“Who was the man who called you?” I mentally projected at Sam’s inert form. “Who was that man on the phone?” Or, more important still, “Who is the man with the pimple?” And, most importantly, “Who is Bluebell?”
But no thought emanated from Sam other than that the clown had now discovered a trap door on stage and was lowering himself through it in order to affect his escape. Raucous laughter from the audience spurred him on, and after a last wave and a sad smile, he dropped himself through the hatch and was gone.
“Discouraging,” whispered Stevie, returning to a more classic mode of conversation. “The man is impervious to our methods of interrogation.”
I sighed.“Impervious is right.”
“Perhaps if we wait long enough, something will come up? I mean, it’s not as if we have somewhere to be.”
Once again my esteemed colleague was right. There was nowhere else to go and nothing else to investigate right now. Brookridge Park was off limits, and the only other person who could shed some light on the Bluebell mystery was Zack, who was also fast asleep. But waiting by his side or continuing our Sam vigil amounted to the same thing.
“Let’s make it a night out with the boys!” whispered Stevie, after I’d mentally consented to his idea. “I’ll bring the kibble, you bring the milk.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?” I said, already regretting the whole scheme.
Stevie scratched his scalp.“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I know.”
The night went as most nights do: uneventful to a degree. I would have liked to say we came up with some great new insights into the mind of man, or some clue or vital piece of evidence that solved the whole mystery with a snap, but it didn’t exactly turn out this way.
As far as insights into the human psyche go, after the clown episode Sam went on to dream about a frog reciting a poem in front of a crowd of thousands, and suddenly noticing he hasn’t brought his hat. Feeling terribly naked without his hat, he then hops off the stage, leaving the crowd roaring with laughter. So yeah, the guy definitely had issues. But since I’m not the Freudster, they didn’t really grip me.
Frankly, by the time he started dreaming about a rabbit, standing in front of a football stadium and reading from his collected works during the break, I called it quits.
“Hey, where are you going?” said Stevie, who was following the rabbit story with rapt attention.
“I’m going home,” I said.
“But don’t you want to know how the story ends?”
“It starts to rain. The rabbit discovers he came out without his umbrella. He disappears into a left field rabbit hole. The crowd laughs its collective fanny off. See ya later, partner.”
Stevie, who was still tuned into Sam’s reveries, turned to me with an awed expression on his mug. “You’re right!” he said. “It just started to rain! How did you know?”
I merely gave a tired shrug. Though sitting up nights is a mainstay of any cat’s life, it usually doesn’t involve having to psychoanalyze a sleeping man’s dream world. Somehow it just didn’t feel right, intruding upon his private space like that. And it sure as heck didn’t feel productive.
I ambled through Father Sam’s small vegetable garden—tomatoes and lettuce—as the sun slowly rose, heralding a new and glorious day for all of Brookridge—and probably the rest of the word as well, though that was of no concern to me, per se. I stretched, arching my back, and wondered when I’d hear from Dana. Considering the fact that both Stevie and I featured pretty low on the FSA totem pole, I had a feeling this would be later rather than sooner. She was probably too busy solving the Brookridge Park murder case. Or had perhaps already solved it. She and her three Peterbald heavies.
By now she had probably planted the information about the man-with-the-pimple in Bart Ganglion’s policeman’s brain and that most capable officer had made an arrest and the case of Lucy Knicx’s unfortunate demise was closed.
I yawned; what did I expect? That two rookies, not even having started on their first day of spy school, would crack this case wide open? Fat chance. I strolled homeward, passing the back yards of the few houses that stood between Father Sam’s presbytery and the end of Tulip Street, and was once again on familiar turf: Bellflower Street. I passed through the back yards of Tanner Tompon’s place, Terrell McCrady and Lexie Moonstone’s dwelling, and past Royce Moppett’s house. And this is where the trouble began.
As you may or may not know, Royce Moppett is the human who once must have made a grave error in a previous life. Whether it was accidentally poisoning his King and Queen whilst working as a castle cook or invading the wrong country whilst crusading for the Pope, Karma, that humorless equalizer, has now saddled him with the dubious honor of being the caretaker of Brutus, that blot on the Brookridge scene. And Brutus, having not much else to do than bully his own kind, is always on the prowl for potential victims. He was so now, for I hadn’t crossed halfway through the Moppett yard, when his raspy voice rang out behind me.
“Where do you think you’re going, meatball?”
20
Brutus Has a Theory
I sagged a little, for the last thing I wanted now was to get into a tussle with that horrid Persian.“Just passing through,” I said casually, as I picked up my pace. Once in my own garden, Brutus usually backs off. Zack has a way of chasing him away that doesn’t appeal to the big brute’s sense of self-esteem. No bully likes to be bullied by the bigger bully. Not that Zack is a bully, but he is big, and he hates Moppett’s guts, a sentiment he courteously extends to all things Moppett, including Brutus.
I was just about to hop through the fence to the safety of my own yard, when Brutus cut me off. He’s one of those cats who likes to play with his victims before pouncing on them. Much the same way I like to play with a mouse before… Now that I come to think of it, perhaps this, once again, is Karma at work?
“Tell me something,” Brutus snarled, blocking my safe passage. “Have you told anyone about our little conversation?”
I frowned.“What conversation?” So much had happened that night that I honestly didn’t remember.
He looked none too pleased at the deficiency of my memory.“The ghost,” he barked. “The napmares I’ve been having about the dead broad. You remember? You told me to see Dana about them.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said, greatly relieved. “You did tell me about those.” I now realized that Brutus seemed oddly perplexed. And what I’d mistaken for his usual ruffian demeanor was merely a front to hide his perturbation at a phenomenon he didn’t understand and therefore feared.
“Well, I went to see Dana.”
“And how did it go?”
“Not too well,” he said gruffly, as he stared at his paws. “She was with three ugly-looking brutes who told me to take a hike the moment I approached her. Dana herself was busy, she said, and if I could come back some other time. Too busy,” he scoffed. “Can you beat it? Too busy to help out her fellow cat?”
“I met those Peterbalds,” I said, for lack of anything better to say. “They’re not nice.”
“Not nice! That’s the understatement of the year, buddy!”
It was the first time that Brutus had ever referred to me with this epitaph, which was definitely a step up from his usual meatball or fathead. I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, well…”
“Those guys are animals,” he said, and his voice suddenly took on a conspiratorial note. “I bet they come from Southridge.”
It’s one of those facts of life that, faced with a common enemy, old enemies become friends. Southridge is our neighboring town, and whenever bad things happen in Brookridge, the blame invariably falls on Southridge.
“I bet they do,” I said. I had a theory that the Peterbalds were probably manufactured in a secret FSA lab somewhere, but I refrained from voicing this idea. I was, after all, an FSA agent now, and even though I had yet to sign a formal agreement, I was presumably bound by a long list of confidentiality clauses and whatnot.