Midnight Paws

by Jessica Beck

  Hiding the heart of Midnight.

  Was that why the daft cat had been signaling for me to choose the box? Did he somehow recognize his name? Had I honestly just wasted one of my inheritances on a bad poem and a plain old battered wooden box? Or was this the final puzzle Cora had left me?

  “Midnight,” I said with a hard edge in my voice. “Really? Are you kidding me?”

  My ghost cat chose that moment to poke his head through the closed front door and walk into the house. He spied the poem in my hand, looked at me with self-satisfied smugness for a few seconds, and then he turned and went back out the way he’d come in. Was it my imagination, or had he lingered as his nether regions passed through the door, giving me his opinion of my intellect and intuitive skills?

  “Cats,” I said in frustration just as Marybeth came back into the room.

  She looked around for a moment, and then asked, “Christy, who are you talking to?”

  “Thin air, apparently,” I said as the tip of Midnight’s tail vanished. That cat had a lot of nerve, criticizing my reasoning skills when he himself appeared to be as mad as a hatter. To be fair, he had acted no different before his ghostly transformation.

  “Okayyyy,” she said, stretching out the last letter of the word for emphasis. “The pizza will be here in half an hour. What should we do in the meantime?”

  I tried to put the poem away, but my roommate was too quick for me. I managed to hide the box back in my pocket, though, but it was a marginal victory at best.

  Before I could stop her, Marybeth snatched the paper out of my hands. She read it quickly, and then she handed it back to me. “You didn’t write this, did you?”

  “No, Cora did,” I said.

  Marybeth frowned at it another second, and then she added, “It’s not very good, is it?”

  “I don’t know. It has its merits,” I said.

  “If you say so. As for me, I’m more of a Robert Frost kind of gal myself.”

  “To each her own,” I said, folding the paper back up and sliding it into the same pocket that contained the box. There had to be more to its significance than Midnight’s name, but I had no idea what it might be.

  “So, what should we do while we’re waiting for our food?” Marybeth asked. Apparently she was willing to cut me a little slack, given my state of mind.

  “Do we have any ice cream?” I asked.

  “Now you’re talking,” my roommate said with a grin. “I’ll get the gallon in the freezer and a couple of spoons.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “I’ll meet you out on the porch.”

  I walked outside, fully expecting to see Midnight lolling about in the sun, but he was nowhere to be found. Wherever he’d gone, I knew it was pointless to search for him. Midnight—or any cat, really—had a mind of his own. When he was ready to show up, he would, and not a minute before.

  I watched from the front porch as the world passed me by, no one really noticing me, each person intent on reaching his own destination. Even though Noble Point was a small town, enough of the distractions of the world still seemed to seep in from around the edges to occupy the vast majority of people’s attention. That was one of the reasons I loved my cats so much. They kept me in the here and now, grounded in the things that mattered: food, shelter, companionship, and love.

  I was just beginning to feel sorry for myself when I felt the weight of a feather settle onto my lap. Like a Cheshire cat, Midnight had chosen to materialize, touching me, and I could swear I felt the whisper of him before he’d appeared. My cat had changed when he’d become a ghost, but the essence of him was still there, with every swish of his tail and every mew he uttered. He was changed beyond the boundaries of science and faith, but for whatever reason, his essence was still with me. Midnight was gone, but in a very real sense, he’d never left me. My fingers stroked his back casually, almost without thought, and for an instant, he was there with me in all his glory.

  When the door opened and Marybeth came out carrying our first course of ice cream, Midnight vanished as though he’d been nothing more than a stray ember from a campfire hitting a lake’s rippling surface.

  “Sorry. Am I interrupting something?” Marybeth asked.

  “No, I was just thinking about Midnight,” I confessed. Well, it was true, in its own way, and the world, if nothing else, was full of gray areas, now more than ever.

  With my ghost cat now gone, Marybeth and I sat side by side on the porch swing, our spoons dipping into the carton of chocolate ice cream in a choreographed dance that complemented our motions perfectly. I felt more reassured by Midnight’s brief presence than I had any right to. His choice to be with me made all the difference, and if there was anything I could do to ease his transition into the next world, I would. Midnight deserved justice, and if it was within my power to help him achieve it, nothing short of the very ends of the earth would stop me.

  Marybeth took a heaping spoonful of ice cream, dispatched it quickly, and then she said, “I can’t put my finger on it, Christy, but there’s something different about you.”

  “I don’t know what it could be,” I said. “I haven’t done anything new since the last time you saw me.”

  She studied me. “Is it the hair? No, that’s still the same sad style you had in college. The clothes? I don’t think so. Hey, that’s what’s new. I like the ‘C,’” she said as she touched my necklace lightly. That was one of the reasons that I’d been first attracted to it, and Cora had admitted that it had drawn her in as well from the first second that she’d laid eyes on it. “It’s nice. When did you get that?”

  “I guess you could say that it was part of my inheritance. Cora’s will let me choose two things to have for myself, and this was one of my picks.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “What else did you get?”

  I wasn’t eager to show her the faded wooden box I’d chosen, even if I never planned to tell her the reason for its selection.

  “I chose a wooden piece,” I said.

  “Where is it? Is it inside, or are you having it delivered? I hope it’s a new coffee table. I hate ours.”

  “It’s nothing that big,” I said.

  “Is it another necklace?”

  “No, it’s not jewelry,” I said.

  “Then what did you get?”

  There was no way I wanted to pull out my sad little box. “It’s nothing, really.”

  “Then why did you pick it? Come on, Christy, now I’m just getting more and more intrigued, and you know how relentless I can be once I get my teeth into something.”

  “Trust me, I know that better than anyone else.”

  She smiled at me brightly, clearly not offended by my agreement in any way. “So, what did you choose?”

  I knew I wasn’t going to get away with hiding it from her, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wooden box I’d chosen based on Midnight’s reaction to it.

  Marybeth took it from me, turned it over a few times in her hand, opened it, closed it, and then she gave it back to me. “What made you choose that?”

  “My ghost cat asked me to,” I felt like saying for a moment, but I knew that I couldn’t utter those words. I’d given Lincoln a simple, though false, explanation, so I decided I might as well stick with it. “It has sentimental value to me,” I said.

  “The only thing I’m sentimental about is money,” Marybeth said, though I knew for a fact that she was lying. She still had every birthday card she’d ever received tucked safely away in a box in the attic, and other boxes were there as well, each labeled, ‘Marybeth’s Memories.’ I’d stored one of my boxes along with hers, which she’d quickly marked, ‘Christy’s Junk’.

  Sometimes treasure, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

  “Well, it’s not worth anything in that respect,” I said as I took it back. As I reached for it, I mu
st have knocked it out of her hands by accident. It slipped through both sets of our fingers and landed hard on the tiled floor. There was a sharp wooden crack as it hit the tough surface below.

  “I’m so sorry,” Marybeth said as she reached for it.

  “It was my fault,” I said as I beat her to it. Without even looking at it, I shoved it back into my jacket pocket.

  Marybeth was about to pursue her relentless questioning—I could see it in her gaze—but something stopped her. It would have taken a nuclear meltdown to divert her attention away from me, but thankfully it was nothing that drastic.

  Happy Times Pizza pulled up, and I knew that food would distract my friend more than anything I could say or do.

  We were just finishing our meal when a blue and white police cruiser pulled up in front of our house. Sheriff Adam Kent, a heavyset older gentleman who fancied himself a ladies man, was the law in Bluemont County, and he also happened to be Marybeth’s uncle.

  As he got out of the squad car, he hitched up his belt, a constant tugging motion that had worn part of the beige leather of his belt to brown.

  “Ladies,” he said as he tipped an imaginary cap in our direction.

  “Would you like a slice of pizza, Uncle Adam?” Marybeth asked. “There’s plenty left.” I’d had trouble eating more than one piece, though Marybeth had done her part.

  He looked into the box, and then asked, “Are you sure you’re both finished?”

  “We’re done,” I said. The sheriff had been the one to deliver the bad news to me about what had happened at the shop on my rare day off three days earlier during a raging thunderstorm. Cora had complained about being lonely whenever I wasn’t there, and on a whim, I had offered her Midnight for company. How I longed for that decision to make over again.

  Sheriff Kent nodded, retrieved a napkin, and then devoured the remains of the pizza in the box with startling enthusiasm. “Excuse me; I haven’t had time to eat today.”

  “I’m just sorry there’s not more,” Marybeth said.

  “I could surely use a soda to wash it down,” he said.

  “I’ll get it,” I said as I started to get up.

  “I’d rather Marybeth do it,” he said.

  “Why, is there a certain way you like your drink that I don’t know about?”

  Marybeth said, “He wants to talk to you alone, Christy. I don’t mind.”

  “Is that true?” I asked.

  “It is for a fact. This little girl here knows me too well.”

  “You’re not all that hard to read,” Marybeth said as she retrieved the empty box and the paper plates we’d eaten on. “Just call me when you’re finished chatting.”

  After she was gone, Sheriff Kent said, “You’re lucky to have her as a friend. She’s a fine young lady.”

  “I’d like to think that we both are,” I said, not meaning to let my voice sound snappish. There was a certain breed of Southern gentleman who didn’t believe that women should lift heavy things or think deep thoughts. Their mere presence made the hackles on the back of my neck stand up. I didn’t know the sheriff well enough yet to say whether he was that kind of fellow, but it was beginning to look like a possibility.

  “I’m sure you are. I came by to update you about what we’ve uncovered about the homicide.”

  “That should be plural, shouldn’t it?”

  He looked at me steadily to see if I was serious, and when I didn’t back down, he nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You’re right. My apologies. I’m sorry to say that we aren’t having much luck tracking the killer down. Do you happen to know if Cora kept an inventory of her goods on hand? If something was stolen from her shop, we can try to catch the killer when he tries to fence whatever he took.”

  “Sorry, but there was nothing ever formally written down about what we carried. Cora somehow kept it all in her head.”

  The sheriff’s chin sank a little with the news. “That’s too bad.”

  “It’s not completely hopeless, Sheriff. I might be able to help.”

  He looked startled by the suggestion. “How could you do that? You haven’t worked there all that long, have you?”

  “Several months, actually. As a matter of fact, I’m managing the place now,” I said, “and I’ve always paid attention. I know just about everything we have that has any real value.”

  He touched his chin as he said, “That’s an interesting way to put it, Christy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  The sheriff looked at me for a full second before he spoke again. “All in all, you came out of this in pretty good shape, didn’t you?”

  “Except for losing my cat, you mean? Trust me, I cared more about him than anyone or anything else on the planet, whether you think that’s strange or not. Midnight was more than just my cat. You might not understand it, but he was my best friend, too.” I suddenly realized that I was crying, but only after I tasted the saltiness of my tears as they hit my mouth.

  Marybeth exploded out onto the porch. “Uncle Adam, what did you say to her?” she asked as she wrapped me up in her arms.

  “I didn’t say anything,” he said, clearly befuddled by this turn of events.

  “He thinks I had something to do with what happened at the shop,” I said through my tears.

  “He doesn’t,” Marybeth said fiercely as she let me go. “He couldn’t.” She looked at him harshly for a moment, and then she asked him directly, “Do you?”

  “Marybeth, I can’t eliminate a suspect just because she happens to be a friend of yours,” he said. “There are questions, no matter how uncomfortable they might be, that have to be asked.”

  “Get off my porch,” she commanded.

  “Don’t push it, child. I spanked your bottom when you needed it as a youngster, and don’t think I won’t do it now.”

  “That’s funny. I remember taking a chunk out of your finger the last time you tried to spank me,” she said. “Care to see if I can bite all the way through this time?”

  The sheriff backed off the porch, clearly surprised by his niece’s reaction. “This doesn’t concern you, Marybeth.”

  “When you come here accusing my best friend of having something to do with murder it does.”

  The sheriff laughed harshly. “You might think that the two of you are close, but she just told me that cat of hers was her best friend.”

  “Of course he was,” Marybeth said. “You know I’ve never been a big cat fan, but Shadow and Midnight are different.”

  “What, like people?” He clearly thought we’d both lost our minds.

  “In a very real way, they are better than we are,” I said.

  “I give up,” the sheriff said in frustration. “We’ll finish this later.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m done talking to you,” I said.

  “You might think so, but then again, you’d be wrong. Draw up an inventory of anything that’s missing and send it over to me ASAP.”

  He reached to shake my hand, and I didn’t want to take it at first, but manners in the South are bred from birth, and it was a hard habit to break. As I took his hand, he held onto mine and pointed to my locket with his free hand. “Is that something that should go on the list? It looks valuable.”

  “It was a gift from Cora,” Marybeth said.

  “I’m sure it was,” he said, not even attempting to hide his disbelief.

  “Ask Lincoln Hayes,” I said. “It was in her will.”

  “I’ll do that,” the sheriff said as he let go of my hand.

  After he’d driven away, Marybeth said, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why he’s acting that way.”

  “I didn’t help matters. I overreacted,” I admitted. “He just wants to find the person responsible for all of this.”

  “Doesn’t he realize that you do, too? You’ve got more at stake here tha
n just a job. This is personal.”

  “You bet it is,” I said, suddenly spent from the confrontation with Sheriff Kent. He’d been well within his rights to question me, and I shouldn’t have fallen apart like I had, but there was a great deal more anger and rage inside me than I’d realized. Something told me that if there was going to be justice for Midnight, I was going to have to take matters into my hands.

  I had an edge on the sheriff, though.

  I had a cat who could walk through walls and see behind closed doors.

  If only I could figure out a way to get him to tell me what he knew.

  Then again, maybe that was exactly what he was trying to do.

  Chapter 4

  “Get off me,” I said groggily in protest as I came out of a deep sleep to find a cat nestled on my chest. I thought I’d broken Midnight and Shadow of their desire to sleep on top of me a long time ago.

  “I’m serious,” I said as I tried to brush the offender away. I’d been having the nicest dream, filled with memories of two living, though sometimes cantankerous, cats. It had felt so real, so natural, that I never wanted to wake up.

  Until a set of claws dug into me.

  I half-expected to find Midnight there, but it was Shadow, and he was clearly upset about something. I tried rubbing his head between his ears—a spot that was guaranteed to settle him down most days—but not even that was doing any good at the moment.

  “What is it? Is something wrong?” I asked plaintively, wishing for the thousandth time that he could actually answer me.

  “Would you like something to eat?” I asked him. I was wide awake now, and I stared over at the alarm clock beside me bed.

  It was 4:20, and the night outside was as dark as Midnight’s coat.

  “Come on,” I said as I reached for my robe, still holding onto Shadow. So far he’d shown remarkable aplomb dealing with his lost colleague, but I knew that it could easily just be a matter of time before he showed his loss more overtly. Having Midnight’s ghost return was disturbing to me on a great many levels. How on earth could Shadow handle it without having at least a little bit of a meltdown himself? If sleeping on my chest helped him to get a little peace, I was just going to have to start wearing three layers of sweatshirts to bed.