Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. Suzann Ledbetter

doggy,” he said, cradling her under his arm. “And you’d better stay good while you’re here, too.”

      Few vestiges remained of the building’s original purpose, apart from the redbrick exterior and the interior ceiling’s hewed beams and support posts. The plastered walls were painted a soothing willow-green and hung with framed hunt scenes, greyhounds in repose and a huge watercolor chart illustrating more dog breeds than Jack knew existed.

      A high counter and a wrought-iron gate divided the reception room from a larger concrete-floored area. Jack supposed the second gate barred a hallway leading to the kennel proper. His apartment should be as clean as this canine hotel—and might be, if it had brass floor drains to hose it out with.

      At a rubber-matted, stainless-steel table, a ponytailed twelve-year-old wielded a spiky comb and a blow-dryer. Standing at attention in front of her was a burly Rastafarian with paws. The dreadlocked dog seemed to be in a vertical coma, while she nimbly sidestepped across the row of metal milk crates to offset the height advantage.

      A sharp rap drew hers and Jack’s attention to a glass partition set in the back wall. A fortyish brunette jabbed a finger at the phone held to her ear, then at Jack.

      Nodding, the groomer switched off the blow-dryer, called “Be right with you” over her shoulder, then snapped her fingers. The Rastafarian she was grooming didn’t lie down on the table as much as it melted into a prone position.

      The girl’s soccer-style kick sent a milk crate skirring across the floor. “Sorry I didn’t hear you come in,” she said, climbing on top of it. “I keep forgetting the door buzzer is broken and that dryer’s so loud I can’t hear myself think.”

      “It’s okay.” Jack made a mental note to get his eyes and perhaps his head examined at the earliest opportunity.

      The groomer with the megawatt smile, soft brown eyes bracketed by laugh lines and womanly curves hadn’t seen puberty for a couple of decades. Which was terrific, since otherwise, his visual appraisal would be morally reprehensible.

      A vague smell of wet dog and flea shampoo was strangely pleasant, exotic even. Most of all, the definitely adult groomer was short. Very short. Short enough for a guy who measured five-ten in leather lace-ups to feel like John Wayne bellying up to the bar in a Deadwood saloon. If Jack had a cowboy hat to doff, he’d have drawled, “Well, hello there, li’l lady.”

      “Cute dog.” She scratched the Maltese’s wispy goatee. Not even a suggestion of a wedding band blemished the appropriate ring finger. “What’s her name?”

      For the life of him, Jack couldn’t remember. Then he did, and wished the amnesia were permanent. “Fido.” He swallowed a groan. “Yep, good ol’ Fido. No middle name or anything. Just…you know…Fido.”

      “Uh-huh.” She chuffed. “Sure.”

      “No, no, really. It is.” Jack stopped himself before swearing to it, but his tone dripped with sincerity—although it was a bit soprano for any kinship to the Duke. A deeper, manlier chuckle preceded, “You’ve been around dozens of dogs, right? Hundreds, maybe. But I’ll bet this is the first, the only one you’ve ever met that was actually named Fido.”

      On closer inspection, her velvet brown eyes were older, wiser and sadder than a thirty-something woman’s should be. It aroused Jack’s curiosity and an inner Don Quixote he thought was deader than Cervantes.

      “Okay,” she said, “no bet. I’ve never met anybody who named his dog Fido.” Her expression implied she still hadn’t. “Do you have a reservation?”

      “Uh, no.” Dogs needed reservations?

      “It’s a good thing she’s small. We’re full up on medium and large boarders.”

      The groomer reached for a clipboard, paged through several sheets, then frowned. “Except if she needs to stay past the weekend…”

      “Just overnight.” Jack McPhee, private investigator, finally nudged aside Jack McPhee the lovelorn nonromantic. “I’m a sales rep for LeFleur & Francois Jewelers in Chicago.” His shrug expressed a redundancy akin to specifying New York in reference to Harry Winston’s. “See, uh, our chief designer had an eleventh-hour brainstorm. The sales team’s flying in to decide if the piece will be included in the fall line, or held for next spring.”

      His original cover bio would have been smoother without the impromptu embellishments. Then again, a bumbled inside-the-park homer still counted on the scoreboard.

      “So, you travel a lot?” she asked.

      “Constantly.” A gem—pun intended—of a detail clicked into place. “Normally I lug around a sample case.” He sighed. “Thank heaven for small favors, I can leave the case at home for once.”

      The groomer regarded Fido née Sweetie Pie Snug ’Ems, then her presumed owner. “It’s none of my business, but if she hasn’t boarded at TLC before, what do you usually do with her when you’re out of town?”

      An excellent question. Jack scrambled for an answer. “Ah, uh, um, well, Swe—er, Fido—was my mother’s dog, then she died. My mother, I mean. I sort of inherited her—the dog—but I do most of my traveling by car, so from now on she can go along and keep me company.”

      A pause ensued, lengthy enough for Jack to reinflate his lungs and silently ask his perfectly healthy mother’s forgiveness. The explanation must not have sounded patently absurd, let alone bullshitic to the groomer, for she expressed condolences, then removed a blank registration form from a drawer.

      At her prompting, he supplied his name and an emergency phone number. The given address was a vacant house furnished by the listing Realtor. Its chi-chi neighborhood hadn’t yet been scathed by the Calendar Burglar.

      “How old is Fido?” the groomer inquired.

      “Six” was Jack’s wild-hare guess.

      “Any food allergies you’re aware of?”

      A rash with minor welt action would be fair payback for the tie the Maltese was gnawing holes in. Having observed the teeth marks in Ms. Pearl’s furniture, throw pillows, shoes and handbag, Jack figured the dog’s tummy wasn’t particularly sensitive.

      “Her shots are up-to-date?”

      No doubt about that one. Ms. Pearl wasn’t the type to deny or delay her little darling’s wellness care.

      “Veterinarian’s name?”

      Aw, for crying out loud. The furball wasn’t applying for a seat on the next space shuttle. To Jack’s enormous relief, the groomer snagged the rabies tag dangling on Sweetie Pie Snug ’Ems’s collar and copied the vet’s name and office number.

      A few minutes later, he walked to his car happily dogless and thoroughly edified in boarding-kennel protocol. Also bereft of TLC’s pretty, very short groomer’s name and home phone number.

      An opportunity to pop those questions hadn’t presented itself. Such as her referring to Jack by name, so he could coolly, casually reply, “And yours?”

      “Tomorrow, pilgrim.” He buckled the seat belt. “First you have to catch the bad guy. Then you get the girl.”

      

      Dina cuddled the Maltese. Its button eyes goggled and darted, much like Harriet’s when waking in her chair, uncertain whether she’d nodded off or was kidnapped by Martians and returned in the blink of a tractor beam.

      “There’s nothing to be afraid of, sweetie,” Dina murmured.

      The dog’s head swiveled upward. It looked at her, still a bit perplexed, yet oddly reassured.

      She kissed the crown of its silky head, breathing in—

      Dina took a second, deeper whiff. Pond’s cold cream and Estée Lauder perfume?

      “What a cutie patootie.” Gwendolyn Ellicot