The Case of the Invisible Dog (31 page)

“But before we get under way, Tammy, let us stop and savor this moment,” Shirley said as I forced myself: a)
not
to imagine her wearing that orange and green monstrosity as part of one of her disguises, and b)
not
to keep staring over at the bookshelf. It wasn't easy; but then, working for Shirley Homes never is.

“This is a historic day, Tammy,” she continued as I kept my eyes focused away from the bookshelf.
Ignore the hat,
I told myself.
Ignore the hat.
“The conclusion and commemoration of our first case.” Shirley's eyes twinkled as she lifted her coffee cup for a toast. “To the future!” she proclaimed, no doubt picturing fresh new triumphs of justice and the vindication of her great-great-grandfather, while I tried
not
to picture a future filled with increasingly hideous hats.

“A future that is sure to be full of many more interesting cases to come,” Shirley concluded, with a merry smile before taking one last sip of coffee. “And now to work on our file.”

To Stephen and Barbara Kozma, with deep gratitude and appreciation

I'd like to thank Sheree Bykofsky for her positive response to my query, for passing along my manuscript to Thomas Hartmann, and for being a clear and practical voice when it came time to hammer out details. A huge thank-you to my agent Thomas Hartmann, who was supportive, encouraging, tough when he had to be (think golf scene!), and always managed to be a human being first and foremost. I also can't say enough good things about Julia Maguire, my editor at Random House. Her input was so smart, respectful, and insightful that I actually looked forward to reading her edit notes. And, like Thomas, she never loses the human touch. A huge thank you to Ashleigh Heaton, Erika Seyfried, and the rest of the Alibi publicity team for their enthusiasm, knowledge, flair, and for patiently bringing me into the digital age.

Stephen, you opened up a possibility I didn't know was there, and Barbara, you came along for the ride even though I was a virtual stranger. Thanks to you both for opening up your home and giving me the gifts of space and time.

D
IANE
S
TINGLEY
is the author of
Dress You Up in My Love
and
I'm With Cupid.
She was also a columnist for
The Charlotte Observer
and received emails from around the country in response to her columns. She currently resides in North Carolina and is hard at work on the next Shirley Homes mystery.

dianestingley.com

Inside a manila file folder is the second report that I have now typed up for Shirley Homes. It has been labeled and filed and sits in a file cabinet drawer in the office next to my desk. The file was written by me, based on the notes that Shirley Homes dictated. There were four drafts and numerous changes, and if she hadn't had a train to catch, or if the purple goldfish hadn't shown up when it did, I might very well be working on draft number seventeen by now.

This
is my version, the way it
actually
happened: the Case of the Purple Goldfish. This one sits inside a drawer in my desk at home. And Shirley Homes will not be reading it.

I still haven't decided if Shirley Homes is crazy—or crazy like a fox. It seems no one can stop her. I have tried. Her sister has tried. The police have tried. And yet Shirley Homes continues on her merry way, unshakable in her belief that she is the great-great-granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes. And that, like him, she is a genius private detective.

When our first case—the Case of the Invisible Dog—was finished, I felt sure that it was the end of Shirley's career as a private detective. (I mean investigator. An investigator is like a private detective. That distinction was very important when I first came to work for Shirley Homes, since she did not have a private detective license in the state of North Carolina at that time. People might assume she was a private detective. But that was a result of their own sloppy thinking, and failure to obtain clarity, and nothing to do with her.)

I couldn't see how anyone in his or her right mind would ever hire her. You only have to be around Shirley Homes for a few minutes to realize that she is, shall we say, off. And our first case had not gone well. The client, Matt Peterman, agreed to let Shirley take his case, which he wasn't even sure was a case, only because she didn't charge anything for her services. Before a full twenty-four hours had passed, Matt had not only fired her but threatened to sue if she didn't leave him alone and pay for the window she had smashed to pieces. (Don't ask.)

But then the poor guy got murdered, and Shirley decided it was up to us to solve his murder. Which we managed to do—mainly in spite of, not because of, her efforts. Shirley Homes is not only a very strange human being, she is also not the world's greatest detective. Although, to be fair, she was the only one who took the invisible dog seriously right from the start.

So why am I still here, working as her assistant? I ask myself that question almost every single day. There is my salary for one thing. Shirley pays very well. But then, considering what her assistant is expected to do, she'd have to. There is also the matter of my résumé, which is a little meager when you get to the experience part: Struggling actress: eight years. Receptionist: three months. (Fired.) Mediocre waitress: two months. (Never got the smile right.) Current position: personal assistant to the great-great-granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes. Or a crazy person. I'm still not sure which. Somehow I don't think prospective employers will be fighting one another for the chance to hire me.

But it's more than all that. I realized during the Case of the Invisible Dog that I like solving puzzles and mysteries. I'm trying to solve the puzzle and mystery of Shirley Homes. In her mind, Sherlock Holmes was a real person. He discovered something that powerful people of his day did not ever want revealed to the public. They stole his identity by turning him into a fictional character so they could “whitewash him out of history,” as Shirley puts it. She claims to have documents proving that she is the descendent of the real and actual Sherlock Holmes. But no one besides her has ever seen them.

It sounds ridiculous, I know. But very strange things happen in Shirley's world. Peculiar people show up on a regular basis, such as the mysterious Dr. Morgan, who claims to be Shirley's former psychiatrist. There is Shirley's sister, Myra, who may or may not have her own hidden agenda. There is even the possibility that Dr. Morgan and Myra are working together in order to get their hands on Shirley's money.

Then there is the mystifying woman in the limousine. She arrived at the conclusion of the Case of the Invisible Dog. Shirley is the only one who knows exactly what they said to each other inside that limousine. According to her, this mysterious woman is the great-great-granddaughter of one of Sherlock Holmes's many enemies, and she has come to Springville, North Carolina for one express purpose: to seek revenge on Shirley.

It's not as if I don't know how ridiculous Shirley's story sounds. And yet…I guess it's one of those situations where you really had to be there, because there's some small part of me that still keeps asking…could it be true?

In the meantime, here are the particulars of the Case of the Purple Goldfish. It started out as a simple case of marital infidelity until the purple goldfish came on the scene. Then all hell broke loose. Of course it did. Where else would such a ridiculous case end up other than in the hands of Shirley Homes?

Shirley and I spent four days—four long days—working on the file that outlined the events of our first case. I had to recreate each incident as if Shirley had been the mastermind behind each and every step we took during that investigation, which was not exactly the way it actually happened. But finally it was Friday and I had managed to produce a version that she was somewhat satisfied with—at least for now. I was emotionally preparing myself to find a fresh round of revisions waiting for me on my desk Monday morning, since she'd have the whole weekend to go over the file again, word by word and punctuation mark by punctuation mark.

“I must say, Tammy, that there is one aspect of this case that I am surprised to find you have not yet commented upon,” Shirley said casually, as she placed the folder containing her copy of the final draft inside the top drawer of the oak file cabinet next to her antique desk.

“Oh?” I asked hesitantly, as she pushed the drawer shut and produced a key from the right pocket of her black and brown plaid jacket. It had been a long, tedious week, it was after five, and I was longing for a hot bath. Her casual tone of voice didn't fool me. I could see my prospects for that bath fading away in the distance as I sensed the arrival of a long-winded discussion about whatever aspect of the file she was referring to. I settled back into my chair with a sigh. Shirley locked the drawer sharply and then dropped the key back into her pocket before standing up to her full height and gazing down on me with her large, liquid brown eyes.

“I take it you have no idea what I am referring to?” she asked, the corners of her mouth twitching a little as her eyes flashed with amusement.

“Well, no,” I told her, and really, I did not. After all the numerous discussions that had taken place between us regarding that friggin' file, it did not seem humanly possible that there was any nitpicking detail I could have missed.

“Oh, my.” Shirley sat back down in her chair, leaned back, and cupped her hands behind her head. “Perhaps you don't want to embarrass me?” she asked, tilting her head a little to the right.

“Um…” I didn't realize that it was possible for Shirley Homes to experience embarrassment. In the short time that I had known her (about a month, although it felt much, much longer), I had frequently wanted to disappear into the ground due to my extreme mortification over the things she had said and done. But no matter how the people around her reacted—which, more often than not, involved anger, outrage, disbelief, etc.—Shirley Homes sailed merrily along, oblivious to the wreckage she left in her wake.

“I see that I shall have to spell it out for you,” she said, unclasping her hands and leaning forward in her chair. I felt a momentary surge of hope that we might wind things up more quickly than I had begun to fear. But then Shirley folded her hands on top of her desk and closed her eyes, not a good sign in terms of hot bath prospects.

“But before I do that,” she began, after opening her eyes and giving me a long, mournful gaze, “I must give you a little background.”

I crossed my legs and settled in for the duration. A little background for Shirley could involve more than a century's worth of information.

“In the stories of Sherlock Holmes so well known to the general public,” she began with a wistful expression, “my great-great-grandfather is depicted at times with an unfortunate personality trait: arrogance. Was he gifted? A genius? So far above the average mortal in terms of intellectual ability that he had difficulty relating to his fellow human beings on their own level? Yes, yes, and yes. Do I, as one of his descendants, and gifted with the extraordinary good luck of inheriting his gene pool, possess the same sorts of gifts? You have seen me work, and the fruits of that labor. The answer, therefore, is self-evident.”

I nodded my head. It most certainly was.

“But in spite of that,” Shirley continued after a brief nod of her own, “Sherlock Holmes was, in fact, a humble man. One might almost say self-effacing. As he was once quoted as saying to Watson, ‘It would be foolhardy to boast of my talents. My good man, talents are nothing more than a gift from our Creator. And, as such, a privilege to have and an obligation to develop to the best of our abilities, but certainly not anything we can take credit for. Why, that would make as much sense as strutting around like a peacock because you have thick hair or a narrow waist.'

“Of course, you won't find that particular passage in any of the Doyle stories. His enemies never allowed that side of him to be shown. But those words, Tammy, contain one of my guiding principles. That is why I made a deliberate point of downplaying some of my brilliant feats of deduction and detection in the file we have produced. If and when the time becomes right to release my files and set the record straight about Sherlock Holmes, I do not want it to appear as if I am boasting of my exploits. Or, even worse, exaggerating. That would be a grave disservice to the memory and legacy of my great-great-grandfather,” she concluded with a wistful glance toward the heavens.

I struggled for something to say in response, but was having a hard time finding the right words. I was having trouble finding any words.

“More words aren't necessary,” she said, suddenly raising her hands and waving them back and forth in a quick flurry. “I see that I have made you uncomfortable and shall say no more, other than to tell you that I appreciate your discretion. I'm sure it took a great deal of self-discipline not to question me about this matter while I dictated the file. And now we really shall drop the subject once and for all.”

“Okay, then,” I said, preparing to stand up since it looked as if my day with Shirley was finally coming to an end.

“But it leads me to the next topic at hand. When I return a week from Monday, all that should be left for me to do on that file is one last final check for grammar and punctuation.”

“Oh?” I asked, suddenly reenergized as I picked up on her clue immediately, hoping the glee I felt wasn't obvious in my voice. “You'll be gone all next week?”

“Tsk, tsk,” Shirley said, shaking her head as she leaped out of her chair and grabbed the cane that was hanging on the edge of her desk. “Isn't it obvious?” she asked, walking all the way around her desk and coming to a stop behind her chair. “Look closer. There is a spring in my step and a bloom in my cheeks. These are the kinds of details that you should be constantly observing. And what do these clues reveal?”

I shook my head, helplessly feeling my impatience return. Would this day never end?

“Have you seen any gentleman callers at our doorstep? Have you heard me giggling as I whisper sweet nothings to someone on the phone? No, you have not. Therefore, we eliminate one possible explanation for these changes. I, Shirley Homes, have not been stuck in the heart by an arrow from Cupid's bow,” she exclaimed, clasping both hands over her heart in a dramatic fashion before whirling on her heels and marching over to her bookcase.

“And here we have another clue to the mystery of my sparkling demeanor.” Shirley waved the tip of her cane across the front of the bookcase “Have you noticed anything here that was not there yesterday, the day before that, or any other day since the commencement of your employment?”

“No,” I said, with a shrug. That bookcase was a bit of a problem for me, and I avoided looking at it at all costs. It housed not one, but two hideous hats: one was identical to the cap made famous by the movie versions of Sherlock Holmes, the other a lime green and orange monstrosity sold to Shirley by the Sturdy Oaks Country Club, and worn by her as she raced around their golf course, causing her usual mayhem. Both hats had played their own parts in the Case of the Invisible Dog, at turns perched on the head of Shirley Homes and always when I was in the immediate vicinity and at risk of being spotted by other members of the human race.

“Here on this bookcase, underneath this hat that played such a prominent role in the conclusion of our first case, sits an item which, had you taken the time to observe your surroundings, would have revealed the nature of the mystery surrounding my high spirits.”

I forced myself to glance over to where she was pointing her cane.

“That piece of paper sitting under the,
ugh,
hat?” I asked, wincing at the mental image of it bobbing on Shirley's head. There's a little orange yarn ball on top that I swear is inhabited by an evil spirit who exists to mock me. I know hating inanimate objects isn't reasonable, but that hasn't changed my feelings.

“No mere piece of paper!” Shirley exclaimed as she whisked the “clue” out from underneath the demonic golf beret, grabbed the deerstalking cap with her cane hand, and marched over to my chair with purposeful strides. “I hold in my right hand a timetable for Amtrak. Most of it was hidden from sight, I will grant you that. But with careful placement I deliberately left visible the obvious clues of the ‘A' that begins the word, and the ‘K' that ends the word. A mere cursory glance at the bookcase should have alerted you to take a closer look. In my other hand I hold my cap and cane. For the last half hour while we discussed the file, I have also been straightening up the scattered papers atop my desk. Taken together with my blooming cheeks and lively footsteps, simple deductive skills should now lead to a more-than-obvious conclusion.”

“You're taking a trip?” I asked breathlessly, the mental phrase too good to be true the only thing dampening my enthusiasm.

“Indeed I am, Tammy. The office will be left in your capable—if still not as observant as I would have hoped—hands. And, er, eyes. While I am gone I would suggest that you use your time to digest the contents of Olson's Guide to Private Detecting. It was a favorite of my great-great-grandfather's. And I believe it is just as relevant today. Do you, by any chance, know where a copy of said book might be located?”

“On one of the bookshelves?”

“Even a child could have deduced that much. In which particular bookcase will Olson's Guide to Private Detecting be found?”

I thought about that for a moment. I knew I had seen it. I glanced around her office. Since I avoided looking at her bookcase at all costs, I knew the copy that I'd seen wasn't there. I thought some more. During the two weeks before we got our first case and before Shirley gave me anything to do, I had spent a lot of time taking care of a fern. That fern was now gone, its life cut tragically short by a fungus. But I could still remember misting its leaves and letting my eyes wander up and down the bookcases in the outer office just to kill time and keep my mind occupied.

I had seen that book. It was old and dark green with heavy black lettering for the title.

There were two bookcases in the front office. I closed my eyes and pictured myself by the fern…counting the minutes until my lunch break…looking at the book titles just to pass the time…

“The bookcase out front,” I said, opening my eyes. “The one on the right.”

“Aha!” Shirley exclaimed. “You have decided to take a guess!”

“No. I—”

“It is useless to deny it, Tammy. You have been caught out. How do I know that was a guess and not a logical conclusion? It is simple, based on my keen powers of observation and my thorough knowledge of Miller's Guide to Basic Body Language. First you glanced over at the outer office. Then I saw your eyes roll upward for approximately ten seconds before you closed them for approximately fifteen more seconds. That is what people do when they are trying to come up with an answer. Some people—such as Mr. Miller, author of that helpful guide to body language that I
mentioned—might
even call it lying. In your case we shall call it trying to make a lucky guess.

“Since you had already been given an opportunity to examine the bookcase in here while trying—and failing—to discover the obvious clue I had left there, that possibility was eliminated. That left the two bookcases out in the front office. Perhaps you thought to yourself, ‘What the heck? I have a fifty-fifty chance. I could guess right, or I could guess left. I will go with right.' But for what we try to accomplish here, Tammy, a ‘lucky guess' will not do. A lucky guess won't solve a murder or unravel a fiendish conspiracy. It is observation, Tammy, and refining one's thought processes as I have done, that will lead to success. I would rather have you get the answer wrong—but base that answer on facts—than give me the right answer based on a lucky guess! Let us try again. But this time use your skills of observation and deduction before telling me where that book is located.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking I could have read the damn book by now. There was no point in trying to explain to her that she was wrong, that I had closed my eyes in order to try to picture the bookcases in my mind. Explaining things to Shirley Homes was a waste of time. The best option is to simply agree with her as much as possible. And always let her think that she's the one that came up with the answer. “I think…it's on the bookcase on the left…no, wait. It is on the bookcase on the right. If I hadn't guessed correctly you wouldn't have gone on and on about lucky guesses.”

“On and on?” Shirley asked sharply, raising her eyebrows.

“On and on,” I added quickly, “because what you are trying to teach me is very important, and you wanted to make sure that I fully understood what you were saying.”

“Excellent!” she exclaimed with a merry smile. “Olson's Guide to Private Detecting is indeed on the right bookcase, and this time your reasoning for that choice was sound. There is another copy—a first edition inside my top desk drawer for my use only—but you would have no way of knowing that. However, there is another question that I thought would be burning in your mind right now.”

“Well, sure,” I said. “I am curious about where you're going. But I thought if you wanted to tell me you would.”

“No, that is not the question. And your original assumption is correct. For now my travel plans and ultimate destination shall remain a secret until I have obtained the results I seek. No, the question you should be asking is: ‘Why didn't Sherlock Holmes write his own guide to private detecting? Surely it would put Mr. Olson's version to shame.' Sadly, Tammy, it was not to be. My great-great-grandfather was cut down in the prime of his life before he could share the secrets of his detecting genius with the world. Perhaps one day you and I shall collaborate on such a project.