The Great Catsby

by B K Baxter

  “You left the book club meeting and headed for the Means mansion.”

  “I did.” A cloud passed over her face. “The girl was unstable, and she’d just displayed it in front of a roomful of people at the book club meeting. I figured it was as good a time as ever to carry out the plan. But I hadn’t expected the boy from the grocery store to be there.”

  Stanley “Taz” Lane, in the wrong place at the wrong time, I thought. What I said was, “Tabby lured him over with a promise of a ride home.”

  Dinah nodded. “I parked at the cabin, the one on my land, and walked over to the Means place, letting myself in the back door and making my way to where Tabby was, but I was surprised to see him there. She was draping herself all over him, and I could hear the liquor in her voice. So when she chased him around the house, I took the opportunity to pour some liquid lights-out in her drink.”

  Dinah stared out the window, her eyes far away as if she were replaying that night in her mind. “The boy wouldn’t do what she wanted, something along the lines of being caught in bed with another man. He was so scared, he ran out of the house shirtless.” Her mirthful smile made my stomach knot.

  “After she was stumbling around from the tranquilizer, it was easy enough to herd Tabby into her car. It was late by then, so there were no cars on the road. I drove her to the garage, used a key from a set I’d already stolen from the Means house and copied months ago to unlock the building, then drove her inside.”

  Her tone was neutral while she looked straight into my eyes. “She was already cold by the time I tugged her over into the driver seat. There were enough odds and ends in the shop to stage her death as a suicide. All I had to do was start her car and make sure the garage was locked up tight.”

  Her dispassionate voice gave me chills. I thought I’d feel a sense of satisfaction once the mystery was solved, but it was missing. All I felt was disgust and sadness. Still, all the pieces were in place, save one.

  Dinah opened the bottle, emblazoned with the name “Mercer Drug,” and started shaking some pills into her hand. “You’re going to swallow these, and then you’re going to go to sleep. No fuss, no muss.”

  “Just one more thing. Taz’s shirt. Why leave it in the car? Now the sheriff is pinning the murder on Taz, which means your scandal won’t do its job.”

  “It will. I’ve already heard whispers around town, doubting that poor Stanley could do something like this. In fact, you and your friends are being very vocal about your doubts, raising awareness all around town to the fact that things don’t add up.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I had played right into Dinah’s hand by working to free Taz. All the time I thought I was helping to bring Tabby’s killer to light, I was instead aiding Dinah in her nefarious plans.

  “Open up,” she said, moving the handful of pills toward my mouth. “You’ll fall asleep, and soon enough, someone will find your body. They’ll figure you were depressed, lonely in a new town and still grieving over the death of your uncle. No one might believe that Tabby Means would commit suicide, but I don’t think we’ll have that problem with you.”

  I started to struggle inside, attempting to break free from the chair she’d bound me to. “You can have my house,” I said. “I’ll give you the deed and leave town. You can add it to your tour or sell it to help fund your museum project. Just let me go, and it’s yours.”

  “You’re smarter than that,” Dinah said. “And you know I am too. So stop making false promises and take your medicine.”

  I closed my mouth up tight and moved my face from side to side, but Dinah wrapped her arm around my head and used her hand to pinch my nose shut, cutting off my air. “You’re going to have to open up. Why make this any harder on yourself than it has to be?”

  I held my breath for as long as I could, but eventually, I had to open my mouth to get some air. I opened it as little as possible, but Dinah was able to get a finger between my lips. Tossing the pills into my mouth, she crowed in victory—until I spit the pills back into her face.

  “Listen, you,” she said, her tone stern. “You’re going to swallow these damn pills. If you keep fighting me, I’m going to knock you out first, then feed the pills to you myself. You won’t wake up again. I’m trying to give you some dignity, but I won’t hesitate.”

  I spit another pill at her, energized when it hit her in the chest. I struggled harder against the ties that bound me. “I’m not going to cooperate in my own murder, thank you very much.”

  “Fine,” she said, putting the cap back on the pill bottle. “We’ll do it the hard way. I want to make sure these pills dissolve so there’s no doubt of suicide, but I can knock you out and then shove them down your throat if that’s what you want.”

  She pulled a hypodermic out of her purse and a large bottle half-full of clear liquid. I watched as she stuck the needle into the bottle’s end and started filling it. I fought like hell to get out of that chair, but I couldn’t avoid the needle when she pushed it into my bicep. It was in that moment that I knew for certain I was going to die.

  It was also at that moment that my beloved Sir Chonksworth the Bold came to my rescue.

  A flash of black and white fur rushed into the room, heading straight for my attacker. Chonks dug his claws in deep, right on Dinah’s leg, and she let out a screech of pain. As she tried to remove my four-legged hero, I summoned all the strength I had left to yell for help at the top of my lungs.

  The drug was taking effect, quicker than even last time, and I knew that soon I’d be under. These were likely the last few moments of my life, and they were full of desperation and fear.

  Then I heard a crash, like splintering wood, and the heavy thump of footsteps heading in our direction. Through blurry eyes that were quickly closing, I saw a figure rushing into the library.

  And then I saw nothing.

  Chapter 28

  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

  I blinked my eyes open, squinting into the light. I discovered that I was resting in my own bed, with Char sitting next to me. She had a stethoscope to her ears and was holding it to my wrist while she checked my blood pressure with a cuff.

  “What happened?” I asked, feeling like my head was stuffed with cotton.

  “What happened is you solved your first murder mystery, my dear.” Her voice was too cheerful for whatever time of day it was.

  I groaned. “My first? It better be my only. I don’t think I could take another one.” It was rushing back to me, what had happened with Dinah in the library. “Did someone—did they arrest her?”

  Char nodded. “She’s gone. Taken down to the station. And you’ll be pleased to know that Stanley has already been released.”

  I smiled and let out a breath of relief. I might have been an inch away from death’s door, but it hadn’t been for nothing.

  A sudden visitor landed on the end of my bed. Chonks rushed toward me, bumping his face into my cheek and letting out a meow of greeting. I held him close as he rubbed his face against mine, letting me know that he loved me more than he let on.

  “There’s my hero,” I crooned. “Someone is going to get their favorite treat tonight. How’s a big spoonful of yogurt sound?”

  Chonks started to purr, collapsing onto my chest and rolling onto his side for belly scratches. Char pressed a tissue to her nose, chuckling at Chonks’s antics.

  “You better save some yogurt for Ethan. He’s the one who broke down your front door and stopped Dinah from… well, you know.”

  My eyes widened. “Ethan?”

  “Yeah. He’s in the hall with my brother.” Char jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the doorway, where I could see the handyman in conversation with Sheriff Rains.

  “Can you believe that it was Dinah this whole time?” Char said, shaking her head. “Talk about unexpected.”

  “She was serious about that museum,” I replied. “Serious enough to kill for it.”

  “But why Tabby Means? She didn’t give a fig about his
tory.”

  I told her how Dinah had planned to manipulate Vince into offloading the auto garage by means of a scandal. It was impressive how effectively she’d framed Vince for murder without actually framing him.

  “That all makes sense. Except for Taz. Why was his T-shirt in the car if Dinah wanted suspicion to eventually fall on Vince?”

  That bit had been bugging me too. “Taz said that Tabby took his shirt and shoved it down her skirt to keep him from getting it back, right?”

  Char nodded. “Pretty effective trick.”

  “And Taz left shirtless that night. I’ve heard it from several people now, including Taz himself.”

  “Right.”

  Then it hit me. “What if Dinah didn’t know where the shirt was? What if it was still stuffed inside of Tabby’s skirt, and Dinah didn’t notice it?”

  I continued, remembering what Dinah had revealed. “Dinah said she helped Tabby into the car. Then at the garage, she’d moved her body over to the driver seat. Maybe the shirt had fallen out then, without Dinah noticing it. That’s how it could have been found by the sheriff later.”

  “A single piece of randomness in a carefully executed plan,” Char said, “and look at all the havoc it wreaked.”

  “Look at it this way,” I said. “If Taz’s shirt hadn’t shown up in the car, everything might have happened exactly as Dinah said. Vince would have taken a lot of heat. Even with Taz’s arrest, he was still a suspect, not only to us but to others around town who spend their time speculating about town gossip.”

  “So are you saying that, in some strange way, it’s a good thing that Tabby was a woman of loose morals?”

  I bit back a laugh. “In this case, maybe it was.”

  Char stood, turning to the side to blow her nose. “I’m going to give you and Chonks some space for this love fest. Let me know if you experience any headaches or excessive drowsiness.”

  She left the room, putting her arm on her brother’s arm as she went into the hall. “Come on, Sheriff. Let’s finish this up at the station. Jade needs her rest. She can come make a statement tomorrow.”

  Rains nodded and moved off with his sister, presumably to make a departure. Ethan, however, moved forward and poked his head into my bedroom.

  “How are you feeling?”

  I gave him a smile. “Better. And I hear I have you to thank for it.”

  His grin had a tinge of sheepishness. “I’m sorry about your door. But don’t worry. I’ve already patched it up and put it back on. I’ll bring a new door over tomorrow for a more permanent repair.”

  “A door is a small price to pay for my rescue. Thank you for saving me. I appreciate it.”

  Ethan broke eye contact, and I thought for a moment there might be a slight blush on his cheeks. He quickly refocused the conversation. “You should really be thanking my assistant there. He’s the real hero.”

  “He did attack Dinah for me,” I said, scratching behind Chonks’s ears.

  “Not just that, but I think he came to get me to, uh, to come rescue you.” Ethan looked even more embarrassed than before.

  “What do you mean?”

  Ethan walked around the side of my bed and started vigorously scratching Chonks’s head, making Chonks preen in happiness. “This big man here suddenly showed up at my place. I was out back, sanding some boards, when he comes running up, yowling his head off. I figured he wasn’t supposed to be so far from home, so I put him in the car to bring him back over here to you.”

  Chonks stood up to get better leverage against the pets, then threw himself down again, this time on my stomach, knocking some of the air out of me.

  “When we got to your place, he shot out of the car before I could catch him and ran off. I figured I better let you know what was going on, which is how I was on your front porch when I heard you scream for help. I broke the door down, and, well, here we are.”

  “Except one of us wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t shown up when you did.” I looked down at Chonks. “How did you manage it, you big dummy? I thought the only thing that interested you was food.”

  “He’s got to have some kind of secret exit somewhere in this old house that lets him come and go as he pleases. Otherwise, he couldn’t have gotten out to run to my house or gotten back in to attack Dinah.”

  I nodded. “He’s a lard butt, but his brain is almost as big as his belly.” I didn’t mention that his heart was twice the size of both put together.

  “I still can’t believe that Dinah Mercer was behind this whole thing. The sheriff said she planned to make it look like you were committing suicide, all so she could buy your house. I know real estate is supposed to be crazy, but I didn’t take it so literally.”

  I laughed, then told him all about Dinah’s plans for New Orleans and her own family’s glory. Ethan whistled at the end of it, expressing his appreciation for the complication and precision inherent in her scheme.

  “Now, I know this is going to sound bad, but I’m kind of disappointed that Dinah didn’t manage to pull off the museum.”

  I looked at him, eyes wide in surprise, and he chuckled, saying he knew how it sounded. “But I would have made a killing as the lead contractor on the job. It’s my skillset exactly, and I could have charged her extra for keeping quiet about any skeletons I uncover.”

  I shook my head. “What’s to say she wouldn’t just off you once she was finished, to save a few bucks?”

  Ethan laughed. “I’d just make sure my buddy Chonks was around to protect me.” Chonks let out a small mewl as if he understood everything Ethan was saying and agreed.

  “It’s still amazing that someone like Dinah would be able to do something as disturbing as all this.” His earlier levity gone, Ethan struggled to express what he was feeling. “She was a colleague, someone I’d worked with many times through the historical preservation society and because she’d used me and recommended me for other projects. I interacted with this woman several times a week for years, and I never would have thought her capable of what she’s done.”

  “I had no hint of it either,” I said, putting my hand on his in a gesture of comfort. “We talked several times, even here in my own house. I never for one moment thought she’d be tying me up and trying to force me to overdose on sleeping pills.”

  Ethan took my hand and squeezed it. “It must have been very frightening.”

  “It was,” I said, squeezing it back. “But I’m all right now.”

  “I suppose everyone has a side they keep to themselves.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” I told Ethan about the ring of keys and Dinah’s collection and how she could creep around almost anyone’s house anytime she liked.

  “That’s unsettling. Not to mention unethical.”

  “And illegal,” I reminded him.

  He’d just opened his mouth to reply when the sound came. It reverberated through the walls, the screaming sound of metal against metal combined with the rhythmic tapping.

  “The ghost?” he asked when the sound had subsided.

  I nodded. “I wasn’t making it up.”

  He laughed. “I never thought you were.”

  Blushing, I shrugged.

  Ethan looked at me, a tiny smile on his face, and his gaze filled me with warmth. “Let me go see if I can locate your ghost for you, since I’m here.”

  I reclined against my pillows, petting Chonks and coming to grips with my near-death experience. I’d expected a more sedate life in the Old South. Long, sultry days and quiet country nights.

  What I hadn’t expected was to face a cold-blooded killer in my own home. One who had murdered once and wasn’t afraid to do it again. That was something that seemed more likely on the streets of Baltimore than in the backwoods of Louisiana. Maybe I was too narrowminded in my thinking.

  Should I pack it all up now, go back to the relative safety of my old home?

  “No,” I said aloud to Chonks. “This is our home now, and no murderer or ghost is going to scare us off.�
��

  “Not a ghost,” Ethan said from the hallway. He re-entered the bedroom, his hands cupped. “Somehow, this guy had gotten into an old dumbwaiter system.” Approaching the bed, he cracked open his hands a sliver so I could see inside.

  It was a little gray mouse, its nose twitching, its furry little body trembling. Chonks stood up for a sniff, and Ethan pulled his hands back.

  “How did that little thing make all those big sounds?”

  “It’s interesting. There used to be a dumbwaiter that ran from the basement, past the kitchen, and into the hall outside this room. Someone walled it in years ago, but this little guy managed to trap himself in there. He could scrabble up and down between the floors on the rope, but sometimes, he managed to actually move the dumbwaiter box, which caused the screeching sound in the pulley gears, and the rhythmic tapping was from the unbalanced box hitting against the wall.”

  “It’s a good thing you found him,” I said. “He could have starved back there.”

  “I doubt that,” Ethan replied. “Our ghost here is actually rather plump. My guess is he was feeding off the scraps of Chonks’s food that rolled into the small crevice near the kitchen floor. That’s likely how he got back there too, through that same crack. I can fix it up for you, or better yet, repair the dumbwaiter so it functions again.”

  I looked at Chonks, who was staring back at me. “What do you say, Chonks? Should we have Ethan come back over and do some more work for us?”

  Chonks flopped over, exposing his belly for rubbing and purring like crazy. Ethan and I both laughed. “I guess that’s my answer.”

  Epilogue

  It was another painfully humid day, and my fur frizzed all around me, making me resemble a wad of cotton photographed in black and white.