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Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency Year Eight: Case File No. 01-365

black cat silhouette and orange cat silhouette with text "year 8 begins" over light blue, white, tan background with filigree

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Where We Left Off:

At the finale of Year Seven, Gus had broken into the Kingpin’s organization and captured one of the minions.


Copycat III:

I must say, I did not expect Year Eight of our cases to kick off with such a superfluous bang. I have many questions and no answers. This remains an Open case. We’d love to get your opinion on it.

brown square with tan filigree; yellow text in vintage font "year eight"; illustration of young girl that resembles Amber when she's dressed in her outdoors vest, hat, and gear and holding a magnifier; black cat silhouette; orange cat silhouette

One fine day, I had let Gus out onto the balcony before morning meditation and coffee. When I returned to retrieve him, I could tell something was wrong. Gus had his head through the railing as if he had been placed in the stockade for looking at a woman’s ankles in church!

At first, I ignored it and went down to fix his secondsies before trying to let him in again. He might not have been hungry after his first meal provided by The Cook which could be eaten anywhere from 3AM-5:30AM. I walked into the other room to the coffee bar to fix my cuppa. While in there, I thought I might have a look through the windows to see if there was a bunny rabbit visiting that had caught Gus’ attention. Last year, the bunny creatures used to come nearly to the porch. I was shocked! That was no rabbit!

It was…Gus? Wait. What? Who?

I nearly dropped my dark roasted coffee on the cold slate tiles. Disaster averted. I stumbled around the room to reach my camera bag. I kept my eyes on the subject outside the window as best as I possibly could. Please don’t move. Please don’t leave. I clicked the shutter a few times and it appeared that I actually managed to focus for a change. Huzzah!

Grabbing the coffee mug in one hand and the camera in the other, I rushed back up the stairs and through the rooms to the balcony. I took a few breaths to calm down before blasting through the door like the Kool-Aid Man. Instead, I did find some composure. I casually talked to Guster. I kept pretended everything was totally normal. His hackles were still on end. I gave him some soft, top of head pets hoping to calm him down.

Then I leaned over the railing while still continuing my charade of being so casual. Don’t mind me. Nothing to see here. As I snapped photos and then video. To my surprise, our visitor seemed perfectly content lying in the grass by the back porch. They even gave me sweet kitty blinks. Awwwww.

The only time I was able to previously document this cat with 100% certainty was Year Six case file no. 41-301. Going back even before that case, we presented a dossier on cat sidhe or fairy cats (black cats with the domino dot markings). Back then, I had become enamored by doppelgängers of Gus because I kept seeing them on the internet; then I learned cats with those marks are the special cat sidhe and it was like part of my brain was always on the lookout for them like the Predator in scanning mode, but a friendly kind.

In case file no. 41-301, we began to refer to this copycat as Bud (explanation in that case file). However, we have even more questions unanswered than last time! 

Case Findings:

Unanswered questions remain:

  • What is Bud’s origin?
    • Was Gus secretly cloned without our knowledge?
    • Is Bud an illusion by another witch nearby who is casting a powerful glamour spell making such a convincing hologram?
    • Are Bud and Gus long-lost twins? They’re both in New Jersey. Stranger things have happened.
  • Does Bud have a home and family? He seems well-fed and healthy.
  • Why does he come here knowing Gus might be outside on patrol?
  • Does he need our help?

Case Status: Open

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