Vanishing Act Read Online Free PDF Page A

at run-down houses and convenience stores.
    At one point I’d been thinking of taking out a loan and setting up in one of the malls, but after going over the figures with my accountant, I’d decided it wasn’t worth it. The overhead was too high. Most of the shops in the mall were chains—and with good reason. It took deep pockets to keep one going, and I didn’t have those.
    Besides, the items that usually attracted people—large boids and parrots—were precisely the ones I wasn’t about to put on display. The stress was bad for them, and they were too easy to steal. All you had to do was smash a window, grab, and go. Three pet stores in the area had been robbed recently. The thieves had gotten away with thousands of dollars worth of birds that they would probably resell down in New York City, a loss I couldn’t afford. So maybe boring wasn’t so bad after all.
    Noah’s Ark had started off on the ground floor of an old house that had received a variance for commerical use. I’d liked that space better, even though it had been harder to maintain, but when it had burned down, I’d moved us to your standard small-size commerical space, consisting of a front room with a storeroom, small office, and bathroom in back. I’d packed as much product as I could—we had shelves running to the ceiling—into the store without making it look cluttered. We continued to specialize in reptiles and miscellaneous exotics such as hissing cockroaches and tarantulas. What we didn’t sell were puppies and kittens, except for the ones dumped at our front door by irresponsible jerks.
    Tim looked up from the leashes he was sorting through as I came in. The smell of cedar shavings permeated the air.
    â€œAh,” he said. “The great detective returns.” He was a slight guy in his early thirties. In the last few years he’d gone through some sort of midlife crisis and shaved his head, pierced his ears and his nose, and taken to dressing in black. Maybe he thought we were really in SoHo. He’d worked with my husband when he’d opened the store and stayed on when Murphy had died and I’d taken it over. He was good with snakes. I always thought he knew as much, maybe even more, than the herp curator at the zoo, and, given his appearance, was also surprisingly good with little old ladies and kids.
    â€œThat’s me. Sherlock Holmes in drag.”
    â€œYou’ve had about ten phone calls from Tino.”
    I cursed under my breath. I’d forgotten all about him. I was working on getting an indigo and a red-tailed Haitian boa for the guy. I’d found a couple of babies down in Florida, but it was too cold to fly them up since the cargo areas in planes aren’t heated, and so far I hadn’t come up with anything from the local breeders I’d phoned. I had three more people to call though. I’d hoped one of them could help me out. If not, there’d be something at the herp show down in Philly—with one hundred dealers there always was.
    Tim gave me a baleful glance. “I’ve got more than enough to do here without acting as your secretary.” The gurgling of the fish tanks punctuated his sentence.
    I apologized. Tim disapproved of what had become a regular part-time gig for me because it took me away from the store. My cases had me spending a lot of time becoming acquainted with stupid people who not only did stupid things but occasionally did them in the store.
    On the other hand, once in a while my cases did bring in some extra off-the-books cash, which we could definitely use. Unfortunately, it wasn’t often enough, because my clientele usually do not tend to be the rich and well connected. I’d fallen into the work when I’d become a murder suspect and had to clear myself. Then several people had asked me to help them out. I’d said yes because I have trouble saying no, and after a couple of go-rounds