Muddy Mouth: A Dog Park Mystery

by Newsome, C. A.

  Chewy lapped out of a bucket sitting under the pump, rinsing his beard clean in the process. He followed Lia back to the table while she muttered.

  “How long has he been doing that?” Bailey asked.

  “I don’t know. He does it every so often, always has. I haven’t given it much thought. Do you think it’s a problem?”

  “I was just reading about this.” A line formed between Bailey’s eyes as she searched her memory. “It could be caused by thyroid problems or issues with his pancreas, or even brain lesions. His diet may be insufficient, or he could just be bored. Chewing releases dopamine in dogs. You should rule out any medical problems.”

  “I had no idea. So eating dirt isn’t an issue by itself? It won’t hurt him?”

  “Depends on where the dirt comes from. If it’s loaded with pesticides, it’ll be toxic. That’s not an issue in the park, but dirt can wear his teeth down, and he can crack them on stones. He could wind up with an obstruction. If it’s not medical, it would be a good idea to occupy him with a substitute.”

  Lia sighed. “I’m betting it’s a habit left over from before. When I found him, he’d been neglected. Not abused, but it was obvious that someone dumped him in the back yard and ignored him. I don’t think he’d ever been groomed. His coat was matted thicker than carpet. And he had so much eye-gunk matted in his fur, I don’t know how he could see. Still, we’d better check it out.” She leaned down, looked Chewy in the eyes and ruffled his ears. “You, Mister Muddy Mouth, are going to the vet.”

  Penny, Steve’s small terrier mix, leapt up on the picnic table and lavished her usual frantic kisses on Lia’s cheek before jumping down to make a play bow for Chewy, who grumbled and barked. Penny, undeterred, raced around the table in circles. As Penny usually played advance guard for Terry and Steve, Lia looked up to see them approaching, followed by Jackson and Napa.

  Terry always reminded Lia of a stockier Teddy Roosevelt. Now that he and Steve were roommates, the pair often came to the dog park together. The two were of a size, though Steve was round and bald where Terry was chunky and hirsute. They reminded her of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

  No one understood how they managed to live together. Terry, a retired government worker, held rabidly right-wing views. Steve was a die-hard Democrat and former union negotiator who now worked at the Homeless Association. Steve once explained to Lia that they had a compromise: Terry would not listen to Rush Limbaugh while Steve was home, and Steve would not turn on Bill Mahler while Terry was there. Together, they watched sports.

  “What’s the word, what’s the word?” Terry asked.

  “Flibbertigibbet,” Bailey volunteered.

  “Ah, Wayland’s exasperating apprentice,” Terry said.

  “Who?” Bailey asked.

  “Wayland’s Smithy is a Neolithic barrow in England. Wayland was a god, and when his apprentice annoyed him too much, he threw the apprentice as far as he could. The boy turned into stone when he landed. He is now a boundary marker for Sniveling Corner.”

  Steve stared at Terry. “I’m going to block the History Channel.”

  “Too late,” Lia said.

  “What’s going on with your friend Leroy?” Steve asked.

  “He’s not my friend,” Lia said. “I’ve never met him.”

  “He’s paying you to build a float. Doesn’t that make him your friend?” Steve asked.

  “You explain it,” Lia told Bailey.

  “Lia’s not important enough to meet the author. She’s been fobbed off on underlings,” Bailey explained.

  “His aunt and her friends manage the business for him,” Lia said. “I guess he doesn’t care about that end of things.”

  “Especially not since he’s still missing,” Bailey added. “I haven’t seen anything new lately. But what’s with that blogger? Is she really his girlfriend?”

  “What blogger?” Lia asked.

  “She calls herself ‘Citrine.’ I’m guessing that’s because Pink is already taken. She’s a singer-slash-poet-slash-blogger and wannabe internet personality. She has orange hair and angst.”

  “I don’t get the orange hair and angst connection,” Steve said.

  “Orange is associated with happiness,” Lia said. “That and highway barrels. Doesn’t say ‘angst’ to me.”

  “You have a point,” Steve said, “I’ve had plenty of angst over highway barrels.”

  “Black has been done to death.” Bailey pulled up the internet on her phone. “Huh. This page says orange is also associated with ‘emotional resilience during difficult times.’ Maybe that’s what she means.”

  “I thought citrine was yellow,” Steve said.

  “That’s the color,” Bailey said. “Citrine is also a type of quartz crystal, and it’s orange.”

  “Look up the stone,” Lia said.

  Bailey tapped her screen again. “Oh. It’s called the merchant’s stone. Maybe she’s hoping to make money off her internet stuff.”

  “So,” Terry said. “is the mercenary wench attempting to profit from Leroy’s current predicament?”

  “Predicament meaning he might be dead? I hope not,” Lia said.

  “It’s a weird fit. Lucas Cross fans are not her audience, though he is semi-famous. Anyone searching for him on the internet will come up with her page,” Bailey explained. “And every hit counts. Even the extraneous hits will help her visibility.”

  “Maybe she’s just a drama queen and she really loves him,” Lia said.

  Steve and Terry looked at each other. They shook their heads and said, “Nah,” simultaneously.

  “How’s her poetry?” Steve asked.

  “Uninspiring, with erotic intentions, except when she’s wailing about Leroy’s disappearance. She seems to like the idea that he’s dead,” Bailey said.

  “Probably because a corpse can’t tell everyone that she made it all up,” Terry said.

  “Does this person have a dog?” Steve asked.

  “Cat, why?”

  “Thank God,” Lia said. “We won’t run into her here.”

  Lia scraped the last bit of black paint out of the cup she held and was dabbing it on top of a gun sight the size of a flat-screen TV when the sound of a door closing echoed through the vast commercial garage. Lia looked down from her perch on a towering safety ladder to see Sarah Schellenger examining the float.

  Sarah, librarian at the Northside branch library, was tall and slender with hair to the middle of her back and a forthright nose to go with her forthright sensibilities. She ran a knitting group at the library, informally named Fiber and Snark, where she created sweaters for teddy bears that she sold to raise money for SCOOP, an organization that aided management of the local feral cat population and provided medical care for feral cats with special needs. She and her husband, Duane, had eleven cats of their own.

  Lia put her brush in the empty cup, then tucked both into a large pocket on her painting vest. “I think that’s it for today,” she yelled down.

  “I don’t know why you’re bothering with the top,” Sarah yelled back. “Who’s going to see up there? Superman?”

  “You never know when the Google Earth satellite will pass over.”

  “True.”

  Lia climbed down the monster ladder, though climbing didn’t seem like the right word. The thing had 24 inch wide steps and handrails, for heavens sake, making it suitable for debutantes in hoop skirts.

  She opened a dented and rusted folding chair and plopped down next to Sarah, sighing and rolling her head around to stretch her neck. Chewy scratched an ear and yawned from his nest of tarps by the wall. He rose from his nap and came over to demand an ear ruffle. Lia automatically obliged as she looked up at the gun, satisfied with their progress.

  “Terry keeps saying the Browning Buckmark is only a .22 and unworthy of such exaltation, but I don’t think anyone else cares,” Lia said.

  “Next time I need a 16 foot tall model of a gun, he can build it instead of just letting you take pictures of
one,” Sarah said. “The 24 inch PVC sewer pipe was the only thing light enough to work, and it was scrap, so I got it free. You found a gun with the right proportions and a round barrel. Tell him to pull on his big girl panties and suck it up.”

  The parade float dedicated to Lucas Cross’ international crime thrillers was a marvel of engineering, built on the back of a flatbed trailer to a scale of 1:30. Lia had tapped Jose to help build the framework after Jim, a retired engineer, advised her on the plans.

  The Browning Buckmark lacked the firepower of a .44 magnum, but its molded rubber grips swooped in lines that appealed to Lia’s artist sensibilities. The black grips contrasted with the silver barrel and the gold trigger was a detail she couldn’t resist. Everyone agreed that it screamed “international espionage.”

  The float would be finished with banners hanging from the sides of the trailer that advertised the upcoming twin launch of Lucas Cross’ latest books, Savage Gun and Koi: Predator.

  “Still no word about Leroy?” Lia asked.

  Sarah sighed and looked down at the floor. “He’s still missing. The Austin police won’t tell us anything.”

  “Debby must be going crazy. I can’t believe you’re going ahead with the parade float.”

  “Alice made the point that if Lucas is still missing by July 4th, it will only be in slightly worse taste than the usual Northside parade float. The books are coming out next month, regardless.”

  Sarah looked at her watch. “I’ve got to help Cecilie feed the cats at SCOOP. Carol usually comes on Saturdays, but she’s out of commission. Can I bribe you into giving me a hand?”

  “Sure, I’ll give you a hand, if you don’t mind Chewy coming along.”

  Chewy lifted his head off his canvas bed and gave Sarah a grin.

  Sarah looked at the schnauzer, evaluating. “I’m not worried. They’ve got him outsized and outnumbered.”

  SCOOP, which stood for Save Cats & Obliterate OverPopulation, was Cecilie’s feral cat sanctuary. It currently housed 88 cats. Lia was surprised when Sarah pulled up to a neatly landscaped brick house. Only Chewy’s vigorous sniffing suggested anything was out of the ordinary.

  “Looks too normal, doesn’t it?” Sarah asked.

  “Ninety cats? Here?” Lia asked.

  “Eighty-eight at last count. We go through one thousand pounds of kitty litter every month.”

  Lia did the math. Cecilie must go through a 35 pound bag of kitty litter every day. She was tossing out over 200 pounds of just kitty litter a week. The garbage men must hate her.

  “Where do they come from?”

  “There are dozens of feral cat colonies around Cincinnati. We assist in spay/neuter programs that release the cats back into the wild, but our primary goal is to home adoptable cats and provide sanctuary for those that have medical conditions that require ongoing treatment. Some have feline AIDS, some have leukemia. Others have been horribly abused. We take in litters when we can, to socialize the kittens for adoption. Cecilie is overloaded right now because someone was shooting the cats in a feral colony behind a trailer park. We had to get them out of there.”

  “You have cages for them all?”

  “Most of them have the run of the first floor.” Sarah opened her door. “Come on. I’ll give you the tour.”

  Lia’s progress up the front walk was hampered by Chewy’s frantic sniffing. Finally Lia took a treat from her pocket and held it up for him. Cats forgotten, Chewy followed the lure to the house. Cecilie met them on the steps. Her wiry hair was shot with gray and scraped back into a practical bun. The crystal drops she wore on her ears made a feminine counterpoint to her striped tee and work jeans.

  “Reinforcements! Excellent,” Cecilie said. “The first thing we’re going to do is clean the litter pans. Then we’ll feed them. I’ll take care of the quarantined cats after you leave.”

  “You have cats in quarantine?”

  “Every cat goes through quarantine when it arrives to ensure it doesn’t pass any diseases to the population. We also keep a few who are communicable. You won’t be handling them.”

  “Cecilie wouldn’t let the Centers for Disease Control touch those cats with hazmat suits and a ten-foot pole. She has high standards,” Sarah said.

  Chewy strained towards the door.

  “Are you sure Chewy isn’t going to be a problem?” Lia asked.

  “If he is, they’ll soon put him in his place,” Cecilie said. “Just keep him on his leash until he calms down. I bet he finds a nice, safe corner for himself.”

  Cecilie led them into a small foyer with a 40-inch tall pet gate at the far end.

  “I’ve got goodies for the closet,” Sarah said, removing several leashes and a dog coat from her tote bag.

  “Great.” Cecilie turned to Lia. “We get a lot of donations. We raise money with garage sales, but we keep any dog and cat equipment that we can’t use to pass along to other rescue organizations. Those donations have their own space.”

  Sarah opened the closet door. It was filled with every kind of leash and harness imaginable, along with a hodgepodge of grooming tools, food dishes, and collapsible crates. She hung the leashes on a hook, then placed the dog coat on a shelf with several others.

  A marmalade cat strolled to the gate, rubbing itself against the vertical bars. Chewy lunged for the gate, barking. The cat looked up, as if to say, “What are you doing here?” then sat down and started cleaning itself. Chewy whined.

  “I bet that cat knows exactly how far Chewy’s paws would reach through those bars,” Lia said.

  “That’s Jam, and you wouldn’t be wrong,” Sarah said.

  Cecilie opened the gate and Jam leapt into a cat tree. The foyer opened up into a feline jungle. Cats perched on a half-dozen multi-level cat trees anchored to the ceiling to ensure feline acrobatics would not cause disaster. Cats strolled along the carpet-covered catwalks that lined every wall, seven feet above the floor.

  Chewy whined and returned to Lia’s side.

  “Stranger in a strange land, Little Man?” Lia asked.

  “We tried the cat walks at 6 feet,” Cecilie said, “but the cats liked to lurk up there and swat at people passing by, so we raised them.”

  The living room furniture was covered with sheets tied around the legs, then topped with industrial pet covers that look like quilted mover’s blankets. There was a four-foot path behind one sofa, where large litter boxes sat on larger quilted pads. Cardboard cat scratchers were strategically placed around the room. On one side, two four-foot wire cubes held a half-dozen cats each. The crates were topped with fleece canopies, serving double duty as cat hammocks.

  The living room flowed into the dining room, which opened to the kitchen on one side and an enormous den on the other. The kitchen and den had pet gates.

  Cecilie led Lia and Chewy into the den, where patio doors looked onto the back yard, which featured several bird feeders on poles and a pair of bird baths. More than a dozen cats sat, riveted, watching the birds.

  “It’s cat heaven,” Lia said. “I can’t believe how clean everything is. And you live here. Amazing.”

  “We love it,” Cecilie said. She returned to the gate and pointed at a loose mounting. “Be careful when you use this gate. We need to fix it. Bill hasn’t gotten around to it yet. It’s one of a hundred things we haven’t found time to do.”

  “Realities of a non-profit,” Sarah said.

  “Truth,” Cecilie said.

  Lia was scooping the last of a bag of kibble into a communal feed bowl when the front door opened.

  Someone called out, “I’m here, let’s get this show on the road. Where is everybody?”

  “Damn,” Sarah said, setting down a water dish.

  “Who’s that?” Lia asked.

  “I have a confession to make.”

  “Let me guess. That’s Paris Hilton. She’s sponsoring all the cats and their personal attendants are on their way with coolers full of fresh tuna steaks.”

  “Not quite.” Sarah s
obered. “The members of Fiber and Snark want to talk to you. That’s Debby. Alice and Carol will be here any minute.”

  They hate the float. Worse, they can’t pay me for the float. A month away from my own work for nothing…

  “Come on,” Sarah said to Lia, “I’ll finish this later.”

  Lia sat on a couch between Sarah and Cecilie as a parade of felines waltzed across the back and climbed down to knead laps with sharp claws. Chewy took refuge behind Lia’s legs, whining in distress as a one-eyed Siamese rubbed against Lia’s shin. She reached down to scratch his head, idly noticing the absence of cat hair on the furniture. How many hours does Cecilie spend brushing them every day?

  Debby sat on another couch across the room. She was a sturdy, middle-aged woman with an abundance of thick, black hair that was her best feature. Lia bet she kept it long for simplicity rather than vanity. Her clothes were functional knits that likely came from a big box store. She looked like she had the temperament of a steamroller. She probably needed it. The Elmwood Place branch was one of the more difficult posts for a librarian.

  Sarah and Debby gave each other odd looks and said nothing. Sarah looked down at the Persian in her lap while scratching her own scalp.

  “You’d better not have fleas,” Debby said.

  “It’s stress-induced dandruff.”

  “I hope it’s not catching,” Debby muttered.

  The silence resumed until Lia heard a car pull up outside. Sarah’s shoulders slumped in relief.

  “It’s about time,” Debby said.

  Alice opened the door. She was a freckled brunette with short, wavy hair and studious spectacles. She was an architect who specialized in rehabbing Northside Victorians and wore functional tunics in exotic prints that impressed clients with her creative sensibilities.

  “Where’s Carol?” Sarah asked.

  “She’s stumping along,” Alice said, holding the door open as Carol, right leg encased in a clunky apparatus that looked like a toe-less ski boot, struggled through the door on a pair of crutches. The scrape on her forehead was now scabbed. Debby moved over to make room for her. Carol dropped down and sighed, a pair of tabbies dashing for cover as she let the crutches fall.