With school, football, and transportation challenges taking up most of Marty’s waking hours, he wasn’t spending much of his time at the ol’ Rusty Bucket Ranch. Having a life away from home was good, but also had its drawbacks. One day, he noticed Krishna wasn’t around when he put out her food. He checked with Pippin, to whom the husbandry of their animals had fallen by default, since he was the only one who stayed home. He shrugged inside his jacket, and said he hadn’t seen her in a couple of days. Marty searched all over the property that weekend, including under the shed and deck. He even walked along the road, to see if she got hit by a car. There was no sign of her! When he returned to his other obligations during the week, he forgot about his missing cat… until he got home and she still hadn’t returned.
That weekend found Marty searching the property for the twelfth time; looking for any signs of his missing feline friend. Otter was “Home on the Rez” (as he put it), gambling with his Native American buddies, or else he would have been useful for his tracking skills. Then Marty happened to look across the creek, and there was Krishna, in the Animal Witch’s window! She was staring right at him, and when he called, her mouth opened in a mute meow. Outraged that their crazy neighbor had his cat, Marty ran across the creek on stepping stones, and banged on her door until his fist got sore, but there was no answer. He briefly considered climbing in through a window to rescue his pet, but a little voice told him he should not meddle in the affairs of witches. Instead he returned to his house and informed Pippin, who suggested he call the sheriff. When Marty explained to the bemused dispatcher that his neighbor stole his cat, he could hear her patronizing smile. Trying hard not to laugh, she said she would ask a deputy to stop by when he was in the area.
While waiting for the sheriffs, Marty monitored Krishna in the window and noticed her body was pushing the drapes to the side. He could see some movement in the room behind her. Grabbing his binoculars, he ran outside, wrestled the ladder from behind the shed, and scrambled up to the peak of the roof. He focused on the room behind Krishna, and could see part of a wooden crate with a hole in it, and a dog’s nose sticking out! The nose didn’t belong to Freyja, because the fur was blonde, but it was a pine crate! He trembled with outrage, recalling the strong pine smell on Freyja that Tim reported before she disappeared a second time. Did the Animal Witch abduct her? Was she possibly still alive, and confined in her house? Eventually Krishna jumped down from the sill so he couldn’t see anymore, and he hurried back to tell Pippin what he saw. True to character, the lazy little man just shrugged and muttered there was nothing they could do. He has the ambition of a banana slug, Mary surmised in his cartoon computer. There must be something I can do! He wracked his brains, but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t get him arrested… and the sheriffs were on their way already! His mental merry-go-round spun in anxious circles, with dogs and cats bobbing up and down instead of ponies. Sometime later, he saw a skinny deputy and a fat deputy, knocking the door of the shipwreck. They projected the image and confidence of Laurel and Hardy. “Marin County Sheriff! Open the door, please. We need to ask you some questions.”
The necromancer crone opened the door a crack and didn’t show herself, but launched into her routine, “Are you wearing leather belts and holsters? My taxes paid for those, and I object that my money is being used to kill animals! How can you say you ‘protect and serve’ the community, if you don’t protect the helpless animals?!” Her bitchy voice was a broom that boxed their ears, until they became flustered, and their body language indicated they’d rather be anywhere but on her porch at that particular moment.
“Your neighbor over there,” the deputy spoke loudly over her tirade and pointed at Marty, who was standing thirty feet across the creek in his open back door, “He says you stole his cat!” Marty didn’t mention the crate for the moment, to see how this would play out. There was no sense in becoming a target for a crazy neighbor who painted a third eye on her forehead!
“That’s outrageous! I don’t have any animals here! Keeping animals confined is cruel! They should be allowed to run free, as God intended! That’s why He sent me to save the animals, so they would stop being abused by inconsiderate people like him!” She pointed at Marty, but directed her fire hose of words at the deputies, drowning out anything they tried to say.
“I hope He gave you a round trip ticket!” Marty’s lips could not resist a sarcastic yell.
“What did you say?” The witch opened her door wider. “I want to lodge a complaint against those people across the creek!” She launched herself on another extended rant about how their house was full of abused animals in filthy cages, with emaciated horses tied up in the shed. The deputies were talking among themselves and ignoring her, and this totally tripped her trigger. “My taxes pay for you idiots! Aren’t you going to do anything about the crimes I’m reporting?!” She writhed and paced with malignant fury inside her house.
The law enforcement professionals were getting increasingly frustrated. They knew she was being disrespectful and rude, but realized it would be ten times the hassle to provoke her. They didn’t want to arrest her, because that would mean a long drive to the jail with her screaming in the back seat all the way. Eventually they just looked at Marty and shrugged, then waved off her incessant diatribe as if she was a dog turd on the lawn. They hustled back to their patrol car and took off with a spray of gravel. In a few minutes they showed up in Marty’s driveway, and informed him there was nothing more they could do. She was glaring at them through her curtains the whole time. They couldn’t enter her home without a warrant, and couldn’t see a cat in the window, so they advised him to “work it out with your neighbor.” Marty decided it was time for full disclosure.
“Hang on, you guys,” he said in his most sincere tone. “You need to know that she’s the one who has animals confined in crates!” The deputies rolled their eyes with a ‘here we go again’ look, and Marty earnestly continued, “No, I’m serious! Our dog was missing this summer, and she smelled like fresh lumber when she came back, and then we lost her again, and I just saw another dog in a crate, in the same room where she has my cat!”
The skinny deputy pushed back his hat and looked at his rotund partner. “We do have two other missing pet reports from this area,” he offered speculatively.
The fat one wasn’t so sure. “How did you see this?” he inquired of Marty with an authoritative tone, “Did you go in her house?”
“No, I was up on the roof with binoculars.”
“How long will that take?” asked Marty, trying not to whine like a little kid, “Can’t I just go in and get her? It’s my cat!” They told him that would be breaking and entering at least, and they’d have to arrest him if he did anything to violate her property or trespass unwanted. They said all this with great sympathy, because they knew all about “Victoria,” as they called her, but there was nothing they could do, and they sternly advised Marty to sit tight and let the law handle it. From Marty’s perspective, this was like telling a drowning man to wait for another boat.
When his mom and sisters got home, everything was quiet, and the haunted shipwreck across the creek was dark. They were understandably skeptical of his outrageous report. “Are you sure that was Krishna, and not some other cat?” his mom asked dubiously while they did the dishes. She glanced out the back door and couldn’t see any lights in the witch’s house. “And how could you see a crate if the curtains were closed?”
“Mom, that’s Krishna – I know it!” She assured him in a patronizing tone that she believed him, but concluded there was nothing that could be done about it. It was disappointing that his own mother was deflecting his conviction as carelessly as the cops. What happened to her vigor in protecting her family?
The next day Marty had to go to school, and he told everyone at the bleachers about the cat-napping caper. Some of the girls looked sympathetic, but the guys quickly resumed their banter about sex, drugs, and rock & roll. All day long he wondered what he was going to do. There had to be a way to get his cat back! Rob advised him to swing on a rope like a ninja, smash through the window, and snatch her back. Dave suggested dropping some burning rags down the chimney and covering it up to smoke out the witch, and then rescue the cat. Marty was hoping for more realistic suggestions, but apparently he was hanging around with psychopaths. Even Archie, the golden math teacher, told him to “forget it,” and just get a new pet. “Life’s too short to worry about animals, man,” he advised the distraught boy in a friendly tone.
Marty got a ride from Marge after football practice, and when they got home they were shocked to see flashing lights from police cars across the creek, and sheriff’s deputies all over the Animal Witch’s crooked porch. Some of them were carrying several large, new wooden crates up to the road! They both rushed down to the edge of the creek. “What happened?” demanded Marge.
Marty could see the skinny deputy who showed up yesterday. “Did you find my cat?” he asked plaintively.
“No cats, but plenty of dogs,” the deputy jerked a thumb in the direction of the road. “Come and see if any of these are yours.”
Marge and Marty splashed across the creek, oblivious to the water. Freyja might be in one of those crates! But it had been weeks since she disappeared… They saw four freshly-built crates in the back of a Humane Society van, with four dogs inside them barking in frenzied confusion, but none of them were Freyja. The skinny deputy was nervous, sympathetic, and a little embarrassed that he hadn’t believed Marty before, and took him inside the witch’s house to look for Krishna. She’d already been arrested and hauled off to jail, he explained, and Marty soon found out why he was so edgy. The place was even filthier than when Barry the junkie lived there. Heaps of trash covered the floor, knee deep in places. Parts of the wall were torn away, exposing the studs and wiring. Bizarre graffiti and paper sculptures defiled the rest of the room, as if a drunken crew of satanic, heavy metal interior decorators had held a workshop. The stench of melted wax, mixed with Pine-Sol and paint thinner, stung his nostrils. Undaunted by the squalor, Marty called for Krishna by rolling his tongue loudly, and proceeded to the back room where he’s seen her before.
The deputy led him through the kitchen. “Don’t touch anything,” he warned, “This is all evidence.” The small kitchen had been turned into an evil veterinarian’s laboratory. Stainless steel basins were stacked on the counter, with old surgical instruments drying on a rack. Bloody rags were piled in the corners. The table had a rope attached overhead, which was apparently used to restrain the animals.
“What the fuck was she doing in here?” Marty asked, wide-eyed. The deputy, too, was so repulsed and flabbergasted, that he related to Marty like a real person, and didn’t mind being cussed out by a teenager.
“To tell you the truth, son, there are some things we’re better off not knowing.” His face was stiff and white. “I just hope to God there’s no human remains in here,” he sucked through his teeth and looked with sympathy at the boy. “If you don’t see your cat, I’ll have to ask you to leave,” he added respectfully but firmly.
Stunned beyond comprehension, Marty stumbled back to where Marge was waiting. With short, choppy breaths, he told her everything he’d seen inside. Her eyes got wider and wider behind her glasses, which were now fogging up with tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you!” she fell on him and sobbed into his shirt. Marty was now taller than her, and he didn’t know what to do. His mom had never cried to him like this before. He moved his hands in comforting motions but barely touched her back, until she broke away, sniffling. “I’m so sorry about Krishna!” she wailed, and blew her nose on her sleeve.
When Tim came home from work, he knew exactly what to do: go to the Slodge and try to get some information. Marty knew what kind of scuttlebutt he’d find there: the kind that comes in a bottle! Marge had been yelling at Tim a lot lately, and it was obvious that he was glad for the excuse to get out of the house. There was nothing much to do but try to get some sleep, after being so wound up with adrenaline all evening. Susie tossed and turned with the light on all night, and Marty couldn’t catch a wink due to the afterimages of the unspeakable horror he had witnessed across the creek, just a few yards away from his bed.
All the next day at school, Marty tried to make sense of what he had seen. The Animal Witch had been so against breeding animals, she must have been conducting her own diabolical spay and neuter clinic at home! Or what used to be a home, anyway. That festering bung-hole of a house should just be burned down! On the ride home with his mom, he wondered aloud if that freaky bitch really did have Freyja over there at some time, in one of those crates. “I guess we’ll never know,” Marge shrugged, as he hopped out of her truck. He wasn’t surprised to see a couple of sheriffs still taking pictures of the house of horrors across the creek.
Safe inside his own home, Marty was astounded beyond belief to find Krishna pacing around the kitchen! Tim was home early, and had barricaded her in there with a piece of plywood. He stood proudly in the middle of the room, rubbing his hands together with empathy. Apparently, that gnome-like wizard had a magical skill for finding lost pets! Marty was dumbfounded and ecstatic at the same time, and hugged the old dwarf spontaneously. When asked how he got her back, Tim explained with delight that he asked around, and someone at the Slodge told him they adopted a black cat from ‘that crazy animal lady’ before she was arrested, and sure enough, it was Krishna! Apparently the would-be new owner sympathized when he gave her the full story, and she gave the cat back; no questions asked. But there was one significant difference. The Animal Witch had put a spell on her so she’d never have any more kittens! (Actually, she spayed her.) Marty was fuming when he found out, and Marge drove them straight over to Dr. Killdeer’s place, where the old vet grudgingly admired the skill of the sutures and advised them to watch for signs of infection.