both. Had I been too generous with my estimate of
Armageddon?
Were
the
neighbors
already
spearheading an assault? If so, why were they
knocking? I went to the front door and opened it.
Standing just outside, with an aw-shucks grin and
an unruly mop of red hair, was Randy. He stepped
past me and into the office reception area where
Angel sat.
I thought your dad was against you helping me,”
I said.
19
Don Weston
“Ah, he cooled off after we cleaned our rooms,”
the boy said. “Who is the lady dressed up like Lady
Gaga?”
“That’s Angel.” I had to stifle a chuckle because
Randy nailed Angel’s persona perfectly.
Angel seemed flattered. “What’s his name? Can
we keep him?” I introduced them to each other. Angel
ran into the kitchen and returned with a plate of
chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk.
“I met Randy yesterday when I did my grid
search for lost pets,” I said. “We didn’t exactly get
along at first, did we Randy?”
“No ma’am.”
“So what are you doing here?” I said.
“I got to thinking. You’re trying to help find
those lost pets. Maybe I could help. I like dogs and
cats and they like me, so I got some experience. My
dad said it would be okay.”
“Did he?” I doubted Randy’s veracity.
“Yeah. He said to be home for dinner. He didn’t
want to have to come looking for me.”
I didn’t want him to come looking either. I got
his dad’s work number from the boy and called him.
“He said what?” Samuel asked. “Half the time I
don’t know what these boys doing. They’re supposed
to stay home when I’m at work.” There was a short
silence while he thought it over. “If he’s not a bother
to you, I guess it’s okay. Will you be sure he gets
home?”
“I’ll take him personally,” I said, and hung up.
Angel patted Randy on his carrot-top head. He
didn’t seem to mind. He finished off the remainder of
a cookie and washed it down with a swig of milk.
20
Death Fits Like A Glove
“How do you think you can help?” I asked.
“I could walk around and watch out for the
dognappers.”
“Do you have any friends who might help?
“Nah. I don’t got any friends. They all left me
after my mom got the cancer. At school they made
fun of me because I cried, so I don’t have nothing to
do with any of them.”
“Maybe you could get your brother to help you.”
I said.
“Ray? He’d rather croak them. He don’t take to
animals like me.”
“Sounds like a bit of sibling rivalry,” Angel said.
“He pushes me around and calls me names like
baby and wimp. He should talk. He still wets the bed,
and he’s thirteen.”
Angel patted Randy’s head again and took him
over to her computer to show him what she was doing
to try and find the stolen pets. After a while he got
bored and came back to talk with me. I sat on a settee
in the living room. My work consisted mainly of
feeling sorry for myself for losing Mr. Higgins.
“You should try it again,” he said, after I filled
him in on the stakeout.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I could find anyone
who would lend me another dog.”
“There’s a pet store about five blocks from here
on Glisan Street. I know the guy who owns it.
Sometimes he lets me clean out the reptile
aquariums.”
“Yuck.”
“It’s fun. I get to play with the iguana and the
box turtle and some chameleons. I bet Sam would
21
loan us a dog. Most of his are puppies, but sometimes
people ask him to take their full-grown dogs and sell
them. Last week he had a Yorkshire Terrier. I’ll bet
someone would want to steal him.”
“Maybe, I said.
“There seems to be a lot of dogs for sale on
Craigslist,” Angel said. “But they don’t match the
descriptions of our missing dogs.”
“Why don’t you call them,” Randy said. “Maybe
they have others.”
“Others?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sometimes Sam runs ads at his pet store.
People came in last week wanting to buy the puppy in
the ad, but Sam sold it before the ad came out. So he
told them that puppy was sold, but maybe they would
like to look at another puppy.”
“Maybe the kid’s got an idea,” I said to Angel.
“Why don’t you call a few of those advertisers and
see if they have more than one pet to sell?”
“You think they might be advertising dogs
they don’t have and trying to substitute one we’re
searching for?” Angel said.
“It would make sense they don’t want to describe
their stolen dogs on the Internet. They know the
owners would be checking. Be on the lookout for a
black Scottish terrier. It might be Georgie, Louise’s
dog. Also see if you can locate a smiling brown and
white English Bulldog.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see about a Yorkshire Terrier.”
It was Tuesday afternoon and I had in tow,
Lindy, a white and grey long-haired runt of a
22
Death Fits Like A Glove
Yorkshire Terrier only a mother could love. When
Sam, the owner of the pet store, agreed Monday
afternoon to let Randy and I use Lindy as bait I was
skeptical anyone would want to steal this dog. But
Sam said the going rate for her breed floated between
six hundred and a thousand dollars. He teased her hair
and placed a cute red ribbon on her head and when
she cocked her head to listen to our voices she was
darling. Still a runt though.
At home, I laced an adornment of my own, a sort
of protective charm around Lindy’s neck. I made sure
it was hidden beneath long teased-out hair cascading
down her neck. When I opened the front door, Lindy
charged out into a mob of three women on my front
porch.
“Where are you going with that dog?” It was
Louise. Two women with her were other ladies I
recognized from the night of the fire. “You aren’t
planning on letting someone kidnap that dog too?”
“No,” I said. “I’m planning on catching the creep
now that I know his method of operation.”
“My sister won’t speak to me,” Louise said. “She
just cries and hangs up. You got me into this.”
“And I’m going to get you out of it and find your
dog too.” I have to admit I didn’t know if I could pull
it off, but the women glared at me and I had to say
something.
“Georgie? You think you can find Georgie?”
“Be s
teady Louise,” one of the women, I
remembered as Sarah, said. “Miss Bly, we are
circulating a petition asking the city to make you
move your business out of our neighborhood. You are
a clear and present danger to us all.”
23
Don Weston
I looked at a sheet of paper on her clipboard. It
was full of signatures, maybe twenty. Patty, the third
lady, also had a petition and her sheet was nearly full
too. How many blocks were involved in this charade?
“I can’t talk. I have an appointment. My assistant
is inside. She will handle any complaints or
questions.”
I leaned over to scoop up Lindy, who was
making nice with the old bats and had draped her
leash around the Sarah’s ankle. I faked to my left and
darted right around the contingent and toward
Randy’s house.
Randy’s family lived in a small two-story
Victorian only three blocks from me. I wondered if
Louise’s cronies had circulated petitions here. I rang
the bell twice before the front door opened.
“Sorry,” Randy said. “I was playing my video
game and couldn’t stop or my guy would get killed.
Come on in. I have to turn the game off.”
Lindy and I entered the living room and waited
as Randy disappeared up the stairs. I would have
imagined it would be hard for a single parent dad with
two boys in tow to keep the house clean. But their
home was spotless. Floors were vacuumed, tables and
woodwork were freshly polished, and fresh flowers
rested in a vase on the dining room table.
“You have a very nice home here,” I told Randy
when he returned.
“Dad has a thing for keeping the house clean,” he
said. “He gets mad when we mess it up so we have to
be neat.” He bent down and gave Lindy a hug. “She
looks silly with the red bow.”
“Is Ray here? Does he want to help us?”
24
Death Fits Like A Glove
“Naw. He’s out back working in his office.”
“He has an office?”
“He calls it that. Mostly he fools around with
tools and things.”
A few minutes later we were at Food Front. I
shared my plan with Randy and gave him a walkie-
talkie. No more disjointed cell phone dialogues.
Randy was to walk up and down the sidewalk and
linger in front of a hobby shop and a toy store and
keep an eye on Lindy from outside. I tied Lindy’s
leash to a steel post, stationed myself inside Food
Front and watched through a window.
Randy was great. He acted like the typical
distracted kid, running and playing and fogging up
store windows with his breath as he put his hands to
the glass to glance at toys. He surreptitiously chatted
on the walkie-talkie.
“Nothing to report . . . still all quiet . . . a lady
stopped to pet Lindy.”
I told Randy to be especially aware of anyone
petting Lindy and not to let down his guard in case
they came back. As I watched Randy across the street
my cell phone buzzed. It was Angel.
“I got a bite on Georgie,” she said. “This guy on
Craigslist has a black Scottish Terrier he’ll sell to me
for three hundred dollars. He advertised a white
Scottish Terrier so I emailed him about it.”
“Did he still have the white one?” I asked.
“He sold it, but he had a black one, its brother.
He said he had to sell them because they belonged to
his mother, who recently passed away. I told him I
really wanted a white one for my sister. I didn’t want
to seem too obvious.”
25
Don Weston
“Good thinking,” I said. “Did you arrange a
meeting?”
“At the Safeway parking lot in Jantzen Beach,”
she said. “He lives in Washington and said he’d meet
me on the Oregon side in an hour.”
“Okay,” I said. “Round up Louise and take her
along for identification. I’ll drop Lindy at the pet
shop, Randy at home, and meet you at Safeway.”
“Cool,” Angel said. “I already called Louise.
She’s really excited and said to tell you she’s sorry.”
“She’s sorry now, but she’ll be pissed at me
again if it isn’t Georgie.”
“I’ll bet it is. The guy I talked to was evasive
about some things and his cell number was blocked
when he called me back.”
I hung up and looked across the street to Randy. I
knew he’d want to come with me, but there was no
way I could bring him. I picked up my walkie-talkie
to tell him we were done for the day, but he beat me
to the talk button.
“That lady who pet Lindy is back . . . holy cow,
she’s untying her . . . Now she’s picking her up . . .
Billie? She’s walking away with Lindy!”
“What?”
I ran from Food Front and watched a young
woman in blue jeans, a short-sleeve black blouse, and
black tattoos on each arm walking swiftly down the
sidewalk. She wore a straw hat over her head,
concealing her face and was headed toward a bicycle
rack.
I knew where this was headed.
“Stop!” I screamed.
26
Death Fits Like A Glove
Straw Hat looked over her shoulder and frowned.
She dropped Lindy in a familiar basket on a familiar
bicycle, bent over the bicycle rack, and made
sweeping motions with her arm.
I ran toward her, but she swung a leg over the
bike and peddled. I closed on her briefly as she pulled
away. I reached the bike rack, and pulled out my ten-
speed, placed there earlier for such a circumstance. I
peddled in hot pursuit, but the bicycle wobbled and
shuddered and refused to go. I looked down at a flat
tire.
“She stabbed the tires with a knife,” Randy said.
Shit!” I said. The other bicycle in the rack also
sported a sliced tire.
“What are we going to do? Randy said. “She’s
getting away.”
“You are going home,” I said. His eyes widened.
“I’ll let you know what happens later, but I can’t take
you with me. Your father would kill me.”
I dropped Randy off at his house over vocal
protests, went back to my office and turned on my
laptop. Because of Lindy’s long strands of hair, the
Straw Hat lady didn’t notice a tiny device tied around
the dog’s neck. A GPS tracking image my phone
carrier provides showed Straw Hat heading toward
North Portland. Jantzen Beach is in North Portland.
I called Angel and updated her on Lindy’s
situation. A few minutes later I was in my red ‘73
MGB GT, cruising toward the Jantzen Beach
Safeway store. I arrived a few minutes before the
appointed time, parked a short distance away from
my assistant and Louise in Angel’s Jetta, and waited.
27
Don We
ston
To my surprise, a bearded young man in a green
Toyota Prius pulled up to the Jetta and exited with a
black Scottish Terrier. The plan was for Louise to
remain calm and indifferent so as not to spook our
perp. If it was Georgie, she would put her hands to
her head and ruffle her hair. I snuck up behind his
Prius and spied on them over the hood. Louise gave
the signal, but I wasn’t ready to show myself.
I crawled to the rear of the car where I had a
better view of our suspect. He was the same height
and build of the guy I called Racing Cap, who made
off with Mr. Higgins. His chin was slight like that of
Racing Cap’s. I looked around the parking lot for
Lindy but there was no sign of the little terrier or the
woman in the straw hat who took her.
“Can I hold her?” Louise asked.
“Sure,” the man said.
He thrust Georgie into her arms and the dog
licked her face.
“He likes you,” Racing Cap said.
“He should. He’s her dog,” I said.
Racing cap turned as I approached and a
combination of fear and astonishment showed on his
face. He backed toward his car, realizing, now, he
was in a trap.
“Look, I just found the dog and since I couldn’t
find the owner, I decided to sell him.”
“You found him in Vancouver?” Angel said.
“No. I was in Portland shopping and the little
mutt ran up to me.”
“It won’t play,” I said. “I saw you scoop him up
and toss him into your bike carrier at the Food Front.”
It was more an educated guess than a lie. I watched
28
Death Fits Like A Glove
him and likely his accomplice do the same thing
during the past two days with Mr. Higgins and Lindy.
He jumped into the Prius and started it up.
Running away seemed to be something he was good
at. The car wobbled as he took off. The passenger
side struggled to keep up because I’d let the air out of
the tires while I spied on him from behind the car. I
stole the idea from Straw Hat.
I jogged alongside the Prius and waited for