When the Cat's Away

by Molly Fitz

  “Stole it, did you?” Hamil asked, but the other officer shushed him.

  “If it’s not yours, then why is it in your possession?” she pressed. Already I liked her a lot better than her partner.

  “Do you mind if I reach into my right front pocket to get my phone?” Bless him, Charles always knew exactly how to act in these situations.

  “Go ahead,” the woman said. I imagined her nodding, even though I hadn’t the slightest idea what she even looked like.

  “I’m watching you, lover boy,” Hamil growled.

  His partner shushed him again, then everyone fell silent as they waited for Charles to bring up what he wanted to show them.

  “See,” Charles said a short bit later. “This app lets you borrow campers and camp equipment short-term. It’s a bit like Airbnb. If you click here, you’ll see the booking I made with the owner.”

  “That’s the name that comes up for the plates,” the lady cop said.

  “That doesn’t mean you’re in the clear, though. Hand over your ID.” Hamil was quick to take back control. It must have been awful having that blowhard as a partner.

  “I’m going to reach into my back pocket now,” Charles enunciated clearly.

  “Hamil, why don’t you run a scan while I take over here?” the woman officer suggested in a way that said compliance was non-optional.

  Nobody said anything for a moment, and then the back door to our RV swung open.

  I stayed where I was in that big bucket seat, mostly because I didn’t want to get caught eavesdropping.

  “Thanks, Officer Lenard,” Charles said, his deep voice filling the space.

  “You don’t look like the aggravated assault type,” she said kindly. “But just be-cause I don’t believe you committed this murder doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Understood. How can I help?”

  The squeaking of leather signaled that they had slid into the booth.

  “Walk me through your day,” Lenard instructed after taking a moment to get settled. “Take extra care to mention any contact you had with the deceased.”

  “Well, this morning I woke up early to get some work in before picking up the camper, picking up my girlfriend, and hitting the road.”

  “Fast-forward to your arrival, please.” Lenard would have made a good lawyer if she hadn’t chosen to pursue law enforcement instead. She and Charles had the exact same way of being assertive while also remaining kind and professional.

  “It was about a three-hour drive,” he explained. “We arrived a little before two. I went to check in with the camp manager before taking my girlfriend to a picnic area a short walk away.”

  “You checked in with the camp manager? Tell me more about that.”

  “There’s not much to tell. She came to the door when I knocked, but didn’t invite me in. When I told her who I was so she could confirm my appointment, she asked me to wait and went back inside. She emerged a couple minutes later with a big logbook in hand and marked off my name. She said to stop on by if I needed anything during my stay, and that was it.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual during your interaction with her?” Officer Le-nard pressed, her voice smooth and practiced. She’d likely questioned witnesses hundreds of times before. I imagined her as an older lady. Maybe a few years off from retirement, if she played her cards right.

  “Just that she seemed distracted,” Charles said. “But since I’d never met her be-fore, I couldn’t speak to whether or not that was normal behavior on her part.”

  “Understood, understood.” They sat in silence for a few beats before Lenard spoke again. “So just to confirm, it was about two o’clock when you went to check in?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your girlfriend discovered the body. What time was that?”

  “Well, we left a few minutes after I checked in and walked about fifteen minutes to the picnic area. All the tables there were filled so we walked another five. We sat and relaxed for close to half an hour and then walked back. As soon as we arrived back at the campground, my girlfriend went to speak with the manager. I’d say that puts us at about three thirty this afternoon.”

  “Which gives us an hour and a half window for the death,” Officer Lenard sup-plied. “What made your girlfriend so eager to check in, if you’d already done so?”

  Oh, no. That question would have totally made me freeze up. If Charles explained what we’d really been doing—making business deals with bears—he’d instantly move up the suspect list.

  “We thought we heard fireworks while we were out there,” he explained, then stopped and sighed. “As an animal lover, she was quite distressed to think that some-thing like that could be happening in a protected nature park.”

  Charles’s reply came out so smooth and convincing that even I believed it. Well, the best lies were based on truth, and this was as close as we could come to sharing the conversation I’d had with Gloria at Pringle’s behest.

  “Are you certain you...?” I didn’t hear the rest of the officer’s response because something else caught my focus.

  Pringle.

  Straight ahead on the roof of the camper parked in front of us. But before I could say or do anything, he dropped through the vent and disappeared from view.

  Oh, he’d be in big trouble once I caught up to him!

  Chapter Fourteen

  I opened the passenger side door just as quietly as I could and slipped outside while Charles and Officer Lenard continued to converse inside.

  I crept over to the RV where I’d seen Pringle sneaking about on the roof, all the while trying to figure out what I would say to explain myself to whoever was inside.

  But when I knocked, nobody answered—an unfortunate theme of the day.

  “Pringle!” I whisper-yelled. “Pringle! I know you’re in there!”

  “I think I have some Pringles back at mine if you’ve got a craving,” Sharon yelled from somewhere behind me.

  I jumped and did an about-face. “Oh, Sharon. Hi, again!” I cried, wiggling my fingers in her direction. “I was just searching for my cat.”

  She squinted at me in confusion. “I thought his name was Octo-Cat?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, it is. Pringle is his middle name. Well, one of them, anyway. His full name is Octavius Pringle Maxwell Ricardo Edmund Frederick Fulton Russo, Esq, P.I. See, that’s why I had to shorten it. He comes to all the names, though, and since I haven’t seen him for a while, I’m running through the list.” I let out a nervous laugh. She was going to see right through me on this one.

  But I got lucky.

  “Tubby Tabby is missing?” Sharon shrieked, fanning herself with one hand. “Well, why didn’t you come and get me straight away? Of course, I’ll help you look for him. Tell you what, you just come with me.”

  When I hesitated, she motioned me forward, saying “C’mon now. C’mon.”

  I shot one last look at the camper containing Pringle, then dawdled after her like a lost baby duckling.

  “Now, normally I wouldn’t offer up anything on my Chessy’s behalf, but I like you and I have a feeling he will, too.” She stopped outside her RV and waited for me to catch up. “Yes, that’s right. C’mon inside.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, I followed Sharon into her camper, which stood parked somewhere between the camp manager’s and the one that Charles and I had rented for the weekend.

  And if Junetta’s RV had been straight out of a 1980’s fever dream, Sharon’s was a futuristic space-scape. Everything inside was pristine and white and adorned with polished chrome accents. None of it had sharp edges. Instead, everything flowed seamlessly from one piece into the next. On the sleek leather sofa sat an all-white cat with extra-long hair and stunning blue eyes.

  Sharon waddled right over to him and tugged him into her arms. “Oh my sweet, sweet Chessy baby,” she cooed.

  “This place is amazing,” I said on the wings of an exhale, still taking stock of the luxury camper and all its a
menities. One of the walls sported an enormous TV, which was tuned in to the nature channel.

  “Oh, this? It’s Chester’s world. I’m just lucky to live in it,” Sharon prattled on.

  I reached out to let the cat sniff my hand, and he instantly began to purr. Wow, she even had the luxury cat model. Octo-Cat never treated me with such kindness, not even when he was at his happiest.

  “I do mean that literally by the way,” Sharon confided. When she shook her head, her pink cheeks jiggled. “Chester has all kinds of fe-fans on the social media. That’s feline fans for the uninitiated. Now, when I started posting photos of our camping ad-ventures, one of those Hollywood types reached out to us via private message. One thing led to another, and now Chessy and I are going to be on reality TV. Filming starts this summer. They sent us this new house on wheels so we had time to get used to it before the show starts.”

  Wow, there was a lot to unpack there.

  First off, why hadn’t she led with this information? I’d have found her a lot more interesting if she had. After all, she was the first person I’d met—other than me—whose cat paid all the bills.

  “Chester is such a talented kitty boy. Aren’t you?” she continued to coo as she fawned over her feline life partner.

  Pringle was going to die when he found out he’d been this close to a future reality TV star without ever actually meeting her. I couldn’t wait to tell him.

  “Angie?” Sharon stared at me with wide eyes and a concerned expression. I must have missed something.

  “Have the police talked to you yet?” she said for what I guessed wasn’t the first time.

  “Yeah,” I admitted, casting my eyes to the floor and discovering a luxe white marble with little glints of silver.

  “Such a shame what happened to Junetta.” She clucked her tongue and set the cat back on the sofa. “Why, she’d seemed entirely normal when I stopped off this morning to bring her my fresh-made and famous lingonberry pie.”

  My mind zoomed back to the scene I’d discovered earlier that afternoon. The pink-tinged vomit, the half-eaten pie. Mixed berry, I’d thought. But since I had no idea what a lingonberry was supposed to look like, that could very well have been what I’d seen.

  Had Sharon just inadvertently confessed to the camp manager’s murder? Yes, she liked to talk, but enough to accidentally slip up in such a major way?

  I didn’t know, and I was terrified of finding out.

  Yes, suddenly I was very uncomfortable being alone with her in the RV…

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I have to go,” I blurted out, but Sharon’s wide body filled the passageway that led toward the door.

  Her face turned down in a pout. “But you’ve only just gotten here.”

  “I have to find my cat. Remember?” I tried to push past her, but either she didn’t get the hint or she didn’t want to let me get away.

  “Oh, look at me, so carried away with introductions that I plum forgot.” She pressed her palm into her forehead and sighed. “Before you go, I have something for you.”

  The moment she turned to get whatever it was, I raced through the door and back out into the open where presumably no one would try to kill me while I was in plain sight of the others.

  “I’m watching you!” the Airstream lady screamed from several lots away and shook her fist in the air.

  I glanced at her briefly, then went running back toward Charles’s and my camper.

  At this point, I just wanted to go home and forget this whole day had ever happened, but I doubted the police would allow that while Charles and I were still under suspicion in an open investigation.

  “There you are,” Charles said from where he’d taken up in one of the chairs out-side our RV. “Angie, you’re bright red. What’s the matter?”

  “Angie! Why’d you run off like that?” Sharon called, jogging to catch up.

  A few other campers watched us and whispered to themselves.

  A little girl with curly pigtails turned and hid her face against her father’s leg. He stared daggers at me. This more than the interaction with the police made me feel very exposed and misunderstood.

  Charles stood and wrapped an arm around me while Sharon finished her approach.

  “Here,” she said between gasps for air. It wasn’t a long walk from her RV to ours, but I wasn’t one to judge. Before Nan had forced me into morning runs with her and Cujo, I, too, would have been out of breath from the short jaunt.

  When I tore my eyes away from Sharon, I looked down and saw a short, flat metal can resting on my palm.

  “For your cat. I sure hope you find him.” Sharon bent forward and took another deep breath, then left us to return to her own camper.

  Charles took the can from me and read the label. “Albacore tuna. Huh.”

  “Tuna?” Pringle repeated from somewhere nearby.

  “Pringle, where are you?” I whispered, scanning the area.

  “Under here,” the raccoon called quietly.

  I got down on my hands and knees and peered into the darkness beneath the camper.

  Two little hands reached out in supplication. “Tuna me, baby!”

  “I’m going inside. If you want this, then maybe you should come inside, too.” I huffed, then climbed back onto my feet and into the RV.

  A moment later a thunk sounded from the bathroom.

  “I’ll get it,” Charles announced as he paced across the living space.

  As soon as the door clicked open, Pringle tore out of the bathroom in a manic fury. “Tuna, tuna, tuna,” he chanted, jumping up beside me.

  “You’ve been a very naughty raccoon.”

  He folded his hands in front of him and blinked up at me with large eyes. “What? Me?”

  I scowled at him, ripping the can away when he tried to make a grab for it. “Yes, you. I told you to stay put.”

  “I did!” he squeaked. “See, I’m right here?”

  “Then why did I spot you creeping into that other camper?”

  Pringle took a step back. “Wh—?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me. I saw you.”

  “Okay, fine.” When he sighed, his little shoulders rose and fell in defeat. “Okay, so maybe I was trying to solve the murder for you. Thing is, I want in on Pet Whisperer P.I., and I figured if I cracked this case single-handedly, you’d have no choice but to invite me to partner.”

  “Keep dreaming, ringworm,” Octo-Cat snarled before appearing as if out of no-where. He padded over to us, stretching each leg as he walked, making him look like some kind of bizarre circus act.

  “And where were you?” I demanded, folding my arms over my chest, tuna still in hand.

  A shudder wracked his striped body. “Hiding from that awful Sharon person.”

  “Ah, too bad you think she’s so awful,” I teased with a half-grin. “She brought a can of tuna for you, but seeing as you don’t like her, I’m sure you don’t want anything to do with—”

  “Mine!” Octo-Cat cried, then batted the can from my hands and sent it crashing to the floor.

  Both animals fell upon it at once, embroiled in a bitter fight for dominance.

  “Do I even want to ask?” Charles pulled two bottles of soda from the mini fridge and handed one to me.

  “Probably best that you didn’t.” I scooted over to make space for him on the sofa. “Did the police say anything more to you?”

  “Not really. Although I was thinking you might want to change.”

  “Why?” I asked, a fresh wave of embarrassment washing over me as I remembered about my “juicy” booty.

  He glanced down at my lap. “Well, the campground manager was murdered with a poisonous pie, and you’re covered in berry juice. Looks a little suspicious.”

  “Oh, I haven’t told you yet. I know who made the pie.” I loved sharing what I’d learned with him. Even though I’d been terrified at the time, now I was quite pleased with myself for gathering this little piece of intel.

  He took a s
wig from his soda and then lowered the bottle. “Who?”

  “Sharon,” I revealed, pressing my lips in a tight line to keep from saying more.

  He snorted and took another drink of soda. “But you don’t think she’s the one who did it, do you? I mean that’s circumstantial evidence at best.”

  “Are you kidding? She totally did it,” I said even though I still wasn’t entirely convinced myself. I felt better having a primary suspect in mind rather than keeping the entire thing open-ended.

  “I guess we’ll see.” Charles leaned forward and plucked the can of tuna away from the bickering animals, then went to stash it in the glove compartment where neither of them would be able to get it.

  “No fair! No fair!” Pringle cried, jumping up and down in protest.

  “Upchuck strikes again,” Octo-Cat declared using his preferred nickname for whenever he was feeling irritated with my boyfriend.

  “Where’s that salmon?” I asked whoever was willing and able to answer.

  “I left it outside, Charles replied, returning from the front and settling beside me on the sofa once again. “Couldn’t very well bring it in here and stink up the rental.”

  “Look, how about this?” I attempted to reason with our furry stowaways. “If you two can be good for the rest of this weekend, I’ll let you share that salmon.”

  “I don’t want to share with him,” they each cried in unison, sticking their tongue out at the other.

  I shrugged as if none of it mattered to me. “That’s my offer. Take it or go hungry. Frankly, I don’t care what you do.”

  “Are you going to change?” Charles prompted, staring pointedly at my messy lap once more.

  I sighed, knowing I didn’t have any good options waiting for me in that suitcase. But he was right. Even if not for the incriminating berry stains, the outfit was decidedly filthy, thanks to our brief adventure in the woods.

  Back in my room, I found a floor-length dress made of black crushed velvet. It had no back, which meant I couldn’t wear a bra with it, but seeing as it was far less ostentatious than the other option—something that looked like a cast-off from the old film adaptation of Gone with the Wind—I pulled the garment over my head without giving it a second thought.