Nothing to Fear But Ferrets Read online

  I hadn’t thought anyone home. Now, though, after I opened the door from the kitchen to the rest of the house, my ears were bombarded by a shrill sound, as if a child was crying somewhere.

  But Charlotte and Yul didn’t have kids. No one else was authorized to stay here, and even if they’d violated the lease, they wouldn’t leave an infant here alone.

  It could be Yul, though. He had a voice I’d term baritone, but the last time I’d come into the house, with him, I’d called out a question and hadn’t been able to make out his shrill reply.

  Was he here and hurt?

  All the more reason not to let Lexie explore on her own. Hanging on with difficulty, I let her lead me to the source of the sound.

  Unsurprisingly, it was from the room whose outer wall had been stoved in by the Hummer—the den.

  My roomy, efficient, sorely missed home office.

  As I said, I’d no idea what Charlotte and Yul used it for now. If I’d known, I’d have given them written notice to cut it out—a California statutory notice to cure a lease default or quit the premises.

  For they were definitely in default under the lease, namely the no-pets-without-permission-and-a-stiff-security-deposit clause.

  Plus, I’d believed that showbiz brassy Charlotte—who hugged every person she met as if embracing the entire human race—hated pets. She’d unabashedly avoided my adorable Lexie. And there had to be something really wrong with someone who refused to cuddle Cavaliers.

  But Charlotte obviously didn’t have a phobia against all pets. The waist-high luxury wire and carved wood cage that occupied the room wasn’t just for show.

  I bent and lifted my Cavalier into my arms as Lexie lunged toward the cage. Fortunately, it was along the inside wall—opposite the heaps of drywall that now littered the floor beneath the wreck of the wall where the Hummer had hit.

  The shrill, scared sounds emanated from the enclosure. I couldn’t tell from where I stood what kind of animal made them. Still holding Lexie, I drew closer, bent down, and looked.

  The cage’s occupants were long, furry, and masked, and had pointed snouts. Kind of cute. But …

  Weasels? Did anyone keep weasels as pets?

  I didn’t know, but I was aware that some people made pets of a similar-looking little beast. Though not in California. At least not legally.

  “You’re ferrets!” I exclaimed to the five chattering, nervous little mammals that scurried around the crate in a parody of a person’s perturbed pacing.

  None denied it.

  Though I’d never had a pet-sitting client that kept ferrets, I’d heard of people who did. I’d also heard of a movement to legalize the little critters in California. One particularly avid ferret fan had even run for governor on a “free the ferrets” ticket. But then, in California everyone runs for governor, and sometimes the most celebrated wins. And if I recalled the brouhaha correctly, the ferret fanciers, some months back, had succeeded in convincing both houses of the state legislature to agree on an amnesty bill, but our celebrated governator had vetoed it, invoking the need for further environmental evaluation.

  So owning ferrets remained a felony. Or at least a misdemeanor—I’d never checked. I might have to now, though, when I gave written notice to my tenants to chuck the ferrets or cancel the lease. I hoped it wouldn’t be the latter, since they paid me a healthy rent—enough that I had a little to spare beyond my mortgage payments.

  Sure, I’d be entitled to compensation for their default, but I preferred to continue receiving rent … without the illegal aliens now occupying a valued corner of my home.

  I stood there attempting to control Lexie, who wanted in the worst way to make the little beasties’ acquaintance up close and personal. I pondered what to do with my battered den wall. I deliberated what this particular lawyer should do with such a gross violation of lease and law right in her own home.

  And then a call reverberated through the entire downstairs of the house. “Is anyone in there? This is the police!”

  Chapter Two

  DAMN! THEY’D WANT to see the damage. What should I do? Expose my tenants’ possession of illicit pets?

  They deserved it.

  I put Lexie down, leaving the loop of her leash over my arm. As she stood on hind legs and sniffed, I lifted the large but fortunately portable cage from the floor, scaring the four long and furry ferrets all the more. As they skittered futilely to maintain their balance, I hurried them from the room.

  The den abutted a hall that also led to the rear of the house and the laundry room. I aimed my awkward and unhappy baggage there, hoping the cops wouldn’t barge in without invitation.

  Was there any way to hush a bunch of small, squealing creatures? If so, I didn’t know it. “Just a minute,” I called in a feigned falsetto over the din. “Be right with you.”

  I reached the laundry room and deposited the cage on top of the adjacent washer and dryer. I then lifted Lexie, who was fascinated by the ferrets, back into my arms. She squirmed, obviously eager to further her acquaintance with them. Holding her as tightly as I could manage a protesting pup, I fled the utility room, closing the door behind us.

  A short while after I’d moved into my beloved home, I’d been so irritated by the gurgles, groans, and belches of my electrical servants that I’d insisted on adding insulation to this utility room to keep the offensive noises inside. Thank heavens. That would hopefully muffle the ferret sounds, too.

  Only then did I think about what I’d done and begin to cringe. I’d made myself an abettor, an accessory to breaking whatever law forbade harboring ferrets in California.

  Oh, lord. Before, when accused of a laundry list of nasties, I’d been innocent of them all. This time, I was actually committing a crime. Would I ever again see my license to practice law? Not at this rate.

  Not if I was caught.

  “Hi, police,” I cried out. “I’m coming.”

  As I’d figured, they were at the front door, two patrol guys in uniform. I was relieved not to see my suit-sporting nemesis on the L.A.P.D., Detective Ned Noralles, especially since Noralles was a homicide detective. For once, the police were around for something other than my discovery of a body whose untimely demise might be blamed on me.

  “Sorry for the delay,” I said. “This whole mess got my stomach churning and—well, no need to be graphic about it, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you heard … Never mind.” I daintily lifted a hand to my mouth, no easy trick while still grappling with Lexie. “Would you like to see what that darned Hummer did to my house?”

  “Okay,” said the younger of the two cops. His badge identified him as Officer Sallaman. His partner, Officer Elina, looked weathered, jaded, and bored, as if I couldn’t show him anything here that he hadn’t seen a hundred times before.

  Both examined the mess that was the residue of my den wall, including rubbled piles of plaster, window glass, and broken sticks and fabric that were once Charlotte and Yul’s furniture. A hint of Hummer fender showed through the hole.

  Officer Sallaman made notes, while Officer Elina asked a few perfunctory questions: Who owned the house? Who lived here? Had anyone been home? Was anyone hurt?

  I soon accompanied them back outside, Lexie leashed and trotting beside me. A greater crowd had gathered. Most, still, were neighbors.

  A couple were reporters.

  Damn.

  I despised reprehensible reporters. Despite my later redemption, they’d first turned my life into a public free-for-all months ago in the guise of getting a juicy story about a lawyer who’d thrown her own case by handing a strategy memo to the opposing party. And why had she done such a dastardly deed? Because she was peeved at her client or because the opposing party had bribed her, or both.

  Or so had gone all the false accusations against me.

  But that’s another tale. One I’ve tried my damnedest to put behind me, despite all the gory details I won’t go into now.

  That was the main reason, though, that when
microphones were thrust before my mouth, I forbore from chewing on them, simply smiling secretively and saying, “No comment.”

  No better way to irritate irascible reporters.

  Instead, I went over to where a group of neighbors had gathered—Tilla Thomason and her husband, Hal, who obviously enjoyed eating as much as his happily stout spouse; Lyle Urquard, the mad bicyclist; Phil Ashler, the sweet old guy from across the street; and a few I didn’t recognize.

  As we stood there, the others commiserating with my mess and clearly grateful it wasn’t theirs, a jogger bolted down my street. Only he wasn’t in sweats or any other exercise outfit I’d ever seen. In a suit and tie and polished shoes, he slid on the sidewalk and braked himself to a halt in the midst of my local pity party.

  And stared at the Hummer and my house.

  He cried out, “Oh, no.”

  Lyle stepped toward him, motioning Lexie and me to follow. “Er … Ike, have you met Kendra Ballantyne? This is her house. Kendra, this is Ike Janus.” He pointed a long, scraped finger toward the nearby disaster area. “And that,” he said, “is Ike’s Hummer.”

  IN MY LIFE as a litigator, I’d come across all kinds of clients and opponents. Cynically, I’d concluded that most people should have been born with more than two index fingers, to give them more digits to point accusingly at others. I mean, I wouldn’t have been shocked if Hummer Ike had dredged up a defensive argument that somehow I was at fault for putting my house in the path of his runaway car.

  To my delighted surprise, though, Ike turned out to be an okay guy. Sheepishly, he answered my questions about how the Hummer had flown, with a tale of a forgotten cell phone, a missed message demanding immediate response, and a car idling in neutral on a hill, its parking brake unset.

  Ike still hung around my house a couple of hours after its Hummer encounter, directing construction types he’d called in to do a temporary fix to my outer walls—mostly a frame of nailed boards to which heavy plastic had been stapled. Plus, the wrought-iron fence had been propped up. It was all a jerry-rigged fix, but would do for now to keep out early-season rain or opportunistic looters.

  Not a designer’s dream, though. My sprawling stone-façade château looked like a guy who’d treated a gash in his arm by hiding it beneath a big ugly bandanna instead of seeking stitches and cosmetic surgery.

  “My insurance adjuster will be here tomorrow,” Ike told me as his workmen made motions as if done for the day. “I spoke to a manager, and got his promise.”

  Ike Janus didn’t look like the kind of man to choose a Hummer. I’d always figured that people who picked huge, hulking, military-type vehicles were huge, hulking military types. On the other hand, a Hummer might be just the thing for short, bespectacled, suited sorts like Ike to manifest their masculinity. Or maybe Ike was the corporate CEO that his air of authority seemed to suggest. He certainly got things done. Fast.

  “Thanks,” I told him, barely noticing my own less-than-authoritative garb of faded green USC T-shirt over ragged denim shorts, floppy thong sandals held tight to my feet by my curled toes. At five-five, I was only a couple of inches shorter than Ike. Dashing from my apartment at the sound of the crash, I hadn’t taken time to tame the frizzies in my hair, which had resumed its natural dark brown shade. I’d halted highlighting it during my prior troubles, which had left me, for a while, without a means of making a living. “What’s the name of your insurance company?”

  I got the particulars, including his personal list of phone numbers—home, office, cell, secretary—and promised to call if I hadn’t heard anything from the adjuster by this time tomorrow. Hell, yes, I’d let him know. In my experience, it’d take more than a call from an insured to get the wheels grinding at an insurance company faced with the likelihood of coughing up cash to settle a claim.

  On the other hand … “In case they ask, where is it that you work?” I was only taking a stab at being subtle in my inquiry.

  Ike named a local baking company. Not just a little neighborhood store, but a major firm that distributed brand-name bread and pastries to all the supermarket chains.

  “I don’t just work there,” he said. “I own it.” He smiled.

  So did I. He was the CEO I’d taken him for. And between him and his insurance company, he was bound to have the bread to cover my loss.

  And another good thing about Ike: He liked dogs. At least he liked Lexie, who behaved admirably as she sat at my side on her leash. While Ike watched the men at work, he’d bent over often to stroke behind her long black ears. That never failed to set her furry black-and-white tail happily wagging.

  A neighbor to esteem, even if he didn’t set his brakes as often as he should.

  “Do you have any pets?” I blurted.

  “A couple,” he said. “Dogs. Mutts, actually, a lot bigger than Lexie, part sheepdog and part whatever.”

  “They sound cute.” I reached into my pocket and … Yes, I hadn’t left home without one. My card. The handy little business card I’d devised for my pet-sitting business. I handed him one. “In case you ever need someone to walk them, or to watch them while you’re out of town.”

  He tilted his head to stare down the bottom of his bifocals to read the card, then grinned. “You’re a professional pet-sitter?”

  “Among other things.” I wasn’t about to tell him my whole life history, even if he wanted to hear about a temporarily defrocked attorney who’d taken up something fun to earn her living while waiting to figure out what was next.

  “That’s great. I’ll definitely be in touch. And, Kendra, I really am sorry.”

  “Apology accepted. Again.”

  We exchanged smiles, and he turned to trudge back up the hill.

  A tow truck from the Auto Club had already taken his Hummer. With nothing sensational remaining around here, the battery of barracudas—er, the group of reporters—had disappeared long ago. Most neighbors, too, although Phil Ashler from across the street had returned now and then to check on the patching’s progress.

  At that moment, Lexie and I stood there alone.

  But not for long. A big black Escalade pulled up to the curb and parked. Lexie leapt to her feet and yapped in pleasure. That SUV was familiar to her. It contained her best friend, an Akita named Odin.

  It also contained a friend of mine. A client.

  A lover, at least when it suited us both.

  I’d called Jeff Hubbard soon after the Hummer hit my house, mostly to talk about the unpleasant occurrence, but also to let him know I’d be late for the dinner we’d planned on grabbing together that evening.

  A private investigator and security consultant by profession and a man who thrived on taking charge, Jeff had insisted on dropping over to make sure I was okay, though he couldn’t get here right away.

  I didn’t need him here professionally, but I hadn’t dissuaded him from coming.

  And now, as he leashed Odin and they exited his SUV, I welcomed the six-foot-tall hunk to my hammered house, which I let him examine before I led dogs and him upstairs to my humble apartment abode.

  Jeff liked to help solve problems. Which was fortunate, for I had a substantial one to fling at him.

  What the heck was I going to do about those ferrets?

  Chapter Three

  THAT NIGHT, JEFF and I dined on deep-dish pizza with the works on top. The dogs devoured doggy food spiced with just a soupçon of pizza scraps. I admit it. I’m a soft touch for big, begging doggy eyes.

  Over dinner around my cramped round table, we—the humans, not the canines—nibbled for a while on the progress of Jeff ’s current P.I. cases, then gnawed on my Multistate studies and pet-care tribulations. We tried to sink our teeth into my distasteful ferret dilemma, though no savory solution came to either of us.

  “Kick ’em out,” he said, taking a swig of Sam Adams from one of my heftiest beer steins. “All of them—tenants and animals.”

  “You’re kidding.” I scowled at the now-familiar face full of masculine angle
s that had character and class—and, when added to the hint of irrepressible golden beard beneath, was the most magnetic male visage I’d ever viewed.

  His twinkling blue eyes acknowledged he was teasing. “Yes, but you’d better handle your dilemma sooner rather than later. You could always whisk the ferrets away and say they got stolen in the confusion.”

  “No, I won’t lie about it. If I whisk them, I’ll have to tell Charlotte and Yul where they’ve been swept. And I’ve no idea what to do with the illegal little buggers without getting myself in deeper.”

  “Send them to ferret heaven?” Jeff suggested.

  “Bite your tongue.” I stuck mine out at him, hoping it wasn’t coated in unappetizing pizza glop. “You’re talking to a professional pet-sitter. I’d never do anything so nasty to someone’s beloved babies.”

  Taking advantage of my mugging, Jeff leaned forward and tickled my tongue with his. He tasted as spicy as pepperoni, as intoxicating as prime ale …

  Okay, dinner was over. Time for Jeff and me to adjourn to my compact bedroom with its big-enough bed so we could feast on each other that night. Multiple courses. Delicious leftovers for breakfast, too.

  Gourmet’s delight.

  EARLY THE NEXT morning, after extracting my commitment to care for Odin when he traveled the next week, Jeff left for work. Me, too.

  Leaving Lexie at home, I spent the A.M. walking dogs, feeding cats, and visiting one of my favorite charges to make sure his defrosted mouse of the week suited him: Pythagoras, the ball python. Py had recently done a good deed for me, so I had a soft spot in my heart for the young blue-and-magenta reptile. He seemed well, and his mouse had apparently been devoured. “See ya, Py,” I told his lethargic coiled carcass and headed for the next home.

  My first break came at noon, and I headed to Doggy Indulgence Day Resort on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.

  My best friend in the world, Darryl Nestler, owns Doggy Indulgence. He greeted me at the door, hanging on like the expert he was to the squirmy Pekingese in his arms. “Hi, Kendra. You really are okay?”