The first thing I noticed was that Mr. Whiskers had stopped sleeping on his favorite windowsill. For years he’d spent every sunny afternoon stretched across that spot like it was his personal throne, watching the neighborhood with the confidence of a cat who believed he was personally responsible for maintaining order on our street. Then, over the course of a few days, he simply quit using it. Instead I found him sleeping behind the sofa, under the dining room table, and once on top of the bookshelf where he stared down at the rest of us with an expression that suggested we were all making questionable life choices.
I was making breakfast when Pandora looked up from her laptop and caught me staring at the empty windowsill. “You’ve got that look again,” she said. “What look?” I asked. “The one that usually ends with you investigating something that doesn’t need investigating.” I pointed toward the window. “Mr. Whiskers hasn’t slept there in days.” She glanced over for about two seconds before returning to her typing. “He’s a cat, Hal. Sometimes they change their minds.” I shook my head. “Not without a reason.”
As I stood there thinking about it, I happened to see Mrs. Jenkins walking her little terrier down the sidewalk. The dog stopped near our front steps to sniff the bushes before happily trotting along behind her. That was when my brain made a connection that probably should have been questioned a little more carefully. “I bet it’s the dog smell,” I announced. Pandora didn’t even stop typing. “What dog smell?” “Mrs. Jenkins’ dog. The scent probably drifted into the apartment somehow.” Pandora smiled without looking up. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how any of this works.”
John Mercer wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later carrying a mug of coffee. “Morning,” he said. I looked at him seriously. “Have you moved anything around the living room lately?” He looked around as if checking whether he’d forgotten moving an entire couch overnight. “No.” “Not even a chair?” “No.” “A lamp?” “No.” He took a sip of coffee before adding, “Should I be worried about where this conversation is going?” “I’m narrowing down possibilities,” I said. John nodded slowly. “Good luck with… whatever this is.”
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that something unusual had changed inside the apartment. Maybe Mr. Whiskers was reacting to a scent I couldn’t detect. Maybe the terrier had brushed against something outside our door. Maybe I’d accidentally tracked something inside on my shoes after talking with Mrs. Jenkins earlier in the week. Every theory seemed perfectly reasonable right up until I said it out loud. Pandora listened patiently while I explained each new possibility, occasionally responding with nothing more than an amused smile that somehow managed to say, “You’ll figure this out eventually.”
Mr. Whiskers wasn’t making the investigation any easier. Every time he wandered into the living room he’d pause near the windowsill, glance at it for a moment, and then stroll off to find somewhere else to nap. I tried watching him from the hallway to see if he’d reveal whatever secret only cats seemed capable of understanding. He looked back at me once, blinked slowly, and continued walking as if he pitied my complete inability to think like a cat.
By late afternoon I had almost convinced myself that the mystery had to involve Mrs. Jenkins’ terrier somehow. Then Pandora stood up, walked into the living room, and reached for the blinds. “Didn’t you close these a few days ago because the sunlight was reflecting off your monitor while you were editing photos?” she asked. I looked at the window, then at the blinds, and suddenly remembered doing exactly that. The bright patch of afternoon sunlight that had always warmed the windowsill had disappeared the same day I’d closed them.
Pandora opened the blinds and warm sunlight spilled back across the windowsill. We didn’t have to wait long. Mr. Whiskers wandered into the room, noticed the sunlight had returned, hopped onto the sill, turned exactly three circles, and promptly fell asleep in his old spot as though nothing unusual had happened all week.
John looked over from the couch and grinned. “So it wasn’t the dog smell after all.” I sighed. “Apparently not.” Pandora laughed. “Sometimes the simplest explanation really is the right one.” I looked at Mr. Whiskers sleeping peacefully in the sunshine and had to admit she was right. I’d spent an entire day building an elaborate mystery around Mrs. Jenkins’ terrier when the real culprit had been my own blinds. The dog smell, as it turned out, had been a complete red herring.