Dial Meow for Murder

by Bethany Blake

  “I like it,” Moxie said. “It’s better than that place where Daphne almost got hammered to death, which is what I usually call it, in my head.”

  “It’s definitely settled.” I raised my mug. “To Plum Cottage.”

  We tapped earthenware, then Moxie suggested, with clear reluctance, “I guess we should get back to work.”

  “I suppose so.”

  I stood up and carried our empty mugs to the sink, while Moxie disposed of the last few crumbs of pumpkin bread by cramming them into her mouth.

  As I entered the living room, I noticed that the fire was dying down, and the big brass tub that usually held kindling was empty.

  “Oh, no,” I muttered, thinking Socrates, especially, would be disappointed when the fire guttered out entirely. He was already curling up on the rug for a post-snack nap. “We’re out of logs.”

  Moxie followed me into the room and looked around, searching for something to burn. Then she pointed to a tall bookcase, still filled with Mr. Peachy’s collection of reading material. There was no cable or Wi-Fi in the cottage, so he’d apparently read quite a bit—usually about hardware.

  “Maybe you could burn one of these instruction booklets,” Moxie suggested, taking a volume down from a low shelf. “I really doubt you’ll ever read the John Deere operations and maintenance manual for a compact utility tractor.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Winter in the Poconos could be isolating, especially at the top of Winding Hill. Snow and ice sometimes made the road impassable, at least for a 1970s van with balding tires. I might get desperate enough to read about fluid-check dipsticks and fuel filters. Or I might need to ride a compact utility tractor to the grocery store.

  Then again, maybe not.

  I accepted the manual from Moxie, prepared to toss it on the fire.

  But as I pictured the booklet going up in flames, I suddenly remembered something from the previous night.

  Two things, actually.

  “I think we’re done painting for the day,” I told Moxie. “I have somewhere to go.”

  Moxie lowered one skeptical eyebrow. “Where?”

  “Flynt Mansion,” I informed her. “I need to see a fireplace and find a cranky cat—hopefully with the help of the one person who might be able to tame a wild Tinkleston!”

  Chapter 9

  Not surprisingly, Dylan Taggart was late for our meeting at Flynt Mansion, so I let Socrates and myself into the house by jiggling the knob on the front door.

  I’d checked the lock the previous night, after Jonathan had gone upstairs, and discovered that he’d been right about the old mechanism being temperamental. It had only taken me a few minutes to figure out how to consistently lock and unlock the door without a key.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I said, with a glance down at Socrates, who clearly disapproved of my plan to capture Tinkleston at the site of a possible homicide. “The house isn’t technically a crime scene yet,” I reminded him, bending down to pick up a bulky cat carrier. “There’s no yellow tape!”

  Socrates made a skeptical rumbling sound, deep in his broad chest.

  Ignoring him, I lugged the carrier over the threshold, bumping it against the door frame and leaving a mark in the wood. Elyse Hunter-Black would want to fix that, if she really bought the place.

  “Should I catch Tinkleston myself?” I asked Socrates, who stood at my side in the foyer.

  Socrates snuffled, then shook his head so his long ears swung.

  I took that for a no and decided to wait for Dylan to tackle—perhaps literally—the cat.

  “I guess I should at least check upstairs, in case Tinks is still stuck in the bedroom,” I added, leading the way to the staircase. “I told the police officers to let him out before they left last night, but they probably forgot. Tinkleston wasn’t their top priority. And, in spite of that note in the kitchen, I’m not sure anyone is really checking on him.”

  All at once, I realized that, in the previous evening’s excitement, I’d forgotten to slip the instructions for Tinkleston’s care back under the can of Cleopatra’s Choice Cuts. The note was still in the pocket of the black pants I’d worn with my witch cape.

  Then I looked up the stairs, more concerned about the cat than my involuntary theft of a small piece of paper.

  If the little Persian was still locked away, as I feared, the mansion’s next owner would need to clean up some Tinkleston tinkle stains, too.

  “Come on, Socrates,” I said, hauling the carrier up the steps.

  I didn’t hear anyone behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see that Socrates was sitting at the foot of the staircase. I was familiar with the expression on his face. He wasn’t going any farther.

  “Fine,” I said. “You wait there.”

  Then I resumed climbing the stairs, the carrier nicking the banister, too. Reaching the top, I was careful not to bump the loose finial and to avoid a cat toy that someone had left right on the edge of the last stair. Anyone who stepped on the little pink ball would probably tumble backward.

  Maybe someone really was checking in on Tinkleston and had been playing with him.

  There was also a chance one of the police officers or EMTs who’d been tramping around had kicked the ball, not even realizing that it had landed in a dangerous spot.

  Or maybe Tinkleston was booby-trapping the place.

  Or a ghost in a red dress . . .

  Any of those options seemed possible, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled as I nudged the ball with my foot, sending it to a safer spot. Then I tiptoed down the corridor toward the bedroom door, pausing for a moment in front of the bathroom where I’d found Lillian’s body. The tub was empty, of course, and the CD player was gone, probably taken as potential evidence. But I could picture, too vividly, Miss Flynt’s wide-open, blank eyes....

  Shaking off the image, I continued on to the very end of the hall, where I slowly pushed open the bedroom door.

  The hinges creaked, the sound echoing loudly in the otherwise empty house.

  Hesitating, I inspected the raised, red scratches on my hand. Then I dared to poke my head inside the room, first spying the now cold, dark fireplace that I really wanted to examine.

  I next found Tinkleston, who sat on the bed, between me and that goal.

  His pitch-black body was unnaturally still, his scowl seemed deeper than ever, and he blinked directly at me with angry, orange eyes.

  It was almost like he’d been waiting for me.

  Chapter 10

  “You are in big trouble, mister,” I advised Tinkleston, who glared at me from behind the bars of the cat carrier. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to get him inside the crate. Maybe I’d be able to reconstruct the struggle later by examining the pattern of scratches on my arms. “I feel very sorry for you, losing Miss Flynt, but that is no excuse to lash out,” I added, leaning down to meet his eyes. “There are better ways to channel grief.”

  In response, Tinkleston darted out a little paw, his claws extended.

  No wonder Socrates, who was very prescient, had refused to come upstairs.

  Why hadn’t I taken his advice and waited for Dylan, like I’d planned?

  Pulling back, I muttered under my breath, “What am I going to do with you, Tinks?”

  As a pet care professional, I didn’t feel like I could leave Tinkleston alone in the mansion if I wasn’t positive that someone was caring for him. And if Vonda Shakes declared Miss Flynt’s death a homicide, Jonathan and his crew of investigators would tramp in and out of the place, maybe for days. Finally, if the house wasn’t eventually sealed off as a crime scene, my mother and Elyse would almost certainly go through the property at least one more time.

  What if Tinkleston ran outside again, and no one even noticed?

  “I’ll find someplace safe for you until things calm down,” I promised the cat. “Just try to be nice, okay?”

  In response, he hissed.

  “Oh, fine,” I grumbled, rising and leav
ing him alone in his snit. “I have things to do while you calm down.”

  I heard another hiss behind me as I crossed the room to the fireplace, where I’d seen that pile of papers burning the night before.

  Kneeling down, I began to sift through the ashes.

  At first, it appeared that every scrap of the document had been consumed by the flames. If I hadn’t seen the manuscript while it had still been partially intact, I never would’ve known anything but logs had burned there the previous evening.

  Then I glimpsed something at the very edge of the ashes. A scrap of paper that was only half burned.

  Lifting the singed piece, I dusted off some cinders. And while I couldn’t read much of the scorched paper, the words—and partial words—that I could make out were intriguing.

  Benedict Flyn . . . 195 . . . congregation . . . scandalo . . .

  Setting that fragment carefully aside on the brick hearth, I edged farther into the fireplace and brushed my fingers around until I found more sheets, including two pages that had survived the fire almost intact.

  Unfortunately, those were less compelling. In fact, the text was dull, both in terms of writing style and content. Yet I quickly skimmed, looking for clues to the author.

  In 1852, a second mill was constructed. . . . Railroad service was expanded.... Four new roads were built to link Sylvan Creek with surrounding communities. . . .

  Raising my hand to my mouth, I fought back a yawn. The yawn won.

  The last time I’d stifled a boredom-induced reaction like that, I’d been looking out a window at Asa Whitaker, archivist at the public library and author of a soon-to-be-published history of Sylvan Creek.

  “Is this Asa’s manuscript?” I mused aloud. “But why . . . ?”

  In the distance, I heard the front door open and close, then footsteps coming up the stairs.

  I assumed Dylan had arrived, and I told Tinkleston over my shoulder, “You’ll meet your match now, Tinks. Dylan will have you achieving Zen in no time.”

  Then I heard voices—two of them—and I realized that I was wrong. Dylan wasn’t in the house.

  As I turned slowly around, still crouching down, the bedroom door creaked open even wider and someone demanded loudly, “Daphne Templeton, what in the world are you doing ? And what is on your face ?”

  Chapter 11

  I reached up and wiped the back of my hand across my cheek, then looked at my knuckles, which were smeared with gray.

  “Oh, that’s just soot,” I said, crawling backward away from the fireplace and standing up. “I was digging around in the ashes, and I must’ve touched my face. . . .”

  I let my voice trail off, because my mother and Elyse Hunter-Black, who’d entered the room, were both giving me funny looks. The greyhounds that again flanked Elyse had their heads cocked, too.

  “Why in the world were you hunting through ashes?” my mother inquired. “What could compel you?”

  I suddenly realized that my behavior did seem somewhat erratic. And, intriguing snippet aside, the papers I’d found were most likely meaningless. Miss Flynt had probably just used a boring book as kindling, like I’d nearly burned the tractor manual.

  “I, umm, thought I saw something that shouldn’t have been burning, last night,” I explained, weakly. I brushed my hands against my jeans, which was also a bad idea. Smears of soot covered my legs. “It was nothing though.” It finally struck me that I wasn’t the only one behaving oddly. “What are you doing here?” I asked Mom, shooting Elyse a confused glance, too. Then I turned back to my mother. “You can’t be showing the house after what happened last night, can you?”

  “On the contrary, this is the most opportune time,” Mom noted. “If the mansion is declared a crime scene, we may not be able to get in for weeks. This may be our window of opportunity.”

  “Not to seem callous, but your mother is right,” Elyse agreed, reinforcing my initial impression that a few dead bodies wouldn’t stand in the way of her getting what she wanted. “I spoke with Jonathan this morning, and he mentioned that he still wasn’t sure Miss Flynt’s death was a homicide. I know how these things work, and I quickly called your mother. . . .” All at once, Elyse grew distracted by something right at my side. I wasn’t sure what she was looking at, until she frowned and gestured to the fresh scratches on my arms. “At the risk of being rude, what in the world happened to you?”

  “Miss Flynt’s angry cat, Tinkleston, happened,” I said, pointing at the carrier. “I’m afraid no one is caring for him, so I’m taking him with me.”

  Hearing his name, or my plan, Tinkleston yowled, and the greyhounds again showed hints of emotion. Both of them flattened their ears against their already narrow heads.

  “Oh, that’s nice of you,” Elyse said, smiling. She bent to look into the carrier. “Poor thing!”

  Mom finally rejoined the conversation. “I hope you don’t plan to keep that beast at your cottage, Daphne. I will refuse to visit.”

  I had hoped Dylan would take Tinks for a while, since Socrates wasn’t fond of even friendly felines, but I suddenly started to give serious consideration to keeping him myself.

  “I’m going to find a powder room downstairs, clean up, and get going,” I said. Of course, there was a bathroom right down the hall, but I didn’t think I should use it. Nor did I want to enter that room. “You two continue with your showing. Don’t let me get in your way.”

  “Don’t forget to take your dog when you leave, Daphne,” Mom reminded me. “He’s in the parlor staring fixedly at a hideous portrait. It’s rather off-putting behavior.”

  First of all, I would never “forget” my closest companion. And I wasn’t surprised to learn that Socrates was contemplating the picture that had given me the willies the night before. Socrates was very interested in art of all periods and levels of quality. I really wished he could get into the MOMA, but they had a shortsighted policy about animal visitors. Socrates and I had learned that the hard way.

  “We’ll all be out of your way in a minute,” I promised Mom.

  “Actually, I think we’re almost done here,” Elyse said. She turned to my mother. “I don’t need to see the whole house again. I’m ready to make an offer—and I am going to surprise you by asking for the inclusion of the portrait downstairs.” She tilted her head, seeming thoughtful. “I believe it just belongs with the property.”

  I was bending to pick up Tinks, but I jerked upright. “You’re seriously buying the house? And you want that ugly painting?”

  I shouldn’t have said any of that, and my mother shot me a warning look, trying to stop me before I could ruin her sale. “Daphne . . . Weren’t you going to wash your face?”

  I took a step backward. “Oh, yes . . . I was.”

  But Elyse smiled again. “I can understand your surprise, Daphne. This old place does look like quite a project.” She surveyed the bedroom, and I followed her gaze, noting some water damage on the ceiling above one of the two windows. Then she returned her attention to me. “I have a fondness for classic architecture, though. I think that, in the right hands, this house could be a gem.”

  She obviously judged her hands to be the right ones, and she was probably correct. Jonathan’s ex-wife had impeccable taste. She wore a pair of dark-washed skinny jeans and a simple but expensive-looking silver-gray silk top that mirrored her unusual blue-gray eyes. The blouse also echoed her dogs’ coats, making them again seem like accessories. Her blond hair was slicked back into an artfully spiky bun, and her burgundy suede ballet flats probably cost more than my van. I could just tell.

  I glanced down at my outfit. I’d left the cottage feeling pretty good about my intricately patterned, gauzy blouse, which I’d bought at a street market in Mexico. I wore my favorite pair of jeans, too. But all at once I felt more shabby than chic. I swiped my hand across my cheek again, removing, or maybe depositing, more soot.

  “Daphne?”

  I raised my face to realize that Elyse was addressing me.

 
; “What? Did you say something?”

  “I was asking you about Paris and Milan.”

  For a second, I thought she was interested in hearing old travel tales about two of my favorite European cities. Then, when she rested her hands on her dogs’ heads, I realized she was talking about her greyhounds. Of course, her pets would have classy names.

  “There will be times during the remodel when the house isn’t safe for them, and I’ll need someone to watch them,” Elyse added, so I finally figured out she’d been asking about my pet-sitting services. “I already know for certain that the entire place needs to be rewired and the fuse box updated.” She grew solemn. “If there’d been safety outlets in the bathroom, Lillian Flynt might still be alive.”

  I didn’t mean to sound morbid, but I had to ask. “So . . . she was definitely electrocuted?”

  Elyse fidgeted with a silver circlet that hung from a chain around her long, graceful neck. “Oh, goodness. I’ve probably said too much. Jonathan mentioned some things in confidence.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, feeling strangely crestfallen, because Jonathan had never shared confidential details about an investigation with me. At least, not voluntarily.

  Then again, I’d never been married to him, and I did have a habit of blurting things out, like I was about to do right then.

  “I can’t believe two people have died violently here,” I noted, recalling the legend about the woman who’d been strangled. “That’s kind of eerie—assuming the old tale is true.”

  “I believe Elyse was asking about your professional services, Daphne,” Mom said sharply. “Don’t you want to build your own business?”

  My mother was staring daggers at me, and I realized that Elyse might not be familiar with the story about the first murder. At least I hadn’t brought up the haunting—although I’d almost mentioned that, too.

  Regardless, Elyse didn’t seem bothered by anything I’d said.

  “Would you add me as a Lucky Paws client?” she inquired. “Is it possible you could sometimes squeeze Paris and Milan into your schedule, which I’m sure is busy?”