Terrier Transgressions

Chapter Eleven

Charles and I pulled up to the Hayes’s home some twenty minutes later and found Breanne waiting in her SUV idling in the driveway. When we each exited with an animal sidekick, she scrambled out and slammed the door with more strength than I thought she had in her.

Yo-Yo growled and bared his tiny incisors, but made no effort to escape Charles’s arms despite either his anxiety over spending more time with a person he loathed or his unbridled joy at having finally returned home.

“What are you doing with these animals?” Breanne demanded, marching right up to us and blocking our path to the house.

Octo-Cat and I cut across the grass and let ourselves inside, leaving Charles to charm the angry realtor since neither of us would be much help there.

The moment we entered, the sharp tang of chemicals hit my nose.

Octo-Cat smelled it, too, and immediately began rubbing his paw over his face. “Ew, ew, ew,” he complained with each step we took further into the house. “You humans sure have a knack for fouling up your environment. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to take this.”

“Me either,” I said, lifting the collar of my shirt over my face to form an impromptu breathing filter. “I guess they had to give the place an extra deep cleaning after…”

Octo-Cat picked up where my words had trailed off. “The brutal murders? Yeah.” His words came out muffled from beneath his paw.

I looked to him, wondering where we should go next, but the cat ignored me. Instead, he lifted his head and bravely sniffed the air, then broke into a trot and headed straight up the stairs without another second’s hesitation.

“Wait,” I called after him, struggling and failing to keep pace. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer, but after climbing the stairs myself, I found him sitting in a bedroom at the end of the hallway. The large area was completely devoid of furniture, unlike the other rooms I’d passed through on my way here. It also appeared to be the source for the strong chemical smell, but otherwise the walls and carpeting appeared pristine and untouched.

I felt a little guilty stomping through the room, but that feeling left me when I managed to pry open the windows and let some fresh, non-toxic air into the space.

Octo-Cat hopped up onto the window sill appreciatively. “Now I can breathe again,” he said with a contented sigh. “For a while there I thought I was going to die in this house, too.”

I placed a hand on each hip and stared him down. “Too soon, Octo. Too soon.”

He flicked his tail in agitation. “Is my punishment to lose yet another part of my name? What happened to the Cat in Octo-Cat? Hmmm?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully, a devious smile creeping across my face. “You’re giving everyone new nicknames lately, so I guess I thought I’d try it out, too. Besides, unlike you, I’m trying to lighten the mood a little bit, considering I’m pretty sure this is the room where Bill and Ruth died.”

“This is the room where they were murdered, you mean,” Octo-Cat corrected, taking deliberate care to enunciate the terrible term. “And don’t forget the Cat next time. It is the most important part of my name.”

“Fine, but let’s try to focus now. Okay? This is the place two people were killed.” I dropped my voice to a whisper just in case Breanne could hear us from outside. I couldn’t hear her and had no idea where she, Charles, and Yo-Yo were at the moment, so perhaps we were in good shape for now. Still, it always paid to be extra careful when letting my freak flag fly. “We need to see what we can find out while we’re here and have the chance to look around.”

“Yes, boss,” my tabby said wryly and with another energetic flick of his tail.

A bird chirped in the tree outside the window and immediately drew his attention away. Octo-Cat slowly rose to his feet while keeping his head perfectly still, then wiggled his butt and let out a laughable impression of a bird call.

Rather than tease him, I just rolled my eyes and walked the perimeter of the room. One of us needed to get to work before this golden investigation opportunity completely passed us by. And it seemed that would have to be me.

Tucked into a little nook, I found the door to an impressive walk-in closet. This was the place the bodies had been found, although nothing—other than the chemical smell—hinted at its uncomfortably recent and gruesome history now. It was simply a plain, empty space.

“This is where they were found,” Charles said, coming up behind me and causing me to jump in my skin.

“You don’t just sneak up on someone in the middle of a crime scene,” I hissed, turning toward him so that he could read the displeasure on my face.

His eyebrows pinched together, and his mouth drooped in a frown. Well, at least he looked properly chastised. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to scare you, but I also worry we don’t have much time. Breanne is not happy right now and even threatened to call Thompson and issue a complaint.”

I shook my head and took a step back when I realized Charles and I were still standing too near each other for comfort. I had the hots for the guy, sure, but this hardly felt like the time or place. “All because we brought a couple animals with us? Does she even recognize Yo-Yo?”

Upon hearing his name, the Yorkie zipped into the room, running huge looping circles so fast, he was mostly a gray and brown blur.

“Well, someone has the zoomies,” Octo-Cat declared, hopping down from the window sill and joining me and Charles by the closet. “Also he scared my bird away. I almost had it, too.”

I decided not to mention that Octo-Cat also got the zoomies from time to time or that there was absolutely no way he was catching that bird—not just because his bird call was extremely unconvincing but also because of the screen window that hung between them. Add to that his whole inability to fly and we had the very definition of an impossible situation.

We watched the Yorkie run joyous circles until he collapsed in an exhausting, panting heap right in the middle of the room.

“What’s going on with Breanne?” I asked Charles while Octo-Cat dutifully approached the dog and began a conversation with him.

“She says we’re overstepping, and she questions our sanity.” His face remained unreadable as he delivered this unwelcome news, but I could guess how he probably felt in that moment.

My heart began to gallop. It was bad enough that Charles knew my secret, but now he was telling others, too? “You didn’t tell her about—”

“No,” he cut me off. “But I had to tell her something, so I said they were emotional support animals.”

Well, no wonder she thought we were crazy. Charles had basically confirmed that for her.

“How long do we have?” I asked, unable to resist the urge to gnaw on one of my many hangnails. I really needed to treat myself to a manicure when this whole thing was over.

“Half an hour, tops,” he revealed with another deep frown.

“Then we better get to it.” I approached the animals slowly and sat down beside them cross-legged. Hopefully, the chemical smell from the carpet wouldn’t rub off on my clothes, but even if it did, it would be a small price to pay for information that would save Brock.

“What did he say?” I asked Octo-Cat while nodding toward our doggie eye witness.

“Lots of things. Too many things,” Octo-Cat said, rolling onto his back so that his belly was facing the ceiling. He looked utterly exhausted even though he couldn’t have been talking to Yo-Yo for more than two minutes before I interrupted.

“Care to tell me any of them?” I asked, resisting the urge to pet his fluffy tummy. Something told me he was already looking for a reason to bite me as an outlet for his anxiety, and neither of us needed the extra hostility right now.

He yawned, and the smell of the tuna blend breakfast on his breath mixed with the chemicals in the carpet made my stomach churn with bile. “Something about his owners and missing home. He was in the closet. They were in the closet. Yada yada yada.”

“What? No yada yada yada. What did he say? His exact words, please.” I nudged him until he rolled onto his side then forced him to look up and focus on me.

Octo-Cat growled, picked himself up, and moved a couple feet so that he was out of my reach. “I told you everything I could remember. He talks fast. And incessantly, I might add. It just all kind of runs together after a while.”

Hmm, kind of like Octo-Cat himself.

I groaned, and Yo-Yo crawled onto my lap to frantically lick my face. “I cannot believe you,” I told my naughty kitty. “We came here specifically to investigate the murder and you can’t be bothered to pay attention for two minutes?”

“I don’t need to lay here and listen to this,” Octo-Cat said, pulling himself to his feet with great agitation and trotting out of the room.

Yo-Yo perked up in my lap, then hopped off to give chase.

“Well, I’m guessing we have even less time now,” I told Charles, returning to my feet as well. “Where is Breanne hanging out, by the way?”

He stood in the closet studying the walls as if they were the most interesting thing in the whole world. “In her SUV,” he mumbled without looking away. “She said she had some calls to make.”

I swallowed the giant lump in my throat. We both knew that one of those calls might be to our boss. As much as we needed to make the most of our time here, I also needed to tread lightly as far as my boss was concerned. Mr. Fulton had always been kind and complimentary of my work, but Mr. Thompson—the only partner left at this point—made his dislike of me clear at every possible opportunity.

If Bethany was right about him planning to throw Charles under the bus when it came to this unwinnable case, I had no doubt he’d all too happily discard of me as well.

Sigh. Why were things never easy?

“Should we go after them?” I asked, pointing my chin toward the door through which the animals had just noisily departed.

Charles glanced from me to the door and back again, then shook his head. “In a little bit. First, there’s something about the crime scene that’s always struck me as a bit odd. Maybe you can help me figure it out.” He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out the giant discovery folder from the prosecution.

Just as I feared, he flipped straight to the photos of Bill and Ruth’s bloody, lifeless bodies. I hadn’t wanted to see these pictures the first time, and I certainly didn’t want to see them now.

But I also didn’t want to see an innocent man spend the rest of his life in prison, so I grabbed some antacids from my purse, placed one on my tongue, and willed myself to examine the photos that Charles extended out to me now.

I looked closely this time. Carefully. Just as Charles had asked of me.

And wouldn’t you know it? We finally found something that might actually help our case.