by Dixie Lyle
The first time I met Higgins he’d arrived on Golden Cloud, an entrance I thought he’d never top. I was wrong.
Around the curve of the hill came a fierce little dog wearing a black cape that bellowed majestically behind him.
He was riding a flying shark.
[Grrrrrrr,] growled Higgins. [I will destroy you! Yap yap yap yap!]
And then they played tag. Well, it sort of looked like tag, because they were chasing each other all over the place. Two-Notch actually seemed intent on eating Midnight, which worried me—but when Midnight turned and leapt, knocking Higgins off the shark’s back, she immediately lost interest and swam out of sight, her tail flicking back and forth lazily.
Midnight had pounced on Higgins as soon as he fell, and now had him trapped between two black paws.
[Mercy, mighty Tango! Please don’t shred me with your razor-sharp claws and teeth!] Higgins trembled in fear. Either he was actually terrified at being inches away from a panther’s jaws, or he was just a good actor. Either way, he was very convincing.
[I was only doing my job!]
I shrieked.
And then felt overwhelmingly embarrassed when I realized Higgins’s skull was still attached and Midnight had simply engulfed the little dog’s head entirely with his jaws. The panther lifted Higgins’s limp, dangling body off the ground, then threw it to one side with a single violent toss of his head.
The sixth scene—or life, I guess—caught me completely by surprise.
There was a light in the sky.
It was noon on a cloudy, gray October day, but the light that shone down wasn’t that of the sun. It was silvery, ethereal, unearthly. And it was getting closer.
I squinted at it, trying to make out what it was and what it was supposed to be. A bird playing a plane? A fish cast as a flying saucer? A luminescent octopus?
None of the above. It was a dog. A small dog, wearing a space suit.
It wasn’t really a space suit, of course. It looked more like a padded harness attached with a bunch of leather straps and buckles. But I recognized the dog instantly: those perky brown ears, that single thin white stripe that ran the length of her muzzle.
Her name was Laika. She was the first animal to orbit the earth. And the first to die there.
She was a stray dog rescued from the streets of Moscow by the Soviet space program. They chose her because she appeared to be part terrier and part husky, and the scientists reasoned that a crossbreed hardy enough to survive a Moscow winter outside would already be used to extremes of cold and hunger. They picked her, in other words, because she was a survivor.
But she didn’t survive. Something went wrong with her capsule, and it overheated. She only experienced space itself for a few hours.
Or so people thought.
Laika slowly descended, until she hovered only twenty feet or so over our heads. The glow coming from her body was like moonlight.
[You have struggled long and traveled far,] Laika said. Her voice in my head was soft, the Russian accent lyrical. [I know something of this. What you have been seeking is just a little farther. Do not give up.]
[Oh, yes, Tango. It’s the most valuable thing there is. You will see.] And with that Laika began to ascend once more. Midnight watched her go, his eyes full of longing.
A dog, from outer space. Just when I thought this wonderful, crazy, amazing place couldn’t get any stranger, it surprised me. It revealed something that touched me deeply, and reminded me that what I did, even though exhausting, was worth the effort. And I needed that reminder; I was so surrounded by the exotic and odd all the time that sometimes I couldn’t see the enchanted forest for the talking trees. Maybe I needed some sort of touchstone, a little bit of wonder to carry around with me and remind me to look up now and then.
And that was the moment that I saw it: the little end of logic sticking out of the tangled mess that I’d been trying to unravel. I followed it as Laika rose higher and higher, and by the time she was out of sight I had a pretty good idea of what had happened … and how.
22.
I grinned. I beamed. I turned to look at Tango, and she looked pretty happy, too.
Which is when Whiskey got up and ducked behind a nearby headstone. He emerged on the other side, holding a small framed picture in his jaws.
It was a picture of me.
I recognized it instantly. It was a childhood photograph I kept at home, on my desk. I was six years old, and holding a kitten in my lap.
Tango.
I see that picture almost every day. I’ve owned it most of my life. I thought I took it for granted now, that long familiarity had eroded the deep emotions it used to evoke; but the sight of it as Whiskey gently placed it on a grave—upright—caused those emotions to surge forth as strongly as ever.
Midnight padded over. He looked at the picture, and cocked his head to one side—
* * *
“A kitty, Daddy? For me?”
“That’s right, sweetheart. A kitty of your very own. Do you like her?”
“Look, she’s rubbing against my leg! She likes me!”
* * *
Midnight put his head down and carefully rubbed his cheek against the frame. It fell over anyway, but he continued to rub his head against it. He started to purr.
Okay, I’d never had a ghost panther telepathically purr at me, but I’d been doing this mental-conversation thing for a while now, and something didn’t sound quite right. There was something on top of Midnight’s bass rumble, something resonating but not the same.
I looked down at my cat. She was purring, too. And as I stared at her, she ever so slowly blinked both her eyes at me.
Dammit, I hate movies that make me bawl my eyes out.
But I sure do love my cat.
* * *
That was pretty much it for the play. Written for an audience of one, it turned out, and that audience was pretty blown away. After it was over, all the actors came by to take a bow, and I made sure to tell each and every one what an incredible job they’d done. The narrator turned out to be Fish Jumping, which was almost as unbelievable as a canine cosmonaut. “You were terrific, FJ!” I said. “You didn’t have a single outburst.”
Fish Jumping preened himself proudly. I didn’t, did I? I think it was because I was so focused on remembering my lines. I have more than anyone, you know. “Awk! Bragging bird! Bragging bird! Awk!”
“You earned it,” I told him. “Higgins, that was quite a performance.”
The little dog panted happily and wagged his tail. [Thank you. I did research the role rather heavily—I even talked to the original Yappy Dog. He had a much different view of the events than was portrayed, of course.]
“No doubt,” I said.
Tango was still in my lap, purring contentedly, but she opened her eyes and glanced up at me.
“And you,” I said, pointing an accusing finger at Whiskey. “How did you manage to steal that picture and smuggle it out of the house and into the Crossroads without me noticing?”
Whiskey looked smug. [You expect me to reveal all my secrets? Let’s just say that your usual laser-sharp focus isn’t quite as … coherent first thing in the morning.]
I shook my head. “Both my partners, plotting against me. I’ll never trust either of you again.”
[I concur.]
Tango leapt from my lap, and I got to my feet. “Thank you both, so much. Whiskey, does your assistance mean you can finally admit that a feline is capable of organizing a theatrical production?”
Whiskey snorted. [Don’t be absurd. First of all, that wasn’t my original point; it was that dogs are better actors than cats. Considering your use of not one but two dogs in vital roles, I consider myself vindicated. Second, you never would have been able to stage that final scene without my help—]
Tango interrupted him.
[What do you mean? Clearly, it was.]
Fish Jumping cleared his throat, then spoke again in his narrator’s voice: “No life, however, is perfect. And despite the perfect happiness that Tango found in her sixth, an even worse opponent awaited her in life number seven: the distilled essence of irritation.”
And that’s when Pal trotted out from behind the hill.
One of his eyes was covered with a cardboard patch, on which was a crudely drawn blue eye. Australian cattle dogs already bear a certain resemblance to collies, which in this case had been enhanced by the careful daubing of mud on Pal’s coat to mimic the brindle coloring of Whiskey’s fur.
[You can’t be serious,] Whiskey said, staring.
[I assure you, I am,] replied the imitation Whiskey. [In fact, I am never anything but. I believe my sense of humor is, in fact, entirely absent.]
I didn’t know a dog could look horrified. [This is preposterous,] Whiskey said.
[Indeed,] Whiskey Two agreed. [Preposterous in the extreme. Altogether ludicrous, in fact.]
Whiskey glared at his dopplegänger. [That is not what I sound like.]
[It is, in fact.]
[And stop saying in fact! I don’t do that!]
“Hmmm,” I said. “Well done, Tango. You’ve managed to annoy Whiskey to an amazing degree, while getting him to disparage the acting ability of a fellow canine. I’m still not sure which are better at acting, dogs or cats … but you’re a natural-born producer.”
[Indeed. In fact.]
[Stop that! Do you realize you’re dangerously close to betraying your own kind?]
Pal struck a heroic pose, head up, gazing into the middle distance. [Not at all. For, first and foremost, I am an actor; a proud and lonely breed, a pack whose only leader is a fierce dedication to our craft—]
[Fine. Let’s see how you like it.] Whiskey morphed into a duplicate of Pal, one without the eye patch and makeup job. [Ooh, look at me! I’m an actor! I’m good at pretending!]
[That’s hardly accurate.]
[Look! Look! I can pretend my own tail is a squirrel!] Whiskey started spinning in a circle, barking wildly. [Curse you, tail-squirrel! I will catch you and prevent your evil plan to throw Timmy down a well! Again!]
[I refuse to dignify your pathetic attempt at mockery with a response, this statement notwithstanding.]
[Too late! There goes Timmy! Splishy splish splash! Tread water, Timmy, tread water!]
I laughed. “Yeah, this is pretty great. Now, just to round out the day, what do you say we go solve a mystery?”
* * *
I explained to Whiskey and Tango what I’d figured out, and what it meant. Then I sent them off on a very specific errand that would make or break my theory, and was ridiculously proud of myself when they found what I’d been hoping for.
After that, I went to visit Shondra.
“I am so, so sorry,” I told her. “I should have talked to you from the start, but I’m hoping I can make up for that now.” I told her—sort of—what I thought had happened. I left a few parts blank, and let her fill them in with her own conclusions; that might sound patronizing, but was actually pragmatic. I couldn’t mention the paranormal elements, so I needed something else to stand in for them—and the whole theory sounded a lot more plausible if those suggestions came from a second person.
Because the theory itself was kind of wacky.
Then, once again, I convinced everyone to gather in the study. This time, Shondra stood next to me. “Hi, everyone,” I said. “Thank you for the second chance.” I glanced at Shondra as I said this, but she just stared back at me impassively. “I promise, what we have for you is more than just a theory—we have actual proof. It’s a little out there, but bear with us.”
“A bombing and a murder,” said Shondra. “Two parts of the same case, or separate incidents that occurred on the same night? That’s the first question. The answer is that yes, they were connected. It’s the how that’s complicated.”
“What’s always been problematic,” I said, “is the how and when of the bomb being placed. Rolvink was already dead when it was put in the chimney, Natalia didn’t blow herself up, and I have reliable information that no one approached the chimney from above during the night.”
“How reliable?” Jaxon asked skeptically.
“Very,” I answered. “But as I said before, where it came from is irrelevant. First, my source is not a suspect—and second, the bomb wasn’t placed in the middle of the night.”
“Then when?” said Lucky Trentini. “It couldn’t have been in the morning. Nobody had access to Natalia’s room and anyone on the roof would have been seen by the crew on the front lawn.”
“True,” said Shondra. “Which means the bomb was planted some other time, when nobody else would have noticed—such as just after dinner. It was already dark out; no one was on the front lawn except Keene and Oscar, and they were absorbed in a game of croquet. Someone dressed in dark clothing and moving slowly could have crept onto the roof without being seen.”
“But that’s impossible!” ZZ said. “There was a blazing fire in the hearth—no one would have been crazy enough to lower an explosive into that. And if they had, it would have blown up in their faces!”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” I replied. “But that’s exactly what happened. The bomb was lowered directly over a very hot fire, and it didn’t go off until the next morning. Know why?”
Nobody did—or nobody was willing to admit it. I looked directly at Catree. “I see you have your backpack with you. Do you still have that thing you showed me the other day?”
She looked puzzled. “What, the zombie hand?”
“No. The other thing. The one that reminds you why you got into show biz in the first place.”
She understood—and then she understood. “The aerogel,” she said. She grabbed her backpack and dug out the container.
“Aerogel has many amazing qualities,” I continued. Catree opened the container, took out the cube, and handed it to me. Once again, it felt like handling a solidified, square soap bubble. “Amazingly light, amazingly strong. But there’s one particular quality it possesses that’s relevant in this case: Even though it’s over ninety-eight percent air,
it’s a very, very good insulator against two of the three kinds of heat.”
“Which are what?” asked Keene. “Hot, extremely hot, and … tepid?”
“Conductive, convective, and radiant,” said Fikru.
“Yes,” I said. “Aerogel is so good at blocking heat you can put a flower on one side of a thin layer and a blowtorch on the other and the flower won’t even wilt. That’s conductive heat. Convective heat is hot air, which doesn’t permeate through the gel.”
“So the bomb was encased in aerogel, protecting it from the fire,” ZZ said.
“We believe so,” said Shondra. “Aerogel also shatters like glass if you overstress it, so it would have been completely destroyed in the explosion.”
Jaxon Nesbitt, who had been lounging on the couch with his arm around Catree, suddenly looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Aerogel,” he said. “Not a very common substance, is it?” He carefully didn’t look at Catree as he said it.
“No,” I said. “But it’s not that difficult to obtain, either—once you know about it. Catree sees it as a symbol for science making magic, so she keeps it with her as a kind of touchstone. She showed it to me, and I’m guessing she’s showed it to more than one of you.”
Catree looked vaguely embarrassed. “Well, it’s cool. Geez, now I feel like some kind of science slut.”
I grinned. “Don’t be ashamed—it is cool, literally. But one of the people you showed it off to started thinking about how they could use that to their advantage.”
I tossed the cube back to Catree. “One of the details in the bombing report was that they couldn’t detect any sign of a triggering device. TNT needs a booster explosive to set it off, but no trace of one was found. No fire was burning in the fireplace when it blew—so how was the bomb set off?”
Dead silence.
Shondra took a pair of evidence gloves from her pocket and pulled them on. Then she bent down to the satchel at her feet and pulled out a two-foot-long metal cylinder with a small box duct-taped to it. “With this,” she said. “A blue laser.”
“Where did you find that?” Max Tervo asked.
“In a tree,” Shondra said. “One with line-of-sight to the mansion’s chimney.”