by steve higgs
‘Are you all right, Auntie?’ asked Mindy as the door swung wide enough to reveal who was behind it.
Buster barked, ‘We found a key.’
Unable to believe my eyes, I gasped, ‘Mindy, what are you doing in there? You’ve broken in!’
‘No, Auntie, we used a key. It was under a rock by the door. Everyone hides a key in case they lose theirs. Did you have any luck with the rubbish bags?’ she asked, then cast her eyes down to my skirt and boots.
She curled her lip in disgust. ‘I bet there’s something we can use to clean that off in here,’ she started backing into the kitchen again, but Buster was trying to get outside.
‘Are those frosted wheats?’ he wanted to know, his little eyes locked on the mess strewn across the ground. ‘Ooh,’ he sniffed the air. ‘No don’t move. That’s cherry yoghurt on your boot. I’ll get that off for you.’
I wanted to get Mindy out of the house before the cops showed up. One of the neighbours was bound to have seen her going through the front door. That was going to have to wait though because my dog with a bowling ball where his brain should be was going to eat all the trash if he got even half a chance.
‘Oh, no you don’t Buster,’ I moved to get in his way and grabbed his lead. Of course, now I was close enough for him to sample the treats stuck to my clothing and shoes and I was trying to take my next step with one of my feet firmly stuck in his mouth.
Buster said, ‘Mmmmmffll mmugh.’
‘Get off, Buster!’ Too late, I slipped and lost my balance as he licked my boot ever so delicately but with much determination. Arms pinwheeling, I toppled and fell backward. There being nothing but free air to grab, I stopped only when my butt hit the ground.
Except it didn’t hit the ground because life is not like that. No, I landed back on top of the pile of sticky, gunky, slimy trash that emptied itself from the black sack and now I was truly covered.
Mindy had let go of the lead the moment I grabbed it and reappeared in the doorway now holding a roll of kitchen towel. Her triumphant expression soured instantly because a few squares of absorbent tissue were no longer good enough for the task.
What I needed was a jet wash and a change of clothes.
Buster was making ‘nom nom’ noises as he hungrily vacuumed up everything he could identify as probably edible.
Trying to keep my rage in check, I grabbed his collar and used his body weight as an anchor to get back to my feet.
‘Felicity is not pleased, Buster,’ I pointed out as I started to drag him toward the house.
He gave me a quizzical look. ‘Huh? You found food. You should be over the moon. Finding food always makes me happy.’
‘Get in the house.’ I gave his backside a shove and finally inside, I pushed the door closed.
Mindy was staring at me with a look I might reserve for a shoe if I accidentally stepped in something unmentionable.
‘You don’t smell too good, Auntie,’ she was good enough to let me know with a wrinkle of her nose as she backed away.
Buster licked my bottom.
‘Mmmm, chip shop chips,’ he delighted in identifying. ‘And I think this might be custard.’
I swiped at his nose to get him away and shifted to stand in the middle of the room. Huffing out a disbelieving breath that my day had come to this, I started to strip.
‘Mindy, can you see if there is a black sack under the sink or in one of these cupboards, please. I’ll have to wash this lot at home and then see what the dry cleaners can do.’
‘What are you going to do about clothes?’ she asked while rummaging.
‘I’ll have to see what I can ‘borrow’ from John’s wardrobe. He must have an old pair of jogging bottoms or something.’ Anything would do so long as I didn’t have to walk back to the car in my cotton knickers.
Mindy found a roll of black sacks, the same as the one I foolishly took from the bin, and ripped one off. I stuffed my boots in it.
While I rolled up my lovely rainmac and stuffed it into the sack, Mindy left the kitchen heading for the front of the house. Her voice echoed back, ‘I’ll see if I can find something for you to put on.’
A few more frosted wheats fell to the kitchen tile when I turned my skirt around to inspect the back of it. Buster made to dive forward, but stopped when I snapped, ‘No! Naughty, Buster. Look what happened to Felicity’s clothes.’
Buster sat back on his haunches and tilted his head. ‘I thought you might like to know there is some of that corticosteroid cream in the house.’
The news stopped me dead in my tracks. ‘There is?’
‘I can smell it,’ he boasted.
Frowning at him, I had to ask, ‘How do you know what it smells of?’
Buster wagged his tail. ‘I’m a dog. That’s my job.’ It appeared to be the only explanation I was going to get but it was also good enough to prompt my next question.
‘Where?’
Buster got back to his feet and started toward the front of the house where the front door and foot of the stairs met at the end of a narrow corridor.
Mindy reappeared before we got two feet, an excited/amused expression on her face. She made urgent gestures for me to follow.
‘Come on, Auntie. You have to see this!’
I had no idea what ‘this’ might be, but Mindy wasn’t waiting to explain. She was already running back up the stairs and Buster was right behind her.
Alternative Lifestyles
I stared open-mouthed for many seconds before I found the power to speak.
Mindy was staring too, but she was mostly staring at me to revel in my reaction.
She said, ‘I know, right?’
We were stood in front of an ornate wardrobe in one of John’s back bedrooms. It was a cream colour with ornate scrollwork around the edges and two doors that opened from the centre. The piece of furniture was not what had our attention though, it was the contents.
John liked to play dress up.
In ladies’ clothes.
Thirty or more outfits were stuffed into the wardrobe. One was an ornate ballgown that someone attending a ball two hundred years ago might have worn. On inspection, I found it came with a matching parasol. A pink PVC catsuit was next to it. I didn’t want to think about what purpose the zip running in a straight line up the cleft of the suit’s bottom might have.
Mindy held up another hanger. ‘I think this might be my favourite,’ she giggled.
It was a naughty French maid outfit with a black silk top, a matching black feather duster and a badge that bore the legend ‘I like to be spanked!’.
You might be questioning whether he had a girlfriend, and these were hers, but not unless his girlfriend was over six foot tall and had shoulders twice the width of mine. Also, most of the outfits bore the same label – Hers for Him – inside the collar. I thought that was a bit of a giveaway.
John’s dressing up habits were not germane to the case. At least, I didn’t think they were and though I needed clothes and had access to a wardrobe of items that were at least intended to be feminine, I doubted anything would even nearly fit me. It’s one thing to put a safety pin in a skirt when it’s a size too big. Another thing entirely when it will go around you twice.
We had already been in John’s house too long, which was a redundant statement considering we were not supposed to be in it at all.
Spying something that might work, I snagged a rainmac, the type a stereotyped flasher would wear. It swamped me, but if I cleaned my boots off, it might not look too strange. Using the belt it came with, I tightened it to my body and got back to what I ought to be doing.
Striding for the back bedroom door, I called, ‘Show me where the cream is, Buster.’
I got a woof in response and let him lead me through the upstairs of the house and into what had to be the master bedroom.
Mindy asked, ‘Did he just answer you, Auntie?’
I’d done it again! I would take Buster to the boutique most days, but I guess I am used to acting in a ce
rtain way in that environment, and now out of it, I was failing to hide my secret.
‘Because it sounded like you gave him an instruction and he replied,’ Mindy added.
We were in the master bedroom now where there was no way to prevent Mindy seeing my expression as I fought for something to say.
Buster wagged his tail. ‘Go on, tell her,’ he suggested.
‘Um, it’s just coincidence,’ I lied.
Buster nudged at a bedside cabinet with his nose. ‘It’s in here.’
Mindy’s sceptical frown changed not one bit when I opened the cupboard and took out a tub of corticosteroid cream. It was the same brand as Joanne had in her hands earlier at the hospital, just a smaller version.
What did this tell me?
‘Auntie!’ snapped Mindy, which startled me into meeting her eyes. ‘How did you know to look in there for the cream?’
Now I was caught. ‘Just a wild hunch,’ I lied again. ‘Buster was sniffing around so I followed him.’
She shook her head. ‘Oh, no you didn’t. You told him to show you where the cream was and that means you had to know it was here. How did you know that?’ Did Buster tell you because he could smell it?’
I forced myself to chuckle. ‘How could Buster tell me? He’s a dog.’
Buster woofed. ‘That’s right, I am. Not just a dog though, I am Adventure Dog, scourge of villains everywhere, harbinger of doom for criminals, the bringing of pain for any miscreants stepping outside of the law.’
‘We’re outside the law, Buster,’ I snapped. ‘We just broke into someone’s house.’
Mindy gasped. This time, on edge because I was wearing a transvestite’s rainmac, standing in the master bedroom of a house I had technically broken into, and deprived of sleep, I had talked to Buster right in front of my niece.
‘You just heard what he was thinking, didn’t you!’ Her eyes couldn’t get any wider without her eyeballs popping out.
My brain raced; there had to be a way to laugh this off as my little joke, but if there was, I couldn’t see it fast enough.
Flummoxed, I sat on the bed. ‘I can only hear him and Amber,’ I admitted. ‘It’s not all animals, just my own.’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ squeaked Mindy. ‘How?’
I snorted a wry laugh. ‘I have no idea.’ Buster stood on his back legs to snuffle my hand in support. I felt like I was at an AA meeting or something and getting the cathartic buzz of finally confessing my shame. ‘It started when I was little. I think I have always been able to do this but only with the animals closest to me. My parents got rid of our pets when I was very small because I used to talk to them all the time. They thought I was pretending. So did your mum.’
‘So mum can’t do this too?’
I skewed my lips to one side. ‘I don’t think so. If she can, then she has been lying about it for a long time.’
Mindy came around the bed. I thought she was coming to see Buster, but she jerked to a stop and darted to the window. The suddenness of her movements put me on alert.
‘There’s someone at the car,’ Mindy murmured, staring intently down the road.
I was up and on my feet in a heartbeat, racing to stand beside my niece at the window. True to her word, a man was at her car, his hands cupped around his face as he peered through the driver’s window. He was average height and build, in his early forties with thinning dark brown hair. Dressed in an everyday outfit of dark jeans, running shoes, and a waist-length black leather jacket, he could be anyone.
Mindy said, ‘Maybe it’s the man from the black BMW.’
I couldn’t say one way or another. ‘I don’t recognise him, whoever he is.’
Buster put his front paws on the wall but was still too short to look out of the window. ‘Pick me up so I can see.’
I snorted a laugh. I could pick Buster up, but I avoided doing so for fear I will snap my spine one day. He is like lifting a dead weight.
The man turned away from the car and looked up at the house. Mindy and I both ducked even though I felt certain he couldn’t see us through the net curtain. Now peering over the edge of the windowsill like children, we watched him coming toward the house.
Mindy squeaked, ‘Auntie, what do we do?’
My heart had begun to race again. This was yet another twist to the mystery. Who the heck was this guy? He clearly knew who we were and whether he was the man in the black BMW or not, he was here snooping on us.
‘He’s coming up the drive!’ hissed Mindy.
Buster started back toward the landing and the stairs. ‘Don’t worry ladies. It’s fighting time. I’ll get this one.’
I lunged across the room, grabbing hold of his tail to stop him. ‘This is not the time to attack someone, Buster,’ I whispered for fear my voice would be heard outside. ‘We can just wait in here for a few minutes. He’ll probably just go away, and we can leave then. Or maybe he’ll wander around the back and we can sneak out the front and leg it to the car.’
‘That sounds like a plan,’ said Mindy, still peering down through the window.
The noise we heard next changed that plan fast.
‘Did you leave the front door unlocked?’ I squeaked in fear as we heard it open.
Mindy had a hand over her mouth and a look of horror in her eyes. ‘I think I left the key in the lock,’ she gasped.
Buster was still facing the bedroom door, my hand on his tail the only thing holding him in check.
‘Is it fighting time now?’ he asked. ‘Cornered. No way out. Badly outnumbered. It’s time for Adventure Dog to kick some butt.’
‘Um, he’s the one who is outnumbered,’ I pointed out. ‘There’re three of us.’
Buster glared at the stairs. ‘Semantics. I think the record can show there was a numerical disadvantage. That will be enough detail. Now let me go and try to be brave while I face down the horde courageously so you can escape.’
A man’s voice rang out from downstairs. ‘Hello?’
Getting to my feet, I said, ‘Dog, you really do talk a lot of twaddle. Mindy, get his back end.’
Using his tail, because it was still the only bit I had hold of, I dragged Buster back a yard and hooked my arms around his chest. He was going to bark in protest, so I clamped a hand over his mouth, getting righteously slobbered in the process. Behind me Mindy looped her arm around his waist.
‘What are you doing?’ Buster wanted to know.
‘Hiding,’ I whispered. ‘Keep quiet.’
‘Adventure dog does not hide. Not unless he is about to surprise ambush someone.’
‘That’s exactly what I have planned,’ I hissed next to Buster’s ear to keep him calm. I was a terrible liar, but the dog would have struggled to free himself if I hadn’t come up with something.
We tiptoed across the bedroom until I could peek around the doorframe. We could hear the man moving around downstairs. It sounded like he was in the kitchen. My heart sunk again as I remembered that was where I’d left my stinking clothes.
Mindy leaned close to my head to whisper, ‘He’s going to find us, Auntie. Maybe I should just take him out. I’m not really dressed for it, but if I hitch my skirt up, I should be able to kick properly.’
Buster agreed. ‘Yeah. We can tag-team him. You go high and I’ll go low. He won’t know what hit him.’
‘Good grief,’ I muttered quietly. Both my sidekicks wanted to opt for violence first.
Mindy asked, ‘What? Did Buster just tell you something?’
‘Only that he agrees with your plan to knock out the man downstairs.’ Before she could start hitching up her skirt – quite what the man would make of it when my nineteen-year-old niece ran at him with her knickers on display, I did not wish to consider – I cut her off. ‘He might be armed, Mindy. Did you think of that?’
‘Sure, Auntie. I’m armed too.’
I swore in my head and remembered the pair of batons she pulled from the small of her back a week ago. At the time, someone we thought might be a killer wa
s trying to get away and my death-defying niece stopped her.
‘Or he might just be a neighbour. We are not going to beat him up. I already have the police watching me.’
Mindy giggled. ‘This is so cool.’
I did not agree, but time for further conversation was lost because we heard his feet on the stairs.
Desperately Outnumbered
Holding my breath and fighting to keep hold of Buster as he wriggled to get free, I backed us into the master bedroom again.
The man called out again. ‘Hello? Anyone here?’
‘There’s no way out, Auntie,’ hissed Mindy, her face right next to my ear.
I worried she was right. I had the cream as evidence – of a sort – but there had been no chance to inspect the rest of the house. I’d hoped to find John’s computer and for there to be notes written on a pad to tell me what was going on. No chance of that now.
With my heart thumping in my chest, I snuck a glance around the doorframe. The man had his back to us, looking in through the bedroom at the back where he must now be able to see the open wardrobe full of man-sized ladies’ clothes.
Mindy saw him too but unlike me, she made a decision and reacted.
‘Here, hold Buster,’ she whispered as she thrust the rear end of my dog at me. She was already running by me and into the upstairs landing when the full weight of my bulldog hit me.
I still had him by his chest and the sudden imbalance was too much for my slight frame to hold. Falling to the side with Buster beneath me, I got to see Mindy’s bottom as she yanked her pencil skirt up around her waist.
The man sensed or heard her coming. Or perhaps just heard me doing a bad job of keeping quiet as I fell on top of Buster, but he was starting to turn around when Mindy got to him.
His eyes went wide in surprise about a half second before Mindy kicked him in his ribs. His feet were still facing into the room – only his top half was twisted to look at my niece, but the effect would have been much the same no matter which way he might have been standing.
Catapulted into the room, the average looking man bounced along the carpet and sprawled in a heap against the far wall. Mindy yanked the door shut.