The Big Chihuahua (21 page)

How could such a tiny dog run so fast? And how would I explain his presence to the client? I scrambled to catch up with him.

I paused at the open front door and caught my breath, hoping Pepe would appear in the entryway. The foyer was all white marble and crystal chandeliers, with a huge semicircular staircase as the centerpiece. I rang the doorbell, which produced a mournful series of chimes but no human response. I didn’t know if I could just walk in. What were the rules about that?

I rang the doorbell again. Still no answer. But this time I did hear a faint and distant yip coming from somewhere to the right. It was the first time I’d ever heard Pepe bark. Although it didn’t really sound like a bark. More like the sound a tiny Chihuahua might make right before being gobbled up by a tough pit bull.

That thought got me moving. I dashed through the foyer and headed right, finding myself in an all-white living room, one of the largest I had ever seen. The carpet was a snowy white, the walls were papered in white damask, the curtains were clouds of white satin. Even the grand piano in the corner was white. It desperately needed a spot of color, something like the bright red throw rug under the glass coffee table.

It took a second before it sank in. That wasn’t a rug, but a pool of blood. As I got closer, I saw that it surrounded the body of a man who lay face down on the white carpet. Pepe was sniffing the bottoms of his shoes. The man wore Birkenstocks, those clunky sandals so popular in Seattle, over green socks.

Pepe lifted his head. “You should not be here,” he said. “We must leave right now.” He headed toward me, leaving a trail of tiny red footprints behind him.

“No, we can’t leave!” I said, darting toward the prone figure. I bent over and put my fingers against his neck. “What if he’s still alive?”

“Believe me, he is
muy muerto!
” Pepe said. He was right. The man’s skin was gray and felt cool beneath my fingertips.

I willed myself to study the corpse. He had sandy-colored hair pulled back into a short ponytail at the base of his neck. He wore a pair of khaki pants and a yellow T-shirt with some sort of lettering on it, hard to read now because it was mottled with brown stains.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“I do not know,” said Pepe. “All I know is we must get out of here! Something stinks about this situation, and it is not just the smell of death.” He wrinkled his nose expressively.

A gun lay a few inches from the man’s right hand. “This must be the murder weapon,” I said, picking it up.

“Do not touch that!” said Pepe. “Do you not know anything about crime-scene investigation?”

Too late. It was already in my hand.

“How do you know about crime-scene investigation?” I asked, turning the gun over to examine it.

“I am a big fan of TV crime shows,” he said. “
CSI
.
Forensic Files
. I watch them all.
CSI: Miami
is the best. Now put that down!”

But before I could put it back, somebody behind me yelled, “Drop it, lady!”

“Set it down nice and slow,” another voice commanded.

I turned and saw two uniformed policemen. Both had pistols trained on me.

“I said drop it!”

Without even thinking, I did as they said. The gun slid from my grasp and fell onto the glass coffee table, which shattered into a million pieces.

“
Policía . . .”
I heard Pepe mutter as he slunk underneath the sofa.

 

 

In no time, the police had put me in handcuffs. They had taken a quick look at the corpse and then called for backup. Soon the room was full of policemen, four or five in blue uniforms, two in suits, and three or four in white jumpsuits and blue paper booties. A pair of detectives (the ones in suits) took me into the dining room, which was just as huge as the living room, but all done up in gold, from the gilded coffered ceiling to the bronze satin on the chair seats. I shuddered to think about the rest of the color scheme in the house. I was willing to bet there was a bathroom done all in shades of purple.

One of the men looked a bit like my father, with his wire-rim glasses and thinning brown hair combed over a bald spot. He wore a rumpled navy suit. The other one was a handsome black man with a shiny, shaved head. His suit was gray, paired with a blue silk shirt and silver cufflinks. The older man said his name was Detective Earl Larson; the other guy was Detective Kevin Sanders.

“Did you find Mrs. Tyler?” I asked. It occurred to me that she might be somewhere in the house, perhaps in one of the upper rooms, as dead as her husband. (I had learned from overhearing snippets of conversation that the body in the living room belonged to David Tyler.) But the police had fanned out and searched the house and grounds without finding any other bodies or any trace of Rebecca Tyler. “She was supposed to be here.”

“Why were you meeting her?” Larson wanted to know.

“I’m a private investigator,” I said. I didn’t want to say more. I knew from reading detective novels that PIs had the right to keep their conversations with their clients private, just like priests and lawyers.

Larson asked to see my license.

“I don’t have one yet,” I explained. “I was just hired. This is my first assignment.”

“Who’s your boss?”

“Jimmy Gerrard of the Gerrard Agency.”

“Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s in Portland right now, working on another case.” I thought it sounded good that he had trusted me with such an important assignment. But Larson shook his head. I could tell he didn’t believe me.

“We’re going to have to take you down to the precinct for questioning,” he said. Sanders motioned for me to get up, and they walked me towards the front door, one on each side as if they were afraid I was going to make a dash for it.

“I’m not leaving without my dog,” I said. I hadn’t seen Pepe since the police had first burst into the room.

“What dog?” Sanders asked.

“He’s a little white Chihuahua,” I said. “He was in the living room with me. Maybe you missed him because he’s the same color as the room.” That was supposed to be a joke but apparently they didn’t think it was funny. It’s one of my faults, at least according to my ex, that I tend to make jokes when they’re not appropriate.

Sanders went into the living room and talked to some of the other men there. A man with a large camera was wandering around, taking photos of the shattered coffee table and the gun.

One of the guys in the white jumpsuits pulled aside one of the white satin curtains and came up with a small white object. He held it in front of him with gloved hands, as if it were contaminated.

It was Pepe! I could tell he wasn’t happy. He pedaled his feet in the air, as if trying to find firm ground.

“That’s my dog!” I said, rushing towards him. But Larson blocked my way.

The photographer stepped forward and snapped a photo. The flash went off in Pepe’s face and he flinched.

“You can’t touch him, ma’am,” the technician said. “He’s evidence.” He pointed to Pepe’s paws, which were caked with blood. “We’re going to have to take him to the lab to be processed.”

“No way, José!” I heard Pepe mutter. He squirmed around and bit the technician on the wrist. The man dropped him with a cry of pain, and Pepe hit the floor, making his own little yelp as he landed. Then he dashed between Larson’s legs and darted out through the open front door.