It has been 2 weeks since our last case and I think we are all nicely rested. Although we had been watched by people working for Harold and Philly, we managed to find them and instead of surrendering, they decided to fight, at which time they were killed. Philly is still in jail, being held without bail since she is considered a high flight risk. I would definitely agree with that. Our newest girls have been going through our tests and passed with high grades. Now they are going through some additional training and I think that all of them will be great additions to our team.

Some of the girls we rescued did manage to get back home, which was nice to see. They were the youngest of the women who were just in their teens, one was just 14, two were 15 and one was 16. They will all need some good counseling considering what they have been through. The ones that decided to stay with us range in age from 18 to 23. Yana and Anya have already completed training and are full team members now, as is Jazzy. Yana and Jazzy are now the oldest women on the team with both of them being 38.

The other new girls doing their training are Nalle, who is from Finland, Cosette, who is from Paris, then Kendall, Janice, Lynette, Carmeline and Sugar, all Americans. Plus there is Jeanine, Suzanne and Friskie from Canada. We almost have enough new members to start another team, but instead we will make the other teams bigger which will be more helpful. We will soon be getting Neill and Winston from Mandar’s Security teams. He is specially training men for us and we should get 5 altogether this year.

Well, time for the morning mail, not that we get very much, but sometimes an actual letter comes to us still. Jennifer and I were sitting together enjoying our morning coffee and donuts. “Here’s today’s mail Steve,” said Jackie, then off she went. “Um, I thought Misty was on mail duty this week,” I said to Jennifer. “She was,” said Jennifer. “Is she sick?” I asked. “No, she outsmarted Jackie and Macy,” she replied. I looked at Jennifer. “Oh,” I said, “glad that I know what goes on around here.” “Be happy that you don’t always know,” she said.

I looked at Jennifer. Maybe she’s right. Storm then came along and jumped up onto my lap and lay down. “Having a rough day Storm?” I asked. Meowr.= “Yep, another sad day for me, missing my Muffin still.” “Yeah, me too,” I said, sighing, and I started to rub his head, he loves that. “Oh, a real letter today,” I said and quickly opened it. Storm sat up so he could read it too. Meowr!!= “EEEEEEEEEK! That murder, that murder! We take case, we take case! You not want to go, let me go, that murder! I ask for cat volunteers, we go help lady in stresses!!” “Um, that’s distress,” I told him. Meowr.= “That what I said.”

“What is it?” asked Jennifer. So I explained it to her. A lady, named Elenore, in her late 50s, and a widow, that was my neighbor when I first started the Investigators is having trouble with a new neighbor. He owns the houses on each side of her now and he wants her house too, but she won’t sell. She claims he shot her cat, which was 18 years old, saying that her cat was constantly in his yard. She says her cat never stepped off her porch anymore and it was sitting on a table when the man shot her. The vet claimed the cat died of old age, so the police won’t do anything.

She is asking if I could come and help her. She doesn’t realize that it’s not just me and Muffin anymore. So, I called a meeting of team leaders to discuss the matter. It didn’t take long to get a 100% vote to take the case. I then called Elenore to let her know we would be there tomorrow and not to worry, we will get things sorted out for her. What could possibly go wrong on such a simple case? Sienna is going to have a legal team ready for us to use if necessary.

Jennifer insisted that I take 3 ghosts along, so I’m taking Misty’s team which gives me Kitty, plus I will take Sky and Angel along too. That made Jennifer happy. We will also take Storm and 6 other cats with us. While packing, Steffie came running into our bedroom. “Uncle Steve,” she said, “you gotta take mom along too, she gots all her able ties now, Auntie Kat said so and she can be really a big help to you so you gotta take her with you, you just gotta, pleeeeeeeeeze!” “And why do you want your mom to go along Steffie?” asked Jennifer.

Steffie just put her head down and didn’t say a word. “Hmm, okay, what’s the problem?” Jennifer asked as she picked up Steffie and sat with her. “Promise not to tell mom?” she asked. “Mmm, okay, I promise,” she said. “Mom is soooo feeling bad cause she didn’t proteck Uncle Steve on the last case,” she said, “now she wants us to go away. I don’t want to go away, I love it here.” Misty was walking past our door when Steffie said that and she stopped and poked her head around the door. “Who’s going away? What happened?” she asked, “Why didn’t I know about this? You can’t leave us Steffie, where’s your mom, I’ll talk to her.”

Wow, I wasn’t expecting that from Misty. “Will you Auntie Misty, will you?” asked Steffie excitedly, “you’re the bestest auntie I ever had!” Then she looked at Jennifer and gave her a big hug and said, “cept for you Auntie Jennifer!” Amazing, Misty was actually crying after Steffie saying that to her. “I think Uncle Steve is the one that needs to talk with your mom Steffie,” said Jennifer, “don’t you agree?” Steffie came and jumped onto the bed and onto me, giving me a big hug! “Yep, yep, yep!” she said, “You will talk to mom, won’t you Uncle Steve? I don’t want to leave my bestest uncle in the whole world!”

“Yes, of course I will talk with your mom,” I told her, “I don’t want to lose you two, you’re part of our family and we need to stay together, and I love you both too. Now, you go with Auntie Misty for a while, but be nice with her, she has to come on this case so you can’t wear her out.” “I will be nice, really nice, promise!” she said and off they went, walking this time. I then called Friskie to our room and she arrived quickly. We resolved this little problem quickly and Friskie is joining us on this case.

Soon we were in the air once again, heading to my old home town in Canada. We flew to the nearest city and stayed there overnight. The next day we drove the 2 and a half hours back to my home town and went directly to Elenore’s house. The first thing I noticed was that the houses on both sides of hers were gone, that included the one where I had lived. But, next to that, was a nice, new, and very large, house, which we were to find out was where the new neighbor lived. I just picked a few of the team, and all the cats, to come with me to visit with Elenore and get a better idea of what is going on.

She didn’t really understand what the neighbor was doing, but it seems he is buying houses around that location so he can build a multi unit building. She didn’t really understand that part too well, she thought it meant an apartment building, but apparently not, it was something else, and that’s what she doesn’t understand. However, she doesn’t want to move because her and her husband moved into that house after they were married, which was 33 years ago. She has a lot of memories there and she wants to stay.

Sky, Angel, Friskie and Misty were getting quite angry as Elenore told her story about all the weird things that have been happening. Things like garbage strewn around her yard, her flower garden in front of her house being trampled and her living room window being spray painted black, among many other things. She got quite scared one night when a rock came smashing through her bedroom window, landing on her bed. Right after that as she went into the living room to call the police, she saw a glowing white ghost standing by her phone laughing.

Then it went walking through the front door and disappeared and the door suddenly flew open and crashed against the wall! Her phone was dead too, the line ripped out of the wall by the ghost. She only has a landline. Of course the police didn’t believe the ghost part and now they think she has gone crazy. We assured her that she isn’t crazy, we believe her but said the ghost is likely just a man pretending to be a ghost, or just a trick done with cameras, so we will check that out. That guy is going to a lot of trouble to get this house…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.