Cat Got Your Crown

by Julie Chase

  “This is Big Splash,” she said, patting the top of the dog’s broad head. “He’s my baby, and I love him so much. I will never allow him to go back to that horrific purgatory again,” she vowed, eyes misting with tears. “Big Splash belongs with me. Don’t you?” She sniffled, wiping wide brown eyes with one trembling hand. “Excuse us.” She turned quickly away and led her lumbering giant toward the ladies’ room.

  I raised my brows at Chase. “Purgatory? Is Big Splash from an animal shelter?”

  “No.” He checked the crowd before handing his phone to me. “We removed him from her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s place back in China.”

  I gave the phone screen a long look. “Whoa.” A ridiculous mansion made of glass and steel clung to the side of a rocky mountain face. “This is the place she was referring to as purgatory?” I asked.

  “Yes.” He took the phone back and tucked it into his pocket. “I think it has more to do with the man living inside.”

  “Hence the divorce. Gotcha,” I said. “Can I have the wiki version of what you’re doing here with Mrs. Li and her dog?” I asked. “I’d love all the details, but my mom is on a rampage, so time is short.”

  “You didn’t wear a dress again,” he said.

  I gave him a warning look.

  He grinned. “I’m representing Mrs. Li in her divorce. She and her husband are both international businesspeople. They both travel regularly between America and China, but after the divorce, Sue wants to stay in Los Angeles, and Daniel wants to remain in China. Those decisions made splitting ownership of their properties easy but custody of Big Splash much more complicated.”

  “You’re handling a dog custody battle?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Big Splash isn’t just any dog. He’s a golden-haired Tibetan mastiff. The Lis bought him at a luxury pet fair in China three years ago for two million dollars. He was a birthday gift from Daniel to Sue.”

  My jaw dropped. “Two million dollars for a hundred-pound dog?”

  “He was a pup then,” Chase said, “and I think he weighs one-eighty now.”

  “Isn’t that what you weigh?” I asked. I might or might not have read all his volleyball statistics online after running into him for the first time in ten years last summer.

  Chase grinned but didn’t ask how I knew. “I wear it better,” he said, “and with far less hair.”

  “Well, I love Big Splash,” I said. “He looks like a short-nosed Snuffleupagus. I hope you get his family situation sorted fairly.” I wished I could have a big Tibetan moose dog just like him, but my tabby, Penelope, would have killed me, and I didn’t have that kind of money to throw around. Or at all. “Two million dollars?” I whispered. “Really?”

  “The Lis say he has lion’s blood, and they consider a dog like him to be as treasured as China’s pandas.”

  I could have opened a dozen cat shelters across the state with that kind of cash.

  Chase swung his gaze to the balcony stairs, where Viktor was still complaining as he made his way back to the seat where he’d been overseeing the rehearsal before his most recent outburst. His clutch of personal assistants was nowhere to be seen. “That guy’s something else.”

  “Handsy too, I hear,” I said.

  Chase narrowed his eyes.

  The lobby doors parted, and my favorite homicide detective strode into view. Nearly a head taller and significantly more handsome than the surrounding humans, Jack Oliver made a straight line in my direction. “Morning, Miss Crocker,” he said, his serious blue gaze pinning me in place. The deep tenor of his voice pulled a smile over my lips. His shiny detective badge swung from a beaded silver chain around his neck.

  “Morning,” I said, a little more breathlessly than intended.

  Chase made a puffing sound beside me.

  “Hawthorne,” he said.

  Jack was the NOPD liaison, coordinating efforts between pageant security and local law enforcement. He’d dropped in twice a day since rehearsals began, usually at lunch and dinner, and I looked forward to every meal.

  Chase shook Jack’s hand, then planted a kiss on my cheek. “I’m going to go see a woman about a Snuffleupagus,” he whispered.

  I gave his hand a squeeze as he walked away.

  “What was he doing here?” Jack asked.

  “Custody battle over a two-million-dollar dog.”

  Jack bobbed his head in mock understanding.

  “So, how’s your day going, Detective?”

  He shifted his weight and smiled. “Better now.”

  “Me, too. Are you staying for lunch?” I glanced away as a mass of nonsensical butterflies took flight in my stomach.

  Lately, it had seemed Jack and I were working on something nice together, though I wasn’t completely sure what that was. Thanks to the high rates of homicides and pet-costume crises in New Orleans, Jack and I didn’t always have free time at the same time, but we found ways to stay in touch. Sometimes that meant trading texts between errands; other times it meant eating a catered lunch inside an historic theater with one hundred sweaty animal trainers.

  The catering staff appeared as if on cue, swinging open the theater doors and delivering long narrow tables to the area below the balcony. The crew whipped white linens into the air and settled them over the buffets, then covered those in silver platters and chafing dishes.

  Humans snapped into action, kenneling their pets in the lobby and hallway at warp speed.

  I set my pink bedazzled tackle box aside and nudged Jack with an elbow. “Acme Oyster House is catering today. We should hurry.” I led him to the front of the line and grabbed a plate.

  Viktor grimaced down at us from his position in the balcony. Clearly disgusted with everyone and everything, he stood, arms crossed, before the short ledge, glaring at the lunch line below.

  Jack pressed warm fingers against the small of my back and dipped his mouth to my ear. “I was thinking we could get out of here today. Have a quiet lunch. Alone.”

  Alone? I spun to face him. “Let’s do that.” I dropped my plate back onto the stack and smiled.

  Jack’s usual serious expression slid into something unburdened and enticing. “Come on.” He clutched my hand in his, and a thrill zipped through my system.

  Lunch with Jack. Alone!

  A terror-filled cry wiped the smile from my face. My chin jerked upward in search of the sound as Viktor Petrov, the pageant’s cranky, handsy MC, fell from the balcony in a blur of tweed and trousers. He collided with the newly set buffet before me, splattering pasta and white sauce over my pretty pink T-shirt, face, and hands. His head and legs were turned at awkward angles and a trickle of red slid from the corner of his mouth. I stumbled back, colliding with Jack’s rigid core as the ghastly calamity registered through the thick haze of my confusion.

  A bloodcurdling scream burst through me as I whipped my gaze upward in search of a broken ledge or other tragic but logical reason for his deadly fall.

  Instead, I found Eva Little, my sweet committee sister, staring down at me.

  Chapter Two

  Furry Godmother’s words of wisdom: Use care with unattended livestock, especially a cash cow.

  Jack released me with a curse and broke into cop mode. “Call an ambulance! Get back!” he yelled, waving his arms at those closest to the ruined buffet. “Stand down. Security!”

  “I’m a doctor!” a man screamed in my ear as he flew past me with a miniature poodle tucked under one arm. “I’m a doctor!” He dashed to Jack’s side and fell onto his knees beside Viktor and the broken table.

  Jack crouched with him.

  I watched in a helpless stupor. What was the man doing? Could Viktor possibly be okay?

  A long moment later, Jack stretched to his feet and sought my eyes with his. Slowly, he moved his heartbroken face left and right.

  I watched in horror as the doctor rolled back on his haunches, defeated.

  There was nothing anyone could do now. Viktor Petrov wouldn’t see another opening ceremon
y.

  The theater’s security team arrived seconds later. They stood sentinel around the body, looking to Jack for instructions.

  “Lock the doors,” Jack ordered. “No one in or out.” He twisted at the waist for a look at the balcony. “This auditorium is an active crime scene until cause of death can be determined.”

  His words echoed in my head. Crime scene. My frantic heart hammered harder and ached deeper. My chest constricted with the makings of a panic attack, something I’d become intimately familiar with since moving home last year. “What can I do, Jack?” I choked the jagged words through gritted teeth, determined to redirect the adrenaline into something useful. I caught his wrist in my fingers. “Tell me what to do.”

  Jack leveled me with a stare. “Are you okay?”

  Not at all. I nodded woodenly. “What can I do?”

  His chest rose and fell in two full breaths before he whipped an arm forward, pointing a finger at the front of the building. “Help maintain the entrance. No one goes in or out. If they try, take their picture; do not attempt to stop them. Watch for police and emergency personnel. Get them inside as soon as they arrive.”

  I burst into a jog, shamefully thankful to get away from the gruesome scene. I scanned the balcony as I moved, certain Eva had seen the whole thing and praying that this was an overreaction on Jack’s part. Maybe Viktor’s fall had been accidental. Maybe he’d leaned too far over the edge and lost his footing.

  I escaped the faux Italian courtyard and took my assigned position at the now locked front doors beside a man I recognized from the security team. I clenched my trembling fists, desperate to hold myself together in the face of yet another disaster. Adrenaline beat through my veins and whooshed in my ears. Was there this much tragedy everywhere, or did I simply attract it? Jack had once told me that this was the world I’d always lived in, I just hadn’t noticed before; but he was wrong, death was his world. Pets and fashion were supposed to be mine.

  Restless, I flipped the deadbolt. “I’m going to wait outside,” I told the man beside me. I didn’t wait for his approval. I needed fresh air.

  A rusted white work truck pulled into traffic as I moved onto the sidewalk and paced. Thick Louisiana air curled over my skin like a giant tongue, lapping the air from my lungs and sticking the clothes to my skin. Hot southern sun blinded me as I stared into the distance, willing the emergency crews to hurry.

  The low cry of an ambulance and steady din of a bleating firetruck broke my waning composure. Emotion balled in my throat and stung my eyes.

  I swiped renegade tears from my cheeks with shaky fingertips and released a steadying breath. I wasn’t new to those sounds or to trauma, but the experiences never got any easier. I’d been mugged at gunpoint while walking home from work one night when I lived in Virginia. Sometimes I could still smell the stale beer on the man’s breath and feel his grimy fingers on my skin. It was the worst thing that had happened to me until that point. In contrast, I’d been back in New Orleans for a year and had already been accused of murder, stalked by a man in a giant papier-mâché cat head, abducted thrice, threatened by a copycat Robin Hood, and most recently, witnessed a man fall to his death upon my lunch. My therapist was in Tahiti at the moment, or I’d have already called for an appointment. She probably could have funded multiple trips to the moon on my sessions alone.

  I waved the arriving vehicles into place and held the theater door as men and women in various emergency responders’ uniforms passed through.

  “Woof!” A massive brown-and-gold blur rushed past me, knocking me off my feet and bouncing me against the glass.

  “Big Splash!” Chase’s voice echoed through the controlled chaos behind me. “Lacy!” He crouched before me a moment later and gripped my arms. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  I arranged my feet back on the floor beneath me using Chase for balance and thankful I hadn’t obeyed my mother and worn a dress. “I think I was just involved in a hit-and-run.”

  Chase pressed me against his chest and squeezed before letting me go. “That was Big Splash. Sue was trying to put him in his kennel for lunch when that man fell and everyone screamed. A parrot took off from its perch and Big Splash went after it. Did you see a bird fly out too, by chance?”

  A bird? “Are you kidding? I barely got the license plate on the truck that ran me over.”

  Chase pushed on the door, and a member of Jack’s security team stepped into view.

  “No one in or out,” the man said, dusting his uniform pants, probably from having also been flattened by one stampeding Tibetan mastiff.

  “A dog ran out,” Chase said.

  “I called it in. Was he wearing a collar with identification and owner contact information?”

  “He had a collar,” Chase said. “I’m not sure about the rest.” He looked at me.

  “He had ID,” I told the security guy. I’d felt it in the deep tufts of his fur when I’d kissed his big wet nose.

  Chase shut the door once more, and I moved into place at his side.

  “Do you think he’ll be okay?”

  “I think so,” I said, unsure what people would do when they saw an animal that size running loose in the streets. “Traffic’s bad, so the cars are moving slow. At least if he goes into the street, drivers will have plenty of time to see him and stop.”

  We stared through the glass, our views partially obstructed by emergency vehicles and a growing crowd of lookie lous. Heat hovered over the pavement like an apparition on yet another stifling New Orleans day.

  “Any sign of him?” I asked hopefully, as if I could somehow not see him if he was out there.

  “No, and with the speed he was moving, he could be halfway to the river by now,” Chase said. “Sue’s going to freak. Hopefully she had him microchipped like those cats you fostered last fall.”

  I stifled a shiver. Those cats had nearly gotten me killed. “For two million dollars, he should’ve come with a GoPro and private security detail.”

  Chase rested his forehead on the window for a long moment, then turned his back to the door. I spun with him, and we stared at the interior theater doors with matching frowns. “At least no one can pick him up, put him in her purse, and steal him,” he said.

  “No joke.”

  The security team opened a door and let a pair of EMTs and a gurney inside.

  Chase and I inched out of the way.

  “Maybe people will think twice before even approaching him,” Chase suggested.

  “Definitely,” I said. I loved animals, but I wouldn’t have approached an animal Big Splash’s size without his owner present on my wildest day. He looked a little too much like a lion, and I was certain my head would have fit in his mouth.

  Sue Li rounded a corner in our direction, moving as quickly as could be expected in five-inch heels and panting. “Did you get him?”

  Chase’s shoulders sunk.

  “Good luck,” I said, moving back toward the theater as Jack opened a set of double doors to usher the EMTs inside.

  “Is Hawthorne okay?” he asked, steering me down the aisle toward the front of the room.

  “He lost a brontosaurus,” I said.

  Pet owners, staff, and volunteers filled several rows of theater chairs while members of the security team patrolled the aisles.

  “You should have a seat,” Jack said. “Breathe.”

  I pulled in a few shallow breaths, and my head spun.

  “Can I get you anything? Maybe some water or a change of shirt?”

  I cringed at the realization I was still splattered with food a man had died on. My stomach clenched, and I lifted my chin higher, searching for dignity and resisting the urge to be sick.

  Jack’s jaw locked and popped as he scanned the theater. He was usually on high alert in these situations, but something was off this time. It was almost as if he was taking Viktor’s death personally.

  “This isn’t your fault,” I whispered.

  Jack slid his gaze briefly in my
direction. “I know.”

  “Do you?” I asked, moving closer. “You seem more on edge than usual. Is it because you’re the security liaison?”

  Jack didn’t answer. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

  I couldn’t help wondering why?

  “You met with Viktor a lot this summer,” I said, drawing Jack’s ghost-blue eyes to mine. “Was he worried about pageant security, or was he worried about personal security?” Given the current state of events, it seemed like a reasonable question.

  Jack relaxed his shoulders a bit. “Both,” he admitted. “Viktor had questions about the city. This was going to be his last gig with the pageant, and he’d planned to stay in New Orleans afterward. I advised on the best neighborhoods, crime rates, taxi services, and airport routes, among other things. Why?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “He needed a detective’s advice for all that? Those sound more like Realtor-related questions to me.”

  Jack crossed his arms and dipped his chin, moving in a bit closer, ensuring our exchange remained between us. “He was also a little concerned about his security this week. He asked me to take the lead on this and be the police force liaison.”

  My jaw dropped. “What? Why?”

  “He’d received a few anonymous requests for his resignation. He thought the sender might show up at the pageant and make some grand statement. He wanted me to make sure whoever it was wouldn’t get any recognition, and that they would be arrested.”

  “Someone threatened him,” I interpreted. “Someone wanted him to quit.”

  Jack rubbed a heavy hand over his head and gripped the back of his neck. “I told him I’d see to it that he was safe, but things have been quiet. We both thought it might be over.”

  I ran a hand down the length of his arm. “You couldn’t have known this would happen, and you can’t be everywhere at once.” I scanned the room, fully absorbing the sheer volume of suspects for the first time. “Do you think the person who sent the requests for Viktor’s resignation could have done this? Would the person have taken matters into his or her own hands when he didn’t comply?”