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Chapter 1: How I started helping the Dog Mob Day 1

Name is Dexter Morris, Dex to my friends. A few years ago set up shop here, on the border of little Dogville, may not be the best neighborhood for the likes of me. However rent is cheap, and when your starting out as a gumshoe like me that is the most important thing. Spent the morning sitting at my desk, waiting for the phone to ring, or a knock at the door. Things had been quiet, to quiet for my liking. I looked at the wall clock, finally it was time. Grabbed my fedora, and headed downstairs. "Get your Dog Times here! Only 5 pence," I heard from the corner, as I left the building. "Hey Dex," the young pup yelped as he saw me. "Hey there Spot, keeping your nose clean," I asked. "Yes Sir, nose clean and ear to the ground," he replied as his tail wagged like crazy. "Good boy, tell your Dam I said hello," I said flipping him a 10 pence piece. "I will Sir, and thank you," he barked as I crossed the street. Soon I found myself in front of O'Miley's place. He has the best fresh fish in the city, never knew where he got it from, and we had an unspoken agreement, that I'd never ask. Some days make you rethink those unspoken agreements. As I walked in, my tail fluffed automatically. Normally its rather embarrassing, tail fluffing because you're entering a canine business. I looked around, and didn't see anything, sniffed and nothing was obviously different. "Hey there Dex," said O'Miley from behind the counter. "How's the day treating you?" "Things are slow, but you know the day is still young," I replied wishing my tail to stop being fluffed out. "Got something special today, trout from the north sea with a hint of lemon," he said refilling one of the patron's coffee. "You know me, O'Miley can never turn down a good trout. Set me up with it." "Hey Marko, one special for my friend Dex," he yelled to someone in the back. "Sam, isn't here today," I asked intrigued. "Nah, she's with her sister, who is going to have her first litter soon. Sam should be back next month," he said, his eyes shifting between the patrons at the counter next to me. Something was definitely up, but I couldn't put my paw on it. Shortly my fish was up. "Here you go Dex, I hope you enjoy it," he said as he put it in front of me, with some lemon juice to the side. I gave it a huge sniff, and my stomach growled in appreciation, and my mouth began to water. I started to dig into the fish, at first everything seemed fine, except for the nagging voice in the back of my head. It started slowly, but after I had finished a tenth of the fish, the dizziness was definitely there. Right before it all went dark, I heard O'Miley say, "Sorry Dex." ~*~ Sometime later I came to. It was dark, for the most part with some light coming through holes in the walls. I sniffed near one of the holes, it was made of wood, I soon realized I was in a box of some kind. I wasn't able to see anything through the small holes, obviously they were meant for air only. I quickly fell into letting my captors know I was awake by mewing as loudly as possible. This was replied to fairly quickly. Footsteps came pounding my way, and then an angry fist on the box. "Shut up, Cat! The Princess may want you here, but I have no problem in accidentally like, dropping you overboard," I heard a big dog say. "My Lady, the Mouser is awake," he continued to say walking away from me. With in a few moments, I heard 3 sets of feet coming back toward me. "Brutus, Caesar let our guest out," I heard a female voice say. I felt the box be lifted, and then the bottom fell out from under me. "Look at that Boss, the maybe this one isn't a real cat, he didn't land on his feet," said the dog who had addressed me before. From a sitting position, I looked up and saw the first dog was a large German Shepard breed, the other one was a Collie mixed with something else. They both look to the end of the room, I followed their gaze and there sat a Poodle, with a lion mane cut. "Do you know who I am," asked the Poodle. "You're the lead bitch," I replied. I know, I know, I shouldn't have done it. The German Shepard raised his paw, and the next thing I knew I was kissing the floor 3 feet away from where I had been. I raised my head carefully. "You better learn some respect," snapped the Collie. "I'll ask you again, do you know who I am," repeated the Poodle, in a very no nonsense matter. "Yeah, sure, I know who you are. Your Cleo daughter of Sam Oscar, he's the Alpha Dog of the upper east side of Dog Town." "Very good, Cat, I need you to do a small job for me." Cleo stated. I had to bite my tongue not to laugh. "You wish for me to do a job for you? Isn't that why you have Twiddle-Dee and Twiddle-Dumb here," I asked indicating the two dogs. Sometimes, you say things and then instantly realize what a bad idea it was. I was soon on my back, and taking jabs to the face from the German Shepard, while the Collie held down all of my limbs. This went on for a few minutes till the Poodle had decided I had enough. "Brutus, Caesar sit," she growled. Reluctantly they got off me. My left eye didn't want to open more than a sliver, and my jaw was forming a bruise, otherwise I seemed OK. I slowly got back to my feet, the hair on my back puffed out, my front claws reflexively out. "Do you know the cat in this picture," she asked as she threw me a picture. I spent a few moments with my eyes closed, breathing slowly. Obviously this could get really bad for me, if I didn't control myself. As I opened my eyes, I stared down at the picture. A very pretty gray tabby with black stripes. "No I'm sorry I can't say I know who she is," I managed to squeak out in pain. "You shoulda let me kill her when I had the chance, boss," the German Shepard said. "Yah Yah boss, what Brutus said, kill kill," replied the Collie. "Hush you too, you can't go around killing the help. Makes for bad business. Now for you Dexter, her name, is Selina she's very good about sneaking into places, most beings even in your species can't get into, without being seen." I racked my brain, while her image wasn't familiar, that description did seem to strike up some memories of what I heard the local coppers talking about. "And so what do you want me to do," I asked, afraid of what was going to be said. "Well isn't it obvious, I want you to find her. And bring back the package she stole from me," Cleo said sweetly. "It will help if I know whats in the package," I replied rubbing feeling back into my left ear. "Yes, that does make a certain sort of sense, but the small problem, is I don't know what is in the package, not for sure anyways," Cleo replied puzzled. "Not sure? Then how will I know I get it back?" She waved her paw, and Caesar dropped a picture at my feet. "This is a picture of the box, as you can see its quite ornate. The lock itself rumor has it took twelve years to build, and can only be opened with this key," she said as she pulled out her key from a bag she had sitting next to her. To say the key was ornate was a huge understatement, the part that went into the lock was like nothing I had ever seen before. "How soon do you need this found by? Its not like I can just hit all the common hot spots and find it on a table," I asked still staring at the key. "We'll give you a month little kitty. That should be enough time for you to find it. And if you need to talk to me, just go back to O'Miley's, and we'll get back in touch with you. My Sire always has that place under surveillance." "Hopefully we won't always meet the same way," I replied. "No little kitty, not at all. Now we are going to return to shore, your welcome to come up top to join us, or stay here till we dock." "I think I'll stay here, if you don't mind, not that much of a fan of water, you know," I replied. "Very well. You two, get this tug going, we have to return our guest." Forty minutes later, they called down to where I was, "Cat we are here." I didn't need to hear that twice, I stuck my head out of the hold and saw indeed we were docked. I ran as quickly as I could to be where I knew I was safe and wouldn't be falling into any water. Once I was sure I wasn't going to be getting wet I tried to walk home as calmly as possible.

Chapter 2: Uncle Frank Comes for a Visit Day 2

I glanced at the clock, it was already 10 AM. My body slowly started moving, all of my muscles protesting loudly against all movement. Slowly made my way to the steam room, and once it was ready stepped in. Many dogs are surprised we like steam baths considering how much we hate water. Personally I find there is nothing better than steam to get deep into the fur, and you dry much more quickly than becoming submerged in water. My muscles were much more willing to work after the steam, I quickly pulled on my clothes and head out the door. By noon I was walking up the street, for my office. "Dex! I'm so glad to see you! I thought something awful had happened, when I didn't see you yesterday. What happened," asked Spot, very excitedly. "Sorry about that Spot, didn't mean to worry you none, just had a run in with a rough crew." "I'm so glad to hear your doing well Dex, a cat went up to see you about an hour ago. He came down pretty upset that you weren't around." "Well hopefully he left a note for me," I said going toward the entrance of the building. "If you need anything you let me know, Dex," yelled the pup as I disappeared from his vantage point. I slowly made it up the stairs, my muscles begging me to stop again. For once I was glad I didn't have any cases which could require that I do a lot of running. I made it up to the flight of stairs and then down the hall to my office. I unlocked the door and opened it. Slid under the door was an envelope. "You left these on the boat," it read on the front of it. After sitting down at the desk, I opened the envelope and poured out its contents. Inside was the picture of Selina, as well as the picture of the box she supposedly stole from the Dog Boss. Looking at the box again, it looked familiar somehow, though I couldn't quite place from where. I went over to my bookcase and picked up the book "Furrville, History of the Ages" which some outsiders have told me seems like an odd title to be in a detective office. However, for the true history of this little town, this little book was a Goddess Send. I started flipping through the pages in the section of boxes of power. I started to compare a picture in the book, I must have gotten really engrossed with comparing the pictures. "Dexter if you don't answer this door I'm going to break it down," I heard a gruff voice from the other side say followed by a loud bang. I nearly jumped, and ran to the door as fast as my tired legs would let me. "Hello Uncle Frank, what a surprise, is something wrong," I ask opening the door. Frank Enfield, had been my Old Tom's only partner on the force after the unification act of 1900. He looked after me and siblings after my father passed away. "You disappear from O'Miley's yesterday, and then seen getting off a boat owned by the Oscar family, and you're asking me what's wrong?" "I didn't know you were following me, how did I gain such attention," I asked perplexed. "We weren't following you, but we do have O'Miley's under surveillance. So what happened to you?" "Cleo wanted to hire me to find a box that a cat by the name of Selina had supposedly stolen from them." "They give you a description of it?" "Better than that," I replied as I handed him the picture of the box." The Great Dane's face went bleak. "What was the mob doing with one of these?" "You know what that is," I asked as I had yet to find it for sure in the book I was looking at. "The Saluki and Siamese call these the 'Boxes of Creation', to them they are of high importance. Now here is someone you don't see in pictures to often," he said as he pulled Selina's picture out. "You know who she is," I asked intrigued. "It looks like Selina, she's a very well known cat burglar to us, so good in fact, we have never been able to keep her in a cell." "Why would she have taken the box," I ask more to myself than to the Detective. "We aren't for certain, but some of us have wondered if she is part of 'The Gathering'. Her crimes would fit that, but they are of course as slippery as a fish to catch." At this point my phone began to ring. "Dexter Morris, Feline Detective what's missing is found," I answered it with. "Oh yes, one moment, he's right here," I said, handing the phone to him. "Enfield here. No its worse than we thought, have Jones partner up with Morris at 8:00 tomorrow. Yes, I'm sure that's what should happen. Do you have the address there? No it's the corner of Main and Poodle, above the Max's Market. Yes, I'll be there shortly." "Don't you think you should ask if I want to have a partner," I asked slightly perturbed that I wasn't asked beforehand. "I gave your Old Tom, my word you would stay safe Dexter, this case is bigger than you probably realize this is the only way its going to happen. If you don't accept this, I'll have you brought in for assisting the mob." "I thank you for your help Frank, but I'm not a kitten any more. I don't need you to make sure I get home safely." He surprised me by grabbing me by the collar of my coat. "Now you listen here, I owe your Old Tom a lot, do you hear me? A lot. Now when I say your going to get assigned a partner, you had better believe I have my reasons." "Very well, I'll meet him here tomorrow," I said getting loose from him and straitening out my coat. He pulled away, as if he was almost ashamed by what happened. "I'm going to hit up the pub, do you want to join me for a strong drink," I followed up with trying to make the mood lighter. "Sorry Dex, still on duty. I would recommend you stay sober, you'll need to be on your toes tomorrow," with that Frank Enfield walked out of the door.