Chapter Six

“Are you serious?” Peter scowled as he sank into the bucket seat of Nick’s car. “You know Stephano might very well be the guy who stole it in the first place.”

“He did seem to know a lot about the insurance arrangements, didn’t he?” Nick agreed.

“It seems like a phone call to our friendly city police department might be in order.”

Nick shook his head. “If he did steal that ugly thing, I suspect it will be cemented back onto its podium within the week so that I can donate it. If it’s stolen again, we’ll know for sure he did it.”

“Untitled Five is not ugly,” Peter protested. “I happen to like it very much.”

His comment drew a faint, lewd smirk from Nick. “You would.”

Western Washington University was situated on a hill that seemed to rise straight up from Bellingham Bay. Below and to the south lay Fairhaven, the historic district, and beyond that, Chuckanut Drive led outside the city limits to their home. Just a few blocks to the northwest lay the city’s downtown core, a collection of federal and county government buildings, college bars, and breakfast joints. And of course Peter’s office—really more of a desk—at the Hamster was there, as well as Nick’s studio in the Vitamilk Building…and the Cat Clinic. Peter glanced at the plastic pet carrier in the backseat. Nick hadn’t said a word when he’d loaded it in the car.

“Where to now?” Nick asked.

“I think we have to go pick up the kitten.”

Nick acquiesced with a single nod and headed downtown. The Hamster’s offices were on the way, on the second floor of the Railroad Feed & Seed Building. As they passed by, Peter caught a glimpse of Shawn, their missing delivery driver, getting into the cab of the Hamster truck.

He wondered if anyone knew Shawn was driving away in it. He took out his notepad and jotted down the time. Nick glanced over and must have seen him writing, but he didn’t ask what.

When they got to the Cat Clinic, Nick presented his own credit card before Peter could even fumble in his wallet for cash. The bill wasn’t expensive, but the kitten came with two kinds of ointment and a bottle of tiny pills.

The kitten appeared to remember Peter, or if she didn’t specifically know him, she remembered that she liked someone exactly like him and began to purr immediately.

As they settled back into the car, Nick said, “I need to get some things from my studio on the way back home.”

Peter said that was fine, and Nick continued explaining. “Sketchbooks. Black cat ink. Probably some watercolors.”

Again Peter nodded. When the car started moving, the kitten commenced to wailing. Pathetically at first, but eventually her tiny lungs demonstrated the stamina for a sustained and operatic protest.

Peter smiled nervously at Nick, whose face showed no emotion whatsoever, as if he had a distressed animal in the backseat every day. Peter had a sudden flash of insight into what Nick must have been like when he was in the army.

Before he opened up and started expressing his emotions.

Nick parked on the street in front of his studio. He left Peter and the kitten in the idling car with the heat and radio running. Exhausted by yowling continuously since they’d left the vet’s office, the kitten fell into a comalike sleep.

Freed of the anxiety-inducing noise, Peter’s mind worked on two separate problems. The first was the sudden surfacing of Stephano as a suspect in the art theft. Assuming that he was the culprit, had he known all of the particulars of the insurance conundrum at the outset? Or had he merely hoped to profit from the absence of one piece of statuary in the university sculpture garden by insinuating his own work?

And what about Shawn? Had he solved his monetary crisis and returned to ask for his job back? Or had Peter just quietly witnessed a case of grand theft auto?

He wished he’d been able to get the license plate number of the black truck, just in case Shawn was found floating face down in the Nooksack River.

Nick returned and settled his bag of gear in the backseat, next to the cat carrier. Peter blinked at it. Seeing the oversized sketchbooks, the partially crumpled tubes of paint, a peculiar sense of unrightness overcame him, as if he’d skipped a chapter in a film and missed some vital piece of information.

“Wait, you’re bringing this stuff home?”

“That’s what I said.” Nick fastened his seat belt.

“What for?”

“Because I’m going to forge a letter to the university saying that Untitled Five is theirs. I need the paint to age the paper. It has to be subtle, but I think I can do it.”

Peter’s eyes went wide with alarm. He blinked and spluttered, “Wha-what?”

Nick broke into a wide grin. “Gotcha.”

Peter sank sourly into the seat. “What are you really doing?”

“Just getting some stuff to do at home. I figure someone should stay with the kitten. Make sure she doesn’t destroy the place.” Nick eased the car onto the narrow street and pointed it toward the Hamster.

Though feeling slightly guilty about shirking his duties and sticking Nick with an unwanted petsitting job, Peter was too keen to find out the story behind Shawn’s unscheduled day off to protest that he should be the one doing it.

When Nick pulled alongside the curb to let him out, Peter plopped a thankful peck on Nick’s cheek and speedily quit the vehicle.

Once in the office, he ambled casually up to Doug and inquired offhandedly where Shawn was going with the truck.

The look of alarm on his editor’s face concretized Peter’s previous theory. The man let out a string of complex and partially unintelligible profanity that brought what little work was being done in the Hamster office to a halt. The other reporters stared, Peter imagined in awe at both Doug’s exquisite and complex swearing abilities and Peter’s apparent ability to withstand being the direct object of such cursing while maintaining a slightly bored countenance.

Doug yanked open his top desk drawer, took out a skinny bag of weed and a pack of rolling papers, and started rolling a joint.

“If he doesn’t bring it back by tomorrow, I’m calling the cops.”

Peter said, “Why don’t I try texting Shawn?”

“If you get hold of him, tell him to bring my fucking truck back.” Doug fired up his Zippo and sucked so hard on his rollie that he killed nearly half in the first drag. He took the joint from his lips, paused thoughtfully, then exhaled slowly. As he did so he sank back into his chair, as if deflating.

Peter, who’d been thumbing his phone’s keypad, transcribing Doug’s message, glanced back up. “Anything else?”

“Yeah.” Doug picked up the nearly empty baggie and rolled it between his fingers. “Tell him I’m just about dry.”

Ah, there’s the rub. Any reasonable employer would have fired Shawn already, but the fact was that according to Doug, he still scored the kindest weed in town.

And really, if Peter were to be honest with himself, he’d enjoyed his editor’s largesse on numerous occasions. Not because of his numerous avenues for obtaining marijuana, but for his ability to win journalism awards that made the Hamster editor walk so much taller than his rival at the town’s other free weekly paper the Bellingham Independent Tribune.

Not that he was in danger of winning an award today. He would have to have written an actual article for that. As if able to read Peter’s mind, Doug said, “So what do you have on the cat skinner? Anything?”

Peter flipped out his notebook. “I talked to the police yesterday. They said—”

Doug held up a silencing hand. “Write it up and send it over. How many words do you think you can get out of it?”

“Maybe a couple hundred if I stretch it. Why?”

“Hell House bounced its check, so I won’t be running an ad this week. I’ve got a three-by-three-inch space to fill.” He tossed the remainder of his joint out the window, opened his desk drawer again, and pulled out a bag full of miniature candy bars in festive black and orange wrappers.

Peter said, “I’m glad. Advertising antigay religious haunted house experiences was not something I’d like to be part of.”

“I know, I know, but I advertise whoever pays me. It’s part of my journalistic commitment. Candy?”

Peter took a chocolate bar, unhappy the Hamster was losing money, but still glad the ad had been yanked. But every October some church or other out in the county set one up. It saddened him because as a kid he’d loved going to haunted houses and psyching himself out amid the fake cobwebs, plastic masks, and strobe lights. He hated to think that this sacred venue, too, had become a battleground in the culture wars.

“I guess it’s hard to overcome my objection to indoctrinating a bunch of young kids with the idea that all homosexuals will die of AIDS,” Peter remarked. “Advertising it seems wrong to me.”

“Have you ever gone to one?”

Peter shook his head no. “Have you?”

“I went last year just to see what it was about,” Doug replied. “Substandard tableaus with bad moralistic scripts that a bunch of teenagers giggled their way through. The crowd was interesting, though. About a third of the people were true believers who really bought it. Then there was this contingent of hipster kids who were going ironically, just to be able to say they had gone and hated it, and then there was this group of people who were just curious.”

“Still doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.”

Doug shrugged and turned away murmuring, “Could’ve used that money, though.”