Blame It on the Dog Read online

  “Stick it in your ear, Bob.

  “Tell me I’m wrong, Gabe.”

  “You’re wrong, Bobby. The hero always gets the girl in the end. I lost two while you were gone. Definitely not heroic.”

  “Two? I was only gone two weeks! That’s a record, even for you.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Who were the lucky ladies? Anybody I know?”

  “Remember the redhead at the hospital, Jane…

  “Trujillo? Pretty hair? Nice legs?”

  Gabe ignored the comment. “She decided good looks and a uniform were more attractive than yours truly.”

  “She will be back, dear,” Sophie said. “Maricela told me she talks about you all the time.”

  “Maricela hasn’t seen her since Sheriff Marshall Noble swept her off her feet. It was only a couple of nights ago, Sophie, and even your gossip chain isn’t that fast.”

  Bob gawked. “Sheriff Marshall Noble? For real? She threw you over for a comic book character? Who was the other one?”

  “Alyssa.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Bob seemed truly surprised. With a shake of his head he stabbed another pancake from the platter. “I thought for sure our lady vet would go for your charms, man. Especially since you and Tigger get along so well.”

  Gabe shot him a dirty look.

  “What did you do to her?”

  “Remember that envelope Dad left for me? Well, it turns out I now have his bank box in Austin. I persuaded Alyssa to go with me to check it out by offering to buy her dinner.”

  “Ah, romance.” Bob looked wistfully at the ceiling.

  “That was the plan. But it turns out she’s a pacifist. She didn’t like the fact that I had to kill people during the war. She didn’t understand – wouldn’t understand. Then there was the Tigger thing. And Dad. When we learned about Dad…”

  “Your dad? She doesn’t like salesmen?”

  “Hold your horses, Bob. I’m telling a story, here.” He cut a small piece of casserole and took a bite, washing it down with a slug of rapidly cooling coffee. He made a face and set the cup down, pushing it away from his plate. Sophie excused herself and walked to the refrigerator.

  “Sorry. Go on. Please. Just speed it up a little, will you?” said Bob.

  “Where was I? Oh yeah. Dad. We met this guy named Ernesto. He has a pawn shop. Ernesto told us what happened.” He took another bite of casserole.

  Bob leaned forward in his chair, “So what happened?”

  “Would you like a Dr. Pepper, Gabriel?” Sophie said from the kitchen.

  “That sounds great, Sophie. Isn’t she a sweetheart? With the sweet heart of a true servant. Whatever would we do without her, Bob?” He spoke as slowly as he was capable, drawing each sentence to its stretching point.

  Bob scooched forward in his chair and bracketed his plate with both arms. “Come on, man, don’t leave me hanging.”

  Sophie closed the refrigerator and came back to the table, can in hand. “I’ll never get used to your drinking soda water for breakfast.”

  Gabe popped the drink open. “When you say ‘soda water’ it makes you sound old, Sophie.”

  “I am old, dear.”

  “Pish posh.”

  “Pish posh?” said Bob. “Now who sounds old? Enough pish posh, let’s get back to your dad. What did he do? Come on, come on, come on,” he pleaded.

  “Patience.” Gabe grinned and took a sip of Dr. Pepper. “Aahh. The pause that refreshes!”

  “Stop pausing, already! I’m not refreshed!”

  “Gabriel, stop torturing him,” she said. “Robert, Gabriel’s father and Ernesto…”

  “The pawn shop guy,” Gabe inserted.

  “…apprehended a kidnapper.”

  “A kidnapper?”

  “Yes. He had kidnapped a poor, young girl, the daughter of a man at the bank. They found him and Gabriel’s father was forced to shoot him to save the poor thing. It was clearly a case of self-defense, Robert. The man had done this several times before with other girls and with dire consequences. He was less than a beast.”

  “Did the kidnapper die?”

  “Yep.” A glum expression clouded Gabe’s face. “That’s what she didn’t like.”

  “Wow! It runs in the family!”

  “Knock it off, Bob.”

  Sophie collected Gabe’s dishes and said, “Can I get you boys anything else?”

  “Nothing for me, Sophie, thanks.”

  “I’m having one more pancake.” Bob pulled another hotcake to his plate. “Are we out of syrup?” Air and a spray of syrup spluttered from the empty bottle.

  “There’s more in the pantry. I’ll get it for you.” She shuffled to the door beside the stove. “Finish telling him about the safety deposit box, Gabriel.”

  Gabe shifted in his chair. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Uh oh. When you say it’s no big deal, it’s a big deal. What’s in the box?”

  Gabe bunched his lips. “A little money and stuff.”

  “A ‘little money and stuff’. A million? Two million? After all, this is the quiet little middle class Chance family I grew up around. Wait a minute.” Bob closed one eye and cocked his head. “You’re not a member of the royal family, are you?”

  “It’s just a few coins, Bob. Don’t make such a big deal about it.”

  “A few coins. Hmmm. That’s money.” Bob licked his lips and rubbed his hands together. “How much are we talking about, here?” He wiggled both eyebrows.

  “A few thousand. That’s all.”

  “Oh, pish posh! Only a few thousand?” He arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Chump change. Wait a minute, are these coins collector coins? You know, the really rare ones?”

  Gabe puffed his cheeks but said nothing.

  Bob turned to Sophie. “Soph?”

  “Gabriel. He is your friend.”

  “Your oldest friend in the whole, wide, wonderful world, buddy boy and don’t you forget it.”

  With an explosive flutter of his lips, Gabe expelled the breath he had been holding. “Gold coins. Forty-six of them and that’s it. They’re worth about a thousand bucks a piece.” He trailed off to a mumble.

  “Gabe, Gabe, Gabe.” Bob slapped his own cheek. “Life is so unfair: Your mom leaves you gazillions of dollars and now your old man leaves you fifty grand in gold – I am definitely in the wrong family. Where did they get all this wonderful cash, man?”

  “Who knows? They sure didn’t have it when I was at home. Maybe they were bank robbers. Or counterfeiters.”

  “You can’t counterfeit gold, Gabriel, and they were not bank robbers.”

  “Got a point there. But it doesn’t matter: I’m still a pauper, thanks to Peabody…”

  Sophie interrupted. “That is ridiculous. You are no pauper. Lucille’s family was quite wealthy. When her mother died Lucille received a quite sizable estate…

  “What? Nobody ever told me!”

  “And Cornelius Peabody may be a twit – which he most certainly is – but he has managed her investments well. Your parents lived modestly by choice, not necessity.”

  “You – you knew this? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Your mother and I were the closest of friends for over forty years, Gabriel: we shared everything. There were no secrets between us.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me, Sophie?”

  She sighed. “Lucille asked me not to; she didn’t say why. I am only telling you now because you and Robert are beginning to believe wrong things about your parents.” She turned and walked to the sink, her back to the table.

  The room was silent, full of unrelieved tension.

  Bob was the first to speak. “Well, yeah. You’re no pauper. You’re loaded and you’ve got your, your – what do you call it?”

  “Stipend? Peabody still hasn’t started it yet. I’m busted flatter than those pancakes you gobbled up. Flatter than a tortilla, for that matter. All my clothes got messed up in the last couple of weeks and all I’ve
got is what I’m wearing.”

  “Gabriel,” Sophie said from the sink, “why don’t you and Robert run to the bank today? I’m certain Ernesto will buy some of your coins, maybe all of them. Then you can open an account at the bank. Robert will drive and you can tell him all about your adventures. Then you can go shopping for a new wardrobe.”

  “That’s a great idea, Sophie. Donald Trump, here can spring for food. And we’ll take the dog, too. Right, Gabe?” Bob grinned at the thought.

  “We might as well. He’s coming whether we want him to or not. Besides, he’s beginning to grow on me.”

  “I was just jerking your chain about taking the dog. I thought you hated the little guy,” said Bob.

  “I don’t hate him; I just can’t stand him most of the time. Every night he does that Dawn Patrol thing around the yard. When I go outside the next morning there are critter bodies everywhere: rats, mice, grasshoppers.”

  “You’re exaggerating, Gabriel. It’s not as bad as all that,” Sophie said.

  “Maybe. But I never know what I’m going to find.”

  “He doesn’t bring them inside anymore, does he?” said Bob.

  “Not since the rat.”

  “So, what’s the big deal? He’s cheaper than pest control.”

  “He is the pest and he’s beyond control. He’s inconvenient, too. I can’t go anywhere without him. I want to emphasize the word ‘can’t’.”

  Tigger stood up and stared at Gabe, his head tilted to one side.

  “Gabriel, I believe you have offended Tigger. Please apologize. He is only doing what Jack Russell Terriers were bred to do.”

  “He was bred to kill grasshoppers? Was he bred to walk through walls? He drives me nuts.”

  “He was bred to chase the fox. Parson Jack Russell bred several different breeds together selecting for strength, tenacity and gentleness. The English gentry used their foxhounds to track the fox and when they ran him to ground, they released these dogs to go into the burrow after the fox. Tigger knows his purpose.”

  “So they’re natural born killers.”

  “That is too harsh. All terriers were bred to control vermin. Without them farms and homes would have been overrun with rats and mice and all sorts of disease carrying animals. We used to use cats for the same thing.”

  “So where does the walking through walls come from, Sophie?”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous, Gabriel. Jack Russell’s are very intelligent and resourceful. They are natural escape artists. They can be difficult to contain. But it is silly to think they can walk through walls.”

  Gabe raised his left eyebrow. “What about cars? Cars?”

  That caused Sophie to stop and think. “Well… I - I can’t explain everything, but I’m sure there is a perfectly rational explanation.”

  “Yeah, well let me know when you come across it. Meanwhile, you won’t mind if I think he’s obnoxious – with the emphasis on ‘noxious’.”

  The dog snorted and eyed him. Then he ambled back to his sunbeam, laid on his left side and gave Gabe his back.

  “Guess he showed you,” said Bob.

  “But here’s the thing, Bob: as obnoxious as he is – trust me, Sophie, he is obnoxious. As obnoxious as he is, he keeps saving my fanny. And doing that Lassie thing, you know, pulling Timmy out of the well and all that stuff. And I’m Timmy. That’s gotta make us – something.”

  “Did you hear that, Tigger? He loves you, man.” Bob puckered his lips and kissed the air.

  Gabe shook his head and grinned at the dog. “You know what they say: you can’t kill ’em and you can’t live without ’em.”

  Another snort issued from the sunbeam.

  “He is just joking with you, Tigger. Aren’t you, Gabriel?”

  “Yeah, I am. C’mere, dogface.”

  Tigger looked over his shoulder at Gabe, rolled to his feet and trotted to his extended hand.

  “Good dog, mutt.”

  “Gabriel Burton Chance,” Sophie warned.

  “Good dog, Tigger.” He glanced first at Sophie, then Bob, and finally Tigger. “But, let’s keep the hair down, shall we?”

  The dog stood and stretched. Then he shook. The shake began at his nose, traveled down his neck, over his withers, along his back to his haunches, and ended with a snap of the tail. A cloud of white hairs exploded into the air with every movement.

  Gabe jumped to cover his Dr. Pepper with his hand, and tried not to breath. He glared at Tigger, who now sat on his haunches. Then Gabe sneezed. It was a sneeze Hercules would have been proud to call his own. The sound rattled the windows and echoed around the kitchen.

  Sophie cringed. “Oh, dear. Let me get you a fresh napkin.”

  In silence Gabe waved off the offer. He inspected the can top and blew three errant white hairs away. After a long sigh he took a slug. “Just the cost of doing business, Sophie. Right, mutt?”

  In reply, Tigger cocked his head to the left in a perfect impression of the RCA dog – on a very, very bad hair day.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  KELLEY IAN TOOMBS at KTD is an amazing designer. I give him trash, he gives me treasure. Not even he knows how good he is.

  Mary Toombs, Jim Burk, Ron King, and Bennie Cleveland each allowed me to ask them stupid medical and pharmaceutical questions. Then they responded like the professional teachers they are and reduced their answers so that a second grader could understand. And then they let me go. If I didn’t get it right, don’t blame them. If I could, I would blame it on the dog – but I can’t.

  Thanks, also, to all the usual suspects and a few more: Michon Hemenway and Jane Carter and Bob Rutledge.

  Stay tuned for Gabe and Tigger’s next adventure:

  Wine, Dog, Whine

  By Jim Toombs

  Rosetree Vineyards is a comer in the Texas wine industry with its eyes on the biggest wine prize of them all: the Liege d’Or. It’s an uphill climb made steeper when the winery’s guiding light and enfant terrible, ‘Scooter’ Teagarden, turns up dead in a fermentation tank three days before the judging. Was it suicide or was it murder? No one knows, but Gabe and Tigger don’t have long to find out.

  Don’t miss it! Here’s how:

  Drop us an email and we’ll let you know when Wine, Dog, Whine is available. No ads, no hassles, just advance notice and an occasional update so you won’t miss out!

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  ALSO BY JIM TOOMBS

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  The Dog Did It – A Gabe and Tigger Mystery

  NONFICTION

  Seeing Behind The Masks

  Confessions of a Struggling Christian