Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Advice. Purrfect Passion. A Purrfect Gnomeful

But to her surprise Mia was smiling. “I knew that, auntie. Of course I knew that.”

“You… knew about me and Kirk?”

“Of course! We live in the same house. Kirk probably thought he could keep it a secret but I knew. I saw him sneak into your room one night. And then I discovered that he liked to sleep in my room Mondays and Thursdays, and in yours Tuesdays and Fridays. I don’t know where he spent his Wednesdays and his weekends. Not in my room and not in yours, so I think he must have had someone else whose bed he slept in those other nights.”

Allison stared at her niece. “But… you never told me.”

“Of course not, silly. I didn’t want to embarrass you. Besides, I wasn’t as infatuated with Kirk as you thought. And I knew he wasn’t as into me as he made out to be. Kirk was a man who didn’t want to be tied down by a single woman. I knew that going in.”

“Then you’re a lot wiser than I am,” said Allison ruefully. “I had no idea. Not about you, or these others.”

“Did you love him, auntie?” asked Mia earnestly.

“Not really. I liked him. He was very charming, and a lot of fun to be around. But love? No, I don’t think that ever entered into the equation.”

“Good. Then at least he didn’t get the chance to break any hearts.”

“Unless one of the other women he was involved with felt differently,” Allison pointed out.

Mia shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m just glad I’m not in jail right now. And it’s all thanks to Odelia, and her grandmother.”

“It’s a strange state of affairs,” Allison said. “Usually the police aren’t that eager to ignore evidence.”

“I think secretly Odelia and her grandmother are cat whisperers, too, and they talked to Jasmine, who told them I was nowhere near Kirk when it happened.”

Allison laughed at this. It was just like her niece to dream up a story like that. “I’m going into town later this afternoon. I want to redo the entire upstairs. Wanna come? It could be our joint project.”

“Oh, God, yes, please. If I have to stay in this house for a minute longer I’ll go nuts. And can I please change rooms until the remodeling is done? I couldn’t sleep last night, knowing that right next door Kirk…” She swallowed. “… was murdered.”

The doorbell chimed and Allison said, “That will be them, my latest Gabis.”

“Oh, so they’re the new Gabi?” said Mia, interested.

“Yeah, and they’re pretty good, too. And if they manage to catch Kirk’s killer, I’ll personally see to it that they both receive the Aggie this year.”

Chapter 23

So we were back at the house where only the day before a tragedy had taken place. I was actually happy to be involved in the investigation again, even if it wasn’t with our usual human partner Odelia but with Gran and Scarlett instead.

“Nice of Gran to bring us along, isn’t it, Max?” asked Dooley.

“Yeah, very nice,” I agreed.

“And maybe we can ask her about the mice,” Dooley added. “Gran must know some old remedy that will get rid of them, right?”

“Maybe,” I said, though I wasn’t too sure.

Gran had told us to seek out Jasmine again and grill her some more. She’d also told us they’d spend the rest of the day interviewing Allison’s staff, and if we could maybe listen in on staff conversations we could hopefully glean a great deal more than she and Scarlett ever could with their interviews.

It was a good plan. In unguarded moments people tend to let slip things they should probably have left unspoken.

First things first, though. It was time to talk to Jasmine again, and to be absolutely honest I wasn’t looking forward to it. Jasmine was a cat who didn’t take prisoners.

Dooley, though, seemed anxious to make the cat’s acquaintance once more. But then Dooley has a thing for femme fatales, I guess. Like Harriet, on whom he’s had a crush for ages.

So we snuck up the stairs and soon found Mia’s bedroom. Of Jasmine, though, there was no trace. So we simply followed our noses and keen senses of hearing, and discovered the prissy Persian in a room at the back of the house, sunning herself on the hardwood floor. Judging from the racks of books against the wall and the cozy comfortable chair near the window, this was the room where Allison liked to read.

“Oh, God, not you two clowns again,” said Jasmine by way of greeting.

If I was discouraged by these words of welcome I decided not to show it. “Hi, Jasmine,” I said. “How are things?”

“How are things? You have to work on your small talk, Hardy. It sucks.”

“I saw a mouse poop this morning,” said Dooley, and caused Jasmine to guffaw, a nice change of pace from her usual snarkiness.

“You did what?”

“There are mice in our basement, and one of them left droppings on the top step.”

“Why do you have mice in the house?” asked Jasmine. “You should have gotten rid of them a long time ago. Don’t you know the first thing about being a cat?”

“Um… being nice to our humans”? Dooley ventured.

“No! Killing vermin. The only reason humans took us in all those long years ago was because we’re such great mousers. You can check this house top to bottom. You will not find a single mouse. Or a rat, for that matter. I take my job very seriously, and my humans appreciate me all the more for it.”

“So… how do you catch these mice?” asked Dooley. “And what do you do with them once you catch them?”

Jasmine stared at him, incredulous. “What do I do with these mice? Are you crazy? I eat them, of course.”

Dooley made a face. “Yuck!”

“Yuck? What did you think I do with them? Coddle them and make friends with them? Cats eat mice. That’s the way it has always been and that’s exactly the way it should be. And if you have any respect for your human you should do the same.”

“But… they’re alive!” said Dooley.

“Not for long, they’re not,” said Jasmine with a cruel grin.

“Eww!” said Dooley. “But that’s so mean!”

“It’s the way it should be. No mice should tread where cats roam. Not now, not ever.”

“Well, they’re treading wide and plentiful where we live,” I said. “I think there must be hundreds down there, possibly thousands.”

“Oh, jeez. You two are so pathetic I can’t believe it.”

“Well… maybe you can drop by and help us out?” I now suggested.

“No can do, Hardy. This is your mess, not mine.”

I could see where she was coming from, but even though intellectually I knew she was right, I simply couldn’t see myself gobbling up mice with hide and hair and chugging them down. I simply couldn’t. Call me spoiled but I drew the line at eating live animals.

“Anyway, we’re not here to talk about mice,” I said. “We’re actually here to talk some more about Kirk.”

“So you still haven’t caught the guy’s killer, huh? I told you yesterday. It was Allison.”

“Allison assured our human she had nothing to do with Kirk’s death, and our human believes her,” I said.

“Then your human is an idiot,” Jasmine shot back immediately. “Everyone can see that Allison is guilty as hell. Do you know she’s already talking about redecorating the house? It’s pretty obvious she wants to get rid of the evidence.”

“What evidence? The murder weapon was right there, lodged in the man’s chest.”

“She wants the whole place remodeled. And not just repapered, either. Floors, ceilings, walls… The works. If that’s not the work of a desperate woman eager to hide her tracks, I don’t know what is.”

“She could simply want to get rid of the image of Kirk in that room,” I said. “Lots of people have the rooms where people have died a violent death redone. Some people even sell their houses for that same reason, as the memory is too much for them.”