English Ben & Detective Dave (Ch. 2 – Detective Dave)
Miss Nikki
THE NEXT MORNING, Buttercup was having breakfast on the porch behind her apartment, still thinking about the curious events of the night before. She had hoped that a good nights’ rest would help her understand things a little better, but in fact, as she sat quietly sipping her coffee she was just as puzzled as before.
“Meow.”
Buttercup’s puzzling was interrupted by the gentle reproach of her cat, Miss Nikki, who had been sitting at Buttercup’s left elbow for the past five minutes. Miss Nikki was a Siamese cat who, like many cats, could tell you a great deal with just a ‘meow’ and a glance. Miss Nikki was telling Buttercup in no uncertain terms that she did not approve of being ignored, especially at breakfast-time, when things were supposed to be much more sociable.
“So sorry, dear!” said Buttercup quickly. “Bad owner! Here, I’ll share breakfast.”
Miss Nikki happily accepted this generous apology from her mistress, and no more was said of the matter except for a minor twitching of Miss Nikki’s tail, which couldn’t be helped, considering.
Soon breakfast was over, and since it was Saturday, it was cleaning-up day. Miss Nikki excused herself to a sunbeam upstairs where she could do her own cleaning up, followed by a nap. Buttercup started dusting her books and pictures with an enormous feather duster. She liked dusting the pictures because it gave her a good excuse to stand and wonder about the things that were in them. Most of the pictures she had were from magazines and were of fantastic faraway places like Iowa and Kansas. She had a picture she was particularly fond of that showed the moon coming up over Pittsburgh, PA, with the beautiful lights of the city and the moon reflecting on the water at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers.
Buttercup was interrupted from her dusting by a loud knock on her door. She looked through the peephole and saw a serious faced man. He didn’t look at all like a salesman, because usually salesmen had a hopeful look on their faces. No, not a salesman. But still, she wanted to know who the fellow was who would drop in on cleaning day unannounced, so she talked to the man through the mail slot.
“Hello, can I help you?” she said, stooping down, and getting a glimpse of the man’s blue trousers, which were looking slightly faded in the knee.
“Yes,” said the man, slightly confused by the voice coming from mail slot. “I’m with the Police Department. I’m a detective, and I’d like to talk to you about a conversation you might have overheard last night at the Café El Lisón.” Having said that, he pulled out a badge and ID card and held them up (down?) to the mail slot.
Buttercup was completely flustered by this and could barely read the ID. All she saw was that his name was David and that he was indeed a detective. She didn’t know what she should do, but she opened the door anyway and invited him in.
“Ah, yes, detective… David… Ah… Err… Won’t you co… won’t you step inside?” She was blushing furiously and felt very warm in the face. She had so many Questions about the Police, Worries about the Night Before, and Concerns about being Polite, that they all crashed into one another inside her head and were making such a noise that she couldn’t remember to ask him to sit down. She stood there instead, wringing her hands on the handle of the feather duster, because she had also forgotten what she was holding, and her hands were acting on their own accord since they were receiving no good advice from upstairs.
“Now then, Miss.., ah, Burger, is it?” said the man, taking a small black notebook from inside his jacket, “Last night at approximately 8:15PM, one of the waiters at the Café El Lisón reported that you were sitting in the booth next to… to… ah… ah-shoo!”
“What? Who?” said Buttercup, not quite grasping what the detective had meant.
“I’m sorry,” he said, waving his hand slightly in front of his face. “Do you have a cat? I’m kinda allergic, and… and… ah… ah-shoo!”
“Oh!” said Buttercup. “Yes, Nikki. She’s not really owned though—I don’t think people really ever own cats, they just have long-ish houseguests that occasionally abuse the furniture, but are otherwise ever so polite.” And she smiled, because she though this was a clever thing to say under the circumstances.
Detective Dave, though, was not the best audience at this point, because his eyes were quickly swelling up, he began to wheeze, and everything he said was quickly interrupted by his peculiar sneezing, which came out as more of a hissing noise than a proper sneeze. He was now holding his notebook over his mouth and waiving his pencil in the air.
“I’ll have to.. to.. ah… ah-shoo! come back when it’s not so.. ah… ah-shoo! That is, when I can ask you about… about… ah… ah-shoo! Here!” With this he gave Buttercup a piece of paper from the notebook with his name and phone number quickly written on it, and made a hurried exit, not even waiting to wish Buttercup a good day.
As the sounds of the sneezing detective faded into the parking lot, Buttercup stood with her back against the door thinking hard. She was waiting for the thoughts in her head to settle down, and had a feeling in her tummy that breakfast wasn’t at all happy with the interruption of the Saturday routine.
“Oh, what terrible things these conversations are!” she thought. “No wonder I’d never heard of them—they get the police onto you!”
