To Die Fur (A Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Mystery)

by Dixie Lyle

  The sound left no doubt that Augustus was the offspring of gods. It was as feral as Waghai Devi and as imperious as Apedemek, and just as impossibly loud as either of them. Every child interrupted their parents sooner or later, and Augustus had waited his entire life and then some to do so.

  The roar died away. The gods stared down at their son in mutual surprise.

  {My decision,} Augustus growled, {is to go with neither of you.}

  “Uh-oh,” Ben whispered.

  Apedemek’s eyes narrowed, and his mane burned a little more brightly. THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

  <<>>

  {And I won’t. I’m leaving today.}

  <<>>

  {To find the only one who really cares about me. My bear.}

  Beside me, I heard Tango make a soft little noise that might have been a sound of encouragement. Or maybe something breaking.

  {I’ve known Bruno my whole life. We’ve slept together since we were both cubs. We share everything—food, toys, a home. He’s my best friend, and I miss him. So I’m going to go find him.}

  Apedemek bent his massive, flaming head closer. His voice softened. YOU CANNOT, MY CHILD. HE IS STILL AMONG THE LIVING, AND YOU ARE NOT. EVEN SHOULD YOU FIND HIM, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TOUCH HIM, OR SPEAK TO HIM, OR EVEN BE SEEN BY HIM.

  {That doesn’t matter. I’ll be with him. And he will know that. And it will make him happy.}

  Waghai Devi looked at her son, and then at Apedemek. Apedemek gave his great head a shake, but it was more puzzlement than denial. YOU ARE REFUSING THE PLEASURES OF PARADISE TO BE WITH SOMEONE YOU WILL BE INVISIBLE TO? SOMEONE WHO WILL NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GIVING UP?

  {I am not giving up anything. I am making a choice.}

  Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Waghai Devi said, <<>>

  TRUE. THERE IS NO FORCE STRONGER THAN THAT WHICH BINDS ALL TOGETHER. YOU HAVE CHOSEN WISELY AND WELL, MY SON.

  <<>>

  BESIDES—BEARS DON’T LIVE FOREVER, DO THEY? And Apedemek threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  Ben leaned toward me and said softly, “Uh, do you have any idea where that bear is located now? Or how to get Augustus there? Because I don’t think we can just buy him a bus ticket.”

  Waghai Devi gave Ben a sidelong glance. <<>>

  OF COURSE! THERE’S NO NEED TO GO ROAMING THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRYSIDE. YOU CAN OPEN A PORTAL TO WHEREVER THIS BRUNO IS QUITE EASILY.

  {I can? How?}

  <<>>

  {On what?}

  ON WHERE YOU MOST WANT TO BE.

  <<>>

  AND WHEN YOU HAVE THAT FIXED WITHIN YOUR MIND, TEAR AT THE AIR IN FRONT OF YOU. SLASH AN OPENING IN THE WORLD, LARGE ENOUGH TO STEP THROUGH.

  <<>>

  Augustus looked at his paw as if there were something stuck in it. Then he glanced over at Tango, Whiskey, Ben, and me.

  He padded over and regarded Tango in that blinky, almost sleepy way cats have when they’re expressing affection. {Tango. Thank you for being my friend, too. I’m glad I had you to talk with.}

 

  Augustus cocked his head to the side. {He won’t know who you are.}

 

  {Oh. Okay.}

  The liger trotted a few steps away and sat with his back to us. He drew back a paw and extended his claws. He tensed—and then slashed in front of himself, so fast I could barely see the blur. It was a swipe that could have taken the head off a grown man. It left a huge, ragged hole hanging in midair, with some other place visible beyond it. I couldn’t really tell what was in that hole—and then I saw something brown and shaggy and moving.

  Augustus didn’t pause to say good-bye. He leapt through the doorway he’d made, and it closed behind him.

  I heard weeping. It was Abazu, who had collapsed onto his knees. “Apedemek,” he sobbed. “I am sorry, so sorry. I tried to do your bidding, but I did not understand. I took the sacred herbs to better commune with you, and now I finally see the truth. It was your son I was pursuing all this time, not you.”

  AH. YOU’RE ONE OF MY WORSHIPERS. WHICH GROUP ARE YOU FROM, AGAIN?

  “The Timbavati Lodge, my lord.”

  OH, RIGHT. OF COURSE. THE STAR STONE AND ALL THAT. WELL, CONSIDER YOUR LIFE’S WORK FULFILLED, THEN.

  “What—what shall I do now?”

  THE SAME THING A LION DOES. WHATEVER YOU WANT TO.

  <<>>

  Apedemek glared at her. YOU WOULDN’T DARE.

  <<>> She pawed at the air almost casually, opening a portal and slinking through. She threw a backward glance at Apedemek that was less hostile than it was challenging.

  ONE OF THESE EONS, Apedemek rumbled, THAT FEMALE IS GOING TO BE MY DOWNFALL.

  “Try not to turn into a giant diamond on impact,” Eli said. “It riles up the locals. Now, if we are done, Great Lion God?”

  YES, YES. TOO BAD; IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A GLORIOUS BATTLE.

  said Tango.

  SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT, I SUPPOSE … With a thoughtful look on his face, Apedemek opened his own portal and strode through. The smell of the Serengeti and deep Indian jungle lingered in the air.

  Abazu staggered to his feet. “Glorious. Glorious. I see now, I see everything…”

  “Not so much,” said Eli. “Though if you stick around, Topsy might put in an appearance. But once those herbs wear off, you’ll forget most of this, anyway.”

  Ben went over and took the man by the arm. “Come on, Mr. Chukwukadibia. Let’s go get you some tea and dry clothes, all right?” He led the muttering cultist away.

  [So,] said Whiskey. [We appear to have successfully averted the Feline Apocalypse.]

 

  [I tend to run away from most things concerning cats, thank you.]

 

  “So,” I said, “this whole thing was an overreaction on our part. There was never really a problem.” I looked over at Eli and raised my eyebrows.

  “Just be thankful,” said Eli, “that it was only lions and tigers.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  Eli didn’t answer. He took wing instead and flapped away, into the darkening sky.

  “Come on, guys,” I said. “I think we can put this one to bed. Which is where I’m heading right after this.”

  Whiskey and I turned to go, but Tango stayed where she was, sitting upright in a classic cat pose: her front paws together in front of her, the tip of her black tail curled around her toes.

  “All right. Good night, Tango.”

 

  [Tango?] Whiskey paused, looking back. [You stood by him. He’ll be happy. You should be proud of yourself.]

 

  We left her there, alone with her thoughts, staring up at the statue of the circus bear.

  She’s a good cat. And wheneve
r she comes home, she’s going to get all the cuddling she can handle.

  * * *

  That was about it for the Case of the Thousand-Pound Cat (which is how I’d started thinking of it). Disaster averted, culprit in jail, ghost liger reunited with best friend. Okay, slightly heartbroken kitty, too, but she’ll get over it. And she will see Augustus again; if there’s one thing my new job as Crossroads caretaker has taught me, it’s that love really does win in the end.

  The next day, Abazu Chukwukadibia was present when Caroline removed the false tooth from Augustus’s jaw and prised it open.

  He didn’t seem at all surprised to see that it was empty.

  You can’t kill a Thunderbird with lightning.

  That’s what I desperately wanted to tell the investigating detective, a square-shouldered black man with a neatly trimmed beard at odds with his tangle of dreadlocks. His name was Officer Forrester, he was a new hire for the Hartville Police Force, and he was currently questioning me—Deidre Foxtrot Lancaster—as part of a homicide investigation.

  It shouldn’t even need to be stated. It should be glaringly obvious that a supernatural being descended from an ancient Indian tribe of weather spirits—spirits that toss around thunderbolts like they were baseballs—would sneer at a few hundred volts of house current.

  But that was in my world, a decidedly weird place stocked with ghost pets, reincarnated cats, telepathic canines, and the occasional animal deity. Lieutenant Forrester’s day-to-day existence was no doubt a bit more mundane; the only Thunderbirds he dealt with were the kind either involved in fender-benders or reported stolen.

  Forrester and I were not hunched over a scarred wooden table in a windowless, locked room for our interrogation, though; no, we were seated in a large, comfortable space lit by a wall made of glass, both of us sunk into oversized beanbag chairs of neon orange and pink. ZZ was redecorating again.

  “Sorry about the chairs,” I said for the third time. I don’t normally repeat myself, but I was kind of in shock. “My boss doesn’t just embrace change, she kisses it. With tongue.”

 

  That rough, raspy voice was Tango. She was the black-and-white tuxedo cat currently curled up and purring in my lap. She and I could communicate just by thinking—

  [Don’t be absurd, Tango. He’s obviously a professional, and as such will shortly eliminate Foxtrot as a suspect.]

  —and those deep, cultured tones belonged to Whiskey, the dog lying at my feet. He was an Australian cattle dog (though his accent was British), sometimes known as a Blue Heeler, and looked a little like two dogs smushed together: his chest and legs resembled that of a golden retriever, while his upper half was a speckled black, white, and gray. One of his eyes was blue and the other one was brown, which added to the effect.

  He was also—technically—dead. Looked, smelled, and felt like an ordinary dog, but actually made of ectoplasm. That’s what allowed him to shift his shape into any other breed of dog, of any size or shape. He could communicate with me telepathically, too.

  Get that look off your face. I am not crazy.

  My life, however … that’s pretty much nuts. Aside from the ghost dog and the reincarnated cat (Did I forget to mention that part? Life number seven, in case you were wondering.), there’s also what I did for a living. And the nonliving, I guess.

  Officer Forrester and I were in the sitting room of the Zoransky mansion, situated on the Zoransky estate, which abutted one of the largest pet cemeteries in the continental United States. The estate was home to my boss, Zelda Zoransky, her son, Oscar, and a private zoo that cared for animals who needed it. I was ZZ’s administrative assistant, which meant I handled not only all the day-to-day details of the estate but also the minutiae of ZZ’s hobbies and interests, which were legion.

  Oh, and I looked after the graveyard, too.

  Not the grounds themselves—that was done by a Sixties survivor named Cooper—but all the animal souls within. And by look after, I mean protect from danger. The Great Crossroads was a mystical nexus, where dead pets could leave their respective afterlives via one grave, and hop, swim, trot, or crawl to the human one via another. It was sometimes called the Rainbow Bridge, but there’s no actual bridge involved—just a constant swarm of the furry, scaly, or feathered formerly-alive on their way to visit the humans who loved them in this life and now love them in another. Love, it turns out, beats death.

  None of which had much to do with my conversation with Officer Forrester, though. That was mostly about the body in the swimming pool.

  Forrester finished writing something down on his notepad, looked up, and smiled. “All right, I think I’ve got everything I need about the deceased and how the body was discovered. I’d like to ask you a few questions about the people currently staying in the house. You said Ms. Zoransky is hosting a saloon?”

  I nodded, then knocked back a huge gulp of Irish Breakfast tea from my Three Investigators mug. “Salon. It’s an old Victorian tradition—get a bunch of interesting personalities together to engage in lively discussion. ZZ invites all kinds of people to stay here, where they can eat and drink and generally indulge themselves. All the amenities of the estate are provided free of charge, the only rule being that everyone has to show up for supper. She likes a nice mix of politics, popular entertainers, and science, usually.”

  “So I wasn’t imagining things—that really was Keene?”

  I nodded. “Our semi-resident rock star, yeah. He likes it here, comes back a lot. He’s always an interesting dinner guest, so ZZ’s given him a standing invitation.” I sounded fine—calm and in control—but that was more out of sheer habit than anything else. When I’m in crisis mode, you could blow up a car fifty feet away and I’d note the make and model before all the wreckage hit the ground. It has nothing to do with being brave, just years of training.

  But that wasn’t how I felt. Inside, I was screaming.

  “Who else?” Forrester asked.

  “Let’s see. Teresa Firstcharger. She’s an aboriginal rights activist. She contacted ZZ and asked if she could attend.”

  “Is that usual? People asking to attend?”

  “Sure. Her salons are very popular. But the main reason ZZ said yes was because Teresa had some very influential friends vouch for her. She’s kind of a rock star in the activist world, gets a lot of celebrities to endorse her cause. Johnny Depp is one of her supporters. But she has kind of a reputation, too.”

  Forrester tapped his pen against his knee. “What sort of reputation?”

  “Well, she rubs elbows with a lot of rich and famous people. And some people claim she’s all elbows.”

  “Any truth to that?”

  I shrugged. “Some. Unfortunately, one of her elbowees was also one of our guests. Who was here with his wife.”

  “Things got ugly?’

  “Things got deadly. You saw what we fished out of the pool.” It was a glib and heartless thing to say, but I’m one of those people who use humor to deal with pain. Right then, I was doing my best to put a wall of bad jokes topped with razor-sharp wit around my feelings so I could keep functioning; on the other side of that wall was a whole lot of pain. From the look on Forrester’s face, I’m guessing he’d encountered this kind of reaction before.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “So was there some sort of confrontation?”

  “You could say that. The Metcalfes were talking in the lounge when Teresa arrived. She walked right up and—well, she was very blunt. Told him he could do better and she should get lost. I thought there was going to be a fistfight.”

  “How did Mr. Metcalfe take it?”

  “He was embarrassed and angry. His wife was … just angry.”

  “All right. Who else is a guest?”

  “Let’s see. Have you heard of Theodora Bonkle?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “She’s an author. Writes mysteries and children’s books; I’m a fan, and so is
ZZ. Theodora’s an interesting person in her own right, too.”

  Forrester glanced at his pad, scribbled something down. “Oh? How so?”

  “Well, the fact that she used to be a he is hardly worth mentioning when compared to the rest of her life. Theodora suffers from schizophrenia, which led to her being hospitalized at one point. She was placed on medication to help control her hallucinations, which worked—but as it turned out, the drugs blunted her creativity so much she couldn’t write. She mounted a legal challenge to be taken off them for specific periods of time, and won.”

  Forrester frowned. “So the court agreed it’s her right to be crazy?”

  “Only now and then. And yes, this is one of the thens.”

  “Okay … anybody else?”

  “Dr. Efram Fimsby. He’s an exotic meteorologist, an expert on unusual weather patterns. Climate change is one of ZZ’s current obsessions, so he’s here to talk about global warming and storm systems and things like that. Like Theodora, it’s his first time here. Oh, and Rustam Gorshkov. He’s an animal psychic.”

  Forrester raised his eyebrows. “He reads animal’s minds?”

  Tango remarked.

  [And if it were,] Whisky added, [yours would undoubtedly be a softcover. You do understand the inherent pointlessness in telling someone they can’t read your mind by making a telepathic comment they can’t hear?]

  Tango yawned and stretched, extending one paw as far as she could and stretching her toes so the claws popped out.

  “That’s what Mr. Gorshkov claims,” I said. “But it’s a little more complicated than that. See, he has a dog that paints.”

  “A dog that paints.”

  “Yes. He says it’s a collaboration—he stands a short distance away and concentrates, and the dog paints what he tells her to.”

  “Oooookay…”

  I tried for another gulp of tea, but it was empty. I set the mug down on the floor, regretfully. “And that’s about it. I’ve already given you a list of the household staff, and who was here last night.”

  He nodded. “Yes, thank you. You’re very organized. There’s one more thing before you go, though.”