Wrong Side of the Claw

by Leighann Dobbs

  Gus normally wore her hair pulled back into a tight bun, I assumed to make herself look more severe and, therefore, garner more respect as the county sheriff. Today she wore it down, and it cascaded over her shoulder like a golden waterfall. It didn’t look bad, just… different.

  “Have you found out anything more about the break-ins?” I asked, straightening the area where the regulars had been earlier. “People are worried.”

  Gus poked her head around the end of a bookshelf and shrugged. “Not really. Don’t see why it’s such a big deal anyway. It’s not like anything went missing.”

  Confused at her relaxed attitude, I walked over to where she was sorting through the volumes, humming a tune I’d not heard before. “So, you’re saying burglaries aren’t a top priority for the Mystic Notch Sheriff’s Department?”

  “No.” Gus gave me an annoyed glance. “What I’m saying is I’d really like to learn a few new piano tunes for my next gig down at the Blue Moon lounge.”

  Weird. My sister had never been so cavalier before about crimes in her town, nor had she been forthcoming about information when I’d asked her about cases. Her usual response was for me to butt out. Today, though, it seemed she couldn’t care less.

  “Why?” Gus straightened, a book on the music of the late Miles Davis in her hand. “You got any leads for me to follow up on, sis?”

  “Uh, no.” My confusion mounted. She’d never been interested in any of my leads regarding one of her cases before. Just the opposite. On most days, Gus brimmed with warning about staying away from anything she was working on.

  “What about drinks?”

  “Drinks?”

  “Yeah. You got any books on mixing drinks?” Gus asked. “Specifically, drinks that were popular back in the 1920s?”

  “I don’t think so.” I walked down another aisle of shelves, Gus trailing behind me. “I’ve got a couple of bartending books in stock but nothing focusing on that time period. Sorry.”

  “Can you order one for a bartender friend?”

  “Probably. If you have a specific book name, then I have a database I can search.” We walked up to the register, and Gus paid for the Miles Davis book. “Want a bag for that?”

  “Nah. I’ll get back to you on the bartending book.” Gus smiled and headed for the front door. “See you around, sis.”

  Weird. That whole encounter had been odd, like something out of The Twilight Zone. I leaned back against the counter and pulled out my phone. Maybe there was something going on at the sheriff’s department. I quickly typed in a text to Striker to see if he’d heard anything.

  He responded a few minutes later, saying he hadn’t and asking what was wrong.

  I told him she just wasn’t acting like her usual crime-fighting self.

  His response that he would stop by my sister’s office later and check it out made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

  With a sigh, I shut my phone off and settled in for a long morning of bookkeeping. I’d just pulled out one of the ledgers when Pandora wandered over and began meowing loudly. It almost felt like she was trying to tell me something. The same thing had happened a couple of times since I’d become her owner, these weird human-feline vibes where it seemed she was doing her best to push a message into my mind, but I just never got it. Maybe if I concentrated really hard…

  My focus was broken by another customer coming in, an older lady looking for a copy of Trixie Belden: The Secret of the Mansion. I got her rung up then looked back at Pandora again, only to be interrupted by my best friend, Pepper St. Onge. She waltzed in, looking adorable as ever with her long red hair and cute plaid skirt and matching sweater in earthy fall colors. Pepper always knew how to dress. My wardrobe, on the other hand, consisted mostly of T-shirts and jeans smudged with dust from crawling around in attics and basements, looking at old books.

  Pepper owned the Tea Shoppe a few doors down, and she’d brought fresh scones and tea in the custom quilted bag she had made just for carrying her wares. My stomach rumbled in anticipation of our daily snack, and we settled on the sofas up front so I could keep an eye on the register.

  “How’s it going today?” she asked as she laid everything out on the coffee table like we were having high tea. I was always amazed at how much she could carry in her bag and watched in awe as she produced everything from a silver teapot to a hand-painted china platter to embroidered napkins. Soon the shop was filled with the scent of oolong tea and strawberry scones.

  “Good. Strange.” I told her about Gus’s visit and the rumors about the break-ins. “And she had her hair down too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear it in anything other than a bun since I came back to town.”

  “That is weird,” Pepper said around a bite of strawberry scone before dabbing her mouth delicately with a napkin. “Oh, before I forget, can you do me a favor later?”

  “Of course,” I said, sipping my lemon tea. “What is it?”

  “I made some new herbal tea mixtures for Elspeth. Would you mind dropping them off at her place tonight on your way home?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thanks.” Pepper finished her scone then sat back, her expression turning serious. “You know, I’ve begun to wonder if those break-ins don’t have something to do with that list I told you about before. The one with the ingredients to reverse the pleasantry charm.”

  “Seriously?” I shook my head. Pepper had mentioned something about a list of magical ingredients that could wreak some havoc on the town. I loved my friend, but sometimes she got a bit too fanciful in her thinking. “Old wives’ tale, if you ask me. Besides, whatever was on that piece of paper is long gone. I saw the pieces fly away myself.”

  “Hmm. Maybe.” Pepper didn’t look convinced. She’d always been a believer in magic. Then again, she’d stayed in Mystic Notch her whole life, and there were enough inexplicable events around here to make a person question the existence of the supernatural. That was true. She even claimed her teas had magical properties, almost like potions. The thought had me glancing at my cup. She swore she never put anything in the tea that she gave to me, but maybe I’d only take a few small sips just the same.

  We drank our tea in silence for a few minutes, my mind churning with Gus’s odd visit and now the idea that my best friend seemed to think the break-ins might have magical origins. I was still skeptical. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, given the fact I could talk to ghosts. But somehow, talking to ghosts and all the magical things Pepper suggested seemed miles apart. Besides, the goings-on in Mystic Notch had to have a rational explanation.

  “I know you have your doubts,” Pepper said at last. “But I’m telling you, Willa, something isn’t right here. I’ve got a bad feeling that someone’s breaking into these stores to search for those missing ingredients. And if they find them, we’re all in trouble.”

  3

  It had been several years since Gram had passed and bequeathed me the old Victorian home in which I had spent so many childhood nights. I had fond memories of myself and Gram in the big white house with its crisp black shutters and detached barn. Pulling into the driveway every night after work gave me a cozy sensation of being home that I’d never felt anywhere else. Even though I’d lived most of my life down in Massachusetts, for some reason, Mystic Notch in general and my grandmother’s house in particular were where I now knew I belonged.

  Pandora always seemed to get excited when we pulled into the driveway too. Sometimes she would leap across my lap as soon as I opened the driver’s-side door of my Jeep and race to the old farmer’s porch, then sit at the door, impatiently waiting to be let in. As far as I knew, Pandora had never known any other home. At least I didn’t think so. It seemed like my grandmother had owned her for decades. Though I knew that couldn’t be right, I actually had no idea how old the cat was but assumed Gram must have gotten a few cats that all looked alike over the years.

  I let Pandora in, and she went straight to her bowl in the corner of the old-fashioned kitchen.

/>   “Hungry? I’m starving too,” I said as I filled it with dry cat food.

  I wasn’t kidding either. I’d skipped lunch after eating two of Pepper’s scones earlier in the day. Too bad the only things in the fridge were cottage cheese, two jars of olives, and some condiments. I would be the first one to admit that I was not that good at procuring groceries, or cooking for that matter. So I did the next best thing—I texted Striker and asked him to pick up a pizza on his way over.

  Honestly, I’d gotten a bit spoiled since we’d been together. He spent nearly every night at my place these days and brought dinner too. It was good we had the evenings together since he’d been so busy during the day fighting crime in Dixford Pass. When he helped Gus out here in the Notch, he would stop by the bookstore often, but these days, he’d been busy in his own county, not that there was much crime there either.

  I checked the clock over the stove and saw that I had just enough time to run Pepper’s tea mixture over to Elspeth’s place before Striker arrived. I was eager to check up on the elderly woman who had been a second grandmother to me. One of Gram’s dying wishes was that I watch over Elspeth, and I intended to honor that. Not that I needed prompting. I was genuinely fond of her.

  Night was about to fall, so I exchanged my cardigan for a thick black-and-red-checked flannel jacket and headed out the side door. Pandora must have guessed my intentions because she slipped out alongside me.

  Elspeth lived on a street behind my grandmother’s house, but there was a path through the woods that led straight between the two houses. I’d traveled it a million times when I was a child.

  Twilight was falling earlier and earlier these days, but thankfully the moon was bright enough to light the way through the skeletal tree branches above. If I hadn’t known this path so well, it would’ve been spooky. Pandora trotted along beside me, never veering off course even when we heard the scurrying of chipmunks in the fallen leaves. It was almost as if she had an appointment and didn’t want to be late. I knew she liked to hang around with Elspeth’s clowder of cats in the barn, but the notion of them actually making plans and having appointments was ridiculous.

  We’d walked for about ten minutes when the woods became less dense and Elspeth’s home came into view. Another old Victorian, except hers had a turret in front and was painted mint green with pink gingerbread trim. She also had the most gorgeous climbing roses around her porch that seemed impervious to the cold. Mine were all dead this late in the season, but Elspeth’s were still blooming away. She must use some kind of super fertilizer. I would have to ask her for the secret one of these days.

  Pandora and I walked up the steps and across the wraparound porch and were greeted by Elspeth’s orange tiger cat, Tigger. While I knocked on the front door, Pandora and Tigger sniffed each other in greeting and then took off toward the barn in the back.

  Elspeth answered, wearing an apron. Her white hair was braided around her head, and her blue eyes sparkled with intelligence.

  “Oh, Willa,” she said, inviting me in. “I’ve been waiting on my tea from Pepper. Come on back to the kitchen, where I’m working.”

  Elspeth’s old-fashioned kitchen always brought a flood of happy childhood memories, and today was no exception. The air smelled of cinnamon and sugar from the freshly baked snickerdoodles on the counter, and the yellow curtains that framed the backyard gave the room a cheery appearance.

  I handed her the packet of tea. To me it just looked like a bunch of crushed-up leaves and twigs, but Elspeth made a big deal about it, placing it carefully on the butcher-block table in the center of the space, as if it were of extreme importance. On the table, a cookbook called Betty’s Recipes lay open. Huh. The last time I’d seen that book, I’d been led to believe it wasn’t so much for concocting food as for conjuring spells. At least that’s what Pepper had implied. But seeing as Elspeth was using it to make cookies, that was apparently another one of Pepper’s fanciful stories.

  “I do hope your bookstore hasn’t been affected by those break-ins downtown,” Elspeth said, bustling around the room. “I’d hate for anything to happen to you here.”

  Here I’d come to make sure that Elspeth was okay, and she was more concerned about me. It was just like her to worry about others over herself.

  I wanted to put her at ease. “No, no. Everything’s fine, Elspeth. Please don’t worry on my account. I’m sure Gus will find the culprit soon enough. Even if she is acting a bit weird.”

  “Weird how?” Elspeth peeled more cookies off the baking sheet with her spatula and plopped them onto a cooling rack.

  “Oh, she’s just not investigating with her usual zeal.” I tried to sound nonchalant. It wouldn’t do to get Elspeth all worried about the effectiveness of Mystic Notch’s law enforcement. I probably should have kept my big mouth shut about Gus in the first place, but worry over my sister’s behavior had made the words spill out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “Huh.” Elspeth frowned. “She’s not sick, is she? The flu’s been going around.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’ll be okay. You know Gus. She’s hardy as a bull moose.”

  Elspeth gestured for me to sit then brought the plate of cookies over to the table. She smiled as I bit into the sugary confection, but I could see that she was still worried.

  “Yes, she hardly ever gets sick. That’s what is so worrisome.” Elspeth glanced back at the butcher-block table.

  I put my hand on her arm. “Don’t worry. I’m sure everything will be fine, and besides, we have Striker to fill in if Gus really is sick.”

  Elspeth brightened at the mention of Striker. “Of course, dear. We are in good hands with him. But still I think we might want to keep our eye on Gus. We wouldn’t want her to catch something that would put her out of commission, now would we?”

  The cats were gathered in the barn. Some were perched on tall bales of hay. Others peered down from the loft. There was no lighting in the barn, and they looked like four-legged shadows with bright eyes reflecting in the pale moonlight that streamed in from where the sliding door was cracked open. The scent of hay and roses lingered in the chilly air inside the barn. Pandora could see her own breath form wisps of condensation in front of her.

  Inkspot sat in the middle of the barn, the shaft of moonlight highlighting his sleek midnight-black fur as the cats slowly gathered in a circle around him. He was larger than the other cats. His size and striking yellow eyes demanded attention and left no question as to his role as leader. His deep voice boomed through the shadows. “So, we convene again about this list. Pandora, what’s your report?”

  Pandora hopped up onto a bale of hay and spoke. “I’m telling you, there’s something going on with Fluff and that human of his. If I had to guess, I’d say he somehow got his paws on part of the list and shared it with Felicity. If you could’ve seen her this morning, strutting through town. It was shameful.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s shameful,” Otis, a persnickety calico, said, his words dripping with sarcasm. “Allowing yourself to be placed in a pink harness and shackled to a human like some kind of dog.”

  Gasps and meows rang out from the cats.

  “Well, I say if Pandora is suspicious, we go with it,” Kelly, the Maine coon, said as she flicked her fluffy tail. “Her instincts are rarely wrong.”

  “Harrumph,” Otis hissed. “I don’t know if I’d say rarely. Though I suppose she has been right a few times.”

  Pandora narrowed her gaze at Otis. He liked to act superior because he was a very rare cat. Most calicos were female, and he liked to flaunt the fact that he was one of only three percent who were male. Even more than that, though, he seemed to have taken a disliking to Pandora and had been a thorn in her side since day one. Always trying to pick a fight.

  She’d thought they’d formed a truce of sorts after a little incident with a potion. Now she wasn’t sure. She caught his gaze, and he winked. Winked? Was he simply trying to keep up appearances? Maybe he didn’t want the other c
ats to think he’d gone soft. Pandora decided to ignore his earlier jab. She knew for a fact that when it came down to it, she could count on him to do the right thing, and that was all that mattered.

  “Well, we all know that Fluff and his human want to ruin things for everyone, so I say Pandora is probably right,” Truffles, a small tortoiseshell cat with greenish-yellow eyes, said.

  “Agreed.” Snowball flicked her fluffy white tail at Otis. “Plus, I’ve heard that Felicity Bates has been digging around again, snooping for ingredients.”

  “Maybe she is the one behind all these break-ins,” Truffles said.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her.” Sasha looked up from grooming her paws, her blue eyes glowing in the dark. “Never trusted that human.”

  “Me neither.” Hope, their resident two-faced Chimera cat, sat atop a bale of hay. Of all the cats, Hope had the most unusual markings. Half her face was black with a blue eye, and the other half, orange-striped with a golden eye. But her appearance wasn’t the only thing unusual about her. Hope was special, and she and Pandora had a particular bond that went back to a time when Pandora had helped rescue Hope from Fluff’s evil clutches.

  “Did anything else happen, Pandora?” Inkspot asked.

  “As a matter of fact, it did. My human’s sister, Gus, came into the bookshop this morning.” Pandora stretched and sat up to look down on the others. “She was acting very strangely. Wasn’t interested at all in investigating the break-ins.”

  “Not investigate?” Tigger asked. “But without her handling things on the human side, our jobs will be harder.”

  “It’s true,” said Inkspot. “We can lead them to the clues, but it’s up to them to make an arrest and imprison the perpetrators.”

  “I know. I don’t like this at all,” Pandora said. “Worse still, I saw Felicity and Gus nodding to each other, like they were in cahoots. This can’t bode well.”