Probable Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series Book 5)

by Leighann Dobbs

  3

  I closed up shop early, eager to get home and on to my date with Striker. I’d almost forgotten about Adelaide, which could be dangerous. Ghosts were apt to pop up at any moment, and I knew from experience that it was best to be prepared for them. It wouldn’t do to jump out of my seat in surprise at a ghost in front of Striker. He had no idea I could talk to ghosts, and I wanted to keep it that way. Most of the time you got a strange reaction if you admitted you talked to dead people, and Striker was such a go-by-the-book kind of guy, he’d probably run off in horror and never talk to me again.

  The closer I got to home, the more my thoughts turned to dinner. My cooking skills consisted of Ritz crackers topped with condiments. Striker liked something more filling, so whenever we had dinner at my place it was an unspoken rule that he would bring it. I wondered what it would be this time. Chinese? Pizza? Maybe something from one of the new trendy restaurants that had opened up in the notch.

  My stomach grumbled with the thought of all these various dishes as I pulled my Jeep into the driveway of the old Victorian I’d inherited from Gram. Gram had taken good care of the house, but the old farmer’s porch alongside the driveway would need a little work this year. Some of the spindles looked as if they were rotting at the bottom. Otherwise the three-story house was in pretty good condition. The white paint was not flaking or peeling, and the black shutters remained straight, with all their slats in alignment. All in all, it was a pretty good house and had a lot of wonderful memories.

  I opened the driver’s door, and Pandora shot across the console, digging her razor-sharp claws painfully into my thighs as she used them as a springboard to leap out of the car.

  “Ouch!” I rubbed my legs and scowled at the cat, who trotted over to the edge of the woods as if she were heading out for a leisurely night of mouse hunting.

  “Not tonight, Pandora.” Though I knew the cat could take care of herself, I worried about her being out in the woods at night. There were predators here in the notch, and I didn’t want her to get hurt.

  “Spethhhh,” she hissed, plunking her bottom down at the edge of the path that led to Elspeth’s house and staring at me like a petulant child.

  My eyes flicked to the woods behind her. It was still light out and would be for another hour or so, and I had a couple of hours before Striker would be over. Maybe visiting Elspeth wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Pandora had been cooped up inside all day, and I could tell she wanted to stretch her legs. A little journey through the woods would probably do her good, and Elspeth had a gaggle of cats that Pandora liked to hang around with. Not to mention that if I let Pandora get a little exercise and some “cat time,” she’d be less needy and more apt to leave Striker and I to our own devices later on.

  “Okay, but just a short visit.” I dropped my tote bag on the porch and jogged toward the path. Pandora ran off ahead of me, slowing up a bit once she got deeper in the woods so that I could catch up. We walked side by side, as was our usual custom. It always amused me that she stuck right beside me like a dog. Almost as if she were protecting me from something in the woods.

  There wasn’t really anything to be protected from in there, though. The woods were friendly, almost magical. The path to Elspeth’s house was well worn, and I could practically travel it with my eyes closed. Even though she lived a few streets over, I’d taken this shortcut to her house my whole life. First with Gram and one of her many cats by my side, and now with Pandora.

  In a way I’d inherited Elspeth along with everything else. Gram and Elspeth had been friends since they were little girls. I had fond childhood memories of Elspeth along with the memories of my grandmother. One of Gram’s final wishes was that I check in on the elderly lady to make sure that she was getting along. From what I could tell, Elspeth was healthy and spry, fully capable of taking care of things on her own, but I checked in anyway to honor Gram’s wish. Plus, I liked her company.

  I picked up the pace, hoping to generate some warmth. A slight chill had developed in the air, as it does on spring nights in the mountains, but the day had been warm, and I hadn’t thought to put on my usual navy-blue hoodie. The sun was still up, slanting mystical, diffused light through the trees. The oaks, birches, and pines cast enchanting shadows, which added to the forest’s magical feel. A childlike, spellbound feeling bloomed in the middle of my chest—a feeling that often came to me on the way over to Elspeth’s house.

  The woods were peaceful but at the same time alive with the twittering of chickadees, sparrows, and nuthatches. The canopy of overhead leaves fluttered in the slight breeze, causing dots of sun to dance on the path. The squirrels and chipmunks rustled softly in the brush on the sides of the path. When I was a little girl I’d fantasized that Elspeth was a magical witch. The fantasy was probably brought on by my journeys through the woods with Gram and intensified by the fact that Elspeth’s green-and-pink turn-of-the-century Victorian with fancy gingerbread molding at the end of the path looked as if it came straight from a Grimm’s fairytale book.

  The scent of baking cookies hit me seconds before that fairytale house came into view. It grew stronger and even more delicious as I approached the house, with its rose-covered wrap-around porch. The thorny rose vines that twined around the spindles and railings were just starting to bud. In another week, they would be in full bloom, creating a blanket of fragrant pink flowers that obliterated the railing itself.

  Elspeth must have taken the white porch rockers that we often occupied on hot summer nights out of storage. Her orange-and-white cat, Tigger, sat in one of them, his tail twitching and keen eyes watching us approach almost as if he’d been waiting for us.

  Pandora trotted onto the porch, and the two cats sniffed out a greeting as I knocked on the door.

  “Come in!” Elspeth yelled from the kitchen.

  I open the door wide enough for Pandora to slip in, but she just shot me a disdainful look and then trotted off with Tigger toward the barn, where the rest of the cats hung out. Nothing unusual there—Pandora often preferred feline company to human.

  I walked through the living room, which was decorated in dark mahogany antiques, and down the hall to Elspeth’s cheery, old-fashioned kitchen. She was just sliding a cookie sheet out of the oven and turned to greet me. Her cheeks were flushed, wisps of snow-white hair escaped the braid that wound around the top of her head, and her blue eyes sparkled.

  “You’re just in time to taste-test these spritz cookies. My grandmother used to make them.” She slid each golden cookie onto a cooling rack with a spatula.

  “Great. I’m starving.” I sat at the table while she grabbed a plate from the cabinet and then put several cookies on it.

  “Milk?” Her hand hesitated over the knob of the cabinet where she kept the glasses.

  “Please.”

  She poured milk into a delicate pink Depression-glass tumbler and placed it along with the cookies on the table in front of me. “I hope they taste okay. I’m getting older, you know, and my memory for ingredients isn’t the same.”

  I was already biting into the cookie, which was sugary, buttery, and delicious. I waved my hand. “Get out. You’re not getting any older. These are fabulous.”

  Elspeth beamed with appreciation. “Oh, that’s good. You know it does get harder to remember, especially without my recipe book.”

  Recipe book? What an odd coincidence that Elspeth would mention a recipe book … or was it?

  “You know, Gram mentioned a recipe book that she wanted to give to you. Betty’s recipes? Who is Betty?” I didn’t dare tell her I’d heard about the recipe book from Adelaide as well. It would likely scare the wits out of her if she thought I talked to ghosts.

  Elspeth busied herself with the cookies on the counter, her back to me. “Oh, yes. Betty was a friend of ours. She did have the best recipes.” She turned and looked at me intently. “And you have the recipe book?”

  “No, that’s the thing. I looked in Gram’s things, but I never found it
.” I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “I think she mentioned something about Adelaide Hamilton.”

  Elspeth’s gaze intensified. “Adelaide? Adelaide just died.”

  “I know. Were you friends with her?”

  “A long time ago. Not so much lately. Her family didn’t let her get out much.” Elspeth pursed her lips in disapproval.

  “Gram might have given her the recipe book. I wonder if she still has it and where she might keep it.”

  “If she did have it, I’d say she’d keep it from that vulturous family of hers. They don’t appreciate anything. And certainly not good recipes.” I thought I saw a dark flicker in Elspeth’s eyes, but then her face cracked into a smile, and she laughed. “Silly me. It’s just recipes. But if you did happen across that book—the one with Betty’s recipes—I would dearly love to have them.”

  “Sure. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  “Well, that’s enough about that.” She nodded at my empty plate. I’d already scarfed the last cookie and was happily chewing. “If you think those are good enough, I’ll pack them up to bring them over to Emma for the church bake sale.”

  “They’re delicious.” I brought the plate and glass to the sink.

  “Oh, don’t worry about those.” Elspeth took the dirty dishes out of my hands. “I’ll take care of them. You better rush home. Don’t you have a date with that nice young man tonight?”

  “Yes, I do. How did you know?”

  “Oh, just a lucky guess.” Elspeth ushered me out of the kitchen, walking me to the front door and leaning out as I walked down the porch steps. “If Adelaide still had that recipe book, I bet she had it stashed away somewhere special. Betty handwrote those recipes, and there’s not another one like it. Could be in the last place you might think to look … of course, that might just be another lucky guess.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” I jogged down the steps and over to the woods, looking for signs of Pandora. She was probably still in the barn, and I didn’t have time to wait for her. She could find her way home easily enough.

  As I started into the woods, I looked back at the house. Elspeth had gone back inside. Funny how she’d known I had a date with Striker. Of course, it was no secret that we saw each other frequently, but something niggled at me. Elspeth was uncannily perceptive and seemed to know a lot of things before you even mentioned them. Which made me wonder if Elspeth’s guesses were more than just lucky.

  4

  Pandora followed Tigger into the barn, as she had many times before. Even though the sun still had yet to set, the inside of the barn was dark like twilight, the only source of light filtering in from the thin crack between the sliding doors. Pairs of curious green, gold, and blue eyes blinked at her.

  “To what do we owe this honor?” Inkspot, a large black cat, peered over the side of the loft, his brilliant-green eyes sparked with inquisitive interest.

  “I’ve heard tell of an important book that I believe interests us.” Pandora sat in the middle of the barn. Cats slunk their way toward her from the dark shadows. Inkspot leaped down, landing softly on all fours in front of her.

  “You don’t say? What kind of book?” Sasha, a sleek Siamese, rubbed her silky white cheek on one of the stall doors.

  “A recipe book.”

  “Recipes?” Otis, the rare male calico, scoffed. “For kibble, I hope.”

  Otis’s words set off a titter of meows amongst the other cats. Pandora’s whiskers twitched in anger. There was no love lost between her and the fat calico. He thought himself superior, as he was a rarity since only three percent of calicos are male. The two of them had gotten along as if they were oil and water from the get-go. He was of the old ways, and she was of the new ways. Their constant clashing had been a source of exasperation for Pandora until recent events had forced Otis’s hand, and he had shown that deep down in his soul, he was not as bad as he pretended to be on the outside.

  She’d thought those events had forged an understanding between them … a truce of sorts, but his words cut deep. She turned to look at him, her anger dissipating as she noticed a teasing smile cross his lips before he turned away. Apparently old habits die hard.

  Pandora ignored him. “The ghost of Adelaide Hamilton has enlisted my human’s aid.”

  That got their attention. They were an elite species of cats sworn to help humans since ancient times—a task made more difficult by the fact that humans simply didn’t have the felines’ superior methods of communication. When a ghost contacted humans for help with a physical item, it was something to take notice of.

  “Her help? For what?” Kelley, a Maine Coon, flicked her fluffy tail as she strode into the circle that was now forming around Pandora.

  “To find this recipe book.”

  “How could a recipe book be of importance?” Otis peered down at them from his perch on top of a stack of hay bales.

  “She says it should be given to Elspeth for safekeeping.” Pandora smiled at the other cat’s hissing intake of breath. She had saved this morsel of information so she could impart it when it would have the most impact. The cats knew that Elspeth was one of the revered ones and anything that named her specifically was of great importance.

  Hope, the young chimera cat whose face was divided into two colors equally straight down her nose—one side black and one orange—padded over to sit beside Pandora. “We should take heed. I hear there is someone evil in Adelaide’s circle.”

  “Someone who would have this recipe book in the wrong hands, then?” Sasha asked.

  “Most likely,” Hope said.

  “Then we must figure out how to help the humans find this book,” Inkspot’s deep baritone rumbled with authority.

  “And protect your human from this evil one,” Hope added.

  “Yes, but is your human willing to help? She has been…reluctant in the past,” Otis asked Pandora.

  The hair on Pandora’s back prickled with indignation. “I’m training her well. She’ll help.”

  But would she? Pandora wasn’t sure. Willa had no idea of the value of the book, and from what she’d said in the bookstore, it had sounded as if she didn’t attach much importance to the task. Hopefully Adelaide’s ghost would keep her on track.

  “Well then, Pandora, what are you waiting for?” Inkspot asked. “Go home and set your human in motion.”

  Pandora trotted out of the barn and sniffed once toward the house. As she suspected, Willa was no longer there. It wasn’t unusual for Willa to head home without her, so she hurried down the path, ignoring the tasty chipmunks that scurried through the underbrush trying to collect that one last morsel before sunset. Willa would have a more delectable treat in her cat bowl at home.

  As she drew near the house, her heightened senses picked up the scent of Chinese food and Striker. Her mouth watered. Maybe she would get a little shrimp and lobster sauce in her bowl tonight. But her happy thoughts about dinner faded as she felt the sharp prickle of agitation in the air. Striker was upset about something.

  She burst out of the woods and immediately saw what was causing the agitation. Striker was being accosted by a ghost, and he didn’t look happy about it. Her whiskers twitched in amusement as she padded over to them.

  It was funny that both Striker and Willa saw ghosts. But not the same ghosts. They were each tuned in to different planes, therefore the ghosts that Striker could see were invisible to Willa and the ghosts that Willa could see were invisible to Striker. To make matters even more entertaining, neither one of them wanted to admit to the other that they had this ability. Pandora could see ghosts on all planes, and so she found both Willa and Striker’s behavior—when they were trying not to let on that a ghost was present in each other’s company—quite comical.

  The ghost was a man dressed in 1950s attire. It was evident that Striker was trying to get rid of the apparition, though he was making a valiant effort of hiding this fact by pretending he was busy hauling the take-out food from the back seat of his sheriff-departmen
t-issue ten-year-old Crown Victoria.

  “Not now.” Striker made shooing motions at the ghost.

  The ghost huffed and swirled, leaving droplets of ectoplasmic mist on the grass. “I don’t work on your schedule, boy.”

  “Fine. What do you want?” Striker rearranged the white take-out containers inside the bag.

  “A fine attitude you have when someone comes asking for your help. Did your mother teach you those manners?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m kind of pressed for time. I have a date, and if she sees me talking to thin air…”

  “I’ll get to the point, then. I’m Louis Hamilton.” The ghost paused for effect. An effect that was apparently lost on Striker, but not on Pandora. Hamilton? Must be related to Adelaide and possibly to the important task Adelaide had bestowed on Willa. Maybe it would be easier than Pandora had first thought to recover the recipe book. With Striker working it from one side and Willa from the other, it should be a piece of cake.

  “Nice to meet you, Louis. How can I help?” Striker’s tone was reluctant, his eyes darting to the farmer’s porch to make sure Willa wouldn’t catch him.

  “You don’t know who I am?” Louis was taken aback.

  “Should I?”

  “I’m the husband of Adelaide Hamilton, who just died on Tuesday.”

  “My condolences…or is it congratulations?”

  “It would be congratulations, if I were reunited with her. But there’s something keeping us apart. I’ve been waiting for decades for her to pass over so we could see each other again.” Pandora’s heart clenched at Louis’s heartsick tone.

  “I don’t know how to help with that.” Striker piled duck sauce on top of the take-out boxes.