Лейганн Доббс - A Whisker In The Dark

We came to the French doors that opened into the room and my fears were put to rest when I saw it was empty except for the plants Millie had given me. Maybe the cats were trying to remind me to water them.

“Nice try, guys. Everything looks fine in here.” I scanned the room. Even in its dilapidated state, it was clearly once lovely. Large Palladian windows—most of which were temporarily boarded up—ran the length of the room and French doors opened to the overgrown garden. The moon shone in from the one window not boarded, creating a swatch of silver light on the floor. Wait… what was that shadow on the floor, over by the giant ficus tree?

The cats trotted over. Uh oh… was this why they’d come here? Dread washed over me. The cats always seemed to insist on summoning humans when something terrible had happened.

The electricity had been shut off to this room, so I ventured in to get a closer look. I bent down slowly… phew! It was only dirt.

“Hey, did you guys do this?” I asked.

The cats looked up at me, the moonlight reflected in their eyes, making them glow bright. I inspected the ficus. Yep, looked like someone had rummaged in the dirt. I was pretty sure the cats liked to dig, I’d seen them digging outside.

“It’s not nice to dig in the house. That’s for outside.”

They gave off some confused meows. Nero batted at the dirt.

“Don’t spread it around or you won’t get any treats.” I tapped the plate with the cheese.

Mew!

Marlowe had something in the corner. I hoped it wasn’t a mouse. She crouched down and swatted. It rolled out toward me. Thankfully too small to be a mouse. I bent down to pick it up. A shiny nail? Had Ed been working in here? He’d said he hadn’t started here yet.

I stood and looked around. I didn’t see any tools or any evidence that work had been done. The nail could have come from anywhere though, the cats were known for batting things around and then leaving them in other rooms. They particularly liked the plastic water bottle caps. They must have batted the nail in here all the way from the ballroom.

They were looking up at me as if expecting praise. I held the nail out to them. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be batting nails all over the house. A guest could step on one and become injured.”

The cats looked at each other, shook their heads and trotted off. I looked back at the dirt as I left. Too bad I couldn’t train them to pick it up. I’d have to have Flora do it. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have plants in the house with the cats? And they must not be as smart as I’d been giving them credit for if they led me to their mess.

I followed them to the owner’s quarters, a cozy suite with a window overlooking the ocean. It was in a rounded turret and had a cute sitting area in the round part. The neutral shades of mocha and heather were soothing. I loved retreating here at the end of the day.

Millie had left quite a few of the antiques that decorated the room, but it also had some modern touches like a comfy micro-suede sectional. I settled onto the couch and the cats jumped up beside me, looking expectantly from me to the cheese.

“I did promise you some, didn’t I?” I took the two small pieces and broke them up some more, then held one out to Nero, who sniffed it for what seemed like an hour before gently taking it.

“And you?” I held one out to Marlowe. She glanced at Nero who was still busy daintily eating, then sniffed twice and grabbed it.

I nibbled my piece and thought about the day. I was a bit disturbed by the conversation I’d overheard in the hallway. I certainly hoped people weren’t going to start spreading rumors about a murderous ghost. All the more reason to find the killer pronto.

But the murder investigation wasn’t the only thing I had on my plate. I had to juggle that along with my responsibilities for the town celebration. I had the ingredients for the loaf cake I planned to make all ready to go and I’d do another test run tomorrow morning. The pamphlets were already on the table. I just needed that book about the Oyster Cove Guesthouse history. Millie said that should be up here, so I put my snack down and went over to the antique oak bookcase in the turret part of the room.

Meow!

Nero hopped on top of the bookshelf and peered down at me.

“Where’s the book, buddy?” I waited for him to indicate the general location but all he did was stare at me.

“Okay…” I ran my fingers along the leather-bound spines of the books. Poetry. Uncle Tom’s Cabin . An Audubon Anthology. My fingers stopped at a large book. “ Oyster Cove Town History . This must be it.”

Merooo … Marlowe stared at me from the back of the couch.

“Right, I thought so.” I took the book and flopped down on the couch. Nero trotted over. Both he and Marlowe seemed overly interested in the book, sniffing at it and putting their paws on it.

“You want to see what’s inside? I do too.” I opened the book, inhaling the vanilla scent of age-old paper. Inside were pictures of the guesthouse back in Jed’s day. It had been a large house but not nearly as large as it was now. Jed stood in front alongside a woman in a black dress with a voluminous skirt.

I pointed the woman out. “I guess this is Mrs. Jed.”

Nero smacked his paw on the page right above the description. Yep, Helena Biddeford. It was his wife.

“Maybe she’s the one who put him in the wall. What do you guys think?”

Meroo.

Marlowe pushed the edge of the book and it flipped to the next page.

“Going too slow for you?”

I flipped through, marveling at the old photos of the guesthouse and the town. Things had changed a lot over the centuries. There was a picture of a realistic drawing of Jedediah Biddeford with his family and household staff. He had his hand on a cane, the ring found on the skeleton clearly evident on his finger.

“I wonder which one of these children is Doris’s ancestor?” Doris hadn’t mentioned the name of the ancestor at the top of the Biddeford tree, but I looked at the inscription under the image anyway.

A familiar name caught my eye. Thomas Remington. Was that Myron’s ancestor?

I pulled the book closer to my face. He kind of looked like Myron. But this guy wasn’t a wealthy banker, he was a servant.

“Looks like Myron’s ancestor was Jedediah Biddeford’s butler,” I said out loud to the cats, who both were staring at me. “Funny how things work out, huh? He’s always boasting how his family was one of the first in Oyster Cove, but he makes it sound like they were part of the upper class.”

Meroo. Nero’s paw shot out and he riffled the pages, losing my place in the book.

“Yeah, I agree Myron sure is uppity considering where he came from.” I flipped back to the page just to double-check.

Meyawl! Marlowe whacked the cover of the book and I caught the pages before it snapped shut.

“Hey, I can’t read if—” Wait. Was their behavior an indication that I was on to something? They did have an uncanny way of knowing what was going on and it had seemed like they had helped me out during the last investigation, though I didn’t want to admit it at the time. Now that I’d spent more time with them, I was more inclined to consider that they might be smarter than everyone thought.

I broke off two more small pieces of cheese as a reward. I didn’t want to give them too much lest it upset their delicate systems. “I think you guys are trying to tell me something, aren’t you? Is this why Myron lied about being here last night? Does he have something to do with this?”

Meroo.

Merow.

The cats looked at me funny as if they didn’t understand what the reward was about, but they weren’t about to pass up cheese because they gobbled it down before head-butting my hand and practically shutting the book in their zeal to be petted.