Ugh! I now carried pet-sitters’ liability insurance, but hated the idea of having to make a claim. And money was no substitute at all for prized pets. I didn’t want to become a defendant in a case where the Dorgans sued me for the little I now had for negligence in caring for their dearest possessions.
So, I’d tell the Dorgans. By e-mail. That way, I wouldn’t have to hear them rightfully scream at me.
“Not yet,” I finally answered Ned. “But I’m going to,
tout de suite.
” At his quizzical expression, I said, “They’re in France. That means ‘immediately.’ ”
Which was an exaggeration.
Bientôt
would have been a better response.
Soon
.
Soon as I got to my office. Soon as I finished up with my meeting. Soon as I had an opportunity to talk to Jeff about how to start hunting for a stolen Shar-pei and his pal, an iguana. And by then, it might be so late in the south of France that no Dorgan would check e-mail until tomorrow, our time.
At least Ned got me my dismissal from the scene for the morning, as long as I remained ready to answer further questions when needed.
And he did promise to keep the investigation as confidential as possible—which I figured meant not at all, damn it.
I was far from relieved when I hopped into my aging BMW and began my drive to my office. I needed to talk to someone about how awful I felt. I ran down my roster of possibilities. My best friend in the world, Darryl Nestler, owner of the Doggy Indulgence Day Resort, came to mind first. He would absolutely and unquestionably empathize with me. And I’d see him later when I picked up Lexie. I could even lean on his skinny shoulders.
But better, for now, would be someone whose understanding evolved from an increasing professional relationship.
I pressed the number into my cell phone for a new close friend, Tracy Owens, president of the Pet-Sitters Club of SoCal, of which I was now an active member and an officer.
“Tracy, you won’t believe what happened.” I nearly cried as I described the terrible pet-napping situation that had just occurred on my watch, while directing my car along busy Ventura Boulevard.
When I finished, instead of the immediate sympathy I’d expected, there was a pause.
And then Tracy said, “Oh, Kendra—you, too?”
Chapter Two
I COULDN’T GET much info from Tracy. Not then, since she was on a pet-sitting assignment of her own and was walking a handful of hounds. We made a date to discuss it at lunch.
All I knew, when I hung up, was that my situation was the third similar snatching of sat pets in L.A. that she knew about—including one of her own. A plague of pet-nappings? Other pet-sitting professionals as full of angst over AWOL charges as I was over poor Zibble and Saurus?
Still steering my Beamer, I quickly called Rachel Preesinger, my tenant and, more important at the moment, my pet-sitting assistant at my official company, Critter TLC, LLC.
“Rachel, listen up.” I had already phoned her about what had happened to me, but she needed to know of the other pet-nappings afoot in L.A. “I’ll talk to you more about it later,” I said, “but the special precautions I told you about before? Double them. No, triple.”
“Quadruple?”
“How’s quintuple?”
“Got it.” I heard a laugh in her young voice—she wasn’t yet out of her teens—but I felt certain she’d gotten the message after I explained why I was so additionally stressed.
My worry didn’t exactly encourage me to keep my mind on my driving as I sped down Ventura Boulevard toward my law office. I nevertheless made it safe and comparatively sound.
The Yurick firm is located in a former restaurant building. The hostess stand is currently the domain of our effervescent receptionist, Mignon. She looked up as I strode in and greeted me in her usual chirping tone. “Good morning, Kendra. Borden said you had some trouble this morning.”
“Sure did,” I acknowledged, but didn’t choose to shout about it at that second. “Tell you later. Is the meeting still going on?” I peered to my right, through the glass of a closed door. The conference room resembled the bar it once was, with the addition of the compulsory large table in the center. Three people sat around it, and all seemed to be smiling. Fortunately.
“Yes.” Mignon added a punctuating nod so her cheerful auburn curls bobbed about her perky, beaming face.
I hurried to join the group. After apologizing profusely, I learned that my lack of attendance had been accounted for by my wonderful laid-back boss and senior partner, Borden Yurick.
“Good timing, Kendra,” he said in his high-pitched, ever jovial voice, as suavely as if we’d planned all along for me to miss most of the meeting. As always, my new firm’s senior partner had chosen a colorful Hawaiian shirt for this session: deep blue, decorated with bright white flowers. “We’ve already gone over the allegations in the complaint served on Jasper and Angelica, and I’ll fill you in later. We were about to discuss strategy—your area more than mine. And this case is right up your alley.” He turned toward the clients. “She’s a real pet lover. Right, Kendra?” His gaze aimed back at me.
“Absolutely,” I acknowledged with a broad smile at the senior citizen couple sitting across the table from Borden and, now, me. Jasper and Angelica McGregor both appeared to be in their seventies, even a little older than Borden. “Tell me a little about the case.” I wondered what it had to do with pets.
Borden had brought me in as a partner at Yurick & Associates because he had lots of legal business to attend to. Much arose from clients who chose him over the other partners at the high-powered firm where I, too, used to work—before the temporary loss of my law license based on unfounded allegations of ethics violations caused me to become a pet-sitter to assure Lexie and me of nutrition and habitation.
Most lawyers at Borden’s firm—in fact all, except for me—were senior-citizen attorneys unwillingly retired from their former law practices. The majority of our clients, too, were of the aging persuasion, which meant that many of our cases concerned elder law matters.
But Borden decreed that everyone was to enjoy our practice. Consequently, I could keep pet-sitting, which abbreviated some of my available law-devoted hours. Plus, I was permitted to bring in my own pet-related clients of limited lucrativeness.
Pet-related clients. Missing best friends . . .
No! Right now, there was nothing I could do to locate my missing charges. Not even talk to Jeff. I’d left him an urgent cell phone message and talked to the people in his office, but he was temporarily unavailable, giving a local lecture on security systems to a group of interested entrepreneurs.
I had to concentrate on this meeting.
Jasper McGregor was chattering on about the complaint served on the indignant elderly couple yesterday. “I couldn’t believe it.” He jutted out a long and skinny chin far enough that the wattle beneath began to ripple. “Tallulah is my second cousin. We were very close before, like brother and sister. And when she said she was dying—well, I felt like I was losing my last real family member—blood, you know?” He looked apologetically at his solemn wife, who nodded. Jasper had a cadaverous face above an equally drawn body, on which his brown and white striped shirt hung from bony shoulders.
Kind of like folds of iguana skin . . .
“Get to the point, Jasper,” Angelica said in an exasperated tone. Before her husband could obey, she continued, “Long story short?” At my grateful nod, she nodded back. She hadn’t the wattle her husband had, not with her rounder face and body, but the dipping of her head forced a couple of extra chins to appear.
Rather like the folded face of a cute Shar-pei. A
missing
Shar-pei . . .
Back to reality, Kendra.
“Tallulah gave Jasper a deathbed gift—hers, not his, only she didn’t die either, which is a good thing,” Angelica continued. “I like the woman, too, but right now I could strangle her. Figuratively, of course. When it turned out the chemo worked and she would live after all, she wanted Whiskey back. But Whiskey’s ours. We love Whiskey. Whiskey loves
us
. We couldn’t give Whiskey back.”
They couldn’t return a bottle—even a case—of hard liquor? And they were having a love affair with the stuff?
Before I could inquire further, Jasper continued with a huge and happy smile, “We traveled cross-country with him. Showed him a few times—he’s a show dog, you know? Fell in love with doing dog shows, all thanks to Whiskey. And Tallulah, of course. Whiskey won twice, best in class of all the weimaraners, and we toasted Tallulah both times with champagne.”
Aha! Whiskey was a weimaraner. Even so . . . “While Tallulah was on her deathbed?” I asked, thinking that sounded as ghoulish as all get-out.
“I don’t do well at funerals,” Angelica said, fanning herself with plump fingers.
“And she was a whole lot better when we returned,” Jasper said. “We were so happy. We thought she’d be thrilled, too.”
“Until she demanded Whiskey back. But we’d invested too much into that wonderful dog.” Angelica shook her head. “Tallulah didn’t put any conditions on her gift when she signed Whiskey’s pedigree papers over to us. But now she’s suing us.”
“I hate this,” Jasper said. “I’d do almost anything to keep peace in the family. There aren’t many of us left, you know. But Whiskey’s part of our immediate family now. We can’t give him back.”
“We understand,” Borden slipped in smoothly. “And we’re here to help.” He looked expectantly at me, as if he anticipated I’d sweep a duplicate Whiskey out from under the table and hand her over to them.
Fat chance.
But I did have some ideas. I was a great proponent of ADR, which meant Alternate Dispute Resolution.
Of course in my complementary career, it also meant Animal Dispute Resolution, and I was an absolute expert in that.
But right now I needed to end this session so I could get off to my anticipated lunch with Tracy. “Let’s set up a meeting with Tallulah and her attorney,” I said. “Maybe we can negotiate a win-win solution, even if you don’t give Whiskey back.”
“We’ve talked to her a lot,” Jasper said dubiously.
“Sometimes things work better with lawyers involved and legal fees adding up,” I said honestly, which earned a small warning scowl from Borden, followed by a smile.
“Nothing like trying to stick it to the lawyers instead of each other to get to a settlement,” he said.
They left it to me to call Tallulah’s counsel and set up a mutual meeting.
And then, at long last, it was time for lunch.
SINCE TRACY’S PET-SITTING realm was in L.A.’s west side and mine was in the San Fernando Valley, we decided to meet in neutral territory in between, at a deli in a small shopping center near the highest part of Beverly Glen.
“You look half-naked somehow,” I said to my new friend as we joined up at the doorway, eye-to-eye since we were of similar height—five-five. Her eyes were light brown, and they immediately seemed startled until I added, “No Phoebe?” That was her adorable puggle, who she seemed to take everywhere.
“I could say the same,” she retorted. “Where’s Lexie?”
“Having a blast at Darryl’s day resort,” I said with a sigh, missing my pup, as always, when she wasn’t with me.
“Phoebe’s with Allen,” she said. “He has the day off and they’re bonding.” Allen was Tracy’s significant other, an insurance salesman or something of that ilk. Not exactly my type, but he seemed stable and was certainly devoted.
We chose a table outside, overlooking the not-so-glamorous parking lot. But this was an enviable April day in L.A.—no showers. No fooling—the sun was even out, so why hide inside?
“You’re looking good,” I soon told my over-the-hill counterpart as we sat across from one another, munching on bagel chips as we awaited our meals. She wore a forest green sweat suit with stripes along the legs and sleeves. She had appeared slightly chunky to me when we’d first met at a Pet-Sitters Club of SoCal meeting a month or two ago, but I’d figured out that was simply because of the jack o’lantern contours of her round and friendly face. Now, though, the contours of her cheeks seemed to have shrunken. “Have you lost weight?”
“I wish—although I haven’t eaten much for the last couple of days, thanks to the stress.”
Perfect lead-in to what I needed to discuss. “Because of your pet-napping?” I’d left my suit jacket in the car, which allowed me to gorge while in slightly less lawyerly pale blouse and dark skirt. I still felt a smidgen overdressed. Even though the other patrons here came from upscale nearby neighborhoods and tended to dress the part, at this time of day their garb leaned toward casual ultrachic.
“Yes,” Tracy said with a sigh, leaning back without even half a bagel chip in her hand. Her close-set eyes shut as if in pain. “It just happened yesterday. I posted a notice on the members-only part of the PSCSC website and asked everyone to keep the information to themselves, but I should have realized that not all members would see it there. I thought about sending it out on our e-mail loop. But when it happened, I hoped it was all a mistake, that I’d find Augie myself, or my client would know where he was. But when I contacted her, she was angry, even more upset than me. I was frantic. I still am.”