The Maltese Felon, Reed Ferguson Private Investigator Mysteries: Book 3

Sample Chapter

CHAPTER ONE

“Hello! Is this the Reed Ferguson Detective Agency?”

The 40-ish woman with strawberry blonde hair rushed down the hall toward me.

“It is,” I said. I unlocked the office door, feeling her impatience ooze out of her.

“And you’re Reed Ferguson?” she asked as she pushed past me and stood in the small waiting room. She yanked off her coat and threw it onto a couch against the wall.

“I am,” I said as I followed her in and shut the door. “And you are?”

“Gail Saunders.” She whirled around to face me. “I need your help! Someone kidnapped my dog and I need you to get him back.”

I stared at her for a moment. Words, Reed, use your words, I thought to myself.

I finally found my voice. “You want to hire me for what?”

“To find my dog,” she snapped. “He’s been stolen.”

“So,” I paused. “A dognapping.”

“Yes!” she said. “I can’t find anyone that will help me. Oh, I’ve got to get Fuji back!”

“Uh, why don’t you come sit down?” I escorted her into the inner office.

“Thank you.” She slumped into a wingback chair sitting across from my desk. “I’ve been to a number of detective agencies and none of them will help me.”

I blinked. Was this some kind of joke? I glanced up at my prized vintage posters of The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon and at my cinematic hero, Humphrey Bogart, who stared down at me from the wall. I loved film noir and detective fiction, especially the classics by Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett. I’d turned that love into a career as a private eye and I’d even solved a few cases. I dreamed of being like Bogart, so cool, so suave. My gaze settled on Gail. “How did I end up like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective?” I silently asked Bogie.

“I’m not sure I can help you,” I began as I moved around the desk and sat down. I laid my hands on the surface and tried for a serious pose. “A missing dog –”

“No, you don’t understand,” Gail interrupted me. “Fuji isn’t just any dog. He’s a prize-winning Maltese. A show dog. He won Best of Breed at the Rocky Mountain Cluster Show.”

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue about dog shows.

“The Rocky Mountain Cluster Show is the big show in Colorado. It’s held every year in February.” Gail contemplated me for a second. “How much do you know about show dogs?”

Was I that obvious? I cleared my throat. “Not much,” I conceded.

“Competitive dog showing is quite a sport,” Gail said.

Okay, my knowledge wasn’t not much, it was nothing. I had no idea that showing dogs was considered a sport.

“It’s really quite exhilarating,” Gail continued. “There’s the thrill of competition and the fun of seeing such beautiful and amazing dogs.”

“I see,” I murmured again, even though I didn’t. I sighed. It was Tuesday, so why was it feeling so much like a Monday?

“Fuji’s phenomenal.” Gail choked up. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.”

“What happened?”

“He was in the backyard. It was a nice day so I let him play outside. I usually stay with him but the phone rang. I ran inside to get it.” Gail wrung her hands. “I was only on the phone for a minute and I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve left him outside like that before, for just a minute or two and nothing’s ever happened. When I hung up, I went back outside and he was gone. I looked all over, thinking maybe he was hiding in the bushes or in the garden, but I couldn’t find him.”

“Did you hear him bark?”

“No, but he’s a friendly dog and he doesn’t bark much.”

“Could he have gotten out of the back yard somehow?”

Gail shook her head. “No way. Because he’s a show dog and he’s valuable, we have our yard fenced, so there’s no way he could escape.”

“No holes in the fence?”

She shook her head again.

“Excuse my ignorance,” I said. “But is it really worth hiring me to find your dog? How valuable is he?”

Gail pursed her lips for a second before answering. “Fuji is worth over $200,000.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“You heard me right,” Gail said.

“What makes a show dog so valuable?” I asked. “Breeding rights?”

“Exactly.”

I mentally patted myself on the back. The detective figures something out.

“But it’s not just about that,” Gail continued. “Fuji is like family. We’re all devastated. My daughter cries herself to sleep at night. My husband can’t believe someone stole our dog.”

“So how did the kid – er, dognappers take Fuji?” I mused. “Could they have come through the back gate?”

“No. We have a lock on the gate and it’s bolted from the inside.”

“Is there barbed wire on the fence?” I asked. “Anything to prevent a thief from hopping over the fence to snatch your dog?”

“If I did that, I’d be advertising that I have something to protect,” Gail said. “And my homeowners association would never allow that.”

“How high is the fence?”

She shrugged. “About six feet, I guess.”

“So the dognappers would’ve had to climb over the fence to get your dog.”

“That’s what I think,” Gail said.

I looked at Bogie on the wall and thought for a moment. “You’d likely need two people.”

“Why?”

“Picture it,” I said. “The dognapper gets into the yard and takes the dog. Then what? How does he get himself and the dog safely back over the fence? If someone were waiting, he can hand the dog off, then climb the fence. They’d be in and out in less than a minute, and if they had a car right there, they’d be gone before anyone knew the difference.”

Gail nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

“Unless someone spotted them,” I said. “None of your neighbors saw anything?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Did you talk to them?”

Gail sighed. “A few of them. Some work, so they wouldn’t have been home. We’re close to the neighbors next door and the couple across the street. But none of them were home when Fuji disappeared.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Yes, of course.” She grew angry again. “That went nowhere.”

“Why? Someone still committed a crime,” I said.

“Oh, that’s true,” Gail replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Since Fuji is worth so much, the crime is actually a felony. The department assigned a detective to the case, but we don’t have a suspect and there isn’t any evidence to speak of, so the detective said there isn’t anything they can do. Oh, I was so mad.”

“Wouldn’t the people who took your dog need the registration papers if they were going to breed your dog?” I asked.

“That’s correct. But that’s not the only reason to steal a dog. The detective said that dognappings are on the rise, especially with the economy being so bad. He said that thieves are taking dogs and then returning them for the reward money. Because of that, he advised us not to pay any money, but we had to try something to get Fuji back. So we posted flyers around the neighborhood offering a reward of a thousand dollars. We didn’t hear anything for a couple of days. And then we got this.”

She pulled a note from her handbag and handed it across the desk.

I read it. It was a stereotypical ransom note:

 

Buy a new black Under Armour PTH Victory Team Duffle Bag from Sports Authority. Put $10,000 in unmarked twenties in it. Go to South Valley Park near C-470 on Wednesday. Leave the bag behind the rock outcropping on the west side of Coyote Song Trail at 9 PM and leave. We get the money, you get instructions to get your dog back. No cops or you don’t get your dog back.

 

Wednesday. That was tomorrow night.

I looked up at her. “When did you get this?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did you tell the detective about this?”

“Of course,” Gail said. “But I’d already opened the note, so there was no way to get fingerprints, and the department doesn’t have the resources to do much beyond taking a report. My husband and I talked about what we should do, and we decided to hire a detective.”

“How did you know about me?” It wasn’t like my detective agency was advertised all over town.

“I’ve been all over,” Gail said. “I can’t find anyone who’ll help me. I heard about you from the Smiths. My parents know the Smiths and the Smiths know you.”

Ah, the friend of a friend referral. The Smiths were friends with my parents and two of the Smiths’ sons lived in a condo below me.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I don’t have the resources that the police do. I don’t know how I could find the dognappers.”

“But you could go with my husband and me to the ransom drop. Follow the dognappers and see if you can find out who stole Fuji. And help us get him back.” Her voice got louder and more exasperated with each sentence. “The Rocky Mountain Cluster Show is this weekend and we’re supposed to show Fuji. On top of everything else, if we can’t show him…” her voice trailed off.

I leaned back in my chair. Go to the ransom drop. That seemed simple enough.

“Obviously, we’ll be paying you for your time,” she said.

I hesitated. Investigate a dognapping? Oh, my mother would be so proud…

“Please, you’ve got to help us. You’re a good detective, aren’t you?”

“I like to think I am,” I said.

“I’d like to think so, too,” Gail glared at me. “This should be an easy job. I don’t know why all those other detectives had reservations.”

I couldn’t blame them. Investigating a dognapping would not be good for my image or my résumé. But other images cropped up, such as bills piling up on my desk. And my reservations disappeared.

“I’ll take the case,” I said.

This time I didn’t even look at Bogie. I was afraid he’d be shaking his head at me, or snickering. Or both.

 

Good twists and good narrative with entertaining characters. Reed Ferguson, private eye and Sam Spade wannabe, is on the track of dog-nappers and uncovers almost more than he can handle. Renée Pawlish has not disappointed me! ~Reader review