Barking Detective 04 - A Chihuahua in Every Stocking Read online

  “Pepe!”

  I hurried into the store and found him standing over a very dead Santa Claus.

  “Mein Gott!” said Pepe, adding German to his retinue of foreign languages. “Santa ist tot.”

  He sure was. If tot meant “dead.” Someone had draped his Santa hat over his face, but there was no mistaking the pool of blood in which he lay. His white beard was splattered with red. His round-as-a-bowl-of-jelly stomach pointed up at the sky, as did the toes of his coal-black boots.

  Pepe shook his head. “Think of all the little children who will not get—”

  “This isn’t the real Santa,” I interrupted. “Children will—”

  “—who will not get to sit in his lap here in the store, I was going to say,” Pepe finished. “Hey! What is that?” He ran over to the man’s left boot.

  “What is what?” I asked.

  “This!” he told me, nudging something narrow and shiny black that was sticking up a few inches out of the boot.

  I pulled it out and looked at it. It was a switchblade knife about six inches long.

  “What is Santa doing with a switchblade in his boot?” asked Pepe.

  “I don’t know.” I looked at it more closely. There appeared to be dried blood on the tip.

  “Geri,” said Pepe, taking a step back. “This is one bad Santa.”

  Chapter 5

  Of course, I called 911 again. I looked around the shop while we waited. I could see why Sarah referred me to the store down the street. Many of the shelves were half empty. The items that were in stock were made of cheap materials. In one corner, behind the artificial white Christmas tree, a white-painted wooden armchair, presumably Santa’s throne, sat on top of a white drop cloth sprinkled with gold glitter.

  Pepe was busy sniffing the floor around the body. “I smell the same woman here that I smelled around the dead elf.”

  “So a woman murdered both Trevor and Santa?” I asked.

  “It is possible,” said Pepe. “But you are jumping to conclusions, my good Sullivan. All we know is that the same woman was in both places.”

  “Did she have Chiquita with her?” I asked.

  Pepe shook his head. “Chiquita’s trail is cold.”

  It was only minutes before the whole crew arrived: Drew Baker, the EMTs, the deputies, the coroner, and two new additions—two homicide detectives. They asked me and Pepe to come down to the sheriff’s station for questioning.

  We agreed to meet them there, which gave me enough time to reserve a room at the Black Forest Inn and call Felix again to tell him the bad news: I wasn’t going to be home for Christmas Eve.

  We also paid a visit to Tim and Sophie to return the coat. They were happy to hear that Pepe had been able to follow Chiquita’s trail but not so happy to hear we hadn’t found her.

  “What if she is lost in the snow?” Sophie asked her father, burying her head in his shoulder.

  “It seems likely someone picked her up,” I said. “We just have to find that person.” I didn’t mention that the person might be a murderer. Surely even a murderer of elves and Santas would not harm an innocent Chihuahua.

  Then we got in the car and drove to Wenatchee where the sheriff’s station was located. Wenatchee is on the eastern side of the Cascades, a small town on the Columbia River that is the center of the apple industry in Washington State.

  The sheriff’s office was small. There was only one interview room and we had to wait, as it was already in use. As we sat in the lobby, a door slammed. I looked up and saw Drew, escorting Sarah down the hall toward us. She was still wearing her dirndl skirt and white blouse, with a puffy orange down jacket draped around her shoulders. Her eyes were red and puffy; she had obviously been crying.

  “You!” she said, stopping to look at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “And the dog?” she said, looking at Pepe. “You found my dog!”

  “What do you mean your dog?” I clutched Pepe closer to me.

  “Trevor was going to give her to me for Christmas,” she said, reaching out for Pepe.

  “You’re talking about Chiquita?” I asked, swiveling away from her so she couldn’t grab Pepe.

  Sarah stiffened. “No, I’m not!” She turned to Drew, who still held her by the elbow. “Can I go now?”

  He nodded and she whirled out the door.

  “So you know she knows Trevor?” I asked him as he ushered me and Pepe into the interview room. A box of Kleenex sat in the middle of the table.

  “Of course she does. They dated all through high school,” Drew said. “But how do you know that?”

  “We met her at the Bratwurst Factory,” I said. “I recognized her from the photo in the window of Ye Olde Gift Shoppe.”

  “I thought I told you to stop investigating,” he said.

  “We didn’t do it on purpose,” I said.

  “Why do you keep saying we?” he asked.

  “My dog is my partner,” I said.

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “Have you figured out who killed Santa?” I asked.

  Drew shook his head. “His name is Jack Stringer. He and his wife, Barbara, own Ye Old Gift Shoppe. He’s a total misanthrope. Hates people. Pretty ironic that he was playing Santa. But I guess that’s when they make most of their income for the year. According to Barbara, the store wasn’t doing too well.”

  “Then why was the store closed on the busiest day of the year?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When we went by around three-thirty, there was sign up saying ‘Back in fifteen minutes.’ But when we went back there after eating, the store was still closed. Except the door was ajar.” I explained again what we had seen.

  Drew frowned. “It must have happened when Jack was closing up,” he said. “Barbara was at home preparing Christmas Eve dinner. They were expecting their kids and grandkids. Someone must have tried to rob him.”

  “And the switchblade, with the blood on it?” I asked.

  “I guess Jack tried to defend himself. We could be looking for a perpetrator with a knife wound.”

  “How did Trevor die?” I asked.

  “We’re still waiting for the autopsy results. No one’s available because of the holiday. But it does appear to be a knife wound.”

  “So maybe Trevor tried to rob Santa, but Santa stabbed him during the struggle and Trevor wandered off, mortally wounded, only to die in the snow,” I proposed.

  “Nice theory, Sullivan,” said Pepe, “but the facts do not support that.”

  But Drew looked impressed. “We’ll have to investigate that angle,” he said, standing up. Evidently we were dismissed.

  To my surprise, Sarah was waiting for us in the parking lot. She was shivering, hunched over in her bright orange down jacket.

  “Give me my dog!” she said, making a grab for Pepe, who I was holding in my arms.

  “This is my dog!” I said, tightening my grip on him.

  Sarah shook her head. “Trevor promised her to me.”

  “I can prove this is not the same dog,” I said. “For one thing, this is a male dog. His name is Pepe.” I flipped Pepe upside down to display the proof.

  “Geri!” squeaked Pepe, struggling to right himself. “Though I am proud of my manliness, this posture is más indigno.” I turned him back over.

  Sarah’s face fell. “Now I have nothing left to remember Trevor by.” Tears started to trickle from her eyes. I felt sorry for her.

  “Come on,” I said, “let’s get something warm to drink.” All of the restaurants and coffee shops were closed, but we finally found a bar that was open and ordered two coffees to go. The coffee was strong and bitter. It suited my mood. Sarah needed a ride back to Leavenworth, so I offered to take her.

  “So when did Trevor promise to give you the dog?” I asked as I pointed the car back up the hill. It was still snowing. Sarah wept quietly in the passenger seat. It was so dark I couldn’t see her, so I could
only tell she was crying because she kept swiping at her eyes and sniffling.

  “When the dog showed up at the shop,” she said.

  “Were you working then?”

  “Well, yeah. Jack had just taken a smoke break and he came back with this little girl, who he jumped to the head of the line in front of all the waiting kids, which didn’t make the moms happy. So we were trying to calm them down. He said something about the little girl’s mom being dead so she needed special treatment.”

  Obviously Sarah had not been watching the news, but it was odd that she hadn’t seen any of the posters that Tim and Sophie had posted all around town.

  “Then he saw maybe one or two more kids. And then the little white dog came in. Headed right for Jack. Barking furiously. It spooked him. He told Trevor to get rid of it.”

  “I find it puzzling that Santa would not use the gendered pronoun,” said Pepe.

  “People who don’t appreciate dogs treat them like objects,” I said.

  “Right,” said Sarah. “And Santa hated animals.”

  “How well did you know him?” I asked.

  Sarah shrugged. “Everyone in town knows him. But we all think he’s a jerk. So is Barbara. They were made for each other. I just took the job because I wanted to make some extra money for Christmas while I was home on break.”

  “On break?”

  “Yeah, I’m in my second year at Western Washington,” she said, naming the state university in Bellingham.

  There were no other cars on the road. Everyone was home with their families, probably enjoying a big dinner, maybe opening presents and singing carols and decorating trees. I thought about all the wonderful plans I’d made for this holiday and felt sorry for myself.

  “So tell me about your relationship with Trevor,” I said.

  It took her a moment to respond. “He was my first boyfriend. We dated through most of high school. But we broke up when I left for college.” She paused. “Still, every time I came back to town, we ended up hanging out together. It’s just so comfortable being with him.”

  “You knew he was doing drugs?” I asked cautiously.

  Sarah shrugged. “There’s nothing else to do in Leavenworth, except wait on the tourists. I told him he needed to get out and make something out of himself. But he felt like he couldn’t leave his mom, she really needed him, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah.”

  “What’s the story with his mom?”

  “She’s sort of eccentric. Some people call her crazy. She lives in a cabin out in the woods and has about a dozen little dogs.”

  “A miniature collie? A poodle? A corgi?” Pepe asked.

  “A miniature collie? A poodle? A corgi?” I asked.

  Sarah swiveled around to face me. “How do you know that?”

  “I’m a private detective!” I said. It seemed OK to brag a little. After all, it was Christmas Eve and I was working.

  “Wow!” she said. “That’s so cool!”

  “So Trevor’s mom has several dogs?” I asked.

  “Yeah, so Trevor asked her to hide the Chihuahua so Santa would think he had disposed of it. But he promised I could take her when I left to go back to school.”

  “Santa wanted Trevor to kill the dog?” That was Pepe.

  I was equally shocked. “Santa wanted Trevor to kill the dog?”

  “I told you, he’s a jerk!” said Sarah.

  “Geri, we now know where Chiquita is!” said Pepe.

  “Oh, that’s true!” I said. Wow! We were going to be able to do what we had promised: give Sophie back her dog. And just in time for Christmas.

  “Can you tell me where Trevor’s mom lives?” I asked Sarah. We had reached the outskirts of Leavenworth. All the parking lots were empty. The white lights sparkled on empty streets. Everyone had gone home.

  “Sure. She lives at the end of Snowflake Lane,” said Sarah. “Just take a right here.” She pointed at a dark road that veered off just in front of the Black Forest Inn.

  I thought about Tim and Sophie sitting in their motel room. I imagined their happiness when we showed up with their precious dog.

  Chapter 6

  The road wandered among the tall trees for a little while. It had been plowed at some point, but the surface was now covered with a few inches of fresh white snow. I steered the Toyota cautiously. It was silent. Sarah had stopped sniffling. She peered out the windshield.

  “There,” she said, pointing at another road, which was half hidden behind a bank of snow-covered bushes. I made an abrupt right turn, tires sliding, and hit a snowbank with a big chuff. The car stopped. This road had not been plowed.

  “How are we supposed to get there?” I asked, trying to see what lay ahead. It was all black. I didn’t see any lights.

  “It’s not far,” said Sarah, jumping out. “We can walk!” She was definitely in a hurry now. Maybe she still thought she would get to keep Chiquita.

  “Do you want to wear your sweater?” I asked Pepe.

  To my surprise, he said yes. I rummaged through my purse and pulled out the rumpled sweater. It was one of several items we’d won during the Dancing with Dogs competition. I had chosen the most wintery design: pink felt with white snowflakes appliquéd on it. I wrestled it over Pepe’s head quickly, hoping he wouldn’t object, but of course he looked around at the snowflakes dancing across his flanks.

  “Geri, this sweater is for a bitch,” he said.

  I just can never get used to him using the B-word, even though I know he means a female dog. “Yes, but it looks really cute on you,” I said.

  Pepe just shook his head, as he does when annoyed, and trotted off, following in Sarah’s slushy footsteps. Already far ahead of us, she was just a dark silhouette in a veil of falling snow.

  “Wait up!” I shouted, but she kept going.

  I scooped Pepe up (he protested) and clomped after her. Sarah went around a bend in the road and we lost sight of her. I struggled to get through the snow, slipping and sliding.

  By the time I reached the curve, I couldn’t see Sarah. But I could see her footprints, leading across a cleared area and toward a dark A-frame cabin set back among the trees. The only visible light was an orange flicker in one of the front windows.

  “Are we going the right way?” I asked Pepe.

  “Sí, but hurry please. I am freezing to death out here,” he said, shivering in my arms. I tucked him inside my jacket.

  I couldn’t help thinking, it was Christmas Eve and here I was, wandering around in the woods in the dark. Snow was falling and the air was scented with pine, but I was shivering, and not just with cold. What was Sarah doing? Was she luring us into a trap? Perhaps this was the thieves’ hideout!

  Pepe must have had the same idea. “Go around to the back,” he whispered. “Let us reconnoiter. If we can find Chiquita, I will convince her to leave with us!”

  But stealth wasn’t going to be possible. I had angled off, thinking I would go around the side of the house, but as I got within a few yards of it, we were assaulted by a volley of barks and yips, squeals and growls.

  “Ah, I believe we have found the collie, the poodle, and the corgi,” said Pepe.

  The front door flew open and we saw a woman silhouetted against the dim glow from the indoor lights. She was surrounded by a swirling, leaping pack of little dogs.

  “Come in! Come in!” she called. “It’s so cold out there.”

  Pepe and I approached cautiously but were somewhat reassured when we saw Sarah at her side.

  “This is Carol,” Sarah said. “She’s Trevor’s mother.”

  “Oh!” I reached out my hand to her. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  I couldn’t read the expression on her face, but her body stiffened. “It’s been hard,” she said, her voice a bit raspy as if she had been crying for hours, “but I’m trying to make the best of it.” She turned and went back inside, a pack of little dogs following at her heels. “My little darlings are a comfort.”

  We were in a large roo
m with a sharply pitched ceiling that soared to a peak overhead. In the center of the room, a small cast-iron stove provided the only warmth. Candles flickered on the windowsills.

  Carol offered to take my coat and Pepe’s sweater, which she hung up on pegs near the door. She was wearing a pair of scuffed moccasins, black sweatpants, and a gray flannel shirt. Her hair was dyed a bright red. Cut short, it stood out on the top of her head, a bit like a rooster’s crest.

  “Would you like a cup of hot chocolate?” she asked.

  I nodded. “And Pepe might need some water.” Carol headed into the kitchen and Pepe followed her, along with all the other dogs.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked Sarah as I looked around. There was no indication that it was Christmas in the house: no tree, no holiday lights, no presents, no garlands. But there was evidence that a lot of dogs lived there. A doggy odor permeated the air and the carpet was stained. The sofa was covered with fur and lumpy pillows.

  “I told Carol you were here for the Chihuahua,” Sarah said. “She got really upset.”

  Pepe came running out of the kitchen. “I found her!” he said. “I found Chiquita!” Following him was a white Chihuahua with big brown eyes. She looked almost like Pepe except she had a pale brown splotch on her chest.

  “Chiquita!” I said. I bent down to pet her.

  Carol came back into the room with three mugs of steaming liquid in her hand. She frowned. “That’s Lolita!” she said. “Trevor gave her to me!”

  “He did not!” said Sarah hotly. “He gave her to me and I named her Chloe like the dog in Beverly Hills Chihuahua. You were just supposed to be holding her for me until I went back to school.”

  Carol slammed down the mugs on the sideboard. Some hot liquid splashed out and hit a beagle, who yelped. Carol snatched up Chiquita and held her close.

  “Sarah told me you want to take away this dog!” she said, looking at me defiantly.

  “Yes, I want to return her to her rightful owner. A little girl is missing her dog desperately and it’s Christmas Eve.”