Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Chapter 7

“It’s ok, Sprinkles, it’s ok,” I repeated to the little dog over and over like a mantra as he sat in my lap on the way home. He’d been out looking in the restaurant garbage for any extra food to eat. Luckily, being a vet, I always had a reasonable store of dog food at home, and I knew that in less than five minutes he’d be able to eat to his heart’s content.

Well, ok, maybe not that much. Giving dogs free reign of the food bowl is rarely a good idea, unless you like vomit. But I was going to make sure Sprinkles didn’t go hungry again tonight.

He was shaking as he sat in my lap, and I patted him softly to try and calm him down.

“Is he ok?” Charlotte asked, concerned as she saw him shaking.

“I think so,” I replied as I gave Sprinkles the best physical exam I could while in the passenger seat of a moving car in the dark. “I think he might just be scared. Is that it, buddy?” I asked, but rather than reply, Sprinkles simply burrowed his face into the nook of my arm.

Charlotte gave me a concerned look. Poor Sprinkles. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d seen his owner murdered, and if he could help find who did it.

If it was murder at all, of course. Either way, poor Sprinkles had likely seen his owner’s death, and that couldn’t be easy for anyone.

“Hey, can we stop by the sushi place and grab a small container to take away?” I asked Sophie. “I think Bee’s going to kill us if we bring back a dog and no sushi.”

She rolled her eyes, but made the quick detour to get Bee her treat. I was afraid to know what chaos was going to happen otherwise.

As soon as we walked through the door, Bee jumped up onto a side table and hissed at Sprinkles, who cowered behind me.

“Bee, absolutely not,” I scolded. “Be nice.”

“I will not be nice. How dare you bring a dog into my sacred home?”

“First of all, this is my house, so I can bring whoever I want into it. Secondly, if you’re not nice to Sprinkles, I’m not going to give you any sushi.”

Bee eyed up the dog, trying to decide which was more worth it: the promise of sushi, or the ability to torment a poor, scared little dog. Thankfully, she eventually settled on the sushi. Maybe she was more like a dog than she realized.

“Fine,” Bee eventually said, turning with her tail up so I could see her butthole. I rolled my eyes.

“Thank you, Bee. Sprinkles just lost his owner, and he’s been running loose outside for a few days. We’re just going to be taking care of him for a little bit,” I told my cat’s retreating form.

“Don’t care, dogs are awful, give me sushi,” Bee replied from the kitchen. I gave Sophie an exasperated look.

“Sometimes I know exactly what’s going on, even when I can only hear one side of the conversation,” she snickered, taking the box of sushi over to Bee.

“Just give her one roll, we’re probably going to need to bribe her with the others later on,” I warned Sophie as she headed off to appease my cat. At least the claws hadn’t come out yet.

“Now,” I said to Sprinkles, sitting down on the floor with the dog to get to his level. “Are you hungry?”

For a minute I didn’t think Sprinkles was going to answer me. He just looked at me sadly, then came out the saddest little sound from his mouth.

“Yes, I am,” he replied.

“Ok. I have some dog food here. When was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” I told him gently. The poor dog was apologizing for not remembering when his last meal was. Sprinkles was just so sweet, I almost couldn’t handle it. “Let me get you a bowl of kibble, ok?”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It’s no problem at all. I’m just glad we finally found you.”

I went into the kitchen, where Bee was happily munching on her sushi roll, and found a bag of kibble given to me for free by a major dog food company. It wasn’t the best quality food, which was why I just kept it at home, but it would do for a night.

Grabbing an extra dog bowl from a storage cupboard – it’s amazing the things you pick up in this job – I poured in two handfuls of kibble and brought it over to Sprinkles. I knew he’d eat it all straight away, but I didn’t want him eating so quickly he threw up.

As soon as I set down the bowl, Sprinkles’ instincts took over. I heard him muttering thank you after thank you in between bites, and in seconds, the whole bowl had been licked clean.

“Thank you so much,” he told me when he was finished, looking up from the bowl, unable to help himself and looking around to see if there was more.

“You’re very welcome, Sprinkles,” I told him. He was so sweet and polite. Which was ironic, given as his owner had been just the opposite. “I do have more food for you, but if you eat it now you’re just going to throw it up, so let’s wait a little bit before I give you some more, ok?”

“Whatever you say, ma’am,” Sprinkles replied.

“Oh, you can just call me Angela,” I told him with a smile. He had always called me ma’am, even when I spoke to him at vet appointments.

Charlotte came over and gave him a pat. He nestled his head into her hand and when she stopped, rested it on her knee.

“Awwwwww, you’re just the sweetest thing ever,” Charlotte muttered to Sprinkles, earning herself a glare from Bee that she didn’t see. If I wasn’t mistaken, I had a feeling my cat was actually jealous of the attention Sprinkles was getting!

“Would you mind if I gave you a bath before bed?” I asked Sprinkles. “I’d like to be able to make sure that you’re not hurt, and it’s a lot more difficult when you’re covered in mud.”

“That would be fine, thank you. I do feel quite dirty right now,” Sprinkles replied. I just couldn’t get over how polite he was.

“Ugh, willingly taking a bath? What kind of animal are you?” Bee shot at him from the kitchen, and I glared at her.

“Ok, come follow me Sprinkles, I’ll take you to the bathroom,” I told him. Five minutes later he was in the tub and I was hosing him down with the removable shower head.

“Ohhh that feels good,” Sprinkles muttered as I massaged his skin lightly with shampoo. I couldn’t help but smile. I was so glad we’d finally found him.

“Do you want to talk about what you’ve been through?” I asked him gently, and I saw a flash of fear cross through Sprinkles’ eyes.

“Talk? No. No, I can’t talk. Absolutely not. Can’t talk. Sorry.”

“It’s ok, it’s ok, you don’t need to talk,” I reassured him quickly. As soon as I’d mentioned talking about what had happened to him, Sprinkles was obviously agitated. If he had anything to tell us about what had happened to his owner, it certainly wasn’t going to be now.

When he finished his bath and I ascertained that Sprinkles had nothing more than just a couple of scrapes on him, I dried him off, wrapped him up in a towel and put him on a couple of pillows that I covered with an old blanket for him in the corner of my bedroom.

“There’ll be a good breakfast for you in the morning. You’re safe now, Sprinkles. You don’t need to worry anymore,” I told him, giving him a kiss on the head, but the poor creature was already asleep. I watched him doze for a minute, smiled, and went out into the kitchen.

“I can’t believe this! I’ve been betrayed!” Bee cried when I made my way in. I rolled my eyes.

“You have not been betrayed. We rescued a dog who’s been lost and by himself for days after seeing his owner die. We’re being nice to him.”

“I know what you’re doing. You say he’s not yours, but you’re just saying that. He’s going to live here for good, and I’m going to have to tell all my friends I live with a dog. I’ll be the laughing stock of the whole town!”

I rolled my eyes. “Bee, you see like one other cat a month, and all you do then is howl at it to get off your lawn. You and I both know that you’re not going to be the laughing stock of the town. Besides, Sprinkles isn’t staying for more than a few days.”

“You say that now, but I’ve seen how you humans work. It’s only a matter of time before poor Bee is left out on the streets to fend for herself.”

“Well, at least we know we’ll be able to find you near the sushi restaurant if we ever want you back,” I sighed, exhausted. I really didn’t want to deal with my cat’s hatred for dogs right now.

“SHE JOKES. You hear that, people? The woman jokes of my plight.”

“Bee, go to bed. You’re not going to be abandoned. You’re not going to be replaced. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“You say that now,” Bee muttered, but she slowly made her way towards the far corner of the couch and lay down in it in a little ball. Two minutes later she was fast asleep.

I sat down at a stool at the breakfast bar and put my head in my hands.

“Oh man, what an adventure today was,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m so glad we found Sprinkles,” Charlotte said quietly, glancing over to make sure Bee didn’t hear.

“I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me about Austin before dinner,” Sophie hissed.

“To be fair,” Charlotte replied, “I wasn’t actually sure your mom was dating anyone. I just kind of suspected.”

“Still. You’re the worst human being. Why would you not tell me? She’s my mom.”

“Because we knew you’d react the way you did.”

“And how was that?”

“You acted like a huge jerk.”

“Not before he did first.”

“No, he might have said a few things that weren’t the greatest, but you were a jerk right from the start.”

“Whatever. She’s my mom, I’m allowed to think what I want.”

I sat in the middle, completely exhausted, watching Sophie and Charlotte duke it out. I just didn’t have the energy to try and stop them anymore.

“What do you think, Angie?” Sophie asked, turning towards me, and I wanted nothing more than to melt into a pool of nothing in the tiles.

“I think we should worry more about Sprinkles and less about Austin,” I replied. “Who knows, they’ve only known each other for three months, it might not even last. I tried asking Sprinkles about what had happened to him in the bath, and he immediately had a little panic attack. I don’t think he’s going to be ready to tell us about what happened to him for a while.

“Awwwww, that poor little baby,” Sophie said. “He’s so sweet.”

“I thought I was going to melt when he rested his head on my knee,” Charlotte said. “I love him so much already. It’s so sad what he’s had to go through!”

I nodded. “I think I’ll wait at least a couple of days before I bring it up again. I’m going to let Chief Gary know that I found him in the morning, and then hopefully I can find out if it was murder or natural causes then. If it was natural, well then there’s nothing to be done about it. But if it was murder, there’s a chance that Sprinkles actually knows who killed Andrea Dottory.”