Nothing to Fear But Ferrets Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Epilogue

  Praise for Sit, Stay, Slay

  “A brilliantly entertaining new puppy caper, a doggie-filled who-done-it … Johnston’s novel is a real pedigree!”

  —Dorothy Cannell

  “Pet-sitter sleuth Kendra Ballantyne is up to her snake-draped neck in peril in Linda O. Johnston’s hilarious debut mystery, Sit, Stay, Slay. Witty, wry, and highly entertaining.” —Carolyn Hart

  And for the novels of

  Linda O. Johnston

  “Exciting romantic suspense with a strong emphasis on … intrigue. Linda O. Johnston provides a first-rate action-filled tale [for] fans of romance and suspense thrillers.”

  —Midwest Book Reviews

  “Imaginative and clever, this book is a true page turner.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Colorful characters … This book will add spice to a boring day.”—Rendezvous

  “Readers [will] be immediately caught up in the action … [and] relish this delightful tale.”—Romantic Times

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FERRETS

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2005

  Copyright © 2005 by Linda O. Johnston.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without

  permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of

  the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-0-425-20373-6

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To pet-sitters and pet lawyers and lawyers who love pets.

  To ferrets, whether maligned or justly illicit in California.

  To Cavaliers and Cavalier lovers, most especially Joan and Harold Letterly, who were Lexie’s first humans.

  And to Fred, who learned a lot of years ago that, to love Linda, he had to learn to live with, and love, her many Cavaliers.

  —Kendra Ballantyne/Linda O. Johnston

  Chapter One

  LIFTING HER FUZZY face, Lexie gave a ferocious growl.

  Ferocious, at least, for a Cavalier King Charles spaniel who’d wakened from a sound sleep while curled into a compact ball on my shorts-clad lap.

  “What, girl?” I murmured, paying a lot more attention to the study guide before me on the tiny kitchen table than the complaining canine now standing on my bent legs.

  After all, the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam, which I’d take in about a week, was all that stood between me and my ability to resume practicing law.

  Not that I should have had to take the ethics exam. My law license had been suspended owing to accusations of unprofessional conduct, but I’d recently been able to prove, beyond a hell of a lot more than mere reasonable doubt, that I’d been framed for that and more, including murder.

  Maybe you heard of my triumph. I’m Kendra Ballantyne, attorney at law, and the blasted media trumpeted the story of how I’d discovered who’d set me up almost as loudly as they’d blared my fall from glory in the first place. But that hadn’t boosted me beyond the hurdle of the Multistate.

  I blinked as Lexie leapt from my lap, faced my apartment door, and growled again—hackles on her furry black-and-white back raised ominously.

  This time, I paid attention.

  I closed the outline and stood barefoot on the tile floor, my own hackles playing hopscotch along my spine.

  Still, I heard nothing. At least nothing out of the ordinary: the refrigerator motor, traffic in the distance, a few cawing crows outside. It was one of those regretfully rare evenings when my renter, Charlotte LaVerne, and her boy-toy Yul, who occupy the main house on my property, weren’t throwing a party. Both were showbiz wannabes, and Charlotte was actually a persona of sorts, an alumna of one of those absurdly popular reality television shows. My tenants’ ingenuity at creating excuses for celebrations far exceeded all talents that I’d discerned in other areas. When they were home, noise was the norm around here, though seven P.M. wasn’t exactly their prime time for partying.

  Even so, I continued to listen … nothing.

  I Knelt to stroke the soft back of my pointing pup, who put down her lifted paw and looked up at me like I was nuts not to be as nervous as she was. Her red brows curved in consternation I still couldn’t decipher. She was a tricolor Cavalier—mostly black and white but trimmed in chestnut here and there, like those persuasively puzzled brows.

&nbs
p; “What is it, Lexie?” I asked softly.

  She ran toward the door. I stood and followed, by habit grabbing her leash from its hook on the side of the nearest cabinet. I bent to snap it on her, fast. If there was trouble outside, I didn’t want her bounding down the steps headlong into it. In fact, in anticipation, I scooped Lexie into my arms.

  I stood for a moment on the platform at the top of the stairs outside my apartment, surveying the situation. I didn’t see diddly out of place. My beloved BMW sat in its parking place beside the garage below. Then there was my sprawling château beyond my blue, inviting swimming pool in which I was no longer invited to swim. Its availability was attached to my home, which I’d leased out to stave off having to sell it during my prior misfortunes.

  Inside the tall wrought-iron fence was lush landscaping: a gloriously green lawn, some eucalyptus, a lemon tree, and—

  Crash!

  Lexie, in my arms, struggled so hard I nearly dropped her at the noise and my own panic. What the heck was that? It sounded as if someone had set off something a lot more frightening than a firecracker, really close by.

  Like at the other side of my adored house.

  The air still reverberated with the noise.

  Still holding the squirming Lexie, I sped down the steps, along the driveway to its end, and stopped.

  There it was, the source of the noise. It was a lot worse than misfired fireworks.

  A big vehicle had plowed right through my wrought-iron fence and into the side wall of my house, about where the living room was. Or maybe the den. Or right between.

  “Oh, no!” I cried aloud, hurrying forward. Was anyone hurt?

  But when I peered inside the huge intruder—a Hummer—I saw it was empty. That was the good thing. Sort of.

  Had it been occupied, perhaps this accident wouldn’t have occurred.

  Lexie must have recognized the sound of the unbraked vehicle hurtling downhill as something bad. She’d tried to warn me. If she’d spoken English, she would have. But try as I might, I was a failure at understanding barklish.

  One day, I meant to try one of those gadgets from Japan that was intended to translate a dog’s every comment. It would even help with my interim profession, and possibly permanent sideline, pet-sitting.

  But for now, I had a Hummer in my house to contend with.

  It wasn’t the first time someone’s brakes had failed on my two-lane, twisting street. But it was the first time my house had fallen victim. There was no indication the vehicle had been stolen and smashed like my own car was a few months ago. And now that I knew I hadn’t a corpse to contend with—I’d seen too many lately—nor even an injured body to hustle to the nearest hospital, I let myself get mad.

  “Damn it!” I exclaimed, still hugging the wiggly Lexie. I’d no idea whose Hummer this happened to be. Well, the cops could figure it out, and this was definitely a reportable incident. And I’d need a copy of the cops’ report to hand to my insurance company when I made a claim.

  Was I insured for runaway Hummers battering my fence and my house? More important, was the outsized auto insured? I certainly hoped so.

  But I’d dealt with insurance companies in my capacity as litigator. All too often, clients’ claims were stymied by small print in policies provided to them at hefty prices. Too many insurers were pleased to take people’s money, but choked on the concept of making good on policies’ promises. Most likely, I’d be in for a fight against one company or another.

  “Kendra? Are you okay?” a female voice shouted from some distance.

  I turned to see my next-door neighbor Tilla Thomason hurrying toward me—as much as hefty Tilla could hurry up the winding street from her home down the hill from mine. I gauged her to be about fifty, and she’d apparently added an extra pound for every year of her life.

  “I’m fine,” I yelled back. “Can’t say the same for my house, though.” I hadn’t grabbed my cell phone, so I needed to go inside to call the cops. An extra five minutes wouldn’t matter much, though. I waited, still squeezing Lexie, till Tilla reached us.

  By the time she did, a few other neighbors were gathering, shaking their heads and offering unhelpful advice.

  Lyle Urquard, our local mountain biker, braked beside me, skidded to a stop—and fell, bike and all, onto his side. He wore a helmet, which would have helped had he landed on his head. However, his legs were bare between bright green spandex shorts and the tops of socks extending up wide ankles from blue and white athletic shoes.

  Lyle biked at least twice daily. I’d seen him fall before. Scraped, bleeding legs were as much an adornment as his bulging belly beneath his snug shorts. How he didn’t manage to ride off his extra pounds remained a mystery to me, especially considering the admirable effort he made to pedal up our steep slope—on the San Fernando Valley side of the Santa Monica Mountains, a few blocks from Mulholland Drive. I didn’t know what he did during non-biking hours, but I’d heard he was in construction.

  “Are you all right, Kendra?” was the first thing he said after several of us, including Tilla, helped untangle him from his bike and set it and him upright. Sweaty hair peeked from beneath his helmet, and he flexed hands clad in gloves that covered his palms but left his fingers free.

  “Better than you,” I observed.

  His wide grin, lower jaw obscuring upper lip, looked sheepish as he thanked those who’d dived to his assistance. “I’m fine. Really.” He glanced around. “How about your tenants? Are they okay?”

  “I don’t think they’re home,” I answered.

  “Oh. Well, where’s Ike?”

  “Ike who?” I asked, wincing as the words came out like a weak sneeze.

  “Ike Janus.” He looked at me as if I should know the name.

  I didn’t.

  “Isn’t he the guy who moved into the Blaskeys’ old house a few months ago?” Tilla asked. She still panted from her climb, and her plump face shone with perspiration.

  “That’s right,” Lyle said. “This is his car.” He pointed short, blunt fingers, extending from his gloves, toward the Hummer that had hit my house.

  A FEW MINUTES later, the cops were on their way. Phil Ashler, my retired across-the-street neighbor, had his cell phone with him and had called 911. Was this incident worthy of an emergency call? Too late to worry about it now.

  I’d seen as much damage as I could from outside looking in, but I itched to go inside my dream home to see what nightmare the Hummer had created there.

  Hey, it was my house. This was an emergency—by police definition or not. I owned the place—my impatient bank and I. These days I didn’t live there, and as the mere landlady, I had no right to roam inside at random. Still, my lease with Charlotte and Yul permitted me entrance without notice in an emergency, and they clearly weren’t here, and—

  Okay. I’d talked myself into it.

  I asked the crowd of neighbors to watch for the cops.

  “Are you going to check out the damage inside?” Tilla asked.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Need any help?” Lyle asked. “I mean, can you get in okay? You’ll need to watch out, in case the structure’s damaged, or there’s something else dangerous that you can’t see.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said.

  “I’d be glad to go with you,” Tilla said. Obviously my nosy neighbor couldn’t wait to check out the chaos and report back.

  “Thanks anyway.” I led Lexie to our apartment over the garage. I grabbed my extra keys from a kitchen drawer, and we slipped down the steps and around the house to the back door.

  It had been weeks since I’d been in my house. The last time, I’d merely stood in the magnificent main entry and nosed around nostalgically. I’d let Yul in after he’d forgotten his keys and needed to hunt for Charlotte’s passport for an impending trip. It had taken him all of two minutes to find it and flee.

  I’d been invited to some of their parties but had always found excuses not to attend. It was just too torturous
to enter my home now that I didn’t live there.

  Entering through the back door, I stood in the kitchen. Lexie barked impatiently and tugged on her leash, as if she’d scented something enticing. “Hold on,” I told her.

  One thing I could say about my tenants: They were good housekeepers. The kitchen was as clean as a restaurant rated “A” by the health department. My beige tile counters trimmed in Mexican designs of blue, red, and yellow looked immaculate. So did their matching counterparts on the floor. The textured beige refrigerator door sparkled, as did the stainless sink and faucet.

  I had not held a lot of parties myself in the couple of years I’d lived here before—life as a litigator didn’t allow time for much recreational socializing—but my kitchen had always been a gathering place for my occasional guests. I didn’t have time, though, to stand here and nostalgically study my once—and hopefully, someday, future—domain. I had to find what damage the wayward vehicle had wrought on the rest of my house.

  From outside, I’d gathered that the Hummer had hit the living room at the far side of the house from where we stood. Or maybe it was the den next to it that I’d used as an office, though I didn’t know what use my tenants made of it.

  Lexie continued pulling, and I tugged on her leash, trying to get her to do a facsimile of a heel, which she was not inclined to obey. We headed toward the far side of the kitchen.

  And stopped. Rather, I stopped, slamming down my left foot audibly as a signal to my tugging pup to follow my lead, but she didn’t heed. In fact, she acted as if she’d never had any training, the way she strained at her leash to be let loose. Her nails clicked on the kitchen tile as she futilely tried to pull me faster and wound up spinning her paws like tires on rain-slicked cement.