Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency Year Three: Case File No. 31-135
AMBER LOVE 16-DEC-2019 Find out how all this began. Catch up on Year One and previous Year Two cases at the Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency. We are in YEAR THREE!
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Where We Left Off:
Oliver Winchester led the team on indoor ghost hunting missions. There was enough spectral evidence to determine a genuine haunting presence.
The Terminator:
Burton Guster Nabu and Oliver Queen Winchester are not nocturnal creatures. They bust the myth that cats sleep all day and prowl all night. It’s called crepuscular. Between the two of them, Gus is much more active at night or at least awake and alert. He’s plenty rambunctious during the day though. That’s when he’s allowed to go out on patrols and adventures. Oliver acts differently depending on which human he’s around. At night he doesn’t cry to me, but he will cry to his favorite human, The Cook. He sneaks up here at night and in the morning for hunting, drinking water from the fountain, and dumping caustic poo in the upstairs litterbox.
Sometime around 0200 – 0300 in the dead of night is when Gus gets out of bed and goes looking for stuff to do. On occasion that means trying to hump Oliver until he jumps out of bed. The Cook gets terribly upset when that’s happening. Oftentimes, I’m waking up at the same time for one of many trips to the bathroom because sleep is for suckers (not really; I wish I was sleeping).
If the boys are hunting spirits and ghosts, things are usually quiet. There’s a lot of sitting and staring. When they are hunting critters, it can get rambunctious. Personally, I love watching them hunt. It’s like watching nature documentaries or those rare moments when children play without screaming.
The boys have a system. Since Gus is the bully, he’s the front line. He sprints more often during the critter encounters and is usually the one with possession of the target. Oliver is the back line. He stays directly out of the action and kind of acts like a goalie. If the target is escaping, Oliver will try to block them. I’ve witnessed Oliver being a wild, speedy, racing lunatic, but when they work together, this front line / back line soccer approach seems to work for them.
This particular night, Gus was on the bed at 0200 when Oliver entered the room. Gus perked up to find out what was going on. I was awake-ish and I noted the time. Gus did not need any stretching to wake up. He was immediately in action and jumped down. Soon, I could hear the racing in circles which is distinct compared to cardio workout on the stairs they do. Gus has sharp claws so he uses them to propel and then catch on the floor to make sharp turns. He’s also kind of an oaf and not particularly graceful. We work on that when he’s balancing on high tree branches and logs.
Around and around. Tight turns. Under the bed. Around the bench. Back to the fancy chair. Around the room divider. And so it went. I was so amused by the sounds, I decided to turn on the light and see if either of them had actually caught anything or if they were playing with each other. Gus had the robust mouse in his jaws and turned back to make sure I wasn’t getting out of bed to take it away from him. He, of course, kept letting it go in order to chase it around again and again. Oliver moved into the room and took up a post under the fancy chair which makes a pretty good fort.
By 0230, I decided to put on pajama pants and see if I could save the rodent since Gus was likely going to let it escape one of these times. I found a magazine and a jar. The mouse was between Gus’ front paws. He watched as I put the jar over his prey. Then I slid the magazine underneath the jar and the tiny feet. For a house mouse, it was a substantial size. Obviously, this one had been living quite well inside. I felt bad because it was one of the coldest nights, but the choices were to let the cats keep toying with it or take it outside.
I found a pair of the butler’s galoshes by the coffee bar and put those on my bare feet. Gus followed me closely. By this time, The Cook was awake too, so I showed her what we caught. Oliver was sneaking behind us silently. I went out the back door and into the freezing rain with the magazine and the mouse under the jar. I didn’t feel like going all the way to the woods in that weather in the pitch dark. I stopped at the bushes near the parking pad and Cheeks Moretti’s rock wall. I couldn’t see much of anything. I let the mouse go in those bushes and wished it well. It wasn’t the best of circumstances for a release, but there weren’t a lot of options that week because of the weather. I didn’t have any kind of cage to keep in as a pet until warmer temperatures.
It was time to try and get back to sleep. Not according to the cats though. When something is taken away from them, they return to the original scene and look around trying to find their target. They must feel some level of betrayal that one of their humans would abscond with something so precious to them. Sorry, gents.
Oliver switched to his prefrontal cortex mode rather than base instincts and asked me if I got any information about the squatter.
“Not much. I felt terrible. Those big black eyes were pleading with me. He did say that he would be back.”
“Like the Terminator?”
“Pretty much. I guess I didn’t take him out far enough away from the house.”
Oliver may have muttered that I’m useless under his breath, but I’ll pretend he didn’t. Deep down, he knows that I am one of the pooper-scoopers and adventure companions.
Case Findings:
As far as this case goes, that means it technically is closed since the perp was re-homed and released on his own recognizance. If he comes back, it would be a violation of the terms and the boys will be ready to do it all over again (video in the embedded IG below).
Case Status: Closed
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Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.