THE WINCHESTER-NABU DETECTIVE AGENCY

AMBER LOVE 05-MAR-2018 My work is supported by the generous backers who adore my cat stories at Patreon.com/amberunmasked and they also get first access to what’s happening with my books and podcast. Also, I’m an Amazon Influencer so you can shop through my personal recommendations and buy my books with these handy links below:

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ADVENTURES WITH GUS – CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: FOUR BOYS AND A GUN

[accordion title=”Expand for Adventures with Gus Table of Contents”]

• Chapter One – The Great Hunt
• Chapter Two – The Great Escape
• Chapter Three – The DaVinci Plan
• Chapter Four – On the Wild Side
• Chapter Five – The Leash I Could Do
• Chapter Seven – The Two Snakes
• Chapter Eight – Heat Wave
• Chapter Nine – The Sleepless Detective
• Chapter Ten – Baby Beasts
• Chapter Eleven – The Blue Dahlia
• Chapter Twelve – Stray Cat Strut
• Chapter Thirteen – The Strange Case of DI Nabu and Mr. Hyde
• Chapter Fourteen – Gus and the Grumpy Old Man
• Chapter Fifteen – The Night of the Hunter
• Chapter Sixteen – On Dangerous Ground
• Chapter Seventeen – Escape in the Fog
• Chapter Eighteen – World of Witcherscape
• Chapter Nineteen – Romancing the Stone
• Chapter Twenty – Where the Sidewalk Ends
• Chapter Twenty-one – Out of the Fog
• Chapter Twenty-two – The Moletiverse
• Chapter Twenty-three – To Kill a Woodpecker
• Chapter Twenty-four – Follow Me Quietly
• Chapter Twenty-five – Hell’s Half Acre
• Chapter Twenty-six – Black Snake Moan
• Chapter Twenty-seven – Night of Terror
• Chapter Twenty-eight – Spellbound
• Chapter Twenty-nine – Ghost Rider
• Chapter Thirty – Chips in the Wall
• Chapter Thirty-one – Of Mice and Men
• Chapter Thirty-Two – The Fairies’ Dancing Place
• Chapter Thirty-Three – The Lovely Bones
• Chapter Thirty-Four – Two Hounds of the Baskervilles
• Chapter Thirty-Five – Training Day
• Chapter Thirty-Six - The House on Haunted Hill
• Chapter Thirty-Seven - Guardians of New Jersey
• Chapter Thirty-Eight – The Big Country
• Chapter Thirty-Nine – State of the Agency Address
• Chapter Forty – A Real Stick in the Mud
• Chapter Forty-one – Despereaux Times, Despereaux Measures
• Chapter Forty-two – Footsteps in the Fog

[/accordion] Where we left off…

Detective Inspector Guster Nabu continues to skirt the law in order to investigate and protect his domain.

THE WINCHESTER-NABU ESTATE. EXTERIOR.

Due to circumstances in the neighborhood (death and aging land owners), I decided to poke around the tax records and research the property lines and ownership some more. Gus would take me all over the mountain and into Pennsylvania if I let him.

I’ve tried being reasonable in the amount of crimes we commit and “look at the other way” when we’ve encountered some warning signs. As noted in the previous chapter, Gus has sketchy taste in role models: Neal Caffrey, Parker, Pierre Despereaux, the Pink Panther — all notorious cat burglars.

The research caused only confusion. Our tiny one acre looks like a postage stamp compared to the neighboring lots of 27, 28, and 50 acres. The assessments are what makes no sense. Most of the lots have houses and other buildings like garages; since they’re all surrounded by forest, they are qualified as farms to get lower taxes. That’s all well and good, except — they are so inconsistent. The only lot that doesn’t have a house or any residential elements at all is assessed astronomically higher than others. If I recall correctly, assessments have to be every ten years or after major changes (which is truly the point of the permit process, to alert the tax office if you’ve added value to your home).

Anyway, now that I’ve confirmed the ownership of one of the nearby lots, I’ve wondered if I should reach out to them and formally ask permission to walk Gus on their property. These are not the type of people we have neighborly relationships with. They are “out of towners” who bought the acreage strictly for hunting. City people. Rich city people.

We noticed the posted signs a while ago, but since I don’t know a lot of last names of all the Grumpy Old Man’s friends, I wasn’t sure if this was part of the hunting club we were told about, maybe using a new name because someone died. You never know. They are only paying $101 in taxes! In New Jersey!!

I suppose I’ll have to find a way to navigate Gus away from the property line and only explore the south side of the mountain. If we end up crossing any of the other property lines in that direction, chances are “we” (the Grumpy Old Man anyway) knows them and won’t have us arrested for trespassing.

Oh, and it gets worse. I then entered the name into Facebook and discovered that the owners of this neighboring acreage are not only fitness buffs (fine, whatever) but also anti-vaxxers. As someone who didn’t know what to think about vaccines until I learned how the myth got started, I am very pro-vax if the being can handle it. There are valid medical reasons regarding immune systems or other health status why a person or animal would not be vaccinated, but overall, it’s better than risking it. This guy posted that the flu vaccine is the cause of the epidemic. I’ll admit, the flu vax is tricky and people who get it are often sick from it; my friend was sick for two weeks. Plus, the strains keep evolving. I don’t think it’s the cause of 4,000 people dying though. I’m usually on board with big pharma conspiracies, but this isn’t one of them.

I continued poking around through Facebook (jeez, an investigator’s golden egg, amiright?) and also saw they are nice to animals. Sort of. Again, you want to save the animals but then post about enormous steak and pizza with factory-farm cheese. Sigh, and it’s like they only care about protein grams without considering the ethical responsibility. Then I see the one mutual I have. Yes, of course it’s one of my ultra thin friends who constantly works out and thinks she needs to lose “more” weight. It’s too depressing to continue.

One of the other reasons, besides worries of being arrested, that these property lines are consuming our time is because of The Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency’s cooperative work with the magings of the underworld. The portals are all over the place. If you’ve been keeping up with the weekly Adventures with Gus, you know we are extremely interested in having working relationships with the local magings: Jersey devils, wolpertingers, maybe an American kitsune, not to mention the various faerie folk. How are we going to do that on only one acre?

For May Day in 2017, I had some help putting together an appropriate fairy house. It could have used more in the gardening ambiance, but it looked nice and had sparkly things to attract fae. Since I used a tree stump that was in the yard and not preserved by any polyurethane, it’s started to naturally crumble. Half the roof fell off already and other bits are looking sad. I also try to do everything with what can be found instead of spending money. I might have to reacquaint myself with some power tools even though I’m not good with them and not strong enough to hold them. If I want to cut out doors and windows from scraps of wood, I’m not sure how else to do it. It’s not that the prices on Etsy are unreasonable, it’s that I don’t want to spend $30 on a six-inch door, especially when I want larger doors.

We’re looking forward to flower season at any rate. So far the cat grass has been growing well in pots. It even looks like some of the catnip may be coming back. We’ll hopefully have another good year making the second floor balcony a welcoming oasis.