There are moments when Mr. Whiskers looks less like an orange tabby and more like someone carrying the burden of classified information. This morning was one of those moments. He sat in the middle of the living room, perfectly still, staring toward the front door with the unwavering concentration of a security guard who had been instructed not to let anyone through. He didn’t blink. He didn’t twitch. He simply watched the door as though it had personally offended him sometime during the night. I watched him for several minutes before realizing I had quietly stopped drinking my coffee. Cats don’t usually stare at nothing for that long. At least, I didn’t think they did. It seemed more likely that Mr. Whiskers had seen something after I went to bed and was now trying, in his own mysterious feline way, to tell me about it.
The timing certainly fit. Pandora had stopped by yesterday evening while John Mercer and I were watching a movie. She’d stayed for a while, laughed at one of John’s terrible jokes that somehow only became funnier because he laughed first, and then headed home because she had an early morning at work. Nothing unusual had happened while I was awake, but that didn’t mean nothing unusual had happened afterward. John had stayed up studying for his exam after I turned in for the night, so he might have witnessed something without realizing its significance. Mr. Whiskers, however, had remained awake. Cats always seem awake. That made him the only reliable witness.
I decided to begin the investigation the only sensible way I could think of. I sat across from Mr. Whiskers, folded my hands, and spoke in the calm, reassuring voice detectives use in crime dramas. “Alright,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me everything. Just give me something to work with.” Mr. Whiskers slowly blinked once before returning his attention to the front door. Interesting. I’d read somewhere that slow blinks are signs of trust. They could also be signs of cooperation. I made a mental note of that. “Did Pandora come back after she left?” I asked. Mr. Whiskers yawned. Not exactly a confession, but it also wasn’t a denial. I was beginning to appreciate just how difficult it must be to interview witnesses who refused to speak English.
John wandered into the living room carrying a textbook thick enough to qualify as gym equipment. He looked at me, then at Mr. Whiskers, and finally back at me with the expression of someone trying very hard not to ask a question he already suspected he’d regret. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Interviewing the only witness,” I replied. John followed my gaze to the cat, who had begun licking one paw with complete dedication. “The witness is cleaning his foot.” “Exactly,” I said. “Classic deflection.” John sighed the way only a roommate can sigh after years of exposure to this sort of thing and quietly disappeared into the kitchen without attempting to challenge my methodology.
A few minutes later, I happened to run into Mrs. Jenkins while collecting the mail. She smiled and asked whether we’d had a quiet evening. Quiet. That was an oddly specific word. Why ask whether it had been quiet unless she’d heard something that wasn’t? Before I could ask what she meant, she cheerfully wished me a nice day and continued down the sidewalk. By the time I returned inside, my theory had expanded considerably. Mr. Whiskers had witnessed something after I’d gone to bed. Mrs. Jenkins had unknowingly confirmed that something had happened. John knew more than he realized but had dismissed it because he’d been studying. All that remained was figuring out exactly what the cat was trying to tell me.
I resumed the interview with renewed determination. “Blink once if someone came to the door,” I said. Mr. Whiskers blinked. “Blink twice if it was important.” He blinked twice in rapid succession before stretching his front legs and sitting back down. My heart skipped a beat. This was progress. I reached for a notebook and began writing down everything I could remember from the previous evening, adding arrows, circles, and question marks as the timeline became increasingly complicated. John walked back into the room, glanced at my notes, and quietly poured himself another cup of coffee. “You’re making a flowchart?” he asked. “I’m organizing the evidence.” He looked at the cat, who was now staring toward the front window instead of the front door. “Or you’re watching a cat be a cat.”
Just as I was about to ask Mr. Whiskers one final question, the automatic pet feeder whirred to life in the corner of the room. Mr. Whiskers sprinted across the floor with astonishing speed, arriving at his food bowl before the first piece of kibble had finished falling. He had never been investigating the front door. He had never been signaling hidden clues through strategic blinking. He’d simply been waiting for breakfast, and everything else I’d built around his behavior existed entirely inside my own head.
John looked over from the kitchen and smiled. “Case closed?”
I watched Mr. Whiskers enthusiastically devour his breakfast before nodding. “For now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “For now?”
“Well,” I said, “he still blinked twice.”
John shook his head, picked up his coffee, and walked away without another word. Mr. Whiskers glanced up from his food bowl for exactly one second before returning to breakfast.
Looking back, I suppose there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything that happened that morning.
I’m just not completely convinced it’s the right one.