Terrier Transgressions

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.”

“He says, ‘yes, very much,’ then he told me about the time he saw two red cars in a row right on this block.”

I needed to keep both of them talking, but I also needed to keep them on topic. “Were Bill and Ruth particularly close to anyone in the area?”

“Apparently they liked everybody, and everybody liked them,” Octo-Cat relayed. I was beginning to wonder if our terrier friend might not be the most reliable of witnesses. It seemed he saw the best in everybody—and every situation, too.

“Anything yet?” Charles asked.

I shook my head and kicked at a pebble in our path. “No. Unless you count knowing all the best places to mark your territory along this block.”

Charles laughed, but I could tell he was at least a little—and probably a lot—disappointed. I was just about to suggest we head back when Yo-Yo barked defensively. He stopped walking and grew stiff, pointing his nose to the next yard over.

“What is it?” I asked my cat as excitement surged through my veins.

“He says that’s the bad lady. He wants her to go away.”

I followed Yo-Yo’s gaze to the “For Sale” sign down the block. There, a blue and white notice announced that the property was being sold through Calhoun Realty, and a picture of Brock smiling beside his twin sister, Breanne, graced its countenance.

“Lady, right?” I asked carefully. “Not man?”

“Definitely lady,” Octo-Cat concurred. “He said that she always shoved him into a closet whenever people came to visit and that made him sad and scared.”

“Hmm, I wonder if that could be the same closet that Bill and Ruth’s bodies were found inside.”

Octo-Cat took a deep breath and turned toward Yo-Yo.

“Don’t translate that!” I shouted.

“What are they saying?” Charles nudged by arm while wearing an expression of utter glee. “Do we have a lead?”

I glanced from the sign to Yo-Yo and then to Charles. “Well, the dog that likes everyone has a very negative impression of Breanne Calhoun. It seems we might need to pay her a little visit.”

As we walked back toward the car, Charles placed a call to Breanne —or at least he tried to get through to her.

“Straight to voicemail,” he said with a frustrated groan.

“Text her?” I suggested.

Charles did, and we heard back from her almost right away. He handed me the phone, so I could read the message for myself:

Showing houses to a client. Everything okay?

I gave the phone back to Charles, who deftly composed his reply while speaking each word aloud to keep me in the loop. “Can we meet about the case?”

A quick series of pings followed, and Charles relayed, “She can’t tonight, but says we can stop in tomorrow any time after lunch.”

“Great,” I moaned. Tomorrow would be Thursday, and my mom’s story was set to run Friday. That sure didn’t leave us much time, especially if Breanne turned out to be yet another false lead.

“So what now?” I asked.

“I’m kind of hungry,” Charles answered. “Do you know of any place we can get a good lobster roll? I’ve been craving one ever since I moved here.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “Are you serious right now, Charles Longfellow, the Third?”

“What? What did I do?”

“You’ve been in Maine how long and haven’t had one of our famous lobster rolls?”

He laughed. “Have I mentioned I’m kind of a workaholic?”

“This won’t fly, Chuck,” I said, finally feeling comfortable using his nickname. “Since you’ve waited this long, not just any lobster roll will do. You need the best.”

“I’m definitely okay with that. Which place has the best?”

“C’mon, we’re headed to Misty Harbor and a little place called the Little Dog Diner. I just know you’re going to love it.”