The Case of the Invisible Dog (30 page)

Was I in some kind of trouble? Had Shirley Homes managed to pull some new stunt in the few hours that I'd been away from the office? But then wouldn't they be leaping out of the car and headed my way with hostile expressions and a set of handcuffs?

I approached their car, and as I got closer saw that the back door on the passenger side, next to the curb, was open. Detectives Owen and Addams both sat facing forward—he was on the driver's side, and she was on the passenger side—as if they had no idea I was there.

“Get in,” Detective Owen hissed out of the side of his mouth without looking at me. “Quickly.”

“Okay.” I used my hip to open the door wider and then set down my bags of groceries on the seat. I pushed them across and got into the car.

“Shut the door,” Detective Owen whispered.

“Is this going to take long?” I asked as I shut the door and put down my pile of DVDs next to me. “The only reason I ask is that I have ice cream in one of my bags. And I kind of splurged and got the good stuff, and if it starts to melt—”

“It will only take a minute,” Detective Addams interrupted. She and Detective Owen continued to stare straight ahead even when they spoke to me. “Let's be very clear,” Detective Addams snapped. “We weren't here. We were
never
here. Got it?”

“Um, sure,” I said.

“We let Patty Peterman go,” Detective Owen said. “I had to argue with my lieutenant for a long time—it's the first murder in two years that we haven't been able to close—but he finally agreed that we had no real evidence.”

“That's good,” I said, wondering why he was telling me this.

“Not so good for me,” he said. “He thinks if you and your boss hadn't talked me into asking her your question, which let her know that we had another suspect in mind, we might have gotten her to confess.”

“But she was innocent!” I exclaimed.

“Here's the deal,” Detective Owen said after a few awkward moments of silence. “I talked to the officers who arrested Lawrence Dunbar and took Chuck Brown's statement. They both described Chuck Brown's mannerisms exactly the way Patty Peterman had. And physically he was a match except for the blond hair and mustache, which are easy enough to change. And he and his wife cleaned their place out and were already gone by the time we got a search warrant.”

“Oh?” I asked with wide-eyed innocence, as if it were news to me.

“Funny you never called or came back to find out if we'd discovered anything,” Detective Addams said, with a heavy emphasis on the word funny.

“We didn't want to be a bother,” I said, inspiring an immediate snort from Detective Addams in response.

“When I tried to Google Chuck Brown,” Detective Owen continued, in the same deadpan tone he'd been using since I'd arrived in their backseat, “it was as if the man does not exist. There's something very strange going on in that neighborhood. I talked to the Pittfords' son at the hospital this morning. The tests came back inconclusive. We still don't really know what made his parents so sick. They're being moved over to Maplewood Convalescent. He was going to put their house on the market, but he already got an offer. Guess who made it? Merryweather Properties. The company who bought the house that Chuck and Nancy were living in.”

“Interesting,” I said, not bothering to remind him that I was the one who first pointed him in the direction of Merryweather Properties.

“Actually, he got two offers. The first one was pretty generous. Then they did the inspection and found mold and termite damage. Funny thing—they were able to get the inspection pushed through ahead of everyone else. The offer went way down. But the buyers were willing to pay cash and were able to get all the paperwork pushed through in twenty-four hours. The Pittfords' son took the deal.

“We drove by the cul-de-sac this morning,” Detective Owen continued, keeping his voice absolutely neutral and devoid of emotion as he spoke. “The house that was in foreclosure has a new sign out front: This Property Sold Through Merryweather Properties. I tried to have our best IT guy do some research and see what he could come up with. See if I could put any of the pieces together. He's still working on it, but according to him, Merryweather Properties is one corporation behind another and another, and the trail is impossible to follow. There's no one to actually hold responsible. Everyone hides behind somebody else. So here we are.”

We sat there for a moment. I absorbed this new information. I didn't think it would be a good idea to let Shirley know that the police had come to see me instead of her. I'd keep the information to myself for the time being—until I figured out what, if anything, I could do with it. Then I'd have to come up with some way for Shirley to think she had discovered it herself.

Detectives Owen and Addams didn't make a sound or move while I thought about all that. Another minute went by in complete silence. I glanced at the grocery bag with the ice cream carton and sighed.

“So,” I finally asked. “What do you want from me?”

Detective Owen cleared his throat. “We need to know if there's anything you haven't told us. Something that might help us figure out what's going on. I don't like open cases. I want to find out who killed Matt Peterman and poisoned the Pittfords.”

“Have you tried checking out
Nancy
Brown?”

“She doesn't exist, either. And there are no fingerprints or hairs or anything to collect DNA from at their house. It was cleaned out by
professionals.”

“I can't think of anything that I haven't already told you.”

“Are you sure?” Detective Owen asked, glancing up in the rearview mirror. Our eyes met for a second and then he lowered his gaze. He had very long eyelashes. “You're positive there isn't anything else that you came across while you were investigating the invisible—the death of Matt Peterman?”

“No,” I said, feeling a twinge of guilt and hoping it didn't show. I could have told him about the woman in the limousine. I thought about it, but then I chose not to. Even if he believed me, which was doubtful (and Lord only knows what Detective Addams would have thought), I knew he wouldn't be able to trace her. If she was for real, then whatever she was up to was directed at Shirley Homes. He would never find her; he would never find a thing. He couldn't help; not yet anyway. And then I remembered
something—Chuck
Brown claimed that the woman in the limousine had known about the search warrant. So who told her? Who had been paid off? Someone in the police department?

“No,” I said a second time. “There wasn't anything else.”

“That's it, then,” he said. “You can go.”

“But we were never here,” Detective Addams snapped.

“Never where?” I started to open the door and then stopped. “Does this mean you don't think that Shirley Homes is a complete nut job anymore?”

“No,” Detective Owen said. “I still think she's a complete nut job. I think she just somehow managed to stumble onto something that she couldn't handle. And I hope that she's learned her lesson.”

I sighed. There wasn't a chance in hell that she had learned her lesson. And my ice cream was melting. I got out of the car, gathered up my bags, and shut the door.

“Thanks,” Detective Owen muttered quietly as I walked away—so quietly that I almost missed it. I turned to respond but the window was already rolling up. All I caught was a glimpse of the side of his face. He blinked, and for the second time I happened to notice his exceptionally long eyelashes.

I stopped at Mrs. Hobson's the next morning on my way into work to order coffee and a donut for me and a bear claw for Shirley. We had our usual strained interaction, and as I turned to leave, I almost ran straight into Angie Berger, who was standing right behind me.

“Angie!” I exclaimed. “You're here. You're alive.”

“Uh, yeah. I'll have my usual, Mrs. Hobson.”

“But where have you been?” I asked, stunned.

“Around. Why?”

“You went out to have a cigarette and we never saw you again.”

“Those two creepzillas really scared me. And when I was standing there having a cigarette, waiting for you guys, I decided that maybe Bob wasn't so bad, if you know what I mean. So I called him to come get me.”

“Here you go, sweetie,” Mrs. Hobson said, passing Angie a cup of coffee and a jelly donut.

“Thanks,” Angie said, handing Mrs. Hobson some bills. “Keep the change.”

“Come again,” Mrs. Hobson told her, smiling. Apparently the two of them had warmed up to each other.

“But didn't you realize that we'd be worried?” I asked. “We had no idea what had happened to you.”

“I didn't think about it,” Angie said with a shrug. “I was too busy trying to save my ass. They might still be after me, for all we know. I probably shouldn't even be in here, so close to your office, but I can't resist these jelly donuts.”

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Hobson said, beaming.

“The way I see it, you guys got me into that mess,” Angie declared. “So excuse me if I wasn't too worried about how
you
were feeling.”

“Exactly right,” Mrs. Hobson said, nodding her head in vigorous agreement. “I always say a person's first responsibility is to themselves.”

“And no offense,” Angie continued, “but that lady you work for is kind of a cuckoo. There's, like, something weird going on with her brain.”

“You can say that again,” Mrs. Hobson said, rolling her eyes.

“The elevator doesn't make it up to the top floor,” Angie added, tapping the side of her head.

“I don't think it ever leaves the basement,” Mrs. Hobson said. As the two of them chuckled together companionably, I realized the source of their newfound friendship.

“Well, I'm glad to know you're okay,” I said, deciding to take the high road. It wasn't one I traveled often; maybe I'd enjoy the view. “And you don't need to worry about Chuck and Nancy Brown anymore. You're safe. They're gone. Have a good day.”

“Good morning, Tammy,” Shirley said as soon as I closed the door behind me. She stood in the doorway to her office, smiling at me. I had run all the way up the stairs because I was so anxious to let her know that Angie Berger was okay.

“I just saw Angie Berger downstairs.” I set my purse and our goodies down on my desk. “She's alive and well and living with her old boyfriend, Bob. Apparently Chuck and Nancy Brown spooked her so much that she decided to hide out for a while.”

“I am glad that she is safe. Although I had assumed that was the most likely scenario, based on my observations of her character and general demeanor. And I am very happy that you have decided to stay. Is that bear claw for me, by any chance?”

“Yes.”

Shirley walked over to my desk and picked up the bear claw. She took a bite while I sipped my coffee and waited. I didn't ask; I didn't have to.

“You are wondering how I knew you had decided to stay? Elementary, my dear Tammy. Perhaps you are just a little disappointed that I deprived you of the chance to tell me yourself? That was a little cruel, I'm afraid. In my defense, I have been listening for your footsteps for the past half hour, and I became impatient. But when I heard you come up those stairs so quickly and confidently, I knew what your answer would be. If you were facing the prospect of giving me bad news, those footsteps would have been slow and heavy, and you would have stood by the door for a few seconds before opening it, instead of bursting in the way you did just now.”

“Once you explain these things, it becomes so obvious.”

“Take heart, Tammy. Your skills will improve over time now that you have decided to stay. I have every confidence in you.”

“I will do my best.”

“I know you will. More good news. Since the Browns have disappeared and cannot testify against him, and with a little help from Detective Owen, the charges against Lawrence Dunbar have been dropped.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering why Detective Owen hadn't told me that in the car. “That's good.”

“Yes. And now, since we have all that settled, it is time that we continue the tradition of my great-great-grandfather's loyal friend Watson: We begin our first file. You will be delighted to know that I shall break with one part of that tradition, however. I will be an active participant in creating a record of our cases. However, unlike the trusting Watson, we shall keep our files next to my desk, safely under lock and key so that no one can get their hands on them. That is what they did, you know. Stole his story notes along with his files and then twisted them for their own evil ends. Knowing he would be mocked as an imposter and a fraud once the false stories began getting published, Watson was never able to fulfill his dream of writing the true version of all the great cases he and my great-great-grandfather worked on before…Well, you know the rest.

“But enough of the past. Grab a pen and your notebook, and join me in my office, where I shall begin dictating the many strange events that transpired in the Case of the Invisible Dog. And while it is true that we were unable to bring Matt Peterman's killer to justice, one day we shall. The chase has just begun. In the end it is you and I who shall triumph. When I am finished dictating the series of events, you shall transform it into a neatly typed record. These files will have an important role to play when the time is right.”

“When the time is right for what?” I asked, taking another sip of coffee.

“To reveal to the world the truth about Sherlock Holmes,” she said, a statement that normally would have alarmed me and absorbed my full attention. But just then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something in her office: something green and orange and hideous, with a yarn ball on top. I had last seen it bobbing up and down on top of Shirley's head as she raced across a golf course. I thought that was the last I would ever see of it. But here it was, right there on her bookshelf, sitting in its own spot of honor, right next to the other one.