CHAPTER ONE: THE CASE OF THE MISSING TV REMOTE
“I swear I left it on the back of the sofa. Maybe you ate it?” Mitchell paused in his search just long enough to give me a death glare.
“How would I eat the TV remote? It’s plastic, it has batteries and it is also inedible!” he said, dropping to hands and knees to look beneath the dining room table. It was a sign of faith that he believed me since the back of the couch sat 3 feet from the dining room table. I decided the death glare was just the sun in his eyes and he didn’t fully intend to demolish me with a Death Star when he finally got the motivation to build one. A reasonable person might be thinking, what a weird concern to have, but if they saw him sitting in the Los Angeles traffic, they would also believe.
Our apartment isn’t very big. On the lease document it says 1061 square feet, in reality it’s a very comfortable home with elephants living upstairs. The garage door opens to a 6 foot porch that leads to the front door. Once in the front door, there’s a large room we divided into living and dining room by virtue of a couch, a small hallway to the left with a second bathroom and bedroom being used as guest sleeping/sewing room/home office/camping supply storage. Essentially, it’s a very overcrowded closet we insist people can sleep in should they desire to visit.
Needless to say, people rarely desire to visit.
From the dining room is a kitchen with pass through, followed by the master bedroom with in suite bath and the biggest walk in closet I have ever seen. It would be much more impressive if we had a linen closet and it wasn’t full of blankets, but I suspect if we had another place to put blankets Mitchell would discover exactly how many shoes I own.
There are a half dozen dog beds throughout the apartment so that no matter which room he is in, Ranger has a comfortable place to rest. At 12 years old, my white German Shepherd Dog had drastically exceeded the life expectancy the vet had calculated after his hip surgery, but I fear he may not be immortal. He’s moving a little slower, he’s gotten a few more fatty tumors and his walks are shorter, but his tail still wags when I walk in the front door. He stopped getting up to greet me a month ago and I know our time is getting shorter, but I still love the tail wag. Mitchell was on all fours looking under the couch, Ranger lying on the dog bed at the other end watching him with his head rested on his left paw and his ears on full alert.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just lift the couch?” I asked from my seat at the kitchen table. I was cutting fabric to be a Little Red Riding Hood Cape for Ranger and his “31 Days of Doggoween” on Instagram. Though not actually a real thing, I am a fan of both Halloween and my dog, so he endured my shenanigans. It’s only September, but I decorated for fall at the end of August in the hopes I can convince Mother Nature to spare me two more month of 90 degree weather. As a result, all of my plans were centered on corn mazes, costumes and pumpkin spice.
Seriously, all the pumpkin spice.
Standing, I reached the edge of the couch right as Mitchell moved his hand back out from under the couch.
“Fu—dge” He yelled, as I stomped on his fingers.
“Sorry!” I said, removing my oversized foot from his now red tinged fingers. I squatted down, put my hands under the end of the couch and lifted. “Do you see it?” I asked, Mitchell’s red hair having disappeared from view beneath the arm of the couch pulled up to my chest.
“No remote, but did you lose a hair clip shaped like a flower?” he asked.
“Not that I know of, let me look,” I replied and remembered in the nick of time that I was holding the couch and should not drop whatever I’m holding to look under the couch. Especially because what I was holding is the couch and I couldn’t hold it up and look under it. Also, that would crush Mitchell and he might finish a swear word to the detriment of the bet we had going over who said fewer swear words.
Spoiler alert, it was already him but there was no need to admit defeat and spoil the fun.
He held up the hair clip in question, unaware that I had almost dropped a couch on him. “Look familiar?” he asked. “Also, thanks for not dropping the couch on me,” he added.
I guess he was aware. Might be because the last time I did drop a couch on him, but he was fine. “No problem, I don’t recognize that hair clip. Just leave it there.” I said, and started lowering the couch when his head appeared in view.
“I’m not going to leave something under the couch,” he said, watching me eye the hair clip in his hand.
“Why not? If I don’t think it’s mine, it probably belongs to the house trolls or something and I wouldn’t want them wondering where it is,” I said, preparing to take the hair clip and put it back under the couch.
“Trolls do not live under our couch,” he said. He then pointedly held the hair clip out of my reach and placed it in the trash can.
“Don’t throw it away! The trolls will be angry!” I cried, darting for the can. Mitchell, either anticipating my move or noticing the can was full, had taken off the lid, cinched the sack and was sliding on shoes to dispose of it. He was halfway out the door when he turned.
“You have 10 minutes to find the remote.”
I looked at Ranger and smiled. “How should we investigate this one? Film noir? Rescue Rangers? I’ll get the hats!”
Changed and ready, I walked out the front door. When I opened it again, I imagined everything in a sepia hue and a low saxophone played in the background.
She blew into the room like a dry Santa Ana wind, tossing her red fedora onto the hat rack, she gazed steadily into the deep brown eyes of her partner. The warm summer air flirted with the hem of her deep V royal blue dress that just brushed her shins with a full skirt.
“What’s the case, Riddle?” she asked with a brusque voice, thick with an accent that screamed no nonsense and a hard upbringing. Nadine tossed her coat on the back of the sofa while a read headed man occupied the single upright chair in the corner.
Riddle gazed at her, plush white fur coating his ears beneath a matching fedora, only in blue. He lay in the corner, one head on his paw inquisitively. She followed his line of sight to the man seated without much enthusiasm.
“You the job?” she asked him.
“Ma’am, I lost something of great value to me. Please, I hear you can find anything!” his eyes shimmering with a look of both loss and a hint of attraction.
“Keep your pants on, trigger. There’s no need to get happy. What are you looking for and what is worth to you? We don’t work on the cheap,” she stated as she pulled out a notebook and pen, waiting for the details of the case.
“It’s a small, electronic device. It controls a great power with technology unheard of,” he said. A quiver of desperation in his voice, “I’ll pay anything.”
“Let’s start where you last saw it and work backwards. If it’s worth my time, it’s worth your money,” she said, taking the fedora back off the rack and tipping it low over her right eye. “You’d better be good for the money.”
Riddle lumbered to his feet and prepared to follow Nadine out of the office. The followed the client two blocks and up a second floor walk up to a shabbily furnished apartment with one grand room connected to the smallest living quarters she’d seen. Getting straight to business, Riddle began sniffing everything, relocating small household debris with a nose designed to locate anything with the proper motivation. Sadly, the dynamic Dog and Dame detectives were without that motivation as he quickly lost hope and flopped to the ground nearest the kitchen table.
That’s when she saw it. The small red signaling beacon coming from beneath a swath of discarded fabric drew her attention closer to the table. Everywhere laid discarded scraps and torn fibers that clearly indicated the creator was a madman. Perhaps maybe a genius, but most geniuses are considered mad in their time.
Gently, she shifted the fabric and revealed the small electronics communication device and carefully laid it on the rear of the couch before signaling to Riddle it was time to go.
“That’ll be 10 dollars, trigger. Maybe you should hire a maid,” she added as he handed her money and she tucked it into her garter before striding out of the place at a steady clip, Riddle hard on her heels.
Mitchell returned to see the remote on the rear of the couch.
“Where was it?” he asked, scooping up the small electronic device.
“As you can see, it’s exactly where I said it was,” I replied, and then ducked just in time to avoid the pillow flung at me from the couch.
“Ha!” I shouted, popping back up in time to get the second pillow square in the face.