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Jackson

8x8 watercolor on cradled panel

This is not Scruff - but I think he might look a bit like Jackson.

Just look at those soulful eyes!

A FREDERICA & CHLOE PICTURE BOOK MYSTERY – PART 5

A series of short-short stories featuring Frederika/Freddie and Chloe/Sweetie, Freddie’s cat

© Julie Gilbert Pollard

Wendy and Scruff are back – Freddie’s house becomes a crime scene...

They’re baaaaaack!

Wendy and Scruff are back, and Chloe and I are delighted. We do like having the house to ourselves - but we also enjoy their company.

So, it’s all good.

Plus, the fact that I spend so much time in the studio. As you may recall, my studio is a detached building behind my house, separated by a rock garden with flowers, shrubs, and a tiny bit of grass – the grass being fortunate, now that we have a dog in residence.  

And now that Wendy is here, going home in the evenings, I am often met with the wonderful fragrance of dinner being prepared. This arrangement might work out quite nicely!

Wendy is the BEST cook, and she likes to feed people. And I like to eat - but seldom actually cook myself a meal. She even cooks for Scruff. Maybe Chloe will benefit as well?

Wendy has had some trouble finding and affording her own place. And I can always use some help in the financial department, though I keep her rent low. She does feed me, after all.

I haven't chosen the most financially stable career path. I should have done something easier with my life. I sometimes think that even being a brain surgeon would have been easier than trying to “make it” as a visual artist.

I haven’t had the audacity to ever actually say that to a brain surgeon…

:)

I digress…

So - a bang on the head coupled with camera and phone stolen, followed by a super-slow car  driving by – even slower by my house? - with an ominous vibe issuing from within while everyone else zooms down our street, a switchblade knife left on the patio table, and a possible intruder who appeared to have been chased off by my resident skunk. Is this really enough to have me freaking out? I guess in the world of true crime, these events could seem kind of lame.

What do you think?

Well, I think I’m being kind of self-centered. Think about it. I have welcomed Wendy back to my home – for her benefit, sure. But also for my own. With all the scary events, it feels safer somehow to have a house mate, albeit not a strong male presence.

It’s only fair to fill Wendy in on everything. I haven’t, for example, mentioned why I put out “skunk food” at night.

Of course, she has her own scary stuff that might follow her here.

So, maybe it’s a toss-up as to who is helping who and who is putting who at risk.

(Who? Whom? I never can get that right.)

To be honest, there’s less anxiety in worrying about grammar than – well, you know what…

● ● ● ●

So - night before last, I worked in the studio all night, working on a deadline. I mean, really all night. And Wendy works night shifts. Chloe stays with me in the studio, and I often bring Scruff with me too. I’m getting quite attached to that little old guy.

Bottom line, the house had no occupants during the wee hours.

Wendy gets home from her shift at the hospital to find the back door lock broken and the door ajar. No dummy, she doesn’t go in. She sees the lights on in the studio and comes pounding on the door.

No, I didn’t hear a sound during the night. My windows are shuttered so I didn’t see anything either. Obviously, those are the first things she asked me.

I also question: where was that skunk when I needed him or her? Really, I should give it a name – a non-gender-specific name. I once had a cat who went from being called Samantha to Sam. Sam, it is!

We’ve called the cops so many times now, we feel a bit embarrassed about calling 911 yet again. We look at each other. Should we or shouldn’t we check things out first?

I have a pepper spray – she has a pepper spray. We are armed! We are NOT shrinking violets!

We leave the – useless in these circumstances – Chloe and Scruff in the studio. Without much protest I must add. They couldn’t care less about any danger their humans might face.

Trembling, we silently and bravely – more-or-less – move toward the house, our phone flashlights on. We push open the back door.

Actually, we TRY to push it open, but something is blocking it. It feels like something kind of soft and squishy – perhaps this is in retrospect, because how could we feel something like that through a door?

I know you know what’s coming.

Through the crack in the door Wendy’s flashlight picks out a glimmering blob of a liquid red substance. Of course, we both want to scream and run. But Wendy’s a nurse and her instinct is to give aid.

We don’t scream – we don’t run.

While I call 911 Wendy reaches through the opening to see if she can feel whether there actually is a body and if it is alive or…

I can’t even say the D word…

● ● ● ●

I HATE drama. Well, we now have it in spades. My little home is now a crime scene. Fortunately, the crime isn’t classified as – the M word – yet. The body has not expired. But we don’t know what his or her prognosis is. They won’t tell us anything – even the gender.

Will they, at some point in time, send us a pink or blue balloon?

I know – I’m making light of a very, very, very, extremely, enormously, massively serious situation. Someone was attacked in my home in the middle of the night. What was this person doing there and why, oh why, was he or she cudgeled there?

We think that’s what happened at least. We weren’t technically privy to what was going on after the police and paramedics arrived. But eavesdropping was not above either one of us as we sat shivering on the patio waiting for Tom to come talk to us.

Yes, him again. Does he ever get time off?

As we strain our ears, we also quietly compare notes on what we have heard and observed so far, each of us adding to the other’s database - as it were - of the crime. No, they didn’t separate us as you see on TV.

● ● ● ●

Finally, after giving our extremely limited accounts of what happened – as we know it - we shuffle off to the studio to find “insult added to injury”, so to speak.

Chloe has a litter box, but Scruff doesn’t. ‘Nuff said. Poor Scruff. He was left with a full bladder for too long – def not his fault. Wendy cleans up after him and we settle in as best we can.

My studio is never quite large enough to house all my wonderful “art stuff”. And as much as I try to keep everything neat and tidy, it remains something of an “organized mess” most of the time – until such time that the mess distracts to the point of interfering with the creative juices. Then I have to sort it all out, hoping it will stay sorted long enough for me to get some actual work done.

Let’s just say that it is not in its tidy sorted state after my long hours of work tonight. The “work”, as I’ve said earlier, consists of painting and conducting painting instruction, the latter being my “bread and butter”.

My bread-and-butter work and all other studio work is now compromised. Naturally, the house is off-limits for us until Tom or one of his cohorts tells us it’s okay to move back in. in the meantime my small – at least not house-sized – and already much lived- and worked-in studio – must accommodate all 4 of us. At least until we can figure out what to do, where to stay.

Where Wendy can stay, really. I can sleep on the couch in my studio and the animals can stay with me. But Wendy needs a good night’s sleep for her next shift at the hospital. We need to find her a hotel room.

But for now, we’re both dead on our feet – OMG, did I just use the D word – after working all night. Well, most of the night. Dawn has not broken yet.

We bed down on the hand-me-down sectional couch and try not to bump feet at the “intersection”.

● ● ● ●

Both detectives visit. Both Wendy and I are bleary-eyed after only a couple hours of restless sleep on the sectional.

Chloe and Scruff are irritatingly awake and bright-eyed – as are the detectives.

Detectives Struthers and Hunter. Bright-eyed even though they have definitely been on the job and now ready to give us some information. Of course, they will only tell us enough to enable them to get info out of us.

Quid pro quo is what they would like for us to think. But we’re not that naive. We know they are only sharing whatever will benefit their questioning of us.

In other words, other than what will be advantageous to them, they don’t intend to tell us squat. 

So anyway, they inform us that the victim found in my house last night is none other than the girlfriend of the missing young man from the riverbank.

Like me, she was hit on the head. Like me, she will recover, they are told. But she isn’t well enough for them to interview yet.

They show us pictures of her given to them by her mother – who lives right down the street!

Nevertheless, I can’t say I recognize her.

But Wendy does! In fact, she knows her very well – and doesn’t like her – at all.

We’re not supposed to talk about anything we’re told. So, let’s just call her “Connie”.

Connie – according to her mother – has been “laying low” since the event at the river. She hasn’t been arrested for causing the disappearance of her boyfriend. I thought she was at least a “person of interest”, as they say.  As the current victim I doubt she’s a suspect now. But maybe she is – what do I know. Some of the mysteries I read are really convoluted – maybe real life is too.

Guess who she is? You got it – Wendy’s ex’s ex.

Okay, I thought my scary event and Wendy’s even scarier situation were completely separate. But now there seems to be a link?

As they say, “the plot thickens”…

Sami

8x8 oil on cradled panel

This also is not Scruff. Sami is now a little old lady dog - and the sweetest! She is my great-grand-dog. I think Scruff might have looked a bit like young Sami in his youth.

Oh, Those Baby Blues!

11x14 watercolor

Likewise, this is not Chloe. Perhaps Chloe looked a lot like Simon in her kitten-hood!

● ● ● ●

PLEASE NOTE ONCE AGAIN: the mini art chapters following a story segment are written and illustrated by Julie Gilbert Pollard, not Freddie. :)

The STORIES are fictional - the CHAPTERS for “Freddie’s” book are true and valid!

Would you like to see a chapter showing how I paint a dog? Here is the Dropbox link to the PDF document:

JGPollard_Watercolor & Oil Unleashed_Paint Our Best Friend_for Story5