Лейганн Доббс - A Whisker In The Dark

“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.