Charlotte Douglas - Spring Break

Darcy returned, opened the door to my office and stood aside for Jolene to enter.

With luxuriant long brown hair, huge Italian sunglasses, and a tall, gaunt figure, the result of either good genes or semistarvation, the woman was a dead ringer for the late Jackie O. The cut and quality of her linen slacks, cashmere sweater and matching sandals would have made my sister, a world-class shopper, drool.

Darcy gestured to a leather club chair in front of my desk and, once Jolene was seated, asked if she wanted coffee.

The actress shook her head, and Darcy, looking as if she’d give her eyeteeth to stay and hear the woman’s story, reluctantly withdrew.

“I’m Maggie Skerritt. What brings you here, Ms. Jernigan?”

“The Internet.”

I swallowed my disappointment. If she needed cyber-snooping, she’d come to the wrong place. I was as technophobic as they came and had to hire a computer specialist in Clearwater to do my Web surfing.

“I need a private eye,” she continued, “and your firm is the closest one listed on the Web.” Her voice was low and husky, as if she’d been crying.

“Why do you need an investigator?” I’d get to the harder questions later.

She drew a deep shuddering breath. “My baby’s been kidnapped.”

“Your baby?” Recently turned forty-nine, I was no spring chicken, and Jolene had at least fifteen years on me. For her, childbearing age had to be a dim, distant memory. But she’d said baby, so maybe she’d adopted.

“Roger.” She muffled a sob and fumbled in her purse for a tissue. “He’s only three.”

Now she had my complete attention. “Have you notified the authorities?”

Her head snapped up, and I could feel the intensity of her gaze behind her dark glasses. “Are you crazy? And have it splashed all over the news?”

“Were you threatened?”

“Huh?”

“Did the kidnappers say they’d harm your baby if you went to the police?”

She shook her head. “No, I just don’t want the bad publicity.”

Jolene Jernigan was either the dumbest woman I’d ever met or I’d missed something. Or both. “Do you have any idea who might have taken your child?”

“Who said anything about a child? Roger’s my dog, an adorable pug.”

Bingo. The missing link. “How long has Roger been gone?”

“Since shortly after I had it out with that snotty little bitch.” She forced her words through clenched teeth, and her well-manicured nails dug into the expensive leather of her purse.

Snotty little bitch. “Another dog?”

“Of course not.” She yanked off her sunglasses and glared at me with red-rimmed eyes. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted in an expression of perpetual surprise, and her skin stretched taut as a drumhead across her cheekbones, the obvious result of repeated cosmetic surgeries. Only the crepe lines on her neck gave away her age.

I dug deep for patience. “With whom did you have it out?”

“Grace Lattimore. She’s been my personal assistant for the past thirty years.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, Ms. Jernigan, and tell me exactly what happened?”

Jolene rammed her sunglasses atop her dark hair, devoid of any hint of gray. She crossed her legs, bounced one foot like a metronome and leaned back with a sigh. “We arrived at my condo on the beach Friday. My character on Heartbeats will be in a coma for the next three weeks, so I finally have some time off.”

I made what I hoped were appropriate sympathetic noises and nodded.

“Gracie and Roger always travel with me. And my little precious loves the beach. He was so excited.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, when Roger gets excited, he loses control.”

I raised my eyebrows, picturing a pug on the rampage but going with the flow in order not to interrupt her narrative with more questions.

Jolene sighed. “He kept piddling on the rugs and furniture. By the end of the weekend, Gracie had her knickers in a twist. ‘I was hired as your assistant,’ she said, ‘not to clean up dog pee.’

“‘For as much as I’m paying you,’ I reminded her, ‘you’ll do whatever I ask.’ ‘If that means cleaning up after that mangy little bugger, I quit,’ Gracie screamed. Then she stomped into her room and slammed the door.” Jolene smiled and shrugged. “I didn’t think too much of it. Gracie quits at least twice a year. Then I give her a raise and she reconsiders. But this time was different.”

I nodded. After all that piddle, Gracie, apparently, had reached her limit.

“When I woke up this morning, Gracie was gone, and so was Roger.”

“And you think Gracie took him?”

“Who else would have? My condo was locked and the grounds are gated with the tightest security.”

Interesting, I thought. As much as Gracie had hated cleaning up after the dog, she’d taken him with her, apparently just to yank Jolene’s chain. “Did Gracie leave a note?”

“Nothing. She just left.”

“Did she take her belongings?”

Jolene nodded. “And Roger’s, too.”

I formed a mental image of the pug with a suitcase.

“She took his food and dishes and his box of Milk-Bone treats.”

“Sounds as if Gracie at least plans to take good care of him.”

Jolene jumped to her feet and paced the recently re-finished hardwood floor. “But he’ll miss me. His little heart will be broken,” she insisted with all the fervor of an experienced drama queen, before her expression hardened into something ugly. “I want him back.”

“Any idea where Gracie might have gone?”

Still pacing, she waved one hand toward the windows. “She has relatives in Largo.”

I grabbed a pad and pencil. “I’ll need their names and addresses.”

Jolene halted in front of the desk and gave me the information. “How soon can you get on this? I really miss Roger.”

“I’ll start right away.” Remembering Darcy’s parting instructions, I added, “Of course, there’s the small matter of a retainer.”

Jolene retrieved her purse from the chair and snapped it open. She extracted a checkbook, wrote a check with a flourish and handed it to me. “This should take care of it. And here’s my cell number.”

She rattled off the digits, which I scribbled hastily on the pad on my desk.

I rose and walked her to the door. “I’ll call as soon as I have something for you.”

After Jolene left, Darcy came in. “Did you get her autograph?”

“The best kind.”

Darcy’s eyes almost bugged out when I showed her the check for $10,000.

Later that morning, after fighting my way through tourist traffic to Pelican Beach, I checked with security at the condo where Jolene owned her penthouse and confirmed that Gracie had indeed departed by cab late Sunday night with Roger in tow. A viewing of the surveillance tape had given me a look at Gracie, who was short, plump and dowdy with cropped straight gray hair and wire-framed glasses. Roger was short, plump, smush-faced and light brown with a black face and ears.

I left the beach and headed to the address in Largo where Gracie’s relatives lived. What should have been a straight shot down Fort Harrison Avenue and Clearwater-Largo Road became a rat’s maze of work zones and detours. If you’re anywhere in Florida during tourist season, you can bet the shortest distance between two points is under construction.

Just south of Bay Drive, Largo’s main drag, I found the road where Frank and Ellen Lattimore, Gracie’s aunt and uncle, lived. The street’s frame bungalows, built in the thirties and forties and shaded by massive live oaks draped in flowing Spanish moss, were small but well maintained, and the lawns were neat and tidy. I pulled onto the crushed-shell driveway of the address Jolene had given me. There was no vehicle in the carport, and with its shades drawn, the house appeared deserted.