Purrs and Peril

by Jinty James

“I’ve been meaning to tell you this all day. When Hans came in, he told me that he saw Pamela visiting Steve one day.”

  “When?” Zoe jerked upright and slapped her hands on the table.

  “Brrt!?” Annie looked at them from her cat bed, as if wondering what all the commotion was.

  “He can’t remember if it was the day Steve died or earlier.”

  “It was earlier,” Pamela drawled. She stood at the Please Wait to be Seated sign, but Annie remained in her cat bed, her eyes suddenly narrowing.

  Lauren froze with horror as she gazed at Pamela.

  “Eeek!” Zoe squeaked.

  Lauren clutched the side of her apron, sliding her hand into the pocket.

  “I actually stopped by for one of Ed’s delicious pastries. I’ve had a craving all day and it wouldn’t go away. All the way here, I’d hoped you hadn’t sold out. But now ...” Pamela sighed dramatically, her eyes glittering like shards of ice.

  “Now?” Lauren prompted, her heart hammering.

  “I’d hoped my stick figure drawing would scare you girls off the case, but it didn’t, did it?”

  “You did that?” Zoe squared her shoulders.

  “Yes. I admit I’m not an expert at sketching, but I didn’t think it was too bad.”

  “The detective has taken it for evidence,” Lauren told the middle-aged woman. “I’m sure he’ll find fingerprints or DNA from your saliva.”

  Pamela gave a tinkling, grating laugh.

  “You girls are just too much. Do you think I would make such amateur mistakes? Everyone knows these days all you have to do is wear gloves and use those self-sealing envelopes. No licking, no DNA.”

  Lauren and Zoe shared a look: Help!

  “Someone might have seen you slip it under the door,” Lauren challenged her.

  “I doubt it.” Pamela shrugged. “I left it here at two o’clock in the morning. I was the only soul around. And I know you don’t have cameras inside – or out.”

  Lauren vowed to install cameras tomorrow – if she and Zoe were still here.

  “How did you do it?” Zoe’s voice barely quivered.

  “It was an ingenious plan.” Pamela laughed as she walked towards their table and looked down at them. “Poor Steve – such a fool. He wanted me to admit I had a gambling problem and promise I’d pay the money back.”

  Lauren drew in a sharp breath. “You were embezzling money from the church!”

  “Embezzling is such a harsh word.” Pamela frowned. “I borrowed it. I fully intended to pay it back. At first I did. But then I lost more and more, and I couldn’t afford to repay it all at once.”

  “So when we saw you at the casino, you were there to gamble!” Zoe’s eyes rounded.

  “That’s right. But after I spoke to you I went straight home. I was lucky you’d only been in the slots area and hadn’t seen me except at the buffet. I prefer blackjack and roulette myself. When that little ball lands on my number—” she shivered in remembered delight “—there’s nothing quite like it.”

  “How did Steve find out?” Lauren asked, fascinated despite herself.

  “He was sick last year, and hadn’t done the auditing,” Pamela replied. “That’s when I started falling behind with repaying the money. I had a long streak of bad luck. I was just turning it around this year when Pastor Mike suddenly announced he was bringing in Steve to do an audit. I’d been putting it off all year – it’s easy to redirect Pastor Mike to some other task he should concentrate on, like hosting bible study two days per week instead of one, or inviting the poor folks in town to his place for lunch once per week.”

  “And he guessed someone was stealing?” Lauren pressed.

  “You should be more careful with your words, Lauren.” Pamela glowered. “I’d borrowed it. But Steve could tell there was money missing, and really, the only two obvious suspects were myself or Pastor Mike. And why would the pastor, if he were the guilty party, hire an auditor in the first place?”

  “Mitch said there were belladonna leaves in the coffee pod that killed Steve,” Lauren said.

  “That was inspired.” Pamela smiled – a creamy, self-satisfied smile.

  A cold chill prickled Lauren’s spine.

  “I thought that up all by myself. It was easy. I knew Mrs. Finch had belladonna in her garden, although I don’t think she realizes it. So I jumped over the fence kitty-corner – thanks to my aerobics class – and stole a few leaves one night. I crushed them up, and put them in a pod.” She giggled to herself.

  Lauren’s hairs rose on the back of her neck.

  “Guess what? When I told you girls I didn’t own a coffee machine, it wasn’t exactly true. I had owned one – but I got rid of it before the murder.” Pamela’s eyes gleamed with pride. “I needed to know if my idea worked – and Steve was the one who gave it to me in the first place! He was always drinking coffee, and he’d invited me over to his house to talk about the “predicament” and what I could do to make things right with the church funds, when he offered to make me an espresso from his machine. When I saw that it used pods, well ...

  “I knew what I had to do. I bought a machine for cash in San Francisco so the purchase wouldn’t be traced, a box of pods at a different store, and learned how to use it. Then I experimented with opening the pods, adding spices to them, gluing the lid back on and seeing if the coffee would still be extracted. And then ...”

  “You graduated to trying it with belladonna,” Lauren uttered in a shocked tone.

  “That’s right. And once I saw it worked, I made a poisoned capsule for Steve. But first, I got rid of that machine. I wiped it to get rid of my fingerprints and then I dumped it in a creek bed two hours away from here – in a different jurisdiction.”

  “Then what?” Zoe asked.

  “I visited Steve, told him what he wanted to hear about how sorry I was about borrowing the church funds, and promised I’d pay back the money. We were in the kitchen, but I needed to leave the capsule there, so I pretended I heard the doorbell. He checked to see if someone was at the front door, and I dropped the pod into his basket that holds all his capsules, right next to the espresso machine.”

  “But wouldn’t it look out of place with his other pods?” Lauren asked.

  “You underestimate me, Lauren.” Pamela’s voice tinkled with sinister laughter. “When I was at his house previously and he made me an espresso, I’d mentally noted which brand of pods he used. In fact, he even told me. He went on and on about it – it’s amazing he ever stepped foot in your café – he certainly liked making coffee from his machine.”

  “And then you waited until he eventually used the belladonna capsule?” Lauren put a hand to her mouth.

  “That’s right. He only took a few days to use it.” Pamela sounded smug.

  “How do you know what belladonna looks like?” Zoe asked curiously.

  “High school science – a long time ago.”

  “So that was why Mrs. Finch said she thought something looked different in her garden!” Lauren exclaimed.

  “I didn’t think she’d be so observant.” Pamela shrugged. “I thought I’d landed quite lightly in her garden.”

  “It wasn’t just wind damage – it was Pamela damage!” Zoe stared at Lauren.

  “That was why I visited her on Sunday,” Pamela continued. “To find out if she knew anything about the investigation and if her arrest was imminent. She was the perfect suspect.”

  “But how could you?” Lauren stared at the sleek, middle-aged woman. “Mrs. Finch hasn’t harmed anyone.”

  “No,” Pamela relied. “But I certainly didn’t want to be arrested, did I?”

  “Were you really at your daughter’s last weekend?” Zoe asked. “Or were you lurking around town?”

  “I was at my daughter’s,” Pamela replied. “Anything to get out of repainting the church.” She shuddered. “I don’t like manual work. I told Pastor Mike before to hire professionals to repaint it, but ...”

  “There wasn’t enou
gh money because you sto – borrowed it,” Lauren murmured, not wanting to rile Pamela further.

  “That’s right.” Pamela nodded. “Somehow he managed to get a big discount on the paint from the hardware store – a returned order – which was the only way he could afford to repaint the church, with everyone helping.” She shuddered.

  “I’d planned to stay the whole weekend with my daughter, so what I’d told you about being out of town wasn’t a lie, but at breakfast on Sunday morning my daughter saw a small article about Steve’s murder in a Sacramento newspaper – she never gets rid of them right away – and I became worried about the investigation, so I cut my visit short with her and dropped by Mrs. Finch’s house.”

  “And?” Zoe asked.

  “It looks like the police aren’t going to arrest her,” Pamela replied in a disgusted tone. “And then I heard from Ms. Tobin yesterday that you were at the painting bee, speaking to the detective – for a long time.”

  “Pastor Mike told us to help him,” Lauren replied, drawing herself up straight.

  “We barely talked about the murder,” Zoe added indignantly.

  “I couldn’t risk it.” Pamela shook her head. “Not after you saw me at the casino – and then that casino chip dropped out of my bag when you returned it to me. That’s why I sent you the drawing to scare you off.”

  “You didn’t,” Lauren said stoutly.

  “Yeah!”

  “Purrr. Purrr. Purrr.” Until now Annie had been silent, but now she stood in her bed, arching her back, her fur spiking. Her purrs sounded ferocious. She looked ready to spring into action!

  “Annie doesn’t scare me.” Pamela tossed off a laugh but Lauren noted it didn’t ring true.

  “She knows you’re not here in a friendly way,” Lauren told her. “I’m going to call the police right now.” She dug her phone out of her apron pocket and hit 911. “We’re witnesses to your confession.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Pamela lunged for the phone.

  Lauren screamed and scooted backward on the chair. She and the chair tipped over on the floor, the phone skittering across the floor toward Annie. The Norwegian Forest Cat flew down from the bed, picked up the small device, and jumped back onto her bed. She placed her paws over the phone, as if she were guarding it with her life.

  Lauren picked up the wooden chair and held it between herself and Pamela, as if fending off a tiger.

  “Get the phone from Annie,” she gasped to Zoe.

  Zoe half-crouched, half-ran to the cat bed and grabbed the phone.

  “Hurry, please,” she gasped as her 911 call connected. “The Norwegian Forest Café in Gold Leaf Valley. Pamela is trying to kill us!”

  Lauren’s heart thudded in her chest as Pamela feinted toward her. She brandished the chair at the other woman. She wasn’t going to let Pamela hurt any of them!

  “It’s over, Pamela,” she said breathlessly. “The police will be here any minute. You won’t have time to kill all three of us before they arrive.” Lauren certainly hoped that was true.

  “But I can certainly try,” Pamela snarled, charging toward Lauren.

  Lauren shouted, meeting Pamela’s attack with one of her own. She held the chair in front of her chest and face and lunged forward.

  Pamela screamed and fell down at the same time a male voice commanded, “Police!”

  “They tried to kill me,” Pamela sobbed, curled in a ball on the floor and clutching her ankle. “They did it! They killed Steve.”

  Purrr. Purrr. Purrr.” Annie growled the sound, her fur puffing up as she glared at Pamela.

  Lauren was glad for Pamela’s sake that Annie was still in her cat bed. She’d never seen the feline act like that before, but Annie obviously knew she and Zoe needed help.

  “I think you’ll find,” Lauren told Mitch, slowly placing the chair on the floor with trembling hands, “that Pamela killed Steve.” It was amazing that her voice sounded normal. She certainly didn’t feel it.

  “She confessed to us!” Zoe gestured at the weeping heap on the floor. “She stole belladonna from Mrs. Finch’s garden.”

  “And I recorded it.” Lauren motioned to the phone Zoe held.

  “My ankle!” Pamela cried. “She broke it!” She pointed at Lauren.

  “I saw the whole thing,” Zoe said. “You must have hurt it when you fell over. Lauren’s chair barely touched you, and it was total self-defense anyway!”

  “Brrt!”

  “It must be if Annie says so.” Lauren laughed shakily and went over to her cat, picking her up and cuddling her. “Thank you,” she whispered into Annie’s furry neck.

  Mitch cleared his throat.

  “If you give me the recording, I’ll bag it for evidence.”

  “Okay.” Zoe handed over the phone. “We’ll get it back, won’t we?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. His gaze met Lauren’s. “Are you okay to come to the station and make a statement?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I want justice for Steve’s death.”

  EPILOGUE

  The next day, Lauren and Zoe were guilty of opening the café a little later than usual.

  Lauren realized she hadn’t been nervous when Mitch had appeared to take Pamela into custody, but that was understandable. There’d been too much going on at the time. Now, she wondered if the next time she saw him she’d still feel nervous – and attracted to him.

  Pamela had been arrested for Steve’s murder and was currently in jail awaiting trial. But with the recording of her confession, Lauren wondered if the middle-aged woman would decide to plead guilty.

  “I can’t believe what happened here yesterday.” Zoe gestured to the vacant tables as they set up for the day.

  “I know,” Lauren said ruefully.

  “Brrt!”

  “I’ve never seen Annie look like that before when Pamela threatened us,” Zoe continued thoughtfully, “or heard her purr like that.”

  “I looked it up last night,” Lauren admitted. “Cats don’t only purr when they’re happy, they can also purr if they’re afraid or about to go into battle.”

  “Annie certainly went into battle for us!” Zoe grinned at the Norwegian Forest Cat.

  “Brrt!” Annie said proudly, perched in her cat bed.

  A thought suddenly struck Lauren. “Annie, were you trying to help us find the killer when you showed us that Pamela left her black leather bag behind in the café that day?”

  “Brrt!” Annie seemed to agree.

  “That’s right!” Zoe clapped a hand to her temple.

  “We found out how close a neighbor Pamela was to Mrs. Finch when we returned her bag,” Lauren said slowly. “And that’s when the casino chip dropped out.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened. “Annie, you helped solve the mystery!”

  “Brrt!” Annie said proudly. “Brrt!”

  “We’ll have a lot to talk about with Mrs. Finch at knitting club on Friday night,” Zoe said. “If I spend all my spare time until then I bet I can finish Annie’s blanket.”

  “Please don’t say that word.” Lauren shuddered. “Bet.”

  “Sorry.” Zoe looked contrite.

  “We promised Mrs. Finch we’d bring Annie to knitting club this week. I’m so glad she’s innocent.”

  “I know. Now we can totally enjoy her company without a faint niggle in the back of our mind wondering if she – you know.”

  “I know.” Lauren nodded, then looked over at her cat. “Would you like to come to knitting club with us, Annie?”

  “Brrt!”

  “I know that’s a yes!” Zoe grinned.

  THE END

  P.S. Please turn the page for my other titles. Book 2 coming approximately late March 2019!

  AUTHOR NOTE

  Annie is based on my own Norwegian Forest Cat, who is also called Annie – except she hasn’t helped catch a killer – yet!

  I hope you enjoyed reading this mystery. Sign up to my newsletter at www.JintyJames.com and be among the first to discover when my
next book is published!

  Book 2, Meow Means Murder, has a release date of approximately late March, 2019.

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