A Dog-Gone Christmas Read online

  For Jennifer Tingstadt, whose dog, Bella, graces this cover.

  Copyright © 2013 by Leslie O’Kane

  All Rights Are Reserved.

  No portion of this work may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the author.

  A Dog-Gone Christmas

  My mother and I sighed in dismay at the departure board at Denver International. Our flight to Los Angeles to visit my brother’s family and meet my newest nephew was delayed by three hours.

  The airport’s garlands, fake Christmas trees, silver bells, and angels suddenly seemed like a waste of plastic. The background Christmas carols felt maddeningly repetitive as they plinked, dinged, and donged over the loudspeakers. I’d been so looking forward to sharing Christmas morning with my nieces and nephew, soaking up their unbridled glee in Santa, stockings, toys for boys and girls, while I got to bask in being an auntie, a sister, and a daughter all at the same time. This was Christmas magic, wrapped in warm hugs, fuzzy blankets, and chocolate. But delays had a tendency to morph into cancelations. My joyous expectations sank like a puddle of dirty, melting snow around the soles of my brown loafers.

  “It looks we’ll be having Christmas Eve dinner at the airport,” I said, forcing a little ho-ho cheer into my voice. I think I only managed ho-hum, though.

  “If only I could fly us there myself. Do they have anything but fast food—” She broke off and said, “Oh, my gosh! Allie! Look who it is!”

  I turned and spotted a pretty young woman with strawberry blonde hair. She had on fancy cowboy boots with extra-high heels, a skin-tight dress that was remarkably green and shiny, and professional-looking makeup that I hoped would inspire me to put some effort into eye shadow and eyeliner. Although I’d seen her face—recently even—I could only remember that she was a singer. She had forgone the motorized walkway in favor of walking at her own brisk pace, which was causing a major pedestrian-traffic jam on the walkway as a large clot of people tried to jockey for position to remain near her. She was followed by a small entourage—a tall Latino who was solid muscles, a vaguely familiar-looking overly tanned and overly smiling young man, and a second pretty young woman in a sharp-looking white wool coat who was making notations in an appointment book while talking on the phone and maintaining the brisk pace of the star—whoever she was.

  “That’s the country pop singer, Delia Gantry!” my mother announced.

  “Oh, right. The one who has her longhaired Chihuahua in all her photo shoots. That dog is a photographers dream!” Delia Gantry had a sweet—if vanilla—voice. She was a decade younger than me and had an even-younger, squealing-teeny-bopper fan base. Personally, I was most impressed by the enormous contributions she continually made to canine rescue groups.

  She was drawing a bead on the gate directly behind us. All around her, dozens of people stopped dead in their tracks or reversed directions to follow her, whipping out their cellphones and snapping pictures. She smiled, but I heard her grumble, “This is what I get for agreeing to give my pilot the holidays off.”

  She was carrying a Louis Vuitton Dog Carrier. Those stylish bags cost thousands of dollars—a staggering amount of money for someone like me, struggling to earn a living as a dog therapist in expensive Boulder, Colorado. The flap in the front was rolled up, and a buff-and-white longhair Chihuahua looked out. I couldn’t help but crane my neck to get a better look, but was so surprised at the dog’s appearance that I trotted along beside Delia for a couple of steps. She glared at me and shifted the bag to her other arm.

  “That’s not Bella, is it?” I asked her.

  “Of course she is. Why?”

  “Aren’t Bella’s eyes blue?”

  Delia held up her hand, and she along with her three people stopped on the spot. She narrowed her eyes at me, then turned her attention to the carrier. “You had better not be trying to…” She let her voice fade away as she struggled to open the latch. “This isn’t my Louis Vuitton! This has a first-generation fastener!” She looked through the open flap at the dog inside and gasped, horror-stricken. “You’re not Bella!”

  She placed the carrier on the floor and dropped to her knees. She was growing so flustered and emotional by the second that it was difficult to watch. A crowd had encircled us, with the big guy and the assistant shouting instructions to “Move along!” Or “Get out of the way!” And the tan man saying, “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

  Despite her badly shaking hands, she finally managed to open the top of the carrier and cried, “My Bella! Someone’s stolen my Bella!” She started to cry, then swiped away her tears, smudging her makeup.

  She scanned the crowd, which had become eerily quiet as the drama unfolded. “Call nine-one-one! Get me the police! Now!”

  “When did you last have Bella?” my mother asked.

  “At the metal detector. I carried Bella through with me.” She narrowed her eyes at the woman in the white coat. “Then Stacy put her in her carrier.” Her eyes took on a laser-like intensity. “I handed my best-loved, beautiful baby Bella to you, Stacy!”

  “No, you didn’t! You put her in the carrier.” Stacy’s eyes brimmed with tears. She looked petrified. “I merely clasped it shut and handed it to you! Remember?”

  “That’s right. But why didn’t you realize the clasp was different?”

  “You and Tom were yelling. I was flustered. I’m so sorry.”

  I knelt beside Delia and looked down at the dog. The poor thing was trembling with fear. The cute little dog was wearing a red velvet shawl with an emerald on it. “Is this emerald real?” I asked.

  “Stacy! Tom! You go back to security and—” She stopped. “I don’t know who to trust!”

  “Hey, Darlin,’” Tom, the deep-tanner drawled. “You know you can trust me with your life.”

  “Just not with my heart,” she retorted.

  “I’ll go,” the woman said.

  “No, Stacy. You’re staying with me. Tom, go back to security! Now! Run!”

  I shot a glance at my mom, who seemed as mesmerized by Delia Gantry and her brigade as everyone else in the area.

  Delia was breathing hard and seemed on the verge of a panic attack. She glared at me. “Are you in on this? You must be! How else could you have realized that this wasn’t my baby!”

  “No, Miss Gantry. I just work with dogs and always notice them. There’s a poster of you and Bella in the terminal. For last night’s concert at the Pepsi Center.”

  “All right, I believe you. But my dog is missing!” Delia was rocking herself as she sat on the floor. Three police officers, all of them male and on the pudgy side, came zipping toward us on a cart with a beeper and a blue flashing light. The officers’ first order of business was instructing the crowd to disburse, which seemed to only be increasing the circumference of the circle around us.

  “Delia?” my mother said gently, “This is my daughter, Allida Babcock. She’s a canine therapist in Boulder. She’s worked with all sorts of clients, under extreme conditions.” She chuckled. “Allie has the worst luck with dogs and crimes.”

  Delia’s eyes widened.

  Mom winced a little at her gaffe, but then hastened to reassure Delia, “You’re in the best possible hands.”

  I shot my mother a look, certain that a major celebrity wouldn’t want a thing to do with me, then realized that Delia was studying my eyes. “I can tell you’re a true dog person,” she whispered. “I can trust you.” She slid the carrier toward me on the floor, and touched my hand. “This copycat dog is frightened. See what you can do to comfort her. And, please, help me get my Bella back.”

  “I’ll…do my best.”

  Satisfied with the shape of the crowd of onlookers, the officers neared. “My dog and her carrier were stolen and r
eplaced with frauds after I went through security,” Delia immediately told them. Still sitting on the floor, she then gave them a quick bio of her three traveling companions, including Tom Adams—the tanned smiler she’d sent back to security. She then politely declined the request to relocate to a “more comfortable setting.”

  Meanwhile, Not-Bella was trembling as I picked her up. “It’s okay, sweetums. Nobody is going to hurt you.” I cradled the poor little dog in my arms.

  “Give me the dog, Miss,” an officer said to me gruffly, as his two colleagues were talking to the body guard and Delia’s female assistant.

  “I can’t allow that, officer.” Delia walked on her knees in order to get between the officer and me. “With all due respect, this dog is scared and is not going to be treated like crime evidence. Allida is an expert. I want her to handle the dog.”

  Some people in the crowd were calling Delia’s name. “I’ll help you,” a young woman called. “Whatever you need.”

  “Don’t you people have planes to catch?” my mother said giving a group of gawkers who were trying to get closer the evil eye.

  “I’m going to take the dog’s Christmas shawl off,” I said, undoing its snaps, then handing the tiny garment to Delia. “Is this Bella’s?” I asked.

  “No.” She tapped at the gem in the front. “This isn’t an emerald. It’s just green plastic.”

  Delia’s apparent boyfriend, Tom, was returning. He kept saying, “Pardon me,” as he squeezed through the onlookers to reach Delia. She and I gasped happily when we spotted the original dog carrier in his hand.

  “Oh, Tom! My hero!” Delia leapt to her feet. I rose carefully, not wanting to jostle Not-Bella, but feeling a little self-conscious about my short stature, compared to Delia. I felt like a Corgi standing next to a greyhound.

  “Sorry, darlin’. It’s empty, I’m afraid,” Tom said.

  “Empty!?”

  “It was inside a black duffle bag,” he continued, “at the end of the X-ray conveyor belt. Those TSAs…the terminal safety agent…they say some new guy was on shift that nobody recognized.”

  “Transportation Safety Administration,” I corrected.

  “Whatever,” Tom said. “The guy changed lanes to work in ours. And there was that disturbance right as they were about to run Bella’s carrier through the X-rays. Remember? Someone started shouting that the pocket knife that the TSA folks discovered in his carry-on wasn’t his.”

  “I remember that,” Delia said, sniffling and teary eyed. “Right when I was carrying Bella through the scanner. The passenger claimed someone planted it in his bag.”

  “He’s probably telling the truth,” I said. “It was probably the fake TSA agent who planted it, so no one would be watching when he swapped out carriers.”

  Another pair of officers arrived, which the first-arriving officers directed back to the security. “We’ll find the TSA agent, Miss Gantry,” the gruff-voiced policeman assured her. “This is probably the work of a professional thief, who took your dog as a diversion. He was probably only after the emerald.”

  “No way,” she scoffed. “A professional would know Bella’s worth a fortune to me! Far more than a silly green rock!” She balled her hands into fists. “Shut the airport! This minute! We’re in lockdown until my precious Bella is found!”

  “Miss,” a second younger officer said, a tremor in his voice, “we can’t do that for a dog.”

  She gasped. “Do you know who I am?!”

  “Yes, and I’m a big fan. Ever since I first saw you on that show on TV with those judges. But this is not a matter of passenger safety. Nobody’s in any danger.”

  “My baby girl is in danger!”

  “She’ll be fine,” my mother told her. “I have a sixth-sense about these things. That was the first I’d heard about Mom’s sixth-sense, but I wasn’t about to argue with her. She headed toward Tom, who was currently being questioned by an officer. My guess was she wanted to eavesdrop.

  While the grumpy officer was busy telling the younger, nicer officer to finish talking to the body guard, I patted Delia’s shoulder and instructed myself silently not to obsess about how high I had to reach in the process. “Nobody will hurt Bella,” I said. “She’s most valuable to him unharmed so that you’ll focus just on getting your dog back.”

  Delia still had the red velvet shawl in one fist.

  “Ms. Gantry,” Officer Grump said, holding out his hand for the cape. “Give me the dog’s—”

  She immediately spread out the cape and looked at its underside. Written by a black Sharpie on the fabric, a note read: “Deposit $200K in this account.” A series of numbers and letters followed that I didn’t bother to read.

  “Let me see that,” an officer said.

  Delia handed it to him. “This must be my ransom note. But it doesn’t even say how I’ll get Bella back.”

  “You were holding Bella in your arms as you went through the metal detector?” he asked her.

  “Yes, and they X-rayed Bella’s carrier a few moments later. The one that I bought for her that Tom’s holding. Not this substitute.” She eyed Not-Bella’s Louis Vuitton with disdain, then shifted an equally scornful gaze toward Tom.

  Delia grew more agitated by the moment, eying the ever-growing crowd, intent on getting pictures of her in her distress. “Everyone here needs to put down their phones and stop recording me. Now!”

  Nobody followed her instructions. More people were trying to press closer, all of them with cell phones aloft. The officers turned their attention once more to crowd control.

  Not-Bella continued to shiver and seemed to be trying to hide her head in the crook of my arm. In her boot heels, Delia was a foot taller than me, but when I touched her arm and cupped a hand over my lips she realized I needed to tell her something in private. She promptly bent down so I could whisper in her ear. “Offer a reward for videos or photos with clues that identify the culprit.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “Anyone who took a photo or video that helps me find my darling Bella gets a reward. It happened between the time that I was screened and when I arrived at the gate.”

  Her announcement caused quite a din, as passengers clamored to get Delia’s attention, and Not-Bella now tried to burrow her way under my cardigan sweater. I dutifully buttoned my sweater over her. She was such a sweet, cuddly little pup.

  Officer Grump shouted, “That is not a good idea. All evidence needs to go through me.”

  “Right now,” Delia announced as if he’d never spoken, “I only want to see videos as I walked through security and the metal detector. No other time. Just while me and my things were being screened.”

  The crowd quieted.

  “I had my camera on you the whole time, Delia,” someone called. It was a man’s voice from the back of the crowd.

  “Who said that?” she asked.

  “Eddie Yarmouth.” A tall, gangly man stepped forward. He was wearing a Rockies baseball cap and a black parka, and was nice-looking, in a young-truck-driver sort of way. “I’m your biggest fan.”

  “Possibly my tallest,” Delia said, charmingly.

  “Ms. Gantry,” the officer barked, “we have video cameras in the security area. The police are examining them now.”

  “That’s excellent, Officer,” she said. “Keep up the good work.”

  While Eddie cued up the video for her to watch, he said, “I’m a country/western singer myself. Just small gigs, so far.” He grinned at her as he handed her his phone. “I’m also single, by the way. Do you happen to be seeing anyone these days?”

  “Dude!” Tom said indignantly, spreading his arms.

  Eddie raised an eyebrow and gave him a quick glance, as if he couldn’t care less that her current beau was standing right there.

  Delia gestured to me and my mother to come closer. With Eddie looking on, the three of us watched the video. Judging by the angle of the camera, Eddie had apparently been going through the security line next to hers. The video showed Del
ia and her threesome loading their carry-ons in the bins. Stacy, Delia’s assistant, had been carrying Bella’s carrier and opened it for Delia, who was engaged in an animated discussion with Tom the whole time. Whatever they were saying was clearly upsetting Stacy, who visibly needed a moment to collect herself. The camera, however, stayed on Delia, and its microphone picked up Eddie saying, “That’s Delia Gantry.” The chant: “That’s Delia Gantry” rippled through the crowd.

  As the video continued, Tom Adams went through the metal detector and emerged on the other side, his heated conversation with Delia continuing. The camera jiggled and then shifted its focus when Delia, holding a buff-and-white Chihuahua, emerged from the metal detector. I couldn’t see her inside the booth; TSA agents always insisted that you hold your hands above your head, and I wondered if she’d held Bella aloft.

  On the audio of the video, someone shouted, “That’s not mine!” For a moment, the camera jiggled wildly. “I don’t even own a pocketknife. I live alone, so nobody else put it there. Someone at the airport had to have stuck it in my suitcase pocket.”

  The contents of the conveyor belt were just visible in a bottom corner of the little screen.

  “Wait!” I said. “That’s when the carrier gets switched.” The corner of the dog carrier appeared in the screen then disappeared, just as the passenger was pleading his case loudly behind Eddie. An instant later, the dog carrier reappeared.

  “It doesn’t show who was back there,” Delia said, “mucking with my Louis V.”

  “It must have been the new TSA agent,” my mom said.

  “Look!” I cried pointing at the tiny screen. “That agent is acting as if he’s going over to assist the TSA agents deal with the mysterious pocket knife, but I’ll bet he’s really leaving the scene. After he puts Not-Bella in the second carrier.”

  “But…that’s impossible,” Delia said. “Right after I got past the metal detector, the carrier came through on the conveyor belt. I put Bella in the empty carrier, Stacy closed the latch, and I carried it here to the gate. I never as much as set it down, until you noticed this dog’s brown eyes.”