Лейганн Доббс - A Twist In The Tail

Millie frowned. ‘Josie! That is no way to speak to the cats.’

As if understanding what she said, both cats trotted over to her purring and rubbing against her ankles while casting me angry looks.

‘But they messed up the bed!’ In my defense I had no idea how to talk to them. Should one let them just do whatever they wanted or was there some secret way to get them to obey you?

‘You must never admonish or threaten them,’ Millie said. ‘That will only make things worse. You should speak to them as if they are the superior beings that they are.’

The cats preened and purred.

I looked at Millie out of the corner of my eye. I wasn’t sure if she had said that bit about superior beings for their benefit or if she was serious. If she was serious, then she was crazier than I’d previously thought. I filed that thought away for future reflection.

‘Enough about the cats,’ Mom said. ‘We’re in here looking for clues, right?’ Her gaze fell on a pair of tan pants on the floor. ‘Look, the man couldn’t even pick up his dirty laundry.’

Now what in the world was I supposed to do with those pants? I had no idea what the protocol for dealing with deceased guest’s belongings was. Would the police come and take his things? Should I box them up? How long should I wait? Because judging by the police tape that used to be on the door, I wasn’t even supposed to be in here.

‘I don’t see any computer, that’s usually where the good stuff is.’ Millie looked around the room.

‘I don’t remember him having one,’ I said. Had he? I thought back to when he’d checked in. He’d had a suitcase and a blue paper notebook but no case for a computer.

‘Darn,’ Mom added. ‘Maybe he left another clue.’

‘I say we look to his bureau drawers.’ Millie opened a drawer and started pawing through it.

‘I’ll take the bathroom,’ Mom said.

‘I guess that leaves the rest of the room for me.’ I got down on my hands and knees and peeked under the bed. There was nothing under there but dust bunnies. Not a surprise, I doubted Flora vacuumed under the beds. ‘Just what, exactly, are we looking for?’

Thud.

Over on the other side of the bed, something hit the floor. I jumped up to look. Marlowe was on top of the little bookshelf and apparently angry at the lack of attention. I’d heard that cats could be persnickety that way. She must have decided that a good way to get it was to push the little lighthouse statue off the top of the bookshelf.

‘Hey now, kitty, that’s not necessary for a supreme being such as yourself.’ I tried to temper my voice so it was soft and placating as I strode around the bed and picked up the statue. I was certain that cats responded to the tone of one’s voice and not the words.

‘They can understand sarcasm,’ Millie said from her position crouched on the floor looking in the bottom drawer of the bureau.

I smiled at the cat who looked at me warily. I reached out to pet her and she hissed. I replaced the lighthouse and went over to the closet.

‘No clues in here.’ Millie stood and brushed her hands together. ‘Maybe we should look in between the mattress and the box spring.’

Thud. Mew.

We turned to see that Marlowe had now pushed a candle off the top of the bookcase.

‘Is this some kind of behavioral problem I should be aware of?’ I asked Millie.

‘No dear, they just love to push things onto the floor. Nothing is safe.’

I replaced the candle. I could’ve sworn Marlowe rolled her eyes and looked at me like I was stupid. If you ask me, I wasn’t the stupid one. Pushing things onto the floor when you knew someone would just put them back was stupid.

Nero was much smarter. He’d jumped up on the bed and was curled up on the duvet. ‘Please don’t get cat hair on that.’ I tried to say it with the reverence due a superior being.

‘There’s nothing in this bathroom but shaving cream and toothpaste.’ Mom leaned against the doorframe looking disappointed. ‘How are we going to figure out why someone killed the guy if there are no clues in his room?’

Thunk! Merow!

Marlowe had pushed the alarm clock off the bookshelf.

‘Now Marlowe, really,’ Millie strode over to the bookshelf and petted the cat, who purred and bumped her head up against her hand. ‘She bent to pick up the alarm clock but stopped halfway down. ‘Hey, this doesn’t look right.’

‘What?’ Mom and I joined her. I could see someone had rearranged her Reader’s Digest volumes and put different books in. ‘Ava told us Charles was writing a cookbook, maybe these are his books for reference or something.’

Meow!

Nero had come over for his portion of attention and was rubbing the side of his face against the corner of one of the books.

‘Huh, looks like there’s a book missing,’ Mom said.

‘Maybe he just didn’t have enough books to fill up the shelf?’ I suggested.

Millie straightened. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

Just then Flora sauntered past the room.

‘Hey, Flora!’ Millie yelled.

Flora stopped, backed up a few steps and narrowed her owlish eyes at us. ‘Oh no. I don’t clean crime scene rooms. Anything with police tape I don’t go in.’

‘We don’t want you to clean,’ Millie pulled her into the room and dragged her over to the bookcase. ‘Do you remember if this shelf was full?’

Flora shuffled over to the book case and vertebra cracked as she bent to examine the piece of furniture. She stopped with her face only inches from the shelf. She ran her finger along the layer of dust on the edge. ‘Yep, must’ve been something there.’

‘You remember that it was full?’ I asked.

‘Nah, my memory isn’t that great. But look at the dust on the edge. If that spot had been empty, there’d be dust in there too and that spot is clean as a whistle.’

Five

Nero breathed deep, savoring the delectable aroma of rotting fish. The bait wharf was one of his favorite places in Oyster Cove. It wasn’t just because the fishermen would sometimes throw them succulent scraps, either. The wharf had a certain ambiance that couldn’t be found anywhere else. From the sounds of the waves lapping on the dock, to the briny scent of sea and the warmth of the sun warming his back.

It was heaven on earth… well, except for the seagulls. They were partial to the bait dock too and, as far as Nero was concerned, created an incessant nuisance with their constant swooping and cawing. A cat had to be careful lest he get knocked into the water. No cat liked that, except for Harry, who loved the occasional saltwater bath.

A shadow darkened Nero’s path from above, and the loud gull cry made him cringe. He crouched, ready to dart under something, but the gull flew past. Looking up into the sky, Nero felt a tinge of sadness. There were fewer gulls than last week and even though he wished they would go swoop somewhere else, he still didn’t like the way their numbers were mysteriously dwindling. He didn’t want them to die off, just to tend to their business elsewhere. Still, he was glad there were no dead gulls at the wharf, last week they’d seen a gull body floating in the water and it was a most unpleasant sight.

Milling about in their usual spot, behind a stack of lobster pots, were five cats. The largest one, a solid gray cat named Poe, was sitting atop an old lobster pot, watching a fishing boat make its way out of the harbor and into the Atlantic.

On the ground next to the pot, Stubbs, an orange striped cat named such because his tail was a short stub, sniffed around the lobster pot for any old scraps of bait. The rumor about him was his tail had been chopped off with a cleaver when he’d been caught stealing an oxtail right from the butcher’s shop, but Stubbs would neither confirm nor deny this.