Free Just Needs Killin by Jinx Schwartz

and OUT trays. The contents of my desk drawers littered the carpet.
    All the galley cabinets were open, their stores strewn onto the floor. Ditto the refrigerator. Thawing food oozed onto the laminate. Jeez, where the hell is a perfectly good dog when you really need him?
    Thoughts of Po Thang cramped my stomach. When my last dog, RJ, died, I swore I would never put myself through this type of hurt again, so I used the borrow-a-doggie school of canine fixes; I sometimes keep others' pooches when their owners go on vacation. To be honest, life is so much simpler without dogs that go nuts when you even look at your car keys, but here I was, once again, aching for a furry critter to clean my galley floor, even though, this time, he wasn't the one who emptied the fridge onto it.
    One thing I felt strongly was that Po Thang was alive and hopefully safe for the moment, and I vowed to do everything within my power to get him back.
    Oh, yeah, and Aunt Lil, too.
    I guess.
     
    It was well past midnight by the time I got the place put back together, and cleaned the galley. I should have been dragging butt, but I was too ticked off to sleep. With nothing else to do, I did what I always do when faced with a crappy situation: make lists.
    Grabbing a notepad from my newly reorganized desk, I found a pen and plopped down on the settee.  In order to get the complete picture of any story, one needs the five Ws both journalists and police use to get it right: who, what, where, when, and why. I also like to add the H: How?
    I headed the page with that ominous telephone warning, "Tell no one. We will know if you do."
    Who?  I left that blank, although I had some strong suspicions.
    What?  A filthy dognapper swiped Po Thang, ransacked my boat, and left me a warning not to tell anyone. Oh, yeah, and they took my aunt.
    Where? Where did they take my dog? Who knows?
    When? Not applicable.
    Why? Good question, and I had my suspicions there, as well, but they had mentioned their terms, which indicated the possibility we could settle this matter by reaching some kind of agreement. They obviously didn't know me all that well. I am never agreeable with scumbags.
    How? Now here is the biggie for now. How will they know if I contact someone?
    I tapped the pen tip on the pad. How, indeed? No one can see what I'm doing. All the blinds are closed. Or can they? And if so, how ?
    Looking around the cabin, I wondered if they'd planted a spy camera. I know every inch of the inside of my boat, because at one time or other I've either washed, sanded, painted or cleaned it. I got up and started a search.
    An hour later, after going over every bit of the main cabin and finding nothing, I was still at HOW? If they could see me, could they also hear me?
    Back when I first got into a problem in Mexico, I discovered that my nemesis, Dickless Lujàn, had a telescope capable of also picking up conversations from a hundred yards away, but it couldn't see through closed blinds.
    Lujàn? I put the dirty bugger's name in the WHO column, which led me back to WHY and WHAT. Why did he take my dog, and what do I have that he wants?
    Pictures. My camera was in my backpack, still loaded with photos of Ishikawa scattered about his room, Lujàn and his goons loading a body bag into that Lincoln Navigator, and then sitting in the front seat of that same car, and driving away. My best guess is that's what he wanted. Fine, he can have them, but what guarantee did I have that if I gave him the photos, he wouldn't just off me, Jan, and Po Thang? Oh, and Lil.
    I made another list: Good News/Bad News, with a line down the middle dividing the pros from the cons. On the good side I scribbled: Nothing missing that I can tell. Bad news? Po Thang and Lil kidnapped. With an evil grin I circled Lil and drew an arrow to the Good News side and added a smiley face. Okay, juvenile, but everyone needs a stupid smiley face from time to time.
    Good News: Nothing tampered with? Note to self: test all