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Sleuthing for Pay, Food, to Save Face, Even for Solving the Case

There was this white dog with a puppy cut. It was found mutilated at the top of a tree. How did it happen? That’s the mystery. No murder mystery though. After all, it’s a dog. Dense PI Jack and his smart lady friend Julie, clueless cops, Birdman Fritz, Jungle Tom, and others make for mystery as farce. It’s all humor about a dimly lit time and very gray place. Who says so? I do. Who? The author of a “how did it happen” rather than a “who done it.”

Chapter 2 Andre’s Emporium That old lady made me obsess about food. Most of my friends do that to me too. I made a beeline to the deli and scored a couple of candy bars and strong black coffee. Nothing like a breakfast of candy bars and black coffee. It's almost as good as beer and Wheaties. It wakes you up. Gets you ready for the day. You don’t have to worry about eating for a while. Some days if I’m really lucky, I'd have a couple of crullers or even an elephant ear. Let’s leave talk about food until later. While chomping on my third candy bar, I entered Andre’s Pet Grooming Emporium. Andre and I go back to the days when ballroom dancing meant something. Now it’s all disco. Too hypnotic. Not intimate. If anybody knew things about dog mutilation, it would be Andre. He gives them some strange cuts. The dogs are innocent. They don’t know how bad they look. All the weirdoes who dress up dogs as cowboys, ballet dancers, and clowns show up here. You’ve got the picture that Andre has seen it all. He has this big pompadour and some missing teeth in front, but he is a sweet guy and knows his stuff. “Hey Jock-O my boy,” he said. He used to be a pirate. I’ll bet that a lot of pirates retire and become pet groomers. That’s why he doesn’t get his teeth fixed. It would spoil his look. “Andre at work. What’re you doing to that one? Getting him ready for a bike parade?” “No, just cleaning him and making him look like this picture.” Some of these dog owners see some dog in a magazine groomed like Clark Gable, with his slick matted down hair, and ask Andre to oil up their dog that way. The way that Andre perfumes the dogs, you have to light up a cigarette to mask the sweet sickening odor. I lit one up. Andre saw it coming. I blew smoke and asked, “Did you hear about the mutilated toy dog in the tree?” “Yeah Jock-O, a lot of owners are doubling down on their insurance.” ”I’m working that case.” “Well the cops could care less. They look at it as an act of God or something. You would think God had better things to do than mutilate dogs and put them in trees.” “So, I won’t bump into anyone else on the trail?” “I don’t know what a trail would look like. Who’s on it? No idea. Unless it’s some crazy religious cult.” “Yeah Andre. Nobody went up into the tree to mutilate the dog.” “Well I’m glad that you aren’t letting it drop.” “Not me, my client needs closure. And somebody should find out what happened to her furry friend.” “Yep, it's good that somebody cares.” “It was a Havanese with a puppy cut. Did you do it?” “Naw. Not my dog. When you’re trimming the aim is to make it as cute as possible. The cuter the puppy cut, the bigger the tip.” These groomers try to make the mature, adult dogs look like cute baby dogs forever. Draw people in with the cuteness of babies. Pooches included. That’s how Disney made his fortune. Making animated dwarfs and animals look like people babies. Cute. Cute. Cute. I continued, “You know dog owners, especially the kind with toy dogs. Are there quirks I should be looking for?” “They usually seem to have an obsession with food.” “That makes sense. My lady is rectangular, you know boxy, and she harped on my skinniness.” “They try to feed those little dogs like there’s no tomorrow.” “I didn’t hear that it was a fat mutilated Havanese.” “It’s hard to tell because they’re so fluffy.” “Proves that chubby is good. That’s a help Andre. I’ll look into the dog’s weight and take it from there.” Chapter 3 The Pet Cemetery There’s no morgue for dogs. There’s no oddball coroner in this story. But I didn’t want to go back and ask Miss Arbuckle if her dog had a weight problem. Maybe it had a heart attack or something. That’s why I was there in the dead of night at the pet cemetery with my shovel. I walked past tombstone after tombstone. You quickly walk by a lot of them because a lot of them are for tiny animals. From above, it’s like a big train set with graves on it. There were some statues of dogs with noble bearing, pointing or guarding something. Then there was this turtle. It was an imposing turtle. It made an impression. They couldn’t give the turtle a noble bearing. Well, to be honest, I couldn’t tell if it had a noble bearing. Reptiles are like that. No square-jawed clear-eyed turtles. Maybe in cartoons. Not in real life. Ah! There was the Muffin plot. Bless her heart. The little angel. In that cute little grave. Next to her tiny stone. The stone read, “To my reason for living---Albion.” Miss Arbuckle must’ve written that. She must’ve loved that dog. Most people don’t get a tribute like that. I could tell Arbuckle was sentimental. Next to Muffin’s little plot was a gigantic plot with a massive stone on it. It was for an eagle. Next to it, there was this pedestal with a sculpture of a giant eagle. The stone said, “Alfie the Golden Eagle.” I checked the date and it was the same as Muffin’s year. Alfie must’ve been buried right after Muffin. Who would keep a golden eagle as a pet anyway? I think you have to feed those things live food, at least some of the time. They probably don’t have very good table manners. I figured that parts of the dog were missing with the mutilation and all, and it had been down there for a while moldering. So, a quick look wouldn’t tell me much about how chubby Muffin was. I planned to use science and weigh the remains. I brought my bathroom scale. I’d weigh myself. I’d hold the remains and weigh myself. I’d subtract the difference. Just as I struck the coffin, I saw some lights and heard some commotion. I scattered the dirt back, hid the shovel, and scurried to the road walking as if nothing was going on. You know, whistling Dixie. Yep, a friendly squad car was on me. “Hey Lou. I think that guy is shamus Jack.” “You’re right Pete.” “Yo Jack, what’re you doing in this cemetery? What’s that under your arm?” “Is that you Lou? What’re you doing in the grave yard?” “What about you? Did you decide to leave your bathroom and weigh yourself in the cemetery at night?” Pete asked. “Ha, Ha. I was taking the scale to Julie’s so she could weigh in. She’s going on a diet.” “Likely story. There’s something going on here. Every time we bump into you Jack, there seems to be something strange going on. If we find there’s more to this, we’ll be back. You’re not supposed to be in here after dark.” “I know to you cops everything looks funny. But if there’s a scoop for you guys, I won’t hold back. I’ll be quick to let you in on it.” “What kind of scoop could it be Jack? The pooper kind? You get that one Lou? Ha. Ha. Hey look, the scale isn’t concealed. Heh, heh. It doesn’t look like a weapon. Hearty Har Har.” “You guys should be comedians. Why don’t you go catch some criminals?” “You got any handy Jack?” “I do have a weighty case guys! Real heavy.” “Let’s get out of here Pete before his jokes put us to sleep.”