1 Dog Collar Crime (5 page)

He laughed in that way that typically made her smile, but not today. “Is this what it has come to? You’re blowing me off?”

“Josie and Fannie were stolen.”

“
What?
”

She nodded as though he could see her. “I was walking them. A guy came up, started talking to me, then two other guys pushed me over and grabbed them. Just
bam.
” Her voice caught and she sucked in a breath. “Oh my God, Frankie. What if they’re hurt?”

“Are
you
hurt?”

“No. Well, I crashed into the building and my shoulder is sore, but the dogs—”

“I’ll be right there. Where are you?”

She gave him the address and hung up. Lindstrom finished talking on his radio.

“Okay, Ms. Rizzo. We have a detective on the way. He’ll be here in a few minutes. Meantime, we got a description of the van. Maybe we’ll grab these guys fast.”

Lucie nodded. They had to find the dogs. She glanced at her watch. With every minute, they got farther away.

Another call came in and the two new officers left.

“I can’t believe this.”
Two days in a row
. Tears moistened her eyes and she blinked a couple of times.

“Lucie,” Lindstrom said, “can you think of anyone who might want to do this to you?”

“No. Why would someone do this to me?”

“It could be the show dog thing. Could also be rotten luck you got hit twice. Or, these guys might be following you.”

“
Following
me?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they’ve seen you walking the dogs.”

A gray Crown Victoria with a missing front hubcap and dented back quarter panel pulled behind Lindstrom’s squad. A tall, lanky guy with short strawberry blond hair got out.
Must be the detective
. He reached into the back seat for his suit jacket—a navy pinstripe—and slid it on.

Lindstrom wandered over and conferred with the detective before they made their way back to her.

“Ms. Rizzo,” strawberry blond said, “I’m Detective O’Brien. Are you all right?”

His deep green eyes focused on her and she shifted under his scrutiny. He had a smattering of freckles across his cheeks and a crooked nose—probably broken a couple of times. From this proximity, she noticed the crispness of his white shirt and suddenly felt underdressed in her jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt and jacket.

“We need to find the dogs,” Lucie said.

He smiled, one of those killer smiles she imagined could make all sorts of things go his way. Frankie smiled like that when he humored people.

“We’re working on it, Ms. Rizzo.” O’Brien glanced at his notepad then back up. “Your first name is Lucia?”

“Yes. Everyone calls me Lucie.”

And then she saw it, the flicker of recognition in those sharp green eyes. The wondering. The judgment. The disgust.

“Yes,” she said. “Joe Rizzo is my father. Can we move on?”

Lindstrom suppressed a smile and O’Brien inclined his head. “Of course. You filed a report yesterday about another stolen dog.”

“That one was returned this morning,” Lindstrom said. He turned to Lucie. “I got your message. Didn’t have a chance to call you back.”

Lucie nodded. “Mr. Darcy said Miss Elizabeth was on the porch this morning. He doesn’t know how she got there.”

Lindstrom and O’Brien exchanged a look.

“Do you have any idea who might have taken the dogs?” This from O’Brien.

“No.”

“You didn’t have an argument with anyone? Any kind of misunderstanding?”

“No.”

He raised his eyebrows. Expecting him to believe Joe Rizzo’s daughter could actually be an innocent victim would get her nowhere. Lucie tamped down the tirade spinning inside her.
Concentrate on the dogs.

“According to the officer, you’re the dog walker?”

“Yes.”

“Luce!” Frankie’s voice boomed and an instant feeling of calm hit her. She turned and he was there, his arms open.

“I’m okay.” She hugged him then slowly backed away. “This is Detective O’Brien and Officer Lindstrom.”

Frankie held his hand out to O’Brien. “Frank Falcone.”

The two men shook hands and the detective eyed Frankie for a minute longer than necessary. “Falcone?”

This must look like the annual meeting of Mob Kids of America. Lucie made a show of rolling her eyes and Lindstrom grinned. “Yes. His father is Al Falcone. Can we move on? Please?”

“Sure,” the detective said, but he was still looking at Frankie, and Lucie was about done with this cop and his curiosity. Once again, her father’s lifestyle had caused her embarrassment. This O’Brien guy was lumping her in as a lowlife, someone he could laughingly dismiss because of her family.
Not today, pal.

The reality was, based on who they were, O’Brien could be dreaming up some convoluted scheme where she and Frankie were involved in stealing the dogs.

With her back to O’Brien, Lucie faced Frankie and hoped his mob-kid radar got it that the detective was distracted by their lineage. “Would you mind waiting over there?”

The flash of understanding, that language she and Frankie had perfected over the years, sparked in his dark eyes and he squeezed her hand. “I’ll wait by that sign.”

Frankie stood back while the detective did his thing. Mystified, he shook his head. Why was someone stealing Lucie’s dogs? And would she get hurt because of it?

With her pinched mouth, she looked like she’d run a few hard miles. The mouth thing was her tell. Every time things got dicey, there it was.

The cops appeared to be finishing, so Frankie dialed Joey.

“Speak.”

“Lucie got dogjacked. I need you downtown.”

Joey laughed. “Get outta here.”

“I’m not kidding. Three guys boosted those pains in the ass Shih-Tzus.”

“Get outta here.”

“Get moving. She’s a wreck and there’s no way she can drive. I have an editorial meeting at two. You need to pick her up at the Bernard place. I’ll get the scooter back to the Lutzes’ and deal with her car, but you gotta get her home. And don’t be a meathead about it.”

Frankie glanced up and saw the detective handing Lucie a business card. “Hurry up. And don’t expect to be home too soon, because you know she’ll want to finish walking the rest of the dogs.”

“Ah, crap.”

Frankie disconnected and strode toward Lucie. “You okay?”

She nodded yes, but he knew everything about that nod was a lie. Showing weakness in Lucie’s family was worse than death. From an early age, the Rizzo kids had been conditioned to survive, but Lucie loved these dogs, and having this happen while they were in her care would devastate her. Frankie kissed the top of her head. “We’ll find them.”

Damn straight. He’d ask his father to get his crew on it because the stupid sons of bitches who stole those dogs didn’t realize they’d crossed Joe Rizzo’s daughter. Dumb schmucks.

Lucie clutched his shirt in her hand. “What am I going to tell the Bernards?”

It had to be a rhetorical question, right? He didn’t answer. Besides, what could she tell them other than the truth?

“Frankie!”

He stepped back and looked down at her. “Did you want me to answer that?” Her eyes nearly bulged and he backpedaled. “I thought it was a rhetorical question.”

In addition to the bulging, she blinked. “Are you kidding?”

He squeezed her arms. “Tell them the truth. This isn’t your fault. It could have happened to anyone.”

“After what happened yesterday, I should have been more careful.”

“How the hell could you have known these guys were going to grab the dogs?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that guy when he wanted to pet them. They’re just innocent little dogs, and I didn’t fight for them.”

The truth of it was, whoever took those dogs would get a whiff of the crap involved with dealing with them and would return them before nightfall. How Frankie would explain that to Lucie without her blowing a fuse on him, he didn’t know.

“I called Joey.”

“Oh, no.”

“You shouldn’t drive. He’ll come and get you. I’ll take care of the scooter and your car.”

“I can’t leave. I have work to do.”

“He knows that. He’ll go with you and then take you home.”

“I’m going to have to spend the next two hours with
Joey
? We’ll kill each other.”

He held his hands up. “I told him not to be a meathead.”

“Good luck with
that
.”

“I have an editorial meeting I can’t miss, and I don’t want you to be alone.”

Frankie pulled her in for a hug and she burrowed into his chest, swinging her head back and forth. “I have to get those dogs back, Frankie. I have to.”

“We’ll get ’em back.”

With my father’s help.

* * *

That evening, with still no sign of the girls, Lucie sat in her micro-bedroom distracting herself with a spreadsheet.

The whirring of her laptop filled the silence as she perused her financial report. Two trunk shows had netted three thousand dollars. Three thousand smackers peddling
dog
accessories? It sounded crazy, but the weekend total on her spreadsheet said so, and the stack of cash sitting on her battered card table wasn’t a hallucination.

Coco Barknell
.

Maybe Frankie had something there.

Just because she’d gotten laid off from her banking job didn’t mean she couldn’t use her skills elsewhere. No
rightsizing
, not to mention being a target in a dognapping scheme, would bring her down. If there was one thing the Rizzo family had, it was stamina. Years of watching her father go through legal troubles had conditioned her for life’s ups and downs.

She brought her gaze back to the spreadsheet.

Coco Barknell could be her side business while she hunted for a real job. Heck, it could get her out of her parents’ house and living on her own. That was a plan she could work with.

She leaned forward to the pile of printouts on the desk and rifled through them. What did she do with that list of doggie clients?

More paper shuffling. Not here. Dining room table?

She wandered downstairs and the quiet of the house set her on edge. The only thing that would account for the quiet was Joey either being out or lining up a juvenile ambush.

Lucie peeked around the banister. No Joey. Just her mother standing in the dining room. Light from the brass fixture bounced off her hair while she steamed dog coats hanging from an old clothing rack Lucie had found in the basement. The garment rack sat wedged between Grandma Rizzo’s walnut table and breakfront, the only place it fit without Joey, the one who would never move out of his parents’ home, throwing a tantrum. The house just didn’t have room to spare for a rolling closet.

Mom wore a pair of gray cotton pants with a thick-seamed pocket across the side of the thigh. A modern cargo pant. She paired the cargos with a snug white T-shirt and a light pink cardigan. When had her mother become hip?

Lucie ran a hand over the coats that had already been steamed and the softness tickled her hand. She
made
these. Producing dog accessories might not be a global initiative, but losing her job would not define her. She’d bounce back.

“Mom, I’ll do that. I didn’t leave it there for you.”

Her mother turned, steamer in hand, and smiled. “I don’t mind. It’s fun. Reminds me of my days as a seamstress. When I worked in that men’s store on Franklin Avenue, your father used to buy clothes just so I could alter them.”

Lucie laughed. “As Dad always says, he laid eyes on you and that was the end of it.” She’d heard the story a hundred times and never tired of it. One thing about her father, he had the single-minded fortitude to complete a job. Whatever that job might be.

“Do you miss doing alterations, Mom?”

“Sometimes.” She turned back to the steaming. “I miss the interaction.”

Lucie shoved a few scraps of fabric, a tape measure and a box of beads around the table, but didn’t see her report. “Shoot.”

“What are you looking for?”

“A client list with names and addresses and what they’ve purchased. There are numbers handwritten in the margins.”

“I haven’t seen it.” Mom gestured to the coat she’d been steaming. “I like this.”

Lucie glanced at the tiny bright pink coat for the Jaspers’ poodle. “Thanks. It needs something, but I’m not sure what.”

Lucie pushed at more fabric. Where the heck was that spreadsheet? “Where’s Joey? Maybe he moved that report.”

That gave her mother a laugh.

“Honey, if I can’t get him to pick up his socks, he’s not going to move something that belongs to either one of us.”

“True.” Joey needed to move out and learn some lessons about taking care of himself. Then again, why should he? Mom did all his laundry and he came and went as he pleased.
Joey
never had to respond to questions regarding his whereabouts, or lack of marriage plans.