by M. A. Owens
“Lieutenant Petey of the ACPD on the phone for you, Mr. Trigger,” she shouted, blaring over the speaker on my office phone. I wouldn’t have been able to hear her otherwise.
“Thank you, Zelda. I’ll pick it up,” I said in my normal voice.
“What did you say?” she shouted again.
“I said I’ll pick up the call!” I yelled this time, then picked up the phone. “Hey, Petey. What can I do for you?”
“What?” he said, understandably not hearing a word of what I’d said since I forgot to turn off the fan.
I growled. “Hold on a second, Petey! I need to turn off this fan!”
“What?” he yelled in reply.
I stretched my paw over and slapped at the button several times until I finally made it far enough to kick the power off.
“Alright. That better?” I asked.
I heard a paw cover the receiver on his end. “No, Lola. I’m not upset with Trigger. I couldn’t hear him. It sounded like a hundred cats caterwauling over there.”
“Petey, can you hear me now?” I asked, losing what little patience I had.
“Yeah. Yeah, I can hear you now. Mind coming over here? I got something I need to talk to you about.”
“Sure, I’ll be right over,” I said, slamming the phone down.
It was probably cooler outside than it was in my office, so why not?
As I was walking out, I stopped by Zelda’s desk.
“You holding up alright, Zelda?”
“I am. But I have to admit, I hope this is the hottest day of the year.”
I nodded. “That makes two of us. I’m heading out to see Petey, so you can help yourself to the rest of the lemonade Lily brought by this morning.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said. “We owe that girl our lives today, don’t we? That cold lemonade sure hit the spot!”
“I think you’re right. I should be back in before we close, so you’re holding down the fort.”
“Can do, sir.”
I shuffled out the door, quickly realizing that no, in fact, it was not hotter inside than it was outside. Still, Petey was one of the best friends I had, and one of the few I had over in this district, so I wasn’t about to put him off.
Thankfully, the ACPD was just a few minutes down the street from my office. Thanks to Petey’s superb job running the place, it was more of a competitor nowadays. I rarely got local clients anymore.
When I popped through the door, Lulu was ready and waiting. I’d already prepared myself for the usual barrage of jabs and jokes at my expense, but what I saw nearly floored me. Lulu sat quietly at her desk, with several crumpled tissues lying in front of her, her eyes red from crying.
“Lulu… you alright?” I asked, feeling my heart sink with dread. Never, not even once in all the years I’ve been walking in here, have I ever seen Lulu not beaming with happiness, let alone crying.
“Hi Trigger. It’s probably better if you speak to Petey first, you know? He’s holding together a little better than I am.”
I nodded, not waiting for more explanation than that, and quickly walked toward Petey’s office. As I passed a few other offices, the atmosphere continued to be bleak. I felt as though I’d walked into a funeral, and no one had told me who died.
I stepped into Petey’s office and was greeted with a big smile. At least the friendly Greyhound seemed to be his usual self, more or less.
“Heya, pal. Come on in and have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair in front of him.
I wasted no time in doing just that.
“What did you need to talk to me about?” I asked.
“Well… no easy way to say this, but I knew you’d want to be the first to know, so here we are. Chief Patches made his decision on how to punish the Black District department.” He paused, apparently trying to summon the proper words to explain. Instead, he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a badge and a letter, tossing both in front of me. “See for yourself.”
I picked up the badge. Black District Chief of Police was etched into it. I glanced up to Petey, then back to the badge, furrowing my brow. I didn’t understand this at all. Made no sense. I pulled the letter out, reading over it quickly. When I finished, I slumped back into the chair I was sitting in, and I understood with my whole heart why Lulu was crying. I tossed the letter back toward Petey and we sat quietly for a few minutes, both of us hoping the other would speak first.
“This is beyond the pale, Petey,” I said. “I just can’t believe it. You sure this isn’t a fake? You talk to him yourself?”
Petey nodded. “Thoughts I had myself, Trigger. I spoke to him and he confirmed it. Black District has been fully severed from the ACPD. We will no longer receive funding from the city, only the district, and I think you know what that means. We’re the poorest district in the city, by leaps and bounds. Things are going to go back to how they were before. I’m going to have to cut everyone’s pay, and that’s after I cut the force in half just so I can keep paying them at all. Every weapon that breaks now is going to stay broken, and eventually we’re going to run out. Officers are going to take bribes from Adria District’s upper-class criminals to expand operations here. Trigger… what do I do? I don’t see light on the other side of this one.”
“What do you do?” I asked, my voice trembling. “What do you do?” I shouted, jumping up from my seat. “You can decide what you want to do. I’m going to go back to my office and give Patches a phone call, and if he doesn’t come to his senses, I’m going to walk all the way to Blue District in this doggone heat and knock his teeth out. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Woah, pal. I get you’re mad. I am too, but they’ll throw you in the slammer if you go and do something like that. Look on the bright side. This should mean a lot more business for you.”
“I don’t want that business, Petey!” I growled. “I want to live in a half-way decent district with well-trained, good, honest cops. I want to walk between my office and my apartment without having to look over my shoulder every ten steps. I want to be able to travel from one end of the district to the other without having to intervene and stop some petty crime. You remember what it was like, Petey. Think about those pups and kittens that didn’t have a chance to grow up and find an honest job before gangs recruited them. Think about Harvey, and what a life he had, how hard it was for him to put his crime behind him and get any kind of break. Most don’t get that lucky. A lot of them died, or had friends that died before they even had—"
I slammed both my paws onto the top of his desk, bouncing everything sitting on top, making Petey jump a bit.
“You know what, maybe I’ll skip the phone call!”
I turned to leave, but Petey jumped up and grabbed me before I could grab the handle of the door.
“Hold up,” he said.
“Don’t try to stop me, Petey. This is too far. He was supposed to be my friend, Petey. This is unforgivable.”
“Alright. Alright…” he said. “I won’t try to stop you, but I’m going over there to talk to him tomorrow. If you’ll at least sleep on it, you can come with me, and maybe we can talk some sense into him.”
We locked eyes for a moment, and the hair down my back finally relaxed again. I put my paw on his shoulder. “Right. Okay. Yeah… Sorry, Petey. I’ll go with you tomorrow. I’m going to head back and close up the office and call it a day. I need to do some thinking. I’ll meet you here in the morning.”
He nodded. “Good. Thanks, Trigger. Let’s give him a chance to hear reason.”
I walked out of his office. Passing Lulu on the way out, I couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes, so I kept my head down. In fact, no one said anything to me on the way out. This department had been my family for all these years, and they treated me like family too. It was surreal walking out of here this way, but I couldn’t bear to look at any of them.
Heading back to my office, I stepped inside and nodded to Zelda.
“Oh no, Trigger… you look awful. Are
you alright?”
“Yeah… I mean, no, not really. Patches is severing Black District’s department from the ACPD and—"
Zelda gasped. “Oh no!”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s… more or less how I reacted too. Petey and I are going to head over there and have a chat with him tomorrow and see if he’ll come to his senses. Maybe he’s just trying to scare Petey. Show him what he could do, if he goes rogue again.”
“Oh, I hope so, Trigger. Things were just awful before, when our police had little funding. This will be even worse. Oh… well, I know I don’t have to tell you that, since you were a police officer for a while. Dreadful news.”
I sighed. “Let’s close up early today. I’ll pay you for the full day. It’s too hot anyway.”
“We can’t,” she said.
“Huh? Why not?” I asked, tilting my head.
“You have a cat in there waiting to meet with you. She said she made a very long trip in this heat, and she wasn’t going anywhere until she talked to you.”
“Alright, let me go in there and wrap this up really quick. You can go ahead, and I’ll lock up. Lock the front door on the way out and flip the sign.”
“Okay. Take care of yourself, Trigger, and please tell Lily I think she’s such a dear for bringing that lemonade this morning.”
“I will, Zelda. Have a good evening.”
I walked into my office and closed the door behind me, speaking to the back of the gray cat’s head sitting in the chair in front of my desk. “Sorry about that, I had to make an unexpected trip to meet with someone at the police department and—"
I stopped, noticing the cat was spinning a knife around in her paw with impressive speed and precision, and had a rucksack slung over her shoulder. She turned and my one good eye nearly popped out of my head.
“What’s the matter, little detective? Cat got your tongue?” she said, with a familiar scowl.
“Kerdy!”
2
I hadn’t seen Kerdy since that day in her apartment, and after that there was the whole bloody crime scene where we thought she’d been murdered, and her body disposed of somewhere. Petey said some police thought they’d seen her sometime later, but they couldn’t be sure. Now, here she was, no worse for wear, sitting in front of my desk. I had absolutely, positively, no clue how this day could get any weirder. I just hoped it wouldn’t get worse. Maybe, just maybe, she was here to let me know she’d survived, and that was it. She’d be on her way after making a wisecrack, and I could go home and soak my mattress in sweat and call it a day. Then again, if that happened, it would have to mean I’d accidentally borrowed a day from someone else’s life. Not a chance anything would ever go that easy.
“Detective, do you have some kind of brain injury, or are you just lacking something to injure?” she snapped.
I raised my paws. “Wow, alright. It’s definitely you, isn’t it? If there was any doubt before, there isn’t now.” I sat down in my desk chair and folded my paws onto the surface in front of me. “I’m all ears.”
She grinned, but not the friendly kind. “Oh, I’d say you’re only about fifty percent ears at best. Are you going to turn this fan on, or what? Don’t tell me it’s for decoration.”
As happy as I was to see her, she really was trying my patience, and unfortunately it was just about drained by this point already. “Knock yourself out, Kerdy, you old bag. See if you can scream over that blasted thing.”
She reached over and turned it on, then looked at me as though I’d just murdered her best friend.
“Detective… do you not even know how to oil a fan? What am I, your mother?” she said, glaring at me.
I stood up and stomped my way over to the closet, swung open the door, took out a bottle of oil, then fished for a screwdriver. I slammed the door closed hard, sat back in my chair, and dropped the two items in front of her.
“Like I said, knock yourself out. Please don’t tell me you came here just to gripe about my fan,” I said as I slumped back into my chair.
She ignored me, first unplugging and then quickly disassembling the fan piece by piece. First the cage, then the blades, then cover, all the way down to the motor. She used her shirt to wipe the dust from various parts and dripped a few drops of oil into a few different places. Finally, she reassembled it. Truth be told, the process had only taken a few minutes. She was incredibly skilled at this. It felt, however, like an hour had passed. She sat the fan back up onto the desk, plugged it in, and turned on the power.
I was in complete disbelief. It took me a moment to realize that the fan was blowing even harder than before but was virtually silent now. It didn’t sound this good when it was brand new.
“There, now we’re done griping about your fan. I’ve got a big problem,” she said.
“Yeah? Well, look, I’ve got a big problem too. I’m glad to see you’re alright, but maybe you should come back in a few days. I can only deal with one big problem at a time. Unfortunately, you’ll have to get in line.”
She clenched her teeth, glaring at me. “Whatever ‘big’ problem you think you have, I can promise you that mine’s bigger. Much bigger.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” I shot back. “It’s a pretty big problem, and you’re wearing out your welcome to boot. Now, how about you handle your big problem, I’ll handle mine, and we’ll meet back up here in a few days to compare notes, eh? You don’t need a stupid little dog holding you back anyway. I’m sure I’d just slow you down.”
I pointed to the door, but she didn’t get up.
“Trigger, you can’t comprehend how—”
I slammed my paw down on the desk. “Here we go again. I can’t comprehend? Enough wisecracks. Get to the doggone point or don’t let that door hit your tail on the way out.”
She grinned a toothy grin, but it still ended up looking almost like a snarl. “That’s more like it. I told you where I’m from. Something from there has found it’s way here, and it can’t be here. It will destabilize your city if the wrong dogs or cats get their paws on it.”
“Okay, sounds very dangerous. What are you going to pay for something like that?”
For once, she seemed reluctant to speak. “That’s… I’m not able to pay you.”
“Then get lost!” I shouted. “You must be looking for the charity place around the corner. Oh, that’s right, we can’t even afford charity in this district. Talk’s cheap, but it sounds like you can’t even afford that. I’m glad you’re alive. I’m glad to see you again, but I’ll be even more glad to see you leave. Now, get to it.”
She stood up. “What is this? Aren’t you supposed to be a hero? Why do you need money to save your city? Don’t you care about your people?”
I laughed at that. “My people? My people? My people are the ones who pay up when they ask me to put my life on the line for them. Or, did I miss all the ‘heroes eat here for free’ signs on my way to work this morning?”
That one cut deep. Surprisingly deep. Her breathing quickened, but she didn’t snap back with her usual comebacks. She slowly sat down back in her chair. “I will protect you and see that you make it through this unharmed, and… I’ll owe you a favor. Before you laugh, or throw me out, let me just say that many have asked for that very thing from me and I’ve never given it. This is too important. Please…”
I sighed. Wow, what a change of attitude suddenly.
As I sat thinking of how to respond, I heard three loud knocks on the main door out front.
“Excuse me. My secretary must’ve forgotten something,” I said, leaving my office and walking to the door.
Before I could reach it, I noticed an envelope on the floor. I rushed to the door and threw it open, looking all around, but whoever had been here was already gone. I reached down and opened the envelope, pulling on the note inside, reading it quietly to myself.
Your beagle friend won’t be making any more forgeries for you, just so you and your friends can cause me more trouble. Learn your lesson, or th
at pretty little lady friend of yours will be next. Just remember, we could have handled this the nice way.
-S
P.S. No need to go running out of your office. His wife will be by to see you soon. Have fun explaining to her that this is all your fault.
This is from Saint, no doubt. “Oh no, Harvey!”
Kerdy had been reading over my shoulder, but didn’t say anything. Just then, the door flung open and Priscilla came spilling inside.
“Trigger!” she screamed, her face soaked with tears. “Harvey’s in the hospital. I got a note that said you’d know everything. It’s bad. They rushed him into surgery! Trigger, what’s happening? Why did I get this letter?” She rushed over and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt.
“I… ” I started, but choked on the words. “I…” I tried again. A flood of memories came back to me. Harvey toasting me on his wedding day. All the times I’d asked him to help me forge documents, and against Priscilla’s wishes. She was afraid something like this would happen, and it finally did. Saint must’ve found out somehow and had him attacked.
“Trigger!” she screamed again. “Why won’t you answer me?” Suddenly she let go of my collar and took a step back.
“Priscilla, I… I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
Her tears turned into fury, and she stepped up and slapped me across the face. “I should’ve known! This is because you made Harvey forge those papers for you so you could go catch that really dangerous cat in Adria District. My pup might grow up without a father because of you.” She slapped me again, and all I could do was hold up my arms. She was right. Poor Harvey. This was all my fault. I felt overwhelmed, like I was about to be sick.
“I’ll get the cat behind this, Priscilla. I’ll make sure he pays,” I offered. It was all I could say.
“The dog behind it is right in front of me, so get yourself, Trigger! They used something to blow right through his office wall. He didn’t have a chance. He didn’t even know what was happening until it was too late. Whatever they used vaporized half the brick. Don’t even think about visiting us. You’ve done enough! I never want to see you again!”
