The Fright of the Iguana (17 page)

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Authors: Linda O. Johnston

BOOK: The Fright of the Iguana
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“He looks worried.” Hillary’s immaculately made-up face reflected a matching emotion.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “but Saurus is in good hands.” Or he would be when out of the cage and in the care of Tom and his capable staff.
Which vet plus two assistants clad in blue lab jackets appeared at the end of the hall and rushed toward us. As if practiced in emergency drills, the aides, one male and one female, lifted the crate and hurried away with it hanging between them, its progress even and steady so as not to further disturb the occupant.
Tom shot me a short, distracted smile. “I’ll examine him, then come and talk with you as soon as I can.”
“What about Zibble?” Hillary asked anxiously.
Tom glanced at the watch on his wrist. “It’s nearly seven. One of the other vets will arrive at any moment, and I’ll leave word at the front that Zibble’s to get the first exam. But judging by his behavior”—that same Shar-pei was tugging at his leash once more, apparently interested in a small storeroom to our side where shelves were lined with prescription pet food—“I’d guess he’s okay. But of course we’ll need to confirm that.”
“Of course,” Hillary echoed toward Tom’s disappearing rear.
In seconds, the three of us including Zibble were left alone in the hallway. I’d been here before several times, the first thanks to a dispute between one of my clients and Tom Venson a few months ago. I’d helped them work it out well, fortunately. I’d eventually had more empathy with Tom than with my own client, although I’d of course represented her with utmost lawyerly care.
“Let’s sit down,” I suggested to Hillary and led Zibble and her into the waiting room. It was small, and I’d never before seen it so empty. That could be because the clinic wasn’t officially open yet. Seats lined three sides, and the fourth contained doors to the outside and into the inner sanctum. Between them was an opening into a room where the reception staff generally sat. The color scheme consisted largely of restful blues, and the aroma was the clinic’s usual antiseptic smell.
Hillary sat along the wall closest to the door. I joined her, but knelt on the floor next to Zibble. The middle-size, many-pleated pup nuzzled up to me. Actually, his wrinkles and folds were mostly around his face and front, rather than on the rest of his thin body that was covered in light brown short fur. When I petted his head, he gave me a doggy kiss with his dark tongue—strange in shade for most dogs, but characteristic of this breed and a few others.
“How are you, Zib?” I asked. He wagged the thin tail curled over his back. “Were you treated okay?” He didn’t say otherwise. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all, a situation I often found frustrating with my pet clients and even my own Lexie. I wished we had some mutual shared language. Right now, I’d have given a lot to have Zibble provide a detailed description of his pet-napping and the perpetrator.
An African American lady in a white lab coat that resembled Tom’s entered from the door to the side of the reception desk. “Hi, I’m Dr. Savitt. Dr. Venson gave me a quick rundown on what happened, and I’d like to examine your dog.”
She looked at me, probably since I still sat on the floor with Zibble. I quickly set the apparent misunderstanding to right. “I love this guy, but he belongs to Ms. Dorgan.”
I nodded toward Hillary, who remained on a waiting room chair. She rose regally and sent a smile toward the lady vet. “Please make sure Zibble is all right, Doctor.”
“You can come into the exam room,” she said. She reached for Zibble’s leash, and Hillary handed it over.
I started to follow, but Hillary shot me a stay-there stare. It was her prerogative as Zibble’s mistress, but her pulling rank that way nevertheless rankled.
I took a seat. There I was, all alone in the waiting room, fretting about both returned animals.
“Can I help you?” asked a voice that at first seemed disembodied, till I realized someone at last occupied the reception desk over the half wall at the far side of the room.
I walked over. I’d seen the young lady here before. Her nametag said she was Edith, which sounded more appropriate for a much older person than this twenty-something clad in a blue lab jacket like the other assistants. Her eyes were hazel and surrounded by long brown lashes that belied the naturalness of her softly pale hair. They regarded me expectantly.
“I’m a . . . friend of Dr. Venson’s. I helped to bring in some animals who’d been pet-napped to make sure they were okay, and—”
Oops! Some officer of the court I was. And amateur P.I. and concerned citizen and member of the Pet-Sitters Club of SoCal. I’d neglected to notify the authorities that we had these two stolen animals back in our care and custody.
“Anyhow,” I concluded hurriedly, “please let me know when Dr. Venson and Dr. Savitt know how Zibble and Saurus are doing.”
Without explaining which animal was who, I turned from her and reached into the big bag I’d tossed over my shoulder by habit as I’d exited the Beamer. Extracting my cell phone, I called Detective Domenic Flagsmith. He answered immediately.
“Guess what!” I said with complete chipperness. “We have the Dorgan animals back.”
“Really?” Amazing how much dubiousness can roll through a telephone connection.
“Yes. Ms. Dorgan paid the ransom, and—”
“What ransom?” I’d gotten the cop’s attention with that. “Where are you, Ms. Ballantyne?”
I sighed but provided the info he requested.
“Don’t leave. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”
Which I figured, in cop-speak, meant sometime today.
Maybe.
 
 
BY THE TIME I got off the phone with Ned Noralles—yes, I called him, too, to treat him to my side of this story—other people and pets had begun storming the waiting room.
I considered handing out some of my pet-sitter business cards but decided that would be too crass. Besides, I had all the referrals Rachel and I could handle from Darryl and from former and existing contented customers.
Which just might disappear now that I’d initiated a reputation for having beloved pets napped from under my nose . . .
“Kendra?” called a voice from the inner clinic doorway. Tom stood there grinning broadly, thank the powers that be. I took the smile to mean that Saurus was sufficiently okay to assume he’d survive this ordeal.
Even so, I hurried to Tom’s side. “How’s—”
“Saurus? He was dehydrated and probably hadn’t been in a warm enough environment for the last couple of days, but I think he’ll be okay.”
“Wonderful! Can I see him? Have you checked Dr. Savitt about Zibble?”
“Yes, and yes. Zibble will be fine, too. You can see both of them.”
He accompanied me along the hall first into a small room that appeared to be a surgery area, only some shelves lined the walls. On them were a variety of tanks, perhaps where ill fish and lizards and other nonmammal patients could reside while recuperating. On the first shelf, in a fairly large enclosure beneath a light of bright intensity, sat the beige and green iguana I’d come to know and like.
He was motionless, but when I looked inside he seemed to give me one of his inscrutable, long-mouthed smiles. He took a few steps along the glass and started to turn around.
Smiling all the while.
“He looks so much better already!” I exclaimed, then settled down. “Assuming I can tell the difference between an ill iguana and a well one.”
Tom put an arm around my shoulder and squeezed. I liked the feeling. I also liked his encouragement when he said, “You’ve got good instincts when it comes to animals, Kendra. I’ve seen that a lot already.”
“Thanks, Tom.” I looked up at him and saw a kiss coming, judging by the way his deep brown eyes suddenly smoldered.
Hey, why not? I gave into the urge—and a good thing, too. We’d kissed briefly before, but this one was deep and hot and a hell of a lot of fun.
And I liked being tight against his body. He was more moderate in height than my most usual squeeze lately, and perhaps not as buff, but he was hard in the right places.
All
of them.
Eventually, I pulled back. I was certain my grin up at him was loony and logy.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered huskily, then added, “Are we still on for tonight?”
Tonight? I did a mental calculation, no easy feat considering the current muzziness of my mind. Oh, yes, it was finally Saturday. I still had pet-sitting clients to tend, and might even drop in at the law office, but it wasn’t a regular legal workday.
And Tom and I had planned a date for this evening.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be delighted to go out with you tonight.”
“Don’t count on it, Kendra,” boomed a voice from the door. I swiveled fast to see Ned Noralles glaring at me. “You might be in jail tonight for obstruction of justice.”
Chapter Fourteen
WHAT WAS WORSE than a homicide detective glaring daggers from a veterinary clinic doorway and making terrible threats?
Three
detectives, all obviously full of ire.
No, Ned hadn’t arrived alone. Hovering behind him, and apparently itching to be allowed into the room to arrest me, were the two detectives first assigned to the Dorgan pet-napping: Mabel Madero and Domenic Flagsmith. Both appeared to have arrived after color-coordinating with Ned. Or maybe it was a requirement this week that all LAPD detectives wear dark suits with white shirts and blue ties. Even women, although the blue scarf around Mabel Madero’s scrawny neck was a little fuller and lighter in shade than the male neckties.
“Who are you?” Tom asked. “And what are you doing here? This is a private area.” He might not have known who these people were, but he clearly sensed the immediate animosity. He stepped in front of me, as if for my protection.
A
private
area? Because of our kiss, or because Saurus and other nonmammals were housed here and could be contaminated by cooties from irritable cops?
“I don’t suppose you’ve solved the burglary from the Dorgan home, have you, Kendra?” Ned continued, his arms folded so tightly against his chest that I suspected he held them there to save himself from sailing around Tom and strangling me. “I mean, you do that so often with homicides. Do you have a suspect picked out, and have you obtained sufficient evidence to be used in court to convict him or her?”
I was uncertain whether the snort from over his shoulder came from the him or the her who glared from behind Ned.
“Kendra recovered the animal victims,” Tom said from in front of me. “She brought them here so I could make sure they were all right. That’s not obstruction of justice. That’s saving lives.”
Detective Madero elbowed her way past the obstruction of Ned. Didn’t the woman ever eat? She looked so thin it was painful. And cops were supposed to be trained in self-defense stuff, weren’t they? I didn’t observe even a hint of what could be muscle beneath her somber black suit.
“How can we be certain she didn’t steal them in the first place?” she demanded, her wrath so directed at Tom that I had an urge to step in front to protect
him
.
Instead, he held out a hand as a signal to me to stay still. Not that I had to obey, but I didn’t move—for the moment. Meantime, Tom didn’t budge an inch as he faced this woman and prevented her from drawing closer to me. Sweet man.
“It’s awfully convenient that they were stolen when she was their caretaker,” Madero continued, “and now she’s returned them.”
“Isn’t it interesting,” I said to no one in particular, “that cops who attempt to cover up their own ineptitude are prone to accuse others of crimes without a shred of evidence?”
Ned’s arms uncrossed in time to block Mabel’s charge toward me. Good thing. Otherwise, I might have been taken into custody for breach of California Penal Code, Section 0.00: telling an ill-tempered officer the insulting truth. After being roughed up a bit by that same skinny hen of a cop.
And who knew how the glass animal enclosures along the wall might fare in a female fistfight?
“Let’s not make accusations . . . for now.” This was the soft voice of reason from the third detective in the compact room, Domenic Flagsmith. He had struck me before, with his thick, black-rimmed glasses and calmer attitude, of being much more reasonable than his rash lady partner. Now, he bolstered that initial impression. Of course, this could just be an example of a habitual good cop-bad cop routine.
“Great idea,” said Tom. “Can I get you all some soft drinks? Coffee—although I think there’s enough energy in this room without adding more caffeine hype. There’s also dog fitness water in the back room, if you’d rather have some of that.”
“What I’d rather do,” stormed Detective Madero softly, “is interrogate Ms. Ballantyne to find out exactly how she located the missing animals and whether there’s any evidence left to indicate who stole them in the first place—assuming, of course, that it wasn’t Ms. Ballantyne herself.”
“We’ve been through that part already, Mabel,” I said in an equally quiet tone that I hoped came across as firm without threatening an officer of the law . . . much. “I did not steal the pets. I did, however, help to get them back. Ask Saurus.”

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