Unleashed: Tail One Read online

  “Yes. And I’m positive the cat was involved. I simply can’t prove it,” I grumbled, and filched a fourth cherry pastry for the road.

  The cat print intrigued me, wedged in my craw. I was asphyxiated with the urge to cough up an explanation, spit out a plausible assumption for the feline’s presence. Curiosity? I prided myself on never settling for trite theories that excluded an element of surprise. Okay, most cases were mundane, but I prayed for the uncommon.

  Visually scouring the premises, I nonverbally pondered what they did for entertainment without T.V.

  A cache of parlor games satisfied the riddle.

  Jumbles of books tallied additional proof The Smiths were not your typical everyday family.

  Sipping her tea, the lady mildly interrogated: “Have you moved into his house, Detective?”

  “What?” I sneezed and slopped caffeine on my shirt, despite holding the porcelain cup and saucer near my chin. “Aaahh!”

  “Are you all right?” The Stepford Wife reflexively boinged off her couch, equipped with a tidy stack of serviettes.

  “Excuse me, I’m fine.” Swabbing with a damp tie (the hanky I carried was predisposed), I accepted embossed paper napkins to mop my bulging burned gut. “And, uh, no ma’am, I haven’t. Moved in. Next door. I just spend a lot of time there,” I stammered. “Searching for answers.”

  “We see you in the windows,” she accused, “and the yard.” Sinking to the davenport, she smoothed her skirt. “Sometimes I sense it’s my family who’s under observation. As if your scrutiny were focused upon our house, not his.” She sat forward. “Are we suspects?”

  “No, certainly not. Bernice, my bride, thinks I’m obsessed with the matter and I must admit, the cat — I mean the case — really has me stumped. I feel I’ve only grazed the surface of this Miller fella’s life. It’s a mystery.”

  Fibers tickled sinuses. Dander irritated eyes. I blotted leaky nasal plumbing with a saturated wad of napkins and sneezed explosively.

  “I notice you’ve been feeding his orphan,” I alleged.

  “It seemed the humane thing to do.”

  “Is it here now?”

  “I don’t know where she’s gone. Probably home to mourn. It’s so sad.”

  “Yeah.” A glib voice betrayed my level of sympathy. Zero.

  The woman escorted me to her door. “Good luck, Detective MacNamara.”

  “It’s MacKowski,” I corrected.

  The door closed firmly.

  Maybe I was overstaying my welcome. I would have to be more discreet. Honking into my handkerchief, I scuffed to Miller’s house beneath a leaden drizzle.

  “Me-ow! Mee-oow! Me-ouch!” Dogbreath brutishly lodged a foot square on my tail, interrupting a midday prowl. It had rained slightly. Air tasted fishy. I was serenading the songbirds that jabbered in the branches of an oak. Rags — appropriate assessment — chewed his tether to bushwhack me along the side of the house.

  Drooling cur! Blithering bowser! I squalled and dove to my ancient hunting ground, which reeked of that two-legged moron who enjoyed skulking in my wake.

  The mangy moose popped out of a foxhole dredged to covertly monitor my jaunts. (Poised on a windowsill, I had amewsedly supervised his excavations while he sweated evenings spading soil.)

  The ditch digger tediously clambered from a soggy trench and pursued. I sprinted to the sidewalk, a pair of bloodhounds briefly on my trail, and leapt chainlinks thwarting Muttly, trotted up a rail and vaulted from a porch, skipped roof to roof an agile gymnast, sprang nimbly fence to lawn, then squeezed between loose planks into an alley.

  I strutted triumphant, head and exclamation-mark high.

  The dratted detective lumbered to the alley from a cross street.

  Fur bristling, spine arched, caudal extremity puffed, I confronted the idiot. Releasing a yowl I charged. The galoot fled. This was fun! Like the time I nudged a brick off the roof when he was crouched below.

  I cherished the romps with Blunderbutt so enormously, I failed to complete my agenda. It would be an inside job, having infiltrated the family’s defenses and displaced their guard dog.

  Fido bayed, encouraging the fuzz to stand his ground, hinder my flight. I sat on my haunches, both ends of the alley restricted, and idly lapped a forepaw. Amateurs. No one gets the best of me.

  When my monster-master provoked me beyond the brink of no return — Why, you inquire, did I stay? Why does the kicked dog wag or the clock cuckoo sing? — I embarked on a frenzied feral rampage, committing cat-revenge against all who ever offended me. Topping the list was Demon himself.

  I loosened the bolts for the front wheel of a spandexed bike racer, who often whizzed by from the blue trying to jolt me out of my skin, run over my tail. (He didn’t have a chance with my super audibilities, but it was the thought that counted.)

  The cyclist rammed a tree trunk, cruising at such velocity as the tire derailed that the momentum cleaved his helmet in half.

  A malevolent loudmouth, whose hobby was spraying me with a hose, got electrocuted by the power line leading to his house which abruptly contacted his swimming pool. Dead man floating.

  The walrus who squirted poison to prevent my stalking among his weeds is pushing up daisies after I stuffed a lifeless rat in his exhaust. He succumbed to carbon-monoxide fumes during a traffic jam, unable to lower his luxury sedan’s automatic windows. I might’ve had a paw in the malfunction.

  Retaliating the marbles that targeted my daily excursions, a teen delinquent slingshooter received an aerial assault of hissing, clawing, biting. His remnants, carted to the hospital, were papier-mâchéd head to foot. I snuck in and severed Mummy Boy’s life-support tubes for a crafty finish.

  Miss Glamorous, a robed frump who ritually unleashed her pit bulls Precious and Pearl to ravage the region, was bubbled by a sudsy soap opera on a mini television that splashed in her tub.

  The spree culminated with a moonlit sonata, my conniption cat fit outside the Smith’s door for never hearing my cries of agony, never heeding my tormented calls. They were last but not least and their penalty would be steep.

  Purrhaps I should get rid of these thorns in my tootsies as well.

  I growled like a jungle predator, refusing to be captured, and rushed through the detective’s legs. Spike nipped at my heels lunging. The bumpkins crashed.

  Petless, I deemed animal behavior puzzlesome. Miller’s puss was almost mocking, sarcastic. I mulled the situation on an infested sofa, itching my ankles, vaguely aware moderate rain tapped the windows and roof.

  A sneeze was building. I glared at a bottle of allergy tablets, then tampered with the seal and childproof cap to swallow a pill dry. Legs elevated, shoes off, smirched from surveillance, drowsy from exertion — a ridiculous instance of gambolling behind my nemesis — I dozed.

  A-woooooooooo! The dog imitating a wolf.

  I hove to my feet confused and donned scrunched loafers. Murky daylight had dimmed its bulb to dark. Unclipping a pocket flash, I accompanied the beam to a rear exit.

  Precipitation misted my features. The silt-lathered canine proudly waggled his posterior amid mounds of earth.

  “Holy moley!” I was fond of an occasional pun. It drove Bernice nuts.

  I strolled uneven aisles of an exhumated boneyard, the weathered contours of my visage blank with shock. Miller had been busier than neighbors realized — murdering, mutilating, shoveling dirt over corpses in the wee hours. A closet-worth of skeletons smiled up, relieved to be unburied.

  “Good dog.” I patted the mud-pup, who shivered with elation. “Better report this. A serial killer. No wonder his cat went psycho!”

  My phone had perished. Forgot to recharge its battery.

  Tracking mire, I lifted Miller’s receiver and pumped the cradle. No dial tone. I would have to call from my car.

  Objects clattered above. It was a single-story dwelling. “Must be an attic.” I massaged my neck
and flicked lights to illuminate the pigsty. Miller’s effects would require a thorough sweep since he was now recategorized from victim to suspect. Plus, I suddenly had the willies. Frightened orbs peered around doorjambs, the ticker in my chest fibrillating like it was about to rupture.

  A trapdoor gaped. Vertical steps unfolded. “Either I’m crazy or that wasn’t there.” I scaled rungs into a chamber of horrors.

  “Here kitty.” A sneeze detonated, whether from cat or dust. Yanking a beaded chain, circumferencing the garret, I gulped.

  Lurid trophies were displayed: Grisly scalps. Or hairpieces? Appendages. Or prosthetics? “Jeez Louise.” My esophagus tightened.

  Eyeballs or glass? Teeth or dentures? Jeweled rings or costume? A pacemaker. The pattern became apparent. His butchery was triggered by artifice.

  Shackles and nooses dangled. An array of knives and assorted tools hung from hooks. Gothic panes wore bars. “What a fruitcake!” I marveled.

  Miller’s cat pounced off a shelf and slashed my cheek, then shrilly bailed.

  The ladder hoisted. A mechanized steel plate slid forth. I was incarcerated by a cat! If I survived to tell the tale, I would never live it down.

  Where was he? I scanned windows. There, waving his arms. I woofed to draw attention.

  My mistress glanced out and saw me yapping at the detective. She reciprocated his greeting, then shut the blinds and drapes.

  Keen olfactive receptors inhaled a pungent odor. Smoke!

  I galloped to the back entrance, happily ajar, and hurtled inside. The cat rocketed past. Curtains flamed on a stovetop, igniting a bonfire of cereal boxes, empty food cartons.

  My nozzle vacuumed floors to discern a lingering scent. I couldn’t find stairs! Frustrated, whining, I twirled below an outline on the ceiling. A control had been installed. Smarter than the average dog or cat, some people too, I scaled a chair and nosily flipped the wall switch.

  Gears hummed. The square breached. A ladder cascaded.

  The lawman emerged and hugged me. “Good dog!”

  That’s me! I licked his face.

  “Let’s keep this rescue to ourselves, okay pal?” The clueless inspector ruffled my ears and sneezed. I voiced consent, knowing it must embarrass a professional like him that he couldn’t solve the case without me.

  “They’d never believe it anyway. As for our wily mutual acquaintance, I’ll make a few calls,” he pledged.

  Famished and homeless, retribution in mind, I meandered. The detective, Barky and his family were all on my hit list. Those mousy dunderwhelps would pay for my misfortunes!

  Resting to groom an unkempt flank, I purred with raucous abandon. A vehicle sped at me. I dashed out of the lane and nonchalantly preened my satin pelt. The truck braked, transmitting fear pheromones, a chorus of yips and yelps. Eyes shuttered, thoughts drifting, I ignored the zoo and peacefully gloated.

  A door banged. Feet hastened. Sturdy mesh enveloped me.

  Hey, I’m no tuna! I mulishly protested.

  “Gotcha! You’re wanted in fifty states.” The critter-catcher bundled me into a cage, deviously chortling, and marked a form clamped to a clipboard with a pen on a string. My jailor gleefully fastened the hatch of her paddy wagon, then sauntered to the driver’s seat.

  Catnapped! Hunched ruefully, eyes the size of cat-food tins, I gandered my surroundings. Dogs and felines occupied tiers of holding cells, convicted of being born. Our ride jounced toward the slammer.

  I tongued a paw to wash my whiskers. No biggie. By nature I would land on my feet. And I still had eight lives.

  Coiled in a corner, I complacently added Cruella to my list. The heinous turnkey would pay for this! The fetid barracuda would regret that I ever crossed her path!

  But first, I could use a nice snooze.