by Nic Saint
“Odd,” I said, but then shrugged it off.
We walked out just when Odelia and Chase arrived home, and they seemed to have decided to follow our example, for they also joined us outside, only whereas we stretched out on the smooth lawn, enjoying the cool feel of the grass tickling our bellies, our humans stretched out on the lawn chairs, a cooling glass of some fruity liquid in hand, complete with straws and all.
“So I talked to the people at Spindler,” said Chase, “and they claim that Carl was one of their best customers.”
“Oh, the dating app people?” said Odelia.
“They say that Carl spent so much time on their app that in short order he’d become their number one customer.”
“And Zoe?”
“No dice, I’m afraid. Whoever Zoe is, they have no idea.”
“But she is on Spindler.”
“Oh, sure, but they take the privacy of their customers very seriously. Anyone can set up a profile with them. And there’s no way to know who’s behind the profile.”
“So Zoe could literally be anyone.”
“Pretty much.”
“Too bad. If she was there last night, she’s either a witness or a suspect.”
“As far as we can tell, the attack on Carl happened just before you arrived, so our main suspect is still Emma Hudson,” said Chase.
“I thought I was your main suspect?”
“You were never a suspect, babe. But the fact that your fingerprints are on that club needs to be explained away somehow. You’re absolutely sure you didn’t touch it?”
“Absolutely sure,” she confirmed.
“Then it remains a mystery,” said Chase with a frown as he took a sip from his glass. “So let’s go over this one more time. Emma Hudson had opportunity, means and motive, but frankly I don’t like her for this. I have a feeling she’s covering for the real culprit.”
“Another member of the Hampton Heisters,” said Odelia, nodding. “I have the same impression.”
“And then of course there’s Erica Barn. She most definitely had motive, and she could easily have dropped by the house—she knew the way—gotten into an argument with her soon-to-be ex-husband and knocked him out when his back was turned.”
“Could be,” Odelia allowed.
“But did she?”
“That is the big question.”
They were both silent for a moment, as they contemplated this, then Odelia said, “Some guy was filming Max and Dooley today. Following them around everywhere.”
“A stalker?”
“Looks like. He was even telling them how they’re spies for me, and how they go around collecting information all over town and delivering it to me.”
“That’s worrying. What did he look like?”
“Chubby round-faced individual. Red ball cap on his head. Isn’t that right, Max?”
“Exactly right,” I told her from my position on the lawn. “He was very brazen about it, too. Kept shoving that phone into our faces and wouldn’t stop filming, even after I brought out the old claws.”
“Max threatened him with his claws,” Odelia translated, “and he still wouldn’t stop filming.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” suddenly Chase burst out, then got up in a fluid motion, and bellowed, “Hey, you!”
“Oh, hi,” said the individual he was addressing. And lo and behold: it was our stalker! This time he was hiding in the bushes nearby, filming our entire conversation!
“What the hell!” Chase cried as he joined the stalker with three long-legged strides, then took him by the collar and pretty much dragged him out of those bushes.
“Owowow!” the stalker cried. “Don’t hurt me, officer!”
“So you know I’m a cop. What else do you know?”
The guy grinned. “I know that your wife can talk to cats, and that her cats can talk to her, that’s what I know. And I’ve got it all on my phone. And this is going to make for one very interesting vlog!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Chase as he tightened his grip on the guy.
“Hey, do you want me to file a complaint about police brutality, dude? Let go of me!”
But Chase didn’t let go. Instead he squeezed a little harder. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do to a person I caught trespassing in my backyard,” Chase growled, dragging the man’s face close to his. “Who are you and what the hell are you up to?”
“My name is Frank Beaver and I run Beaver’s Cleaver, only the most incisive and popular vlog in Hampton Cove.”
“If you’re so popular, why is it I’ve never heard of you?”
“Yet. You haven’t heard of me yet. But once I post this particular vlog, I’ll be famous—world famous, in fact!”
“You’re not going to post any vlogs,” said Chase. “What you are going to do is apologize to my wife, and then you’re going to hand me your phone and I’m going to delete what you just filmed.”
“That won’t do you any good,” said the guy.
“And why is that?”
“Because all of my vlogs are automatically synced to the cloud.”
“Then I’m going to ask you to delete your stuff in the cloud.”
“No way, dude.”
Chase now lifted the guy up from the ground, his feet kicking the air like in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and brought him nose to nose with him. “I’m not asking, ‘dude.’ I’m telling you: delete all of your stuff. Now.”
“Or what? You’re going to hit me? That’ll make another great vlog: local cop charged with police brutality.”
“You’re still trespassing,” said Chase. “And I’m not just a cop, I’m also a private citizen. And I don’t like it when people come into my backyard and start filming my wife!”
“Look, this is a story that’s just too good to ignore,” said the guy. “Local reporter who gets all of her clues and her stories from her cats? That’s just great, dude!”
“You’re going to forget you ever laid eyes on my wife, or her cats, and you’re going to get out of here and crawl back into your cave, or your mom’s basement, cause if you don’t…”
The guy grinned. “I know my rights. You can’t make me do anything.”
Chase looked over to Odelia, who nodded. Reluctantly, Chase returned the vlogger to terra firma. Immediately the guy held out his hand. “Give me back my phone,” he said.
“Where did you get the idea to follow me and my cats around?” asked Odelia.
“An anonymous tip.”
“I’m going to hang on to your phone for now,” said Chase.
“Suit yourself. Like I said, I’ve got the whole thing locked in the cloud, ready to upload to my YouTube channel at a moment’s notice. Well, after I do some minor editing, that is.”
“You’re not seriously considering posting this stuff, are you?” asked Odelia.
“Oh, absolutely. Story like this? It’s going to go viral, dude.”
“It’s also going to make my life very difficult,” Odelia pointed out.
Frank Beaver shrugged. Clearly he wasn’t too concerned about that.
“Don’t post it, okay?” said Odelia.
“I won’t post it if you promise to give me an exclusive interview and explain to my viewers how you manage to talk to your cats. And I want to interview your cats, too, with you supplying the translation.”
“That is never going to happen,” said Chase.
“Then I’m very sorry,” said the vlogger.
“You can’t do this,” Odelia said.
“Look on the bright side: you’ll soon be America’s most famous small-town reporter.”
And as the guy walked away, giving me and Dooley two thumbs up, he had a big grin on his face the Cheshire cat would have been proud of.
24
Rufus was taking a well-deserved nap after just having gone for a walk with his human and his two new feline friends, when the hair at the back of his neck suddenly stood up, a clear sign someone was watching him.
And when he opened one eye, he saw that his neck hairs hadn’t been mistaken: Harriet was staring straight at him, not looking like a new feline friend should.
“Rufus!” she cried. “Are you kidding?”
“Um… no?” he said tentatively. It was one of those questions it’s very hard to give the right answer to, he’d discovered, as it was a question Harriet liked to use a lot, and he still had to find an appropriate response.
“What were you thinking!”
“Um… I was thinking of my ball, actually,” he confessed. He often thought of his ball, now more than ever, since Brutus had gotten it into his head to try and catch it as much as he possibly could, which meant there was less playtime for Rufus, unfortunately.
“Smoochie poo, just leave Rufus alone,” said Brutus.
“No, I’m not going to leave Rufus alone,” said Harriet decidedly. “He has to learn that there are consequences to his actions.”
“What consequences? What actions?” asked Rufus, absolutely unaware of what he could possibly have done to deserve this harsh rebuke.
They were in the backyard, with Rufus lying in his usual spot on the paved stone that he considered his personal paved stone. It was nicely heated up by the sun, and had a good view of the backyard and those tweeting birds dipping into the fountain Ted had recently placed there. And of course his ball was nearby, just in case Ted decided to come out of the house and play around with it for a while—always a possibility.
“You stole my spot!” said Harriet.
“What spot?” asked Rufus, mystified.
“That spot you’re lying in—that’s my spot!”
“But…”
“I picked that spot and now you stole it. Get up!”
“But I don’t want to get up,” he said.
“Get up right now!”
And since Rufus was basically an easygoing dog, he did as he was told. All those Saturday mornings spent at the obedience school had drilled it into him that he had to listen to the voice of authority, and if there was any voice that was authoritative, it most definitely was Harriet’s.
“Thank you,” said Harriet. “Now move.” He moved, and Harriet lay down in the spot he’d just vacated. “I like this spot,” she said. “It’s the spot I chose for myself, and so from now on you will never steal this spot away from me, is that understood, Rufus?”
“Yes, Harriet.”
“Good. And one more thing. Did you eat your entire bowl?”
“I did.” He always ate his entire bowl. That was the point of having a bowl: you ate it all until it was empty, and then Ted or Marcie filled it up again. It was the circle of life.
“You can’t do that,” said Harriet.
“I can’t?”
“No, of course you can’t! You have to learn how to share, Rufus. Now I know you’re not used to sharing, at least not like me and Brutus, but if we’re going to live together you need to learn this very important part of living together with two other… dogs.”
Rufus narrowed his eyes. He still found it a little hard to accept that Harriet and Brutus were dogs now. They looked like cats, they behaved like cats, and so in his view they were cats. But apparently that was no longer the case.
“So from now on you’re going to leave half of your bowl uneaten, and Brutus and I are going to take turns eating what remains. That way we all get equal nourishment.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, because he didn’t.
Harriet sighed an exaggerated sigh. “Look, for some reason the Trappers have gotten it into their nuts that just because Brutus and I are new that we have to have the smaller bowls.”
“Oh, right,” said Rufus. He had noticed how Harriet’s bowl and Brutus’s bowl were much smaller than his, but had naturally assumed that this was because they were also much smaller animals. He was easily five times Brutus’s size, so he probably needed five times the amount of food he got.
“It’s not fair. You know it, I know it, and Brutus knows it. But unfortunately it’s very hard for us to explain to Ted and Marcie. So for now, and until I can get Gran or Marge or Odelia to talk to Ted and Marcie, you’re going to share your kibble with us. Is that clear?”
“Um…”
“Do I make myself clear?!”
“Yes—Yes, Harriet, it’s very clear!” he hurried to say. About as clear as mud.
Half an hour later, when Harriet and Brutus had left to go traipsing about unleashed, as they liked to do—proving once more that they were, in fact, cats and not dogs—Rufus saw that another cat had joined him. It was none other than Max, and he was looking at him through the hole in the fence.
“Hey, buddy,” said Max. “How are you holding up?”
“Not well, Max,” he admitted. “Harriet wants to eat from my bowl, and she’s also taken over my favorite spot. And Brutus has taken over my ball and he’s now playing with Ted all the time, seriously cutting into my playtime.” He sighed deeply. “How did you live with these cats all this time and not go stark-raving mad?”
Max laughed at this. “I guess it takes some getting used to. But in time I’m sure you’ll reach some kind of entente and you’ll find that Harriet and Brutus are great friends.”
“But Harriet is horrible, Max! She drives me crazy!”
“She probably needs a little time to settle in.”
“Can’t you please get rid of her for me? Can’t you convince your humans to take her back? I had a good life, and now it’s completely ruined. And besides, she’s not a dog, and Brutus is not a dog, and still they both insist that they’re dogs now. But they’re not!”
“Brutus is having a difficult time,” said Max, “but I’m sure it will soon blow over, and then he’ll understand that his old life wasn’t as bad as all that.”
Hope surged in the big sheepdog’s bosom. “So you think this is all just a temporary thing? That things will soon go back to normal?”
“I’m not sure, Rufus, but I certainly hope so.” He gestured to the Pooles’ house, or what was left of it, and where now builders were busy creating a brand-new structure on the ruins of the old foundations. “Brutus and Harriet lost their home, you see, and I think it messed with their minds a little—especially Brutus. Once the house is ready I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to come home again.”
“And how long is that going to take?”
“Oh, about three months or so?”
“Three months! Max, you have to do something. I can’t take three months of this!”
“Just hang in there, Rufus. You can do it.”
“No, I can’t. If this keeps up, I’m going to elope, I swear. Harriet has even ruined dog choir for us—dog choir! Which is now run by a cat!”
“Look, I’ll talk to Marge, all right? See if she can’t talk some sense into Brutus.”
“Oh, please, Max, do. Save me from—”
“Save you from what?” suddenly asked Harriet. Rufus saw to his horror that the monster had returned, to make his life miserable once more.
“Save him from that terrible noise,” Max was quick to say.
“What noise?” asked Harriet, looking as irritable and unreasonable as ever.
“The construction,” said Max. “It’s messing with his peace of mind, isn’t that right, Rufus?”
“It does,” Rufus said, directing a grateful look at the big blorange cat. “It really does.”
“I don’t see how Max can save you from that noise,” Harriet snapped. “It’s called building a house, Rufus. Noise is a given. So just get over it already, will you?”
And with these words, she directed a pointed look at Rufus, causing the latter to quickly jump up from his favorite spot and abandon it so Harriet could take over.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Harriet,” Max warned.
“Do what?” asked Harriet as she lay down comfortably.
“You do realize that dogs have fleas?”
Harriet glanced at Rufus, a horrified look in her eyes. “Fleas!”
>
“Yeah, it’s natural for all dogs to have fleas and other parasites. There’s nothing vets can do about it either. They treat them and a couple of days later they’re full of the annoying little bugs again. They’re used to it, too. Isn’t that right, Rufus?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Rufus, following Max’s lead. “I’m at a point in my life where they don’t bother me anymore. I’ve simply learned to live with them over the years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me!” Harriet demanded, suddenly jumping up as if the ground had bitten her.
“They do jump over to cats you know,” said Max, “and they are a lot more annoying for us than they are for dogs.”
“Get them off me!” Harriet cried. “Brutus, get them off! I can feel them crawling all over me!”
“Oh, dear,” said Brutus softly as he gave a curious glance in Max’s direction.
“Also, if I were you I wouldn’t eat from Rufus’s bowl,” Max added.
“And why not? Kibble is kibble,” said Harriet.
“Because they put something in dog kibble that’s very healthy for dogs but lethal for cats.”
“Lethal!” Harriet cried.
“Yeah, it’s called dognip. Dogs are crazy about it, just like cats are crazy about catnip. Only it does something nasty to our digestive system. Very nasty, indeed.”
“Dognip! I didn’t even know that dognip existed!”
“Oh, it does,” said Max.
“It stands to reason, sugar pumpkin,” said Brutus. “That’s why the dog food aisle is different from the cat food aisle. If dogs could eat cat food and vice versa, they wouldn’t have to sell it in different packaging now would they?”
“I always thought dog kibble was the same as cat kibble!” said Harriet, who’d plunked down on the lawn and was frantically scratching herself behind the ears. “Brutus! Come over here. Get rid of this flea. I swear it’s biting me in the neck!”
“Of course, twinkle toes,” said Brutus, and got busy plucking the imaginary flea from his true love’s fur. And since Harriet had a lot of fur, it was going to take him a little time.
Rufus flashed a quick grin to Max when Harriet and Brutus weren’t looking, and mouthed, ‘Thank you!’