Detective Blackie in Honduras

By Anne Shirley

Blackie, the detective dog, and her fellow detective Honduran parrot, Cheech Le Beak, have work to do for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the FWS). They and their human partners, Lou and Dirk, would like to stop wildlife trafficking from Honduras. Their friend, Ed, working for the FWS, has been kidnapped while he was working to save Honduran wildlife.

Ed is gone, and no one knows if he is dead or alive. Ed's dog has been taken to a dogfight arena in Ocean City. He has to be rescued, or he might die. After a rescue and a lead to a dog show and a mean dog owner, Lou and Dirk and Blackie and Cheech take off to Honduras to follow the trail of Ed. It's difficult to work in the midst of enemies, but they might find allies while being pursued by killers in this beautiful country.

Then Blackie, Cheech, and two Malinois show dogs take a long cross-country walk and find a friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885050302

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

About the Author

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Detective Blackie in Honduras

Anne Shirley

Copyright © 2023 Anne Shirley

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2023

ISBN 979-8-88505-029-6 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88505-030-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

My name is Blackie dog Anastosopolis. I am a detective. My name may sound Greek, but I am not Greek. I am a proud lab-spaniel mix. My human partner, Lou, is Greek. She and I work well together to stamp out crime and solve cases. We are tough customers. We also have another two partners in the BLD Holistic Detective Agency: Dirk the shirk Demanis and Cheech Le Beak Central American parrot, who will be explained later.

We are temporarily living in the megacity, Ocean City. We live in a beautiful little house on Dudley Avenue near the beach of Venice. Not the Venice that you might be thinking of but the Venice of Ocean City. We are living with Lou's super cool cousin, Pete (his Greek name is Poseidon), who is the police chief of Venice of Ocean City. Also in the house is Dominic, a ten-year-old Honduran boy rescued by the police from east-side gang violence. Captain Pete offered to take care of him until his parents can be found. Even more amazing is that Pete is willing to put up with our parrot, a beautiful but very talky (not to mention squawky) and smart boy named Cheech Le Beak.

I've just gotta take a run to the ocean now. It's so great, the swells on your chest, the tippy little waves in your nose, the dangerous undercurrent, and so much of all of it. Cheeerone loves to fly over the waves and hear the roar of the surf. It reminds him of the jungle he says—the jungle he only knew as a baby bird when he was illegally trafficked to River City up north. Okay. I've just got to jump in there one more time, and then jump out, as retrievers do. Thank goodness, Lou brought plenty of biscuits because I am getting exercised.

Okay, I'm back. I'll tell you what has been going on here: Lou and I were doing our PI work up north, and then Lou's friend, Aldonio Yu, got a message from his bro Edward Yu. Edward works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services in Ocean City. Edward said he heard about contraband trafficking going on in Ocean City and would we be willing to go underground working for the Department of Fish and Wildlife Service, the FWS. So of course Lou said, "Wildlife is a great cause. We consider ourselves wildlife." And I like to work with Ed's great dog Obi, my good friend. No worry! We will work on the case; it's a very big case. People are bringing in contraband from south of the border—Honduras and other places. A lot of little animals and birds are being snatched from their home in the jungles of Central America. The FWS says most of the wildlife from south of the border is gone missing—it's being sold here in the United States. So this is our mission, to help the birds and animals, and we will try to sniff the smugglers out.

At night, Lou and I have been walking the boardwalk, waiting to meet our FWS detective friends Edward (Ed) Yu and his great dog, Obi. At night, it is noisy around the bars on Brooks Avenue but very quiet elsewhere on the boardwalk. Some people sleep all night on the beach, but mostly it is deserted. In the morning it will be filled with people, especially the old people who live nearby. Lou says that in the olden days before I was born, some of the old people had tattooed numbers on their arms from being in Jewish concentration camps. They have died or left the beach, but most of the young people on the boardwalk now have tattoos all over themselves—that they pay for with their own money. Hopefully they know their history of the terrible old tattoos. During the day, many people are just lying around on the sand—the soft sand—soaking up the rays. But somewhere among all those people are the wildlife traffickers we are trying to catch.

Chapter 2

It's night now, and we are patrolling the boardwalk, working for cousin Pete as we wait to find Edward. We don't know why Ed and Obi aren't here to meet us, but we can work while we wait.

All of a sudden, a couple of Hispanic young men hold up an old man and demand his wallet. Venice PD, Lou shouts, and one stops and puts his hands up. The other one is running down the alley. He is fast, but I am faster. Did I ever tell you four legs are generally faster than two? Oh yes!

I jump on the guy's back and knock him down. He swears at me, Pinche perrito! and pulls a knife. I bite his hand hard. You know I have razer-like teeth, not flat teeth like humans. I did not chew up his hand bone—yet. But he screams a lot. Lou comes running after handcuffing the other guy, grabs the knife, and tells this guy to get up slowly. I slowly let go.

What the ignorant crooks failed to know is that Lou is battle trained and could inflict worse injuries than me. But she just orders them both to the Venice police station house where they are arrested and jailed.

As you can imagine, some of the people in Ocean City are very poor and make money any way they can. Some can't find work. Some are on drugs and have little children that they push out the front door or walk away from. These parents are very screwed up, not thinking of the future when they are old and need their puppies. But their children don't learn how to be good, and they need help. A life on the streets can give you PTSD—that means they overreact, are jumpy, mad, sad, and crazy. Posttraumatic stress disorder happens after threats on a person's life; the person has a big fight or flight response and bad feelings like suicide. Lou says that the founder of Homeboy Industries takes care of some of these children. He said that these poor children have more PTSD than returning veterans from the war. The Homeboy Industries guy helps kids from the poor areas, barrios, or ghettos to meet each other and work together—and get paid! That experience relieves a whole lot of their stress and sadness and needs to fight.

I know that PTSD can happen at home. My mom was a great Labrador retriever. I love my mom. I never knew my dad—a typical tragedy among my species. But my first human boss was a lousy shot and mean. He shot me in the side with what is called buckshot. That stuff is still there under the hide. That incident makes me nervous around noise that sounds like gunfire. That is my own PTSD which I try to suppress in support of Lou. Her PTSD came from years in the Army in Afghanistan—a very noisy place. I don't know why my owner shot me. I had just stopped to talk to a nice rabbit. After he shot me, he shouted and swore at me and abandoned me on a country road. A shelter worker picked me up and took me to the shelter. Lou came and needed me and I needed her. Well, finding a true friend can definitely help with PTSD, so Lou and I support each other. We could all use friends. So that is me, Blackie, and Lou and Cheech and the barrio we are living in. Who you don't know about is Dirk the shirk Dematis, Lou's friend and third partner in BLD Holistic Detective Agency. Dirk was a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan and is very strong and attractive to women, but he has PTSD pretty bad; he can't sleep at night and should get a dog like me. But he is tech-savvy and can solve cases too, so he is a good partner when he is awake.

Chapter 3

Last year we were living in River City up north. We've temporarily moved to Ocean City to help Ed and the FWS. Near us in Venice is Lou's great-uncle Alexander, a retired bomber pilot and forensic accountant. He lives in a resting home near his grandson Pete.

There are many tough customers in Venice. Sometimes they keep us awake all night with crashes, gun shots, and sirens. And the waves lap the shore, and sometimes they are not restful. Sometimes they make you think of how vast the ocean is. I could not swim across the whole ocean. And I could not swim in the ocean when it is very rough. I have surfed on Venice beach. It is thrilling. And sometimes it is scary. But the ocean is a mother of us all and powerful and awesome. If this sounds like I am scared, well, sometimes. But mostly I am a tough cookie and catch the crook or, on this mission, the wildlife traffickers.

During the day, the Venice boardwalk is a fun place. Skaters, bicyclers, and walkers roll along it. Show-offs throw weights on muscle beach. People eat at great restaurants. I could really use a biscuit jerky stick right now. On the boardwalk is a Jewish bakery with bagels and cream cheese and raisin pumpernickel on Thursdays. Yum!

I am a fast runner—a beautiful silky black-haired sixty-pound, long-eared, bushy-tailed, fast runner. No crook can scare me or outrun me or hide from me. I smell them and track them wherever they might be. We just need to join Ed and Obi and get the scoop on the bad guys. My human partner Lou is a fast runner too. She is young, for a human, and works out and is very smart; that is why she is a good PI. PI means Private Investigator. I am a private investigator and so is Cheech Le Beak, although he is loud. Cheech was born in the Honduran jungle and was caught and trafficked to a pet shop in River City up north. One of Lou's friends bought him and then had to give him up when she moved. That is the problem with parrots. Cheech will live at least fifty more years (maybe eighty) and what human has that stable a life. The parrot bonds to his human when he loses his flock because parrots are monogamous. And it isn't pretty being owned by a parrot. They need to stick with their flock. Parrots think like humans, and they are good at interpreting people's expressions because they are predators like humans. Cheech is a rascal but very verbal; verbal can come in handy, but Beaky Boy goes off all the time. Sometimes we have to put the hood on his cage because he is just talking us to death. But he can be helpful on a case at times, so we cut him some slack. And of course he flies. Me, Lou, and Cheech have worked on several cases together. Cheech hasn't done much useful investigating in Ocean City so far, but we couldn't leave him behind with anybody because he makes such a federal case out of being with us. So there you have it.

Chapter 4

Venice is okay, and I have made a doggie friend here named Max, actually Maxine. She is a neighbor dog and very polite to everyone—kind of a goody-goody suck-up who will never catch a perp—but we run together and she's a good sniffer.