A Whisker in the Dark

by Leighann Dobbs

  Nero stopped sharpening his claws on the soft rotted wood of the old rose arbor and sniffed the air. “What is that noxious odor?”

  “Smells like burned bananas.” Marlowe’s eyes flicked to the kitchen window. “Josie must be baking again.”

  Nero sighed. “I do hope she can master that. Millie is right, the guests do want good food.”

  “But if she doesn’t, maybe Millie will come over more often and help her?”

  “That would be good, but Millie needs to have her fun too. Can’t expect her to bake for the guests every day. Josie needs to learn.”

  “I suppose.” Marlowe’s eyes reflected gold in the light of the moon as she watched the people walking around the yard with their shovels and flashlights. “Silly humans. I could have told them nothing is buried here. I know. I sniffed the entire estate.”

  “Me too.” Nero watched the other cat closely. “But did you discover anything interesting while you were sniffing?”

  Marlowe jerked her head back to look at Nero. “Interesting? No. There is no treasure, I assure you.”

  Nero washed behind his left ear. See? The other cat still had a lot to learn. “Not treasure, true…”

  “What, then?”

  “Nefarious intent and betrayal. I smelled it on the searchers. Someone is thinking dark thoughts.”

  Marlowe looked back at the searchers. “Do you think that has anything to do with the confession Juliette overheard?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And do you think it has something to do with the guests here?”

  “Likely. They do have issues. The mother made them swear that they would split the treasure, but I think some of them want to take it for themselves.”

  “I think all of them want to. But since there is no treasure, there will be no problem there.”

  “No.” Nero stopped washing and watched the lights bobbing in the yard. He was going to have a heck of a job early tomorrow morning checking the grounds and filling in any holes the diggers had forgotten to fill. He didn’t want to leave any open for someone to trip into. That might reflect badly on the guesthouse. “I think we need to watch them carefully though. There is dissension in the ranks.”

  “I’ll say,” Marlowe agreed. “Weird bunch. Not even interested in the old bones of their ancestor. I must say, I’m a bit disappointed that the police have dropped the case.”

  “Me too. But you know we sniffed that wall for hours and not one clue. Not one old scent. Nothing.”

  “I know.” Marlowe’s voice dripped with disappointment.

  Nero glanced back to see Josie’s silhouette moving around in the kitchen window. Hopefully she was mixing up something that would be suitable for the town celebration. “Looks like Josie has her hands full in the kitchen. We’ll need to watch these diggers carefully. It’s up to us to make sure the guests don’t leave the yard in a shambles… or do something even worse.”

  Ten

  I slept like a log. You’d think I would have tossed and turned, what with the discovery of a skeleton in my wall and half the town digging up my yard, but stress always made me sleepy. I’d fallen asleep with the cats snuggled against me in the bed around midnight only to jerk awake one minute before my alarm went off at seven. I rushed downstairs to get breakfast ready. Luckily, I’d picked out something that I could whip together quickly.

  I got bacon and sausages going on the stove. Those were the mainstays of a good breakfast as far as I was concerned. And, of course, given the Biddefords love of pancakes, I whipped up some batter. I might have put in too much sugar—I mean the one tablespoon in the recipe hardly seemed like enough—but hopefully they wouldn’t notice. I quickly diced up some fruit and put it in Millie’s great-grandma’s cut-glass boat-shaped fruit bowl. That always made a great presentation.

  Now for omelets. I set some butter heating in a few pans, then beat together some eggs, water, salt and pepper. Was I supposed to be paying attention to the ratio? The mixture looked okay, so I poured it into the pans. Now what? I tilted the pans so the egg mixture coated the bottom and waited until it looked like it was cooking and tossed in some ham and cheese I’d chopped the night before. Hmm… it looked like it needed something else. I rummaged in the fridge and pulled out some spinach. A little greenery always adds a nice touch. I threw it in at the last minute. Hmmm… shouldn’t it get wilty? I didn’t have time to wait for that.

  For once I had timed things perfectly and it was ready by the time I heard the Biddefords stirring upstairs.

  I rushed it into the dining room where coffee was already percolating in the old-fashioned urn. Say what you will about Flora but at least she always put on the coffee. That was probably because she wanted some herself, but I wasn’t about to complain.

  The Biddefords shuffled in and filled their mugs. Good thing I’d remembered to put out Carla’s Yale mug. She looked like she was in a bad mood and I didn’t want to suffer her wrath. In fact, they all looked a little worse for wear. No doubt they’d been up late digging.

  I glanced outside at the yard but true to their word they’d filled in the holes, though the grass looked a little ratty. I had to admit my landscaping hadn’t been that great to begin with. Apparently no one had dug up treasure because they weren’t celebrating.

  “No treasure last night?” I asked as they filled their plates and took their seats at the long table.

  “Not for lack of trying, though.” Doris shoved a forkful of pancakes into her mouth and chewed. Then she glanced around the table suspiciously at her children. “I mean, one of you didn’t find it, did you?”

  Paula hiccupped and shook her head, looking at her mother with big, innocent eyes over her coffee mug. Her face was still scratched from the shrub she’d fallen asleep in the day before.

  “Well I certainly didn’t,” Carla said. “But maybe someone else did?” She glanced across the table at Bob’s empty seat.

  Doris followed her gaze. “Where is Bob? Has anyone seen him?”

  Earl shrugged. “I didn’t hear him moving around in his room. Maybe he’s sleeping in. Knowing Bob, he was the last one up digging. He always did try to one-up the rest of us.”

  Carla’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think he found the treasure and took off with it, do you?”

  “Where would he go and how would he get there? We only have three rental cars between us and they are all in the driveway.” Earl looked at me. “Bob didn’t leave in a taxi or anything early this morning, did he?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m just glad we don’t have to share the pancakes,” Henry said as he raised a forkful of golden pancakes dripping with syrup.

  I smiled pleasantly. At least no one had said the pancakes were too sweet. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying them. Maybe I was onto something with the extra sugar.

  Mereeoow.

  The sound came from outside, and it wasn’t the cat’s normal meow. It sounded panicked. My heart jerked. Had an animal gotten them? I rushed over to the window, shoving aside the sheer blind that was fluttering in the breeze and looked out.

  I didn’t see any cats. Nor did I hear any more panicked meowing. I scanned the yard, then the field, but the only movement was a lobster boat motoring around in the cove picking up traps and a few seagulls circling above it.

  I turned back to the room in time to see Paula spit out some omelet. Gross.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Doris asked.

  Paula made a face. “The spinach in there is weird.”

  Arlene nodded and pinched up a spinach leaf between her thumb and forefinger and held it up. “They’re supposed to be wilted. This isn’t cooked.” She leveled a look at me.

  Who knew you were supposed to put them in sooner so they cooked all the way?

  “It’s a new thing. More healthy this way. A lot of the vitamins are lost when you cook it.” I had no idea if it was true, but I thought I’d recovered quite nicely.

  “I heard that the sheriff came by yesterda
y,” Doris said.

  “Yes, he cleared the crime scene.”

  “Did he say what happened?”

  “Not much more than what we learned yesterday, but he did think it was Jedediah Biddeford.”

  “Huh, go figure. I knew it was him.” Doris looked round the table. “Should we have a funeral?”

  The kids shook their heads.

  “Who would pay for that?” Arlene asked.

  “Good point,” Doris said. “Maybe we could make a cheese sculpture in his honor. I mean, it’s not like we knew him. No sense in spending money on a funeral when there are no friends or family to attend.”

  “Maybe just have him buried in the old family cemetery.” Paula had a Baileys Irish Cream nip in her hand and was pouring it on the pancakes.

  “Well that would be up to Josie. She owns it now.” Doris raised a brow in my direction.

  The old Biddeford family cemetery was at the west edge of the property. I’d seen the moss-covered slabs ringed with a black wrought-iron fence once when Millie had taken me back to show me some of the acreage. It was overgrown and barely accessible and I was sure no one had been buried there in two hundred years.

  “I guess it’s okay. I don’t think they actually bury people in old family plots like that anymore, do they?”

  Doris shrugged and then she laughed. “Maybe we can do it ourselves. We have shovels.”

  “Speaking of which, we put the shovels away in the carriage house like you wanted, Josie,” Earl said.

  “Thank you.”

  A movement outside caught my eye. It was Mike Sullivan. I’d forgotten he was coming to inspect an old toolshed that I’d had Ed replace the roof on. I was looking into hiring someone to work on the landscaping and they’d need a place to store the tools. I watched as he headed down the path.

  Merow!

  This time it sounded like the same high-pitched caterwauling that had happened when they’d found the skeleton. If I wasn’t mistaken, the noise was coming from the direction in which Mike was heading. Mike was good with cats, if something was wrong he would help them.

  “I hate to be a complainer,” Arlene said, inspecting her fingernails for dirt—not that dirt would dare stick to her, “but I would appreciate it if we could get some maid service in our room. It’s still dirty like I told you yesterday.”

  I bit back a sarcastic remark. Arlene was the type that was never happy. I’d seen Flora in there cleaning, so I knew it had been cleaned. Then again, Flora wasn’t the best cleaner so maybe I should go in myself and make sure it was spotless.

  Merooo!

  This time it was loud. Everyone looked toward the window.

  “What is that?” Paula asked. “Is that those cats?”

  “Yes, they meow like that sometimes.”

  Doris’s eyes narrowed. “The last time they did that we found a skeleton in the wall.”

  I forced a laughed. “What are the chances of that happening again?”

  Doris craned to look out the window as another panicked meow drifted in. “I don’t know, but something urgent must be going on out there. Look.” She pointed and I tilted my head so I could see what she was pointing at.

  It was Mike Sullivan and he was running toward the house.

  My heart jerked. Was one of the cats in trouble? Maybe one was hurt badly and he was running to call for help.

  As I ran into the hallway, I heard the kitchen door whip open and Mike’s footsteps as he rushed toward the dining room.

  “What is it? Are the cats okay?” The tightness in my chest made me realize how fond I’d grown of the cats. I hated the thought of one of them being hurt. Not to mention Millie would kill me if anything happened to them.

  “Where’s the fire?” Doris had come out into the hall and was standing behind me. Wait, was she making a reference to my loaf cakes that kept burning?

  “There’s no fire,” Mike panted. “My phone battery is dead and we need to call Seth Chamberlain. There’s a body down by the pond and it doesn’t look good.”

  “Well at least Mike will get the ball rolling. If we waited for Josie to understand what our different cries mean this one might turn into a skeleton too.” Nero eyed the body floating face down at the edge of the pond. Unfortunately, this body wasn’t almost three hundred years old. And even more unfortunately, it was the body of one of the guests.

  “It doesn’t bode well that another one of the guests has died here.” Marlowe’s voice held a tinge of guilt.

  Nero understood why the other cat felt guilty. He felt that way himself. They’d been asleep (literally) on the job a few weeks ago and a guest had been killed inside the B&B. The Oyster Cove Guesthouse was their responsibility now and being unaware that someone was being murdered, and thus not taking steps to prevent it, had weighed heavily on him. Luckily it didn’t seem like it had hurt business, but the results could have been disastrous.

  And now there’d been another murder and they hadn’t prevented that one either. Hopefully this wouldn’t stain the guesthouse’s reputation.

  “What’s going on? I could hear you guys all the way over at the Smugglers Bay Inn where I was under the deck looking for handouts.” Poe pushed his way through the shrubs.

  “Yeah and you interrupted my nap in the morning sun.” Juliette ducked under a pine bough, her eyes growing wide when she saw the body.

  “Oh… You’ve got a floater.” Stubbs appeared from a small path that led up to the cliffs.

  “Yeah, guess we messed up again,” Marlowe said.

  “Is it one of the guests?” Boots trotted to the edge of the pond and proceeded to inspect the body.

  Nero sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Hey, don’t feel bad.” Harry picked a burr from his fur. “It’s not like you can watch over every piece of the property.”

  “Yeah and this place was crawling with people last night,” Juliette said.

  “Tell me about it.” Nero watched as Boots trotted gingerly around the body, taking care not to disturb anything. He’d already done his own inspection, but valued the others’ opinions, even if Boots could act a bit uppity at times. “Were you guys here last night? Did you see any odd behavior from the humans?”

  “Sorry, I was at the rectory all night,” Juliette said.

  “I wasn’t here either, but people were acting weird all over town,” Harry said. “Treasure fever.”

  “You think it was a townie who did it?” Poe asked.

  Boots had finished with the body and come back to the others now standing at the edge of the clearing. They knew the humans would be there soon and wanted to blend into the background. It wouldn’t do to have the humans suspect they were actually investigating.

  “That’s doubtful,” Boots said. “Who would have motive? Makes more sense that one of the other guests did it since they know each other.”

  “Of course.” Nero regretted the huffy tone in his voice, but it did get tedious when Boots stated the obvious as if he was the only one who would think of it. The other cat raised a brow at him, preening his long whiskers.

  “I’ve had a gut feeling that something was going on with the guests,” Nero said.

  “This is good news,” Harry said.

  “Not so much for the body,” Poe replied.

  “Oh sorry, yeah. What I meant was this is a fresh case. One we can really sink our claws into.”

  “First we start with the family members,” Juliette said.

  Marlowe nodded. “They smell sneaky.”

  “And a bit like Swiss cheese,” Nero said. “They’ve been arguing a lot too. Especially with the victim.”

  “We should check out their things. One of them might have evidence,” Harry said.

  “Do you think they have any of those cheese sculptures in their rooms?” Stubbs’s pink tongue darted out and licked his lips.

  “No, I checked,” Marlowe said. “Most I found was a few crumbs of Camembert.”

  “It might have something to do with that conf
ession I overheard. It was a woman. And she mentioned something about betraying someone close to her,” Juliette said.

  “Not necessarily a family member, though,” Boots pointed out. “One must use their superior feline brain cells to interpret the meaning of the clues.”

  Stubbs made a face. “Clues schmues. This guy was hit over the head with a shovel. They were digging for treasure. My bet is that he found something and someone wanted it. A fight ensued and the killer clonked him over the head and took the treasure for their own.”

  “Well it wasn’t this shovel.” Boots gestured toward a shovel that lay next to the body. “There is no blood on the end.”

  “If the killer did steal the treasure, then someone is a little bit richer today. Maybe we should see who is spending more money,” Poe said.

  “Or hiding it in their rooms.” Nero made a mental note to do a thorough inspection later.

  The wail of a siren split the air and the cats shrunk back into the tall grass at the edge of the clearing. Now they could hear the pounding of footsteps and the shouts as the humans came running from the house.

  “The humans are coming. Are you all sure you’ve checked the scene for clues? Once the humans come even the most subtle of clues will be obfuscated with weird smells and bumbling footsteps.”

  “I have what I need.” Boots preened his whiskers.

  “I’m good,” Stubbs said.

  “Ditto.” Harry picked another burr out of his long fur.

  “Me too,” Juliette said.

  “Good because the humans are going to need our help, especially Josie,” Nero said. “We know about the confession and the argument about the secret book Marlowe and I overheard, but Josie doesn’t have that advantage.”

  “Yeah,” Marlowe added as the humans rushed out of the path practically falling all over each other. “And we better make it fast, before our dear Josie is accused of murder. Again.”

  Eleven