Chihuahua of the Baskervilles (15 page)

“You could put them at the bottom of the drawer, underneath all the other folders,” Suki suggested. “Then she wouldn’t find them right away.”

He heaved a sigh. “Maybe.”

When they got back to the house, Ellen’s car was in the driveway.

Angus started to open the front door, then knocked instead.

In a moment, Cheri opened it, wearing a hot pink corduroy jacket. “Grandma’s fine!” she announced cheerfully, waving them in. “She wants to talk to you, but she’s shut up with Ellen right now, having some kind of meeting. I’m going out. You can talk to Ivan if you want.”

“We’ll do that,” Angus said.

“He’s in the backyard, working with Lila.” Cheri ran back upstairs.

Michael followed. “I’ll get my recorder and meet you out there.”

As Angus and Suki walked through the kitchen toward the back door, he leaned over and said, “Did you notice Cheri’s pink jacket?”

Suki nodded. “No hood. Michael said it had a hood.”

“Oh. Right.”

They opened the back door and went outside.

Ivan, dressed in black jeans and windbreaker, stood beside the blue plastic tunnel of the agility course, which wiggled. Lila emerged from the end.

“Gate!” Ivan called, and she jumped over a small wooden fence. He saw Angus and Suki and waved for them to come over.

Lila milled about uncertainly. Ivan slapped his thigh once and she darted over to sit beside his left heel.

“Very impressive,” Angus said.

“Of course.” Ivan grinned at Suki, showing his crooked teeth. “Hallo, Princess.”

“Hey.”

He reached in his jacket pocket and took out a bedraggled envelope. “It is good you are here. I am training Lila to bring a sympathetic card to Charlotte. You will be test subject. Please to go and stand at the back door.”

Angus joined Ivan while Suki crossed the patio and stood at the back door.

“Lila,” Ivan said.

The little dog looked at him attentively, tail wagging.

He held the card in front of her and she took it in her mouth. “Bring,” he commanded, and made a sweeping gesture toward Suki.

Lila trotted across the yard to Suki, then stood on her back legs, the envelope between her teeth.

“Cool,” Suki said, taking the card from Lila. She held it between thumb and forefinger. “It’s kind of spitty.”

“That is practice version we have been using,” Ivan said, “but Charlotte is dog owner. She is used to spit.”

Michael came out the back door with his recorder and followed Suki as she rejoined the others. “What did I miss?”

“A little dog being cute,” Suki said. “Ivan, will she do it for me?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. Is new trick.”

Suki gave the card to Lila, who took it carefully between her teeth. Then she waved her arm toward Ivan. “Bring,” she said firmly.

Lila trotted back to Ivan and sat in front of him.

“Up,” he said, snapping his fingers above her. She stood on her hind legs, completing the trick, and he gave her a treat from his pocket. “Good girl.”

“How long did it take for her to learn that?” Michael asked.

“Already she knows
bring,
so it is a matter of knowing that she should stand at the end, when she has card in her mouth. Ten minutes so far, and in another ten she will stand without being reminded.” He grinned. “I have to work fast, because Lila is patient but Ellen is not, and I first used her as the target person.”

“Do you work exclusively with Charlotte’s dogs?” Angus asked.

“No. I have clients all over town and also in Colorado Springs and Denver. Everyone knows that if dog is bad or stubborn, call Ivan. Now if dog is stupid…” He raised a hand and waggled it. “There is only so much I can do. Same with stupid owner.”

He reached down and fondled Lila’s head where she sat at heel. “This one is very smart. Charlotte got her from rescue place, and she wants very much to please. Watch.” He straightened and held up a hand. “Lila…”

Lila watched him, vibrating slightly.

“Chute!” Ivan commanded, gesturing in that direction.

Lila took off, the plume of her black tail flying like a flag. She entered the blue plastic tunnel with a clattering of claws.

When she emerged, Ivan said, “Over!”

Bypassing the ladder, she jumped over a small wooden gate.

“Over!”

She doubled back in a swirl of fur and went over the gate in the other direction.

“Climb!” Ivan said.

Lila headed for the ladder.

They watched as she climbed. The slanted ladder culminated in a plastic slide. Lila rolled once on the way down, but landed on her feet and looked at Ivan expectantly.

“Come.” He touched his thigh and she raced over to stand at heel.

“Will she do them in any order?” Michael asked.

“Of course.” Ivan took a sandwich bag from his jacket pocket and gave Lila a treat from it.

Angus looked thoughtful. “Do you have to use verbal commands? In Scotland, the sheepdogs work with a combination of gestures and the occasional whistle or shout.”

Ivan looked offended. “But that is too easy. Dogs are used to body language. Is more of a challenge to teach them
our
language. I could also run around track with her, but then she would just be copying me.” He took a few mincing steps.

Lila followed, looking up expectantly.

Ivan stopped and shook his head. “Following is easy. Anyway, getting dog to run around is not hard. Dogs want to run around. Getting them to stay still, that is hard. Watch this.”

He picked up Lila, then squatted and set her in front of him. “Look,” he said firmly.

Her vibrating stopped, and she watched him, motionless.

Ivan pressed her hindquarters down so she sat, then spread her front legs slightly and guided her head to look back over one shoulder, chin lifted. “Pose.” When he removed his hands, she remained frozen in that position. He stood and walked into her eye line. “Look … Look…”

Lila’s eyes tracked his as he walked from side to side.

“She will stay there until I say, but if photographer cannot do the job in a few minutes, then he is the one who needs training.” Ivan got down on all fours and crawled toward Lila, teeth bared. When they were face-to-face, he snapped his jaws slightly. Lila remained motionless. “Free,” he murmured.

She licked his nose.

He chortled and petted her while she danced under and around him. “Good dog.”

Michael shook his head in admiration. “I think you could make it in television. Maybe you could add some custom stuff to the agility course. I assume you built it?”

“No.” Ivan’s expression turned sour as he got to his feet. “Bob Hume built it, to sweeten Charlotte. He is not good for much besides working with his hands.”

Michael raised his eyebrows at the venom in Ivan’s tone. “He seems to know a lot about the açaí berry.”

“Pff…,” Ivan scoffed. “He can repeat things, like a parrot, but he does not want them enough, or even know for sure what he wants. He is a boy, not a man.”

Angus glanced at the house next door. “He may hear you. He’s usually out on his deck.”

“Let him hear me,” Ivan said, raising his voice. “And that is not his deck. He rents the upstairs. Right now, yes, he talks about the oh-sigh berry, but before that he thought he would sell real estate, and before that to be a vet. Thomas was a fool to deal with that man.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked toward the house, Lila following.

“Well,” Michael said, when the back door had closed with a bang. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Ivan. Tell us how you really feel.”

“It’s hard to blame him,” Angus said. “Any money Bob and Thomas managed to get from Charlotte would have made it less likely for her to help Ivan with his TV show.”

Suki picked a leaf off the ground and examined it. “Ivan should be happy, then. I don’t see Charlotte helping Bob with his dog-food company now that Thomas is gone.”

“True.” Angus tilted his head in thought. “And if anyone could train a dog to lure someone into the road, it would be Ivan. But how could anyone have foreseen that it would be Thomas who chased the ghost?”

Michael, who had been gazing at the back of the house, suddenly turned. “We’re missing the obvious. We don’t know how the last ghost appearance was supposed to play out. Maybe the ghost was going to lead Charlotte to a secret message or talk again, but then someone saw the chance to get Thomas in front of a car, and took it.”

“You’re right,” Angus said, looking a little stunned. “It could have been a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

Suki held up the leaf she had been playing with, so light shone through it. “I wonder what’s in Charlotte’s will.”

“I keep forgetting that,” Angus said. “I’ve been so focused on what Charlotte can do for people while she’s alive, I haven’t thought much about what she could do after she’s dead.”

“And you call yourself a fan of the paranormal,” Michael chided.

Petey’s yodeling bark wavered through the air.

“Seriously?” Michael said. “In broad daylight? Can I just say I’m heartily sick of that dog, dead or alive?”

“It’s coming from around front,” Angus said. “Let’s walk on the side away from the street, shall we? Making sure to look where we’re going.”

The bark came again when they were alongside the house.

Michael put his eye to the wooden privacy fence on their right. “I think it’s coming from Bob’s house.”

“Technically it’s not Bob’s,” Suki reminded him.

“Whatever. Come on.” Michael trotted to the front edge of the fence. It butted up against the garage, with a tall wooden gate in between. He banged his fist on the gate. “Hey, is anyone back there? Bob?”

“Just a sec!”

After a moment, the gate opened and Bob stood there, wearing a paint-splotched oxford shirt and stained jeans. “What’s up?”

“We heard Petey’s voice.” Michael tried to peer past him. “It sounded like it was coming from over here.”

“I didn’t realize I had it up that loud.” Bob waved them in. “I’m working on the coffin. Come see.”

The others exchanged looks and followed.

“Sorry about the mess,” Bob said, as they passed some broken terra-cotta pots and a rusted push mower that leaned against the side of the garage. “It used to be a lot worse. I threw most of the junk out, but I kept the pots. Don’t people use broken pots in gardening? And the mower just needs to be sharpened and oiled. But there was a lot more stuff. You know how renters are.”

“I thought you rented here,” Angus said tentatively.

“I’m the live-in manager,” Bob said. “I manage the downstairs and take care of maintenance.” He turned left at the back of the garage and waved an arm. “See? There’s my coffin.”

The backyard was mostly dirt and weeds, but a concrete slab abutted the back of the house. In the middle of this, next to a rusty barbecue grill and some tattered lawn chairs, sat a plywood box in the shape of a lidless coffin, painted black and mounted on a wheeled platform made of metal pipe.

The pipe stuck up above each of the corners, like a four-poster bed. Mounted on top of each one was a toy Chihuahua, also black.

“Dude,” Suki said.

Bob looked at her uncertainly. “It’s not finished, of course.”

They approached. Up close, it was plain that Bob had simply spray-painted the plush toys. Suki scraped at one of the dog’s plastic eyes with her thumbnail.

“I can take that off with some remover,” Bob assured her. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to find an all-black stuffed animal. I did find some little top hats online. I’m wiring those on next, and the sides of the coffin will have swags of black tulle.”

Michael looked inside. The interior was lined with black plastic trash bags, which covered a foam pad. “Please don’t tell me this is your entry in the coffin race.”

Bob looked surprised. “Why wouldn’t it be? I borrowed the basic coffin from a friend. He came in third last year, but he’s out of town for the race and said I could decorate it as a tribute to Petey. I still have to paint
Petey’s Pride
on the side.”

“Or maybe
Petey’s Wild Ride,
” Angus murmured.

“That’s cute, but the name of the dog food is Petey’s Pride.” Bob pulled a splinter off the side of the coffin, then made a tsking noise at the resulting wood-colored streak.

“Wait a minute,” Michael said. “What about the barking? We heard the sound of Petey’s bark.”

“I got that off YouTube, from a video of Petey.” Bob pointed to two mesh screens on the outside of the coffin. “Those are some old computer speakers.” Reaching inside the vehicle, he pulled an iPod from underneath a section of padding and pressed a button. Petey’s distinctive bark sounded.

“Shut that off,” Angus hissed.

Bob did, looking hurt. “The more detail you have on your entry, the better the judges like it.”

“Did it not occur to you that this might be in poor taste?” Angus asked. “What with Thomas chasing after Petey’s voice and then dying?”

“Then this can be a tribute to both of them,” Bob said.

Angus stabbed a finger at Bob. “How long have you been messing about with this recording?”

“Just since this morning. I want to add the sound of chains rattling—you know, like choke chains?”

Angus groaned. “Why couldn’t you leave the toys the color they were, dress them up in some Petey’s Closet outfits, and sling bowls of dog food around their necks? Then you could play a catchy jingle, or even yummy eating noises.”

“Yummy eating noises?”
Bob gave him a pitying look. “This is a
coffin
race. It’s supposed to be morbid. That’s why there’s an Emma in the coffin.”

Michael pulled his recorder out of his pocket. “All right, forget about whether this is appropriate or not. Tell us about the Emma. I’m going to record this, all right?”

Bob nodded. “The way the race works is that you have a team of five people—four pushers to get the coffin down the street and an Emma to ride inside. Everybody is dressed in costumes and the Emma is usually made up to look dead. The judges give prizes for best Emma, best coffin theme, and winner of the race. Ten thousand people came to see it last year.”

“And where’s the race held?” Michael asked, holding up the recorder.