The Purr-fect Crime

Chapter 7

“So what seems to be the problem here today, Strawberry?” I asked the white Schnauzer/Poodle cross sitting on my exam table first thing the next morning.

“You mean apart from the fact that my owners let a five year old pick my name? Not very much. I wish I wasn’t here.” the dog replied. I had to hide my smile.

“He’s been a little bit lethargic the last few days, and I found a little bump on his leg, right here,” Annalise told me, prying away a bit of his fur and exposing a little lump the size of a pin head on his right hind leg. Annalise Thompson was in her 30s, with two kids. She had babysat us a few times growing up when she was a teenager, and now as far as I was aware she lived the life of a typical housewife: husband working in the city, kids at school, white picket fence and the family dog, who was now getting up there in years. Strawberry was ten years old now, and had been named by Annalise’s half sister, who was now fifteen. Strawberry had, unfortunately, never gotten over the shame of his name.

“I’m only tired because we went for like a five hour hike yesterday, since her damn husband’s decided he wants to lose weight. Just because he wants to get fitter doesn’t mean I want to.”

I smiled into Strawberry’s fur as I leaned over to get a better look at the lump. Schnauzers were quite prone to getting lumps later in life, and this one looked completely benign.

When I was done I took Strawberry’s heart rate and asked a few questions.

“Has he been more lethargic than usual, other than over the last few days?”

“No,” Annalise replied.

“Any diahrea or vomiting?”

She shook her head.

“Is he eating and drinking ok?”

“Yes, nothing strange there.”

I did a little bit more of a checkup over Strawberry, then looked up at Annalise.

“Well, I’m honestly not too worried about the lump. I can do a biopsy of it and send it away for testing, but it feels like a fat lump to me, which in a Schnauzer isn’t a rare thing.”

“Who are you calling fat?” Strawberry muttered, but I ignored him and continued talking.

“He also seems to be in good shape, especially for a dog his age. I wouldn’t worry too much about the lethargy just yet, but if it keeps up for another few days please come in again. He’s getting older, and sometimes just having a big day can take it out of him for a few days now. I’d recommend not taking him on extensively long walks.”

“Thank you, you’re a goddess among humans!” Strawberry praised, and it took everything I had not to laugh at how enthusiastic he was.

“Thanks Strawberry,” I told him, giving him one last set of pats before motioning to Annalise that she could take him off the exam table.

“And thank you for bringing him in,” I told Annalise. “Even though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

“So we just leave the lump?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Yes. I mean, we could put him under and cut it out, but the older dogs get the greater the risk of complications with the anesthetic, and to be honest if he’s got one lump, others are probably going to show up. If he ever needs surgery for something else separately we can always cut them out then, but I wouldn’t recommend putting him under just to get rid of his lump.”

“Ok, thanks so much, Angela,” Annalise told me.

“No problem, have a great day!” I told her as she left with Strawberry, the little white dog leading her out of the room as fast as possible. I smiled to myself as I watched them leave; I liked Strawberry. He was a funny little dog.

When they left, Sophie popped her head in while I was finishing up the paperwork on Strawberry.

“Hey, so I have just had an awesome idea!”

“Cool, what is it?”

“So you know how we’re totally going to find out why Tony Nyman died?”

“Yes…” I started.

“Well, I found out where he lives. And I think we should go there and look for clues!”

A part of me, the sensible part of me probably, instantly rejected this idea as pure folly. Stupidity, even. But my mouth didn’t get the message.

“Yeah, we totally should!”

“I know, right? Look, you don’t have appointments for another hour and a half. We can go now and be back in time for the next appointment.”

“Wait, what am I saying?” I added, the reasonable part of me finally making itself heard. “Why is this a good idea again?”

“Because we need to figure out who would have a reason to kill him, and what better place to go that to check out his house? The dude was single, there won’t be anyone else there.”

“Except maybe the cops.”

“Well they’ll be obvious. If they’re there, we won’t go in. God, you sound like Charlotte.”

“Speaking of Charlotte, did you invite her?”

Sophie snorted.

“Are you kidding? Not only does she have class so she would never, ever skip a lesson for something like this, but she’d probably call the cops on us herself.”

It was true that Charlotte wasn’t exactly the brave, adventurous one of the three of us.

“Fine. How did you find out where he lived, anyway?”

“Facebook. I was stalking his page, seeing who left condolences and stuff. You know what’s weird? The dude never posted any selfies or anything on his page.”

“Well duh, he was like, fifty-something, right? They’re not exactly the selfie taking generation. Like, your mom doesn’t have any selfies on her Facebook page either, she just shares motivational pictures and videos for recipes for food she’s never going to make.”

“Yeah, but at least my mom has pictures of her up on her Facebook. Even if it’s just a couple from her childhood and one or two that I’ve taken of her. Tony Nyman doesn’t have any pictures of him on his profile at all. I only figured out it was his account since he lives in Willow Bay and posted a bunch of pictures from around here. Including his house, which I recognize.”

“Well, who knows. Some people are more private than others. Maybe he’s one of those people that think the NSA are reading his Facebook posts or something.”

“Maybe,” Sophie shrugged. “Either way, I want to go check out where he lives.”

“Fine. We’ll go over there and see what’s up. But we’re leaving right away if we see any sign of the cops. I don’t want to get in trouble with Chief Gary.”

“Deal. Now come on, let’s go tell Karen she can take an extra long lunch break.”