Nothing to Fear But Ferrets Read online

  “Sure.”

  He nevertheless eyed me up and down behind his wire-rims. I’d called this morning to assure him I was fine. The Hummer hitting my house had been eclipsed in the early news by some local political lunacy, which suited me fine. Still, I figured someone would hear about it and tell Darryl, so I preempted his concern by phoning him first.

  Apparently satisfied that any injuries I’d suffered were internal, invisible, and inconsequential, he said, “Hold on a sec,” which he was having a hard time doing with the increasingly wriggly Peke. He turned and let the furry red ball down on the linoleum floor. “There you go, Bruiser.” He watched for a second as the miniature sumo wrestler bounded toward one of the spa’s special areas for pampered pets, the one filled with human furniture. Bruiser leapt onto a sofa and settled down.

  “No Lexie today?” Darryl asked as he turned back toward me.

  Darryl’s lean and lanky, and not a lot taller than I am. As usual, he wore one of his dark green Henley-style shirts, with the Doggy Indulgence logo on the pocket. It had strands of red Bruiser hair on it, which I began to pick off.

  “I left her home today. Don’t tell her I was here, next time you see her. She’ll be crushed I didn’t bring her.”

  Before, when I was a preeminent litigator, I’d left Lexie here a lot on weekdays so she’d never suffer from lack of attention. When my law license was suspended, I could no longer afford Darryl’s lavish rates. He’d offered to let Lexie hang out here anyway, but I’d kept it to a minimum. I hadn’t wanted charity, even from a chum as dear as Darryl.

  Now, with Darryl’s help, my pet-sitting gig flourished, and though I wasn’t getting rich, I could afford Doggy Indulgence again. But my schedule often allowed me to take Lexie to jobs, so she didn’t need day care as much. I nevertheless left her here a few times a week, just for the fun of it.

  “So bring her next time,” Darryl said. “How’s the studying coming?

  “Fine. Have a minute?”

  “For you, I have …” He looked at the big black watch on his skinny wrist. “Five. Come into my office.”

  As usual, I ignored the too-sweet scent of pet odors sublimated by pine cleanser and followed him.

  Darryl’s small office had a major picture window that let him keep an eye on his four-footed charges while they were pampered by his pet-specialist employees. He motioned me to the comfortable chair that faced his cluttered desk. I slung the strap of my habitually huge purse over its back.

  “What’s up?” He knew me well enough to recognize when I was requesting a simple social visit and when I needed a pal’s candid opinion.

  “Ferrets,” I replied, without pussy-or ferret-footing around. “What do you know about them?”

  “Cute little critters. Has someone asked you to ferret-sit? You know they’re illegal to keep as pets in California, don’t you?”

  “Sure, if you like creatures resembling elongated rodents, no, and yes,” I rushed out in response to all his queries.

  “Rodents? That’s an insult to ferret lovers everywhere.” He leaned back on his desk chair and crossed his hands beneath his head, obviously not a member of the offended fan club.

  “I didn’t say they were rodents, only that they resemble them.”

  “Not to me. Think weasel family. Or badgers. Or skunks.”

  “It’s their owners whose actions stink,” I retorted. “Or who’re the weasels, sneaking them in like that.”

  “Like what? Which weasels are we talking about?”

  “The tenant kind.”

  Darryl sat up straight, brown eyes wide behind his spectacles. “As in reality show Charlotte and her not-to-be-believed boyfriend?”

  “You got it. So what do you know about the law against ferrets?”

  “That’s your job,” he reminded me.

  “True. And I’ll do research when I have the chance, including how stringently the statutes are enforced. But what I need from you is advice. I mean, I have a clause in my lease with Charlotte that she’s not to keep pets without my written permission, and to get it she’s got to pay me a substantial deposit. She’s violated it.”

  “So give her notice and kick her out.”

  I scowled at him. “Easy for you to say. But she’s paying premium rent. What if I can’t find another renter as generous?”

  “Then let her stay but get more money from her.”

  “But what if someone learns there are ferrets in my house and I’m abetting a lawbreaker? Here I am, trying to get my law license restored, and you’re suggesting that I allow someone to break the law on my own property?”

  His sparse eyebrows slanted, Darryl stood and scooted his skinny jeans-clad butt onto his desk next to where I sat, deftly avoiding the mounds of paperwork. “Kendra, my friend, you don’t want my advice. You just want me to listen while you figure it out for yourself.”

  “Who says?” I grumbled, not meeting his eyes. He was right, of course. I’d come here not to listen, but to talk. I’d wanted a sounding board who echoed back my ideas without an opposing opinion of his own.

  Which was unusual, when it came to Darryl. Most often, when he spoke, I listened. The guy had more common sense than ninety-nine one-hundredths of the obfuscating attorneys I knew.

  “Your old buddy Darryl says. And I think you already know what to do, don’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “And I’ll guess what it is. You have to go talk to Charlotte and tell her to chuck the ferrets.”

  I sighed.

  “Hey, you’re the silver-tongued lawyer who’s nearly never lost a case in court. You’ll figure out a way to tell Charlotte to lose her illegal little housemates without offending her. Piece of cake.”

  “Right.” I stood and smiled in unqualified appreciation.

  Yet why did I have such a sour taste in my mouth when I considered the coming confrontation?

  Chapter Four

  FRAN KORWALD CAME through the door as I was heading out. Her pug Piglet, on a leash, trotted amiably at her side.

  “Hi, Kendra,” Fran said with a huge smile. Though at least in her late forties, Fran dressed in snug, short, and suggestive clothes like a fashionable twenty-year-old, and looked adorable in them. Even the curls in her cropped dark hair added to her incredible illusion of youth. Today she wore an off-the-shoulder green T-shirt over short short-shorts.

  She was a massage therapist and I’d made great use of her services. At a reduced rate.

  But she was the one who was grateful. To me. Though I wasn’t able to practice law, that didn’t mean my scheming litigator’s logic took a hiatus, too. A few months ago, I’d helped Fran resolve a custody matter with her ex-husband. Not over kids, but Piglet.

  “How are you, Fran?” Still inside the door, now closed, I stooped to pat Piglet, who wriggled happily beneath my hand.

  “Never better, but I have a friend who’s going to call you. Marie Seidforth. She’s not doing well at all.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  A couple of Darryl’s charges from the doggy play area across the room bounded up to assert their alpha-ness to Piglet, the newcomer. Piglet scooted closer to Fran, who picked him up, and the interlopers were soon swept away by one of the alert attendants. As I watched them head back to the fenced area full of dog toys, I noticed that Darryl was now behind his big reception desk on the phone. He waved goodbye, but I didn’t go.

  Fran kept talking. “My friend has a house in a development in Santa Clarita. You know, the kind where you pay dues to an association, and they’re supposed to keep the development nice for all the neighbors?”

  I nodded my understanding.

  She shook her head in perturbation till her curls bobbed. “Poor thing has been breeding boxers for years. No one minded, because she takes good care of them and keeps her yard clean, nothing for anyone to complain about.”

  “But someone’s complaining,” I surmised.

  “Right. A new next-door neighbor who’s made it clear she wa
nts to run for president of the association next year. She’s made my poor friend and her dogs a campaign issue, since the association’s rules say only two dogs per house.”

  “And your friend has how many?”

  Fran shrugged a slender shoulder, lifting her snug T-shirt slightly. “Depends on when. She had a new litter of puppies a few weeks ago. Rather, her prizewinning mama boxer Vennie did. I told her what a miracle you’d worked to let me keep Piglet, so she wants to talk to you.”

  “I still don’t have my law license back,” I cautioned. “What you’re describing could be a legal matter, and I can’t offer that kind of advice.”

  “A custody battle’s a legal matter, too, and you helped me by common sense, not a lawsuit. I’m sure she’ll be in touch.”

  “OH, KENDRA, YOU’RE right on time,” gushed my tenant after I’d gotten home. A pretty lady, Charlotte LaVerne was a would-be starlet who’d gotten her start in one of those reality TV shows that took the country by storm. I’d never figured out whether she’d survived or selected a mate or eaten silkworms, but apparently she’d been successful at it—for she could afford my top-dollar rent.

  It was early evening, and I stood outside the carved oak front door of my big, beautiful rented-out house. While scooting from one pet I tended to the next that day, I’d taken the long way around often, to pass by here and see if my tenant had returned. Only when I’d headed home for the night did I find cars back in the driveway, lights on, my main house reoccupied.

  Facing me from inside the door, Charlotte was clad in a silky blue tunic over matching harem pants, all beneath a big, frilly white apron. Though her look suggested food, her smell was her usual costly signature scent. I had to look up, from my five-five, to meet her sparkling blue eyes.

  “On time for what?” I responded cautiously to her comment.

  “For our party. We’re celebrating that Yul and I are home from our trip to Palm Springs, and that the damage to the house wasn’t worse. I’m so glad you’ll be able to join us.”

  “But—” I found myself addressing her back, where her long black braid swung smoothly in the opposite direction of her swaying hips.

  I knew that Charlotte and Yul took every opportunity to toss bashes, celebrating everything from moving in to six weeks after the summer solstice. Return from a vacation? Sure. But exultation over the injury to my beloved home?

  Well, she had said they were rejoicing it wasn’t worse.

  And she was obviously too busy to focus on ferrets …

  Ferrets. Where were they now? What would she do with them while her home was filled with nosy neighbors and flighty friends?

  Would the cops come to celebrate—and to cart me off to jail for abetting a lawbreaking tenant?

  Oh, wouldn’t my nemesis, Detective Ned Noralles, love that?

  Fueled by my ferret dilemma, I followed her inside. My kitchen wasn’t as spotless as when I’d passed through yesterday. Trays of food and bottles of wine were strewn on every surface. Charlotte, now by the big, useful island in the middle, wasn’t the only one wearing an apron. A few unfamiliar women wore identical black dresses, and they wore aprons with a catering company’s logo. The women picked up armloads of dressy tableware and waltzed from the kitchen.

  Yul remained, though. Charlotte’s golden-haired prize hunk didn’t wear anything to shield his black silk shirt, but he studiously sliced salad ingredients and stuck them into a big metal bowl. “Hi,” he mumbled as I walked by. The guy never talked much. I’d learned to take what mutter I could get.

  “Charlotte, I need to talk to you. Yul, too.”

  “Great,” she enthused. “We’ll talk and cook at the same time.”

  Damned if she didn’t put me to work stuffing mushrooms.

  A few minutes later, my fingers full of gooey cheese cactused with sticky herbs, I considered how to approach the subject. The hell with it. I flew right in. “When I came in here yesterday—an emergency, because of the accident—”

  “The Hummer,” Yul interjected.

  “Right,” I agreed. “Anyway, I happened to—”

  “Oh, you’re the one who moved our little friends. Thank you so much, Kendra.” Charlotte closed the few feet between us and gave me a big, gushy hug, as my too-friendly tenant was wont to do. I tried not to get any cheese on her. “They’re still traumatized over the accident, but at least they’re in a different room, though the laundry isn’t the best environment for them. I keep them mostly confined when we’re out or entertaining, though they love to wander.”

  As soon as I could, I stepped back. It would be hard to threaten a tenant while being embraced enthusiastically by her. “Charlotte, your lease says no pets without my permission.”

  She gave me a huge, toothy smile. “May I have your permission, Ms. Landlady?”

  She apparently hadn’t a clue. Or didn’t want me to know how many clues she did have. “No, I’m sorry, you can’t. Keeping ferrets as pets is illegal in California.”

  She frowned. “Well, sure, but everyone has them.”

  “Not everyone,” I contradicted, then rephrased in case she hadn’t understood. “It’s against the law to keep them.”

  “But all the pet stores sell ferret food. No one pays attention to that silly old law.”

  “They’re mine,” said a deeper voice over my shoulder before I could protest again.

  I turned to face Yul and had to look up to find that gorgeous, if vacant, face. “Then you’re the one who’ll have to get rid of them,” I said.

  “Oh, Kendra,” Charlotte protested, taking her place at Yul’s side and holding his hand. They made a gorgeous couple. And this particular gorgeous couple was ganging up on me. “No one will ever know.”

  I sighed. “I know. And I’m a lawyer.”

  “Not now,” Yul said, drawing his big, bold brows together into a scowl.

  “Yes, now,” I contradicted, struggling not to shout at him. “I’m working hard to get my license unsuspended. And that’s all the more reason I can’t allow something illegal in my house.”

  “Our house,” Yul protested. “We rent it.”

  I swallowed my sigh. I wasn’t about to get into a lecture on real property law with this good-looking nitwit.

  Or was he? Something deep in his brooding dark eyes suggested a twinkle. Was he toying with me?

  The doorbell rang.

  “The rest of the guests are coming,” Charlotte said. “We’ll talk more later, Kendra, I promise. And if we have to give up our little friends, we will. As soon as we find them good homes. Now, come help me answer the door. Wait till you see who I’ve invited.”

  I DIDN’T WAIT, but I did decide, just this once, to partake of Charlotte’s hospitality. Why? Who knew? I slid out the door as some strangers came in, went up to my apartment, and changed from pet-sitting grunge to party casual.

  After soothing Lexie’s hurt feelings, I headed back down toward the house.

  A guy in a navy sport coat came up the walk at the same time I did. “Hi,” he said, holding out a hand. “I’m Chad.”

  He was tall and broad-shouldered and had a chiseled, Roman-nosed face that could have held its own in a handsome contest against any of Hollywood’s latest male celebrities and won, hands-down and thumbs up.

  I gladly shook his hand—and of course his grip was firm and sexy—and accompanied him to the front door, which stood wide open. He stood back to let me enter first. Very gallant.

  “Are you from around here?” he asked. All that, and friendly, too.

  “Yes,” I said, but chose not to exert any explanations of my landlady status. “And you?”

  “Kind of,” he said. “Now at least.”

  He halted for a second inside the door, then threw his shoulders back. I had the impression he was bracing himself for something. Was the guy a closet wallflower who panicked at parties? What a shame that would be, but …

  “Have a good time,” he said, then hurried down the hall with a purposeful stride. />
  “You, too,” I called. I watched his hunky body disappear around a corner and sighed, as if suddenly deprived of a treat I’d promised myself.

  I shrugged away Jeff Hubbard’s sudden glare in my imagination. As if you’ve stopped appreciating gorgeous women just because we’re sleeping together, my mind shot at him, and his visage vanished.

  Chad wasn’t my type. Assuming I had a type.

  But even so I hoped for a chance to talk to him some more.

  Chapter Five

  IF I’D BEEN a reality-show junkie, I’d likely have recognized a preponderance of the other people at Charlotte’s party that night. As it was, I felt glad that a few familiar neighbors were also guests. At least not everyone was a stranger. But Charlotte hadn’t asked them here for my sake.

  The cynical little demon on my shoulder, my personal Mr. Hyde who reached in to control my mind a lot lately, told me Charlotte was just being smart. I mean, what neighbor who was a blissful participant at the party would complain about too many cars usurping precious parking spots on the narrow street, or the ear-splitting music rending the night air?

  Only, if I’d known better, I wouldn’t have let myself wind up in the same room as Tilla Thomason, let alone sit beside her.

  My older neighbor from down the hill wore a silky floral muumuu that did little to hide her girth, which hung over both sides of her folding wooden chair beside mine. Neither of us had gotten to the living room in time to occupy the ghastly overstuffed white-and-black sofa or matching chairs that Charlotte had stuck there in what I considered a travesty of decorating. But hey, she could turn every room in the house horrendous if she chose.

  It might be tasteless, but at least it was legal.

  Most of the others chattering with exuberant animation over the amplified music were beautiful people, young—or youthful by age-defying artifice. Chad would have fit well among them, but I didn’t see him. All were arrayed in designer outfits—a bit much for a party celebrating a hole in the side of a house, but who was I to judge?

  My den, the room harboring that hole, had been sealed off with yellow tape that resembled the kind cops used at a crime scene. I knew that from experience. But this tape instead said simply, NO ENTRY. It was the big sign on the door, though, that would keep everyone out. UGLY ACCIDENT SCENE, it proclaimed. ANYONE WHO ENTERS HERE WILL BE INSTANTLY STRUCK UGLY.