Five Mews for Murder (Pet Shop Cozy Mysteries Book 5)

by Susie Gayle

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FIVE MEWS FOR MURDER

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  Five Mews

  for

  Murder

  A Pet Shop Mystery

  Book Five

  By

  Susie Gayle

  Copyright 2017 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

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  FIVE MEWS FOR

  MURDER

  A Pet Shop Mystery Book Five

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  There are a few things in this life that I’ve told myself I would never, ever do.

  For example, I vowed that I would never bungee-jump. Putting my life in the hands of what amounts to a large rubber band seems like just asking for trouble. I’ve vowed that I would never wear socks with sandals—a lesson learned from a college girlfriend and fashion major that claimed it was the biggest faux pas a guy could make (and an incredible turn-off, apparently). And I’ve vowed that I would never keep snakes in my pet shop, because even though I consider myself a lover of all beasts great and small, those particular scaly, hissing, black-eyed creatures give me the ultimate case of the willies.

  So far in my thirty-seven years, I’ve broken only one of those vows to myself. I’ll give you a hint: I’ve never jumped off anything higher than a few feet from the ground, and my toes frequently enjoy the refreshing feel of the open air.

  I shudder as Petunia flickers her creepy black tongue from between her creepy snake lips, staring at me with her soulless eyes. Yeah, that’s right. Petunia. As if giving a snake an adorable name would somehow make it any less than life-threatening.

  And yeah, the snake is behind glass, safely in its enclosure with a wire-grate lid fastened securely. (I would know; I check it every fifteen minutes.) And of course I know that snakes don’t just bite people for no reason; only if they feel threatened or provoked.

  Still, it’s incredibly difficult to get any amount of serious work done around the Pet Shop Stop when I have to keep one eye on the untrustworthy creature whose habitat sits on our counter, mere feet from the cash register—which also means I have to be near it frequently.

  There they go again. The willies.

  That’s the name of my store, by the way, the Pet Shop Stop, located in beautiful downtown Seaview Rock. We carry quite the menagerie of fauna, from dogs and cats to small furry rodents to birds and even a few reptiles, lizards mostly—but never snakes. Until now.

  It’s not actually accurate for me to say we carry Petunia, as the way she came into my life was by way of a gift (most obviously from someone that doesn’t know me very well). It’s kind of a long story, so I’ll give you the short version: Petunia used to belong to a used car dealer and local town councilman named Tom Savage who sort of believes I’m a part of a secret blackmail scheme that I’m actually not a part of at all, but in order to keep out of it I need to let him believe that I am. And Petunia was basically Savage’s living, breathing, tongue-flickering version of hush money.

  You got all that?

  It’s sort of like making a cheesecake for someone’s birthday when you don’t know they secretly hate cheesecake.

  Petunia lifts her smooth, scaly head, less than an inch from the glass, and slowly surveys her surroundings as if she’s picking out the best hiding place in the shop to later surprise me with a dose of rattlesnake venom. I may have forgotten to mention that part earlier—it’s not like Petunia is a garter snake or a green snake, one of the less dangerous species. No, Petunia is a desert rattlesnake. To be honest, I’m not even sure how legal it is for me to have her.

  From behind the counter, I hear a low growl. My dog, Rowdy, lays on his doggie bed that we keep on the floor out of the way of customers’ feet, and he watches Petunia. I’m glad to see that he’s just as untrusting of the serpent as I am. Though he probably has better reason for it than I do.

  See, I adopted Rowdy, a former shelter dog who is smarter than your average bear—or terrier, or whatever he is. I’m not really sure. Then, just recently, a tiny kitty-cat missing a paw came to our shop, and Rowdy adopted her. We named her Basket, and since she’s come along and been dubbed our shop-cat, Rowdy has taken on a parental instinct, protecting the kitten from the elements, watching closely as she teeters around the store, and making sure she eats.

  The kitten is still just a tiny thing, and in my nightmares I can imagine a Basket-shaped lump in Petunia’s tube-like body. So can Rowdy, apparently, since he lets loose a low growl every time the snake makes a move.

  “Good boy,” I tell Rowdy. And then to the snake I add, “You see? You’re surrounded.”

  The chime on the door rings and Sarah enters. “Hey,” she greets as she sheds her light coat and retrieves the green apron from the hook behind the counter. She stoops to give Rowdy and Basket each an affectionate stroke under the chin, and then gives me a kiss before knotting the apron behind her back.

  Before I can ask her anything about what she’s found out, she sniffs the air twice and asks, “Will, did you clean out the kennels yet?”

  “It’s next on my list, I swear—”

  “You’ve been watching the snake all morning, haven’t you?”

  “…Maybe.”

  She scoffs at me. “It’s just a snake, and it’s in a cage.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t trust it.” See, I’ve managed to keep my ophidiophobia—that’s the term for a fear of snakes, by the way; not to be confused with herpetophobia, a fear of reptiles in general—a secret from Sarah during the year or so we’ve been dating, but when Petunia came to call the cat was out of the bag. And perhaps needless to say, she finds it a bit ridiculous (even though it is a totally normal and justifiable fear to have).

  “Aw, she’s just a little cuddle-noodle,” Sarah says in a baby-voice, tapping her finger against the glass of Petunia’s enclosure.

  “Oh my god, don’t taunt it.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, I have a lot of sources that tell me otherwise.
What about The Jungle Book? Anaconda? Pretty much all mythology everywhere—”

  “Pit bulls,” she interrupts.

  “Huh?”

  “Pit bulls get a bad rap too, but you know firsthand that they can be just as adorable and cuddly as anything.”

  “That doesn’t count!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because… They have fur.”

  She laughs at me. “Sure. Discriminate against the un-furry.”

  I shake my head and gather the supplies to clean out the dog kennels that line a wall of the shop. “Anyway. What did you find out?”

  “Nothing you’ll want to hear. None of the local shelters take snakes, and we can’t sell her because she’s venomous.”

  “Okay, then we take her to the city or something—”

  “Uh-uh,” Sarah interjects. “We’re not taking her anywhere until she’s eating properly.”

  When Tom Savage dropped the snake off at my shop, he included a note that Petunia hadn’t been eating lately, and our own efforts (and by “our” I mean “Sarah’s”) to feed it have been fruitless.

  “I did some research on that, actually,” I tell her. Life lesson, folks: you should always be well-informed about that which scares you. “Seems the top reason a snake won’t eat is either it’s being kept at an incorrect temperature, or it’s getting ready to molt.”

  “Hmm.” Sarah squats to inspect Petunia behind the glass. “She has her heat lamp, so I don’t think it would be temperature. She does look a little… flaky. Maybe she’s going to shed.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Unfortunately, that can take up to two weeks.”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to keep her for another two weeks.”

  “What?!”

  “Look, you made me business manager of the pet shop, so I’m making an executive decision: we keep the snake until it’s eating regularly again.” She folds her arms and smirks, as if daring me to challenge her authority.

  And sure, I’m the owner of the store, and yes, this should be a democracy if anything, but I know Sarah well enough to know that when she’s made up her mind, that’s what’s going to happen. She’s a strong-willed, compassionate woman—perhaps compassionate to a fault, as evidenced by her desire to keep the dangerous “cuddle-noodle” around until she’s satisfied it’s healthy.

  “Fine,” I say, and because I feel the need to have some input in the matter, I add, “But I don’t have to like it.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “And Rowdy doesn’t like her either.” I set about cleaning up the kennels and giving the dogs fresh water, all the while thinking that there’s no possible way having this snake around can end any way but badly.

  CHAPTER 2

  * * *

  Later that evening, after closing up the shop for the night, Sarah and I decide to head down to the Runside Bar & Grill for a late dinner and a drink. We leave Rowdy and Basket at the shop with the promise to come back for them afterward—even though Rowdy is welcome at the Runside, I’m not sure they’d appreciate a not-yet-housebroken kitten that likes to wander.

  “And keep an eye on that snake,” I murmur to Rowdy while giving him a hearty scratch behind the ear.

  As soon as I’m out of the shop, I feel instantly better; not only because there’s no longer a threat of deadly serpents, but also because seeing Petunia is a constant reminder of another thing that I’m not really supposed to know about, yet can’t keep out of my thoughts—the blackmail scheme that involves at least one of our town council members.

  Driving through Seaview Rock usually puts my mind at ease. We really do have a beautiful little town here, the ideal coastal Maine burg veritably unchanged since the mid-nineteenth century. But now, even cruising around town reminds me of “that thing I’m not supposed to know about.” It’s everywhere. I can’t avoid it.

  Sarah must sense that I’m perturbed, because before we can get to the Runside she says, “You want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head. The secret I’m carrying is one that I refuse to tell anyone, even her—which is handy, because truth be told I only know half of it anyway. And when I discovered it, I told her that it wasn’t something I was willing to talk about, and that it’s not something she’d want to hear. Thankfully, she left it at that.

  The Runside is one of Seaview Rock’s oldest establishments, originally a dive bar for fishermen built from the planks of the former pier when the town was little more than a settlement. Since then it’s been rebuilt twice, and is now the preeminent spot for seafood, beer-battered fries, and their home-brewed Whale of an Ale.

  The proprietor, a flinty, sable-haired woman named Holly, brings us a round almost as soon as we’re seated and hangs out for a minute of small-talk before retreating back to her bartending duties. I take a long sip, glad to be in a familiar place away from all the reminders, when Sarah nudges me.

  “Hey. There’s Sammy, over at the bar,” she notes. I follow her gaze and, sure enough, Sammy Barstow is at his usual place in front of the beer taps, sitting alone and sipping at a Whale of an Ale. “Do you want to ask him to join us?”

  I shake my head. “Not tonight.”

  She frowns. “You don’t even want to say hello?”

  “Sammy and I are, um, taking a little break.” I don’t know how else to say it that wouldn’t be a cause for alarm. Sammy is Seaview Rock’s best barber, and he’s also my best friend of going on two decades. He was there for me when I get married, he was there when I opened the Pet Shop Stop, he was there when I got divorced, and he’s always there to remind me when I need a trim.

  But recently, things have changed a bit.

  See, a mutual friend of ours suffered what looked like a horrible accident, but turned out to be a murder most foul. Sammy got it in his head that he might be a target, and asked me to investigate—I have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, which somehow frequently becomes the right place to be when it comes to solving a murder.

  What it amounted to was that it had nothing to do with Sammy, but in doing so I discovered a pretty terrible secret: that Sammy and our late friend were blackmailing a town councilman (the aforementioned Tom Savage) into pushing forth revitalization projects through Seaview Rock’s local government.

  Now, I don’t know what dirt he has on Savage, but I do know that blackmail in any form, even if it’s helpful to the town and its people, is illegal. I don’t want to come across as some self-righteous Dudley Do-Right, but my moral compass tends to point in the direction of things that won’t land me in jail. So my conclusion was threefold: one, that I don’t want to know any more details that could implicate anyone, especially me; two, that I’m not going to tell anyone, not even Sarah, because (as I justify it to myself) I don’t completely understand what’s happening; and three, that Sammy and I might be better off not seeing each other for a little while.

  Of course, the great big wrench in the otherwise flawless gears that make up my plan is that said used car dealer-slash-town councilman thinks I’m in on it, the result of squeezing him for information that I thought might have led to determining our poor friend’s murderer.

  Hence the snake, Petunia, as his little “hush gift.”

  What’s worse is that now, every time I drive through Seaview Rock, which ordinarily I admire, I can’t help but wonder what parts of our idyllic town were foisted upon us via an illicit blackmail scheme. I’m glad that they fixed the potholes downtown, but was that part of Sammy and Savage’s deal? I think that suspending the parking meters after eight p.m. is a terrific idea, but whose idea was it?

  And how long as this been going on? Two years ago, when the local government decided to shell out tax credits to Seaview Rock entrepreneurs in a small-business expansion effort, should I have thanked the town council, or Sammy?

  You get the idea. Short story, every time I hang out in my own shop and see that snake, or drive around my own town, or even spend some time at my local watering hole
, I’m plagued with the weight of a secret that I can’t tell anyone, lest my best friend in the world, whom I love like a brother, be exposed as a criminal.

  “Hey.” Sarah puts her hand on mine, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Where’d you go?”

  I force a smile. “I’m here, I promise.”

  “Good. Because we have something very serious to talk about.”

  I can tell by the way she says “very serious” that it’s probably not something serious at all, but I play along. “Mm, I see. Sarah Cummings, you have the floor.”

  “Thank you. As you probably know—because I circled the date in a gigantic heart on your calendar—our one-year anniversary is coming up in a week.”

  “Is it really?” I say in mock surprise. Of course I know. Not only because of the calendar thing, but also because we’ve done something to celebrate every month that we’ve been together, right up to eleven. I know that sounds silly, like something you’d do in high school, and we’re supposed to be mature adults who pay taxes and watch our blood pressure—but screw it. It’s fun. Don’t judge.

  “So… plans?” she asks.

  I have to be honest here. I haven’t even started to plan anything. And it’s not because I don’t care; I really do. It’s because there have been so many other things on my mind. Well… okay, just the one big thing really, but it’s been gnawing at me to the point that I find it hard to focus on other things. Case in point, I was supposed to make a decision about going back to school and taking some classes by now, but I’ve put that on hold in light of recent events.

  Now, kids, you should never lie to your significant other. But even words like “never” have exceptions, and in this case, it’s the sort of lie that will ultimately be for the best. I can’t tell Sarah that I haven’t planned a thing, or she’ll think I’m a bad boyfriend (which I might be).

  So instead I tell her, “It’s a surprise.”