This work is supported by the generous backers who adore my cat stories at Patreon.com/amberunmasked and they also get first access to what’s happening with my books and projects.
Where We Left Off:
Cat detectives, Gus and Ollie, shared part of their dossier on the stray cat called Savile and his murderous ways.
The Pillowcase Case:
Early in July presented an unusual day. I was folding the laundry—sheets and towels. I had half of the basket folded when I picked up another pillowcase that scared me. I dropped it when I saw two large, long, reddish stains. Was something dead and bleeding in the basket?
I took a couple photos immediately and sent them to The Butler. He said he didn’t know anything about it.
Oliver was on my bed which has been a strange new habit this summer. He loves the air conditioning and I’m usually the sweatiest person that needs cooling off. I hated to disturb him, but I could tell he was peeking through at me through dragon eye slits.
“Ollie, I need you to take a look at this?”
The soft marmalade and snowy white detective stuck his neck out for an initial sniff. He stretched his front arms out and stuck his butt in the air. When he was ready, he came closer and inspected all the clean laundry. He took this as an invitation to lie down on the “folded” sheets (I try my best).
“It smells like food to me,” he said. “Better wake up Gus for a second opinion.”
My best friend was curled up like a black void on top of the cardboard and wood building for the cats. The bottom floor is Ollie’s office. The second floor is Gus’ tavern. The rooftop with a thin mat is one of Gus’ favorite places to nap. If he’d been in a loaf position, I think I’d feel less guilty about waking him up, but he was curled in a circle with his nose pointing up. His secret belly dot partially visible.
The solution to my guilt was simple: treatos.
Ollie got up immediately and jumped off the bed. Gus woke up to the sound of the bag crinkling. He did a quick Halloween cat stretch and came over by my feet too. Round one of treats done.
I put Gus on the bed and showed him the frightful pillowcase. None of the other linens were marked. Gus put his superpowered nose up to the fabric. I didn’t want him inhaling anything dangerous, but these had just come out of the dryer. If those stains were from something caustic, I figured it would be mostly destroyed or the fabric would have been in far worse condition.
“Our Butler does the laundry,” Gus said. “What’s his explanation for this?”
“He said he didn’t know anything about it. I texted him photos.” I picked up the pillowcase thinking about how much the stains looked like blood. “I remember when the Butler knocked over one of his shaker bottles with a strawberry drink in it. I couldn’t get that stain out of the mattress which now looks like someone was murdered in bed.”
The Plan:
Oliver said, “First, we need to identify the substance that caused the stain. There may be no crime to solve here.”
“Except for being messy,” Gus added. “I’m certain that’s not blood. You can relax.”
We agreed on the first step and gave the pillowcase a more thorough examination. In order to test the fabric, we’d have to ruin the pillowcase even more. I don’t know why I hesitated about cutting samples off. The thing couldn’t be saved and would have to be used for some other upcycling purpose.
The results proved definitively that we were not dealing with any human or animal biologics. Since the fabric had already been washed and dried, there wasn’t much to work with. We got hits for sugars though. It might not be typical white sugar, but we knew now that we were dealing with a food stain just like the mattress.
“What do we do next?” I asked the cats.
Oliver licked his paw and wiped his face after another treat. “I know you loved to blame us for knocking things off tables, but I didn’t do it.”
“Don’t look at me,” Gus said.
They stared at me. I’m pretty sure I would have known if I’d dropped a glass or plate of something red in the laundry. The only strawberries I’ve had were cut up and in yogurt so that would not account for the size of these stains. Plus, there were no vegan yogurt proteins in the results although, they could have been destroyed in the wash. I’ll admit, sometimes I feel like I’m barely awake, but I don’t think I did this.
“What about The Cook?” Gus asked. “She’s in charge of almost all the food.”
“Almost all,” Ollie emphasized. “That’s not a tomato based stain and she wouldn’t be handling the Biographer’s laundry anyway.”
I thought about how The Cook loves strawberries and even adds a sprinkle of white sugar to them to make a glaze. We also had a huge watermelon around that time. That’s enough to know that red-staining food was around, but how it happened wasn’t coming together.
“The Butler did it!” Ollie said. “He’s the only one who handles both food and upstairs laundry. I can’t believe he would deny such a silly mishap.”
“You guys,” I made sure my voice was soft, but I had to pause to take a deep breath. “The Butler was really stressed out in July. Both of us were. He probably did spill one of his specific dietary dishes while trying to balance it on top of the laundry. But, he was moving on autopilot most of the time. He was driving all over the state to see people. Things were sad and his other job was causing a tremendous amount of unneeded stress.”
Gus jumped into the empty laundry basket on top of the bed. “You’re saying he doesn’t even remember the incident?”
“That’s what I’m saying.” I folded the ruined pillowcase and set it off to the side. I stacked everything else and put all of it away.
Ollie’s concern grew. He didn’t like any of his favorite humans to be sad and stressed. “Are you saying he had amnesia?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.” I tried to recall what I knew and continued to study about neuroscience. “I think his mind had to compartmentalize tasks. Work stuff requires so much of his prefrontal cortex that simple tasks are accomplished by procedural memory. Think of it like this: when you first get a puzzle, it’s really hard. You have to spend days or weeks getting to understand how pieces move and where the treats are hidden. After you solve it a whole bunch of times, it becomes easier to do without a lot of thinking.”
Ollie, Gus, and I agreed that we had come to the most logical solution. The Butler did it. Unintentionally, of course.
Case Findings:
We humans and animals are stressed, their nervous systems shift to give priorities to survival first. If they’re facing tasks, the most challenging ones will use the thinking part of the brain relegating other, easier tasks to work through procedural memory. In this case, after doing laundry for most of his life, the Butler wasn’t thinking about the steps to do it. His brain was focused on solving some other problem. Whatever spilled, he might not have even noticed if there wasn’t much lighting. Our conclusion: it was purely an accident and no harm was done. It was only a pillowcase and not an heirloom one that had any sentimental attachment.
Case Status: Closed