The Case of the Invisible Dog (7 page)

“Come,” Shirley commanded. “I believe that the heart of this mystery may lie not in the home of one of Matt Peterman's neighbors, but rather, perhaps, on his very own doorstep. I only hope that we are not too late.”

“Too late for what?” I asked wearily. But before I had the words out of my mouth, Shirley was already darting back toward the street, her cane clasped tightly by her side. I followed after her, running as fast as I could since the security light had come back on. As I made it to the street, and saw my little white Camry parked safe and snug next to the curb, I had an overwhelming desire to hop inside and drive away.

But I ran right past my car and followed Shirley into the driveway of Matt Peterman's house.

“What are you looking at?” I asked. We had been standing in Matt's driveway for over five minutes. Shirley hadn't moved. She just stood there leaning on her cane with both hands as she continued to stare at his house.

“When I know what I am looking at,” Shirley replied, “then we shall proceed. To
see
is the key, Tammy. It is a skill that very few people have mastered. Hence the need for my services.”

“Do you know—”

“No, I do not know how long it will take. You give yourself away by your glances at your watch. Perhaps the time will pass more quickly if you tell me what
you
see in front of us. Upon occasion it is the ordinary mind, easily distracted by the mundane, that will notice something the superior mind glances past.”

“Matt's house,” I muttered. “I see Matt Peterman's house.”

“Yes. Matt's house. What else?”

“His yard.”

“Oh, come now, Tammy. You are being deliberately obtuse. Look at the lawn. It is filled with weeds. Look at the front porch. He has left the light on, but see how low the wattage is? And there is nothing on that porch. No pots of pansies or matching rockers. Nothing. Look at the front door. The paint is starting to peel on the edges. And now look at this.”

Shirley picked up her cane and stepped onto the lawn. She strode across the yard, tapping that brown cane down by her side with each step, until she had reached the other side. She stopped, took a long look around, and then turned to face the driveway again and came striding back.

“Well?” she asked once she had returned. “What did you see?”

“I don't know,” I said impatiently. I couldn't tell where any of this was getting us. And at the rate things were going, I had visions of both of us still standing in Matt's driveway and staring at his house stupidly by the time his garage door opened and he backed his car out to go to work.

“Think, Tammy. When I walked across that yard did anything happen?”

“No.” Another sixty seconds of my life that I'd never get back.

“Exactly. No security light. And yet there are two light fixtures designed for just that purpose on either side of his house. See? At the bottom of the roof? Just as there were at the Browns' residence. And the Pittfords'. The difference being that in Matt Peterman's case both of the bulbs are apparently burned out. What does that tell you?”

“I don't know,” I said, shivering. “I guess he's lazy.”

“Quite obviously he is lazy, at least as it pertains to matters of home maintenance. But the important detail is the darkness, a darkness that our villain has most likely taken advantage of in order to produce the nefarious invisible dog. He—or she—must have thought their plan was foolproof. But the insidious plan did not take into account the presence of Shirley Homes. Follow me. It is time to examine Matt Peterman's property more closely.”

I sighed, wishing I had worn my winter coat, the one with the sheepskin on the inside, as I followed Shirley down the driveway. She stopped in front of the garage door and peered at it closely, gazing at the top and then the bottom and then around the sides before tapping it lightly with her cane. Then she bent down and listened as she tapped the garage door once again.

“No dog in there. Let us proceed around the back.”

Shirley walked slowly along the side of the house, peering at the ground as we walked, and then up overhead.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“I am looking for the invisible dog.”

I rolled my eyes and again held my tongue. Glancing at my watch I saw that it was almost one forty-five. I covered my mouth to stifle the sound of a yawn, and wished that I had taken a nap instead of watching that second movie. Although it had been heartwarming to see just how badly Felicia had played her part. The first yawn was followed by two more, and I wondered how much longer I would be able to keep my eyes open. I wished that I'd remembered to grab a protein bar out of my tote bag, still sitting in my backseat, doing me no good whatsoever.

“This way, Tammy,” Shirley whispered over her shoulder as she made her way to the fence, still peering up and down the wall as she went. I caught up with her just as she used her cane to push open the fence. “Just as I suspected. The latch is broken.”

“How did you know that?” I asked, surprised.

“Elementary, my dear Tammy. A man who is unable or unwilling to put a new bulb in his security light cannot be bothered to fix his fence.”

I was impressed for a minute until I walked past and saw that there was a gaping hole in the fence where the metal latch should have been. Shirley was already halfway to the back deck, and I hurried to catch up with her. By the time I did she was down on her knees, poking her cane through the wooden slats of the deck.

Unlike the other things that Shirley had pointed out to me, the deck looked new, and there was an expensive barbecue grill sitting in the left corner. Two nicely designed chaise lounges were on the other side, although I did notice that the cushions had some water stains, and the paint on the side bars had rust spots showing through.

Shirley stood up with a puzzled expression on her face.

“I thought surely there would be something here on the outside, some trace unwittingly left behind. I may have underestimated the cunning of our enemy.”

“Our enemy?”

“Any man or woman who commits a crime is my mortal enemy. And they should be your enemy, too. Criminals upset the natural order of things. They tear a hole in the fabric of society, and it is my job to mend that hole. But I will tell you this, Tammy: there are times when my efforts feel like one small raindrop trying to fill an ocean.”

Shirley was talking in her normal tone of voice, which is to say louder than the average person, and snapping every syllable as if she were giving orders, not having a conversation. I had grown somewhat used to her way of talking in the past two weeks. But out there in Matt's backyard in the middle of the night, with no other sounds to distract me, her voice sounded like a foghorn.

“What's wrong?” she asked as I glanced around nervously.

“I'm afraid someone might hear us.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Shirley got a horrified expression on her face.

“And no one has,” she said, raising her eyebrows and turning to stare at the sliding glass door that led into Matt's house from the back deck. “He is awakened all night long by the sound of a barking dog. And yet not once have I seen his bedroom light come on. Not once has his bedroom window opened. Not once has he come out to look for the invisible dog.”

“But there hasn't been any barking.”

“No, there has not,” Shirley said. “We have heard no barking. And more importantly, Matt Peterman has heard no barking, either. I've been a fool, Tammy. I was so busy looking for what should have been there that I didn't notice what wasn't there at all. I have been worse than a fool. If the dog is no longer barking, then the evil end for which it was designed must have been accomplished. I fear that we are too late.”

Before I knew what was happening, Shirley marched over to the sliding glass door and began hitting it with her cane until it shattered. I leaped back as the glass rebounded off the inside screen door and went flying everywhere, but she closed her eyes and stood there calmly until all the pieces had fallen. Then she stuck her arm through the jagged edges, pushed open the side lock, and slid the metal frame across.

“What are you
doing
?” I asked frantically, unable to believe what she had just done.

“If I'm lucky, saving a man's life.”

Shirley wrenched open the screen door and then hopped inside to avoid all the broken glass on the deck. I stood there frozen, too shocked to move, and then a light came on next door.

“What's going on down there?” a male voice asked.

I looked up and saw an attractive man in his early thirties staring at me from a second-floor window of the house next door. I was beside myself and so embarrassed I couldn't speak. Our eyes locked momentarily, and then I saw him take in the broken door and its shattered glass around my feet.

“I'm calling the police,” he shouted as his head quickly disappeared back inside.

That was it for me. I couldn't allow myself to get arrested for breaking and entering; that was taking it too far. What had I been thinking? Why had I even believed that ridiculous story about an invisible dog? There had to be a simple, logical explanation, and the most obvious one was that it was all in Matt Peterman's head. And from there it had, unfortunately, landed inside the head of Shirley Homes, who wouldn't know a simple, logical explanation if it walked up and shook her hand. And I had let myself get sucked in.

I would have run back to my car like the wind, but I had to take my time tiptoeing around the broken glass. I had just made it to the edge of the deck when I heard a scream from inside the house—a woman's scream. I stopped and turned around. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there. I had no doubt that the man next door had called the police by now, and they were probably already on their way.

But if Shirley was in trouble…I couldn't just walk away and leave her there after hearing her scream. Damn the woman. I tiptoed back to the broken door, making my way around the shattered glass as best I could, and stepped inside. I raced through the living room and then stopped at the bottom of the stairs next to the kitchen.

“Shirley?” I called out. “Are you all right?”

There was no response. I called out her name once more.

“I am fine,” she finally called back. “But I'm afraid our client is not. We are too late.”

“Too late? Too late for what?”

“Too late for Matt Peterman,” she said. “He's dead.”

Before I could wrap my head around that particular statement I was startled by a sound—a sound that stopped me in my tracks and gave me goose bumps. Then I heard the wail of sirens off in the distance. I had no doubt that they were headed our way, but that wasn't why I felt so chilled. It was the sound I'd heard right before the sirens. A sound that had only lasted for a moment or two. One quick bark. And then it was gone.

I tried telling myself that I must have imagined that bark, and there were more pressing matters to worry about at the moment. Those sirens were getting louder—which meant closer—and I was in a hell of a mess. I was still standing there like a dummy, wondering what in the world I would say to the police, let alone my family—who on second thought I decided I would
not
call to post my bail after I was charged with breaking and entering and God knows what else; I'd rather spend the rest of my life in prison…maybe I could learn a useful skill during my
incarceration—when
Shirley came flying down the stairs.

“Run, Tammy, run!” she shouted.

“What?”

“Run as if your life depends on it! Because it very well might!”

Should I have listened to her? Probably not. But a lot had happened in a short amount of time. I was in a state of shock and panic, not to mention exhaustion. So, without really thinking it through the way I should have, I simply reacted and ran out the sliding glass door after Shirley. She ran through Matt's backyard, and through the open gate, over to where I had parked my car. I followed right behind her, keeping up as best I could, which wasn't easy.

Shirley grabbed the handle on the passenger door and yanked it open. I ran around to the other side of the car and yanked open the driver's-side door. “Hurry, Tammy, hurry!” she yelled once we were both inside and I fumbled with the keys in the ignition. “No one must know we were here!”

“I'm trying to! But shouting at me isn't helping things!”

“You're right.” I heard her take a long, deep breath. “Thank you, Tammy. We must keep calm. But I implore you to get us out of here as quickly as possible. Who knows how many lives are hanging in the balance.”

Somehow I managed to take a deep breath of my own and calm down enough to get the car started. Which wasn't easy with Shirley staring at me with those piercing brown eyes while I tried to start the ignition, impaired by my trembling hands.

“Try to look normal,” she said as I started the car forward. I could have made a comment about that particular statement. Like, for instance, how losing that ridiculous hat she wore might help matters in the looking-normal department. I could hear the sirens getting closer, and my hands were so clammy I had to wipe them on my jeans before I could steer the car. “Go down that side street there,” she commanded. “The one with all the trees and shrubbery that leads into the golf course. Leave the lights off. We'll park behind that large copse of trees on the edge there until the police go past and then quietly make our exit.”

It was a pretty good plan, actually, but even if it had been a horrible plan, I would have followed her directions. I was too blown away by the whole situation to think clearly. I coasted down the street and turned where Shirley directed me. We had only been safely parked behind some trees for about ten seconds before the first police car shrieked past with its siren howling.

I sat frozen in my seat, holding my breath, my fists clenched firmly around the steering wheel as we watched the police pull into Matt Peterman's driveway. Two uniformed officers got out. They walked slowly toward the front door, shining their flashlights around the yard and the front of the house.

“Just as I suspected,” Shirley said knowingly as she peered intently through the windshield. “No doubt there are more officers on the way. Our killer is cunning and quick-witted. He—or she—must have lurked in the area, noted our arrival, and taken advantage of our presence to phone the police.
Why?
you may ask. In order to frame us, Tammy, that's why. To frame us for the murder of Matt Peterman. Let us make our escape now while we still can, and foil his—or her—fiendish plot.”

I turned the car around slowly with my lights still off, turned the heater on full blast, and as we saw the two officers go toward the backyard, slid quietly off into the night.

In retrospect that probably wasn't the best decision I've ever made. I got caught up in the moment, and panicked, and just did as Shirley asked. But then it started to feel wrong.
(Unfortunately,
most of my best decisions occur to me after the fact, when it doesn't actually do me much good.) Once I had warmed up and my panic had subsided, I started to have some second thoughts about our hasty departure. The more logical explanation for the arrival of the police was the next-door neighbor who had told me moments earlier,
I'm calling the police.
Not a fiendish plan to frame us, hatched by a cunning murderer who decided to stick around for some reason after killing Matt Peterman instead of getting the hell out of there.

Thanks, once again, to my extensive knowledge of thrillers and action movies, I knew that we might have seen something or might know something that would help the police
crack the case.
(I, myself, in my limited acting career, had either heard or said those words more times than I could count.) As ridiculous as this whole case seemed to be, it was kind of creepy to think that Matt Peterman had been murdered on the very day he hired us. He'd seemed so harmless and nondescript. So why would someone want him dead? And what was the deal about that invisible dog? What I couldn't get out of my head—despite how fed up I was with Shirley and her crazy idea about being the great-great-granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes—was the fact that I had heard a dog barking, too. Only for a second, but still. I
had
heard it. And that meant that Matt hadn't been imagining it. Now the question was, did it have something to do with him getting killed?

“Tammy,” Shirley said as I pulled up in front of her office (I hadn't said a word on the drive, and she'd spent the whole time stretched back in her seat with her eyes closed). “I am pleased. Oh, not about poor Matt Peterman's death, of course. But after a lackluster start, you came into your own this evening, and handled yourself very well. This case has taken a rather sharp and sudden turn from its original purpose, but that is an occupational hazard when one is a private detective. Yes, I am pleased with what I saw this evening, and I have no doubt you shall blossom into a first-rate assistant as we progress along.”

“Thanks,” I said, too tired at that point to put my doubts about our actions that night into words, let alone into words Shirley would understand.

“I shall see you in the morning. It has been a long night. Get some rest. I would not take it amiss if you were to arrive somewhat later than nine a.m.”

Shirley got out of my car and waved a cheery good night, looking far too chipper for someone who had just discovered a corpse and fled the police in the dead of night. I watched as she went around the back of the building to the outside staircase. She looked nutty as hell in that ridiculous hat. I hated that hat. If I could have gotten my hands on it, I would have taken all my frustrations out on that hat. It had become a symbol of everything that had gone wrong in my life.

I'd find a way to bring that up to Phil McGuire in our next session, the unreasonable hatred I'd developed for my boss' hat. It would give us something new to talk about. I would have to change facts and omit a lot of details, such as the purpose and outcome of the evening's outing, but I always did that with Phil. If he ever found out what was really going on in my head, it would have serious implications for our current relationship.