About 2:30 a.m. yesterday morning Burl’s cell phone went off – it took us several rings to come out of our sleep stupor and realize what it was and then no one was there. A few minutes later, the same thing – so we forgot about it and returned to our slumber. Last evening our neighbor Doug revealed he was the mystery caller – one of their dogs wanted out at that time and came to our garage door and barked repeatedly and didn’t want to leave. Doug heard a noise in the garage like something had been knocked over and then the dog quieted down so they went home. Not sure why he didn’t just knock on our door or call our land line – or why our trusty watchdog, Mulligan, didn’t rise to the occasion.
But nothing appeared to be amiss in the garage and we wrote it off as an incident with the stray black cat that seemed to darken our doorstep from time to time but remains free to roam the neighborhood.
Then last evening we went to a meeting and when we returned, the kitchen trash was all over the floor – the bin was still upright but the top was off and stuff scattered everywhere. Mulligan was immediately blamed since he had come inside while we were gone – he said “woof” which we took to mean “I’m sorry and it won’t happen again” but now we think it really meant “I’m not the culprit and since you blamed me, I’m not telling you what really took place here.”
So why is he no longer a suspect? We went into the living room and there on the floor was a decorator pillow that previously had buttons on it – but all the buttons were off and laying around on the floor along with the pillow. Nothing else was amiss – the pillow wasn’t chewed up, just the buttons removed.
Who – or what – was in our house and why were the buttons removed from the pillow? Why was the trash can emptied when there was no food (other than coffee grounds) in it? Do we now have a resident ghost? An elusive black cat? And why is Mulligan being mum? Send in Sgt. Joe Friday with the LAPD please!
Am I to assume you didn’t lock your doors? Or could it be that breaking into your house doesn’t require any real talent or thought? Still…buttons missing from a pillow and trash scattered everywhere is a mystery. My guess is a ghost, new to the neighborhood, looking through your trash for receipts for identity theft and doing a little redecorating with pillows.
Hope you solve the case!