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  A Cat Was Involved

  'A Fistful of Collars' Excerpt

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  A CAT WAS INVOLVED

  A Chet and Bernie Mystery eShort Story

  Spencer Quinn

  ATRIA BOOKS

  ATRIA UNBOUND

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  Praise for the Chet and Bernie Mystery Series

  THE DOG WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

  “A charming tale.”

  —People

  “Outstanding. . . . intelligent writing and on-the-mark pacing and tone.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Human cunning and canine smarts triumph once again.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A thoroughly entertaining comic mystery. A must-read, of course, for everyone who likes a canine presence in their crime novels.”

  —Booklist

  TO FETCH A THIEF

  “Terrific. . . . You don’t have to be a dog lover to enjoy this deliciously addictive series.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “If you like Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich, hop on this train. . . . To Fetch a Thief is every bit as good as the first two.”

  —LA Times Magazine

  “Tender-hearted Chet and literal-minded Bernie are the coolest human/pooch duo this side of Wallace and Gromit.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  THEREBY HANGS A TAIL

  “Pulls the reader along as if on a leash.”

  —Booklist

  “A proper, satisfying whodunit.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “For all mystery lovers, even those with cats.”

  —Library Journal

  “The most winning detective duo since Shaggy met Scooby. . . . Quinn mixes suspense and humor as Chet tries to puzzle out humans’ odd ways.”

  —Christian Science Monitor

  DOG ON IT

  “Spencer Quinn speaks two languages—suspense and dog. . . . My sincere advice to you is to rush to your nearest bookstore and put your paws on this enchanting one-of-a-kind novel.”

  —Stephen King

  “Nothing short of masterful.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Chet is a hoot—or should I say a howl.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Sweetly engaging . . . and wonderfully entertaining.”

  —The Denver Post

  “Readers will love Chet’s ruminations on steak, bacon, chew toys and cats. Adorable describes this character-driven novel, which is also well-written and nicely paced. . . . Even cat lovers will howl with delight.”

  —USA Today

  “A winning debut . . . that fans of classic mysteries are sure to appreciate.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Excellent and fully fleshed primary and secondary characters, a consistently doggy view of the world, and a sprightly pace make this a not-to-be-missed debut. Essential for all mystery collections and for dog lovers everywhere.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “At last, a dog lover’s mystery that portrays dogs as they really are.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “A detective, a dog, and some major league prose. Dog On It is a genuine joy.”

  —Robert B. Parker

  “Bernie and Chet may be the most appealing detective duo since Watson and Holmes.”

  —Sharon Kay Penman

  “Chet—let’s get a move on, buddy.”

  Chet? That was me, and getting a move on was my kind of thing. Plus here at K-9 school they were big fans of coming after your name was called—pretty soon after, in fact, if you wanted a treat. Which I always did. But at this particular moment, I had just lifted my leg, and once started in on something like that, there’s really no stopping till it’s over, as you probably know. I’m not referring to the brief leg lift for marking purposes, over and done with in a flash. This was the other kind, much longer-lasting, and often a peaceful break in the day, where the mind can wander in a pleasant sort of—

  “Chet!”

  I finished up and trotted over to Officer Bobby Torres. Bobby gave me a funny look. I gave him a funny look back. His eyes, dark and watchful, narrowed a bit, and he wrote something on his clipboard. I yawned. Bobby opened the back door of his black-and-white.

  “In,” he said.

  I hopped in. Butch, my K-9 school pal, was already there, taking up most of the space. I nudged him over toward his side. Butch was one huge dude, everything about him enormous—excepting his eyes, which were tiny and dust-colored—and took a lot of nudging. No problem—I’m a good nudger. But hey! So was Butch, which I found out pronto from how he nudged me back. Then there was nothing to do but nudge him again, even harder. And what did he do? Renudged me, still harder. My pal Butch was turning out to be more fun than I’d thought. I gathered my strength, possibly tearing the seat cover with one of my back claws, just to judge from the sound, and gave Butch a nudge he wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon. Surprise: Butch seemed to forget it immediately, gathering his own strength—what was that? another ripping sound?—and—

  Bobby pounded on the steel grill separating front from back in the cruiser. “Knock it the hell off, you two!” he yelled. “Lookin’ to flunk out of the program right this goddamn second? Cause I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

  Whatever that was didn’t sound good. Butch and I knocked it off and lay low, growling at each other from time to time, but real quiet, so Bobby couldn’t hear. After a while I felt the cruiser slowing down, way too soon for the range. I sniffed the air, picked up the distinctive smell of crullers. Crullers, a complete unknown to me until K-9 school, were a big favorite of Bobby’s, especially the crullers at a joint called Donut Heaven where cops hung out. Cops were also new to me but I was liking them already: they had big appetites and ate messily.

  I raised my head just as we pulled into the Donut Heaven parking lot and stopped beside another cruiser. We parked cop-style, driver’s-side door to driver’s-side door. The windows slid down and Bobby said, “Hey, bro.”

  Sergeant Rick Torres was Bobby’s actual brother, not the other kind of bro I knew from my rough early days among the gangbangers. They looked pretty similar, Rick’s mustache being a little bushier, and they smelled practically identical, except that Rick showered every day and Bobby did not. Rick stuck his arm out and handed Bobby a cruller and a paper cup of coffee. Coffee did nothing for me—water’s my drink—but crullers are another matter, if that’s not already clear. I pressed my muzzle against the bars, just as a hint to Bobby, and what do you know? Butch was up and doing the same thing. I gave him a nudge.

  “What’s on tap?” Rick said.

  Bobby jerked his head in our direction. “Last day of testing,” he said. “Just these two left in the program.”

  “Cream of the crop?” said Rick.

  Butch gave me a nudge back.

  “Yup,” Bobby said, biting into the cruller and swilling down a mouthful with coffee. I loved when humans did that swilling down food thing, wished I knew how to do it myself.

  “Got a favorite?” Rick said.

  “Between these two? The real big one’s solid. The
other guy’s a bit of a puzzle, tell you the truth.”

  “How so?”

  “Something’s going on with him. He gives me funny looks.”

  I had no recollection of ever doing that. Therefore Bobby was talking about Butch and the real big guy turned out to be me and everything was cool. I held myself back from nudging Butch again. Poor dude wasn’t solid and I felt bad for him.

  Meanwhile I watched the cruller disappearing bite by bite. Butch was watching, too. We had our noses pressed through little squares in the metal screen, side by side. But one difference between me and Butch: When Bobby had totally finished his cruller, not a crumb remaining, not even in his mustache—which he licked with the tip of his tongue! Hey! What a dude!—Butch stayed where he was, like maybe somehow there’d be more cruller, while I backed away and took a glance out the side window.

  And got a shock right away. A bright yellow car pulled in and parked a few rows in front of us. That wasn’t the shocking part. The shocking part was riding on the shelf in the space between the rear window and the backseat: a cat. This particular cat was plump and white, with golden eyes and a pinkish nose. Like all cats I’d ever dealt with, it took its time noticing me.

  “Hey, Chet! Put a lid on it!”

  I became aware that barking was going on—loud and piercing, a bit savage, even frightening if you were the type who could be frightened by barking, which I was not.

  “Chet! Shut up!”

  Was it possible that—? I tried not barking. The barking stopped. At that moment the cat finally noticed me, noticed me in a very superior way I didn’t care for at all.

  “Chet! I’m not telling you again. Lie down.”

  I lay down. Not totally down, if totally down meant belly actually touching the seat, but lower, for sure, at least somewhat.

  “You can tag along if you want,” Bobby said. “Could be fun—it’s the leaping test.”

  “Sounds good,” said Rick. “But I’ve got a meeting here in a few minutes.”

  “With who?”

  “Bernie Little.”

  “That loser? What does he want?”

  “Bro?” Rick said. “Don’t call him that.”

  “If you say so,” Bobby said. “But everyone else does.”

  “Who’s everyone else?”

  “On the force.”

  “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “You saying he got canned for no reason?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what? Spill it.”

  There was a pause. “Strictly between us,” Rick said.

  “You got it.”

  “Okay,” Rick said, opening his door. “And how about a refill?”

  Bobby lowered our side windows partway and got out of the car. The two of them walked across the lot to the Donut Heaven building, Rick talking, Bobby listening. Butch lay down and closed his eyes. I checked my side window. Down, but not down far enough for me to squeeze through. The cat was still on the back shelf in the yellow car. It yawned in my face. Meanwhile, the driver of the yellow car was putting on lipstick, her head craned over to the rearview mirror. Then she did that lip smacking women did after the lipsticking, stepped out of the car—a youngish woman in short shorts and a little top—and went into Donut Heaven.

  After that nothing happened for a while, except for the sun shining down—the sun shines just about every day here in the Valley—and Butch starting to snore. I kept a close eye on the cat, but that didn’t stop me from noticing a battered old jeep that drove in and circled slowly around: two massive dudes, thicknecked and longhaired, in the front seat, both of them giving the cars in the lot a sort of once-over.

  They parked beside the yellow car. The passenger—slightly smaller than the driver, and clothed only in jeans and dirty work boots—jumped out. He took a jimmy from his pocket—I was plenty familiar with jimmies from my gangbanger days—and in a flash he’d opened the door and slid behind the wheel.

  Cat, I thought, do something.

  The cat opened its eyes and turned its head toward the front, but that was all. The dude in front ducked down out of sight for a moment. Then the engine went vroom vroom, a soft kind of vroom vroom, probably not very noticeable to humans on account of their hearing problems, no offense. The dude straightened up, spun the wheel, and the yellow car zipped out of the lot, the jeep right behind it. I caught a last glimpse of the cat, now standing, its tail up and teeth bared. Too late, buddy boy. I barked. A weird thought—something about me being too late as well—almost took shape in my mind and then vanished. I’ve got the kind of mind that’s on my side.

  A convertible pulled into the lot. I’d never been in a convertible and it was one of my strongest desires ever since the time, back in my puppy days, that I’d seen a dog riding shotgun in a topless lowrider. I’d been living in a crack house in the worst part of Vista City at the time, but that’s not the point. The point is that the gangbanger dog was loving it! And I knew I’d love it, too.

  This particular convertible, which parked close by, wasn’t shiny and new like the yellow car, but old and dented, the body sandblasted down to no color at all. The driver got out and looked around. He was a pretty big guy, although not as big as the two dudes who’d taken the yellow car. I tended to watch big guys carefully. This particular big guy wore a Hawaiian shirt with palm trees on it. I was a fan of Hawaiian shirts, and also of palm trees. We’ve got palm trees out the yingyang here in the Valley; I’d marked lots of them, but had many more to go.

  The Hawaiian shirt guy saw me and came closer. Human faces are a big subject, no time to go into it now. This guy had a strong face. I was familiar with strong faces on men. Those strong faces often had a mean part as well. This one didn’t. No meanness that I could see, although neither would I have called it a happy face. He came right up to the cruiser.

  “The cruller brothers meet again?” he said.

  Which I didn’t get at all. But it didn’t matter because right about then I caught a whiff of this man. Apples, bourbon, salt, pepper; maybe a little heavy on the bourbon at the moment. The combo worked for me, big-time. The truth was I’d never come across a better human scent. A nice breeze sprang up in the backseat. I glanced back to see what Butch was up to: still dozing, but what was that? My tail was wagging kind of wildly? I tried to ramp it down and maybe succeeded a bit.

  “Friendly, huh?” said the guy in the Hawaiian shirt. A smile appeared on his face—almost making him look like someone else. “Well, uh”—he peered at my tags—“Chet, how’s K-9 school going?”

  Great! Couldn’t be better. Only the leaping test left, and leaping was my very best thing. Bobby was going to be amazed.

  The Hawaiian shirt guy laughed. I wasn’t sure why, but he had a lovely laugh, the sound rich and warm, kind of like some music I’d heard, not the crack-house kind. I found I was sort of sticking my head through the window. He raised his hand to give me a pat. A woman screamed.

  We—the Hawaiian shirt guy and I—turned to look. The woman in the short shorts and halter top had come out of Donut Heaven and was standing where her car had been, holding her hands to her face.

  “Oh, my God! Where’s my car?” She took a few steps toward the empty space—tottering steps on account of the shoes she wore, women’s shoes being something we can maybe go into another time—and raised her voice even higher. “My car’s gone! Someone stole my car!” She spotted the Hawaiian shirt guy. “Hey, mister. Did you see what happened? Someone stole my car.”

  “Sorry, I just got here,” the Hawaiian shirt guy said. “But are you sure that’s where you left it? Sometimes in these parking lots people get—”

  She stamped her foot. “There are what? Ten cars in this goddamn lot? Of course I’m sure. My car is gone. You’re just like my asshole boyfriend.”

  “I am?”

  “He never believes me either.”

  “I believe you,” the Hawaiian shirt guy said. “One hundred percent. Maybe, um”—he glance
d around—“someone else saw . . .” But there was no one else. Except for me and Butch, of course. The guy’s gaze went to me and I thought he was going to say something, but he did not.

  “What am I going to do?” the woman said. She started to cry.

  The Hawaiian shirt guy looked alarmed. “It’ll work out,” he said, taking a few steps toward her, the slow steps humans take when they’d rather not.

  “How? How is it ever going to work out? My car is gone. I love that car.”

  “What kind was it?”

  “Was? You’re saying was?”

  “Slip of the tongue. Is, of course. What kind of car is it?”

  “An Audi Four. Yellow with pink leather interior. I happen to know it’s the only one in the whole Valley.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Not surprised? What does that mean?”

  “Just that it’s such an unusual combination.” The woman’s face got all pinched up and the Hawaiian shirt guy started talking faster. “Unusually great, aesthetically speaking, museum-quality or even better.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” He cast a look around. Humans sometimes have a panicky way of doing that, like when they’re outnumbered in a bar fight, for example. This was a look-around of that type. “Tell you what,” he said. “There are a couple cops inside that I happen to know. Why don’t we report the crime to them?”

  Her eyes and mouth opened wide, like she’d seen something horrible. “Oh, my God—Beauty’s in there!”

  “Audis are nice, no question, but I’m not sure they rise to the level of beaut—”

  “God almighty! I’m talking about my cat, Beauty. She was in the backseat. I can’t live without her.” The woman ran sobbing into Donut Heaven, the Hawaiian shirt guy trailing. He tried to get the door for her but wasn’t quick enough. Did he have a bit of a limp? That happened to me once back in Vista City when the pickup I was riding in got in a wreck, but I was fine the next morning so maybe he would be, too.

  Butch shifted around, getting more comfortable. His eyes opened. He looked at me. I looked at him. His eyes closed. Butch was one sleepy dude today. I myself was wide-awake—in fact, just about at my very widest.