A CHRISTMAS TALE… This ain’t one of those holiday stories that ends well. The key players in the bizarre yuletide tale include an old striped fuzzball named Skyler and a police officer apparently spooked enough of cats to embroil himself in a tangle of fibs. Squid will narrate a la Tiny Tim.

Skyler, an indoor-only cat, wandered away from his Seaside Highlands home on a Sunday in late November. His mom, Eileen Schnur, knowing he was an older feline, figured he couldn’t have gone far. She immediately posted signs in the area.

Tuesday Schnur got a call from a neighbor. Skyler had trickled into their garage. The neighbors rang SPCA, who directed them to dispatch, who, since Animal Control wasn’t on duty, sent a Seaside Police Department officer.

He told the Seffernicks he had contacted the SPCA and would take the cat there. All Schnur would have to do is call and pick up the itinerant adventurer. Skyler was safe. Christmas was saved.

Then this holiday tale gets twisted: The SPCA didn’t know what she was talking about. No one had called from SPD. Later, they would check the video of the parking lot. Nothing there.

Schnur tried to piece things together. She contacted her neighbor, Stephanie Seffernick, who, as she reiterated in a formal statement, said that the officer had exhibited some strange behavior: He had asked if they would keep the cat (they couldn’t), then requested they transfer the cat and the cardboard box they had placed it in to his car, mentioning he had experienced bad luck with cats.

Seffernick called SPD. They told her officer Salvador Reynaga took Skyler to the Monterey Peninsula Emergency Specialty Clinic at Ryan Ranch.

From there Schnur got a hold of Reynaga personally. According to her, he said SPCA had turned the cat away but, when pressed, admitted they hadn’t (SPCA policy is to accept all animals 24/7); then he told her there was no answer at SPCA, which she asked him to confirm and, again, admitted wasn’t true.

A new story emerged: Reynaga took the meowing Skyler in the box to the clinic, where, according the on-duty vet, he reported that he had received a call about an stray with paralyzed back legs. They scanned the cat for a microchip, and, after concluding he was in bad shape and would be hard to nurse into adoptable health, decided to euthanize him.

SPCA has opened an investigation into the sequence of events; SPCA spokeswoman Beth Brookhouser says SPD has not returned numerous calls. (The Weekly didn’t hear back from Reynaga or his supervisor by press time either.)

When truth is weirder than fiction, Squid usually sees it as a gift. This time, though, it feels more like a lump of coal.