Officer Phoebe crinkled her forehead. “You know, it’s strange, but it seems like they show up to a lot of crime scenes. Almost like they’re . . .”
“Investigating?” our Mom finished.
Our Mom and Officer Phoebe both stared at us for a few seconds. Then they spoke at the same time and said, “Nooooo . . .”
Officer Phoebe shook her head. “It’s not possible.”
“It couldn’t be,” our Mom added.
But Bogey and I just sat up straight and looked right at them. It was funny how humans never understood what good crime solvers cats could be.
“We’d better take a look around, Abby,” Officer Phoebe said. “And make sure nothing’s missing.” She stepped into the main part of the store.
Our Mom started to follow. But then she stopped and turned back to us. “Okay, boys, I’m not sure how you got here. But no more sneaking out tonight. I want you to go to your cat beds now. You’ll be going straight home with me when we’re finished here.”
Bogey and I made a beeline for her and rubbed around her legs. Then Bogey headed to one cat bed and I trotted over to the other. We quickly flopped onto our comfy beds and curled into place. We looked up at our Mom and purred.
“That’s better.” She moved from Bogey’s bed to mine, and petted us both softly on the head. “Your Dad and Gracie and I would be pretty upset if anything ever happened to you two. You’re an important part of the family, you know.”
As a matter of fact, we did know. We knew exactly what she was talking about. Because Bogey and I would be pretty upset if anything ever happened to her and the rest of our family, too. It was the reason we ran surveillance on our house every night. And it was the reason we sneaked out and came with her to her store tonight. As cat detectives, we wanted to make sure that she was safe. And that our whole family was safe.
Bogey grinned at our Mom and I meowed up to her. And then I meowed a few more times. Just so I knew my message came across loud and clear.
“Okay, boys,” she said with a laugh. “You’re forgiven. I’ll be back to pick you up when I’m ready to go.”
We started purring again and kept on purring as we watched her walk out. Then Bogey grabbed a bag of cat treats he had hidden behind his bed.
He pulled the bag open and passed me a treat. “Let’s sit tight for a minute, kid. To give our Mom and Officer Phoebe a chance to get to work. Then we’ll go out and look around ourselves.”
I took the fish-flavored treat from him. “But what if our Mom sees us? Won’t she make us come back to our beds?”
Bogey grabbed a treat for himself. “We’ll stay out of sight, kid. Our Mom will never even know we’re out running around the store. But we’ve gotta be back here before they’re finished.”
“Aye, aye,” I told him. I ate my cat treat in a hurry.
Bogey pulled out a few more treats for us both and then stashed the bag back in its hiding place. “Let’s get a move on, kid. We don’t have much time.”
With those words, he stood up and loped toward the opening to the front room. I jumped up and joined him. Seconds later, we were zooming along the hardwood floor and into the main part of the store. Bogey took the lead and I tried to keep up. I scrunched down just as low as I could go to the floor. So I wouldn’t be so noticeable.
Though I had to say, a giant fuzzy black cat running by wasn’t exactly invisible. No matter how low I scrunched!
Holy Mackerel!
As we flew out of the entryway, I spotted our Mom and Officer Phoebe in the far corner of the gigantic room. Thankfully, our Mom had a big inventory book with her and she was checking things off as they went. That meant we had a little bit of time to do our job.
And that was just what we planned to do.
Bogey and I ran around to the other side of the store so we wouldn’t be seen.
Normally, I loved being in our Mom’s store. It was such a fun place for a cat to explore. There were antiques of all different shapes and colors stacked and displayed everywhere. Shelves and old dressers and couches and wardrobes sort of defined the rows. Plus there were wooden chairs and tables and bed frames. On top of the furniture sat pictures and pretty dishes and dolls. Glass cabinets in the front displayed jewelry and old coins and silverware. Our Mom’s store had almost anything you could imagine when it came to antiques. And lots of the stuff was over a hundred years old.
Plus, the place was loaded with interesting smells! Old smells and new smells. All topped off with the scent of lemon oil.
But tonight, Bogey and I didn’t take time to enjoy it all. Instead we ran to a row of old wooden furniture where we knew there’d be plenty of hiding places.
In case we needed to hide.
We paused under a desk with feet that had been carved into the shape of eagles’ claws.
“All right, kid,” Bogey said. “Keep your eyes peeled for anything that’s missing.”
“Missing?” I repeated.
“Yup, kid,” Bogey nodded. “Something that used to be here but isn’t any more. After all, nobody knows all the stuff in this store better than we do.”
Well, I had to say, he sure had that right. Us cats spent so much time exploring our Mom’s store, that we knew every item in every spot there. And we also knew when our Mom sold stuff.
Bogey stood up, ready to run again. “And keep an eye out for any clues, kid.”
“You mean . . . clues that might help us figure out who broke in here?” I asked my brother.
Bogey grinned and gave me a paw bump. “You got it, kid! You got it. You’re getting better at this job every day.”
“I am? Um, thanks,” I told him.
It felt so good to hear Bogey say that. And it made me want to try even harder to do a good job. I wanted to prove to Bogey that I could do my part and share the load.
Now Bogey jumped up and headed toward a cluster of old bookcases and small tables with cabinets.
“Something’s fishy here, kid,” he told me.
Okay, Bogey had already explained this expression to me. And now, as a good cat detective, I was supposed to read between the lines. I had to figure out what it was that Bogey thought was “fishy,” or suspicious.
I thought back to some of the other cases we’d been on. To the moments when we’d found important clues. And I remembered the kinds of clues that had helped us crack the case.
“So . . .” I started. “Does that mean you found a disturbance in the dust? Or maybe there’s a piece of paper with someone’s initials? Or . . . wait . . . I know! Did you see a footprint?” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice.
Bogey shook his head. “Nope, sorry, kid. Nice try though. This time I really do smell fish. Probably just a leftover smell in one of the old cabinets here.”
“Oh,” I said and stared at the floor.
Then I put my nose to work and started sniffing around, to check out what Bogey had been talking about. For a moment, I thought I picked up the smell of fish, too.
I glanced around the area. “But I don’t see anything missing. All the stuff our Mom had here before is still here.”
Bogey nodded. “Yup, kid. I noticed that. We’d better keep looking.”
And so we did. We zoomed past row after row of antiques. We ran past shelves filled with glasses and bowls and pretty pottery.
Finally, we finished up on the other side of the room. But we hadn’t found a single thing that was missing. And we hadn’t found a single clue either.
Bogey paced the floor. “I don’t get it, kid. Someone broke in here for a reason. Someone was after something.”
I crinkled my brow. “But nothing is gone. So I guess the people who broke in didn’t get what they were after.”
Bogey shook his head. “That’s how it looks, kid. But it doesn’t add up. A burglar had time to break in, take what they wanted and get out. And they would’ve disappeared into the fog before the police got here. So why didn’t they take anything?”
I sat down on my
haunches and slid my front legs forward. “I don’t know. It all seems kind of backwards.”
I sure wished I could help figure out what was going on. Especially since we didn’t have much time to figure things out. I could hear our Mom and Officer Phoebe working their way to the other side of the store. The side where we had started. It wouldn’t be long before they were finished. That meant Bogey and I would have to head back to our cat beds.
And soon!
Suddenly Bogey turned his head and stared at me. “Wait a minute, kid. What did you just say?”
I turned my ears toward him. “Um . . . I guess I said, ‘I don’t know.'”
Bogey jumped to his feet. “No, kid. After that.”
I looked up at the ceiling and tried to remember. “Um . . . I think I said something about everything being kind of backwards.”
Now Bogey began to bounce around the room. He acted like I’d just told him he’d won a lifetime supply of cat treats!
He grinned bigger than I’ve ever seen him grin. “That’s it, kid! You’re brilliant!”
Holy Catnip!
My jaw practically dropped to the floor. “I am? Me? Are you sure?”
Bogey started to trot back into the row nearest to us. “I’m sure, kid. C’mon. We’ve gotta hurry!”
He took off running.
I jumped up and raced after him. “We do? What did I say?”
“Backwards, kid! You said it was backwards,” he hollered over his shoulder. “You were right. We were looking at this all backwards.”
We were? We’d gone up and down all the aisles and looked at everything. I couldn’t think of any other way we could have looked at it.
“I don’t get it,” I told him.
Bogey whipped around a corner at lightning speed, digging his claws in for better traction. “We were looking for something that was missing, kid. Maybe we should’ve been looking for something that was added.”
Suddenly I wondered if Bogey had been eating too many cat treats.
“But we looked for clues, too,” I said as I zoomed to keep up with him.
Bogey shook his head. “Not the same thing, kid. We were looking for smells and footprints. That sort’a stuff. Not the kind of stuff our Mom would put in her store for sale.”
“Oh,” I murmured. Though I still wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting at.
Bogey picked up speed as we raced past rows and rows of antiques. “We don’t have much time, kid. We’ve gotta narrow down our search.”
Holy Mackerel! How in the world were we going to do that?
Bogey slowed to a trot and let me catch up to him. “Let’s go back to the place where we smelled the fishy smell, kid. I have a feeling about that. The smell was new to us. Maybe there’s something else new there, too.”
It sounded like a good idea to me.
So together Bogey and I made a beeline to that exact spot. We put on the brakes when we got to the same bunch of bookcases and little end tables with cabinets.
Then Bogey looked in one direction and I looked in the other. We looked under things and on top of things and around things. But we didn’t see anything new that someone had put there.
We could hear our Mom and Officer Phoebe talking and getting closer.
“Just one more row, Phoebe,” our Mom said. “And then we’re done.”
“I’m glad nothing’s missing so far,” Officer Phoebe replied.
“Let’s hope nothing’s been stolen from this last row, too,” our Mom sort of sighed. “Then we can all go home.”
Beside me, Bogey urged us on. “We’ve gotta hurry, kid. They’ll be finished in a few minutes. Where else can we look?”
That’s when I pointed to the little end tables with cabinets. “Something could be hidden in one of those.”
“Good call, kid,” Bogey said. “Let’s start pulling the doors open.”
Well, Bogey sure didn’t have to tell me twice! There were seven of those little tables, all sitting in kind of a half circle. They were built from different kinds of wood, in different shapes and heights. But they each had a flat tabletop and a little cabinet with a door right below that. Some had handles on the doors, and some didn’t.
As for getting those doors open, well, let me tell you, it wasn’t exactly easy. Because they were really, really old, most of the doors stuck in place a little bit. And no matter how hard Bogey tried, he couldn’t even get one open. But because my paws are so huge and my arms are really strong, I was able to hook a claw in and pull the first three doors open wide.
For once, it paid to have oversized paws!
Still, there was nothing inside those first three cabinets. So I took a deep breath and moved on to the next one. After a little tugging, it opened up, too. But again, there was nothing inside. Then I stepped over to the fifth cabinet. I hooked my claw into the door and pulled. For once, the door opened up pretty easily. Unfortunately, it was empty just like the others.
Now I started to wonder if this had been a good idea at all. Maybe if something had been added to our Mom’s store, it had been added in a different spot.
Or maybe nothing had been added at all. Maybe the person who broke in hadn’t taken anything or left anything either. Maybe someone was just playing tricks on us.
Bogey glanced in the direction where our Mom and Officer Phoebe were still working. “Hurry, kid! Don’t give up now!”
So I didn’t. Because, even if we didn’t find anything, at least Bogey would know how hard I’d tried. That’s why I raced to the sixth cabinet and gathered up all my strength. Then I tried to pull that door open as quick as I could. There was only one problem. The door to the cabinet was stuck.
And I do mean stuck!
I hooked my claw in a little deeper and pulled for all I was worth. I leaned back and put every ounce of my weight into it.
But no matter what I did, that cabinet door would not budge.
Beside me, Bogey said, “Let it go, kid. Move on to the next one.”
I turned to my brother and stared. “But . . .”
To tell you the truth, it was hard to leave that sixth cabinet alone. Especially since I figured that door might be stuck for a reason. Maybe that cabinet was the hiding place of the very thing we were looking for. Maybe someone had put something in there and fixed the door so it would stick.
Bogey touched me on the shoulder. I gave the door one last tug, but it still wouldn’t open. It took all the willpower I had to leave that cabinet alone.
“C’mon, kid,” Bogey said. “We can come back to it another day. Time to move on.”
I let out a big sigh and did what Bogey told me to. I scooted over to the seventh cabinet. I hooked my claw into that door and yanked the thing right open.
If Bogey thought he’d smelled something fishy before, well, it didn’t compare to what we smelled now. Because the odor of fish hit us right in the face.
Just before we looked inside that cabinet.
And that’s when we saw it.
There, right in front of us, was a little package about the size of one of our Mom’s shoes. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string.
Holy Catnip!
CHAPTER 4
_____________________________
Holy Mackerel!
My chin practically hit the floor the moment I saw that package. Bogey and I both just stood there, frozen, and stared at it. But we only stared for a couple of seconds!
That’s because we heard our Mom talking to Officer Phoebe from not too far away.
“It’s such a relief,” our Mom said. “I’m so glad everything is here.”
“Me, too,” Officer Phoebe agreed. “It’s always nice when a case turns out like this. With no one harmed and nothing stolen.”
“Let’s lock up and get out of here.” Our Mom sounded very, very tired. “Would you please help me put the boys inside my truck?”
Officer Phoebe chuckled. “Sure, I’d be happy to. Anything to keep those two out of mischief.”
Bogey and I turned and stared at each other.
Did we have time to run back to our cat beds in the back room? Before our Mom and Officer Phoebe discovered we were gone?
“Hurry, kid,” Bogey told me. “Grab that package! Let’s hide it in the place where I stash the cat treats.”
The string on the package had been wrapped around both the middle and the length. Then it had been tied in the center with a big knot. So I clutched the knot in my teeth and lifted up the whole bundle. It weighed a lot more than I thought it would. I struggled a little bit to pull it out of the cabinet and set it on the floor. Beside me, Bogey quickly closed all the cabinet doors to all the little tables.
“Gotta cover our tracks, kid,” he told me.
I touched the package with my paw. “Wow, I wonder what’s in there. It sure is heavy.”
Bogey ran a few steps forward and peeked around a dresser. “Yup, kid, it looks like it’s taking some real muscle. But let’s talk about that later. First, we’ve gotta get back to our beds. And hide that package.”
I gulped. “B-b-but we’ll never make it. Our Mom and Officer Phoebe will see us when we run in.”
Bogey jumped to the top of the dresser. “Don’t sweat it, kid. I’ll create a distraction. Then you run in with the package when they’re looking the other way. Stash it and run to your own bed.”
“But what about you?” I glanced at my brother. “You’ll never make it if you distract them for me.”
Bogey grinned. “Haven’t you heard, kid? I can fly. I’ll be there before you know it.”
“Um, okay,” I told him.
Bogey looked down at me. “It’s teamwork, kid. I’m not strong enough to carry that package, but you are. And with you carrying that heavy load, you won’t be fast enough to make it in under the wire. So I’m the one who makes them look away while you run in. You’ll see. Together we’ll make this work.”
Boy, I sure hoped Bogey was right. Because one thing was for sure — by ourselves, we’d never get that bundle back without being spotted.
Holy Catnip!
But we might pull it off as a team.
Sometimes it sure was nice to have friends.
The Case of the Jewel Covered Cat Statues Page 3