Chapter 41
The next morning I let the pup out again to do his business just before I head for work. We run into Izzy, who is backing out of his garage, and he stops and rolls down the window of his car.
“What is that?” he asks, pointing to the dog.
“It’s Hoover. I found him last night hanging out by a Dumpster behind the grocery store.”
“Hoover?” Izzy repeats.
“Well, yeah. It’s only temporary. I don’t know what his real name is. But given the way he sucks down food, I thought it appropriate. He was obviously hungry so I fed him and then he sort of insisted that I bring him home.”
Izzy shakes his head woefully. “Judging from his output, I’m guessing you fed him a lot.”
I look over at Hoover and see him in a grunting squat, his haunches quivering with the effort as he deposits a huge, steaming pile of dog doo-doo in the grass beside the cottage.
“I plan on taking out a lost-and-found ad in the paper. It’s only temporary,” I say again, worried that Izzy is upset about me having another pet in his cottage.
Having finished his morning ablutions, Hoover runs back to me and sits at my heels, his tail wagging.
Izzy studies the dog a moment and says, “He’s cute. And he seems well behaved.”
“He is,” I say hopefully.
“What are you going to do if no one claims him?”
“I haven’t given it much thought.” Actually, that’s not true. I’ve given it a lot of thought and sort of hope no one will claim him but I’m not about to fess up to that fact. “I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “I guess I’ll deal with that if and when it happens.”
“I see,” Izzy says, and I suspect he does. “Are you coming in this morning?”
I nod. “I’m right behind you. But if you don’t need me right away I thought I’d stop by Kohler’s and take care of the final paperwork for the car.”
Izzy’s gaze shifts to the hearse and a hint of a smile crosses his face. “No problem,” he says, shifting into drive and pulling away slowly. “Just keep your cell handy in case I need to get a hold of you.”
“Will do.”
I breathe a sigh of relief that Izzy didn’t have a major meltdown over the dog and head back inside. I instruct both Hoover and Rubbish to behave and guard the house, give them both an ample supply of food and water, and then head out.
Bobby Keegan comes outside to greet me as I pull into the lot of Kohler’s Used Cars. “So what do you think?” he says. “It’s in great shape, no?”
“It is,” I admit grudgingly. “It seems to run fine and it’s quite comfy inside.”
“So do we have a deal?”
“I think we do.”
He claps his hands together with glee. “Great! Come on inside and we’ll finish up the paperwork.”
It takes me the better part of forty-five minutes to finalize all the details. When I’m done, I start to head for the office but then decide to take a quick detour instead. After a stop at the bank to replenish my empty wallet, I pull into a strip mall that contains, among other things, a pet store. I head inside and quickly fill up a basket with an assortment of doggie items: a collar, a leash, a spray can of flea and tick repellant, tennis balls, a brush, a chew bone, and a box of treats. I carry the basket up to the counter and set it down, then head back into the aisles for a bag of dog food. I toss a twenty-pound sack over my shoulder and when I pass a stack of stuffed doggie pillows on my way back to the register, I grab the top one by the corner and drag that with me, too. My mind keeps telling me I’m insane since there’s a good chance Hoover belongs to someone and I may lose him in a matter of days. But I’m in total denial.
Close to a hundred dollars later, I load the dog food and the pillow into the back of the hearse and toss the bag containing my other treasures into the passenger seat up front. Just as I start the engine, my cell rings. I see from the caller ID that it’s Izzy and my first thought is that he somehow knows where I am and is about to lecture me on the foolishness of spending money I can’t afford on a dog that I likely won’t be able to keep.
“Hey, Izzy,” I say, answering the phone. “I finally got everything tied up with the car and I’m heading your way.” It’s the truth in essence, even if I am leaving out a few significant details. In case he knows where I am at the moment, I don’t want to lie and say I’m just leaving the used car lot, but if he doesn’t know, I see no reason to clue him in, either.
“We have a death over on King Street,” he says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “It’s an elderly person and probably a natural, but we have to investigate. Want to meet me there?”
“Sure.” He gives me the exact address and I plot a course through town that takes me along Hanover Avenue toward King Street. I’m halfway there when I come up on the Johnson Funeral Home, which is located on the corner of Hanover and Chestnut, another well traveled street. Apparently there is a funeral in progress because just ahead of me I see a hearse pull out of the funeral home parking lot onto Hanover and then make a quick turn down Chestnut. Two more cars follow before I catch up, putting me momentarily in the midst of the procession. Apparently my presence causes some confusion because rather than turning onto Chestnut, the remaining cars all fall into line behind me. It takes a couple of blocks before I look in my rearview mirror and realize what’s happening.
I try to shoo the cars away by waving my hand in the air but the driver of the car immediately behind me merely waves back. So I roll my side window down and try more hand gestures, but to no avail. Half a mile later I turn onto King Street with a fourteen-car entourage at my heels.
There is an ambulance parked in front of the house along with two cop cars. I see the EMTs and two uniformed officers standing on the front porch of the house. As I pull up and park behind one of the squad cars, the cars behind me start pulling to the curb as well. In less than a minute, both sides of the street are filled with parked cars going back an entire block.
I climb out of the hearse and head back to the first car in the funeral procession to inform them of their mistake. But before I can get to them, an unmarked sedan pulls up with Hurley at the helm. And right behind him is our office van with Izzy in the passenger seat and Arnie driving. They stop in the middle of the street since there’s nowhere else to park, and Hurley gets out of his car in a huff, looking annoyed.
“What the hell are all these lookie-loos doing here?” he asks me, shooting an angry look at the cops on the porch. “Don’t those uniforms know their job?” He starts toward the clueless cops looking like he wants to rip them both a new one, so I stop him by grabbing his arm.
“Hurley, hold up a sec. These people aren’t lookie-loos. They followed me here and those cops had no idea they were coming.”
“They followed you?” he repeats. “What, you have a fan club now?”
“No, it’s this stupid car,” I say, gesturing to the menace behind me. “I drove into the middle of a funeral procession and it confused some of the drivers. They followed me instead of sticking with the rest of the motorcade.”
Hurley looks from me to the cars and back to me again. Izzy, who has rolled down the window in his van and overheard our conversation, is trying vainly to suppress a smirk. Several of the drivers in the funeral procession have rolled down their windows as well, including the car directly behind me.
Hurley says, “They think this is a funeral?”
“My thoughts exactly,” the guy in the car behind me snaps. “What kind of Mickey Mouse operation is this, anyway? Are we burying Charlie in somebody’s backyard?”
“Who the hell is Charlie?” Hurley asks, sotto voce.