Лейганн Доббс - A Whisker In The Dark

“Hurry up, the gang’s waiting.” Marlowe had trotted ahead, her black-and-orange tail high in the air. They were heading toward the bait wharf at the town dock where they often met with their other feline friends.

The others would have heard about the discovery of the skeleton by now and would want all the juicy details. He hated to tell them that their excitement would be in vain; there was nothing left to decipher after all these years. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too disappointed. Lying around all day in the sun could get boring and he was sure the others were as eager as he was to dig into a good investigation. Then again, judging by the behavior of the guests at the guesthouse, the cats might get that chance sooner than they thought.

Nero followed Marlowe past the colorful boats bobbing in the cove, down the long wharf and up the ramp to the bait dock. It was a mystery why the humans avoided this dock. He’d see them giving it a wide birth, covering their noses and making faces as they walked past.

The bait wharf had its own unique ambiance. The lapping of waves, the briny scent of ocean and rotting fish were pleasant, the incessant cawing of the gulls not so much. The gulls could be a nuisance, especially if they swooped down at you. Luckily there were plenty of old lobster traps to hide behind if that happened. Still, Nero knew to be careful where he stepped. One panicked misstep could land you in the cold Atlantic.

“Heard someone got iced up at the guesthouse again,” said Stubbs, an orange-striped tabby with a stub of a tail who was batting at a rope dangling from the side of a lobster trap. Stubbs had a habit of talking in old-time detective speak, which Nero presumed was a result of his human reading too many Raymond Chandler books to him.

“Not exactly,” Marlowe said. “Well, I guess he got iced at some point but not in our time.”

“How long do you think he was in there?” Juliette curled her fluffy gray tail around her as she settled on top of one of the lobster pots.

“Probably about two hundred and fifty years.” Boots licked his paw, the white boot contrasting with the black on the rest of his leg, then smoothed one of his long whiskers.

“How do you know that?” Harry, a fluffy Maine Coon, asked.

Boots gave him a look of superiority. Boots could be that way. He fancied himself cleverer than the others, which could be annoying at times. But he had a good heart and mad detective skills, so Nero let it pass. “I used my superior sense to find out who the victim was and did the math.”

“You mean you overheard Sheriff Chamberlain.” Poe, a gray mix, leveled Boots with a green-eyed stare.

“Well, am I correct?” Boots ignored Poe and turned to Nero.

“Indeed. The body has been there for exactly two hundred and fifty years.” Nero used the word “exactly” loosely. His superior senses enabled him to deduct an average or expected amount of time, but he couldn’t be sure. Then again, none of the other cats could either, so he might as well try to sound smart while he could.

A shadow loomed from above and the cats all ducked. A seagull!

Splat! A white-and-orange dropping landed on the ground in the middle of the cats who had formed a conversational circle. The gull’s raucous laughter echoed as it swooped up into the sky.

“Darn things are getting aggressive again.” Juliette checked her fluffy tail for bird droppings.

“Maybe it wasn’t so bad when they were dying off.” Stubbs eyed the splatter as they all shifted over to a non-soiled part of the wharf.

“If the crime is that old it doesn’t sound like anything we could dig our claws into,” Harry said, once they were settled. “Murder most likely. I mean, how else would a skeleton get inside a wall? My informant down at the police station, Louie Two Paws, has told me the victim was all bones, and not even delicious ones either. Not that we would eat human bones. And the police think it was Jedediah Biddeford, the guy who built your very own Oyster Cove Guesthouse.”

“Indeed.” Again Nero acted like he already knew all this, but in fact he’d only suspected. He’d have found out from Millie or Josie eventually, but it was good to have confirmation straight from the police source.

“But how can we investigate?” Boots preened his long whiskers, curling them up at the end. “There are no clues left to stimulate our superior brain power or suspects alive to spy on.”

Another shadow loomed and the cats ducked again.

“Darn gulls.” Marlowe looked up at the sky.

“They seem healthy now,” Nero said. Earlier that summer the gull population had been mysteriously dying off. That was resolved now and, while Nero was glad the creatures were not dying, he still wished they would stop tormenting the cats.

“From my bird’s-eye view from the belfry, it seems as if there are more and more of them swooping around the cliffs every day. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. I wouldn’t mind if they left us alone.” Juliette lived at the rectory and had full range of the entire place, including the belfry. She’d invited Nero up there once and the view was astounding. No wonder she spent so much time up there.

All the other cats nodded. The gulls took pleasure in tormenting the cats. Nero had tried to catch one once, and it was not an easy endeavor. Besides, it could be very dangerous as their beaks were sharp.

“Too bad your bird’s-eye view couldn’t show us who killed Jedediah Biddeford,” Poe said. “Then we’d be able to solve a case even the police probably can’t.”

Juliette sighed, the white star on her forehead scrunching together. “No, it can’t, but it can show me that the town has gone crazy for shovels.”

“Yeah, at first I hoped maybe they were all trying to bury bodies. But then I realized there was no way all those people bumped someone off,” Stubbs said. “Turns out it’s because of the treasure curse.”

“You mean the humans believe in that?” Boots looked incredulous. “I would think they’d be smarter.”

“When it comes to treasure, you never can tell what people will do. They go crazy,” Stubbs said.

Juliette nodded. “Sometimes even so far as to commit murder.”

“I wouldn’t put it past the Biddefords to try to bump off the competition,” Marlowe said. “We heard two of them arguing about a secret book earlier.”

“You don’t say.” Poe turned his gaze to Marlowe. “Tell me more.”

Marlowe shuffled uneasily. “Well, we’re not sure what kind of book. But it sounded important.”

“A treasure map?” Stubbs asked.

Marlowe scrunched up her nose. “I don’t think so.”

“Well what did your human, Josie, make of the argument?” Harry asked.

“She didn’t hear it,” Marlowe said.

“So she knows nothing of this supposed secret book?” Poe asked.

Marlowe washed behind her ears. “No. Hopefully it won’t become important if someone is bumped off because I have no idea how we would let her in on it.”

“We’d have to look for evidence in their rooms, I suppose,” Nero said. Then added, “But let’s not get too eager for nefarious activity.”

“Right,” Stubbs said. “We have a skeleton mystery to look into.”

“But maybe that’s how Jedediah ended up inside the wall. Someone killed him over money,” Poe suggested.

“If that’s true that means the treasure is long gone.” Nero hopped up onto one of the lobster crates, looking up anxiously to make sure another gull was not about to launch a sneak attack.

“Judging by the number of people I saw running around with shovels, the humans don’t think the treasure is long gone,” Juliette said.

“Sometimes they lack common sense,” Boots said.