Life is funny. Not funny ha-ha, but funny weird. Funny strange. I was itching for work and made the mistake of appealing to the patron saint of private detectives to send me a case. Had I known the petition would send me the one I got, I’d have stayed in bed with the covers pulled over my head.
My undoing was the part of the appeal that went, “It doesn’t have to be the crime of the century, just something to get me out of the office.” Three hours later, I was locked in to finding old Mavis Conroy’s half-blind dog that’d gone missing.
Yep, life was one big yuck-a-rama.
I’m Eve DeHaas. Private detective. I earn my living, such as it is, sticking my nose into other people’s business . . . for money. I’m thirty-three years old, black, five years off the police force, and, with one eye closed, I can shoot a rusty penny off a baboon’s backside. That last bit’s not something I advertise—if I did, some idiot would ask me to prove it—and, well, that just wouldn’t be fair to the baboon.
It was a hot Tuesday in July, the clock hands inching their way toward high noon, when Conroy and my grandfather, Edwin Priester, dropped by my office, unannounced, to see me. I was leaning back in my swivel chair, an iced coffee within reach, the morning’s paper laid out across my lap— chillin’—when they walked in just as bold as you please. To my grandfather, the case of the missing pooch was “business” that he was more than happy to toss my way—us being family and all. This alone told me two things. One, my grandfather had way too much time on his hands, and two, he had absolutely no idea what the hell I really did for a living.
I folded the paper, tossed it on my desk, and eased my reading glasses off the bridge of my nose. “You want me to look for a what?” I asked, as he sat completely guileless across from me in one of my client chairs. He’d just turned seventy-six, but was as active and as in control of his faculties as he’d ever been. Or so I’d thought. He fixed me with eyes the color of strong coffee.
“Don’t tell me you’re turning down business,” he said.
I looked at him, flabbergasted. “This is what you call business?”
“It’s legitimate work,” he said. “Looks like you can squeeze it in.” He eyed the folded newspaper in front of me. “It’s a case.”
I looked from him to Mavis Conroy. She was all of four feet, thin as a rail, but sourpussed and flinty eyed, which more than compensated for her lack of height. The shortness on top of the flintiness made for a disarming combination. I might have been able to muster up at least some enthusiasm for the whole thing if Mavis Conroy hadn’t been the neighborhood curmudgeon who, when I was a child, tottered around the block on a thin wooden cane spearing minute pieces of trash off the sidewalk and butting her stout nose into the affairs of others. The self-professed arbiter of the community’s morals, she was the tallyman who measured with great alacrity and diligence the comings and goings, the ebb and flow, and the how much and how oftens of total strangers’ lives. She hated kids, wasn’t all that wild about adults, and had no qualms about saying so. Playing anywhere near her property line was putting your life at risk. And a ball tossed, batted, thrown, or rolled across her grass was a lost ball, and that was all there was to it.
Caldonia, her canine life partner, a stocky little thing—all blue gums and firecrackers, loyally pitter-pattered behind her mistress, straying away only long enough to terrorize squirrels, nail a mailman new to the route, or poop on somebody’s roses. The pair was as popular as urban blight and falling property values.
“Not yet it isn’t,” I said, taking a sip of coffee before all the ice melted and ruined it.
Old lady Conroy, clutching a faux rhinestone leash and a rubber squeaky toy in the shape of a milkbone, sat quietly, appraising me, making me nervous. Apparently, she’d agreed to let my grandfather turn the screws without any help from her. I smelled a trap. But I was no fool. I ate traps for breakfast.
“Mavis here is the victim of a crime,” my grandfather said.
I glowered at Conroy. She glowered back. She’d chased me out of one of her backyard apple trees when I was eleven, and none too gently. I’d climbed up there on a dare, but I doubted she’d remember. I reached for my Rolodex. “I’ll give you the number for the police. They’ll come out sometime between now . . . and next Christmas. You can fill out a report. You might also want to contact the Animal Control people. I’ve got that number here, too . . .”
My grandfather cleared his throat and leveled his eyes at me. “Eve, can I see you outside in the hall for half a minute? Excuse us won’t you, Mavis?”
I sighed and followed him out into the hall, closing the door behind us.
“Don’t you find things?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.
The hall was empty except for him and me, but someone was strangling a clarinet down the hall at the music school, and it didn’t sound like the instrument was going quietly.
“Sometimes I find people,” I said, my voice lowered.
“Well, to poor old Mavis in there, Caldonia is people.”
“Well to poor old me out here in the hall, Caldonia is a dog. Grandy, I am not taking this.”
“You’re too busy?” He asked.
I was not too busy. In fact, I wasn’t busy at all. Hence my morning’s petition and the iced coffee. But . . .
“I could be busy any time,” I said. “And then what would happen? I’d be out looking for a forty-year-old dog with a hearing problem.”
“Probably wouldn’t take you but half a day,” Grandy said. “How many other detectives made the honor roll three years straight?”
I buried my face in my hands.
“I’ll pay for your time,” Grandy said calmly.
I dropped my hands. “Oh, no you won’t,” I said, shaking my head adamantly. “No sir. I am not taking money from you.”
“Then do it as a favor to me.”
We locked eyes for a time. I was trapped, good and thoroughly. I clinched my eyes shut and grimaced, listening as the valiant clarinet breathed its last.
“If anybody I know finds out about this I’m going to have to move, you know that, right?”
Grandy draped a long arm over my shoulder and squeezed affectionately. “And you know me and my Priester gumbo’ll be right along with you so you don’t get lonely.”
Back inside I faced Conroy again. “I’ll see what I can do,” I told her. I hoped I sounded pleasant.
“Sounds kind of some-timey to me,” Conroy said. “Just so you know, I’m only paying if I get Caldonia back.” She stuck her bony chin out defiantly. “Money doesn’t grow on the backyard bush.”
I looked at Grandy, wanting to scream.
“Now, Mavis,” he said, patting her hand. “No granddaughter of mine is gonna do a shoddy job. She’ll find Caldonia for you. Don’t you worry about that.”
Conroy didn’t look convinced. “Seems to me this is the same Missy I found picking crabapples off my back tree one summer Sunday.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Remember Edwin? I’d like to think a certain somebody has learned a little discipline since then. I’m payin’ detective fees, I want one knows a little something and won’t be distracted by the first crabapple comes along.”
My grandfather grinned and avoided eye contact with me. Good thing too, because I was staring daggers at him. “Now that was more than twenty years ago, Mavis,” he said, clearing the chuckle out of his throat. “Don’t think Eve’s partial to crabapples anymore.”
“All right then,” she said, “just as long as we agree. I won’t be paying for nothin’.”
That wasn’t exactly how the whole PI thing worked, but I let it go. Explaining things would only keep Conroy in my office longer. I also dispensed with the standard contract. Mavis Conroy’s “case” wasn’t going on any record I held sway over. I bit back a tantrum and smiled. Then spoke. “Sounds reasonable.”
And then she was gone as quickly as a gust of ill wind. I grabbed for the phone and called Animal Control. The sooner I found the dog, the sooner I could give Conroy the big adios. Expedience was all.
“What breed is the dog?” the guy on the phone wanted to know.
I made a contemplative face. “Is mutt a breed?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, look, you can’t have that many dogs down there that answer to Caldonia,” I said. “She’s old. She’s brownish. She’s got beady eyes, and she looks like somebody just ran over her with a pickup truck.”
“Where’d you lose her?”
“She disappeared from a yard at 89th and Indiana.”
I could hear the sound of paper flipping on the other end. “Nope, no pickups in that area since last week. Does she have a license?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I wouldn’t think so.”
“We got tons of dogs,” he said. “I just can’t walk up and down the cages yelling, ‘Caldonia’ at the top of my lungs. I’ll have to have somebody check when they can and maybe get back to you.”
“Maybe get back to me?”
“Best I can do, lady,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, hanging up. “Put it to music.”
Mavis and Grandy were waiting on Mavis’s front porch when I drove up around one. Her front lawn, as always, was a thing of beauty. The lush grass, the pampered tulip beds and rose bushes rivaled those found in castle gardens. Here was where the grass grew greener. There were no weeds anywhere, no crabgrass, no nothing that had not been clipped, mowed, sprayed, or sculpted into submission. Even the birds appeared to fly in formation when they passed over Mavis’s little plot of Shangri-La.
I climbed the porch stairs and right away Mavis thrust an eight-by-ten glossy of Caldonia at me. The dog stared back at me glassy eyed, a Santa’s hat on her nearly bald head and a ring of shiny sleigh bells gripped in her blue gums.
“That was taken two Christmases ago,” Mavis informed me. “But she looks just the same . . . she won’t be wearing the hat, of course. That’s upstairs in my top drawer.”
My grandfather, dark and lean, his hair snow white, stood protectively beside Mavis.
“See? You got a visual aid. This won’t take you no time at all.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” I muttered under my breath. I was sure Grandy heard me. There wasn’t a thing wrong with his hearing.
“Let me know the minute you find somethin’,” Mavis yelled, as I trudged off down the street with the dog’s picture rolled up—a little too tightly—in my fist. I eased my sunglasses on to mask my identity and then set off to canvass the neighborhood.
Caldonia and Conroy had lived on this block for more than forty years. I wouldn’t think any of the neighbors would take Caldonia even if she were the last canine on a planet where dogs were legal tender. But one can never assume.
“We’ll be right here waiting if you need some backup,” added Grandy.
God forbid. I pulled a face and wondered just when my life had shifted so completely from the sublime to the all-out ridiculous.
“Do it as a favor to me, he says,” I muttered as I walked. “Looking at me all innocently. Blackmail that’s what it is. Emotional blackmail. We’re going to have a little talk when I get back. Set some ground rules. Some limits. Lost dog. I don’t think so. Am I not grown? This is it. This is the last time he gets me.”
I turned back to see Grandy and Mavis Conroy lazily swinging back and forth on the porch swing, enjoying the breeze, waiting for results.
“Just swinging there. Not a care in the world,” I muttered. “Why not? I’m the one running around like a fool. Oh, yeah, serious ground rules will be set.”
To say that Mavis’s neighbors did not share her concern for her pet was to overstate the obvious. A couple of folks actually laughed in my face before slamming their doors on it. Still others greeted the news of Caldonia’s loss as a cause for national celebration. One man even offered me ten bucks not to find her. And by the time I’d made it to his house, I was more than tempted to take the sawbuck.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I began at a house three blocks over. “I’m looking for a dog.” I smiled, hoping I looked friendly.
The elderly woman on the other side of the screen door blinked at the photo, then at me, her rheumy eyes taking in every inch of my 5'8" frame. She looked at me hard, as if trying to memorize my face for the police artist. Hanging off her frail frame was a bulky yellow cardigan pulled over a formless blue housedress. Knee-high support hose rolled down just below her baggy knees, which looked like pockets. Her swollen feet were wedged into a pair of overrun slippers.
“Lost your dog, eh?” She cackled, revealing a toothless cavern.
“Sort of. I’m looking as a favor.” A BIG favor. “Have you seen it?”
“Can’t say that I have. That’s a real good picture, though. I love Christmastime. Not too many dogs on this block, though, so I’d notice that one right off. Let’s see, there’s my Buster Lee, Luke Jarrett’s Delta, and I heard something barking from the Lockes’s yard last couple nights, but I haven’t made its acquaintance yet. Nothing at all like that little scrawny thing running around loose, though.”
“Where do Mr. Jarrett and the Lockes live?” I asked.
She studied me some more, perhaps trying to make up her mind whether or not I looked like a dog killer with recklessness on my mind. Then she pointed a crooked finger toward a house across the street and one two doors down from hers.
“And if you’re planning on stopping by the Lockes, tell them to keep that dog quiet. Folks need sleep.”
“Thanks, you’ve been a big help,” I said. I dug into my back pocket and took out one of my business cards and gave it to her. The card had my office number on the front and Mavis’s number written on the back. “Please, if you see the dog, you can call either number.”
“I sure will,” she said. She shot me a warm smile and then closed the door gently behind her. The polite good-bye was a nice change of pace.
I rang the doorbell at the Jarrett house, but got no answer. I pressed my ear to the door but didn’t hear anyone stirring inside. I tucked one of my cards into the corner of the mailbox. I’d hit the house again on my way back, if I didn’t turn up anything else.
On the Locke’s front porch, I stumbled over an oily lawnmower. I’d noticed the thing from the sidewalk, and after I’d wondered why it was sitting there, I’d made a mental note to maneuver around it. Even still I misjudged the machine’s width and tumbled off balance into a crummy shovel that smelled like the unpleasant end of a pack mule. Feeling stupid, I self-consciously scanned the street to see if anyone had seen the stumble and then checked the back of my pant leg. I didn’t have to be a detective to know that the smear across the back of my right calf was not potting soil—all I needed was a nose.
“Great,” I muttered. “Just . . . great.”
I hunted around the porch for something to wipe my pants with. A neon orange flyer taped to the back of the mower’s mulch bag caught my eye, and I ripped it off and used it. I discarded the soiled flyer advertising B&B Landscaping Services into an empty flowerpot near the door. Feeling quite the martyr, I jabbed the doorbell with a lot more force than needed and sighed long and deep, as if the entire weight of the world was on my put-upon shoulders.
A gangly preteen with heavily lidded eyes that gave him the look of an old hound dog answered the third ring. His nose, short, smooshed, and turned up impishly at the end, resembled that of a Pekinese. His nose and eyes seemed to battle for dominance on his pimply face, and they were offset by a neat little Afro covering his square head. Dressed in baggy jeans, worn low on his hips, and a blue T-shirt that looked three sizes too big for him, the boy posed his lanky arms akimbo and glared at me.
“Yeah?”
I’m looking for Mr. or Mrs. Locke,” I said. “Are either one of them at home?”
“Nope,” he said, impatiently shifting his weight from one Nike to the other.
“You live here?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Left your lawnmower out,” I said.
The boy glanced over my shoulder at the mower. “Yep.”
I peeked into the house from the doorway. No dog. A bowl of fruit sat artfully on the coffee table in the living room, which I could see from the screen door—a cornucopia of apples, grapes, oranges, and pears. The place smelled faintly of lemon wax and . . . nut bread? My stomach grumbled, and I was suddenly hungry.
“I’m looking for a dog. Her name’s Caldonia. Have you seen a stray wandering around? . . . Maybe while you were walking your dog?”
The boy blinked. “I don’t have a dog.”
“Your neighbor heard barking. It sounded like it came from your yard.”
The boy shook his head no. “Dogs wander around here all the time. Some of ’em bark.”
I held up Caldonia’s picture. “This dog look familiar?”
The boy flicked a look at the photo with an air of disinterest. “Nope.”
“You sure? Take a closer look,” I said, testily. I’d just stumbled over a smelly lawnmower. I was in no mood to play.
He glanced insolently at the eight-by-ten. His answer didn’t change. Nope is what he said; nope is what he meant.
“Do you know a Mavis Conroy?” I asked. “She lives a few blocks over.”
“Nope.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Why? You the police or something?”
Finally, something with more than one syllable in it. “It’d be nice to know who I’m talking to,” I said, patiently.
“I don’t know who I’m talking to.”
The kid had me there. I handed him one of my cards.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“How old are you?”
We stared at each other for a time.
“It’s been real,” I said.
The boy pushed the door shut in my face.
“Aren’t kids precious?” I muttered, hitting the Lockes’ front walk. “Makes me want to run right out and have one or two of my own. The little dears.”
No one else on the block had seen Caldonia, which forced me to repeat the indignity one block north. Time lagged, seeming to pack several years’ worth of agony into every sixty seconds. When two preschoolers whizzed past me on Big Wheels and called me “The Doggie Lady,” I called it quits. Not for the day, but for good. Grandy would just have to get over it. I stepped up my pace and headed back to Conroy’s, stopping abruptly when I heard my name being called from behind.
“Eve!?”
I turned, scanned the sidewalk, and watched as Grandy trotted toward me waving excitedly.
“Good news,” he said when he reached me. “Mavis got a call about the dog. Some man found her wandering around. Says he’ll bring her back if there’s a reward.”
“If there’s a reward? That’s extortion!”
“Well, extortion or no extortion,” he said. “The woman wants her dog back. I thought you’d appreciate the news.”
“What? He just called up and said, ‘Hey, I have your dog. How much is she worth to you?”
“Pretty much. He said for you to come alone to pick her up.”
I held up my hands. “Whoa, you who?”
“You you. And don’t get an attitude. Let’s walk.”
Grandy pulled me gently by the arm toward Conroy’s. I had the good sense not to dig my heels in, but it took everything I had not to.
“Grandy,” I said. “We need to talk.”
“What about?”
“What about?”
We stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and he turned to me. “One little dog to you,” he said, loosening his grip. “Mavis Conroy doesn’t have much. Caldonia means the world to her.”
I stood motionless for a time, then walked off without another word, thoroughly chastened. Grandy following behind.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
“To see a man about a dog.”
When we got back to Mavis’s she had five crisp ten-dollar bills rolled up in a rubber band waiting for me. My warnings about crackpots and opportunists fell on deaf ears, and I was quickly sent packing, money in my pocket, to bring Caldonia home—my rendezvous with absurdity to take place in front of the toddler swings in Carver Playlot two blocks up.
The tiny lot was deserted when I got there, except for a couple of little girls in braids half absorbed in burying naked Barbie dolls in the sandbox. I smiled benevolently. They stuck their tongues out at me. I blew them both raspberries and thanked God I had no children. I checked my watch and then looked up and down the street for my dog blackmailer. The street was clear. I leaned against the jungle gym to wait. After about five minutes, the little gravediggers exhumed their property and left. About thirty seconds after that, a man, fortyish, wiry and average in height, dressed in a white undershirt and wrinkled chinos entered the playlot schlepping a big television box. He approached me, nervously, checking behind him as he came.
“Here’s your dog, lady,” he said, plopping the box onto the soft sand in front of me. “There’s a reward, right?”
“The dog’s owner is offering something for your trouble,” I said. “You mind opening that?” I asked pointing to the box. “I’d like to make sure the dog you have is the dog she wants. After that, the money’s all yours.”
The man didn’t move.
“I don’t like dogs,” he said.
“I don’t much care for them either,” I said. “But we all gotta do what we all gotta do.”
“Me not likin’ dogs is why the thing is in the box and not on a leash,” he said. “You just give me the money and I’m on my way, then you and the box can have a good time.”
Inwardly I groaned, knowing that I’d been jerked around . . . a second time. I glowered at the man as he babbled on defensively. I watched his lips move a mile a minute, having tuned out his actual words. Didn’t matter. He was weaving a tall tale I had no time for. The more his lips moved, the angrier I got.
“Eh, you see? My brother is really the one who found the dog,” I heard him say when I tuned back in. “But he had to go to work. He asked me to bring it back. Which I didn’t mind doing, as long as I didn’t have to touch it or have it jump all over me. You know how dogs are.” His smile was weak.
“Where’d your brother find him?” I asked, forcing the man to lie to me some more.
“Around . . . the neighborhood,” he said.
“Uh-huh. Where exactly?”
“You know, around the neighborhood. It’s a dog. They wander. So, you know, the money now . . . then the dog when I’m out of here.”
I kicked the box hard, nearly toppling it on its side. Nothing moved inside or yelped in protest. I sneered at the man. He began to sweat on his top lip.
“It’s asleep,” he said. “It nodded off.”
I crossed my arms in front of me.
“OK, forget it!” He snapped, snatching up the box, turning and stomping off in a cloud of indignation. I watched him go. Five feet out, he turned on angry heels and walked back, dropping the box down in front of me again.
“Do you want this dog or not?”
“Where’d you get my name?” I asked.
“What difference does that make? Do you want this mangy mutt?”
I walked away without answering.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered as I trudged away. “Absolutely un-be-liev-able.”
“Hey,” he shouted after me. “HEY!”
I kept walking, ignoring him.
“Nutcase,” I muttered, shaking my head. “With nothing but time . . .”
Suddenly, I heard the fast approach of running feet and stopped, then turned just as the man threw himself at me, his arms outstretched in a frantic grab. Down we went in a hard tackle, scrambling around in the dirt like a couple of rough-housers at recess. He had me pinned on my stomach, his clumsy fingers groping around my pockets for Conroy’s reward money.
“That’s it,” I grunted, gritting my teeth and bucking like a wild horse. “Don’t make me hurt you!”
The guy kept groping, “WHERE’S THE MONEY!?”
“Hey, HEY, watch the hands, fool!”
I managed to wiggle my left arm free and shot him a sharp elbow to the Adam’s apple, which sent him tumbling back in agony. Dazed, but just for a moment, his discomfort gave me enough time to twist over on my butt and reel off a kick to his midsection. He doubled over, grasping his stomach, but he didn’t stay down long. He lunged for me again, this time his hands grabbing for my throat. I clambered out of striking range, crawling away on hands and knees, but he caught me by the ankles and flipped me over like a pancake. He pounced, but missed. As he flew toward me, I kicked up violently, landing a solid kidney punch to his right side. I scampered to my feet, just as his body smacked the ground.
“Now you’re going to get it,” he threatened, rising up and charging at me like a mad bull. I quickly pulled the money out of my pocket and waved it at him, enticing him.
“This what you want?” I asked. He stopped mid-charge, his greed obviously superseding basic instincts.
“It’s yours,” I said, tossing the wad to the dirt halfway between us. He went for it, bending over with great effort to pick it up. When he grabbed the bills, I hammered down with both forearms onto the back of his neck and he crumbled over in a sweaty heap. Lights out.
I pried the money wad from his unconscious hand, brushed it clean, and put it back in my pocket. Leaning down, I pulled the man’s wallet from his back pocket and took out his driver’s license, reading it.
“Leon Pettis?”
I didn’t recognize the name, but his address sure registered. I put his license back into its plastic sheath and tossed his wallet down next to him. Pettis began to stir and groan. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I walked over to the box and opened the lid. Inside, there were three thick telephone books and a lot of wadded up newspaper. I sighed and fought back an impulse to give Pettis another good kick to remember me by.
“Keep the money, then,” Pettis said when he’d regained his composure. He sat up, holding his side, staring hard at me.
“Shut up,” I said.
“I could press charges,” he blustered.
“You’re missing the big picture here, Leon.”
He looked startled that I knew his name.
“For you the charge would be assault. I was just defending myself. Tack on the attempted extortion charge and . . . well, I don’t think I have to say anymore, do I?”
Leon Pettis blanched and then began to talk a blue streak even without me asking any questions. Pettis had never laid eyes on Caldonia. The son of the old lady I’d spoken to earlier, he had gotten my card from her and had half-baked a pathetic scam for pocket money.
I moseyed back to Mavis’s house, feeling truly put out. As I rounded her corner, I caught sight of my grandfather and her still sitting quietly on the porch, this time a pitcher of frosted lemonade on a café table between them. Mavis fanned her face with a wrinkled magazine insert from the morning’s paper.
“No need to ask how it went, since you’re not towing a dog along behind you,” my grandfather said as I pushed open the gate. I told them about Pettis and my roll on the wild side in between sips of lemonade.
“Caldonia will be missing her treat,” Conroy said, her face creased with worry. “Banana Surprise. I feed it to her every night. She’s probably fretting her poor self to death.”
“What’s that, Mavis?” Grandy asked. “Banana Surprise?”
I only half listened. I thought I heard the word bananas and something niggled a spark of remembrance in my head, but I quickly lost the recollection.
“It’s bananas and anything else sweet I can come up with out of the refrigerator. That’s the surprise,” she said. “Caldonia swears by it.”
I looked out over Mavis’s front yard, at the well-tended flowers and the pretty grass. Then turned to watch Mavis as she sat in her chair, her cane propped against its arm.
“Who cuts your grass, Mrs. Conroy?”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Your grass. Who cuts it?”
“A couple of boys from the neighborhood come by every week. Or used to. I have not been at all satisfied with the work they’ve been doing. I like my grass exactly three-quarter inches. But young people today . . . so little pride in their work.” The last remark was addressed to my grandfather, who nodded, apparently agreeing with her.
“What do you mean ‘or did’?” I asked.
“I fired them Saturday, I guess it was. I came flat out and told both of them I was not at all satisfied. One of them got downright uppity, too. That’s when I fired them. And I refused to pay for the half job they did do.”
“What were their names?”
Conroy shook her head. “I don’t know. They were tall and skinny with big shoes that clunked when they walked. They came around the beginning of the summer passing out flashy flyers.”
I pulled my car up in front of the Lockes’ house, got out, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell. The dirty lawnmower was gone, but, this time no one answered the bell. Undeterred, I knocked hard against the front door and waited a polite length of time before peeking, impolitely, through the front picture window. I didn’t see anyone milling around beyond the gauzy drapes. I glanced at my watch. It was almost 4:30. I’d have to wait.
“I hate waiting,” I muttered. “Really, really hate it.”
I headed for the Lockes’ backyard, which was hemmed in by a worn chain-link fence. The gate was closed, but not locked.
“That’s an invitation if ever I saw one. People really ought to be more careful.”
I tipped into the yard, easing the gate closed behind me. The backyard was neat and tidy, the lawn recently mowed and edged. I didn’t care what Mavis said, the kid did good work. Someone was growing vegetables in a thin plot of land that ran the length of the yard—green peppers, cauliflower, cabbage. I made a face at the cauliflower.
A huge shade tree with long, expansive branches, towered over a small aluminum tool shed that sat against the back fence. A greasy Weber grill and a tiny redwood picnic table sat on the Lockes’ deck, perfect for outdoor cookouts. I did not see Caldonia. I craned an ear, but did not hear any whimpering or scratching, either.
I walked over to the shed. It was padlocked. I doubted the dog would be in there. It was too hot a day and too small a space. But I rapped on it anyway, for thoroughness’s sake. Nothing barked back at me. Good news for Caldonia, disappointing news for me. There was nothing to do but wait out front for the Lockes to come home. They surely could get more information from Junior than I could without having to throttle the little rug rat.
I waited it out in my car, head pressed against the headrest, windows rolled down to allow for breezes, scanning the quiet street from behind the anonymity of my sunglasses. Anita Baker sang on the radio. If I’d had a book, a tall iced tea and a fresh Cobb salad, it would have been an OK time.
“Caldonia. Cal-do-nia,” I muttered lazily. “Who names a dog Caldonia anyway?” I pictured the dog in my head as I remembered her—spindly legged, practically toothless, hairy in spots, bald in others, antisocial. And then I took stabs at naming her more appropriately as a means of passing the time. “Ugly . . . Homely . . . Surly Sue . . . Gummy Knobs.”
The name game ended when a tan LeBaron coasted into the spot in front of the Lockes’ bungalow and a petite woman who looked to be in her late forties, hauling a briefcase, tote bag, and shopping sack scrambled out and headed for the front door. I gave her enough time to get in, lock the door behind her, put her bags down, and turn the lights on before I made my way to the doorbell. In this neighborhood, running up on someone from behind was an invitation to be maced, and I had already had all the excitement I needed for one day.
Mrs. Locke answered the door on the second ring, peering cautiously through the thin crack.
“Yes?” she asked, tentatively.
“Mrs. Locke, my name’s Eve DeHaas. I was by earlier. I spoke with your son about a missing dog. He was a big help, and I’d like to ask him a couple more questions, if I could. Would you know where I could find him?”
“Bernard? No I’m afraid not. What did you say your name was?” I held up one of my cards.
“You’re a private detective looking for a missing dog?” she asked quizzically.
Sad but true. “Family situation,” I said. “Do you expect Bernard soon?”
The door opened wider. “He should be here any time. Would you like to come in and wait?”
“Thanks.”
“Please, have a seat in the living room. I’ll be right with you.”
Mrs. Locke looked to be about 5'4", a good four inches shorter than I and pleasantly plump in a motherly kind of way. She smelled faintly of lavender and, in contrast to her son, bore no resemblance to man’s best friend. Her warm, brown eyes were keen but kind, and everything about her was precise. From the top of her head to the soles of her feet there was symmetry. She offered me a seat on the sofa and something cool to drink. I politely declined the drink. She placed her bags on the dining room table. Several bunches of bananas stuck out of the top of the one from the grocery.
“Someone sure likes bananas,” I said, when Mrs. Locke joined me in the living room.
“My husband,” she said. “But I haven’t been able to keep them in the house lately. He’s eating them almost as fast as I can buy them.”
“Mrs. Locke, do you own a dog?”
She blinked. “A dog? No, we’ve never owned a dog. Why do you ask?”
“Someone mentioned hearing a dog barking from your yard.”
“Oh, that. Bernard was dog-sitting for someone recently, but the little thing barked too much. I told him he’d have to make other arrangements. Nothing worse than trying to sleep with a dog barking in the night.”
I showed Mrs. Locke Caldonia’s picture. “Is this the dog?” I asked.
She took the picture in her hands and studied it. “That sure looks like it. She was a real unusual looking dog. This the one you’re looking for?”
I nodded yes. “How long has Bernard been in the landscaping business?”
Mrs. Locke was still on Caldonia and answered distractedly. “Oh, three years, I guess. He’s doing real well with it, too. What would Bernard be doing with somebody’s missing dog?”
I started to answer, but the sound of a key turning in the front lock stopped me. Mrs. Locke and I watched the door as it opened slowly. It was Bernard. He looked much the same as he had earlier in the day, except for the startled look on his face.
I got up from the couch slowly, watching him, hoping he wouldn’t run, but knowing he probably would.
“Bernard, where’d you say you got that dog you’ve been . . . ?”
That’s as far as Mrs. Locke got. Bernard bolted out the front door, slamming the screen door shut behind him. I sighed and took off after him.
“Why do they always run?”
I hit the front porch just in time to see Bernard bolt across the street. He took off down the block, cutting across lawns and weaving between parked cars. I was a good distance behind him, skirting bonsai bushes, and stumbling over those damned decorative wood chips homeowners have such an affection for, but I managed to keep him in sight. Mrs. Locke’s voice shattered the early evening’s silence. “BERNARD MORRIS LOCKE, COME BACK HERE!” Such a big voice for a small woman.
Bernard Morris Locke did not come back. He didn’t even slow down. All I saw of him were the soles of his shoes, and the back of his T-shirt and baggy jeans as he swerved from parked car to front lawn in a mad dash to who knew where. Surely the heavy shoes he was wearing sooner or later would slow him down?
Yeah, right.
I could let him go. He was a kid after all. He’d have to come home eventually. As I ran through alleys after the sprinter from hell, I thought that that probably would be the wisest thing to do, the adult thing. But something in me wanted to run the little dog thief down and stuff his Nikes, laces and all, down his lying little throat. This impulse won out.
Bernard’s blue shirt ducked into a narrow gangway that separated two multi-unit apartment buildings just ahead of us. I slowed some and then ran in after him. The gangway was deserted except for a half dozen smelly garbage carts lined up alongside the brick walls and a dirty tabby cat cleaning itself on a first-floor windowsill. I didn’t hear the clunky shoes thudding on the asphalt; I didn’t see the blue shirt. But I did smell liver and onions cooking somewhere inside.
“Ah, hell!” I spat out, breathing heavily. I’d lost him. “But I couldn’t have.” I scanned the passageway for stairways leading to basements, or fire escapes leading to accessible rooftops. Just as my eyes followed the line of a fire escape to my right, a flurry of blue pounced down toward me. It was Bernard trying to jump me. He missed, just clipping my left shoulder on his way to the concrete. When he hit, he lay there on the ground for a time, clutching his side, heaving in and out like a steam engine, a sweaty ball of exhausted protoplasm.
“Where’s the dog, Bernard?” I asked.
He was breathing so heavily that nothing but wheezy air was coming out. This kid was in terrible shape. I made a mental note to mention it to his mother. I leaned against the side of the building and waited for Bernard’s breathing to even out. It took longer than it should have. While I waited, I took a few well-deserved breaths of my own. I was thirty-three, after all. When Bernard was able to stand, I marched him back to his house, keeping a tight grip on his shirt collar, just in case he got his second wind.
I found Caldonia enjoying yet another bowl of Banana Surprise in the basement of one Terrell “Bird” Williams—the other half of B&B Landscaping. Bernard and Bird, apparently, snatched the dog, planning to hold her for ransom. Banana Surprise, a delicacy that Mrs. Conroy had talked about to all and sundry, was the only thing that would keep her quiet, so they ended up feeding it to her all day long, which was why Mrs. Locke was always out of bananas. Bernard and Bird were asking for $5,050—the fifty dollars was what Mavis owed them for services rendered—I’m still trying to figure out what the $5,000 was for.
Bird’s mother found a crudely written ransom note in Bird’s underwear drawer; he’d misspelled the word kidnapped. The note had been waiting for one of the boys to work up enough courage to deliver it to Conroy. Scrawled at the bottom of the note was a postscript warning Conroy not to use exploding money. I blame television.
I returned Caldonia, washed my hands of her and Conroy, and left the fate of the kidnappers in the hands of their respective mothers. The last I’d heard, both were performing lawn maintenance for Mavis free of charge, and they were required not only to bring a lawnmower and clippers, but also a ruler.
Both, I’m told, have become quite expert at preparing Banana Surprise.