by Hearn, Shari
“Fortune’s in on the catnapping?”
I looked over and saw Spoolie perched not too far from Lula Mae.
“No, no. I think she picked the smell off the injured Lady, who was roughed up by the perp.”
Lula Mae’s one eye widened. “Meaning whoever raided the SLS still and hurt one of their own transferred the smell to her, who transferred it to Fortune.”
I nodded. “And I smelled the scents of different felines, but I couldn’t tell which ones.”
Spoolie stood, alarmed. “Oh, my God.” Her legs flailed underneath her and she slipped off the branch and tumbled to the ground. “I’m okay,” she called out.
Lula Mae shook her head and rolled her eyes as Spoolie climbed back up the tree and joined us. “You need to practice your tree-sitting skills, Spoolie. You’re getting rusty.”
“I am not. The moonlight was in my eyes, and there was a slippery part of the branch is all.” Spoolie was distracted by a movement next to her on the limb. She batted at it.
“That’s your tail, Spoolie.”
“I knew that,” Spoolie said, pulling her paw to her side.
Lula Mae drew her focus back to me. “You need to get this information to Fortune, so it can be passed on to Ida Belle and Gertie.”
With our language barrier that would be tough. I’d have to get creative.
“Maybe Dill brought pieces of the SLS still back home with him. Maybe if I found a little piece of it I could take it back to her. Lead her here.”
“We could send someone in to scout around as soon as Dill leaves,” Spoolie said, trying real hard not to bat at her switching tail.
I shook my head. “We can’t wait till he leaves. I need that information now.” I looked Lula Mae straight in her eye. “Request permission to go to snoop around Dill’s house.”
“Permission denied. It’s too dangerous with him still there. We’ve been observing him packing up his boat. It shouldn’t be long before he leaves.”
My ears twitched. “With all due respect, you one-eyed old calico, Buffy’s life is on the line. And I don’t need your permission.”
Before she had time to scratch my eyes out, I turned and loped in the direction of Dill’s house, darkened except for one light in a corner room.
“Merlin!”
Lula Mae chased after me. I had to hand it to the old cat; she could run.
“I have to try to help Buffy,” I said as Lula Mae pulled up alongside me.
“You don’t even know what a still looks like, you damn fool tomcat.”
She was right. I’d jumped the gun, like I always did. My sprint slowed and I finally came to a stop.
Lula Mae stopped alongside me.
“I’m the only one who can do this, Lula Mae. I know Fortune. I know how to get her attention.”
Her tail switched around her, slapping me in the process. “Copper tubing. Copper kettles. Plus he might have some containers lying around to put his moonshine in.”
“Thank you.”
She turned to run back to her perch in the tree. “Oh, and Merlin. I’m not going to forget the one-eyed old calico remark.”
I nodded as she loped away. Keeping my body low to the ground, I crept slowly toward Dill’s house. His porch yielded no clues, so I crept around the side of his house and spotted a shed, the door to it warped so badly that it created a small opening just perfect for me to squeeze through.
Pay dirt.
I saw no remnants of a still, but there were shelves of plastic bottles with labels marked, Gigglesoup. Could these be the bottles Dill would pour his moonshine in to sell? I sniffed at one of the bottles. It was new, no liquor had been inside. I also spotted a shelving unit of small, cellophane bags with green ribbons tying them shut. They were filled with dried catnip, their labels reading, Sinful Madness, the same brand of dried catnip that Fortune brought home from Walter’s. I turned to inspect a darkened corner of the shed, and what I saw raised the fur along my spine.
Cat carrying cases. Cardboard. About twenty in all, stacked haphazardly on top of one another. Evidence of Dill’s involvement in the catnappings. I needed to let Fortune know, but how could I convince her of Dill’s involvement if she couldn’t understand me?
I looked back at the Gigglesoup bottles. I needed to take one, as well as a package of the catnip. Hopefully Fortune would make the connection between the catnip and the raid on the SLS still. If she investigated Dill, she might also find the cats he took.
If they were still alive.
I knocked one of the bottles off the shelf and batted it through the opening in the door like a soccer ball. Once I squeezed myself out the door I propelled the bottle around the side of Dill’s house, past his porch and down his driveway. Lula Mae met me at the curb.
“I found a bunch of these.”
“Gigglesoup,” she said, reading the label. “He must be gearing up to sell his own shine.”
“And there were bags of dried catnip, the kind he sold to Walter. If we could take the bottle and the bag of catnip to Fortune, she would surely make the connection.”
“Any sign of the missing cats?” she asked, worry filling her eye.
“No, but there was a stack of cardboard cat carriers.”
She blinked. “Holy hairballs. He’s planning on getting more of us.”
I turned to go back for the bag of catnip when Lula Mae stopped me. “Be careful, Merlin. There’s movement inside his house. He may be getting ready to leave.”
I nodded and ran back to his shed, squeezed through the door opening and made my way to the shelf filled with the bags of catnip. It should have been a simple grab and go. And it would have had I not noticed a scent coming from the direction of the cat carrying cases. For a brief second I smelled her. Buffy. And then I noticed it. A clump of dark-brown cat fur, with a golden stripe running across it, was dangling from a corner of one of the cardboard carrying cases. Buffy had golden stripes.
I walked closer to the case and sniffed. It was Buffy all right. She must have been doing her own investigation and rubbed up against it. I noticed another shock of fur draped over a case higher up in the haphazard stack, so I lifted myself up to get a better look and sniffed.
Not smart.
The entire mound of cardboard cases tumbled down on top of me.
“Who’s in there?” a voice called out from outside the shed, a voice that could only belong to Dill.
I crashed through the cases and ran to the shelving of catnip, grabbed one of the bags with my teeth, and ran to the opening in the door, where I could see his moon shadow falling upon the ground just a few feet away.
“I’ve got a gun, so if you’re smart, you’ll be hugging the ground when I come in,” he said as he unlocked the door.
He sounded like he meant business, so I dove for a hiding spot behind an inflated rubber raft he had hanging against a wall of the shed. My heart thudded in my chest as he flipped on the light and shut the door behind him. He crept in slowly, the wood floor creaking with every step. But then the creaking stopped, and with it, my breathing.
“What do we have here?”
Suffering Siamese! My tail was sticking out from behind the raft. I tried tucking it in, but it was too late. He knocked the raft aside and laughed as I dove past his leg and ran for the opening between the door and the frame. Dill must have closed it tighter, because the opening was half what it was when I came inside. I dropped the catnip bag and stuck my head outside.
“Merlin!”
I saw the glow of Lula Mae’s eye in the dark, watching me from Dill’s porch.
Dill’s big hands grabbed me from under my ribcage and yanked my head out of the opening.
“You cats make it too easy!” he said, holding me at arm’s length from his body.
Fight, Merlin, Fight!
I grabbed onto his arms, driving my claws into his skin. He let loose a stream of swear words as he rushed me over to one of the carrying boxes and shoved me inside. My teeth clamped down on hi
s hand as he pressed the safety button on my collar, releasing it from my neck. I tasted his blood mixing with my spit. He screamed once more, and, using his other hand, pressed at my neck. I had no choice but to open my mouth and release his hand. Gulping for air, I leapt upward. But my efforts were too little too late. Dill slammed the lid shut.
“Damn cat, you drew blood. I oughta feed you to the gators.”
He lifted the case and carried me outside. Through the airholes in the sides I saw Lula Mae and Spoolie hiding behind a stack of wood.
“Lula Mae!” I screamed. “Tell Fortune!”
She blinked her eye at me.
“Quit your yapping, cat,” Dill grumbled. “I’m taking you to join your friends.”
He tossed my carrying case onto his boat and started the motor. The realization hit me like a ton of cat sand. My short time in this world was coming to an end.
CHAPTER SIX
Fortune
The last dream of my fitful seven-hour sleep was about Carter. In it he had joined forces with Ahmad, the Middle East arms dealer who had put a contract out on me. He stood next to me, jabbing a Desert Eagle pistol into my temple. Despite that, he was damned hot, dressed in baggy shorts and a ripped T-shirt, exposing a hummingbird tattoo above his left pec. In the dream I asked, “Wouldn’t you rather kiss me instead?” At which point the gun turned into a bottle of warm oil that he slathered on my now-bare shoulders as we watched the sun peeking through a palm tree on Kauai. He then lowered his lips to mine when Gertie suddenly appeared next to us in a Hello Kitty bikini, banging on the sand for me to wake up.
I opened an eye and glanced at the clock. 8:07. I could hear Gertie banging on the front door all the way up to my room. She couldn’t have waited until after my Hawaiian make-out session with Carter to wake me up?
My phone buzzed. I reached over to the nightstand and picked it up, resisting the urge to throw it against the wall. Her text read, Waiting outside. Urgent.
Trudging down the stairs I stopped at the tenth step from the top. It now occurred to me that Merlin hadn’t awakened in bed with me. Usually one of two things happened in the morning. Merlin would be all lovey, pawing at my face and demanding that I pet him as soon as I woke up, or he would be lying in wait on stair number ten trying to kill me as I raced downstairs. But not this morning. Maybe Merlin got luckier than I did last night and was spending the morning with that cute little tiger cat I’d seen him palling around with.
Gertie banged on the door again.
“All right, I’m coming!”
Gertie bounded in the second I unlocked the door, the circles under her eyes indicating a night of tossing and turning.
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Of course you woke me. I was having a dream about Carter and we were on the beach and he was rubbing my shoulders with warm oil and there you were right next to us making a racket on the sand.”
Gertie placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m touched you’d include me in your dream with Carter, Fortune, but just FYI, if I’m having a dream about a hot man and warm oil, you’re not invited.”
“FYI, you weren’t either.” Yeah, I said it with an edge.
“You are the grumpiest thing without your coffee.” She held up a thermos and walked in the kitchen. “Luckily I brought your medication.”
I plodded after her. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait till nine?”
She took two mugs down from the cupboard and poured coffee in them both. “Did you forget last night?” she asked as she took a carton of half & half from the fridge and added some to each cup.
“Forget last night? Not possible. I just thought we could all benefit from a good night’s sleep before regrouping.” She handed me a mug and I took a sip. Why did Gertie’s coffee always taste better than mine? “Anyone hear from Vivvy?”
Gertie nodded. “Thankfully it was only a sprained ankle. She was a little dehydrated, so they put some fluids down her at the hospital and she’s on her way home.”
“Good. Another cup of coffee and a shower and I’ll be ready to go find the guy who did it.”
“We won’t be the only ones looking. Vivvy’s sister, Betty, called Carter.”
This wasn’t good news. Carter was a stickler for rules. “Will he arrest her for working a still?”
Gertie took a swallow of coffee and shook her head. “Vivvy said she’d tell him it was a camping trip, and she sprained her ankle putting up the tent. She’s hopping mad her sister stuck her nose in. Betty never liked Ida Belle, says she acts like she runs the town, which of course she does. But I’d hate to think what Sinful would have become without the SLS.”
The caffeine was finally kicking in. “Speaking of the Godmother, where is Ida Belle?”
It was as if a curtain of worry had suddenly been hung on Gertie’s face. Was she about to cry? She put her mug on the counter and dabbed at her eyes.
“Gertie…”
“Oh, Fortune, I’ve never seen her like this before.”
“Have you talked to her this morning?”
Gertie nodded, using the back of her hand to wipe a line of tears falling down her cheek. “I went to her place at seven to pick her up to go to Francine’s. She didn’t want to go, said it was time she tried out her new life.”
“As what?”
“As a regular old lady. Oh, Fortune,” Gertie said, breaking down in tears, “she’s going to the senior center for breakfast bingo.”
I set my mug on the counter and wrapped my arms around Gertie as she bawled into my shoulder. Breakfast bingo didn’t really sound that bad to me, but it meant something horrible to Gertie. Once she was all cried out she pulled away from me, wet a paper towel at the faucet and wiped her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I got snot on your top.” She wiped at my shirt with the wet paper towel, and then began tearing up again. “Now I smeared it.”
She tossed the paper towel in the trash, tears streaming down her face again.
“Gertie, it’s okay.” I patted her arm. “This breakfast bingo… it’s a bad sign?”
“The worst. I mean, I love bingo as much as the next gal, and always have fun at the SLS bingo nights, but this breakfast bingo is where old people go to eat fake bacon and die. It’s hosted by Mindy Swenson, Sinful’s official buzz kill. If you’re old in Sinful, you’re either in the SLS, the God’s Wives, the Crazy Old Coots, a bowling league, or the Lord Please Take Me Now sad sacks at the senior center breakfasts.”
“Crazy Old Coots?” That sounded like every other person I’d met in Sinful.
She nodded. “It’s coed. I’m a card-carrying member.” She retrieved her coffee from the counter and took another sip. “We need to stop her, Fortune, before she totally slips away from us.”
I slugged back the last gulp from my mug. “I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll go.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Fifteen minutes later I was showered, dressed and heading out the door with Gertie. Two cats were waiting for us in my front yard, one with an eye missing, and one with half a tail. It felt weird, like… Godfather weird.
“Hey, Wuwa Mae. Hey, Spoowie,” Gertie cooed to them in her annoying cat baby talk. Most cats would have run off, but not these two. They just stood there and stared at us.
“You know these cats?”
“Of course. Everyone knows them. Scrappiest cats around. Lula Mae there belongs to Midge and lost her eye in a fight with a Chihuahua. Spoolie belongs to Babs and is a little bit of a space cadet. Thought her tail was a toy and bit right through it.”
“What do they want?”
Gertie looked at me. “How would I know? I’m not a cat. I’m not even a cat person. Though both those cats love to hang out around my house. Ida Belle’s too. Seems whenever we look out our windows one of those cats is there.”
Some trash lay on the grass near the cats, a bottle and a small bag of something. As I bent down to pick up the items, both cats stepped back
a few feet.
“It’s that catnip sold at Walter’s,” I said, holding it out for Gertie to see. “And an empty plastic bottle.” It was small and shaped like the sample SLS cough syrup bottles, and included a label with the graphic of a laughing face and a word in big, bright-yellow font. Gigglesoup.
“Gigglesoup?” Gertie took the bottle from my hand and scowled. “That’s an old World War Two term for alcohol.” She looked inside the bottle, then sniffed at the opening. “It’s new. Nothing was ever inside.”
“Where do you think it came from?”
Gertie shook her head. “Maybe the cats dug it out of someone’s trash while digging around for catnip. These two cats are always digging things out of people’s trash. You wouldn’t believe the things Ida Belle and I have found in our yards that some cat brought over.” She turned the bottle over in her hand, inspecting the bottom. “But it looks like the same bottle we use for our cough syrup. And a month ago a shipment of our bottles was stolen.”
“Can’t be a coincidence. Stolen cough medicine bottles a month ago, your equipment vandalized yesterday.”
“Someone’s trying to muscle in on our business,” Gertie said. “If this doesn’t get Ida Belle out of going to the senior center, I don’t know what will.”
We headed for Gertie’s ancient Cadillac at the end of the walkway. I started to toss the catnip bag into the trash when one of the cats let out a mournful meow.
“Maybe we should hold onto that,” Gertie said, plucking the catnip bag out of my hand and tossing it into her purse along with the bottle marked Gigglesoup. “I know it’s strange, but sometimes the stuff those cats dump in our yards end up figuring in some of our investigations.”
I shot a last glance at the cats after shutting the door of Gertie’s Cadillac. Strange, I could swear I saw the one-eyed one nod to the short-tail one.
* * * * *
As we waited for Ida Belle to answer her front door, Gertie sniffed one of Ida Belle’s pink roses. She drew back, her face scrunched up. “Stinky wasn’t lying. He really did water her roses.” Gertie banged on the door once again. “It’s Gertie and Fortune, Ida Belle. Open up.”