Puzzle Cat and the Proof Left Over
Puzzle Cat and Kiki-Jian were out of the apartment with Dean Feed, who'd come over early in the morning to deliver some documents to her colleague, Dr. Fell, a chemistry professor visiting her school from another nearby school. The cats were very happy about this, because they got to visit Dr. Fell's dog, their canine pal Nero "The Wolf," the only creature they knew who could seriously challenge Kiki-Jian's renowned appetite.
But just as they came near Dr. Fell's neighborhood, they saw the flashing blue and red lights of several police vehicles. The feline detectives entered Dr. Fell's kitchen at the rear of the house and, peeking around Feed's legs, saw Dr. Fell. He was sprawled out on the floor on his back, completely still, and not breathing. They rushed to join their friend Nero, lying morosely with head resting on the floor, his big brown eyes terribly sad and his tail drooping dejectedly.
The area around Dr. Fell seemed relatively undisturbed, some of his kitchen utensils lying out; his hand clutching an empty Tupperware container; his lecture notes (recycled from several years previous) for tomorrow's class on his kitchen table; a TV Guide out on the table with viewing times for the HBO series The Leftovers circled in red; and a bowl of table scraps from last night's meal untouched by the door.
Dr. Brennan, another old friend of Feed's (and well accustomed to the antics of the two cat-sleuths), was explaining to chief homicide detective Wagenbach her preliminary finding that Dr. Fell had choked on his dinner and suffered a fatal apoplexy from the shock.
But Puzzle Cat began singing plaintively in Cat, loudly, and rubbing insistently at Dr. Brennan's legs.
Kiki-Jian, quickly grasping what Puzzle Cat was trying to say, leaped to a pressure-activated upper open-glass cabinet, nosed open the door, and knocked to a cabinet top a box of insecticide Dr. Fell used for his garden.
Dr. Brennan objected: "Oh, come on, guys! This is clearly a case of choking triggering heart failure, followed by apoplexy. You goofy cats can't convince me that he was poisoned!"
Puzzle Cat immediately, and more loudly, began singing again and joined Kiki on the cabinet, pointedly nudging the box of insecticide, then staring with his large eyes directly at the M.E., as if challenging her diagnosis.
Dr. Brennan sighed with exasperation, then bent over Dr. Fell's body and lifted his closed eyelids, noting on his eyeballs crisscrossing blood vessels, as one might see with a case of severely bloodshot eyes. She drew back startled, and then held his left hand to the light, noting the presence of a number of white lines on the fingernails. She looked in surprise at Feed, who asked incredulously, "Poison?" "Poison!" Dr. Brennan agreed. It certainly was a startling diagnostic revision, and one that leaves only the usual question to answer:
How did Puzzle Cat know?
