Chapter 3 - An Interview with the Anonymous Cousin
Anonymous: an individual who remains unnamed or identified
They say he was born a sweet little thing.
And now Mr. Anonymous' mother, Louisa, claims that he is a real chicken shit who takes off like a bat out of hell making a beeline behind the furnace whenever a car pulls into their driveway.
According to Louisa this neurotic behavior has been going on since forever. Her furnace is not his first. And this was well before any talk of attempted murder came about.
So.
But he agreed that disguised and from the safety of his mother's lap, he would be willing to throw in his two cents about the who's who murder case.
"I have no immediate plans to write a book about this embarrassing family feud going on behind my dysfunctional cousins' closed palace doors," said the voice from under a red bandana. "But to the best of my hearsay there has been more than one major scrap over there in the black hole just outside Harmony Grove and more than one broken necklace. Tuna chipped a tooth on one of Grandma's pearls and I heard that she never reimbursed him for his dentist bill."
"Who told you that?" said Millie. "Tuna doesn't even brush his teeth."
Millie then told the story of how Tuna had gotten a red check mark next to his cholesterol levels at his yearly and that he had gained a little unnecessary holiday weight according to the scale he was forced to sit on.
"The problem is, Tuna will only eat the real expensive dry food. And this is only after he inspects it. If it is the least bit stale, he will walk away or else sit there and stare at me with his googly eyes demanding that something be done, like dump that crap out and try again. Please."
Millie went on to explain.
"I do exactly as Tuna suggests and sometimes he stares at me some more. So, then I sprinkle a few of his treats on top of his filet mignon flavored dinner. After more careful inspection Tuna will then pick the treats off the top of the pile and eat them. But not if they are the same flavor he had previously. And it is hard to know which flavor my sweet Sven gave Tuna the last time he walked into the kitchen. So I have to sprinkle some of the other flavors out for him too. And the vet technician said we are supposed to cut back on his treats."
Mr. Anonymous' eyes grew very large behind his sunglasses.
"She also told us that he needs to drink more water so he doesn't develop crystals, because he is showing beginning signs. But Like Sven said, you can lead a cat to water but you cannot make a cat do anything."
"So. What are you going to do?" asked Louisa.
"The lady suggested that we supplement his diet with wet food. But that will only work if Tuna were to taste it. And so far he will not come any closer than two feet to such nonsense. As far as he is concerned that smelly mush is for little old ladies. And he hates little old ladies."
Mr. Anonymous piped in just then.
"Tuna is not about to eat anything with Grandma's name on it because he knows she is trying to poison him."
"Morrie Amsterdam! Do not say something like that unless you know it to be true!" said his mother.
"Well, it is only my opinion. But Millie just said that Tuna will only eat what he has seen with his own googly eyes served fresh out of a tightly sealed container and he makes sure his treats are not the last flavor he had, just in case the opened package may have been tampered with."
Morrie's theory was a good one.
But I then let him know that it was full of holes, whether Tuna believed it to be true or not.
"When Tuna is elsewhere and Grandma comes upstairs," I said. "Grandma eats whatever is on Tuna's plate. She rolls around in his leftover catnip and she shits in his litter box."
This made Mr. Anonymous quiver.
"Wow," he said. "That is extremely passive aggressive. Maybe I should write a book."
For more stories in The Who's Who Murder Series, click above on Who's Who Case.