The Case of the Invisible Dog by Diane Stingley Page A

habit?”
    “I’ve tried to quit. But you spend all day taking care of two old people and see if you don’t need a cigarette.”
    “There was no judgment in my statement. If anyone is to be judged it is not you, Angie. It is the companies that make a profit from people’s weakness. Down through history—I have made a study of the subject—some of our greatest financial leaders amassed their fortune at the expense of others. The path to progress has always been a bloody and messy affair. And yet without these great entrepreneurs, their innovations and willingness to take risks, where would civilization be today? It is a complicated question, and the ethics involved could take a lifetime of study. There are good arguments to be made on both sides of the equation.
    “But we are straying from the topic at hand. I inquired about your habit simply to ascertain whether or not you have ever seen a dog in that yard over there,” Shirley said, brandishing her cane in the direction of the house to the right of Matt Peterman’s.
    “Nope.”
    “Have you seen a dog in any of the five houses on this street? Or even a stray dog just wandering around?”
    “Nope. Not that I can remember.”
    “And have you ever been kept awake at night by the barking of a dog?”
    “Oh, sure. Lots of times.”
    “You have?” Shirley asked with great surprise and interest.
    “Yeah. In my last apartment when I was living with my boyfriend Bob—we split up, which is why I have to do this live-in crap for a while—the people next door had this little yapper dog. You know the kind? Barks at everything. It used to wake me up all the time. I’d knock on the wall but—”
    “I am sorry to interrupt your most interesting story, Angie, but time is of the essence. What I meant to say is, have you ever been kept awake at night by the barking of a dog in this particular neighborhood?”
    “Here? No. It’s so quiet that I usually leave my bedroom window open. The Pittfords keep that house at, like, ninety degrees.”
    —
    “Did you hear that, Tammy?” Shirley asked after we had returned to my car and backed out onto the street. Shirley had given Angie another twenty dollars with instructions to contact the office immediately if she spotted a dog in the neighborhood. She also made her promise not to tell a soul anything about what they had discussed. “So quiet that she leaves her bedroom window open at night,” Shirley said thoughtfully. “And yet our client, Matt Peterman, claims to be kept awake by the constant barking of a dog. Pull up next to the sidewalk in front of his house. Any thoughts about what we’ve learned so far?”
    “Not really.” My mood was growing worse by the moment. It was already close to one o’clock in the morning, and all we had accomplished was talking to an unhappy caregiver who hadn’t told us much of anything that we didn’t already know. I was frustrated and tired, and Shirley seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever. Once I had parked in front of Matt’s house she simply rolled down the window, and then sat there rubbing her chin and staring off into the distance. I finally cleared my throat and got ready to ask her just how long she thought this might take.
    “Listen,” she blurted out before I had a chance to speak. “What do you hear, Tammy?”
    “I don’t hear anything.”
    “Exactly. It is just like the curious incident of the dog in the night.”
    “But we don’t hear a dog.”
    “And that is the curious incident. Come,” she said, opening her door. “We are barely touching the borders of this mystery. It is time to go deeper.”
    I got out of the car with a sigh, hoping that whatever it was Shirley planned on doing she would at least do so quietly. Shirley stood on the sidewalk next to my car, staring at the houses one by one as she turned her head.
    “What do you see, Tammy?” she asked when I joined her. “Take your time.”
    “I see a quiet neighborhood with five houses and no dog,”