6

Vaughn parked the car on the bottom floor of the veterinary clinic garage in a spot that allowed Davie to see the street, an accommodation her partner made without comment.

He opened the windows to rid the car of cat food odor. “I’ll stay here and make a few more calls.”

Davie horsed the heavy crate to the elevator and pushed the button for the second floor. A set of double doors opened into a well-lit lobby where the fragrance of flowery disinfectant hovered in the air. She assumed the strong chemical smell was an attempt to reassure pets and their owners that microbes or flesh-eating viruses need not apply.

A middle-aged woman sat on a couch, sharing a sloppy kiss with her little black dog. A man and woman who looked like two investment bankers sat on the opposite side of the room talking on their cell phones and completely ignoring their apricot poodle. She wondered if there was a happy medium when it came to pet owners. At least she heard no sobbing. She wasn’t sure she could handle that.

Hootch howled as they sat together on one of the couches, waiting for the next available veterinarian. She poked her finger inside the crate and stroked his nose, but the gesture didn’t comfort him.

A few minutes later, a man in his mid-thirties walked toward her. His brown eyes were engaged and focused completely on her as he introduced himself as Dr. Dimetri. His short beard and flowing mahogany hair reminded her of a Russian orchestra conductor—a bit mad but in an appealing sort of way.

He smiled warmly. “Come with me, please.”

He motioned for her to follow him down a long aisle. Hootch continued to meow as Dimetri ushered her into one of several examining rooms. She lifted the crate onto a stainless steel table and told the doctor about the lump on the cat’s neck.

“Let’s take a look,” he said.

As soon as Dr. Dimetri removed Hootch from the crate, the cat stopped howling. He remained docile as the doctor looked inside his ears and mouth and poked at his stomach. After finding nothing suspicious, he kneaded the bump on Hootch’s neck.

“Is he okay?” Davie said.

He smiled. “It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a microchip. It’s inserted under the skin and programmed with information to help return Hootch to his owner in case he gets lost.”

She knew about microchips, but she’d never had a pet so the mechanics were unclear to her. “What sort of information?”

The doctor pulled a small white instrument from a bank of drawers. “This is a universal scanner. It reads the chip’s radio frequencies. In a minute we’ll see which pet registry the owner used.”

Dimetri swept the scanner over the cat’s neck. He frowned and repeated the maneuver a second time. Hootch froze, stiff and wild-eyed, staring into space like a zombie waiting for the apocalypse.

“Something wrong?” Davie said.

“I’m not sure. The chip usually lists a phone number for the pet recovery agency plus the owner’s personal identification number. This one looks different.” He held up the scanner so she could read the narrow display panel.

He pointed to a series of numbers. “The first few digits might be the agency’s phone number, but the other information looks like gibberish. Maybe the chip is defective.”

Davie studied the display. There were ten numbers. They weren’t separated by dashes but appeared to be a telephone number in the 310 area code. If so, the pet recovery agency was located somewhere on L.A.’s Westside. The other entry read: A 1 € > ? 2 ¥ $ * > €. Davie had no idea what it meant. In fact, she didn’t recognize several of the symbols in the sequence.

Dr. Dimetri ran his hand over Hootch’s coat. “I would normally call the registry to let them know the cat is here and ask them to contact the owner, but since you said the man is dead—”

“I’ll handle the notifications, but thanks for your help.”

Davie wasn’t sure she could accurately transcribe the strange sequence into her notebook so she snapped a cell photo of the display panel while Dr. Dimetri guided Hootch inside the crate and escorted them out to the lobby. On the way, he grabbed a brush from a display of pet supplies and handed it to Davie.

“Your boy has some mats. You should brush them out. He can groom himself, of course, but you don’t want him to swallow all that hair or you’ll be stepping on hairballs in the middle of the night.”

She’d heard a million jokes about hairballs but had never actually seen one, nor did she want to. “Thanks. Where do I pay?”

“The brush and the visit are on the house,” he said. “It’s our way of saying thanks for the work you do. Next time you bring him back, you pay.”

He smiled again and shook her hand. She appreciated the gesture, but didn’t have the heart to tell him there would be no next time for her and Hootch. As soon as she located Zeke’s family, the cat was moving on.

Back at the car, she strapped the crate into the back seatbelt and slid into the passenger side next to Vaughn.

“What’s the verdict?” he said. “Is the cat out of lives?”

She pulled a bottle of sanitizer from her pocket. “The lump was a microchip with some sort of code and the number to a pet recovery service. I’m going to call to see if Zeke filled out an application with actual information. If so, Hootch just gave us the first break in the case.”

“Seriously?” His tone was skeptical. “So, what’s next?”

She squirted a dab of sanitizer onto the palm of her hand and rubbed it in. “The lieutenant’s adjutant loves animals. Maybe she can babysit while we follow up on the lead.”

“April Hayes?” His tone was skeptical. “She’s cool but what makes you think she’ll do it?”

“Because she has a framed picture on her desk of her pug sitting on Santa’s lap.”

Vaughn smiled. “Perfect.”

Her partner maneuvered out of the parking garage and headed toward the station. Without Dr. Dimetri’s gentle touch, Hootch’s howling resumed until it reached a dangerous decibel level. The cat was still protesting his incarceration when Vaughn finally turned into the station’s driveway.

Once Hayes had taken charge of Hootch and all his supplies, Davie hurried back to her desk, brushing cat hair off her black pants and rubbing the welts on her shoulder. She used her desk phone to punch in the telephone number for the pet recovery agency listed on the microchip.

“Hello.” It was a woman’s voice. She sounded anxious. The woman hadn’t mentioned the name of the pet recovery agency as businesses usually do, so Davie checked the number to make sure she hadn’t misdialed.

“This is Detective Richards from the Los Angeles Police Department. Who am I speaking to?”

There was a moment of silence before the woman answered with a sob. “Shannon Woodrow. Is this about my father? He’s dead, isn’t he?”