You've Got To Be Kitten: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Cozy Mystery

by Corrine Winters

“All set?” he asked. “Where’s the cats?”

  “Already in the car.”

  He followed her pointing finger and gaped. “How did they get in there? I didn’t even unlock it yet.”

  “They’re very clever.”

  “But…that doesn’t make any sense…” John shook his head and laughed. “Oh well. I’ll just chalk it up to magic. Let’s go.”

  He drove them to the southernmost tip of Fiddler’s Cove. The city was shaped like a jellyfish spread out onto a sandy beach, with the beach being Long Island Sound. The middle downtown area was in the largest, bubble-shaped mass of the jellyfish, while longer ‘arms’ extended along the coast.

  In the thinnest sections, Fiddler Cove’s city limits were less than a mile wide. The southern arm of Fiddler Cove contained trailer parks, government housing projects, and meth labs lurking beneath the surface like trapdoor spiders.

  “I haven’t been here in years,” Ruby said, peering out the window.

  “Um, you do have the doors locked, right?” Rufus asked.

  “No one’s going to carjack the Chief of Police, Rufus.”

  “Are you sure?” Rufus huddled himself down in the back seat, like a shivering shadow. “I’ll just be down here if you need me.”

  John ignored the cat’s banter, which was probably for the best. “I’m surprised you ever got down to the southern narrows.”

  “Uncle Rufus had some…colorful friends. They didn’t all have the luxury of having a nice house in town. Or a lighthouse, for that matter, to grow up in.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to judge.” John gestured at the barren dirt yards and poorly-maintained housing. “The governor is pressuring me to crack down on the drug business in this neighborhood. Thing is, if I do that, I’m going to need a lot more manpower. Not to mention that I’d do more harm than good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  John sighed. “This is totally off the record. If people heard the Chief of Police saying this…”

  “John, I won’t tell anyone. I promise. It will remain between you and me, okay?”

  She reached out and rested her hand on top of his shoulder. John glanced over at her, brow furrowed in thought.

  “Alright, fair enough. We did sort of have an informal agreement to keep each other’s secrets, didn’t we?”

  “That’s right. So, tell me.”

  “The thing is, the fishing industry is drying up here in the Sound. Whether it’s climate change or some sort of natural environmental phenomenon doesn’t really matter. The point is, tourism and not fishing is the town’s main source of income now, and that leaves these people without a vocation.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That selling drugs lets them keep the lights on, lets them keep food on the table. As long as it doesn’t get too out of hand, I turn a blind eye to it. Most of the customer base comes from the surrounding towns and not Fiddler’s Cove anyway.”

  “You’re a complicated man, Chief John Miller.”

  He flashed a quick smile. “I can’t say I agree, but in a good or a bad way?”

  “Hmm. Jury’s still out.”

  He chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  John pulled into the gravel drive of a small bungalow. The concrete architecture and slab porch sported a profusion of gang graffiti.

  “Inviting place,” Ruby said, smirking at a stylized skull and three eights.

  “That’s the Thuggers sign. The skull is obvious, the three eights are the police code for unlawful congregation.”

  “So, they’re flaunting it in your face.” Ruby opened her door. “Well, they have moxie, don’t they?”

  “What are you doing?” John gasped. “Busta Kapp might be in here! In fact, there’s a very good chance that he is, based on the intel I’ve gathered.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “And he wants to kill you.”

  “He’s taken two shots, and two times, he’s failed.”

  “Aren’t witches always going on about the power of three?”

  “You watch too much television. Look, John, I’m going with you, unless you handcuff me and throw me in the back of the car.”

  John’s cheeks blushed red, and he held up his hands as if in self-defense. “Alright, alright. You can take care of yourself. Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “As long as you reciprocate. Only one of us has been knocked out and taken captive during this case, and it wasn’t me.”

  John cocked an eyebrow, and she laughed.

  “I’m just kidding. Are we going to do this or not?”

  “We will. Stay behind cover until I get eyes on the inside.”

  “Wait,” Ruby said, grabbing his arm. She tried not to be distracted by how good his warmth felt to her touch. “You say you need eyes in there? I can help with that.”

  “How?”

  “Well, one of the tricks of a Water Witch is to sense marine life. Someone inside has an aquarium, and I can use the fish inside as a conduit for a scrying spell.”

  “You’ll be able to see inside the entire house?”

  “Well, my field of vision will be limited by where the aquarium is placed, but it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

  John grunted. “Alright, do it.”

  Ruby glanced over at him. “Cover me.”

  “Roger that.” John crouched behind the cruiser and braced his pistol across the hood, eyes focused on the graffiti-encrusted front door.

  “I was kidding. I just always wanted to say that…never mind.”

  Ruby chanted the harsh arcane syllables which would unravel the formal weave of creation just enough to make adjustments. Like clairvoyance, the ability to see places one is not physically present…

  “Okay,” Ruby said, her eyes wide but effectively blind to the outside of the home. “I can see one, no, two men passed out on the sofa. Neither of them is Busta Kapp. There’s a bong on the table, some pizza boxes I hope don’t have mold on them…yuck, how can people live like this?”

  “But you don’t see Kapp?”

  “No…wait! I see him, alright. He’s in the kitchen…”

  Ruby laughed, placing a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. “He’s making a fluffernutter sandwich.”

  “A what now?”

  “Peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on bread. It’s better than it sounds.”

  John chuckled. “Alright. We have a warrant, but I still need to identify myself. Does the kitchen have a door opening out to the back yard?”

  “Yes,” Ruby replied, her eyes still gazing at the inside of the building.

  “Then that’s my way in. Think you can see to it the two men in the living room don’t get any funny ideas?”

  “I can handle a couple of thugs, John.”

  “I’ll snap their necks,” Rumpus said.

  “Rumpus, you’re supposed to be watching Rufus.”

  “He’s right here—Rufus?”

  “Oh no, where’s Rufus gone?” Ruby glanced about fearfully.

  She jumped when a loud crack emanated from inside the house, punctuated by breaking glass.

  “That,” John said grimly “was a gunshot.”

  Oh no, poor Rufus…

  Ruby’s legs carried her toward the front door even as John shouted for her to stop.

  Thirty

  The graffiti-covered front door stood only ten feet away, and yet it seemed to take an eternity for Ruby to cross the barren yard. Legs pumping, heart pounding, the words of a dozen spells blazing through her mind, Ruby moved with a single-minded purpose. To cross the yard in time to save her junior familiar.

  Ruby felt the moisture trapped in the timbers of the wooden door. She commanded it to vacate all at once, evaporating into the air. The door shriveled and distorted, drawing back from the frame until its own weight was sufficient to rip it from the hinges.

  The two men sleeping on the sofa now stood, guns in their hands. Judging by their body posture, they’d been facing toward the ki
tchen until the door fell inward. She didn’t see Rufus anywhere. No smoke curled from the barrels of their guns. They had not fired—yet.

  Ruby found her mind locked up in panic. She wasn’t like this, charging into battle. Blair Barrows might have been able to be so unflappable, but not Ruby. The spells she’d had in mind all slipped from her thoughts like quicksilver.

  She had no time, no time to manipulate the water in the aquarium, no time to focus and recall her spells. Ruby faced a moment of truth, and it proved ugly. She drew on her hydrokinesis and seized control of the blood flowing through the gunmen’s veins.

  Just for a second, she ceased the flow through the big arteries in the men’s necks. They folded violently to the floor, falling in heaps where they stood. The guns clattered to the floor as Ruby burst into the kitchen—

  To find Busta Kapp sitting on the kitchen floor, holding his bleeding foot and weeping like a baby.

  “Call 911! I think I can hear Biggie and Tupac arguing!”

  “What did you do with my cat?” Ruby snapped. She grabbed a cardboard cylinder full of salt and popped open the end.

  “What cat?” He moaned. “My foot is bleeding bad. I think I’m dying, please help me.”

  She poured the salt over his bleeding foot. Busta Kapp’s eyes went wide. “Aaaah! Are you crazy?”

  “Where’s my cat?”

  “Ruby!” Rumpus ran up to her side. “Rufus is fine. He was, um, answering nature’s call in the patch of dirt by the porch.”

  “Then who was Kapp shooting at?”

  “Nobody,” Kapp said, rocking back and forth and whimpering. “I dropped my piece and it went off, alright? Shot my own foot. That’s the least gangsta thing ever.”

  “You know what’s even less gangsta?” John asked as he came in through the kitchen door. “Getting caught. You’re under arrest, Whitley. For the murder of Roger Abernathy, violating bail, and the attempted murder of one Ruby Rivers.”

  “You—you got to give me medical attention if you arrest me, right?”

  John rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Good, good! I surrender! Arrest me, just don’t let me die, please.”

  “The hard as nails, streetwise Busta Kapp, ladies and gentlemen,” Rumpus said dramatically.

  “Why’d you do it? Why’d you kill Roger Abernathy?” Ruby asked.

  Kapp’s face twisted up into a sneer. “I didn’t ice him, I done told you that already. I mean, I was gonna, but I didn’t get the chance.”

  Rumpus’ tail twitched. “This guy is not exactly a criminal mastermind, is he?”

  “Then who did kill Roger?” John shook his head as he prepared to call in an ambulance for Kapp.

  “Troy Malone maybe? Though why the Thuggers killed him in prison, I could only guess.”

  “They were afraid he was going to squeal and bring down the entire smuggling ring, maybe? It could be unrelated to Roger.”

  “I know, but…” Ruby shook her head. “There’s something we’re missing. I could see it being a random robbery, but Roger still had his wallet, watch, and phone on him.”

  “We may never know.” John sighed. “Sometimes the case just goes unsolved.”

  Whitley got his trip to the hospital, along with a Sheriff’s Deputy for company. The two men Ruby had stunned recovered enough to be taken to jail instead of a medical center.

  Ruby knew what she’d done was strictly forbidden. Hemokinesis was an extension of her hydrokinetic ability. Manipulating the blood flow of a living creature was considered a heinous act. If the Cabal ever found out…

  Ruby put the thought out of her mind. She accompanied John back to the police station. While Rumpus dozed on the pinball table, Rufus curled up in a sunbeam, leaving Ruby and John free to chat.

  “So, Roger was just shot dead in a random act of violence,” Ruby said “but Whitley and Malone were both so convinced the other had done him in, their own paranoia was their undoing.”

  “Right. If they’d laid low, this would likely have blown over. I hate to say it, but this case has gone cold…possibly forever.”

  Knuckles rapped on the door to John’s office. John glanced that way and called out. “Come in.”

  The door swung open and a flustered-looking officer stood in the doorway, pushing his upper torso through. “Chief? There’s a woman—”

  “Get out of my way, flatfoot.” A woman roughly their age pushed her way past the officer into the office. Her skintight, leopard-print dress, gaudy diamond-studded sunglasses, and housing-project sized hairdo marked her as from the Jersey Shore as much as her accent. She snatched her glasses off with a practiced snap of her hand and glared at John with beady, dark eyes.

  “You, you’re in charge of this hick town, right?”

  “I’m John Miller, the Chief of Police. Can I help you, Miss…?”

  “Ms.” She snapped. “Ms. Glorimar Sanchez.”

  John’s eyes lit up with comprehension. “You’re Roger Abernathy’s ex-wife.”

  “So, now you remember me. Have you found my jewelry yet?”

  John sighed. “Ms. Sanchez, as I told you over the phone, repeatedly, there was no sign of a robbery at Roger’s office.”

  “You didn’t check the wall safe? The one behind the oil painting in his office?”

  “One of my detectives gained access to the safe and said it looked empty.”

  “Then he’s a liar, and he probably stole it!”

  * * *

  John’s face fell into a dark scowl. “The men and women under my command are not thieves.”

  “Then my jewelry is still in that safe. It belonged to my grandmother, and I want it back!”

  “As I said, you’ll have to wait for the courts to settle his estate.”

  Glorimar saw that her bluster wasn't getting her anywhere, so she switched tactics. “Come on, Officer,” she said, bending over his desk and displaying an expanse of cleavage. “You can’t let me into his office for just a teensy little minute to check the safe? If my jewelry isn’t in there, then I’ll stop bothering you.”

  John struggled to keep his gaze locked on Glorimar’s face. “Ma’am…”

  Ruby pursed her lips, looking intently at Glorimar. “Ms. Sanchez, when was the last time you talked to your ex-husband about the jewelry?”

  “A month ago, when I got a court order commanding him to hand it over.”

  Ruby glanced at John. “I think we should help her out, John.”

  “You do, now do you?” John cocked an eyebrow.

  “Yes.” Ruby held his gaze for a long moment, and John nodded. “Alright. Let’s roll.”

  They drove to the boardwalk, then took the narrow stairs to Roger’s office. John cut the police tape and unlocked the door for their ingress. As soon as they were through the door, Glorimar rushed past the reception area into Roger’s office.

  She didn’t even glance at the chalk outline where his body had lain, nor the blood-stained chair. Glorimar ripped the painting from the wall, cracking the wooden frame when it hit the floor. She tapped in a sequence into the safe, then grimaced when it failed to work.

  “Ms. Sanchez, it looks like you don’t, in fact, have the combination.”

  “It can only be one of so many,” she muttered. She tried another combination and the lights flashed green. “Ah ha! My sister’s birthday. I knew he slept with her.”

  Glorimar yanked the safe door open and peered inside. Her jaw fell open, a gasp of disbelief escaping her parted lips.

  “It has to be here,” she muttered. “It has to be!”

  Ruby wasn’t paying attention to Glorimar’s histrionics. She instead stared hard at the outline of Roger’s body, and the pattern of blood spatter.

  “Calm down, Ms. Sanchez.”

  “I don’t get it; it has to be here.”

  “John,” Ruby said, garnering his attention. “Did Roger have a safety deposit box?”

  “Not here in town, no.”

  “And did he leave Fiddler’s Cove in the
last month?”

  “Not to my knowledge, no.”

  Ruby turned to Glorimar. “Ms. Sanchez, how much would you estimate the jewelry your husband is hoarding might be worth?”

  “Around about a million even. Which is why he won’t cough it up. I wonder if he already hocked it?”

  Ruby ignored her query. “One more question. By any chance, did your husband own a yacht…off the books, maybe?”

  Glorimar’s eyes went wide. “Oh, my GAWD! Yes, he has one under his cousin’s name down at the Marina. The SS LexExpress.”

  “What are you thinking, Ruby?” John asked, his face creased with a worried frown.

  “Two things. One, I think I know where we can find Ms. Sanchez’s jewelry—”

  “You’re a saint, honey!”

  “And two, I think I know who really killed Roger Abernathy.”

  Thirty-One

  John parked his cruiser in the marina lot and stared out past the vessels bobbing in the water. “I think I see it. That is one gaudy boat.”

  They walked down the dock, coming to a point where the shorter Ruby could see, as well. Her eyes went wide as if looking at a horrid train wreck, one whose twisted carnage demanded attention in direct proportion to its gruesome aspects.

  “What is that? I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the eyes.”

  “At least it’s, um, patriotic…I guess.”

  The yacht was a thirty-foot fishing mod, older, but still classy, or it would have been if not for its unique paint job. It looked to Ruby as if someone had stuffed a cannon full of shredded American flags and fired them at random toward the hull. Then someone had placed a life-sized decal of some over-muscled athlete in star-spangled speedos flexing with a goofy smile on his face.

  “It looks like something the 1980’s barfed up after overdosing on steroids and listening to I’m Proud to be an American on loop.”

  Ruby laughed and bumped his shoulder playfully with her own. “C’mon, Chief. Let’s find out if it’s as ugly on the inside as it is on the outside.”

  They stepped across the span separating the vessel from the dock. John led the way, his pistol drawn as they investigated the ship, but it turned out to be bereft of passengers or crew.