A Curious Cat in a Dead Dog's Town

By Chip Weinert

In a parallel universe where humans evolved not only from apes but also cats, dogs, bears, weasels, and other animals, Duke Hazzard, a feline private eye, is hired to find the murderer of a prominent canine. It’s a tongue-in-cheek, fun murder mystery. Think of it as Philip Marlowe meets Fritz the Cat. 

The characters include Mat

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Feb 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781643458939

Chip Weinert

Chip Weinert is a former newspaper and magazine writer, editor, and associate publisher as well as professional windsurfer. He lives (and surfs, windsurfs, fishes, and bikes) on Oregon's Rogue Coast with two canines who think he's crazy. Stay tuned for his next book in the Curious Cat series, A Curious Cat Wags a Fishy Tale.

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Chip Weinert

A CURIOUS CAT IN A DEAD DOG’S TOWN

Copyright © 2019 Chip Weinert

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Stratton Press Publishing

831 N Tatnall Street Suite M #188,

Wilmington, DE 19801

www.stratton-press.com

1-888-323-7009

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in the work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-64345-892-2

ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-64345-893-9

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

1. Another Can of Worms

2. The Beat Goes On

3. The Professional Curious Cat

4. Singing the Big Cat Blues

5. A Nice Little Place in the Country

6. Partying Like a Big Dog

7. In Full Uniform

8. A Little Breakfast

9. You Find Out Who Your Friends Are

10. Home on the Range

11. Raisins in the Sun

12. Last Call

13. Not Quite Right?

14. Official Business

15. Ah, All the Women in My Life

16. Maybe So, Maybe Not

Epilogue

[RADIO] Do you snore so loudly you keep yourself up at night? Do you wake up with a sore throat from ripping Zs at the top of your lungs? Does your snoring rattle the dishes off your neighbor’s walls? Do you also suffer from the trials and tribulations of male pattern baldness? Well, don’t mess around with creams, pillows, shampoos, suppositories, or those stupid-looking pieces of nose tape! Now there’s Snor-B-Gone with minoxidil. Just put on this chemically treated latex skullcap and stretch the two comfortable hard leather hooks around to open up your nostrils and solve two of mankind’s (and we don’t mean womankind) cruelest jokes at the same time. Snor-B-Gone—it really works!

Now on with tonight’s program…

1

Another Can of Worms

iwas down at the local feline logging bikers’ bar, the Stump and Grind, alternating between cutting up the old growth out back and snorting shots of Drab Light. Bad Madge, an old minx who looked like she was someone to purr over before the age of electricity, can pour a mean drink, though she can rarely remember what’s in it. This had been her bar since her husband died mysteriously after eating snail bait. What a pity. They’d only been married a week. It was the first meal she had ever made for him. Foul play was never suspected; she was just a lousy cook. In the sixty years since, she had actually learned how to boil water and throw a few things into a deep-fat fryer. Thus she did an okay lunch business.

It was the usual late-lunch crowd. A few ships’ rat catchers between boats were playing cards and the jukebox, smoking short sweet cigars, and comparing tattoos from exotic disease-ridden locales. Sitting in one of the booths near the front window, a couple of young business yuppie-tabbies from not around here with their array of cell phones and Paw Pilots were drinking something blue and pink and alternately yelling at, and laughing with, each other.

Two old farm mousers who everyone new only as Tater and Fang were at their usual stools at the end of the bar, watching the afternoon batball game between the Lions and the Tigers, sipping their nickel beers that had gone flat sometime during the first inning. Tradition holds that you have to buy Tater and Fang a beer every time you came into the Stump. If you don’t offer, Madge just adds it to your tab anyway. It’s kind of like a local’s tax. Tater was reputed to be Madge’s one-time lover—after her husband passed away. She calls him Spudcakes. Everyone else calls him Tater ’cause he’s got the physique of a potato. Fang has no teeth. His real name is Fredrik von something or other, and he’s rumored to be a Nazi war criminal. Sure, whatever.

I was trying to keep amused, waiting for my lunch of deep-fried mole clusters, when in stalked Marlow de Katz. Two hundred and eighty-five pounds of rodent-eating white fur in black leather, covered with sawdust and wood chips. He wore black leather half gloves—the kind weight lifters wear—and had a large knife hanging off his belt. In cheap turquoise that looked like blue bubble gum, the name Marlow was inlaid into the faux ivory handle.

Big and mean to start with, Marlow looked as though his old sixty-horse, redwood-eating 1962 vintage chain saw had finally taken the big dump. He was projecting that scary sort of look that’s a cross between violently morose and perpetually seething anger. The last time anybody in this part of the county had seen that look, well…it wasn’t good. Years later, they’re still finding paws, ears, tails, and assorted internal bits stashed in dark dank places in the woods up on Frog Tongue Mountain.

Who’s got that chartreuse Honda-matic with the pink handle grips and the little streamers? he bellowed. It’s parked in my spot!

Everyone tried to shrink into their drinks, except for the lucky ones drinking Bad Madge’s Foo-Foo Splatters; they could duck under the little paper umbrellas.

You know I’m gonna have to kill ya now! I have to, ya see that, don’t ya? He continued shouting as he looked around the bar with his one good, albeit bloodshot, eye. The other had fogged over after a tangle with a few of the boys from the Kanine Klub down the coast a couple years back.

Madge! Gimme a good stiff drink! And make it snappy! he roared.

Madge looked over the top of the tabloid she was reading, the National Scandal World Enquirer, and gave Marlow those octogenarian bedroom eyes we know so well. Sorry, lover, we’re fresh out of Snappy. How ’bout a nice fresh saucer of curdled cream? she purred with that accent of hers—a mixture of swamp bayou Creole and Yukon native polar bear.

Marlow turned shades of red that NASA hasn’t even seen. He knew Madge was trying to get his goat, and it worked. He grabbed one of the tables from the center of the barroom and was just about to hurl it over the bar—right through my handsome head, coincidentally—when a sultry voice from the far back corner floated out, saying, Hey, you big old snow leopard, come on over here and let me buy you a drink. I’ve been looking for someone just your size and smarts. I’ll move my bike after we talk.

The large albino cat’s head whipped around, and there beyond the pool table, half-hidden in cigarette smoke and shadow, was a gorgeous tawny Siamese who was calmly cleaning her long sensuous claws and looking utterly nonplussed by the whole affair. Even with her back to us, she oozed money, charm, and, to me, danger. For some strange reason, I was getting the screaming sweaty heebie-jeebies. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Something about her screamed, Run! while something else said, You and I, rowrrrr!

I was wishing that Marlow would just start an old-fashioned barroom brawl. The place would get busted up, Marlow would go back to his home away from home—the county slammer—and life would proceed as normal. Somehow, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The past three minutes had started a series of events that I wasn’t sure I was going to like, but which I sensed I’d eventually get dragged into the middle of.

Big ol’ Marlow didn’t know what to think either. He looked at her, he looked at the table in his island-sized paws, back at her, and back at the table. A look of mischievous resignation came over him. He shrugged, sighed, and started to put down the table. But then… Oh, what the hell! He grunted as he heaved the table through the mirror behind the bar. I was halfway there, and Mama said to always finish what I start, he stated, half apologizing, half boasting, and sauntered over to the table where the Siamese sat.

She acted like she didn’t even see or notice the table flying through the air (missing my ears by fractions of an inch) and crashing to a rest among piles of broken glass and puddles of cheap booze.

As I got up from my place of relative safety (under a barstool), I took a quick inventory of what was happening right then and there. I had a bad feeling that this would turn out to be a crucial time in the whole sordid story, and I wanted to catch every detail.

Madge had thrown down her trashy tabloid and was reaching around the corner of the bar. I hoped she was going for the phone and not the sawed-off shotgun that she keeps right next to it. The business boys had their briefcases packed and were backing up toward their rental cars. The sailors loved the show. They were hooting and hollering, slapping each other’s backs, saying that this was just like that bar they’d been in on the shores of the Odorous River in Rangoon. Tater and Fang hadn’t twitched an inch and were still arguing about which shortstop in the league had the worst case of ear mites.

Meanwhile, Marlow and the Siamese were talking quietly in the corner. The sound of sirens could be heard faintly in the distance. Two flies were playing chicken with the blades of the old chattering fan behind the counter.

Suddenly, an annoying buzzing came from the kitchen. Oh shit! spat Madge as she waddled in there to see what was up with my lunch. She came out minutes later carrying a few pieces of steaming greasy shoe leather on a plate. Enjoy, Duke, she cooed, hoping that her suggestion might actually make the unidentifiable fried objects on my plate palatable.

But somehow, the overdone mole carcasses weren’t going to calm the moths in my gut. How about another Drab Light instead? I countered.

Sure, sweetie. This one’s on the house.

At that moment, a grizzled old Grizzly came lumbering into the tavern. Okay, Madge. What’s the problem? I got here as soon as I could, he announced. Local constabulary Captain Vernon Ursalik was ready to retire. He’d been ready since the minute he joined the force thirty-five years ago. He didn’t need any police business getting in the way of the donuts and checkers filling his time until that day. He looked at me and growled, I shoulda known you’d be here, Hazzard. You’re always smack dab in the middle of trouble. C’mon. Let’s go.

But, Sarge, I didn’t… I started to say. He’s proud to be a captain. Calling him Sarge really starts him up.

Madge, sensing more trouble, butted in and began to tell Ursalik what happened just as the side screen door banged shut.

The Siamese slinked up to the motley old Kodiak-looking policeman and purred, We had a little parking problem, officer. It got out of hand, but it’s okay now. She turned to Madge and, pulling out two crisp hundred dollar bills, said, Will this take care of the damages?

In the background, the sound of Marlow’s chopper roared off in the direction of Dogstown.

Madge was stunned. She stared at the beautiful feline in shocked silence.

The Siamese took the old bartender’s quiet stare to mean that two hundred dollars wouldn’t be enough. She threw down two more C-notes and said, as she looked at me and my disgusting lunch, If there’s any money left over, Madge dear, go to culinary school. Ciao. She spun on her stiletto heels and oozed out the door.

I gulped down what was left of my beer, slid a fiver onto the bar, and hustled out after the Siamese. I caught up to her as she was getting on her bike. The motorcycle was an odd-looking thing with a huge engine and pink velvet seat—a hybrid of a bad biker’s hog and a church lady’s trike. Stenciled in gold on the gas tank was the familiar logo of Doggie Crunchies Treats, a smiling cartoon pup leering sideways with a dog bone in his mouth like a cigar. Underneath was the company’s motto: Since ’37 we’ve been doing it the real Doggie Style.

The Siamese caught me staring at the bike’s incongruous art. She shifted her lovely tawny thigh to cover it and said, "You were awfully brave back there. It took real guts to jump under your barstool like that." With that, she hit the electric start (a kick start is not ladylike) and motored off in a cloud of dust, laughing derisively.

I stood there looking pretty foolish and feeling pretty suspicious. I had seen her slip a legal-size manila envelope to Marlow just as the old bear ambled in.

[RADIO] Now, available for the first time in your area. Food. Yes, food. It’s been used since ancient times to alleviate the discomfort of hunger. Food comes in many flavors and textures. There’s some for every appetite. Food is socially acceptable in one form or another by almost every known major religion, as well as a few lesser-known minor ones. Food goes great with that other popular dinner item, drink! And remember, food spelled backward is doof. If you don’t see it at your local grocery, then ask for it by name. That’s food. Now available in a nonprescription dosage. For internal use only. For further information, stay tuned to this frequency.

2

The Beat Goes On

i sat at my desk, listening to the incessant gale howl through the holes in the attic windows. Someday the landlord was actually going to fix that. Sure he was. If it’s raining, like it does here on the Northleft