Smudge the Misty Hollow Cat Detective (Darcy Sweet Mystery) (A Smudge the Cat Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “She’s in there?” Tony asks me. “The alleys where I sleep are cleaner than this. How do you know she’s in there? Whose place is this?”

  When I tell him, his eyes get really big.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says, after a moment to think it over.

  “Or maybe it makes perfect sense. Come on. Let’s go find out.”

  We start across the street together. I can tell Tony is nervous. He must really like this Sheba to be so concerned. I know how that feels. I can’t imagine what I’d do if someone replaced my girlfriend Twistypaws with another cat. Probably, I’d find a good friend to help me tear the town apart until I found her. Just like Tony did.

  “So what are we going to do?” he asks me when we get to the front porch steps. “Knock on the door?”

  “Let’s have a look through those windows,” I suggest instead. “I’ve never been in this house. I want to see what we’re dealing with first.”

  “Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, drop down through the chimney? This is a rescue mission, isn’t it?”

  “Uh. Sure. But let me ask you something. Do you see a chimney on this house?”

  He looks up to the roof, then hangs his head and swats his tail back and forth. “No. Fine. Let’s do this.”

  He jumps up on the windowsill first, and I follow. The window is clean enough to see in but I know for a fact that Darcy would never let our house get this dirty. The inside isn’t any better. I can see pizza boxes and wadded up papers on a coffee table, half-empty soda bottles and a spoon handle sticking out of an empty soup can. The whole place needs some attention.

  “I don’t see her,” Tony whispers. “Are you sure she’s here?”

  I could lie to save his feelings. I just don’t like to lie to my friends. Ever. “The person who took her lives here. I know that much.”

  “But you don’t know if she’s here, do you?”

  No, I start to answer, just as a shadow falls across the room on the other side of the glass. A man, with a few days’ growth of beard on his face and stooped shoulders. He shuffles his way to a worn out chair and plops himself down. Tony and I crouch down where we are, hoping he won’t notice us.

  The guy is actually kind of…sad looking. Like life has passed him by and he doesn’t know what to do about it. Not like a master criminal at all.

  I really wanted to hate this rat. This rodent on two legs who stole a cat away from a family only to replace her with another cat. I really wanted to see him as the terrible criminal he was.

  Looking at him now, all I feel is disgust, and pity.

  “This is the guy who stole Sheba?” Tony asks.

  “He took Sheba out of Marka’s house. Took her necklace, too.”

  “Okay, but why?”

  Tony just asked the right question. I’ve got the answer, and I’m going to tell him. It’s just hard, because this isn’t one of those cases where everyone gets to walk away happy.

  “Tony, meet Mitch.” I point towards him, through the glass, with my nose. “This is Marka’s father.”

  “Her father? You serious? You mean the guy who left Marka and her mother?”

  “That’s the guy. I don’t know how long he’s been gone from his wife and daughter, but this is where he went. Here, to this dumpy old house.”

  He stares in at the guy with me. Mitch coughs into his hand. He doesn’t look good at all. “What’s wrong with him?” Tony asks.

  “He gambles. For people, it’s an addiction. Kind of like catnip. He couldn’t stop. There was a whole file on him back at the pawn shop. Those pearls aren’t the only thing he’s sold there.”

  “So, he stole Sheba for her pearls? From his own daughter? Just to sell the collar?”

  “You got it. He needed the money for his addiction. He’d sold just about everything he owned already, so he stole something that belonged to his daughter.”

  “What a rat,” he says, echoing my own thoughts.

  “Yup. I’m guessing the mom replaced Sheba with another cat who looked just like her. She didn’t want her daughter to know what kind of a man her father had turned into. A thief, and a catnabber.”

  Tony glared at Mitch. “That all makes sense, Smudge, but it doesn’t answer one very important question. Where’s the real Sheba?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out, buddy. If she’s anywhere, she’s in this house.”

  I hope. Because if she wasn’t in this house, then chances were good that she really wasn’t anywhere at all.

  ***

  Old houses like the one I live in with Darcy Sweet have secret ways in and out of them that people don’t know anything about. So do houses that have been allowed to fall apart.

  We waited until it was dark outside, and then Tony and I made a very careful search of the outside of the house. We found an access into a crawlspace under the main floor, but it didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Not until Tony climbed up on some water pipes and tried to squeeze himself through a loose panel.

  To my surprise, it worked. His head disappeared through the opening, and then the rest of his body until, I was left to follow after his tail.

  The inside of the house smelled just as bad as it looked. Worse, maybe. People are lucky they don’t have the keen sense of smell that we cats do. They’d never want to live with themselves.

  Sorry. Just saying.

  Without a word we slid silently through room after room. There wasn’t much to see here. An empty kitchen. A nearly empty living room. A smelly bathroom. A junk room full of…junk. And, a single bedroom.

  Sheba wasn’t anywhere.

  “She’s got to be here, Smudge!” Tony whisper-hissed at me. “She’s got to!”

  We kept searching, looking in places we’d already looked, sniffing at the air, trying not to wake the sleeping Mitch on his bed. He snored. And drooled.

  And smelled like a cat.

  Wait. What?

  “You smell it, too?” Tony asked me.

  “Yes. Why would he smell like a cat?”

  “Because he still has one!” Tony rushed back into the bedroom, slipping around on some newspapers with red circles drawn around things that looked like help wanted ads. He slid so hard that he actually went right under the edge of the blankets that had slipped down off the edge of the mattress, all the way under the bed.

  He didn’t come out.

  “Tony, come on!” I urge him. I don’t know what this man here is capable of, but I’ve already got one missing cat on my hands. I don’t need two.

  “Smudge, get in here.” His voice is loud this time, and it makes Mitch stir in his sleep, snorting and mumbling and flopping around. It’s a long, tense moment until he goes back to snoring.

  I poke my head under the blankets to glare at Tony. “You have got to be quiet…”

  My whispered, angry words drop away. Under the bed, Tony is crouched next to a cage. A cage that has a brown cat with white paws in it.

  “Sheba?” I ask, unable to hold back my surprise.

  She nods her head and tries to smile, but I can see how weak she is. There’s an empty food dish next to her, dry and crusty, and no water dish at all.

  I might have to claw this guy’s face on the way out. Forget what I said about feeling bad for him. He really is a rat.

  “We need to get her out of here,” Tony says, clawing and biting at the cage. It’s made of wire, and the door is held with a latch. “Help me!”

  “Hold on.” The latch squiggles like this, then slides in that part there…

  “Smudge, come on!”

  “Hold on, Tony. I’m figuring it out.”

  Sheba’s voice is beautiful, even from a throat left dry from dehydration. “Less figuring, please, Mister Smudge. More doing, if you don’t mind.”

  So if the slot is there…

  “Got it. Hold on Sheba.” I smile at her, and take the metal bar in my teeth. Lift, twist, pull, lift again, pull.

  And the door was open.

  She stepped
out, one foot at a time, eyes glued to Tony. “I can’t believe you came for me.”

  “I wasn’t going to let you just leave me,” he tells her, a curving smile on his lips. Then his eyes find mine, and I read the thanks shining in them even in the dark.

  Sneaking out was a whole lot easier than sneaking in. Once outside, Sheba took a deep breath of night air, leaning against Tony for his support. And for his comfort. Lucky cat.

  Sheba, I mean. But Tony too. Finding someone you care about this much isn’t easy.

  “Thank you, Mister Smudge,” Sheba said to me. “I’m so glad to be free again. I just want to go back to my Marka now. I’ve missed her so much.”

  “Yeah, and I’m thinking she’s missed you. No way a copycat can replace the real thing. Oh. And don't call me Mister. Just Smudge is fine.”

  “I’ll remember that. I’ll always remember what you and Tony did for me.”

  “Nah. It was all Tony. I just came along to help.” Tony gave me a look, but he didn’t try to correct me. That’s okay. He deserves the credit for this one. Sheba needs to know how brave her new boyfriend is. “Let’s get her cleaned up Tony. And get her something to eat, too. I’ll bet she’s starving. We can bring her over to Marka’s house afterward.”

  We started off toward a place I know where a cat can find water to clean in and good food to eat so long as you don’t mind leftovers. I know Sheba wants to get back to her human as quickly as possible but at the same time she’s going to feel more like herself if she’s clean and fed before she goes home. Marka’s mom was going to have some explaining to do but that wasn’t my concern. Getting this family back together was.

  I really hadn’t been sure if Sheba was in that house or not. I’m glad we found her. Glad she and Tony got back together. Glad Sheba was going home.

  I guess I was wrong when I said this wasn’t going to be one of those cases where everyone would get to walk away happy.

  Sure do like it when I’m wrong.

  Garbage Day

  Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

  Those days are the ones where everything starts off normal. You wake up, stretch and roll over, open your eyes just a bit to see sunlight slanting in through the bedroom window. Downstairs breakfast is waiting for you in your bowl. The day is full of promise and hope and the knowledge that there will be hours of doing nothing but laying around and being a cat.

  That’s when things go sideways.

  Cats don’t like change much. The way things are, well, that’s the way things are supposed to stay. Move a cat into a new house and we’ll spend a full day exploring and sniffing things out, and then another day or two hiding in one room or another until we feel comfortable enough to come out. That’s the way we are. Level headed. Sensible. Rational.

  When things change unexpectedly, we notice.

  I was spending the morning with my girlfriend today. Twistypaws is a beautiful gray cat with white-tipped ears and eyes the color of clear blue water. Her long tail is curled around my feet and her nose is tickling the white and black fur at the back of my neck. The grass is tall around us, and it’s like the whole rest of the world has ceased to exist.

  Until a very loud, small brown cat came bounding out of the brush nearby and nearly stomped on my head.

  “Twistypaws, Twistypaws!” the young male cat keeps shouting and running around in circles, even after he sees her, and she sees him, and our peaceful morning is completely wrecked.

  I share a look with Twist. This isn’t the first time that Enzo has gone tearing around town. Sometimes he even has a reason. Usually…he’s just hyper.

  “Enzo,” I say to him, sitting up, shaking stray bits of dandelion out of my fur. It’s like he doesn’t even hear me. “Enzo. Enzo!”

  “Huh? Whoa!” he slides to a stop, his feet still a little too big for his body, his tail overbalancing him. Enzo’s going to be a big cat when he grows up. He might learn some patience between now and then, too.

  “Enzo, slow down,” Twist tells him in that silky smooth voice she knows how to use so well. “Take a breath. There. That’s better. Now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Someone is stealing our garbage!” the smaller cat blurts out.

  I may have to put a leash on this kid. A short leash. Tied to a clothesline so he can run back and forth and not bother anyone with crazy things like this.

  Stealing his garbage. For the love of catnip!

  Twist narrows her eyes at me. She can see what I’m thinking, and she’s reminding me to be nice. I’m a very nice cat, I tell her with a look of my own. She flicks an ear at me, basically saying she doesn’t believe me but she won’t argue the point.

  Just one of the reasons why I love her.

  “Enzo,” she says again, until she catches his attention. “Explain this to us. Who is stealing your garbage?”

  “I don’t know! My people keep putting the garbage out, and then it gets stolen. Stolen, stolen, stolen!”

  He goes off again, jumping around on all four feet, going on and on and on about garbage. I see more than hear Twistypaws sighing.

  Then she looks at me.

  Oh, no. I know that look. She’s going to expect me to do my thing and investigate this nonsense that Enzo is—still—shouting about. What am I supposed to do? Stake out a garbage can?

  I’m about to say that to her when Twist walks over to Enzo and nudges her shoulder against his. “It’s all right. Calm down, now. We’re going to help you and your family.”

  We are?

  “Smudge will figure out what’s happening.”

  I will?

  Then she turns those oh-so-blue eyes on me, and there’s a smile and a promise there that’s hard to miss.

  Yeah. I guess I will.

  Twist sends Enzo on his way, after he thanks her and then thanks me and then thanks her again. She tells him that I’ll be over to his house a little later. After he’s gone, and we’re alone again, I clear my throat.

  “You know,” I say to Twist. “I usually work for tuna.”

  She nuzzles her nose against mine. “But this time you’ll do it for a kiss?”

  “No,” I tell her, very seriously. “It’ll cost you two.”

  Payment received, I run over to Enzo’s house.

  ***

  Enzo is waiting for me impatiently outside the two story home. Pacing back and forth on the wide front porch, back and forth, back and forth. When he sees me he actually jumps over the wooden railing to get to me.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting here for hours!”

  “Enzo. You only left me ten minutes ago.”

  “Well, it seemed like hours.”

  I’m already regretting this. “All right. I’m here now. Why don’t you show me—”

  Before the words are out he zips away around the corner to the side of the house. He pops his head back out, blinking at me. “Are you coming?”

  Of course I am. I don’t rush myself, but I follow him, and when I get there he’s standing in front of two green plastic garbage cans. Both of them have those flip-top lids. They’re both open, and some of the bags are lying on the ground. Flies are buzzing loudly around them.

  “Hey,” I say to Enzo, “I found your garbage. Mystery solved.”

  “No, Smudge, look!” He pounces on a white bag of trash as if it was a mouse. The bag falls apart, wet papers and food containers spilling out through a gash that was already there. “Someone keeps doing this. Taking bits and pieces and leaving the rest. My people have to keep cleaning it up. Every week!”

  Hmm. Well. I still think Enzo’s crazy, but there’s obviously something going on here. Maybe just some kids having fun by making a mess. Maybe something else. At any rate, it bears looking into. That’s what I’m really good at.

  A cat’s work is never done.

  “What do your people think about it?” I ask him. “What do they say?”

  “Darn kids.”

  I’m really not sure I heard that correct
ly. “Excuse me?”

  “That’s what they say. ‘Darn kids, darn kids.’ Then they bag up whatever’s left of the garbage and put it back in the bins. Then the same thing happens a week later when they put out new garbage.”

  Interesting. “Never in between garbage days?”

  “Nope. Never. My people put the garbage out, it gets torn into and stuff gets stolen, they bag it up again the next day, and the garbagemen come and take the evidence away. Like today. They’ll come out any second and see all this and say ‘Those darn kids!’ and then they’ll bag it back up again and then tomorrow the garbage truck will come and take all the clues away.”

  Evidence. Clues. Heh. Enzo was trying to talk like a real detective. That’s my job. But, he might be on to something here. Hmm. “How long has this been going on?”

  He looks down at his paws and kind of claws at the ground. “I don’t know, Smudge. I’m not good with telling time like the people are. It was after Christmas, I know that. After Christmas and before the snow melted. After Lionel started his new job and before Katy got out of school. Does that help?”

  “A little, yeah.” Lionel is the father in Enzo’s house. Katy is their little girl. I think she’s in eighth grade, or something. So. This all started back in the wintertime. Months. Why would someone spend months destroying a family’s garbage week after week?

  “Have you asked your neighbors if this is happening to them?” I’m thinking out loud as I circle the garbage bags, sniffing at old coffee grinds and empty soup cans. These guys really should start recycling.

  “I asked the cats on either side of us. Sure I did. They haven’t had this happen to them. It’s just us. Who would want to steal our garbage?”

  That’s an excellent question. One I don’t have an answer for. At least, not yet. “Your garbage gets picked up tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” he says, bouncing from paw to paw again. “And next week we’ll go through it all over again!”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Enzo stares at me, his mouth open, his tail flicking. “Why would we hope for that?”