The Problem with Patience
A Problem for Patience (Patience: 1)
I knew the case was going to be special the minute that he walked into my office. He was gorgeous. Not gorgeous in the way that soap opera stars with a full head of hair and a McMansion in the hills would lust after. Just… gorgeous.
He was some type of poodle mix, medium build, fifty pounds or so based on my experience carrying heavy dogs who refuse to step in puddles when it rains. His compact form was well proportioned by blue ribbon standards, athletic and lean. His eyes were deep black pools of obsidian that glistened underneath his charcoal and ash colored coat. The owner, a man, timidly stood nearby, the ends of a simple rope leash connecting them.
You don’t see so many cases with poodles out in these parts. Mostly french bulldogs, a terrier or two depending on the exact time of year. Stranger still, this time the client had brought in a dog instead of a stack of missing posters.
“Patience?”
“Yeah,”
“Patience, the owner of the City Best Pet Detective Agency?”
“Yeah,”
The man looked around like he didn’t believe it. To be fair, the bus had seen better days. I’d parked my converted home/office on Rainer Avenue South, across from the tip of Mercer Island. Twenty three window panes gave a clear view over Lake Washington and its placid water. At night, when the stars and crickets come out to sing, its breathtaking. Well, as breathtaking as anything south of Seattle can be. At least I’m not in SODO.
“May I sit down?” He said, only briefly waffling between the red milk crate and the upside down trash can that formed my sitting area in the front of the bus. He folded himself onto the milk crate.
I held a pumpkin snap out to the pooch and let him sniff my hands. He curled up on the black and white speckled plywood flooring without a bark.
“You know my name, but I haven’t yet heard yours,” I said.
“Frank. Call me Frank,”
He didn’t look like a Frank. Frank’s had balding heads covered by a threadbare Mariners hat, or hands that looked like they’d held a wrench even once in their life. This guy wore khaki slacks and a black turtleneck, more Steve Jobs and less SODO-adjacent than most of my clients. He smelled like a fresh french roast and a gigabit wi-fi signal.
“How can I help you, Frank?”
“Patience,” he said, in a voice filtered softer than puppy fur, “I need an investigator,”
“Then you’re in luck. That happens to be my business,”
He paused, looked down at the gently snoring poodle at his feet. “It’s somewhat of a sensitive matter,”
“Since this is your first time here, let me tell you how this works. You’re gonna tell me whatever it is you came here for. I’m gonna listen, ask a few questions, and then together we’re gonna figure it out. What that ‘it’ is, stays between the three of us. No notes to be read, no computers to be hacked, just you, me, and Mr. Poodle down here. Okay?” I’d been giving this speech to clients since my first case at 16. It’s short, but only because you don’t get a lot of time to talk when Suzie drama queen barges in crying after her chihuahua got stolen by a vengeful classmate. (It happens more often than you’d think.)
“Uh-uh,” he said and glanced around again. He leaned forward on the milk crate. “Patience, I need your help finding a missing owner,”
This got my attention. Ninety-five percent of my cases involve missing pets. Dogs, cats, iguanas… if it has appendages that help it move, I’ve tracked it down and returned it. Finding a missing human, though, that was a first for me. I’d been reclining with my feet on the desk; now I leaned forward and swapped to my elbows. “Did you misplace someone?” I said. What I thought was: Did you steal this dog?
He smiled and shook his head. “Not at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Patience, that Ralph was sitting on my doorstep this morning with no collar or identification.”
“That’s not so strange,” I said. Outside, the rushing river lapped a limb of driftwood off the rocky beach and swallowed it whole. “Lots of dogs in the city. Lots of bad owners.”
My would-be client hesitated. He reached down to gently tussle the dog’s ears. “Lots of dogs in the city,” he repeated slowly. “But how many of them have a left ear an inch longer than their right? How many would remember the back corner of my bedroom where the crate used to be? How many would have a micro-chip registered to me?”
“So this is your dog,” I said. “Hardly seems fair charging a fee to find out you’re the owner,”
Frank sat up straight on the edge of the milk crate. In the dim overhead lighting he could have been any choir boy in any church I’d attended in my life. He said, “My dog Ralph died four years ago.”
Read part two
The Problem with Patience was originally published in Sixty Minute Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.