Misty Hollow Cat Detective (Darcy Sweet Mystery) (A Smudge the Cat Mystery Book 1)

by K. J. Emrick

The problem was that I got totally twisted around out there. Left was right and east was west—even though I'm not really sure which way is east and which is west anyway—until I lost all sense of where I had come from. I could almost imagine I wasn't anywhere near civilization. No town nearby, no traffic sounds, no people. Just tall trees and wild things and me. It was like I was a big cat on the prowl in the jungles of—

  The screech that came out of my mouth at that exact moment sounded less like a lion's roar and more like a cat being scared to death. Which, basically, is what I was.

  That? No. That's not where I lost my life. That comes later.

  A crow had fluttered up in my face, right in front of me, rummaging through the dead leaves and flapping his wings. He was probably looking for worms or other insects to fill his big, fat belly. I hate crows. They're like rats with wings, or short ugly chickens, or…or…something else that's just as ugly that I can't think of right now. Ugly rat chickens. Yeah. That's what they are.

  This one cawed at me again and then flew off, into the higher branches up above until I lost sight of it. I stopped to get my breath and shake my head a few times. Dumb crow broke my rhythm.

  That's when I heard the voices.

  "I told you not to take it," a girl's voice said. I jumped up in the air again, not screeching this time thank you very much. My heart was racing, though, and I got to wondering if maybe I might get scared to death out here after all.

  Nope. That's not where I lost my one life either.

  I could see two people through the trees. Standing and talking. The girl was young, with long blonde hair held back in a ponytail, wearing a long blue dress without sleeves. There was a man with her, a little older than she was, I guessed, with hair buzzed closed to his scalp and eyes that were hidden behind dark sunglasses.

  The guy gave me the creeps.

  "I took it for us," he was saying to the girl. "It's for our future."

  "It doesn't belong to us," the girl insisted. "You have to take it back."

  I could see she had something shiny in her hand that sparkled in the sun. A ring, by the look of it, with little stones set in place on a gold band. I think people called those little stones diamonds. I never understood why people have so much interest in stones. They're just little pieces of rock. I could find rocks anywhere. Look, I'm stepping on some right now.

  Those ones on the ring sure were sparkly, though.

  The guy and the girl were still arguing, and the girl tried her best to push the ring into the guy's hand. He wouldn't take it. "I stole it for us. That ring is worth a lot of money, and it's ours now."

  Stole it? I know enough about humans and how they think to know that stealing is wrong. Cats don't steal from each other. We might take stuff from people's garbage, but that isn't stealing. If people didn't want that stuff taken, they wouldn't throw it out.

  My ears perk up. If these two stole a ring from somewhere in town, this could be even more interesting than running through the woods. I watched them intently to see what they would do next.

  The girl shifted her weight from one foot to another, looking nervous, but finally she put the ring on her finger. "Fine. I'll keep it, but I don't like stealing, Pat. If we're going to be together we need to show everyone we can make it on our own. So. Um. When do you think we can sell it?"

  "Tomorrow. My cousin lives over in Meadowood." The guy, Pat, rubbed his hands together. "He knows a guy runs a pawn shop. We can get at least two hundred dollars for that. Plenty for us to run away with. Enough for a start, anyway."

  The girl didn't look as certain. "My mom's going to be really worried, Pat. I don't know if I can do this."

  Pat, reached out and pulled the girl closer. "Ginny, we don't have to tell your parents anything. With that ring we can start a new life far away from here. I'm glad I stole it."

  I waited, and listened, until the picture came clear in my head. Pat here was trying to convince this girl to run away with him. He needed money to make that happen, and he was going to sell this diamond ring to get that money.

  Only the ring wasn't his.

  Most cats I know would have turned and walked away at that point, or kept watching out of plain curiosity. I'm just not most cats. This guy had committed a crime against someone. That just didn't seem right to me. Which meant I was going to have to do something about it.

  In my life, I've learned one thing for certain. A cat's work is never done.

  ***

  There are a few places where people can go to eat in Misty Hollow. For cats it's a lot simpler. We don't have to go out at all. Our owners put food down for us in our dishes. Or, like my new friend Tony the alley cat, we just dig around in garbage cans or catch a few mice.

  Mmm. Fresh mice.

  Well. The restaurant I follow Ginny to doesn't serve fresh mice, of course. People aren't into that. This place is called The Dog Shack, and what it serves is all kinds of hotdogs. I like hotdogs well enough, but I'm not very fond of the name of this place. I've heard Darcy say it's going to close in a few weeks. I can't say I'll be sorry to see any business with the word "dog" in it go away.

  Ginny has been upset the whole way here. Cats can kind of sense people's emotions, sometimes even know what they're thinking. We all speak human, of course, even though people can't speak cat. In this case I didn't need Ginny to say anything. I could see how upset she is. I think running away is this guy Pat's idea. I'm not sure Ginny wants anything to do with it.

  Most places where people are welcome don't want pets around. No dogs, no cats, nothing like that. So when Ginny goes in through the front glass doors of the restaurant, I can't follow her any further. I can see through the doors and the tall front windows but I can't go in.

  Not this way.

  I'm very good at getting in and out of buildings. Darcy keeps wondering how I get out of our house and back in again when she locks the doors and windows up. I have my ways. I'm not going to let a little thing like a no pets policy keep me out of The Dog Shack.

  Around the back, where it's darker and the garbage is piled high in a metal bin, I find my way in. The garbage bin works as a stepping stone for me to get up to a high ledge where someone forgot to close a window and just like that, I'm in.

  The trickier part is skulking around downstairs in the restaurant without being seen. It's not all that hard. There are tables and chairs and other pieces of furniture for me to squeeze behind. Not to mention, people don't usually look down. They're preoccupied with their little worlds up above and don't look down here where us cats walk.

  Ginny is certainly preoccupied. I can see her, sitting in one of the green plastic chairs at a round, white table. She's holding her hand up to admire the ring, turning it this way and that way, smiling at it. Humans and their diamonds, I think to myself again.

  Then she takes it off, staring at it closer. With a long, slow sigh, she sets the ring down on the table in front of her. She doesn't want to do this. I can tell. I can sense her uncertainty. She wants to give the ring back, even if she thinks it's pretty. When she doesn't pick the ring back up, I see my chance.

  Claws slipping on the white and green linoleum, I jet across the floor, jump up onto Ginny's lap, up onto the table, grab the ring in my mouth, and race off again. Ha! That's how we do—

  I turned to look back at Ginny with a triumphant little grin just before I ran full tilt into the glass doors of the restaurant. I'd forgotten they were even there. Glass, from top to bottom. I mean, who builds doors like this? My vision turns black with little pinprick stars and for the life of me I feel like I'm going to pass out and die.

  Nope. This isn't how it happened either. I still have all nine of my lives. At least for now.

  Blinking, clearing my head, I hear Ginny hollering after me. She's getting up from her seat, and now other people are getting up, and I am in deep, deep trouble. Ears flattened back against my head I look this way and that way trying to find a way out that doesn't involve me getting caught.

 
When my gaze passes across the doors, time freezes. Standing on the other side of the glass, staring at me, is the most beautiful cat I've ever seen. She's all gray except for the white tips of her ears, with silky fur and a long tail. Her big, expressive eyes are the color of clear blue water. She's looking at me now like I'm crazy, and I suppose I probably seemed insane, banging into glass doors while holding a diamond ring in my mouth. I've never been so embarrassed in all my nine lives.

  Looking back, I should have proposed to her. Right there and right then. When I meet her again later I'll wish that I had. I mean, I had the ring already. Hard to think of those things when you're running for your life, though.

  Promising myself that I will find her again I get my feet working and scramble back across a sea of grabbing hands. Everyone in the restaurant is trying to stop me, but I'm just too quick.

  Actually, it would be closer to the truth to say I was just plain lucky. Chairs crashed over and people screamed and food flew every which way, and in the chaos I made it back up into the attic where all the cardboard boxes of cups and plastic forks were stored. The window I came in through is right there. Just like that, I'm gone again.

  Panting, excited with my success, I jump out the window and aim for the soft garbage down below.

  And miss.

  Ow.

  Ow, ow, ow.

  If you ever jump down onto the edge of a metal garbage bin, you'll know what I mean. Just…ow.

  But no, I didn't lose a life there, either. Stay with me. The story isn't over yet.

  ***

  Ring still in my mouth, paws sore and head ringing, I pad out to the front corner of the restaurant where I can see Ginny standing on the sidewalk, upset and worried and wringing her hands as she paced back and forth. I stopped there, and watched.

  The cat I saw before is gone now, leaving me wondering who she was and how I would find her again. She must have just arrived in town. I've never noticed her before, and believe me, I would have noticed her.

  I don't have time to find her now. Ginny is still pacing, waiting for something.

  It doesn't take very long for Pat to show up. Ginny must have called him on her cell phone. Sometimes I wish cats had cell phones, but then I think…where would we carry them?

  "Where is it?" Pat asks Ginny immediately.

  "I told you," she answers him, "the crazy cat took it! It's gone!"

  Pat's face is pinched with anger. The shoelace in his left sneaker is undone, like he had rushed here without time to stop and tie it. Now that he doesn't have his glasses on I can see the blazing green color of his eyes. This is not a nice man. "Ginny, we need that ring!"

  "Will you keep it down?" Ginny hisses. "Look, I didn't want to do this in the first place. Just…just forget it. I'm staying here with my folks. When you can earn enough money to support us without stealing, then we can talk about getting back together. I can't be with a man who steals for me!"

  There are tears in her eyes as she runs away, but I can tell she isn't crying because she's sad. She's relieved. Relieved to be dumping Pat.

  Can't blame her. The guy smells like rotten fish. I kid you not. Sour and icky and, well, yuck.

  He stands there on the sidewalk, calling after her, his hands balled into fists. When she doesn't come back he kicks at a paper hotdog basket with the Dog Shack logo on it, and then stalks away. I decide to follow him. It's time to see who this ring belongs to and I have a feeling Pat will lead me right there.

  "Caw!"

  Turning quickly at the sound, I find a crow standing right behind me. This isn't the crow I saw in the woods. This is Corvin. He and I are acquaintances, you might say. He lives with some of his family in the park at the town center, and he's always getting in the way. Like now.

  "What ya got there?" Corvin asks in that screeching voice of his. "It's sparkly, real sparkly. Is it mine?"

  "Are oo stherious?" I ask, the ring in the way of my words. "No, iss not yourths!"

  "What?"

  "I sthaid, iss not yourths!"

  "Oh," he says, obviously disappointed. "Is it yours then? Yours?"

  "Uh, no." Oh, for the love of catnip, why am I explaining this to a crow? "Corvin, I gotha go."

  "'Kay," Corvin says, twisting his head sideways. "Come back when you have something that can be mine! Mine!"

  ***

  It takes me a moment to catch back up to Pat. I thought at first that Corvin had made me lose him, but then I see him again, that loose shoelace flopping along with every footstep. I hang back, all stealthy like, and soon enough he leads me to a very nice house with an immaculately trimmed lawn. It's narrow and tall and painted in beige and white, and with the molding and the heart shapes that are cut into the shutters, it looks for all the world like a gingerbread house.

  Not something that I pictured tough-guy Pat living in.

  When he opens the door to go inside he throws it wide and it bangs against the interior wall, staying open. I race inside behind him and hide between a wall and a shoe rack.

  Some of these shoes are Pat's. They smell like dead fish. So, he does live here.

  "Patrick?" a frail voice calls from further inside. "Is that you, Patrick?"

  "Grandma, I asked you not to call me that," he calls in to her, anger still seething in his voice. "Everyone calls me Pat!"

  "Now, don't you talk to me like that," his grandmother answers. "And you shut that door!"

  Pat obliges, a little more forcefully than he needed to. Bang, goes the door.

  This explains a lot. Pat is living with his grandmother in her house. Not a penny to his name, probably. That must be why he stole the ring.

  "Come on in here, Patrick. I want to talk to you."

  Grumbling under his breath, he nevertheless walks down the entryway toward a living room space filled with dark wood and Victorian style furniture with high backs and floral designs. I follow, a shadow hugging the walls. Well. A shadow made of white and black fur. Not exactly invisible, but still unseen. You have to remember, people don't look down.

  In the living room sits an older woman, a pink sweater snugged around her shoulders, thick glasses perched on a button nose in a wide face. Her hair is completely white. Her rocking chair creaks back and forth and I twitch my tail nervously. Cats and rocking chairs do not mix.

  "What is it, Grandma?" Pat asks, a little nicer than before, as he flops down on the sofa. He puts his feet up on the coffee table, and the look his grandmother gave him could have melted ice in the dead of winter.

  Oh. That's when it came to me. Here was the person Pat had stolen the ring from. His own grandmother.

  That's pretty low.

  "Where is it?" she asked him, and I knew she was asking him about the ring.

  "Where's what?" He didn't even look at her, just sat fiddling with his fingernails.

  "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, young man. Your grandfather gave me that ring, and I've kept it all these years. I will not have my own grandson steal from me. You hear me? I won't have it."

  "You can't prove I stole it," Pat said in a very calm voice.

  I guess he figured since his girlfriend had lost the ring to a cat, he didn't have to worry about anyone finding it again.

  Guess he'd be wrong.

  I slink further into the room, silently moving on little cat's paws, until I'm underneath the sofa Pat is sitting on, and there I wait.

  "You better return that ring to me, mister," Pat's grandmother says with a stern shake of her finger. "You don't, and I'm going to bounce you out on your ear like I should have done already."

  "Grandma, where would I go?"

  "You're twenty-one years old. You're old enough to take care of yourself, since you don't want to live by the rules of my house. Especially if you think you can start stealing from me." She stopped her rocking as she leaned towards him. "You heard my terms. You return that ring or I'm going to toss you out."

  Jumping up from the sofa, Pat's voice raises until it's loud enough to
echo off the ceiling. "You can't make me leave just because you think I stole your ring. You can't prove it! What, you think I've got the ring on me? Is that it? Here, check my pockets. Here, look!"

  What's he doing? I edge out enough to see him tugging his pockets inside out. Pieces of paper and coins and other things fall to the hardwood floor.

  Ha. I was hoping he'd do something like that.

  With a shake of my head, I drop the ring. It clatters with a metallic sound and rolls on its edge before it falls neatly on the floor between them. Silence falls over the whole house.

  I really wish I could have seen Pat's face. Here was the ring he thought was gone, right out in the open where his grandmother could see it, looking like it had been dropped from his own pockets.

  Gotchya.

  "Th-that wasn't there," he stutters. "I mean, I didn't have it in my pocket. No! I mean…"

  I can see his grandmother's face from where I am, and the smile of satisfaction I see suits her really well. I don't know what this grandson of hers has put her through before all this happened, but I can imagine. Now she finally had good reason to make him leave her house. She'd be free of him.

  Not only that, but Ginny had left Pat too, so he wouldn't be able to ruin her life. Win, win.

  Not exactly the happy ending you get in fairytales, but it's one I could live with.

  ***

  I had to sneak through most of the house before I found an open window to jump out of. Smiling to myself, I let my thoughts wander back to the memory of that girl cat I had seen through the Dog Shack's door. If you've ever been distracted by thoughts like that, you'll understand what happens next.

  Out into the street I went, not looking, and not seeing the big green truck speeding at me. The driver blared the horn and brakes squealed and I jumped faster and farther than I'd ever jumped before.

  The truck narrowly missed me. I could feel the breeze from it ruffling my fur. You guessed it. That's not where I lost that one life either. It was a close thing, though.

  Landing on the sidewalk, panting, fur standing on end, I made a beeline for my house. All the way across town I ran and didn't stop for anything. I ran, and I ran, and I ran until I was home.