The Silence of the Chihuahuas by Waverly Curtis Read Free Book Online

I thought that was a good idea.
    â€œYes!” I sighed. “Come on in. I’ll tell you all about it.”
    And I did. He listened patiently while I rattled on about the trip to the vet, the mysterious phone call, the trip to Forest Glen, my conversation with Jay, and the discovery of Mrs. Fairchild’s body. I was too agitated to focus on anything practical so Felix took care of arranging the flowers in a vase, spooning out some food for Pepe and Fuzzy, and ordering a pizza when we both realized I hadn’t stopped to eat.
    The pizza arrived. Half goat cheese and pesto for me, half sausage and pepperoni for Felix and the dogs. We took it into the dining room because Pepe and Fuzzy were in the living room looking at something on Pepe’s iPad, which sat on my coffee table.
    Pepe had ordered it without my permission a few months earlier and it was one of his favorite toys. He could spend hours swiping across the pad with his paw, but he was very secretive about his activities, always shutting down the screen when anyone approached. Felix and I sometimes joked that he was looking at porn.
    I snatched up the iPad before the dogs could protest. Pepe did, of course, with a sharp bark. Fuzzy just sat there quietly. She’s a fluffy little terrier-poodle mix Felix adopted after she was abandoned. I swear he adopted her just to prove to me that he is really good at dog training. The only dog he can’t train is my dog.
    â€œWhat do we have here?” said Felix, poring over the iPad, which contained a bunch of squiggles. Pepe jumped around barking like mad. If he had been talking, he would have been saying, “Unhand that, you villain! That is mine!”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said, bending over to look at it. The squiggles seemed to form some sort of random pattern: uneven rectangles connected by curving lines and interrupted by messy doodles. It reminded me of something, some place I had been recently.
    â€œYou know,” I said, looking up at Felix, “I could swear this is a diagram of the grounds of the Forest Glen spa.”
    Pepe gave an excited, high-pitched yip.
    â€œBut what’s all this crazy stuff going on here?” I asked, pointing to a messy section of the diagram all around the farthest rectangle. It looked like scribbling. I looked at Pepe and he looked at me with his bright eyes. Fuzzy looked at Pepe instead of at Felix.
    I sighed. “If only Pepe would talk to me,” I said to Felix, “I would feel so much better.”
    I headed for the dining room where the pizza waited. I set out my Fiestaware plates—the only good thing I got out of my marriage. Jeff didn’t want them. He thought they were old-fashioned. No doubt he and his bride-to-be have registered for some fancy china with gold monograms.
    Felix hesitated for a moment. I knew that believing my dog talked to me strained his credulity. Yet he had seemed to accept it. He set the iPad back down on the coffee table. Meanwhile, I dished up the pizza and Felix and I sat down to eat. We could see the dogs, both huddled around the iPad on the coffee table.
    â€œI swear it’s almost like they’re talking to each other,” I said, watching them with envy.
    Felix laughed. “That would be something! Fuzzy has never said a word to me!”
    â€œYou don’t take me seriously,” I said.
    â€œIt’s hard, babe,” Felix said. “I mean, dogs don’t talk.” He saw the look in my eyes and quickly added. “Most dogs don’t talk.”
    â€œBut Pepe did!” I said. “And now he doesn’t.”
    â€œBut otherwise he seems normal?”
    â€œYes, but he’s not talking,” I told him.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œDon’t you get it?’
    â€œSure, but—”
    â€œBut what ?”
    â€œWell—”
    â€œWell what ?”
    â€œGeri,” he said, then stated the obvious. “He’s a dog.”
    It took a