blackberry out of her purse, she added a note to her personal calendar. Curiosity was her besetting sin.

  * * * *

  When the phone rang that night, she let the machine take a message. She was watching her favorite TV show--well, her only TV show--and a new body had turned up. Not a good time.

  A familiar deep voice came from the speaker and she nearly broke her neck getting to the phone. "Harry! Wait! I'm here."

  "Good, because I don't know when I'll be able to call again. How are you?"

  He'd been incommunicado for three weeks and all he could say was How are you?

  "Fine." She didn't quite snap out the word, but only because she was a strong woman. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd dropped off the face of the earth." There, that had been suitably casual, yet indicated she wasn't best pleased with being neglected.

  "Almost. I'm on special assignment. I can't tell you where, or what I'm doing, or when I'll be back. I can't even promise to call you again. But I didn't want you to think... Oh, hell, Emaline, we made plans at Christmas, and now--" His sigh was heartfelt. That much came clearly across the ether.

  "Harry, I..." She bit back what she had sworn she wouldn't say to him. "I've missed you. But I understand." Yes, and pigs had cute little pink wings, too.

  "When I get back we'll-- Hold on." A rustle, and then a curious slow thump-a-thump...thump-a-thump...

  If she didn't know better, she'd think she was listening to a heartbeat.

  She'd about decided he'd disconnected when she heard, "Em?"

  "I'm here. Look, Harry, don't worry about me. You take care of yourself."

  "This job's more boring and routine than dangerous. But it's going to take a lot of time. Time I won't be with you."

  She bit her lip. That was the closest he'd come to saying how he felt about her. Maybe she hadn't jumped to an unwarranted conclusion after all. Still, it was too soon for her to bare her heart. "Harry, can I ask you a professional question?"

  "Sure, as long as it's not about what I'm doing right now."

  "Are there laws against poisoning animals?"

  "Well, sure. In fact--" A shout sounded in the background. "Look, I've got to go. Take care of yourself. Em. I'll be back as soon as I can."

  The line went dead.

  She switched off h
er phone, but stood there a long time with it against her lips. Special Assignment, eh. Undercover cop, probably.

  Being an addict of suspense and thriller movies, she knew exactly how boring and routine his job was right now.

  Not!

  * * * *

  "Let me see." The volunteer at Safe Pets was clearly not a computer person. She pecked at the keyboard gingerly, as if afraid it might bite her. Emaline held on to her patience and pretended to be reading the informational signs on the wall.

  Here it is. "Ethel Irvington. Mixed breed/Yorkshire terrier. Name, Archibald. Oh, that's cute. Umm, Good Chew Pet Treats. Opened packet."

  She rattled off a list of ingredients, mispronouncing some of them. About halfway through, Emaline heard "...high fructose corn syrup, gelatin, natural..." and quit listening.

  When she stopped reading, Emaline resisted the temptation to ask her to read the list again, just in case she'd missed something. "Okay, thanks. Can you print it out?"

  "Are you Mrs. Irvington?"

  "No, I'm her neighbor. She's elderly and--"

  "Then I can't give it to you. Only the pet owner. I'm sorry."

  She should have known. In a litigious society, everything was a deep dark secret. "That's okay. I'll bring a note from Mrs. I."

  The young woman looked sincerely apologetic. "That's not enough. She has to come in and show identification. It's the rule."

  Swallowing her sigh, Emaline said, "Okay, I'll bring her in some evening when I get home from work."

  "Oh, no, you can't... I mean. You could, but, well, there's no one here in the evenings who can give you the information. It has to be on a weekday, between nine and five."

  Gritting her teeth, Emaline thanked her and left.

  The next afternoon she stopped at Mrs. I's house before she went home. "I just came to see how you're doing," she said when the elderly woman opened the door, "and how Archibald is."

  "We're just fine." Her eyes told a different story. "Oh, pooh, I can't lie to you. I miss Scooter. Archibald is a sweetheart, but Scooter was a part of my life for so long. The last remnant of when Stanley was still alive." She blinked rapidly. "It's silly, I know--"