The Purrfect Halloween Prank: A Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mystery (Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mysteries Book 4)

by Alannah Rogers

“Most likely.” Beatrice took another sip of coffee. “But who could have grudges against so many different people? Who gets the chance to be that mad? It’d have to be somebody in contact with lots of folks. Somebody in community service, government.”

  “A disgruntled teacher? Janitor? Crosswalk worker? Cop?”

  Beatrice laughed. “It’s Sheriff Roy. Case closed. Heaven knows he’s had the opportunity to be angry with a lot of people.”

  “So he gave you a file that points to him and then gave it to you? He must not have a lot of faith in your sleuthing abilities.”

  “Or else he’d rather go to jail then keep dealing with me.” Beatrice closed the file with a sigh. “I think we need another pair of eyes. The sheriff’s wife has been pressuring me to go over for ages. But you know how she is, dinner is like a five course affair and you’re there until midnight. Why don’t we stop in for coffee and keep it short and sweet?”

  Matthew fell back against the cushions. “Do we have to?” he said, his eyes sleepy. “I was hoping just to lounge around here all day and watch Netflix.”

  She nudged him with her foot. “No lazy-bones. You’re welcome to stay but I’m going.”

  He sat up. “When are we ever going to go on a vacation, just the two of us?” he asked.

  Beatrice froze. They’d gone on vacations together before. But the way he put it, just the two of us, it sounded kind of … intimate.

  And because Beatrice feared intimacy like a child fears the dark—irrationally and completely—she sprung up, put on her biggest smile, and declared, “I don’t know. Sometime soon. Hey, did I tell you I have a date with Gerald Pine?”

  Matthew looked at her like she’d just said: Did I tell you I’m having a sex change?

  “You don’t date,” he finally said.

  “Who says? You date. I can date. We all can date! There’s hope for everyone, even me. We’re going to the Fall Fair together.”

  “You always go with me to the Fall Fair.”

  “Well the rules have changed,” Beatrice said, hands on hips. “You started this dating thing and look, it caught like a fever. Gerald’s not bad. He has all his hair at least and I know he won’t drone on and on about something boring like golf or sailing.”

  “I know I should be fine with this, but I’m not,” he grumbled

  Join the club, Beatrice thought as she walked away. “Going to get changed. Be down in five.”

  After throwing on jeans and a cardigan, Beatrice announced to the cats that they were going to see the sheriff. Lucky immediately ran for the door and began clawing frantically.

  “Wow, he sure likes the sheriff,” Matthew commented as he put his coat back on.

  “Little Lucky is just excited because he was the star of the show at the pumpkin carving contest the other day. I think he’s out to prove himself.”

  The tiny, angular cat sat down on his haunches, puffed out his chest and let loose a loud MEOW, as if trying to demonstrate his prowess.

  Jacket on, scarf wound around her neck, and mittens on her hands (Beatrice was always cold), she peeked her head out of the door. It was completely still outside. The tree bark was dark from the rain and a thick grey cloud cover sat low in the sky.

  They all hopped in Matthew’s truck. This time, for safety’s sake, Beatrice had Hamish and Petunia in a cat carrier too that was firmly strapped into the car. Hamish looked at her with an accusatory glare through the wire mesh.

  “Don’t get mad at me. Just think of it as private time with your girlfriend,” Beatrice said.

  They started down her driveway and then turned onto the main road.

  The sheriff lived on the outskirts of town in a modest split-level. The lawn was covered in paraphernalia—mostly garden ornaments like wooden cut-outs of peoples’ bums as if they were at work planting. Then there was a wide variety of angels and cherubs of varying sizes and ages, ceramic toadstools and gnomes, and whirly-gigs that stood stock still on that windless day.

  On top of all this, the entire property was decorated for Halloween. A generator was set up in the yard to power an army of huge inflated mummies, black cat, witches, Frankensteins, and ghosts. One of the mummies shivered and the huge cat tilted his head back and forth eerily.

  “Am I really seeing this?” Matthew asked as they walked to the front door. “That generator could probably power a small country.”

  Beatrice touched his arm. “Wait, you’ve never spent much time with Sandra before, have you?” He shook his head. “Oh you’re in for a treat. She’s a wonderful, sweet person but she is a lot. You’ll see.”

  True to form, the second Beatrice put her hand up to touch the bell, the door swung open. Sandra stood there, wearing an apron with pumpkins printed all over it, and the biggest, happiest grin ever.

  “I’m so glad you’re finally able to come over,” she beamed, ushering them in. “Goodness, it’s so damp today. Come in, come in. Don’t want you to catch a chill.”

  “What should I do with the cats?” Beatrice asked. “They’re in carriers in my car. I know you’re a bit particular about your upholstery.”

  “Oh goodness yes, little Hamish and Lucky. Bring them into the kitchen, why don’t you? I’m sure they’ll be happy prowling around there for a bit.”

  The cats were put in the kitchen, with strict instructions from Beatrice to behave. The sheriff was already sitting in the living room, feet on an overstuffed velvet ottoman. The entire room was filled with fake severed heads in jars, ghosts hung from the ceiling, and huge spiders clinging to the wall. The cackle of witches came from a hidden speaker.

  “Look, two for the price of one,” the sheriff quipped. “I see you two have patched things up.”

  Matthew looked at Beatrice quizzically. “I wasn’t aware we were fighting.”

  “He’s just being silly,” Beatrice said. The sheriff had been counselling her about Matthew’s dating enterprise—but Matthew didn’t need to know that.

  “I brought the list. Matthew and I have a few theories we want to run by you…”

  “No, no, no, no,” cried Sandra, stepping forward. “There is to be no work right now. Jake, the nerve of you, to have Bee working on a Sunday, and for free besides! This is to be a purely social visit.” She smiled broadly. “Anyway, I know 2 p.m. is kind of an awkward hour to eat dinner but I wanted to work around your schedule, Bee. Come, come! To the table.”

  Beatrice looked at the sheriff with wide eyes. On the phone, they had specifically hashed out a game plan—no meal was to be involved, coffee and sweets only. “What’s going on?” she whispered to him.

  He shrugged. “Don’t look at me. She means well, you know.”

  “And the case?”

  “Listen, we’ll have a bite to eat and then get down to brass tacks. Sandra just needs a little chance to show off her cooking first.”

  The dining room was laid out with rose-patterned china trimmed in gold and fine glasses. An enormous steaming roast sat dead center on the table. Bowls crowded around it were filled with peas, mashed potatoes, boiled root vegetables, and the like. There was a teetering pile of buttered bread off to the side and the room was so full of fake cobwebs Beatrice wondered if Sandra had bought all the cotton batting in town.

  “You didn’t need to go through all this trouble…” Beatrice began.

  “Oh nonsense,” she said, untying her apron. “Jake has his co-workers over so infrequently and I do love to entertain. I remember, in the good old days, one’s husband would always bring colleagues for dinner.”

  “Well, we just had a big breakfast…” Matthew began but at the sight of Sandra’s face falling he quickly corrected himself. “Well it wasn’t that big. A piece of fruit or two. I’m rather hungry, actually.”

  Sandra’s wide, wobbly face transitioned back into a happy smile. “That’s the spirit. Now dig in!”

  Beatrice wasn’t really hungry at all but she did her best, sampling a little bit of everything. The problem was that with Sandra one serving was n
ever enough. An empty plate had to be refilled and unfortunately, there was all too much food to fill it with. Sandra flitted in and out of the kitchen, bringing more salt, more napkins, more to drink, and more food.

  Finally, when their hostess excused herself to go to the washroom, Matthew leaned in. He was sweating and his face was beet red. “Jake. I can’t take this anymore. I swear, my stomach is going to burst wide open if I eat one more thing.”

  The sheriff let out a long exhale. “You leave it to me. I’ll handle the situation.” He shook his head. “It’s going to be a tough one, but I think I can negotiate it.”

  Beatrice had something totally different on her mind, something she’d been dying to ask him all afternoon. “Did you get the DNA results back from the cigarette butt?” she hissed.

  “Sure did. Got the guy’s DNA now. Only problem, there’s no match in the system.”

  Beatrice slumped in her seat. “Ugh. So this guy obviously isn’t a hardened criminal. If he’s done this sort of thing before, he has to be really good at covering his tracks.”

  “What if someone’s protecting him?” Matthew asked.

  Sandra breezed back in. “Heavens, you lot have barely touched a thing! Look at all that roast left…”

  The sheriff was just about to intervene when there came the distinct sound of dry heaving from the kitchen.

  “Oh dear,” Sandra said, roast prong in one hand. “I gave the kitties a little snack. I hope it hasn’t upset their tummies.”

  Beatrice listened. “Probably just a hairball. Petunia has them all the time—her coat’s so thick and she sheds so darn much.”

  Except that the dry heaving didn’t result in that characteristic “hwak!” sound, in which the hairball is successfully expelled. Instead, it increased in volume and then was joined, like some kind of horrible chorus, by the sound of another cat horking up his or her lunch.

  Beatrice was up in a flash. Had Sandra poisoned her cats?

  8

  The sight that greeted Beatrice was dire. All three cats had proceeded from dry heaving to full on puking. And on Sandra’s impeccable white tile floor, no less.

  “What did you give them?” Beatrice asked Sandra.

  Their hostess looked on in horror. “Just a bit of this, and that. Whatever we were eating. And some grapes I had on hand. They seemed to really like them.”

  Beatrice felt her stomach drop. “Cats can’t eat grapes. It can cause kidney failure. Oh boy, oh boy.”

  Matthew appeared at her elbow. “Let’s call Dr. Violet,” he said. “I know it’s Sunday but maybe she can squeeze us in.”

  “I am so sorry,” Sandra began. “I am so, so sorry…”

  “You didn’t know,” Beatrice said. “And I’m sorry about the mess. We’d better go, though. I want to get these guys looked at right away.”

  Seconds later they were back in Matthew’s truck. The cats had pretty much ejected everything solid from their bellies and were now back to dry heaving in their crates. Matthew drove at a good clip while Beatrice placed her 911 call.

  “Vi, I’m so sorry to bother you today. No, really I am. Listen, my cats just ate a whack of grapes on top of beef and I don’t know what else and they’re puking like college kids on spring break. Is there any way you can have a quick look at them? Really! You’re a doll.”

  “We’re on!” Beatrice said triumphantly. “She said she was just watching a Dance Moms marathon on TV. She’ll be at the clinic in a jiffy.”

  Dr. Violet’s practice was tucked off one of the main streets in Ashbrook in an unassuming brick building. The clinic wasn’t big but Beatrice trusted the local veterinarian with, well, her cats’ lives. Time and again, the patient vet had mended, de-wormed, spayed, fixed, and even operated on her cats. She’d been successful in every case where there was actually a chance. Beatrice made sure to get her a very handsome Christmas present every year.

  The vet, a round, pleasant woman in her early forties, was already there when they pulled up. The sick cats were taken to the examining room and looked at carefully.

  “It looks like they got the bad stuff out of their system pretty fast. I’ll just keep them on fluids and watch them here for a bit, to make sure they’re not dehydrated. I’ll give them a bit of a bath, too.” Dr. Violet stroked an embattled Petunia, whose blue eyes were clenched up in misery.

  “Oh my poor dears,” Beatrice said, patting and kissing the stinky, suffering cats. “What a day! We get nowhere on the case and then my cats are poisoned!”

  “What’re you working on?” Dr. Violet asked, fetching a bowl of water and encouraging the cats to drink.

  “There’s some sort of mean-spirited prankster about. I’ve got a list of victims but no leads.”

  “Can I take a look at the list?”

  Beatrice took it out of her pocket, unfolded it, and handed it over. Dr. Violet scanned the list quickly, her sharp eyes not missing a thing.

  “They’re all business owners,” she said.

  Beatrice froze. “What? Really?” She looked over the list herself and then passed it to Matthew. “Well, I’ll be darned, you’re right! Each and every one of them owns a business in Ashbrook. Now why I didn’t see that before I’ll never know.”

  Dr. Violet filled a plastic syringe with water and in one swift movement, grasped Lucky, opened his mouth, and squirted the liquid down his throat. “Well, that’s all I have. I couldn’t tell you why someone would want to take revenge on business owners. Maybe some customer who feels like he’s gotten a bad rap.”

  “Or a disgruntled employee who’s had a lot of jobs,” Matthew said.

  “Nobody could work for this many people unless they were a hundred years old! There has to be another motive.”

  “You have any crazy customers?” Dr. Violet asked.

  Beatrice shook her head. “No. I mean, this one woman did give the café a two star review on Yelp because she said she got decaf instead of regular coffee. We had a bit of a high-spirited exchange. Other than that I paid my taxes on time this year so it can’t be some IRS guy off his rocker.”

  “Well, I think this calls for one thing,” Matthew said.

  “What? A shot of whisky and an early night?”

  “Maybe later. But I was thinking fieldwork first. We have to talk to all the people on this list and find out everything they know, no matter how small the detail. I can get the morning off, Bee. We can probably pack in a few interviews then.”

  “Thanks Matthew.” Beatrice patted him on the shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Dr. Violet giving her a look—one that was frankly curious. Beatrice knew that when she came to pick up the cats there would be questions.

  9

  The alarm went off, honking like a frantic goose, leaving Beatrice scrambling to turn it off. She groaned, rolled over, and saw Petunia and Hamish sitting side-by-side right by her head.

  “Don’t tell me you’re hungry,” she said. Hamish replied by licking his chops, a meaningful look in his eyes.

  “Where’s Lucky?”

  The black cat leapt onto the bed as soon as he heard his name, carrying a squeaky mouse toy in his mouth. He dropped the mousie on Beatrice’s stomach and immediately began batting at it where it fell.

  “You three are a miracle, you know?” She eased herself upright. “One minute you’re a bunch of sick sad sacks and the next it’s like nothing happened. Oh to be young again.”

  Thankfully, though yesterday had been stressful, everything had turned out well. The cats had rapidly recovered at the clinic and drank enough water to satisfy Dr. Violet. Once they were bathed, Beatrice had taken them home and put them on her bed, where they all promptly fell into deep slumber.

  Now that it was the next morning, Beatrice served them wet cat food and poured a bit of Gatorade into their water to boost their electrolytes. Once they’d eaten and lapped up enough water to satisfy her, she put them in the car. She wanted to get to the café early to get a head start before Matthew showed up to do the
interviews.

  The café was dark and warm when Beatrice unlocked the front door, though the light was on in the kitchen. She shooed the cats into her office and ordered them on strict bed rest, then peeked into the kitchen.

  To her surprise, Zoe was already there, her chefs whites on, hair in a net, baking up a storm. The air was perfumed with the heavenly scent of peanut butter and chocolate.

  “Zoes, what’re you doing here so early?” Beatrice asked, taking off her light parka.

  Zoe was carefully whisking melting chocolate over the stove. “I had a little fight with Hunter. It’s nothing, really. It’s just he won’t pay for half the Internet bill because he says he always goes to a library to use it for free. I don’t see how things are going to work when we’re living together in our new place.”

  Hunter was Zoe’s no-good, very-bad boyfriend. Beatrice massaged her skinny shoulders. “It’s okay, Zoe. Goodness, you’re tense! He wasn’t mean about it, was he?”

  Zoe shrugged. “I dunno. He definitely wasn’t nice about it.”

  Beatrice sighed. It took all her willpower not to tell Zoe what to do—because of course Zoe wouldn’t listen to her. Instead, she said, “You just let me know when Matthew and I have to go after him with baseball bats.”

  A tiny smile appeared on the pastry chef’s lips. “You’d do that for me?”

  “In a heartbeat. Listen Zoe, I need to go out for a couple of hours this morning. You’ll be okay?”

  “We’re covered for food. Don’t worry about it.”

  Beatrice locked herself in her office for the next hour or two, ploughing through the most important (and usually most boring) tasks on her plate, while the cats napped. There was the new lease with the landlord to review and sign. Plus payroll was coming up. Beatrice had the system down pat but the process of compiling who worked what hours, deducting the necessary taxes, filing remittances, and setting up direct deposits was still time consuming. Usually she liked to do it with a glass of wine, just to make the process a bit more interesting. But it was a bit early for that.