When the Cat's Away

by Molly Fitz

  Clutching my chest, I tried to calm down. Murderers probably wouldn’t ring a doorbell, right? My hand shook as I opened the door and came face to face with a man in a blue police uniform.

  “Miss Park?” The man asked.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Jerry Fitzgibbons. I’m the constable for Chelsworth.” His ruddy cheeks were slightly paunchy, and he was rather thick set, but from the look of him, he’d been a fit muscled man when he was younger. Immediately I remembered that this must be Helen’s brother-in-law.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “I wish I could say the same. Do you mind if I speak to you ma’am? You were one of the last persons to see Mr. Havers alone?”

  “Uh sure…” I cleared my throat and waved for him to come inside.

  Great. So much for my relaxing vacation.

  Osiris

  After I watched them put my beloved human onto a stretcher and carry him away, I sat back on my hunches. My senses were still on edge as I tried to control my fury. When a cat is angry, you might not be able to tell, but right that moment, I wanted everyone to know. Ears flattened back, I growled. Yes, cats can growl, and believe me when I say that if we do growl, you should run quickly away from us.

  “Ach, the poor wee fellow,” Mr. Dougal said as he tried to reach down and pet me.

  I hissed and swatted at his paw. The last thing I wanted was sympathy. No, I wanted to find who did this to my human. I wanted justice.

  “Come now, Ewan. Let’s get Master Lucas some tea,” Cookie urged the butler toward the kitchen. I marched past them with my tail straight up in the air, a warning flag as I headed toward the main stairs where I knew Lucas waited. Sitting on the second to last step, he looked strange with his knees tucked up and his head in his hands. I don’t usually watch humans to gauge their emotions; it’s far too difficult a task to read their faces.

  Instead, I listened to voices. The tone of a voice usually told me all I needed to know. But right then, Lucas wasn’t speaking. He dragged his hands through his hair, tugging on the strands until they stood like small spikes. I marched up to him and headed butted his shin, purring. I was still upset, but Lucas and I were united in our distress.

  Lucas lifted his head and stared down at me.

  “Hello, old boy.” He sighed and reached out to pet me. I allowed it. He was so like his father at times, which was probably why I had such a soft spot for him when I was often reserved around most humans. My respect and appreciation had to be earned.

  “You miss him too, eh?”

  I let out a muted purr.

  Don’t worry. I will find the person responsible. I will find them and make them pay.

  The promise of revenge was for both me and Lucas.

  “Mr. Havers?” A voice startled me and I jerked away.

  “Paul?” Lucas got to his feet just as I turned to see the gardener coming in from the front door of the house.

  Paul Littleton was a strong, wiry man. He’d been at Champsley Manor since long before Nicholas had brought me out of Egypt.

  “I heard about your father. I’m so sorry.” Paul offered his hand to Lucas who shook it. “Do they know what happened?”

  “No.” Lucas sighed heavily. “The doctor just called a short while ago. He thinks it’s poison. They’re going to interview that American woman who visited my father this afternoon.”

  “Poison? Wait, what American woman? Miss Park?”

  “Yes, she wanted to see my father’s artifacts.”

  Paul’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think she poisoned him?”

  Lucas shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. “Christ knows.”

  At this point, I decided the two humans had little else of any value to add. Lucas had given me the one clue I needed: the American woman I’d startled earlier today. She was the one I needed to find. From the manor house, I would take a shortcut along the road following where her faint scent leads me. Once I found her, Ii’d figure out this mystery and avenge my human.

  Pepper

  “So the last time you saw Mr. Havers was at half past four?” the constable asked me.

  “Yes. I came for a quick visit to see his Egyptian collection, but had to leave when his son arrived because they needed to speak to each other.” I poured the policeman a cup of tea I’d brewed after letting him inside and showing him to the sitting room.

  He took one polite sip and then winced.

  “Not good?” I asked. I wasn’t very talented at tea, at least not in the fancy British way. I boiled the water and threw in a tea bag. Logically, I assumed there was probably a better way to steep tea, but I wasn’t a wizard in the kitchen.

  “No, no, it’s quite fine.” The constable politely lied. “So when you were at Champsley, did you see anything out of the ordinary? Anything amiss?”

  “No, but that was my first time to visit the manor house. I probably wouldn’t recognize if something was amiss or extraordinary.” I wasn’t a criminal lawyer, but I knew the basics of what the man was looking for, and I’d do my best to help him with what I knew about the situation.

  Constable Fitzgibbons wrote down a note in his black flipbook and frowned. “And you say he was in a hurry to speak to his son?”

  “I don’t know if hurry is the right word, but we did cut our visit short.”

  “Hmm…” Fitzgibbons stroked his chin. I could tell by the way he touched that part of his face that he’d recently had a beard and wasn’t used to being cleanshaven.

  “Did Mr. Havers seem upset, angry, anything unusual?”

  “No, but he did seem a little irritated that his housekeeper interrupted us.”

  “Mrs. Daly? Ahh, hmmm.” He wrote down another note. “What was the reason for your visit to Chelsworth?” He looked at me rather too pointedly, causing me instant discomfort.

  Was I a suspect?

  “I came for a vacation.”

  “All the way from America?” His tone was now clearly incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  “To Chelsworth…”

  “Yes.” I repeated my answer and had to fight off the urge to tap my toe in irritation. If I’d been in front of a judge in court and watching another attorney question a suspect like me, I would have cried objection on the grounds of “asked and answered,” to get the other party to move on in their questioning.

  “Why here? Why not London?” he finally asked.

  “Look, Constable Fitzgibbons, I have a really stressful and thankless job back in the states. I just wanted to get away to some quaint little English country town and not worry about life in a big city for a few weeks.” There, let him try to make that sound suspicious.

  He closed his notebook. “The inquest will be tomorrow. I am requiring you to come and answer any additional questions we may have. Nine o’clock sharp.”

  After obtaining my word that I’d be there, I showed him out the door. On my way back, I picked up the teacup Constable Fitzgibbons had left behind and went into the kitchen. I turned on the water and began to pour the contents out, so relieved to have some peace after the unnerving way I’d just been questioned.

  But peace was the last thing I got. I screamed as something leapt through the open kitchen window heading directly for my face.

  Chapter 4

  Pepper

  A gold and black striped furball launched into my arms. As the creature’s claws dug in to hold itself in place, I panicked and flailed before I realized what sort of animal was in my arms. It was Mr. Havers’s cat, Osiris.

  Once I managed to pry him off and put him on the ground, he immediately started doing that thing cats do where they twine in and out of your legs so you can barely move without tripping over them. His cheek rubbed against my leg and he purred loud enough to be heard in the next room.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him, then nearly smacked myself for being a fool who talks to animals. I grew up with dogs and have always talked to my pets before, but it’s usually just been fun chatter, ne
ver actually expecting an answer.

  “Mreow?” Osiris gazed up at me intently with inscrutable golden eyes.

  “Look, you need to go back to your house. You can’t stay here. They’ll probably be worried about you.” I figured that someone at Champsley would notice if Nicholas’s prize Egyptian Mau was missing. I retrieved my phone from my purse and called Helen.

  “Pepper?” Helen answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, sorry to bother you, but Mr. Havers’s cat just showed up at my doorstep. What should I do with him?”

  “Oh, that little dear? You could take him back up to the house if you want. I know cats tend to get around a bit, but it might be best to take him home.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I sighed and looked down at the cat. It was a pity I couldn’t put a leash on him. I’d have to carry him the whole way.

  “How are you holding up, dearie?” Helen asked.

  “What? Oh, fine. Why?”

  Helen paused. “Well you were one of the last to see him, and I know you’ve been asked to come to the inquest tomorrow.”

  How the heck did she know that? I hadn’t told anyone and the constable had left a few minutes ago.

  “Yes, Officer Fitzgibbons asked me to be there at 9am.” With my hip leaning against the kitchen counter, I stared through the window into the small back garden with its blooming flowers. The lush floral life directly outside was such a stark contrast to the knowledge that Mr. Havers, likely a friend of the cottage’s owner, was dead. I shuddered.

  “Well, I’d better go, Helen. It will take me a bit to get the cat back up to Champsley.”

  “Of course. Call me when you get back safely, dearie. I’m making all of my friends check in now, at least until we know what’s going.

  “I will.”

  “Oh, and dearie, you wanted to know what kind of poison?”

  “Yes?” I held my breath.

  “It was something called digoxin or was it digitoxin? Oh, I can’t remember exactly. Something like that.”

  “Thanks, Helen.” We hung up. After a short stare off between the me and the cat, I went upstairs to retrieve my laptop and set it up on the kitchen table.

  Osiris jumped onto the table beside me.

  “I guess you can hang around for a minute while I look this up, eh?” I told him. He sat right beside my computer and I swear it was almost like he was staring at the screen right along with me.

  “Digoxin…” I murmured as I typed the word into the search bar on my internet browser. Dozens of results came up and I read the paragraph out loud, I suppose for the benefit of myself and the cat. “Foxglove contains Digoxin and Digitoxin. All parts of the foxglove contain compounds called cardiac glycosides, including the structurally similar digoxin and digitoxin. Ingestion of these compounds can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and an irregular heartbeat. They disable cell sodium-potassium ion pumps leading to an increased cell sodium and calcium ion concentration. This slows the heart rate, which can lead to a heart attack and death.”

  Osiris stopped purring and his ears slowly flattened against his head. He looked angry in the way only cats can look angry.

  “God, that’s an awful way to die.” I clicked on more pictures of the foxglove plant itself—a beautiful flower with bell-shaped petals that dropped down off their vines. I’d seen that plant somewhere; I just couldn’t remember where. According to the article, any part of the plant was dangerous, but how had this gotten into Nicholas’s system? Accidental foxglove poisoning didn’t seem to be a common occurrence.

  Maybe Helen was right, and it really was a murder, which meant that someone in Chelsworth had just killed Mr. Havers. But why? Osiris pawed at my wrist.

  “I guess I should get you home, huh?” I closed my laptop and tucked my phone and house keys into my pocket before I picked up Osiris in my arms and headed out the door.

  The walk to Champsley was less daunting this time because I knew my way, but I was definitely tired of carrying Osiris—who was heavier than he looked—by the time I got to the front door. I’d expected him to get his claws out and give me a few scratches for hauling him all the way back to the manor house, but he sat still in my arms and purred. I decided then that maybe cats weren’t so bad.

  I knocked on the door and waited. A moment later, the door opened and I started to greet Mr. Dougal. Instead, I faced a familiar man, probably around Lucas’s age, in his late twenties or early thirties.

  “Can I help you miss?” he asked. “Oh, Miss Park, nice to see you again.”

  “Hi, um. It was Paul, right?” He nodded and I continued. “This little guy paid me a visit. I’m renting one of the cottages nearby. I thought I’d just return him in case you were wondering where he’d gone off to.” I shifted Osiris in my arms to hold him up higher.

  “Ah, yes, thank you. Please come in for a moment.” When he waved me inside, I got a better look at him. He wore jeans and a dark gray t-shirt covered with a bit of dirt.

  “Sorry, I don’t usually answer the door. Ewan is a bit busy handling things with Mr. Havers being gone.” He smiled ruefully and I tried to smile back. He must have been upset at losing his employer.

  “Don’t apologize.”

  He closed the large front door as I stepped into the entryway. “Let me have the little fellow.” Paul reached for Osiris who flattened his ears and hissed.

  “Okay, so maybe just put him down.” Paul chuckled and winked at me. “I swear he knows I’m a dog person.”

  “Me, too, but he seems to like me. God only knows why.” I chuckled too and gently sat the cat on the ground. Osiris immediately stuck to my legs like I’d glued him there, and I nearly took a header right into someone’s arms.

  “You seem to have trouble staying on your feet, Miss Park.” Lucas’s rich voice was deep, and his accent was just as gorgeous as his face.

  “I’m sorry. I tripped over the cat.” I pointed at Osiris who was now casually licking his paw and brushing it over his head as if he hadn’t just nearly killed me.

  “I was wondering where he’d gone. He usually sticks close to the house. Where was he?” Lucas asked.

  “All the way down at her cottage,” Paul supplied. “Look, I’ve got some plants to put in the front beds. I’ll catch up with you later, Lucas?”

  “Of course. Thank you, Paul.” Lucas and I both stood there awkwardly for a moment after Paul departed.

  “Well, I should go too,” I started just as Lucas said, “Stay for a cup of tea?”

  We both laughed. “I guess I can, but I don’t want to be in the way with everything you have going on. I’m really sorry about your father.”

  The smile on Lucas’s lips died and he crossed his arms. “Thank you. He and I didn’t agree on a lot of things, but I’ll miss him. Have you spoken to Officer Fitzgibbons yet?”

  Lucas escorted me into a drawing room and pulled on a bell cord.

  I nodded. “He came to see me. I have to attend the inquest tomorrow morning.”

  Before either of us could say anything, Mrs. Daly came in with a tea tray. She shot me a slightly withering look before she put the tray down on the table in front of us. Lucas waited for her to leave before he spoke again.

  “Did my father say anything to you during your visit?” he asked.

  “We only talked about Egypt and his artifacts.” I waited a moment. “Helen told me that he was poisoned with foxglove. Do you have that on the property?”

  An odd look passed over his face.

  “I’m sorry.” I raised my hands. “I’m an attorney back in the states. Not a criminal one, but most lawyers can’t help but stick their noses into the mystery of a criminal act. Forget I asked.”

  Lucas poured two cups of tea, one for me and one for himself. I tried not to get lost in looking at him, but he was just one of those men that a woman could stare at all day.

  “I didn’t even know what foxglove looked like until half an hour ago, but we do have it in the back gardens. The second I found out, I told Pau
l to rip it all up. I don’t want any of those plants anywhere near this property.” His tone was dark and hard-edged and forced a slight chill to crawl up my spine.

  “Do you think your father was poisoned on purpose?” I knew it was a risk asking him, but I hoped he’d answer.

  Lucas was quiet for a long time. “It’s not a question I’ve wanted to think about, but it’s possible.”

  “Any idea who could be behind it? I only met him briefly, but he seemed so lovely, and I can’t imagine him having many enemies.”

  His face darkened. “I have a few ideas. For one, that dreadful Mrs. Daly. She’s a nasty old bird and I know my father was planning to terminate her at the end of the month.”

  “He was going to fire her. Was it just because he didn’t like her?”

  “I don’t know. He briefly mentioned something about her knowing too much about the family. Made it sound like we have deep dark secrets.” Lucas snorted.

  “You’re sure you don’t?” I asked.

  “Quite sure…well…” He hesitated. “Mostly sure. I mean everyone has their secrets, but we don’t have any secrets worth murder.” Lucas swirled his tea with a spoon then tapped the side of the cup. It was so very British.

  “What about anyone else with a possible motive?” I asked, as I attempted to mimic his actions by swirling my own spoon and then tapped it on the side of my cup before setting it down in the saucer.

  “Well…there is Ewan Dougal,” Lucas said, his tone quiet, contemplative.

  “Ewan? But he seems so nice.” I’d liked the butler immensely and without hesitation. I could not, however, say I’d liked Mrs. Daly.

  “He and my father had a complicated…past.”

  By the way Lucas said the word “past,” I knew I wouldn’t be able to pry any more details out of him.

  “So, you were here to visit my father’s collection?”

  “Yes, Helen, you know her I’m guessing,”

  Lucas laughed. “Oh, yes. Everyone knows Helen, whether they want to or not.”