“What about you? Do you have an alibi? Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”
The cat reached one paw through the gated door and swatted air.
I’m innocent, the cat meowed. I have an alibi, I swear!
I let out a small laugh, feeling better as I imagined what the cat could be saying.
Look at my sweet little gray face! Do I look like a criminal to you?
“If it wasn’t you, that doesn’t mean you weren’t the brains behind the operation. Maybe it was all the neighborhood cats, working as a group. Wasn’t Mr. Michaels notorious for yelling at you cats? He never grew anything in his garden, but he didn’t appreciate anyone else digging in there.”
The cat meowed again.
“You’re right. He wasn’t the most enjoyable person on the block.”
Another meow.
“No, I wouldn’t say he was a bad person. Just cranky and ornery, and that’s no crime. In fact, some people might say the same things about me because I keep to myself.”
The cat didn’t meow but seemed to be listening.
“I’ll stop hiding when summer comes, maybe, or I might move again. I don’t really fit in here. I feel like a puzzle piece from another puzzle.”
The cat reached a gray paw through the door and waved it, as if to tell me to keep going.
“You know, I shouldn’t speak ill of the deceased, but Mr. Michaels should have moved, or tried something. He didn’t fit in, either. I think he had a girlfriend once. Or maybe it was a sister.”
I went quiet, imagining a younger version of the man, opening the door of his house for a lady visitor. In my earliest childhood memories, he’d have been around the same age I currently was. Thinking about him being my age made me empathize with him more than I ever had.
The sudden clarity of the tragedy hit me like a solid blow to the backs of the knees, emotionally buckling me.
I had to stop the car, put on the parking brake, and focus on breathing.
Mr. Michaels wasn’t just part of the Misty Falls scenery, that scowling curmudgeon every small town has, always complaining about lineups at the post office or the need for more traffic lights. He was a person, with bills and taxes and plans for the future. He suffered from gout but was grateful his health wasn’t worse. He had a television but no cable. He loved old Western novels, re-reading the same ones until they were falling apart. Maybe he had upcoming plans for Christmas, or maybe he didn’t. Now he was gone.
The postcard view in front of me, of snow-peaked mountains framing in colorful streets, blurred as my eyes filled with tears.
Mr. Michaels wouldn’t be getting any more second chances.
A car honked. The traffic light in front of me was green. I thought I’d pulled over to the side of the road, but I was in the middle of an intersection. I raised my hand in an apology wave and stepped on the gas.
The veterinary clinic was up ahead. I’d driven there on autopilot, the list-making, organized part of my brain still working despite my lack of awareness. I pulled into an empty parking space and turned off the engine.
I grabbed some tissues from the glove box to clean up my face. Sirens blared nearby. Were they coming to nab me for leaving the crime scene? I instinctively hunched over, hiding as the police car drove past. I kept my head down, my face near the front of the pet carrier.
The cat seized this opportunity to reach through the lattices and smack me on the nose for wrongful incarceration.
Chapter 5
The Calico Veterinary Clinic was warm inside and held a pungent symphony of aromas. The heaviest of the odors was food-like, either canned beef stew from a staff member’s lunch being microwaved, or top-quality pet food. The scent made me the opposite of hungry. Hitting me second was a mix of antiseptic and cleaning fluids, which was neither good nor bad. Finally, there was a floral air freshener, mixed in with a person’s perfume or cologne.
The powerful smells were very effective in bringing this moment into focus and pushing the snowman to the back of my mind.
Across the counter, an apple-cheeked woman with unnaturally red hair greeted me. She had an inch of blond roots showing underneath the primary shade, and her natural hair was blond, straight, and thick. Her name tag, affixed to a teal smock she wore over a black turtleneck, read Natasha.
Natasha cooed at the cat, “Hello, good looking. What a lovely Russian Blue you are.” She flicked her eyes to me. “What can we do for you?”
“The appointment should be under Bochenek or Day. I’m here to get this cat fixed.”
Natasha chirped back, “Fixed? Why? Is your cat broken?”
“Not that I know of.”
She laughed. “Of course I knew what you meant. Just a little veterinary humor to lighten the mood for Miss Kitty.”
“I’m sure Miss Kitty appreciates the playful banter before you drug her and rip out her reproductive organs.”
Natasha held her finger to her lips. “Shh. Not in front of the patient.”
Someone behind me chuckled in a low, masculine voice. The man’s laugh seemed to be teasing me. I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of rattling me, though, so I didn’t turn around.
Natasha leaned down to look into the cage, frowning.
“This is not going to work,” she said.
I let out a heavy sigh. “Now what?”
“We can’t do the spaying procedure you requested. This cat is a male.”
“No, she can’t be.”
The guy behind me chuckled again. I started to turn my head but stopped myself.
Natasha opened the pet carrier door. The cat sprang out and into her arms. While the cat swatted her crayon-red hair, she pointed the animal’s back end at me. “See those?” she asked.
I was too surprised to do more than murmur, “Yes.”
Natasha explained, “Female cats don’t have these parts back here. Are you familiar at all with basic male anatomy?”
The guy behind me snorted.
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m familiar with basic male anatomy, and I see your point. Girl or boy, the cat still needs to be fixed.”
She gave me a grin that bordered on pure evil. “Why do you keep saying fixed? Is your cat broken?”
The guy behind me could no longer control his laughter.
“Listen, I’ve had a rough morning,” I said to Natasha. “How much do I pay you to deliver the deluxe spa treatment, or whatever you call it, to this cat?”
“It’s actually cheaper for males,” she said. “But I do have some concerns. Are you absolutely sure this is your cat?”
“No,” I admitted. “Let’s check the tag on the collar.”
She hugged the gray cat and stared at me as though I was the worst human on the planet. I reached out and checked the tag on the collar. I found my father’s address and phone number, but there was no name for the cat. My father, in his usual eccentric way, had listed its name as THE CAT.
I felt a sudden sense of solidarity with the cat. My father had given both me and my sister play-on-word names, his never-ending personal prank on us both. The cat deserved better. I stared into his green eyes, and the name popped into my head as though sent there by the cat himself. It was the perfect name.
“Jeffrey,” I said. “Put his name down as Jeffrey. Jeffrey Blue.”
The newly-christened Jeffrey Blue stared back at me with wide green eyes, as if to say, please don’t make me have this deluxe spa treatment, which may or may not involve me getting fixed, which I’m guessing is not a good thing.
I assured Natasha that I was running an errand for my father’s girlfriend, with a cat I had only met once before. She warmed up and told me it wasn’t that uncommon for people to mistake male cats for females before things started to pop out. Natasha told me to take a seat while she brought him back to the veterinarian for a preliminary exam.
She backed away with him in her arms, and Jeffrey meowed as if to say, Where am I being taken? Hey, there are cats in cages back here! Help! G
et me outta here!
Natasha disappeared into the back with Jeffrey, and I understood, for the first time, how those mothers must feel when their kids go off to their first day of school. I’d only been Jeffrey’s guardian for less than an hour, but I was feeling some very parental concerns.
Poor Jeffrey. I heard him meow pitifully in the other room, and I got the urge to barge into the back and rescue him. Jeffrey and I had been through so much together, from the discovery of the body to our little heart-to-heart in the car ride over, and now he was on a cold examination table.
A big hand gently patted my shoulder. “There, there,” the man who’d been chuckling said. “You’re having a rough morning, aren’t you?”
At the touch of human kindness, I nearly fell apart but didn’t.
“I’ll be okay,” I said with a stoic lift of my chin. “It’s Jeffrey I’m worried about. Between you and me, he’s been working too many hours prowling the neighborhood. Plus up until today, he thought he was a girl kitty.”
The man walked over to the waiting room’s water cooler.
“Sounds rough,” he said. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Better make it a double,” I said as I took a seat.
“A double.” He grinned, as though my asking for a double water was the most delightful thing he’d heard all week. He was tall, mid-thirties like me, and had plenty of dark hair, wavy on top and trimmed around his face in a thick yet tidy beard. If I’d known the man was so ruggedly handsome, I might have turned around at the first chuckle.
He filled two waxed paper cups to the top and sat on the end chair, leaving one empty chair between us. He smelled as good as he looked, which, I thought, was really nice for his wife, whoever she was. A man that attractive had to have been snapped up by someone. His left hand probably bore a wedding band. I leaned forward as I accepted my water, trying to get a peek, but he seemed to be aware of my investigation and tucked the hand into a coat pocket. His jacket was the shabby army-surplus type favored by teens carefully cultivating an appearance of not caring about their appearance. Paired with the green jacket were equally tattered jeans, frayed at the knees. He appeared to be a drifter, one of the temporary workers employed at the local furniture factory. My interest in his ring finger faded.
“I’m Logan,” he said, passing me the cup of water in lieu of a handshake.
“Of course you are.” I swigged down half the water, which was warmer than I expected and slid down easily.
“Interesting,” he said. “You don’t know your cat’s name, but you know mine.”
“You look like a Logan,” I explained. “All woodsy and stuff, like logs.”
His blue eyes twinkled with amusement as he waited for me to introduce myself. But the idea of having to repeat and explain my name seemed like more needless aggravation, and Logan was probably just passing through town, so I pretended not to notice him waiting for my name. I pulled out my phone to check messages.
I tipped back the rest of my water just as I saw my self-portrait with the snowman was online and getting comments from my friends. I nearly spat out the water but managed to choke it down.
My Portland friends were saying complimentary things:
What a dapper new boyfriend you have!
Looks like life in Misty Falls is treating you well.
Great to see your beautiful smile!
I hovered my thumb over the button to delete the photo but paused. Yes, it was macabre that I had taken a photo of myself with the snow-covered body, but it was also a great alibi, in case I came under suspicion. I wouldn’t have posted the photo online if I were the killer. Or would I?
A new message popped up from my real estate agent, Samantha Sweet, whose use of exclamation points brought her blond perkiness to her online communications.
Samantha: Thank you so much for meeting with me this morning! Very insightful! I will have some exciting new opportunities for you to look at within two weeks! In the meantime, I have found you the perfect tenant for your rental!
I wrote back: Send me the tenant’s contact details and I’ll set up an interview.
While I waited for her response, I did some math in my head. I’d been planning to move over to the rental side for a few months while I renovated my side of the duplex, but if I got a tenant in immediately, the cash flow would more than compensate me for having to live with construction mess. This would mean going back to my original plan. Since buying the place, I’d changed my mind a few times, mainly because looking for a tenant had been disheartening. Between the troll-like fellow who showed up in a graphic T-shirt that boasted of his lovemaking prowess, and the pale girl who inquired how many days a week she could have her death metal band over to practice, I worried I’d never find someone I could share a wall with.
Samantha replied: I’ve already interviewed the tenant and done a credit check! He’s a very busy man, and he’s looking at a few places, so we need to move fast! Should I show him the place tonight? He’s a lawyer!
A lawyer? That did warrant some exclamation points. He sounded like someone who wouldn’t grow his own smoking herbs or be late with the rent check.
I returned her message: Go ahead and show him the place.
She texted back within seconds: I’m so happy! When I meet him tonight for the in-person showing, I’ll try to close the deal on the spot if that’s okay with you! He’s ready to move in right away. You won’t regret this!
My body tensed at her assurance I wouldn’t regret this. It was all part of her sales technique, just the post-deal, feel-good stuff anyone with good training does, but it rubbed me the wrong way. A deal that offers itself up too easily should be thoroughly scrutinized. It’s only human nature, a survival instinct, to be wary of anything that appears too good to be true. That was why, in my former career, I would often put an unreasonable clause or two into the first draft of an agreement. It gave the other party something to strike out, so they felt they were in control.
Samantha’s offer to get me a tenant seemed too easy, and thus suspicious. But the money would help with cash flow for the upgrades, and, in light of the events of the day, it would be a relief to have one thing in my life taken care of by a professional.
I wrote back: Go ahead. If you think he’s the one, make the deal.
I put my phone away and glanced over at Logan, who still appealed to my eyes, despite his scruffiness. He’d become engrossed by something on his phone, so he didn’t see me scoping him out. His beat-up jacket had holes in the elbows, but it was spotlessly clean. He had the clothing of a working-class man, yet his body language didn’t fit. He didn’t cross his legs in a feminine manner the way I had, yet he didn’t have the space-taking, wide-kneed body language I associated with the transient men employed by the local furniture factory. I wondered if he was on the run or undercover.
He saw something on his phone that excited him. “Yes!” He fist-pumped the air. “I got it.”
A minute passed, and in the absence of an explanation, my curiosity grew until finally I asked, “Good news? You got a job?”
He gave me a broad grin, which took his good looks in a boyish direction, transforming him from handsome to downright adorable. “Even better,” he said. “I’ve rented a great place. It’s half a duplex in West Creek neighborhood. Is that a good area?”
Keeping my expression politely happy, I said, “Congratulations. Yes, it’s a very nice neighborhood.”
His chest puffed and he sat up straighter, evidently proud. “It’s a steal, too. My cousin’s a real estate agent, and she’s got a total eccentric as her client.”
My body grew numb, and my head got a disembodied, floating feeling. “Eccentric? What do you mean?” Part of me was sickly fascinated, wanting to know exactly what people in town were saying about me. “Never mind,” I added. “That’s between you and her, not my business.”
Logan stretched out his arms along the backs of the empty chairs on either side of him, taking up more space by the minute, a
s though securing a deal on a rental had been the warm air he needed to inflate to full size. Now his knees widened until one was dangerously close to touching mine.
I reached for a nearby pamphlet and pretended to be fascinated by the life cycle of fleas.
“Maybe you know my new landlady,” he said. “If you’re from around here.”
Without looking up from the flea drawing, I said, “I’ve been away for about ten years, so I’m not up on local news and gossip. Sorry.”
“I think everyone in this town must know about this woman. She’s practically famous. She was involved in some technology start-up companies, and she was headed toward becoming very wealthy, like seven figures, but she cracked under the pressure.”
I swallowed hard. He wasn’t far from the truth.
“And this woman is your new landlady?” I folded the flea brochure slowly. As the numbness in my body receded, I felt waves of shock, anger, defensiveness, and finally acceptance. It wasn’t just Samantha Sweet who judged me by my reputation. People in town had talked about me for years, and even if a potential tenant hadn’t heard about me through the grapevine, a quick internet search would reveal plenty. Short of changing my name, I would always need to deal with the repercussions of being Stormy Day. I could fight and make everything worse, or I could kill with kindness.
I set the brochure aside and turned to meet Logan’s blue eyes. “She might be a wonderful landlady if you give her a chance.”
He quirked one dark eyebrow and lifted his phone to show me the screen. “And she might be crazy. My cousin sent me the list of rules for the house. Look. The tenant is responsible for fifty-five percent of the electricity bill. Why not half? Why fifty-five percent?”
I pretended to look, even though I was familiar with the document I’d created. “Maybe the tenant’s square footage is fifty-five percent of the house, and she’s trying to be fair.”
He laughed. “She sounds like one of those uptight Type A ladies. The kind who needs one good night with a real man.”
My eyebrows raised so quickly, I nearly gave myself whiplash. “And you think you’re the man for the job?”
Stormy Day Mysteries 5-Book Cozy Murder Mystery Series Bundle Page 3