The Nose Knows (32 page)

Cynthia chimed in, “But they were not the only heroes, John.”

“What you do mean, Cynthia?” Mom asked.

Cynthia dipped her head in an uncharacteristic show of embarrassment. “Well, Dr. Richards, like Donny, I too have learned something. I have a confession to make. I judged John wrongly. Because he was gay and never stood up to Alan, I thought he was just a wuss. However, when I needed help holding down Theodore, John jumped in and helped me. I must admit—I was shocked. I honestly expected him to be cowering in the corner somewhere. But he wasn’t cowering. He came to help me. I’m the first to admit I have never been very nice to him, but he still put himself at risk and helped me. He came to help me.
Me!
It touched me so deeply that a few days later, I called him to thank him for what he did. We started meeting over coffee. I found out a lot about him. He’s not a wuss. He has a strong character, yet he’s gentle and kind. I’m very happy to now be able to call him my friend.”

John nodded his head. “And I too have found a new friend.” He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. He and Sweetie were a lot alike.

“Since we’re all giving true confessions,” John added, “I think I should tell you that Alan has moved out.”

My head popped up as Mom’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? When and why did that happen?”

John took a deep breath. “Well, I always knew Alan was a bully, but I still loved him. I thought I just had to put up with it. Secretly I believed he was stronger and tougher than I was. Honestly, I thought he’d stand up to anyone and defend me if needed. But I found out how wrong I was. That day he was as scared as I was. He didn’t defend me or anyone else. I was scared, but that didn’t stop me from defending Cynthia. I found out I could depend on myself a lot more than I could depend on Alan. So the next time he tried to bully me, I drew the line. I told him that I loved him but I wasn’t going to tolerate him bullying me. Right after that his bullying went way up—I guess he was testing me—but I didn’t back down. I realized if I could physically fight off Mr. Johnson— sorry, Theodore—then I should certainly be able to defend myself against Alan’s big mouth.”

Cynthia added, “We talked a lot about it when we met for coffee. It wasn’t easy, but John stuck to his guns.”

John continued, “I did, and finally I told Alan if he didn’t change how he talked to me he could just leave.”

John lowered his head and sighed as he added, “And he did.”

Everyone was quiet. Mom gently said, “And how do you feel about it now, John?”

John raised his head and threw back his shoulders. “I won’t lie and say that it’s easy. I miss him terribly. But I do believe I did the right thing, and that does give me a lot of comfort.”

“I can see that it does,” Mom said. “You should feel proud of the tough decision you made. It seems you handled it very well.”

Cynthia gave John two thumbs up.

Donny smiled and said, “Good work, John.”

“Yeah, it took a lot of guts to do what you did,” Melanie added. Since no one had heard her say anything yet, all eyes turned in her direction. The look on Melanie’s face changed. Translation—“I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.” The look on Fearless’s face changed too. Translation—“Hey, why did you stop petting me?”

Melanie’s face hardened. She was sinking back into herself.

Mom wasn’t deterred. “So, Melanie, everyone has said how the incident with Theodore made them realize something new about themselves. What about you?”

“Me, hey I was already great to start with. . . .”

Mom lowered her chin and gave her the teacher-staring-over-glasses look. “Melanie, cut the crap.”

Melanie smiled. “Okay. Okay. Do you want me to tell them the truth?”

“That’d be a great place to start.”

Melanie started twisting her hair around her finger. She continued to stroke Fearless with her other hand as she stared down at his back. Her voice trembled. “John, I know what it’s like to be afraid of a bully. My father was a bully—a mean, terrible bully. I never did stand up to him. I just ran away. I never went back. I never spoke to him again. I felt like a coward leaving my Mom behind like that. In my individual sessions with Dr. Richards, she tells me that I wasn’t a coward. She says I did what I had to do to survive, and it actually took more guts for me to leave than to stay. I am still not sure about that, but she’s right—I did survive. Now, she says I have to learn new and better ways to live. Maybe I can, but I’m not sure about that either.”

Melanie raised her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She spoke in a whisper. “But ever since I ran away I felt like I didn’t have a family any more. Then that day happened. We all fought together to defend Spunky, Fearless, and ourselves . . . and we fought together . . . real good . . . just like a family.”

Melanie dropped her head and kissed Fearless as she whispered, “Didn’t we, Fearless?”

Mom got up, walked over, and knelt before Melanie. She put her hand on Melanie’s chin and gently lifted her face. I could hear the love in her voice. “Well done, Melanie, well done.” Mom kissed her cheek and hugged her. She then returned to her own chair, but not before she offered each one the Kleenex box.

Mom has several notable gifts, and one of them is the ability to remain quiet and allow a good moment to linger. Too often humans feel uncomfortable with silence. They feel compelled to fill it up with words. Mom didn’t. She just sat there and let all the good feelings drift around the room like a fine aroma.

Melanie broke the silence. “Now what?”

Today Melanie had made a lot of progress, but being comfortable sitting there with her emotions was one area that still needed a lot of work. Mom smiled. “Okay, group, we need to make a decision about Theodore. So who wants to speak first on that subject?”

Donny spoke right up. “Well, the idea of actually seeing his face again scares me. But just seeing his face on a computer can’t really hurt me, so I guess my fear is pretty silly. Besides, we already defeated him once. So, why not? I vote yes, let’s try it.”

Hey, Donny-boy had come a long way. I licked his hand. He smiled. It helps to have someone tell you they’re proud of you.

Cynthia was next. “Listen, I know all too well what it’s like to feel rejected by everyone and to not have any friends. I think we should reach out and give him a chance. Yeah, I vote yes.”

“But what about his sister, the former Mrs. Wainwright?” John asked, “Shouldn’t we try and help her too?”

“Samantha Cartwright still has adequate support from her foster parents and no formal charges are going to be brought against her,” Mom answered. “She has a job to return to, and I have given her the names of several counselors who are willing to see her. Dr. Hayden agrees that her primary goal needs to be learning how to appropriately separate from Theodore. Dr. Hayden offered to see her initially, but she declined. We feel she’s better able than Theodore to facilitate her own way if she wants to.”

That didn’t seem to be enough for John. “Yeah, but shouldn’t we do more to help her?”

Mom held up her hand to stop him from going any further. “John, as I said, she declined Dr. Hayden’s offer. She has to be the one who decides that she wants help. Trying to rescue someone so you can feel better usually doesn’t turn out very well for anyone.”

John lowered his voice. “Yeah, like I was doing with Alan right?”

Mom nodded. “One could see some parallels. Now, what do you think about Theodore joining the group?”

John smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought everyone knew I’d vote yes.”

Once again, all eyes shifted to Melanie.

“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s my turn. Okay, let him join.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “That’s it. Anything else you want to say on the subject?”

Melanie shook her head. “Nope. Go ahead and beam Theodore into our group if you must.”

I sighed. She can be so frustrating. I then saw Fearless’s whiskers shift upward. He purred, “Maybe she can’t say all the words yet,—
breath—
but her body sure isn’t angry.”

Like I said, the girl was definitely making progress! I snorted, if this group works together, Theodore may have met his match!

After the meeting concluded, we headed home. Jacob and Quincy had their own car, so I was still in the dark about what they’d discovered about Alan. Even after we arrived at the house, I still had to wait. Apparently, Mom and Jacob had decided to go out for dinner, so they hurriedly served us ours. Quincy and I could’ve let our dinner wait and gone off to talk, but I have seen those cats clean out my dog dish faster than a horde of locusts. No way was I missing my dinner!

Finally, we were full and Mom and Jacob had left. The cats were off doing their ritual of after-eating grooming procedures. Quincy and I headed out the dog door. “Okay, Quincy what the heck is Alan up to?”

“Well, like I started to tell you, while you were at the jail it was time for Alan to get off work, so we followed him. He went to the bar and came out with that same guy, just like always. They headed straight to Alan’s car. But Alan was different tonight. He was very agitated. Maybe that had to do with what you just told me about John kicking him out. Who knows? Anyway, he was doing everything in a big hurry. When he went to hand the package over, he dropped it. And guess what? It broke! It was glass, not paper. When it broke, it leaked all over the pavement. The other guy yanked back the envelope that he was handing to Alan. That really made Alan mad. They both started yelling. The other guy finally put the envelope back in his own pocket, stomped off and drove away. Alan just stood there for a few moments, pulling at his hair. Then he bent over, picked up the soaking bag and dumped it in the trashcan. When he drove away, Jacob and I ran over to where the bottle had broken. Whew! It stunk! Well, to me it smelled awful. Apparently Jacob thought it was a heavenly aroma. Know what it was?”

“What?”

“Wine.

“Wine?”

“Yup, wine. And very expensive wine too. Jacob went and checked out the garbage can. The bottle was in a cardboard sleeve. That’s why we never guessed the package was a bottle—inside the bag, the sleeve looked like a round tube, which is why we thought it was rolled-up documents. But the cardboard wrapper didn’t stop the bottom of the bottle from shattering when it hit the concrete. I’m telling you, Spunky, I never thought Jacob knew so much about wine. But you should have heard the length of his whistle when he saw the label. He told me that it was Krug Champagne ’05, whatever that means, but he said it could sell for three hundred dollars a bottle. Imagine that, Spunky, three hundred a bottle! That’s a lot of dog biscuits!”

“Sure is. How could Alan afford a three-hundred-dollar bottle of wine?”

“He didn’t. We think he stole it from that five-star restaurant he works at. Jacob said he now understands how that other dude could afford such expensive clothes. Jacob thinks he’s a fence for black-market goods. If Alan sells a bottle to him for maybe fifty dollars, he then turns around and sells it to some rich dudes who want to impress their girlfriends. Jacob said even
he
could sell that bottle of wine for a lot of money.”

“So why wouldn’t Alan just steal it and sell it himself to make more money?”

“Jacob said Alan must not have the right contacts to sell high-priced black-market items like wine. We never saw him meet with any other dude except this one.”

“So Alan’s just a common thief? That’s what all those secret meetings were about?”

“Yup, Alan’s a crook, all right. But the good news is he’s not a threat to us. Jacob says we won’t be following him anymore. Alan might think he has a sweet little deal going, but not for long. If I know Jacob, Alan may soon be getting an anonymous phone call. All Alan will hear will be a deep voice telling him that he should stop dropping expensive bottles of wine— especially stolen bottles of wine. Maybe if Alan thinks his cover is blown, he’ll get scared and quit while he’s ahead. Don’t you think?”

“I’m not so sure. Alan’s ego seems bigger than his intellect. But if he keeps it up, sooner or later he’ll get busted, either by the law or busted over the head by one of his cohorts. I sure am glad John kicked his butt out. Is Jacob going to tell the police?”

“Naw, he said we didn’t need any more police knocking on the door. But I did hear him muttering something about calling the restaurant and giving them a head’s-up that maybe they should check their wine supply closely.”

“Is Jacob going to tell Mom?”

“Yeah, tonight he plans to tell her what we saw and that he believes Alan has no connection to the Cartwright family. Alan was just being a jerk who had his own agenda. Besides, since Alan wants nothing more to do with the group, Jacob thinks it is best to end it there. He says we should just let Alan go his own way.”

I agreed with that. I trusted Jacob. Alan was no threat to us.

The puzzle was complete. I was now certain that the entire mystery had begun and ended with the Cartwright clan.

A
month later Mom and I were again in the woods, sitting on our favorite log. The days were getting colder as November moved forward. But today was warm and sunny, a beautiful Indian summer day. The trees were decked out in the very best of their colors. The new burrow holes I had found to put my nose in had told me a lot of critters were now all set for the cold northern winter. I kept a sharp lookout for a white tail deer, but today I wasn’t blessed with a chase. The boys had accompanied us, and once again they were frolicking. I could see them playing hide and seek. Given their keen sense of smell, this game of trying to find each other didn’t seem very challenging. However, the cats seemed to be having great fun hiding and then leaping high in the air and pouncing on each other. Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to the ways cats have fun.