The Case of the Crafty Christmas Crooks

by Cindy Vincent

  The Case

  of the

  Crafty Christmas Crooks

  Also by Cindy Vincent

  The Case of the Cat Show Princess:

  A Buckley and Bogey Cat Detective Caper

  The Mystery of the Missing Ming:

  A Daisy Diamond Detective Novel

  The Case of the Rising Star Ruby:

  A Daisy Diamond Detective Novel

  Makeover For Murder:

  A Kate Bundeen Mystery

  Cats Are Part of His Kingdom, Too

  33 Daily Devotions to Show God's Love

  The Case

  of the

  Crafty Christmas Crooks

  A Buckley and Bogey

  Cat Detective Caper

  Cindy Vincent

  Whodunit Press

  Houston Bozeman

  The Case of the Crafty Christmas Crooks

  A Buckley and Bogey Cat Detective Caper

  All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2013 Cindy W. Vincent

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Whodunit Press

  A Division of Mysteries by Vincent, LLC

  For information, please contact:

  Whodunit Press

  c/o Mysteries by Vincent

  Mysteriesbyvincent.com

  1-866-WHODUNIT

  This is a work of fiction. All events, locations, institutions, themes, persons, characters and plot are completely fictional. Any resemblance to places or persons, living or deceased, are of the invention of the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-932169-74-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my husband, Rob, the best Cat Dad ever.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  CHAPTER_1

  __________________________

  Holy Mackerel! I could hardly believe my eyes. There I was, sitting at the top of the stairs with my best friend and brother, Bogart, or “Bogey” for short. We were peeking out between the spindles of the staircase. That meant we had a perfect view of what was going on just below us. Of course, since we’re both cat detectives, we were ready to jump into action at a moment's notice. And believe me, judging from what we saw below, we figured we'd have to spring into action at any second! So we sat in a crouched position, and our keen cat eyes took in every movement.

  Though to tell you the truth, I guess I was really the only one in a crouched position. And well, I was probably the only one whose eyes were watching every movement. Actually, Bogey was kind of lolling on his side with his eyes closed. He opened them just enough to help himself to a cat treat from a foil pouch. He passed one to me and then closed his eyes again.

  But I, Buckley Bergdorf, was almost too nervous to eat the fish-flavored treat. My heart was racing, and I'm sure my long, black fur was standing on end.

  I couldn't believe that Bogey wasn't even the least bit worried. Then again, he was a professional when it came to being a cat detective. He'd been in the business for years, ever since he'd been adopted from the cat shelter. As for me, I was barely more than a rookie. In fact, I'd really only solved a few cases so far. Thankfully, I had Bogey to lean on to help me learn the job. He'd been teaching me everything he knew about the cat detective business.

  And believe me, there was a lot to learn! But I was happy to have the job and happy to help out my family. Especially since I didn't even have a family for a while.

  I still remember the day when my human Mom adopted me and brought me home from the cat shelter. Bogey took me under his paw right away, and I’ve been grateful for it ever since. After all, I’d once been out on the mean streets with nothing to eat. Now I have a home with plenty of food, and people and cats who love me. Plus I have the best big brother in the world.

  I jumped when a loud whump suddenly echoed up to us. I noticed yet another box had appeared in the hallway below.

  I gulped. "Aren't you scared?" I asked Bogey.

  He grabbed another cat treat. "Nope, kid. I've seen this kind of thing before. It happens every year."

  I'm sure my eyes went as wide as my food dish. Did he say every year? How could he be so calm when this happened every year? I tried to scratch my head, but I only ended up poking myself in the eye with my huge paw.

  Sometimes I was amazed at how different Bogey and I were. Sure, we're both black cats with gold eyes. But he is sleek and slim. His fur is so shiny it looks like patent leather.

  As for me, well, I'm a Maine Coon cat. In case you didn’t know it, Maine Coon cats are very, very large. And I do mean large! I’m barely two years old and I’m already bigger than some dogs! On top of that, my long, thick fur has three layers, which makes me look even more gigantic. Plus my paws are huge, and I wonder if I'll ever really grow into them. Sometimes it seems like they just get in the way.

  And having your paws get in the way isn't good when it comes to being a cat detective. So I work extra hard to make my paws go where I want them to go, when I want them to go there.

  I glanced over at Bogey. He never had any problems getting his paws to go in the right direction. He looked like he was half-asleep, but I knew he could be fully alert and ready to go in a half a second if he needed to. In fact, Bogey could run so fast that sometimes his feet barely touched the ground. The other cats in our house said Bogey could even fly. And though I'd never seen it, I believed it was true.

  I peeked downstairs again and watched my human Mom drag in still another big box. It made a loud sliding noise across the hardwood floor. She paused and tucked her long, dark hair behind her ears before going on.

  Our human sister, Gracie, laughed and flitted from box to box. As she went, she unwrapped all kinds of small objects that she pulled from the big packing boxes. Most of those objects were round and shiny, with strings attached to the top. It seemed like Gracie got more excited with each new thing she unwrapped. Her dark eyes practically danced while she worked.

  Gracie is the twelve-year-old daughter of our human Mom and Dad. We love her like she's our real sister, since she's so nice to all the cats who live in our house.

  Our human Mom is really sweet to us, too. And we couldn't be happier that she adopted us.

  But now I wondered if there was something wrong with our Mom, because what she was doing below us sure seemed strange. And different.

  As far as I was concerned, anything strange and different only added up to one thing — something scary!

  I scooted a little closer to the staircase railing to get a better look. That's when I noticed my Mom had unpacked a bunch of things that looked like branches from an evergreen tree. And it looked like she was putting something together.

  In fact, it looked like our Mom was building . . .

  "A tree," I said to Bogey. "Is that a tree?"

  But how could that be? And why in the world would she do something like that?

  Bogey opened one eye and glanced at the scene d
ownstairs. "Yup, kid. It's a tree."

  Holy Catnip! Suddenly I felt like the room was starting to spin.

  "Is our Mom okay?" I asked Bogey. "Is she sick? What in the world is going on here?"

  Bogey handed me a cat treat. "Here you go, kid. This'll calm your nerves."

  I took the treat with shaking paws. "Should we investigate this?" I asked him.

  After all, we had opened up the Buckley and Bogey Cat Detective Agency not too long ago.

  Bogey grinned at me. "Don't sweat it, kid. We don't need to investigate. They're just getting ready for Christmas."

  I munched on the treat. "Christmas? What is Christmas?"

  Bogey raised an eyebrow. "You've never had Christmas before? Well, kid, it's kind of a birthday party. A really big birthday party. The biggest."

  My mouth dropped open. "Really? I like birthday parties."

  When I was at the cat shelter, the volunteers were always having birthday parties. I thought they were fun.

  Bogey grinned again. "Well, kid, you're gonna love this one. Christmas is the best. Just you wait and see."

  Suddenly I wasn't feeling so nervous anymore. All this for a birthday party? But I'd never seen anyone put up a tree for a party before.

  Bogey got up and stretched. "C'mon, kid. Let's go check this out."

  I followed Bogey as he ran down the stairs and stopped in front of the new tree. Gazing up at it from the floor, the tree looked like it was really, really tall. But it wasn't exactly like the trees I'd seen outside. And up until now, I guess I'd never realized someone could put a tree together.

  Gracie spotted us and squealed. "Look, Buckley! Isn't it going to be pretty? Have you ever seen a Christmas tree before? I'm going to hang all these ornaments on the branches."

  She picked me up and held me tight. Then she dipped me over the table so I could see the bunches of ornaments she was talking about. They were in every shape and color a cat could imagine. Some were gold and some were silver. There were green ones and red ones and purple ones. There were cat ornaments and angel ornaments and ornaments in the shape of boats and cars and teddy bears. Some looked very old and some looked brand new.

  Yet even though the ornaments were all different, they were all really, really shiny. Some even sparkled.

  "Isn't it wonderful, Buckley? Isn't this great?" Gracie squealed. Her dark eyes glowed and she held me close again. Then she began to dance and spin around the room. She went around and around and around, with her long dark hair flying out behind her.

  I hung on for dear life. For some reason, Gracie seemed to be going through a "spinning phase" lately. I only hoped she would grow out of it soon. Right now would have been nice, since it seemed like she kept on spinning and spinning forever. I couldn't believe how much one little girl could spin. She finally stopped, but for some reason, it still felt like the room was going around in circles.

  Gracie put me down and I stumbled kind of zig-zaggity toward the tree. Then I stopped and blinked a few times, trying to get my bearings again. Just as I did, a lean, long-haired white cat came racing down the hallway. She was headed right for us. At top speed. I thought she would put on the brakes when she saw the tree. But no! She just zoomed even faster.

  The next thing I knew, she went straight up that tree.

  It was the Princess.

  Or Lexie, as the humans in our house called her most of the time. She was the newest cat to join our family. She had once been a show cat who was expected to be prim and perfect. But now that she lived with us, well, she'd changed a little. Now she acted a lot more free and she usually raced around the house at lightning speed.

  She meowed with delight and gazed down at me with her big, green eyes.

  And let me tell you, those green eyes made me a whole lot dizzier than spinning with Gracie had.

  Holy Mackerel.

  My Mom tried to reach up into the tree to get the Princess down. But the Princess had other ideas. I guess she must have liked the view from the top of that tree.

  Gracie laughed while my Mom tried to coax the Princess down.

  Then the Princess leaned to the right, and suddenly the tree started to lean with her. So she tried to stop it by leaning to the left. But the tree went left, too. That's when the Princess leaned back to the right, then to the left again, and before we knew it, the whole tree was swaying. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  I felt my fur stand on end while my jaw practically hit the floor. Beside me, Bogey just rolled his eyes.

  Now the Princess dug in with her claws and held on for all she was worth.

  But it was too late.

  The tree started to tip farther and farther and farther to the left. Seconds later, it came crashing down to the ground! Branches landed everywhere and the Princess went flying off. She zoomed like a streak down the hallway until she disappeared.

  Holy Catnip!

  Bogey shook his head. "Dames," he said. "I never could make heads nor tails of 'em."

  Gracie giggled and giggled and couldn't stop.

  My Mom just sighed. "I guess we'll have to get out the heavy-duty tree stand," she said to Gracie. "Otherwise little Lexie will tip this over again. Could you please get it from the attic for me?"

  Gracie nodded, even though she couldn't stop giggling. She was still laughing when she ran up the stairs.

  I had just tiptoed over to take a good look at the fallen tree when the doorbell rang.

  This brought Bogey and me to attention right away. That's because part of our jobs as cat detectives is to watch over the security of our home. We run surveillance on our house every night, and sometimes several times a night. And if you don’t know what the word surveillance means, well, it’s just a fancy word that means checking things out to make sure everything is okay. You know, so we can make sure our family is safe and sound.

  My Mom walked over to the door, looked through the peephole, and smiled. She opened the door and a rush of chilly air ruffled my fur. After all, the days had been getting shorter and the nights were getting a whole lot cooler.

  Officer Phoebe Smiley of the St. Gertrude Police Department stood on our front porch. We had worked with Officer Smiley on another case. Though like most humans, she really had no idea that we were actually the ones who had solved the case.

  Probably because cats always switch to cat language whenever humans are around. Plus, some humans have no clue what cats are capable of.

  Our Mom opened the door wider to let her in. "Hello, Phoebe. So nice to see you again."

  Officer Smiley stepped inside and pulled out her notebook. "Nice to see you, too, Abby. But I wish I was here under better circumstances."

  Bogey and I glanced at each other and then tilted our ears forward.

  Our Mom's eyebrows went up. "Oh? What's happened?"

  Officer Smiley shook her head. "The Christmas season has barely even begun and we've already had our first break-in."

  My Mom put her hand to her chest. "Oh no! Where? Did they take anything valuable?"

  Officer Smiley sighed. "I'm afraid so. It happened to the Mitchells, your neighbors down the street. They decided to do their Christmas shopping early this year. They already had their tree up and all the presents wrapped and put underneath."

  Okay, let me tell you, that's when my ears really perked up. Did Officer Smiley just say "presents"? Were presents going under our tree, too?

  I glanced back at our tree, which was still lying on the ground in pieces. Wow, this was going to be some birthday party. Must be for someone very, very special.

  I turned back to Officer Smiley.

  She flipped a page in her notebook. "A crook — or — crooks broke into their house while they were out to the movies last night, which was Saturday night, of course. The crooks took everything. All the presents. They stole the wreath right off the front door, too. Mrs. Mitchell reports that they even took some of the Christmas cookies she'd made. Though oddly enough, they only stole the cookies shaped like stars. T
hey left all the other shapes alone."

  My Mom's dark eyes went wide. "That's so awful! I'll be sure to start a collection for the Mitchells at my antique store. We'll see if we can't raise enough money to buy more presents for them."

  Officer Smiley nodded her head and moved her pen in position to take notes. "That would be wonderful, Abigail. In the meantime, have you or your family seen anything suspicious around the neighborhood?"

  My Mom shook her head. "No, we haven't seen a thing. But we'll be sure to call you if we do see something."

  That's when I saw Bogey twitch his tail. It always made him mad when the police didn't bother to find out what the cats might have seen. Cats, after all, are better observers than most humans.

  Officer Smiley flipped her notebook closed. "Christmas crooks are especially mean-hearted. And if we don't catch them, they could ruin Christmas for everyone."

  Ruin Christmas? I could hardly believe my ears. I had barely even learned about Christmas and how great it was. And now I was already hearing that someone might ruin it for me, too. All in one short hour.

  What else might happen?

  Holy Mackerel!

  CHAPTER_2

  __________________________

  Shortly after Officer Smiley left, Bogey and I planted ourselves in the dining room, right off the front hallway and not too far from the front door. Our Mom went back to putting the tree together, and Bogey immediately turned to stare out the window. His eyes darted to every leaf and blade of grass that moved outside.

  Holy Catnip! He sure seemed serious about looking out the window. He was obviously back on the job as a cat detective. And if he was looking out the window, I figured I'd better look out the window, too.