by Nic Saint
“Briefcase, presumably belonging to the dead man,” said Abe.
Alec flicked open the discarded pizza box, noticed it was empty, and flicked it closed again. “If this is a robbery gone wrong, wouldn’t the perp have taken the briefcase?”
“That’s your department, Alec. The only thing I’m interested in is finding out if there are any fingerprints on this thing that can help you nab the killer.”
“It’s so great to see how professionals handle an investigation, isn’t it, Dooley?” I said. “And we have a front-row seat, too.” When no response came, I repeated, “Dooley?”
Turning, I saw that I was talking to thin air. Dooley was gone.
“Psst! Max!” suddenly his voice called out to me.
I looked over my shoulder and saw he’d disappeared into the next room. I followed suit and soon discovered we were in the library itself, looking down on a small stage where a man was seated on a chair. Judging from the way he was slumped over, he seemed to be fast asleep. And that’s when I saw it: something was sticking out of his neck!
“That’s him!” I cried. “That’s our dead guy!”
The discovery that we’d found what we were looking for didn’t bring Dooley the jolt of joy I expected. Instead, he produced a loud yelp—not unlike the kind of squeaky sound Cameron Tucker of Modern Family fame tends to produce.
And then Dooley dropped off the wall, straight onto the dead body down below.
Chapter 8
You know how they say cats always manage to land on all fours, right? Well, there’s some truth to that. At least, for most cats. Dooley, unfortunately, managed to hit the dead man right on the noggin, bounced off him and then landed on the floor—on all fours.
It was pretty neat to watch, and if I’d had a smartphone, not to mention opposable thumbs, I would have caught it all on video, to post on my Instagram, where it would have gone viral and garnered millions of views in a matter of hours.
As it was, the only witness to Dooley’s complicated acrobatics were me, myself and I. And as soon as I’d recovered from the shock of watching my friend tumble into the abyss, I applauded him heartily.
“Way to go, Dooley!” I cried, momentarily forgetting we were supposed to be here in a strictly undercover capacity.
Dooley would have taken a bow, if he hadn’t been too busy sitting on his butt and shaking his head, looking both dazed and confused.
“What happened?” he finally asked.
“You decided to take a closer look at the dead man so you jumped!” I said, searching around for a way to get to Dooley without taking the plunge myself.
I’m not much of an athlete I’m sorry to say, and even though Odelia has put me on several diets, I’m a cat of Rubenesque proportions or, as a smart cat once said, blessed with a low point of gravity. As a consequence the ten feet to the floor seemed… challenging.
“I think I hit the dead man, Max,” said Dooley, still looking as if he’d been picked up and squashed down by the hand of God. “Do you think he’ll mind?”
“He’s dead so I’m pretty sure he won’t.”
“He doesn’t look happy.”
“That’s because someone killed him. You wouldn’t look happy if someone killed you.”
At this point, I’d given up on navigating my way down to the floor and had decided to sit this one out. I had a great view of the victim and could do all the detecting from up there. And I’d just found a nice spot to sit and relax when all of a sudden this nice spot dropped out from underneath me. One moment it was there, and then it wasn’t, if you see what I mean.
Moments later, I landed with my butt on the dead man’s head, ricocheted away, and landed—on all fours—right next to Dooley.
I blinked a few times, wondering what was going on, when suddenly Dooley bellowed, “Timber!” and grabbed me by the shoulder, giving me a vigorous shove.
We managed to jump out of the way as the dead writer fell out of his chair and crashed to the floor. He bounced once, then lay immobile, a cloud of dust kicking up.
Dooley and I both coughed and stared at the dead man, who stared right back at us.
It was not a pleasant sight, nor was it the proudest moment in my career as a feline sleuth. Feline sleuths—or any sleuths for that matter—don’t make a habit of thumping murder victims on the noggin—twice!—and knocking them out of their chairs. It’s just not done. At least not to my knowledge—which now extended to at least one movie in all of the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel franchises, including but not restricted to Garage Sale Mysteries, Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Fixer Upper Mysteries and Hailey Dean Mysteries.
Before we could respond, though, we were surrounded. Surrounded by humans. Lucky for us they were all humans we were familiar with: Odelia, Marge, Tex, Uncle Alec, Gran, and even Odelia’s solid cop boyfriend, Chase Kingsley.
“What do we have here?” asked Alec with a frown. “Two cats and a dead man.”
“Add a parrot and you have all the makings of a pretty funny joke,” Tex quipped and laughed loudly at his own joke. When no one else laughed, he quickly cut the laughter short.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “We slipped and fell.”
It was a terribly embarrassing thing to say. I don’t normally slip and fall. Then again, I’m only feline, after all. These things happen to the best of cats, right?
“What’s that?” asked Odelia suddenly, pointing at something on the floor.
It was a cream-colored envelope, with a logo embossed on the front.
“Don’t touch it,” said Uncle Alec when Marge made a move to pick it up. “Abe!” he bellowed. “Come in here a second, will ya?!”
Abe came running. “What, what, what?” the voluminous man asked, panting.
Uncle Alec pointed down at the envelope and Abe frowned. “Huh. Where did that come from? And why have you moved the body without my explicit permission?”
There was a slight pause, then Gran said, “He fell.”
“He fell?”
“He fell,” Gran repeated. “Keeled over. It happens.”
Abe didn’t look convinced. With the air of a man who’d done that kind of thing a thousand times before, he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, bent down with some effort, and picked up the envelope, then turned it over in his hands. “Buckerfield Publishing.”
“That’s Chris Ackerman’s publisher,” said Marge, who knew her way around books—being a librarian and all. “Or at least it was his publisher. I read somewhere that he recently signed a ten-book deal with Franklin Cooper, rumored to have netted him a neat sum.”
“Well, open it,” said Gran.
Abe cleared his throat officiously, then opened the envelope and extracted a sheet of paper. Like the envelope, it was beige and embossed with the same logo. He quickly scanned the document’s contents and frowned. “Signed Malcolm Buckerfield. Says here he’s making Ackerman a counteroffer. Practically begs him not to change publishers. Offers him…” Abe gulped a little, like a turkey about to gobble up a particularly tasty morsel. “Holy mackerel.”
“Just spit it out, Abe,” said Uncle Alec.
Abe’s eyes rose over the document to meet Alec’s. “Ten million smackeroos if you please.”
“Nice,” croaked Gran. “This Chuck Peckerwood was some rich dude.” She directed a reverent look at the dead man. “Too bad he’s dead. We might have hit it off.”
“Instead, someone hit him off,” Uncle Alec grunted.
Abe suddenly fixed his eyes on me. “What the hell is that cat doing in here?”
Chapter 9
Harriet and Brutus were reluctantly wandering the streets around the library. They were nice streets, on the whole, featuring nice houses, but they lacked a certain oomph. The kind of oomph Harriet got from watching The Bachelor, for instance, or The Kardashians. To be honest she was more of a homebody. Perched on her throne—a nice comfy red velvet cushion—in the Poole living room, grooming herself and watching her favorite reality shows, she wa
s in her element. Roaming these streets at night talking to random cats? Not!
“I don’t like this, Brutus,” she said now. “Let’s go home.”
“But we haven’t talked to a single cat.”
“And we won’t. Isn’t it obvious they’re all home? Doing what we should be doing?”
“Nookie?”
She giggled. “Watching The Bachelor, you big doofus. With nookie for dessert.”
Brutus didn’t respond. He wasn’t as big on The Bachelor as Harriet and Gran were. He probably liked The Bachelorette a lot more, even though with Brutus it was hard to be sure. Lately he’d been in one of his silent moods. Not talking much. Harriet hated it.
“Why don’t we leave the sleuthing to Max and Dooley,” she tried again. “This is more Max’s thing anyway. He’s the one who wants to become a super sleuth. He’s the one who’s so obsessed with these silly Hallmark shows, figuring they’ll teach him everything he needs to know.”
“Well, he’s got a point,” said Brutus. “They are some pretty neat shows.”
Harriet scowled at her mate. “Neat? What’s so neat about people looking for clues the whole time?”
“They’re solving murders. Someone should,” said Brutus vaguely.
“The police should. That’s what they’re paid to do. Like your human Chase. The rest of us? We should simply live our lives, oblivious and happy.”
Brutus cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t let Max hear you say that. He wants to contribute.”
“Max is misguided. And so is Dooley. It’s all Odelia’s fault, really. She should never have gotten us involved in all of her amateur sleuthing. I mean, she’s a reporter, for crying out loud. When did reporters get it into their heads that they should be crime fighters?”
“I guess it kinda goes with the territory?” said Brutus.
“No, it doesn’t.” Harriet had given this matter a great deal of thought. “Besides, it’s dangerous. Criminals don’t like it when people mess with their livelihoods. Odelia should leave well enough alone, and so should Max. Before you know it one of those murderers or whatever decides to strike back and then where does that leave us? Without a human.”
This seemed to give Brutus pause, just like Harriet had known it would. “Do you think one of these murderers might target Odelia?”
“Of course! What does a murderer do? He murders. Like a plumber unclogs pipes or a coin collector collects coins, a murderer murders. It’s what they do. So if you’re going to try and stop them, they’re bound to get upset and murder you before you know it.”
Brutus pondered this. “Mh,” he said. “Something in that.”
“Of course there’s something in that. If there’s one thing you should know about me by now, Brutus, it’s that I’m always right.”
Brutus didn’t seem convinced, and soon lapsed into silence once more. It irked Harriet a great deal. She didn’t mind a silent mate—she talked enough for two—but she had the impression he wasn’t consistently paying attention, and that, she simply couldn’t stand.
A scrawny cat with matted fur crossed the road in front of them, stared for a moment, then scrambled off.
“Shouldn’t we talk to him?” Brutus asked. “Ask him what he saw?”
Harriet rolled her eyes. “Who cares what he saw or didn’t see?”
Brutus gave her a hesitant look, then cleared his throat. “Buddy—hey, buddy!”
“Brutus!” hissed Harriet. “What do you think you’re doing?”
But Brutus was already jogging in the direction of the scrawny cat.
“Whaddya want?” the cat asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know if you know,” said Brutus, “but there’s been a murder at the library.”
“Is that right?” said the cat, not the least bit impressed.
“Yeah, a writer was murdered. So I was wondering if maybe you saw something?”
The cat eyed Brutus with a look of amusement. “Like what?”
“Like maybe you saw the killer or something?”
The cat laughed. “What are you? A cat sleuth?”
Brutus shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“Oh, boy. Of all the weird stuff…” The cat studied Harriet, who sat studiously ignoring both the raggedy cat and Brutus. “So who’s the dame?”
“That’s Harriet.”
“So is she also a cat sleuth?”
Brutus hesitated. “Um…”
The cat laughed again. “Gotcha.” He raised his voice. “Hey, toots! Over here!”
Harriet felt heat rise to her cheeks and her tail quiver. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yeah, I’m talking to you. You wanna know what I saw, I can tell you for a price.”
Harriet rolled her eyes again, a gesture she’d perfected. “Oh, my God.”
“Ralph, not God.”
“What?”
“My name is Ralph, not God. Now how about you show me some affection and I show you—hey! What’s the big idea?!”
In a lightning-fast move, Brutus had unsheathed the razor-sharp claws of his right front paw and had raked them across the scruffy cat’s visage. The transformation from benign wannabe cat sleuth to savage vigilante had been swift and frankly damn impressive.
“Don’t you dare talk to my girlfriend like that,” Brutus snarled.
His tail was distended, his back arched, and there was a cold, menacing look in his eyes that told anyone who watched that here was a cat who was not gonna be messed with.
“All right, all right!” cried the scrawny cat, licking a drop of blood from his face. “No need to go all Hannibal Lecter on me, big fella!” He started to walk away but stopped when Brutus produced a growling sound at the back of his throat. The small cat gulped.
“Tell me what you saw,” Brutus growled.
“I saw nothing, all right!” cried the cat, recoiling.
“You said you saw something.”
“I was just messing with you! I know nuthin!”
And with these words, the cat tucked his tail between his legs and scooted off.
“Dang it,” Brutus rasped in a guttural voice that was as impressive as his physique.
“Dang it is right,” Harriet purred as she traipsed up. “Why, Brutus, that was amazing.”
Brutus was still staring after the cat, a dark gleam in his eye. “I should go after him.”
“Oh, don’t bother. You heard what he said. He didn’t see a thing.” She gave Brutus a loving nudge. “The way you defended me, Brutus. Oh, my. I have goosebumps all over.”
Brutus gave her a sad look. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not cut out for this.”
This surprised Harriet. “I never said that. I merely tried to point out that—”
“Let’s go home,” said Brutus. He suddenly looked deflated. And as he stalked off, Harriet couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with her mate.
“Brutus!” she yelled as she tripped after him. “We could ask some more cats if you want—maybe even dogs and vermin. Seeing as we came all the way out here and all.”
But Brutus seemed to have lost his taste for sleuthing. “I just wanna go home,” he muttered, and then he sauntered off, his head low, all the fight having left him.
Chapter 10
It had finally happened. For perhaps the first time in our lives our very own humans had escorted us from a building. Odelia, Marge and Grandma, in a concerted effort, had picked us up and kicked us out of the library.
“I can’t believe they would do such a thing!” I cried.
“They were very nice about it,” Dooley commented.
He didn’t seem to mind one bit. But I did.
“Nice or not, I hate it when they treat us like animals.”
“We are animals,” Dooley reminded me.
“Yes, but they treated us like pets!”
“We are pets.”
“Yes, I give you that, but to kick us out like that!”
“They did it in the nic
est possible way, though.”
He was right. They had. Odelia had whispered into my ear that she was very sorry but that this Abe Cornwall guy was a very important person at the county coroner’s office and if she allowed us to stick around he might kick up a fuss which would land Uncle Alec in hot water with the powers that be. What those powers were, she didn’t say. Powers that be? Be what? Marge had added her two cents by pecking kisses on my head and Dooley’s and even Gran had been very sweet and given us tickles and cuddles before chucking us out.
“I don’t like this, Max,” said Dooley suddenly. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“I’m glad you finally agree.” But then I saw he was darting anxious glances at the sky again. “Oh, not again with the apocalypse, Dooley. I’m telling you, the world isn’t ending.”
“Yes, it is. All scientists agree. And scientists know their stuff. That’s why they’re scientists.”
It was one of those spurious arguments that are hard to contradict so I decided not to bother. At some point Dooley would realize that the world wasn’t ending and forget all about it. At least I hoped that he would. I really didn’t need this apocalypse nonsense.
We were pacing up and down the street that backed the library. Before she’d poured me from her arms, Odelia had said, “The killer most likely came in through the service entrance, so if you could find a witness, it could help me crack this case.”
Cracking cases is what I did for a living, so we’d been hanging around that back entrance hoping to catch sight of one of those illustrious witnesses ever since.
“What’s a witness, Max?” Dooley finally asked. “And how do we find one?”
“A witness is someone who’s seen something that’s important,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like the killer going in through that back entrance, murder weapon in hand. A good witness is someone who remembers what the killer looked like, what he was wearing, what color his hair was and all that good stuff. The stuff a detective can use to identify a culprit.”