Gluten-Free Murder

by P. D. Workman

  Mary Lou chuckled and the two of them left together. Erin turned her attention to the next customer in line. It was shaping up to be a busy day.

  #

  At the end of the day, Erin went out her back door to the little two-stall employee parking pad. She usually parked in front of the store, but she supposed she should start parking in back instead, leaving the space in front open for customers. There wasn’t a lot of parking on Main and sometimes people had to walk a few blocks to get where they were going. And what was pleasant on a winter day would become unbearable in the summer. Though, at least, the sidewalk was shaded by the little roofs extending from the storefronts.

  But would she still be there when summer came around? With the position she was in, was it wise to be planning that far ahead?

  Surely nothing could come from Officer Piper’s suspicions. They were baseless. He would have to come up with some proof before they were in any position to arrest Erin, let alone find her guilty in a trial.

  It was bound to just fade away. She shouldn’t pay it any mind. Officer Piper and Melissa could think what they liked. Erin knew she hadn’t done anything wrong and anyone who knew her would know she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Except, no one in town knew her at all.

  She looked down at the empty saucer her little furry visitor had licked clean. She looked around, but couldn’t see any sign of the kitten. She stopped herself from calling out to it. She didn’t want a kitten. Especially not anywhere near the store and the baking. It was a health hazard. And someone might be allergic, reacting if they were even in the same room as the little ragamuffin. She didn’t want a cat at the bakery. Someone else could take care of the stray.

  She went back into the kitchen with the saucer, shutting the back door firmly behind her.

  Five minutes later, she was back in the parking lot, a little kitten kibble in the saucer. She had noticed it in Clementine’s pantry—in her pantry—after breakfast that morning. What would it hurt to feed the cat outside? Just to make sure that it had some source of healthy food?

  She just wouldn’t let it into the shop.

  “Kitty, kitty, kitty?” she called softly. What was the point in calling the cat? Cats never came when they were called and this one was a stray, maybe feral. It didn’t have any idea why she was making those funny noises. She shook the saucer, hoping the cat would be able to interpret the sound as food.

  She had just about given up when she saw a little orange and white face peer around the corner of the fence.

  “Kitty, kitty?” She shook the dish again.

  The cat slunk around the yard, close to the fence, not approaching her directly across open ground. It watched her, slowing its approach as it got closer. Erin stepped back, giving it a little more space.

  “Kitty, kitty? Come on little kitty. Aren’t you hungry?”

  It shied away at her voice, but when Erin didn’t do anything threatening, it approached the saucer. It sat down and looked at the food from a few feet away. The kitten looked at Erin and mewed softly.

  “It’s okay. I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. Have something to eat, little fella. You must be starving. You’re so skinny.”

  The cat watched her for a few more minutes, then covered the rest of the ground to the bowl and sniffed at the food. It started to eat.

  Erin wondered if the chunks of kibble would be too big for the little cat. It was really no more than a kitten. Probably barely weaned. Or maybe the mama cat was still around somewhere, but not feeding it as often, pushing it to go out into the world to fend for itself.

  But it seemed to be managing the adult cat food just fine.

  “Miss Price?”

  Erin looked up from the cat. Officer Piper was coming down the back lane.

  “I knocked on your front door, but I couldn’t get your attention. I thought something might be wrong…”

  As he came to the end of the short fence, Erin saw K9 at his side. Before she could anticipate it, K9 saw the kitten and lunged, letting out a volley of barks. The kitten ran straight up Erin’s pant leg, its little claws piercing and scratching through her clothes like needles. Piper reacted quickly and was able to catch K9’s collar to restrain him, but the cat was already on the move.

  “Ow, ow, ow!” Erin tried to catch the kitten to pull it off, but it went behind her back and, the harder she tried to reach it, the more it dug in its claws, ripping up the skin on her back and shoulders. “Oh, ow! Settle down, kitten. It’s okay, he won’t hurt you. He can’t get you. Ow!”

  Piper looked suspiciously like he was suppressing a smile. “Can I help you, Miss Price?”

  “Just get that dog out of here!” Erin snapped “Get him away! It’s not going to relax until the dog is gone.”

  “I could catch it and get it off…” He took a step forward to help.

  K9 growled and pulled to get closer to the tasty morsel.

  “He just wants to say ‘hi,’” Piper said. “He likes other animals.”

  “For dinner? Don’t come any closer. Take him out of here.”

  Piper stood there for a moment, looking for another solution. Then he shrugged. He walked away, hauling on K9’s collar, and was soon out of sight and earshot.

  “Okay, little guy,” Erin coaxed. “He’s gone now. Big mean doggie is gone. You can let go. Come on…”

  No matter how she twisted and squirmed, she couldn’t get her hands behind her back to capture the frightened kitten. It nimbly avoided every effort.

  “Big mean doggie?” Piper repeated.

  Erin turned to see him return, without the dog this time. He held up his hands.

  “No big mean doggie,” he assured her. “Now can I help you?”

  Erin suppressed the desire to snap at him and remind him that it was his fault she was in the situation in the first place. But he was trying to help. He was trying to make up for it. She turned her back to him and held still while he approached and unstuck the kitten one claw at a time. Once she felt herself free, Erin turned back to face him.

  Piper stood there, a slight dimple in one cheek, holding the terrified kitten to his chest, stroking it gently to calm it. The combination of the handsome officer in uniform and his gentleness with the helpless ball of fur just about melted Erin into a puddle right there.

  “Thank you.”

  “To serve and protect. That’s my job.”

  “Well, I doubt you spend all day rescuing kittens. Or maidens in distress.”

  “That wouldn’t be half bad.”

  Erin took a deep breath and let it out again in a sigh.

  “I didn’t know you had a cat,” Piper said.

  “Well, I don’t. Not really.”

  He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

  “Say hello to my ghost,” Erin explained. “I think it must have gotten into my bakery one night and knocked the coffee mug off the counter.”

  “It?” Piper repeated. “Ginger cats are usually male.” He drew the kitten away from his chest for a moment, peeled back the tail for a look, and nodded. “Male.”

  “He, then,” Erin amended. “I apologize for disparaging his manhood. He must have gotten into my shop.”

  “You know if you feed him, he’ll just keep coming back. You’ll never be rid of him.”

  “The poor thing is starving. I’ll feed him until he’s tamer and then… I don’t know. Find a home for him.”

  “We’ve got him now. No point in waiting until he’s been tamed. You want me to take him to the pound?”

  “Bald Eagle Falls has a pound?”

  “Well, it’s really just Doc Edmunds, the vet. If he has an empty kennel or two. He’ll keep it—him—for a few days, see if anyone wants him.”

  “And then what?”

  Piper raised both eyebrows and sighed. “Not much market for stray kittens in a town like Bald Eagle Falls. Everybody who wants one has one and the rest end up prey or motor vehicle statistics. Doc Edmunds’ way is kinder.”

&nbs
p; “No, I couldn’t do that,” Erin protested. She reached for the kitten. “Give him to me. I’ll find him a home.”

  He didn’t relinquish the kitten. “What are you going to do? If I give him to you and you take him back into your bakery, you have to put him down to get ready to go home. Then you can’t catch him again.”

  “I tempted him out with an egg yesterday… but he still wouldn’t let me touch him.”

  “Go get your stuff together. Lock up. Meet me at your car with a towel.”

  “A towel?”

  “You have one, don’t you? A dishtowel?”

  “Yes…”

  He headed out of the yard with the kitten.

  “You can just walk through the bakery, you don’t have to take the long way around.”

  “If I go inside, he’s going to try to get away again. Trust me. Right now I’m the only protection he can see. Inside, there’s lots of places to hide. He’ll go nuts trying to escape.”

  “Okay… I’ll see you in a minute.”

  Erin obeyed his instructions, gathering together what she needed and locking up. She met Piper beside her car with the dishtowel.

  “Now what am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Give it to me.”

  Erin handed him the towel. He put it over the kitten, still held at his chest. Then, as Erin watched, he began to wrap it around the kitten, until it was swaddled, little face peering out at them, all cozy and protected and unable to move.

  “Did you hypnotize him?” Erin asked, looking at the motionless cat. She expected it to be frantic all wound up like that, trapped. He should be frantic, squirming and trying to wriggle free. Erin didn’t have a lot of experience with cats, but she knew they could wriggle free of just about anything. “I’ve heard some people can hypnotize them.”

  “No special powers,” Piper assured her. He handed her the wrapped bundle. “Just put him on your seat for the drive home. It isn’t far, he’ll be okay. Don’t unwrap him until you’re in your house. In the room you want to release him in. You might want to put him in the bathroom with a litter box, until you’re sure he has the hang of it.”

  “You seem to know a lot about kittens.”

  “We always had cats around growing up. It was always a lot easier to take them to the vet wrapped in a towel than in a cage. Have you ever tried to put a cat in a cage?”

  “No.”

  His expression was deadpan. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Erin laughed. She sat down in her car and put the kitten on the other bucket seat. “Well, thank you for rescuing me, Officer Piper. And our little friend. That really was above and beyond.”

  His expression became sober. He leaned in to talk to her. “I still need to talk to you. There’s no point in trying to do it now, you’ll just be distracted by the little furball. Could I arrange a time for you to come in to the police department for a chat?”

  Erin didn’t answer right away. She looked at the kitten. “Am I really a suspect, then? In Angela’s murder?”

  “We have some more questions.”

  “You really think it was murder?”

  “Everyone who knew Mrs. Plaint agrees that she wouldn’t go anywhere without her autoinjector. She kept it secure and on her at all times. There is no way it was an accident. Someone took that autoinjector from her. And there was only one reason anyone would take it away.”

  His eyes were hard, intense. All hint of amusement, tenderness, and friendliness were gone. Officer Piper was back on the job and Erin was his prime suspect in a homicide.

  “When do you want me at the police station?” Erin’s own voice sounded small and far away to her.

  “This time tomorrow? After work? I know you’re up late, so I don’t want to impose on your evening. You’re probably to bed right after dinner.”

  “If I manage to stay up long enough for dinner.”

  “Tomorrow then? This time?”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then.”

  #

  If there was a good time to be saddled with a stray kitten, it was in the middle of a police investigation when Erin was badly in need of a distraction. Without the ginger kitten, she would have been left with her own thoughts all night, worrying about what was going to happen at her police interview the next day. As it was, she seemed to fly from one kitten exploit to another.

  Was it any wonder that ‘catastrophe’ started with ‘cat’?

  She decided to take Officer Piper’s recommendation and release the kitten in the bathroom. There, he decided to go straight up the plastic curtain. She was still wondering how he had managed to get his claws into the plastic when it became obvious that he couldn’t get them back out. Just over her head, the cat was stuck, struggling mightily to free himself. She was afraid he was going to fall and wrench the leg that was stuck in the plastic out of joint. But he wasn’t too keen to let her free him, biting and slashing when she tried to pull his tiny claws free.

  He fell from above her head into the bathtub with a thud and she was sure he had knocked himself out or broken something, but he was up again almost immediately, trying to get a purchase on the curved porcelain sides of the tub to get out. He jumped, he cried, he scrabbled frantically without success. But he avoided her hands, whirling around and around the tub like an Indy 500 racer. Erin tried to pincer him from both sides at the same time or to throw a towel over him to try Officer Piper’s trick, all without success.

  But the thrown towel did succeed on one count. It was draped over the edge of the tub within the kitten’s reach and he used it to climb out of the tub so that he was once more free. He squirmed back behind the commode and hid there, peering out at Erin, squished into such a tiny ball she could barely see him. Erin decided he was safe there and left him alone. She left the towel draped over the edge of the tub so that the kitten would be able to get in and out without mishap, and pulled the door shut behind her.

  Of course, she didn’t have any cat things prepared and that meant she would have to go back into the bathroom, risking letting him out if he didn’t stay put behind the commode. But it couldn’t be helped. It was the easiest place to clean up after him if he didn’t use the litter box.

  Since there was cat food in the pantry, Erin had to assume that Clementine had once had a cat and that she hadn’t gotten rid of all her supplies. Perhaps she had intended to get another cat, but had ended up being too sick to take care of one. So, Erin went hunting. She didn’t find any food dishes, so she just went with a couple of heavier bowls from the cupboard for food and water. Kitty litter sand was behind the door in the garage. There was a covered litter box in another corner of the garage. Erin decided to leave the cover off of it to make it easier for the kitten to get in and out of to encourage him to use it. She grabbed an old newspaper to put down on the floor around the kitty litter box to catch any sand that got kicked out. She considered covering the entire floor with paper to catch any accidents, but that was how you trained a dog, not a cat. A cat should instinctively go in the litter box.

  Erin inched the door open, ready for an escape attempt. But the kitten did not try to get out and Erin was able to get in with the litter box and put it down, kicking the door shut behind her. There was still no sign of the kitten. Bending down to look, she saw that he was still squished behind the porcelain, watching her with concerned eyes. Erin left again to get the food and water dishes. His ears did perk up when he smelled the cat kibble. He watched her intently. Erin filled the water bowl and put it down.

  “How about that, little guy?” Erin whispered. “Still hungry? Thirsty? You’re safe here. You can come out and eat.”

  But she knew he wouldn’t venture out. Not while she was there. It was going to take a while before he was used to her.

  “Okay. See you later.”

  She hesitated as she left. Shut off the light or leave it on? Would he be scared of the dark? Would the light keep him awake? He didn’t need the light on to see his food or the litter box, did he? Cats could
see in the dark. Eventually, she decided to turn it off.

  “Goodnight, kitty.”

  Chapter Seven

  IF SHE THOUGHT THAT the kitten would give her a peaceful night’s sleep, she had another think coming. She forewent her usual bed-time bath, deciding that might be traumatic to the kitten. She instead put on fuzzy pajamas, had a cup of tea, read a few pages in her book, and slid into bed. As soon as she closed her eyes, her thoughts went immediately to Officer Piper. And not in a good way.

  But before she could worry about how anxiety was going to keep her awake all night, she was faced with a new concern.

  At first she thought it was a baby crying or someone having a fight outside. But as she tried to sort out the wails, she realized that the caterwauling was, in fact, a cat. Her cat.

  And it was loud enough that she was sure the neighbors could probably hear it. How could such a little animal make such a horrible racket? Erin went to the bathroom door and banged on it.

  “Quiet down!”

  The noise stopped.

  Erin went back to her bed. Just as she was pulling up the covers, it started again. Erin listened for a moment, thinking maybe it was just one last hurrah, the kitten getting in the last word, and then he would stop.

  He did not.

  Erin went back to the bathroom. She opened the door and turned on the light, wondering if she would find that he was again hanging from the curtains or had gotten himself into some other fix. But he was standing in the middle of the bathroom. He immediately scooted backward and again hid behind the toilet.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Erin murmured to him. “Don’t you know it’s time to go to bed? Kittens need their sleep.”

  He stared up at her.

  Erin reconsidered turning the light off. Cats were nocturnal, so maybe leaving the light on would signal to him that it was time to go to sleep. Or maybe if he was frightened, the light would be soothing. He was just a weanling, she reminded herself. It was probably the first night he’d been away from his mother and littermates.