Crunch Time

No one answered. The house did have a slightly peculiar smell, but I couldn’t place it. Not rotting food, not puppy mess, but something else . . . what? My mother had always claimed I had overdeveloped olfactory receptors and that I could sniff scents that she couldn’t. This was common among foodies, I later discovered, and so it was only natural, I told my mother much later, that I should go into catering. Then it had been her turn to sniff, but that was another story.

I pressed switches on a nearby panel, which brought illumination to the shadowy interior. Then I raced back to the van.

“Let’s go,” I said as I shook drops out of my wet hair. I eased the van into the space next to Ernest’s pickup truck, and Yolanda brought Ferdinanda into the basement.

“We’ve decided to stay with you,” said Yolanda. “Will it be all right for us to make calls from your house? We still need to phone Ernest’s friends and make arrangements.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “But we’d better go as quickly as possible,” I warned them. “I was supposed to get permission for us to be in here.”

“Five minutes,” Yolanda replied. “We don’t have much stuff.”

“Do you have suitcases?” I asked, but my words were drowned out by the barking of the puppies. “Should I go do something with them?” I called to Yolanda, who was rolling her aunt into the bathroom.

“No, I can do it,” said Yolanda. “Ernest told me what to do. It’ll just take me a few minutes to—”

“I can figure out what the dogs need,” I called back. “You’ve got enough to worry about already.”

“Thanks, Goldy.” Her beautiful face was filled with gratitude. “You do too much for me.”

“Where are the dogs?”

She pointed at a door. Before I could go through it, though, my glance snagged on a section of the small living room where Yolanda and Ferdinanda watched television. The hearth of the tiny moss-rock fireplace was covered with a cloth topped with various statues: the Virgin Mary, a metal chalice with a rooster on top, and a mask of some kind, with cowrie shells for eyes and a mouth. It was some kind of . . . well, what? Altar?

The dogs’ crying pulled my attention away, and I pushed through the door Yolanda had indicated. It opened into a small, linoleum-floored storage room, which also served as the laundry room. I flipped on the lights and was immediately greeted with a barking storm and a horde of beagles.

“Wait, wait!” I cried as I tried to get my bearings in a world of stink. Whatever order Ernest had imposed on this room, where he had placed a row of metal cabinets, all labeled alphabetically, Auto to Yard, was gone. The floor was strewn with stained wet newspapers. The beagles raced about, clambering over my feet, clawing my legs, and falling every which way. They were probably the cutest animals I’d ever seen, a tumble of brown, black, and white fur and lovable baby hound faces. Still, I resisted the urge to get down on the floor and play with them. The stench of dog urine and feces was so strong that my eyes watered. I looked around wildly. Ernest had hung a mop, a broom, and other cleaning items next to the washer and dryer. Above the machines was a shelf that blessedly contained a neat pile of newspapers and a spray bottle of disinfectant. On the floor was a trash can lined with a plastic bag. Hooray.

I gathered up all the soiled papers, shoved them into the garbage, and sprayed the entire floor with disinfectant. This was no easy task, as the puppies kept yipping madly, whining, licking my ankles, digging their tiny teeth into my calves, and rolling onto their backs to have their tummies rubbed. When they decided to go off and play with their pals, their paws slid every which way on whatever part of the floor I’d just mopped. I pushed the sponge-on-a-stick as best I could to get the whole floor, then sprayed again and mopped again. When I got on my hands and knees to lay down clean newspaper, the puppies decided I was the Eiger and began to climb. They also licked my face, my hands, and my arms before they went back to whining.

“Did you feed them?” Yolanda asked from the doorway.

“I haven’t even rinsed out the mop.”

“I’ll do the mop,” she said, grabbing it. “You feed them.”

“Okay. Where’s the puppy chow?”

Yolanda looked around and frowned. “We put the bags of food right there.” She peered at the shelf, as if willing the chow to appear. “Oh, wait, I finished the first bag he bought this morning. Damn. Do you see more in here?”

I looked around the storage room. “Nope. Would it be in one of these cabinets?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice frantic. “I’ll do the mop and take this stinky bag out to the trash bin in the garage, and then I’ll give them fresh water.” From the distance, Ferdinanda called to Yolanda. Yolanda inhaled and closed her eyes. “Goldy, could you go look for more puppy chow? Maybe John Bertram’s wife has already been in here and she moved it. She’s a slob without the first clue about how to keep a house.” Like her husband, I thought, who was a slob who couldn’t find a police file if his life depended on it. Yolanda went on. “I wouldn’t doubt that she moved it, ’cause in addition to being messy, she’s also absentminded. Oh, yeah, and allergic to dogs. Still, I know Ernest bought several bags of puppy chow. In the kitchen, maybe? I’ll check the garage. Ernest is—was—a neat freak, so we should be able to find it somewhere, no problem. Thanks, Goldy,” she said as she rushed off, clutching the mop handle, to tend to Ferdinanda.

John Bertram! I wished I had his cell number. But then I remembered that he was down at Southwest Hospital. He was having his baton-bashed knees examined and treated. Maybe that was where Tom was, too, which could explain why he wasn’t getting my calls. I was willing to bet that SallyAnn Bertram was also at the hospital. Whenever a cop is hurt badly enough to be taken to the emergency room, the spouse drops everything to go check on his or her loved one. Staying at home, imagining how bad things could be, did not help.

I phoned the Bertrams’ home number and waited until I was connected to voice mail. I left a message for SallyAnn, asking that she please get in touch with me. Guiltily, I added that I hoped John was all right.

I climbed up the stairs, then poked around from room to room, ostensibly looking for puppy chow, but also to figure out if the cops had finished their investigation. Ernest had made one bedroom his own. It was a masculine blend of brown and white, with a white rug and chocolate-colored Roman shades. The cops had pulled the mattress and linens off and emptied the drawers. I wondered what they’d found.

Ernest had turned the other bedroom into a study. It was only slightly more tidy. The wooden file cabinet was open, and a single file lay on Ernest’s desk between the computer and telephone. A bag filled with papers was on the floor. Had the sheriff’s department’s guys been interrupted? It certainly looked that way.

That slightly odd smell I’d noticed when I first came in was a bit stronger upstairs. It wasn’t like spoiled food, it wasn’t like men’s cologne or soap, and it wasn’t from one of those plug-in air fresheners. It was like . . . clover. Or maybe alfalfa. I was extremely curious, but I was on a mission for puppy chow.

En route to the kitchen, I passed the large room that Ernest had made into a living and dining space. A white leather sectional sofa stood atop Navajo rugs, all new since Faye had moved out. The dining table and chairs were a contemporary mahogany style, and I wondered if Ernest had made them or bought them locally.

When I moved into the kitchen, I wondered how anyone could keep a cooking space so sparkling clean. But Ernest had. He’d put up old-fashioned pine-paneled cabinets that he’d reclaimed from a log cabin that was being torn down. Ernest had been big on recycling materials before it was fashionable. I smiled when I saw a framed poster for a local production of the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest in the kitchen, where he’d refinished the cabinets and put down a hickory floor. The effect was dazzling.

I moved from one highly organized cabinet to another: No puppy chow. I sighed in frustration. The last thing we needed was more delays before getting back to our house. Even if Yolanda and Ferdinanda were able to get every last bottle of shampoo and deodorant they needed, I still foresaw a trip to the store on the way home, and I hadn’t given a thought to dinner. I tried to think what we had in the refrigerator, in case Arch arrived first. . . .

The phone startled me. I looked around and saw it on the wall. On the third ring, I figured Yolanda was still dealing with Ferdinanda, so I glanced at the caller ID. It read Captain, Humberto. Was he calling Yolanda, on Ernest’s home number? And should I pick up the phone, or not? Well, what harm could come if I did answer it? I picked up the receiver and pressed Talk.

“This is Goldy Schulz.”

Click.

I slammed the phone down and made a mental note to tell Tom about the call. Yet even as I went back to hunting for puppy chow, I felt guilty. I didn’t want to believe that Yolanda was working for Humberto.

I checked both bathrooms for puppy chow. Nothing. The winter porch was next, but it was cold and empty except for the bent-twig furniture Ernest had put in there.