Tracy Hayes, Apprentice PI

Chapter One

My life took an exciting turn on a hot August Tuesday. Mind you, I didn't appreciate my good luck when I found myself jobless and broke through no fault of my own.

Well, almost no fault of mine.

I was carrying a dog that smelled of puke, which didn't improve my mood. Not that it was the dog's fault he smelled. The poor thing had gorged on donuts and then thrown up everything.

That he'd snuck into the kitchen of Café Marina to eat the donuts I'd left unguarded - and then regurgitated them on the newly scrubbed floor - was the reason I was now jobless after sixteen months as a waitress there.

That he wasn't my dog hadn't saved me from being fired.

It was early afternoon and I was standing on the sidewalk outside the café, watching the busy traffic on Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, whizz past me, reeling from the fast turn of events. The 7th Avenue subway station was right across the street and I should've headed home, but my feet began carrying me in the opposite direction, clutching the dog against my chest like a stuffed toy for comfort. My head was spinning, and I felt sick to my stomach.

How the hell was I supposed to pay the rent without a job? I didn't have a penny to my name. I'd be homeless by the end of the month and have to move back in with my parents. They already thought I didn't know how to adult - at twenty-seven. I'd never hear the end of it. Oh, they'd be all sympathetic and understanding - this wasn't exactly the first job I'd lost these past six years - and then they'd ask my eldest brother Travis to find a suitable place for me - nothing too complicated, you understand. Or worse, they'd contact Aunt Moira, who worked in a canned soup factory. And I'd rather serve tables for the rest of my life than work there - which, admittedly, was the only profession I was good for with my skillset.

In fact, after six years of waitressing in various establishments around Brooklyn, I was a damn good waitress. Waitress extraordinaire.

Well, maybe I was exaggerating a little there.

But as dire as my financial situation was, I had more pressing concerns. "What should I do with you?" I cooed at the poor dog. He was listless after his bout of vomiting, but he licked my arm to show that he sympathized with my predicament, only he was just a little dog and had no idea either.

"My name is Tracy. Who are you?" I checked for his collar but he didn't have one. "Are you a stray?" But his coat was shiny and groomed. "You've run away, haven't you, you naughty boy?" The dog whimpered in answer. "Maybe you're someone's beloved pet and they're worried sick for you."

I paused when a thought hit. "Maybe they'll pay me to bring you back."

Having a purpose - however small - cleared my head. I retraced my steps and headed to the residential area behind the café with, if not actual spring in my step, then determined ambling, and started looking for missing dog posters. I wouldn't be too proud to take a fifty as a finder's fee. Moreover, Prospect Heights with its old townhouses was a neighborhood where only the rich could afford to live, so the finder's fee might even be substantial.

"You don't look like much though, do you?" Maybe he didn't belong to anyone wealthy after all.

The dog was more of a mongrel. At least he wasn't any breed I recognized, and I knew quite a few. I went through a dog phase when I was about ten, but to my eternal heartbreak I'd never had my own dog, because both my brothers were allergic to them. By the time I moved out on my own I'd got over wanting one. Never could afford it.

"What are you, a border terrier?" He had the build and looks of one: small, stocky body, longish, slim legs and a strong head with floppy ears. "But you've this nice, silky black and brown coat, so maybe some Yorkie in the mix?"

The dog didn't answer, and I hoped he wasn't getting sicker. I didn't know if donuts were deadly to dogs, like chocolate was, but it couldn't do him any good to eat a tray full of them, even if he had puked out most of it.

I ambled - determinately - up and down the streets in the residential area, looking at lampposts for missing dog posters, but there weren't any. The dog probably hadn't been gone for long; he was in such a good condition. Maybe the owner would only miss him when he came home from work. But that would be a couple of hours from now.

"I can't carry you around that long," I said aloud. But I didn't want to go home either. I lived in Midwood, a twenty-minute subway ride away, so not that far, but I only had enough on my MetroCard for one ride, and nothing to top it up with. I wouldn't be able to return if I left now.

"I'm not usually this bad off," I explained to the dog. He cocked an ear, so I was encouraged to continue. "But Jessica - my roommate for the past three years - moved in with her boyfriend two months ago, so now I have to pay the rent all by myself. And let me tell you, it's not easy with minimum wage plus tips."

Which I didn't have now either.

I was actually really miffed with Jessica for it. She just announced one day she'd be moving and was gone the next - and good luck asking her to contribute for last month's rent. She should've given me a warning at least, so I could've found a new lodger.

Of course, you could argue that I shouldn't have spent the last of my money on having my hair dyed, but it had been necessary. I have really mousy, mud-brown hair, an unfortunate genetic mix of my father's black-Irish hair - the kind with a hint of auburn in it - and my mother's strawberry blond. My sister Theresa - Tessa for short - had inherited beautiful auburn hair, but my auburn came from hairdressers. And it wasn't cheap, even though my hair only reached to my shoulders.

Anyway, vanity was the main reason I was now broke.

"Maybe I should take you to the police," I suggested to the dog when I spied the 78th Precinct's imposing limestone building on the corner of 6th Avenue. The dog gave a disgusted huff and I nodded. "Quite right. They'd only send us to Animal Control." And I didn't know where the nearest one was - or have money to get there. Moreover, I didn't want to hand him to the nameless care of a shelter. I wanted to find the owner myself.

I turned towards Flatbush Avenue again, mostly because I'd covered the residential area already and didn't have any clear idea where to go from there. It was the closest main street, and I needed to find a place to sit. The August day was hot and the dog was a warm and surprisingly heavy bundle in my arms, making me even more uncomfortable, even though I was wearing my waitressing uniform of blue T-shirt and cute blue skorts, the kind that was shorts at the back and a skirt in the front - and flattering to my figure on both sides, though maybe I had slightly more figure around my bottom.

Marina Bellini, the owner of the café, had wanted me to leave the uniform before I left, but since I'd come to work wearing it, I couldn't very well leave naked. "You'd better return it cleaned or I'll take it out of your last pay. And I'll most definitely deduct the donuts," she'd said as I was walking out the door. She had a fast and fierce temper, and while she cooled down fast too, I didn't doubt she meant what she said. But at least I would be paid what was owed to me, so that was something to look forward to.

There was a Doughnut Plant at the corner of Bergen Street and Flatbush Avenue, and the mouth-watering scents wafting out from the kitchen door made the dog perk. "Oh, no. No donuts for you. Ever," I said sternly, taking a tighter hold of him.

To be on the safe side I crossed the street, just as a flock of people surged out from the Bergen Street station. To avoid them, I walked closer to the wall, but that wasn't good either, because it brought me into the path of customers exiting a bank on the corner.

Swerving left and right, trying to avoid being trampled by busy Brooklynites, I walked smack into a stand placed on the sidewalk by the wall. The dog whined when I accidentally squeezed him as I tried to regain my balance, and I paused to soothe him. While at it, I read the advertisement on the stand.

Jackson Dean Investigations. Help wanted. Inquire on second floor.

My heart skipped a beat. A private investigator. Just what I needed. And they needed me too.

"Let's go in. I'm going to become a PI."