Meow Mayhem

by Lickel, Lisa;

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked.

  “Shhh! The kids have gone back to your house to compare notes, or whatever they said they were doing. I just want to see what’s back here.”

  “Adam! You’ll get us in a lot of trouble.”

  “Shhh. Watch.”

  One of the police officers worked his way down the weedy embankment toward the river.

  “I wonder if our suspect left footprints?” Adam asked. “He or she couldn’t have used a boat on that little drainage. But still, the river might be important.”

  “Um, Adam,” I said. “There’s something I forgot to tell you—well, all of you.” A tingle of cold sweat on my brow accompanied my realization. Jenny’s story of seeing the kitty that looked like Memnet might, indeed, be an important clue.

  10

  “I think I’ll just close up early,” Adam announced when we reached Mea Cuppa. The streets were deserted, and he wasn’t the first shop owner to feel that way. “Closed” signs were up at the Odds ’n Ends shop and the ice cream parlor. Only the barber shop and the drug store, besides Tiny’s, defied the stressful events of the morning.

  Bob Green lounged next to his striped barber pole.

  We stopped to speak to him.

  “Bob. Looks as though most everybody went home,” I said, trying not to sound morose, but failing.

  “Yeah, appears so. Did you see what happened?”

  “Just a prank,” Adam told him. “Probably some kids with a stink grenade. You can order anything off the internet these days.”

  Bob and Adam exchanged a wordless dialog.

  “That’s right,” Bob said after a couple of seconds. “I’ll make sure my customers understand that. See you around.” He waved us off.

  Adam unlocked the door and we stepped inside Mea Cuppa. He drew the shade and turned off the orange neon “open” sign.

  “Why don’t you come over to my place? We can talk this out with the others,” I said.

  “Sure. Let me turn off the machines and put away the cold stuff.” Isis came from the direction of his office, mewing. “Hi, there, sweet thing. Were you all alone?”

  “Bring her, too,” I said.

  He grinned and picked her up. “Are you sure that’s safe?”

  We took my car back to the house where I parked alongside Sonja’s car.

  Elvis accosted us in the kitchen. “Did you get Yolanda to tell you what was in her mail?”

  “Hello! Well, I asked her,” I replied.

  Adam’s cat grabbed our attention. Isis plopped to the floor, sniffing suspiciously at some scent near the cupboards.

  “How beautiful!” Sonja said. “What’s your name?”

  “Meet Isis,” Adam said.

  “Female? She looks like Memnet.”

  “Different color,” Elvis said. “Remember, Isis is a smoke.” Elvis had obviously made friends with her, for Adam’s cat trotted over to him and rubbed her head against his leg. She ignored the girls.

  Mem’s whiskers and one eye peeked cautiously around the corner from the living room. He blinked when he saw Isis and retreated.

  Isis turned her head in the direction of the living room. She sat and licked her paws.

  Her act of innocent charm didn’t fool me. I’d seen her chase Mem.

  We all watched her, as if she were a much-awaited newborn or some exotic creature from another planet.

  “Hey!” Lucy shook us out of our communal reverie. “The newspaper publisher’s mail?”

  “Right. I did talk to her, but she was tight as a pinched nerve. I have something else I need to tell you. I don’t know how this slipped my mind.”

  We sat around the kitchen table.

  Adam snagged a padded chair from the living room and straddled it backward with his forearms crossed over the top.

  “Last Saturday, the day before you came, Yolanda and her granddaughter—”

  “Oh! Wait just a minute! Lemme get the recorder!” Sonja was up in a flash, bounding down the hall to the bedroom to pick up her machine.

  Lucy flipped open her notebook and began to scribble.

  Sonja returned and curled one foot behind the opposite knee. “OK. Start again.”

  “Last Saturday, Yolanda Toynsbee and her granddaughter Jenny came over for lunch,” I said, clarifying for posterity exactly who and when and where I got the information. “I wanted to trade notes about the Conklins’ business and family connections, and also to tell her about you three coming here as a potential story. Oh, nuts. And that reminds me, she can’t spare a reporter, but would like to run a story about your visit if you guys, um—”

  “Wrote it?” Lucy tapped the tablet, grinning.

  I wiggled. “Um, yeah. Sort of. At least, kept some good notes on what happens.”

  “The photographer snapped pictures of us this morning,” Elvis said.

  “Good. But that’s not what I wanted to say. Yolanda had Jenny tell me about an incident at the river. Jenny knew she wasn’t supposed to go near the water, but she saw a kitty down there that looked like Tut, the mayor’s cat. She wanted to rescue it, and apparently got close to the water and her father scolded her. I was ready to dismiss it as any stray cat prowling around, but Jenny, who’s five, by the way, said the cat had spots like a cheetah.”

  Lucy was all business. She held her pen poised. “What does this information add to our case?”

  “It wasn’t your cat, Adam, or yours, Ivy?” Elvis asked.

  “No.” Adam and I responded in tandem.

  “Isis hasn’t left the shop except with me,” Adam added. “Too much traffic.”

  “Memnet goes out, but I can usually see him. I’ve never noticed him gone for the length of time it would take to go all the way downtown and back. I’d panic.”

  “That’s right,” Sonja said. “He’s had some rough experiences lately, hasn’t he?”

  Lucy tapped her pen on the pad some more. “So, didn’t you say the mayor was courting other owners of Egyptian Maus to settle in Apple Grove, and in fact, pursued other businesses relating to animals? Might there be someone else new in town, or even just visiting, who owns a similar cat?”

  “That’s a good question, Lucy.” Adam shifted restlessly in the chair. “If Donald wasn’t here to connect with a visitor, he or she might have just come and gone without any of us noticing.”

  I rapped the table lightly with my fist, thinking about how to put my next thought. “I just have a funny feeling that the river is important somehow.”

  The other four shared thoughtful glances. “Sixth sense is nothing to sneer at,” Sonja said. “Does anyone know when we can get into the newspaper office? We don’t have all that much time, and I hope we actually figure out why the mayor was killed. By the way, wasn’t there an autopsy report? How did he die?”

  Adam spoke up. “Bob told me that Dr. Bailey was called in by the coroner to confirm Bartonella henselae, which causes CSD.”

  Elvis translated: “Cat scratch fever. Disease, I guess—CSD.”

  “Donald died of cat scratch fever?” I squeaked. “Marion said she’d heard some kind of infection.”

  Elvis gave me the look my mother reserved for unforgivable ignorance. “It is an infection.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “So, that’s it? Donald just got sick and died? Case closed?”

  Sonja frowned. “Not necessarily. That gives us cause of death. The timing and circumstances are still suspicious, to say the least. I’ll have to study up on the disease.”

  “CSD’s generally not that serious,” Elvis said. “My sister got it when we were little. It’s sort of like the flu, only not contagious, and usually you just get over it. Your mayor must have had something else going on with his immune system.”

  “Could he have been deliberately infected?” I asked.

  “And treatment withheld?” Elvis nodded. “I see where you’re going.” He flipped through his notebook again. “Professor Preston did note the unusual position of the body, a
nd commented she thought it had been placed in the stall of the restroom after death occurred.”

  “The doctor’s been ordered to examine every pet in town, and all the strays are to be rounded up,” Adam said. “She asked to put up a poster in the shop. The city will pay two dollars for each animal without a collar that’s brought in. The city ordered cages to keep the animals at the municipal garage.”

  I decided Memnet would be strictly a housecat for a long time. The word “strays” made me catch my breath. “I bet the license office will be busy.” Then another shiver ran along my back. “Do they think Tut—what will happen to him? It’ll be like a bounty hunt with everyone rounding up cats. He’ll be hurt.”

  “All the more reason to find him first,” Adam said firmly. “Now, how can we use this information?”

  “We have to have our field hours relate to specific elements of police procedure.” Sonja spoke for the group. “But there’s nothing saying how we should spend the rest of our time.”

  Lucy nodded. “Right. I still think we need to follow up with the newspaper, in between trying to figure out places Tut would hide. I don’t know when the Gazette office will reopen, but I do know that once the site has been secured, Detective Reyes from the station can process the scene. Then, finally, decontamination can begin.” She shrugged when we all turned our attention on her. “It was in a manual I studied. Anyway, after an attack like this, the cleanup is similar to the smoke damage from an actual fire. They have to scrub everything and test the equipment. I doubt there’ll be a paper for a while.”

  “Which might put a crimp in Dr. Bailey’s mission to test all cats,” Adam said, “if they can’t get word out that fast.”

  “It seems strange that a pet would be the cause of Donald’s death,” I said. “He loved cats so much.”

  “It might not have been,” Lucy reminded me. “There are any number of ways to deliberately administer bacterium.”

  I wondered if I were getting fevered myself, the way I kept shivering. “Lucy, you’re scaring me.”

  “Germ warfare should scare everybody,” the dark-haired girl said.

  “Luce…” Sonja uttered, in an admonishing tone.

  “There’s another thing I need to mention,” I told them hastily, before our—ahem—peaceful discussion turned contentious. “I saw our friendly council member in charge of sewage, Jeff Hanley, looking on during Tiny’s speech.”

  The others gave me “yeah—so?” shrugs.

  “I learned that he’s also vice president of the Apple Grove branch of the State’s Bank. He’s taken his turn as council treasurer in the past.”

  Lucy turned a baleful eye on me. “And?”

  I took a deep breath and stifled the urge to shake her.

  Elvis answered. “I think I get it. Remember? Adam and Ivy originally noticed that only a few of the council members appeared to know how the twelve million dollars would be distributed. Hanley was one of them. As a banker, that might mean he has access to it somehow, since the city does business through State’s.”

  “Still,” Sonja said, “What kind of means and motive would Hanley have to murder the mayor?”

  “Wouldn’t the real killers be elsewhere if this isn’t the scene of the murder?” Adam asked.

  “Who actually controls the money?” Elvis asked.

  “Wouldn’t it revert to the city treasury, or something?” I felt like a gerbil running on one of those exercise wheels, spinning and getting nowhere.

  “Losing that much money would be hard to cover up.” Sonja’s forehead crinkled. “If the mayor was the only person who had control, business records could be cooked.”

  Elvis got up. “Including the fact that Mrs. Bader-Conklin has ties to the rival pet food company she’s personally invited to move to Apple Grove.” He spoke over his shoulder as he went to the tap to get more water. “The corporate world understands these things. Trust me.”

  “Unfortunately, we’re not solving anything with speculation,” Sonja broke in. “While we’re waiting for the newspaper office to reopen so we can check records, we can interview people. We can keep track of all the cats that are rounded up and taken to the vet. I’ll ask around to see if back issues of the Gazette are kept elsewhere. Sometimes a library microfilms them, or the historical society, if there is one.”

  “Why don’t we make some calls now?” Lucy was already eyeing my telephone and the small phone book nearby.

  Elvis returned to his seat. “Hold on a sec, Lucy. I want to talk to Ivy a little more first, OK?”

  I admired their enthusiasm, but they made me feel old. Safer perhaps, than being alone, but wilted like a morning-after prom corsage.

  Elvis flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “The first thing I have to say is that I think I figured out what the big deal is about the Summersby connection.” He studied the page, then glanced at me. “I checked on all the businesses listed within the building, and one stood out. Merris Corp. It’s an offshoot of MerriFood that direct-contracts pet security systems, like alarms, invisible fences, that sort of thing. Does that help?”

  “Probably,” I replied. I had not said anything about checking it out myself. “But how can we connect a case of usually non-threatening cat-scratch fever to a high-profile company like MerriFood?”

  “What about the mayor’s call for help?” Sonja said. “It came from the building.”

  “Unconfirmed,” Lucy said.

  Elvis apparently decided to move to the next item on his agenda. “But worth remembering. The second thing I want to discuss is that Lucy and I had a chance to briefly glance through the police report, including inventory of evidence being held, regarding your robbery.” Elvis continued, “I haven’t seen that many files from this jurisdiction, but it seemed pretty thorough. The usual photos, prints, statements, specimens, the burlap bag.”

  Lucy nodded curtly. “Did you know they interviewed the council members about the meeting you attended? And your neighbors about the robbery?”

  “I can understand interviewing the neighbors,” I said. “But why the council members?” I swallowed. “All of them?”

  “Including Hanley.” Lucy’s voice was soft. She leaned toward me. “I think you have an unofficial ally in Officer Ripple. His notes mentioned your suspicions regarding the absence of the mayor and the differing reactions from council members. He’s spent a number of hours on the case and agreed the circumstances around the death warrant a thorough investigation.”

  Finally! I thought the cops should have been suspicious by now, especially with the M.E. agreeing the body had been moved.

  Elvis twisted his neck as if to loosen taut muscles. “I’ve been impressed that Officer Ripple’s looked at the file almost every day and made a lot of personal notes, especially since the missing persons report was filed for Mrs. Conklin.”

  Adam spoke up. “What did the report say about Hanley’s interview?”

  Elvis flipped the pad’s cover forward and back with nervous energy. “I only skimmed it. He was surprised the mayor had confided about the tax grants to anyone outside of the council. He claimed the mayor told him that, until he was in a position to begin awarding the money, he wanted to keep it quiet. That’s mostly the gist. I think we can safely cross him off the suspect list.”

  Adam shifted in the chair. “How about Letty Grimm?”

  Elvis shook his head. “Our time was up for that area of the station. I really didn’t study the file as much as I would have liked. Not long after, the call came through about trouble at the newspaper office. Ripple let me come as long as I stayed out of the way.”

  “We were turned out,” Sonja said. She checked her machine. “You know, this makes me wonder just when Margaret Bader-Conklin figured out what her husband was doing about these grants. The mayor appeared to be able to keep his business and personal life separate, up to a point.”

  “Until he started mixing the two.” Lucy raised a brow.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.
r />   Elvis snorted. “Look who he invited to share the wealth.”

  Lucy wrinkled her nose. “Cat lovers. From the personal side of his life.”

  “From which his wife was cut off.” Elvis smacked his notebook on the edge of the table.

  Sonja enunciated the words directly into her tape recorder. “By her allergies.”

  I watched the students, fascinated with their logic. It made sense. She was a pharmacist, after all. And she was missing. I could go there. I grinned.

  Sonja turned off the recorder. “Maybe we should write up a report of the day so far and figure out what we’ll say at our teleconference with Professor Preston.”

  “I should get back to my place,” Adam said. As he stood, Isis leapt into his arms.

  Memnet slunk into the kitchen.

  Surprisingly, both cats ignored each other instead of yowling.

  Mem headed for Sonja.

  I walked Adam outside. Pulling abreast of my car, I asked, “Would you like a ride?”

  “It’s nice enough, even if it’s a little warm. We’ll walk, thanks. I could use the exercise.”

  I glanced at his firm middle and flexing arm muscles and doubted that very much. “I’ll walk with you a little, if that’s OK.”

  “More than OK.” Isis perched on his shoulder and he grabbed my hand, swinging it as we turned out of the driveway to walk down the block.

  At the intersection, Adam stopped. “I’d like you to consider boarding Elvis here with you.”

  My steps faltered. I’d expected something like that. The request wasn’t unwelcome after words like bioterrorism had been bandied about. “What about you? You shouldn’t be alone in your place.”

  He gave me a wry smile. “Much as I’d like to pretend to be able to take care of myself, I have to agree with you. I have some ideas I’m mulling over. Unfortunately, I don’t know who to trust. I thought about calling Jim and Yolanda, but they have enough worries.”

  “Maybe you should stay with us, too.”

  “Now that could damage your reputation.” He squeezed my knuckles. “Your house isn’t that big. But I appreciate the offer.”

  We walked quietly for the next half block.