Лейганн Доббс - A Purrfect Alibi

To their dismay, the parlor was not unoccupied. Esther stood in front of the table where Madame Zenda’s tarot cards were still laid out. She was studying the cards with a pensive look on her face.

“She reads cards too?” Marlowe asked.

“Maybe she’s thinking about taking over now that Zenda is out of the picture,” Nero said.

But Esther wasn’t actually reading the cards. She picked them up one by one, placing them gently in a pile and then sighed as she put them off to the side. “Poor Betty Sue.”

Noticing the cats’ presence, her face cracked into a smile. She sat in the chair in front of her crystal ball and motioned for them to come to her.

“I don’t think Esther can be the killer,” Marlowe said as she trotted over and accepted a tuna-flavored treat that Esther had pulled out of her pocket. “She’s nice and has delicious treats.”

“Sometimes it’s the nice ones that you have to watch out for.” Nero felt it was prudent to exercise more caution in his assessments. He’d been around longer than Marlowe and had witnessed how humans often were not what they seemed.

Jed’s ghost swirled into view. “Have you guys been up in the attic recently?”

“I caught a delicious mouse up there last week.” Marlowe smacked her lips.

“Have you been way in the back where my stuff is? Who else goes up there?” Jed asked.

“As far as we know no one goes up there. That place is crammed full and it’s hard to get around, for humans at least. I don’t even think Josie has been through the whole attic yet,” Marlowe said. “But we were just about to go up.”

“Millie went up there when she was younger but, as far as I know, she hasn’t been up there in decades. She’s probably forgotten about everything up there as it is,” Nero added. “It’s all just a bunch of cast-offs and junk.”

“Yeah well someone’s been up there.” Jed fisted his hands on his hips. “I took a look through the trunk with my things in it and my good dress shoes are missing.”

Nero made a face and thought back to what the skeleton had had on for footwear. What was left of the clothing indicated that Jed hadn’t been dressed up and Nero distinctly remembered the shoes didn’t have fancy buckles like the one on Madame Zenda. “Well you have been dead for three hundred years. I suppose in that time someone could’ve gone up there and rearranged things. Or even borrowed your shoes.”

Jed pursed his lips, apparently contemplating Nero’s words. “I suppose. But the dress shoes that are missing had buckles similar to that found on the body.”

This piqued Nero’s interest. Their first clue! “You don’t say? Maybe we better head up into the attic and see what we can find out.”

“Yes, we need to figure out what is going on around here. I don’t like that people are bandying about the idea that I could’ve killed that woman. I’m no killer. In fact, I was a murder victim myself,” Jed said.

“Are you sure? You don’t seem to remember things like where the treasure is.” Marlowe slitted her eyes. “Maybe with your ghostly amnesia you don’t know what you did last night. Have you blacked out or anything?”

“Certainly not. And I didn’t forget where the treasure is. It’s just that the landmarks have changed and I need to do some looking around to find the spot. I tell you, I’m no killer!” Jed’s voice rose in outrage. “You ask me, it was one of these psychics. Probably jealous that Madame Zenda said she could talk to me.”

Nero glanced sideways at Esther. She was gazing into her crystal ball intently, her kind face a study in concentration. Was she hiding something beneath that pleasant exterior? “Maybe we should do some investigating into each one of them.”

“My money is on that blowhard, Victor,” Jed said. “He’s been running all around the estate trying to conjure me up with some lame chants and incantations.”

“You haven’t tried talking to him?” Marlowe asked.

“No. I haven’t actually tried too hard to talk to any of them and even if I did, it wouldn’t be Victor. I wouldn’t give him the time of day.” Jed glanced over at Esther and his face softened. “If I was going to talk to anyone, it would be someone pretty. Like maybe that young filly over there.”

Nero followed Jed’s gaze. He wasn’t sure what Jed was seeing but Nero only saw an old lady with white hair and a network of wrinkles. “Young?”

Jed laughed. “Well, I am three hundred years old, so she’s young to me.”

“Okay then, so back to the shoes. We’ll go take a look. See if we can sniff out any nefarious human activity. But I don’t think anyone has been to that part of the attic in decades.” Nero wasn’t sure if he wanted Jed to fixate on Esther. He was getting the same moon-eyed look that he got when he looked at Josie. Apparently the ghost was looking for love and Nero didn’t want to encourage that. He wanted Jed to drift away to the afterlife and not linger in the guesthouse because he had a crush on some human. Then again, maybe if he set his intentions on Esther, he’d leave the guesthouse when she did and they could be done with him.

“I hope it was someone in this century.” Jed’s expression turned somber. “Though I suppose it could be the person who killed me—they were very expensive shoes. Or maybe it was my wife. She was mad that I went off to Europe for so long and there’s no telling what kind of revenge she’d want to enact. Could have taken it out on my shoes.”

Nero mulled this over. Could Jed’s wife’s vengeful ghost be lurking about in the guesthouse? The odds of two ghosts running around were practically nil, besides Nero’s fine senses would have picked up on a second ghostly presence. It made more sense that the shoes had been taken a long time ago, which made them irrelevant to the current happenings. But then how did one explain the buckle?

“Are you sure that buckle was from your shoes?” Nero asked. “I mean, there must be plenty of similar buckles around.”

“That one was old. Back in my day things were handmade so very few of the same thing existed. Sure looked like the buckle I had,” Jed said.

“Too bad the police have taken it for evidence, otherwise I could try to sniff out the age,” Marlowe said.

Nero’s tail twitched in approval. The young cat was coming along nicely in figuring out how to use her superior senses to aid in their investigations. She did have a ways to go in knowing how to use their extensive network of feline detectives though.

Nero turned to her. “Good observation. But even if we cannot apply our noses to the buckle, we do have an informant who can.”

Marlowe’s green eyes widened. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? We can ask Louie Two Paws!”

Louie was a polydactyl Siamese that hung around at the police station. He often came in handy when the cats wanted insider information on cases. Marlowe jumped down from the arm of the chair where she’d been perched and started out of the room. “Come on! Let’s go downtown. We can visit Louie and consult with the gang first, then we’ll check out the attic when we come back.”

“The gang” was a group of cats that all helped to solve the various mysteries that cropped up around town. Unbeknownst to the humans, the cats had been doing this for decades. They wanted to keep the quaint ambiance of the town of Oyster Cove and having killers and thieves running around wouldn’t do. Of course, the cats couldn’t let on to the humans that they were the real masterminds behind solving the crimes, they had to make it look like it was all the humans’ doing. It took a bit of cleverness to accomplish that, as humans could be rather dense when presented with clues, but Nero prided himself on the fact that they had a perfect record and no one suspected their involvement.