The Silence of the Chihuahuas (27 page)

It was snowing as we drove into Leavenworth, a tourist destination high in the Cascade Range. It did look like a magical place. I could see why Sophie thought she might find Santa there. The main street was lined with picturesque Bavarian-style buildings: two and three stories tall, the eaves decorated with scalloped trim and crisscrosses of half-timber on the walls, and all of them festooned with hundreds of tiny white lights. A giant Christmas tree, dotted with red ornaments and looped with swags of red ribbons, towered over a gazebo.

The Black Forest Inn stood just off the highway. It was one of those old-fashioned motels with all the doors facing onto outdoor walkways that ran the length of the building facing the parking lot. The doors were painted green, the eaves were embellished with scalloped gingerbread trim, and the wooden railings of the balconies were festooned with garlands. I parked my green Toyota and went into the lobby, carrying Pepe in with me. I wasn't going to leave him in the car, certainly not in a town where there were dognappers.

The middle-aged woman at the front desk directed me to #205, which was where Sophie and her dad were staying. Apparently people had been dropping by ever since the broadcast, bringing food and clothing and stuffed animals.

We headed up the wooden stairs and down the balcony, Pepe running ahead of me. In his eagerness, he scratched on the door with his tiny paws. I don't know how she heard the tiny sound, but the door flew open. I saw a little girl, wearing corduroy pants, a pink turtleneck, and pink snow boots. She fell upon Pepe, covering him with kisses.

“Chiquita!” she cried.

“Oh no!” said Pepe, looking at me with his big brown eyes.

“You found Chiquita!” That was Tim Rohrbach, appearing behind his daughter. He was still wearing the same sweatshirt.

“Um, no,” I said. “This is
my
dog, Pepe.”

Sophie had gathered Pepe up and was clutching him to her chest. Now she held him out in front of her face and examined him with her eyes narrowed. As she took in the facts—that he was a male dog and that he was missing the brown splotch, her face crumpled and she burst into noisy, snotty tears.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, reaching out to take Pepe away from her gently. “We didn't mean to raise your hopes.” I introduced myself to Tim and Sophie. “We want to help you find Chiquita.”

I explained that Pepe and I were private investigators. Sophie cheered up.

I set Pepe down and he trotted around the hotel room, sniffing and snuffling.

“Do you have anything that has Chiquita's smell on it?” I asked.

Sophie shook her head. Tim said helplessly, “We left everything in the car.”

“
Halto
!” Pepe said excitedly. “I believe I have found the scent of Chiquita the Chihuahua!”

“Where?” I asked.

“The car?” Tim asked, thinking I'd directed my question to him. “Well, we left it in—”

“I think my dog found something,” I said.

“What? Where?” Tim asked.

Pepe was standing up on his hind legs under the coats that were hanging from hooks by the door. He put his front paws on the wall for better balance, looked up at the coats, and sniffed with enthusiasm. “The scent is coming from the little girl's coat up there. Take it down for me,
por favor
.”

I took the puffy pink coat off the hook and held it close to Pepe.

“Aha!” he said after a few sniffs. “It is just as I thought. It bears a most pleasant,
perro
scent that must surely belong to the
bonita
Chiquita.”

“What is he doing with my coat?” asked Sophie.

“Pepe has picked up the scent of Chiquita,” I said.

“That makes sense,” said Tim. “The coat was in the backseat with Sophie and Chiquita.”

“I let her use it for a pillow,” Sophie said. Her mouth drooped.

“A
muy
thoughtful thing to do,” said Pepe, looking at me. I always complain when he curls up on my clothes—his favorite place to sleep.

“What now?” I asked.

“We must take the coat and go outside,” Pepe told me. “I will see if I can pick up Chiquita's scent and follow it.”

“We have to take the coat?” I asked Pepe.

Tim thought I was talking to him. “It's OK with me. If it will help, you should take it.”

“Pepe will use it to find Chiquita,” I told Sophie.

“I want to go, too!” shouted Sophie.

Tim knelt down beside his daughter and put an arm around her. “You can't go out without your coat, sweetie. It's too cold. They will bring it back.” He stood up. “You will bring it back?”

“Of course,” I said. I could see where he would be a little nervous after losing everything. “Can you tell me more about where you last saw your car?”

“Sure!” Tim went out on the balcony and pointed to the gas station on the other side of the highway. “I pulled over because Sophie needed to use the restroom. That's why we left Chiquita in the car. We were only going to be gone a few minutes. But then Sophie saw Santa.”

“You saw Santa?”

“He was smoking a cigarette!” said Sophie indignantly.

“Sophie marched right over there and told him it was bad for his health. He was so”—he rolled his eyes a little—“grateful for the advice that he invited her over to the store to find out what she wanted for Christmas.” He pointed to a purple building with a big sign that read Y
E
O
LDE
G
IFT
S
HOPPE
.

Sophie nodded, her eyes big and brown. “I asked him to bring my mommy home.”

“Um, sweetie,” said Tim, “you know that Mommy isn't coming home again. And you know there is no such thing as Santa Claus.”

I was surprised that he would discourage her from believing in Santa Claus. Surely that was a harmless belief at her age.

Pepe spoke up. “Geri, what is he talking about?”

“You're wrong, Daddy!” Sophie said firmly. “Everyone knows there is a Santa Claus. And Santa Claus can do anything.”

“Ah, wisdom from the mouth of a child,” said Pepe, seemingly relieved.

“You believe in Santa Claus?” I asked him.

“Of course. Only a fool would not,” said Pepe.

“I don't believe in confusing children with the idea that mythical creatures are real,” said Tim.

“Of course I believe in Santa,” said Sophie. “And Santa promised me he would bring Mommy home. He wanted to know where we lived. I told him we were moving to Seattle and I didn't know our address yet.” Her face got sad. “I hope he figures it out.” She bit her lip.

Tim looked at me and shrugged. “We were only gone about fifteen minutes. When we got back to the gas station, the car was gone.”

“Poor Chiquita!” said Sophie. “She will be so worried about me!”

“
Andale
, Geri!” said Pepe. “We have work to do!”

“Brrrr!” said Pepe as we walked along the highway toward the crosswalk. “It is cold enough to stop jumping beans from jumping,” he added, dodging the patches of snow that still remained here and there.

“Do you want to wear your doggy sweater?” I asked him. “I've got it in my purse.”

“
Gracias
, but no,” he told me. “The chill keeps me alert.”

“With all the snow, do you think there will any smells left for you to find?”

“Fret not, my dear Sullivan,” he said, going into his Sherlock Pepe mode. “Where there is a scent, there is a way.”

At the gas station where Tim had left the car and trailer, I could still see the imprint of tire tracks in the slushy snow. The police had marked off the spot with orange cones, but there was no other evidence of the crime.

Pepe sniffed around the edges of the melting snow and evidently picked up Chiquita's scent.

“
Sí
, she was here at this very spot,” he said, looking up at me. A few flecks of snow stuck to his nose. “Follow me. The scent leads this way.”

He headed across the street, toward the main part of town. The sidewalks were thronged with people, all bundled up in coats and hats.

Pepe led us straight to the front door of Ye Old Gift Shoppe. The name of the store was painted in Gothic letters on a shield-shaped signboard hanging from a metal bar over the front door. The two windows were framed with tiny white lights.

“Chiquita must have been following Sophie,” Pepe said.

A sign in the window said T
ALK
TO
S
ANTA
, and there were photographs of a jolly red-and-white Santa flanked by two elves. But the store seemed to be closed, which seemed odd on such a busy day. The lights were off. A sign hanging on the door said B
ACK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES
.

Pepe snuffled along the edges of the building. “Then something happened, something that caused her much distress.” He looked up at me. “She went this way.” He darted off down one of the side streets, then doubled back up an alley, toward what might have been the back door of Ye Old Gift Shoppe. “Yes, something happened here. Chiquita was quite angry.”

“Is she inside?” I asked, trying to peer in the window, but I couldn't see much. Just a back room that seemed to be empty except for a few cardboard boxes.

“No, someone picked her up and carried her off. Her scent is faint, but I can still follow it! This way!” Pepe kept going down the alley. It ended at the entrance to a little park. I could hear a river flowing but couldn't see it.

Pepe trotted down a concrete path that descended in meandering curves toward the river. Posters of Chiquita the Chihuahua were already taped to the posts of the street lamps that lit the path. There was no one else around.

“Do you really believe in Santa?” I asked Pepe. I had been wondering since our earlier conversation.

“Of course,” he said. He stopped in the middle of the path. “Why do you ask? Do you not believe in him?” He looked disturbed.

“He's an imaginary being,” I said, “a combination of old myths and modern advertising.”

“I suppose you think I am imaginary,” said Pepe.

“Well, no, I don't,” I said.

“Case closed,” said Pepe.

I really didn't see how that settled the Santa issue, but it was clear he didn't want to talk about it.

Pepe kept his nose down to the path, zigzagging back and forth. Suddenly he froze. “
¡Ay caramba!
” he said. He was looking at what appeared to be a log lying in a snowbank under the boughs of an evergreen tree.

“What? Have you found Chiquita?” I asked, dashing forward. “Is she OK?”

“No, it is not Chiquita,” said Pepe. “I found an elf! And he is not OK.”

“What?” But he was right. As I got closer, I could see that Pepe was standing beside the body of a young man. He wore a forest-green elf suit, light green tights, and pointy-toed velvet shoes. He lay on his back with his eyes staring up at the sky above, unseeing. His face and hands were as white as the snow. The snow around him was stained pink.

“A
muy muerte
elf.”

 

 

“Oh my God!” We had seen dead bodies before on previous cases, but we had never seen a dead elf. I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and dialed 911.

“What should we do now?” I asked Pepe as we waited near the tree for the police. “And where's Chiquita?”

“I do not know,” said Pepe. He sniffed all around the body and under the nearby bushes. Snow fell off the branches. He shook it off.

“This elf was holding Chiquita. I smell her scent on him. But then she ran off. She hid in the bushes. Someone picked her up. A woman who smells like many other dogs. I smell a miniature collie. Some kind of poodle. Maybe a corgi. Perhaps a dogcatcher?”

He began to shiver. Pepe had been picked up off the street in Los Angeles and put into a shelter for many months. He was terrified of dogcatchers, who he called the dog police. They are one of the only things he fears. Besides cats.

“Do you think the person who took Chiquita was the murderer?” I was horrified at the thought.

“I do not know,” said Pepe. “It is possible.”

Just then a silver car bearing the logo of the Chelan County Sheriff's Department pulled up at the edge of the park. A tall, lean man in a tan uniform emerged from the car and headed toward us. He had olive skin, a sheaf of dark hair, and a bushy mustache.

“Drew Baker,” he said, flashing a badge. “And you are?”

“Geri Sullivan,” I said. “And this is my dog, Pepe. He's the one who found the body.”

The deputy bent over the body, shaking his head as he peered at the boy's face. “I warned him,” he said. “I told him this is how he would end up.”

“You know him?” I asked.

Drew straightened up. “Yeah.” He shook his head again. “Local kid. Repeat offender. Dropped out of high school. Started hanging out with the wrong crowd. Got into drugs.”

He went back to his car and we followed him. He picked up the microphone attached to his radio and spoke into it. “Got a 187. The victim is Trevor Edwards. Get the coroner here and the CSI techs. And someone's got to notify his mother.”

He hung up and shook his head again. “Tough for a mom to learn her boy is dead the day before Christmas,” he said.

“Very sad,” I agreed, thinking of Sophie and her dual losses: her mother and her dog.

“Especially since she's a single mom and he's her only child,” Drew said. “Now tell me what you and your dog were doing here.”

I explained that we were helping Tim and his daughter, Sophie.

“You mean you are investigating the theft of the car and trailer?” the deputy asked with a frown.

“Not really,” I said. “We're looking for the Chihuahua.”

Drew gave me a stern look. “We've identified a person of interest and have him under surveillance. No need for civilians to get involved. In fact, it's dangerous. You could ruin our investigation.”

I wanted to tell him about what Pepe had learned, but that's one of the problems of having a talking dog. You can't really explain how you know what he told you.

Meanwhile, two other official vehicles arrived: an ambulance, though it was too late to render aid to Trevor, and a shiny black Cadillac. A few people had wandered over from the shops and were gathered at the edge of the park, pointing and whispering. Drew took my contact information and let us go as more deputies rolled out crime scene tape and someone threw a gray tarp over the body of the unfortunate elf.