Chapter 36

Scents

Familiar scents followed the sounds. Dog food, well-done hamburger, cat food, fish sticks, fish food, bird food, fruity kids’ cereal, and the smell of live mice.

Tramp heard a door close and a key turning. Click. The light under the pantry door died for a second. It was Rodney passing.

A few minutes later. The light died again. “Now or never,” whispered Suzette. “The door’s open.”

Tramp stood on his hind legs, turned the knob to the left with his mouth—Click.

“Quiet, you only have a few minutes to look around down there and then out the back door you go,” she said.

“What about the key to the basement? I know Rodney locked the door,” Tramp asked.

“Two keys lock and unlock all the doors in the house. Rodney has one. I have the other. Mrs. Rodney put it in my bed when she left,” Suzette said.

“Left or died?” Tramp asked.

“She didn’t die,” Suzette said. “She packed a bag one day and left. She got fed up with his rules. She had to wear the same outfit he wore, head to toe, even the shoes. Blue one day, green the next day, and my favorite, yellow. She got fed up with the colors, the animals, the cleaning. He made up the part about taking care of me. I go along with that lie because it’s better for me, for now. Allez!”

Tramp loved when Suzette spoke French. Door knob turn, click, open. The basement was twenty steps below. Tramp so wanted to just get out the back door to his own house, his red blanket, into Shannon’s or Colin’s bed.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Suzette asked.

“Can I turn on a light?” he asked

“On the pillar at the bottom of the steps, flick it with your nose. You first,” she said.

Tramp wished he had a human sense of smell. For just once he would like to walk around Lake of the Isles and not know where a Canadian Goose had a nest or where a raccoon had spent the night. He knew why the best search dogs were called bloodhounds. All creatures leave their bloodprint behind. Bloodhounds remember every scent longer than other dogs. They know where all creatures have stood, even if they’ve been gone a long time.

Tramp had a lot of bloodsense. He was constantly aware of who or what had been where he stood. It was the way with dogs.

As he flicked on the light, he realized some of the scents and noises coming from the basement were from animals long gone. He didn’t know if they left alive or dead. All he wanted to know was who was on the shelves, still alive.

“Tramp, what’s taken you so long,” Pauly said.