SNOOKERED (part 2)
by Judith H. Simpson
Dino was sniffing it. "Smell this," he said thickly,
breathing fast to clear his nose of the scent. Then he sniffed
again. "It's not Maggie's scent, or Charlene's. And there's
another smell here..." 
I sniffed and agreed. "What do you think this odor is? It's familiar. I've smelled it before, but..."
"I don't know but I'll know it again!"
"Good. We may need that."
"So what do we do now? The bird is long gone."
"Maybe. Maybe not. You just remember that smell. You were bred to have a decent nose, and trained for it, too. I was originally bred to be a working dog also." I gave him a stern look, not liking his amused grin. "Don't let the toenails fool you, nor the haircut! My ancestors were water retrievers -- of birds -- while yours were just being created! I expect I can still do it -- retrieve birds, I mean."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, realizing at last that his only hope of restoring his reputation lay with my efforts. Clearly that thought worried him a lot. "How do we find this bird, so you can retrieve it?"
"We answer a few questions. Such as, if the intruder didn't get in through the empty run, how did he get in? And, how did the intruder know that you weren't loose? And, how did the intruder know the bird was here? Surely he wasn't stolen by mistake?"
"Nobody would steal that bird by mistake."
"He's the only thing taken, too. So, to solve this, we have to answer those questions. Spare yourself the mental strain," I said tartly. "I've already figured that out."
"So have I," Dino said. "I'm not stupid! Someone told the man."
"Right you are. Someone on the inside told him you weren't loose last night."
"Who told him?" Dino worried it through. "Not Maggie, of course. And not Andrea."
"It couldn't be Andrea," I agreed. Andrea was the groomer who worked for Maggie. She'd been out of town for a week, due to a family illness. I reminded him of that.
"Not Andrea and not Maggie," he agreed.
"No. That leaves Charlene."
We considered Charlene. She had been hired two weeks ago to be the kennel girl. She would have fed the dogs, then closed the dog doors while Maggie was sweeping up the grooming room. She would know that Dino slept in the grooming room at night.
"She knew and told someone, a male human. How do we find him?" Dino demanded. He was upset. He'd quite liked Charlene, who sneaked him extra dog biscuits.
"Through her, I expect. She had to be involved. She's the only one who could control whether or not you were loose."
"That's right. " His brow furrowed as he thought all this through.
"She couldn't have you running loose in the shop, since she was letting the man in. I was with Maggie when she left. All the grooming dogs had been sent home, and she had cleaned up the grooming room. Charlene was in the kennel feeding all the dogs when we left. Did you hear us leave?"
"I always hear Maggie leave," Dino said. "Always."
"And, when you came in and the lights were off, you realized that Charlene hadn't let you out, right? Then what?"
"I thought she'd forgotten and would remember, so I waited. She didn't come back."
"So then she went around with a ladder and cut the wire so we'd think someone had broken in?"
"No. I heard her leave. I went outside and saw her car go up the driveway to the road. It wasn't dark yet."
"And you never saw or heard anything after that?"
"I didn't see anything. I heard plenty. Someone was making noise outside and all the dogs were barking. They finally quit and I heard the front door close again. But I didn't see anyone."
"Charlene left you shut in so you wouldn't attack the man she'd let in here." I was thinking out loud now. "She left, then he left with the bird, and he fixed the empty run to look like someone had broken in that way. Come on, we've seen everything here there is to see. Let's go see what we can learn from Maggie."
We arrived back in the grooming room in time to hear Chief Robert say, "If you get a ransom demand, it'll give us something to go on."
"And that's all you can say?" Maggie demanded.
"Until I have some real evidence, yes. Call me if anything happens."
"Fool!" Maggie said loudly, as Chief Robert closed the door and went to his cruiser. "You won't find him!"
I was inclined to agree with her about that.
Maggie went to the telephone, dialed a number, and said, "Charlene, I need you to come on in. Something has happened and I need you here. Check which dogs are going home tonight and see that they are bathed."
This sounded promising. So we wouldn't raise suspicions, Dino went back to his run, which is where Charlene would expect to find him, and I settled down on the plush pillow in the corner, which was my accustomed place at the shop.
Charlene arrived, and Maggie told her what she needed to know about the events, then grabbed her van keys and went off, muttering about talking to Sabrina, the owner of the bird. Charlene watched Maggie leave, unaware that I was not asleep on my cushion, but was, in fact, watching her carefully. She pulled out the clipboard with the list of boarding on it. She went down the list, identifying the three dogs going home tonight, dogs who would have to be bathed before pick up time. Then she put the clipboard aside and went to the telephone and dialed a number.
"Edward," she said softly, nervously , as if she feared there was someone other than me in the room to hear her. "Is everything all right?"
I couldn't hear what was said, but I saw her react by shaking her head. She talked another minute, then slammed down the phone, looking exasperated. Then she went into the small boarding room and opened the cabinet. I saw her take the big tin holding Christopher's food out and begin to spoon some into a plastic bag. Astonished, I realized that the man had taken the bird without taking food along and Charlene was preparing that food now. Either she would take it to the man, or he would come and get it, I was sure of it. I went quickly to the kennel, to Dino's run.
He lay miserably on the bedding, contemplating the ruins of his guard dog career. I told him what had happened and what Charlene was doing. "The man must be coming for the food. Somehow, Dino, we've got to follow him home. He has Christopher. How do we get outside?"
There was no way, I knew, that Charlene would let either of us outside.
"The empty run," Dino said. He sped into the run, with me close behind him. We blinked at the bright sunlight that flooded the outside run. The man had cut loose the wire along two sides of the corner. He'd bent the wire back, opening a large triangle. Dino eyed the opening. The covered top was about seven feet from the floor. "I can make that, Angelique. Can you?"
I smiled. "Poodles invented acrobatics," I assured him. "Shall I go first?"
For an answer, he crouched, then sprang, his front paws reaching for and grabbing the top of the chain link. For a moment he was poised at the top, then he pushed his hind feet free of the fencing and sprang over. The thick grass deadened any sound of his landing. He turned to watch me, his eyes showing his anxiety.
Being a poodle, even a standard poodle, could be frustrating. We epitomized the adage of judging a book by the cover. People judge us all the time by the external trappings -- such as our haircut, our hair bows, and our toenail polish -- none of which are of our choosing. What Dino didn't see is that I am as tall as he is. While I lack the bone and muscle mass of a Doberman, I am no athletic wimp. Flexing my knees slightly, I sprang. I sailed through the opening, my rear paws lightly dusting the top rail of the fencing, and landed beside Dino. "So," I said briskly, "we need to find a place to hide so we can wait and watch for this man. Somehow we've got to follow him without being noticed."
Dino looked me over, his fangs gleaming as he grinned. "You are suggesting trotting unnoticed behind his vehicle through town? Right?"
I scowled. He was quite right. A large white poodle with red bows in her hair finds it difficult to go anywhere without being noticed. There was no way I could trot through town behind a vehicle without everybody seeing me. "I'll think of something," I told him.
The hiding place was easy enough to find. Behind the kennel was a grassy stretch to the property line, where a row of shrubs had been planted, and behind them, several rows of trees. Behind the trees was a narrow road. We had just reached the trees when the sound of a vehicle approaching down the road sent us scurrying for cover. A dirty red truck pulled off the road, onto the sandy shoulder, and stopped. A man got out and vanished into the trees.
Could this be the man? I darted to the line of scrubs and looked through a gap. The man went quickly across the grass and around the corner of the building toward the front door.
"Angelique! Come here," Dino called. He was standing in the bed of the pick up truck, his nose wrinkling in disgust. "Smell this!"
I jumped up. "That's the smell," I agreed. The distinctive smell on the cloth had been gasoline and the back of the truck reeked of it. Dirty tarps covered two lawn mowers and several other pieces of equipment I didn't bother to identify.
"Someone's coming," Dino said. He lifted the edge
of the tarp with his muzzle, ducked his head under, and squirmed
forward until he vanished from sight. Reluctantly I crawled under
the other end. It was dirty, it smelled of gasoline and oil and
grass, and it was hot under the tarp. 
I
briefly wondered if finding Christopher was worth this -- and
decided that it probably was. The man got into the truck and started
it up, then sped down the road.
By the time the truck finally stopped, I had my teeth gritted and was thinking murderous thoughts about Christopher. It was suffocatingly hot under the tarp. The dirty metal floor of the truck had bounced and shaken my bones until my entire body ached. The reek of gasoline was making me woozy. It was a long moment before I realized that the truck had not only stopped, but the man had gotten out and slammed the door. In minutes, there was the sound of a screen door banging shut, then silence.
"Angelique? Can we get out now?"
I crawled out from under the tarp. The truck was parked in a dirt driveway behind a small white house. In front was the back porch of the house, dimly seen through the screened door. To our right was a shed, the wooden door standing open and the interior dark.
"Be careful," I cautioned Dino. "We've got to find where he's keeping Christopher but not be seen ourselves."
In the event, it was easier than either of us had expected. The porch was a screened in porch that lay across the back of the house. In the center of it was a wooden table. On the table was a bird cage, which contained Christopher. The bird, accustomed to air conditioned comfort, was not happy with this accommodation. He was scolding the man fiercely as the man snapped open the cage door and shoved in a bowl of parrot food, getting his hand out before Christopher could seize it.
"You wanted this," the man growled, "you got it. So eat it! You bite me, buster, and you'll be cat food!"
Around the corner of the shed, Dino and I consulted.
"We need a diversion," I said. "One of us has to divert the man away from the porch, while the other grabs the cage and runs with it."
"Why don't you just wait and watch and I'll go for Maggie," Dino suggested. "She can come get the bird."
"Maggie isn't at the shop and we don't know where she is. And do you know the way back to the shop?"
He didn't. Nor, for that matter, did I. We could hear the man swearing at Christopher. " And how can we be sure the bird will still be here, and alive, when Maggie eventually returns?
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