Renée calls to her brother.
Not taking his eyes from the little screen, he grunts.
“Hey,” I say to Star.
She smiles back. Slyly, I think, but I’ll never trust her. Star and Attila stole some Halloween displays, a mailbox, and a garden gnome for an art installation. While everything came out all right in the end, she threatened to tell Animal Control about Ping tearing her nose if we reported her.
“Over there! A serpent!” She calls out, and she and Attila cross the street.
A large green Cadillac brakes. A voice like a cannon shoots from the car.
“You stupid kids. Can’t you ever put your cell phones down?” Mr. Rupert yells. He lives close to Renée and Attila and must be out on bail. He was arrested for carrying a weapon a couple of weeks ago.
Star smiles and waves a finger, friendly-style, even though it’s not a polite gesture.
The Cadillac fishtails away. Support Our Troops, the bumper sticker reads.
“Stupid cell phone, anyway,” Attila says. He pulls his arm back as if to hurl it.
Star grabs his arm. “The app crashed, still in development, remember?” She plucks the cell phone from his hands and shakes her head. “Way better than catching Pokémon. Just have to tell the developer where it went wrong.”
“Stupid Rupert!” Attila grumbles.
We continue on. “If I were them, I wouldn’t mess with Mr. Rupert,” I tell Renée. The mailbox they stole for their entry in the Burlington Art Gallery contest was the last mailbox Mrs. Rupert made before she died. High sentimental value for Mr. Rupert.
“Could he change his mind and still press charges on the mailbox thing?” Renée asks. Mr. Rupert found out at the gallery reception that Star and Attila had taken it. But when their installation tied for first place in popular choice, he forgave the theft.
“No, he likes seeing his wife’s work in the gallery. Still, you don’t mess with him; he’s always ready to explode.” Renée has seen him prowling around in his military fatigues like he’s looking for more reasons to be angry. Who knows what will set him off.
We keep strolling. Up ahead is the new client’s house. Easy to spot: the huge green bin in the driveway holds a sky-high pile of broken wallboard.
“Mom said they were house flippers,” I tell Renée. “But this house looks like something broke when it flipped.”
I turn down the walkway and head for a row of purple winter cabbages in pots near the house.
“Haven’t you ever watched that show?” Renée asks. “Where flippers buy homes and sell them for much higher prices after they’ve renovated them?”
“Can’t say I have.”
I pull the key out from under the second pot.
“Hey, Stephen, what’s up?” A bicycle wobbles by. It’s Red, a grade seven guy from school with a skateboard tucked under one arm.
“Nothing much,” I answer, but he’s not around anymore for the answer. I unlock the door.
No barking. That’s strange. King’s not a great watchdog, that’s for sure. “Do you think the dog’s deaf or something?”
Renée shrugs and we step in. Still no puppy greeting or growling at us. “Did your mom say where King likes to hang out?”
I shake my head. We look around. There’s a fine layer of white dust everywhere in the front room, especially over the floor. No paw prints, though.
The wall between this living area and the kitchen has been knocked out — accounts for the stuff in the driveway bin. “Most dogs hate thunderstorms,” I say. “He’s probably hiding. I’ll check the first bedroom, you go for the second.” I walk through a hallway and turn into a big bedroom that looks crazy messy. Drawers gape open with clothes hanging out like they’re trying to escape. The mattress of the bed lies bare, the sheets and duvet tangled on the floor. I peek under the bed. Just a pizza box with crusts. Clearly, no dog has ever been here or they’d be eaten.
I head for the next door off the hallway, which opens to a large bathroom complete with a big Jacuzzi tub. I look behind the toilet. Nothing. Inside the cupboard, just in case. Toilet paper and cleaners.
“Nooooo! Stephen, come quick!”
I run toward Renée’s voice. Turns out it’s coming from a family room at the back of the house. She’s standing in front of a large aquarium, cradling a limp white mouse. On the floor is the wire mesh cover.
“He’s so cold,” Renée whimpers as she strokes the mouse with one finger. “Poor little guy.”
I reach over and touch him, too. “That’s strange. He’s dripping.” I look up at the ceiling. “The roof’s not leaking.”
“Check out the aquarium,” Renée says. “Not a single pellet of food.”
I stare at it, thinking. There’s a bowl of water, wood chips, and a tree branch in the aquarium. A big lamp hangs over it. As we stand there looking at the aquarium, the light comes on. “Power’s back.” I reach my hand under the lamp. “It’s a warming light.”
“Aww! This is all my fault. You should have come here hours ago. He might not have frozen to death.”
He’s cold, he’s dripping … things add up for me slowly. “This mouse is defrosting!”
“I know. You could have come and given him a blanket or something … wait a minute, it’s not that cold. Not even outside.”
“Exactly,” I answer. Mistake number three of the day is pet-identity confusion. First we assumed King was a dog, then a rodent. “This mouse isn’t King,” I tell Renée. “This mouse is King’s dinner!”
DAY ONE, MISTAKE FOUR
Renée gently places the dead mouse down on the woodchips in the aquarium. Then she turns to me. “So if King eats mice, that means he’s a … a …”
“Snake!” I finish her sentence.
Her eyes get big, like little moons in her face — a thing they always do when she’s shocked. We both jump on the couch.
“What kind of snake, do you think?”
“Well, it’s not a vegetarian.” Feeling a little silly, I drop down to my knees and look under the couch. Dust bunnies. I climb down onto the floor and check under the entertainment unit. A Star Trek DVD.
“What’s the owner going to say?”
“Nothing. Nobody has to know. ’Cause we’re going to find him.” I lift a couch cushion. Immediately, Renée leaps down.
Under cushion number one, I find a quarter, which I put on the coffee table.
Renée squints
