Unfortunately for him, that meant he needed to wear the harness.
I only hoped the favor he requested of me would be something I could legally and physically obtain for him. You just never knew with this guy. That’s part of what made living with him so exciting most days.
Then there were days like today…
I knew the worst of his agitation was yet to come.
Grabbing a thick, long-sleeved jacket from the closet, I took a deep breath and led our motley party toward Charles’s waiting car.
It was time for phase two.
Chapter Nine
We arrived in the Hayes’s old neighborhood less than ten minutes later, and Yo-Yo immediately perked up upon taking in the familiar sights and smells. He barked, howled, whimpered, and whined, all before we even managed to find a place to park the car.
“What’s he saying?” I asked Octo-Cat, who sat velcroed to my lap in the passenger seat. Since I wasn’t driving this time, I’d had the blessedly bright idea to bring a cushion to place between his claws and me. Never before had I enjoyed such a nice car ride with my agoraphobic cat.
Octo-Cat, of course, was still less than thrilled to be in the moving vehicle. It took a few moments before he answered. “He’s calling out to his mom and dad and letting them know he’s come home,” he explained between nervous pants.
“Oh, that’s really sad,” I responded after offering a quick translation for Charles. Despite the obvious seriousness of the situation, speaking to each other like this reminded me of the old schoolyard game of telephone. How warped did Yo-Yo’s words become by the time they finally reached Charles?
“Definitely a vulnerable witness,” Charles agreed with my earlier assessment while pulling up to the curb and putting the car in park. “Poor guy.”
“You still haven’t told me the plan,” Octo-Cat said as I helped him untangle his claws from the cushion and placed him gently on the pavement outside.
Charles grabbed Yo-Yo’s leash and came around the car to stand beside us. The excited terrier strained so hard against his leash, he began to wheeze.
“Yup. Dum-Dum is definitely a much better name for this dog,” Octo-Cat said with a contented grin, clearly feeling like himself again now that he was back on solid ground. “Upchuck suits the human, too.”
“Yes, yes, you’re a great nicknamer,” I said to placate him, resisting the urge to roll my eyes now that he knew what the gesture meant. Instead, I chose to answer his earlier question. “The plan is to walk around the neighborhood and see what Yo-Yo can tell us about his life before. Something he says could give us a clue as to who besides Brock might have committed the murder.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you just told Dum-Dum the truth about what happened and asked him to help?” Octo-Cat almost seemed as if he was trying to help, but I suspected the real goal was to end his involvement with our case as soon as felinely possible.
“No!” I shouted at the same time Yo-Yo screeched and began to twist at the end of the leash. Any passerby would have thought we were torturing the poor Yorkie. Thankfully, we had the street to ourselves for the moment.
“Dum-Dum says he wants to know the truth,” Octo-Cat explained with a bored expression and a yawn.
“Ugh, stop making things harder than they have to be,” I scolded him. “And stop being such an elitist. His name is Yo-Yo, and you know it.”
“Yes, I’m the one making things harder here,” my cat said, widening his eyes in the direction of the neon-colored leash that tied me and him together. He let out an exasperated huff and looked away.
I’d had more than enough of his complaints, especially since Yo-Yo was still panicking—and doing so loudly. Dropping to my haunches, I stared the obstinate tabby down and said, “If you want your return favor, you’ll do things the way I want them done. You hear?”
He cringed. “Say it. Don’t spray it. And you don’t have to shout, either.”
Okay, that was it. I would definitely be restricting his TV access. It was bad enough when he was watching educational cartoons all hours of the day, but now he’d turned into a snarky teenager—and that was just too much when combined with his already snarky feline temperament. Besides, he needed to learn that his actions had consequences.
Ugh. Here I was still in my twenties and yet somehow also a single mother to a whiny teenager. I owed Nan and my parents a huge apology for all the irritating know-it-all things I’d done as a teenage brat myself.
“Are we agreed?” I asked pointedly as I stood up and Charles bent down to pick up Yo-Yo so that he would stop hurting himself.
“Fine,” Octo-Cat spat out. “What do you want me to tell him?”
I put on a huge smile to show Octo-Cat how pleased I was about his cooperation. I knew better than to call him a good boy in front of mixed company, even though he loved hearing those words when it was just the two of us at home. “Tell him his mom and dad are away on a trip right now, but we’re going to take a walk around his neighborhood together because we’d love to hear about all his favorite memories with them.”
“You do realize this is going to be torture for me, right?”
“You’ll live,” I shot back.
Octo-Cat conveyed my message to Yo-Yo, who briefly stopped panting and slipped his tongue back inside his mouth. A few seconds later, his enthusiasm returned, and he struggled to break free of Charles’s grasp once more.
“Ready?” Charles asked.
When I nodded, he placed the terrier on the ground, and the four of us began our walk around the neighborhood with Yo-Yo proudly leading the way.
“Do I have to translate everything he says?” Octo-Cat whined less than a minute into our jaunt.
“Yes, everything,” I answered.
Charles stayed oddly silent as the animals and I conversed. On the rare occasion we ran into another walker, he spoke, too, so that I would appear at least somewhat less insane. I was still walking a very angry-looking cat on a leash, after all.
“Careful, he bites,” Charles warned a pair of blue-haired ladies in track suits when it looked like they were going to try to pet Octo-Cat.
Octo-Cat hissed and arched his back for good measure, then laughed when they quickened their pace and power-walked right on by us. “That was kind of fun,” he said as he shook it out.
“Awesome, so glad you’re enjoying yourself. Now, what is Yo-Yo saying?” I demanded. I was glad Octo-Cat had found a way to make the experience more palatable, but we needed him to stay focused on the entire reason for this trip in the first place.
The tabby sighed and twitched his whiskers and moved his ears back and forth. “Let me just turn on my Dum-Dum receptors… There.”
“Haha, you’re hilarious. Now stop with the stand-up comedy and start with the translation already.”
“Fiiiiiiiine,” he drew that single word out for at least seven syllables before finally doing as he was told. He sighed and said, “Well, that rock we just passed a few paces back, that’s one of his favorite places to pee. Once he saw a squirrel crossing the road here, and it ran so fast he couldn’t catch up. Birds like to sit in that tree over there. He also enjoys peeing there. There’s usually a nest every spring. The kids who live in that house up ahead like to run through the sprinklers in summer, and sometimes they invite him to play…”
I was starting to get his hesitation about translating everything Yo-Yo said. It all came out so fast there was no way I could relay it to Charles. I offered him an apologetic glance before asking Octo-Cat, “Do you think you could ask him some questions for me?”
He just kept walking without so much as looking at me.
I took his silence as agreement. “Ask him if he likes all the people who live in this neighborhood.”