Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

“Mrr,” said the meat loaf.

“What kind are these? Well, those are daisies,” I said, pointing. “And those are . . . are yellow flowers, and those are blue ones.” Maybe it was time to start studying the wildflower book that was in the bookmobile. I’d learned a lot about birds over the past year while driving around the county, and there was no reason I couldn’t learn more things.

“Not that these are wildflowers,” I told my critical cat. “I’ve heard you’re not supposed to take wildflowers from where they grow.” Why, I wasn’t exactly sure, but it probably had something to do with native and protected species and public lands, and that removing the blooms could hurt the flower’s reproduction possibilities.

I moved the vase to the middle of the dining booth’s table and turned it this way and that, admiring the colors. “Sounds weird, though, doesn’t it? Flowers reproducing, I mean. Kind of makes you think about them sneaking around after dark and making out.”

The image amused me. “Maybe that’s how we get new species—adolescent flowers doing what Mom and Dad warned them not to do, and suddenly there’s a brand-new flower in the family.” Smirking at myself, I turned back to the sink and washed off the scissors. “Then there’s this new flower, and it’s not accepted by any of the other flowers and—”

Crash!

I whipped around. “Eddie!” I lunged forward, grabbing at the tipped-over vase with one hand and reaching for the flowers with the other. Water streamed onto the floor and puddled around my flip-flopped feet.

Eddie, who was now sitting on the table, just watched.

“Why on earth did you do that?” I shoved the flowers back into the vase before they could drip anywhere else. After refilling the water, I put the vase on the kitchen counter.

“These,” I said, glaring at my cat and pointing at the flowers, “are not a cat toy. They are mine. Not yours. Understand?”

Eddie stared straight at me, then yawned, showing long and white teeth.

“Yeah, yeah.” I pulled off a length of paper towels and knelt on the floor, reaching under the table to get the far end of the puddle. “How did you get water way back here? You’re a mess maker—that’s what you are. Like a matchmaker, only different. We could make up new lyrics to the song. How about—”

Crash!

“Eddie!” I started to stand, bonked my head on the underside of the table, slid out of the danger zone, and spun myself around on the floor, holding my hand to my head. “What is with you, cat?”

My furry friend was paying no attention to me. He was on the kitchen counter, his entire being focused on pushing a daisy out of the fallen flower arrangement and onto the floor. Plop.

“Off,” I ordered.

“Mrr!” he ordered back, but he did jump down.

“And quit playing with my flowers.” I pulled the daisy away from his outstretched paw. “Not a cat toy, remember?” For the third time, I put the flowers in the vase. After adding some water, I looked around for a safe home and quickly decided there wasn’t anywhere both out of reach and viewable by those houseboat residents—which would be me—who would enjoy looking at the flowers.

“You are horrible.” I put the flowers into the fridge. “I’ll have to take those to the library to get any pleasure out of them.”

Eddie pawed at the refrigerator door. “Mrr!”

“Really? How many times do I have to tell you? Not a cat toy.”

He gave me a look of fierce disgust and stalked off.

“You’re not going away mad, are you?” I called.

“Mrr.”

“I love you, you know!”

He paused at the top of the short stairway and looked back. “Mrr,” he said, and hopped down the stairs, pushed open the door of my tiny closet, and flopped onto my shoes, where he stayed the rest of the night.

Chapter 9

The next morning I woke up sore in all sorts of odd places. I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Mrr?” Eddie asked.

“Hang on a second. I’m still trying to figure it out.” I stood, not bothering to stifle a whimpering groan, and hobbled around in a small circle. “Worst is probably the backs of my shoulders,” I said. The trapezius? I tried to remember the diagrams from a high school physiology class. No, that wasn’t right. I reached around with my fingers and tenderly poked at the sore parts. “Latissimus dorsi.” I eyed my cat, wondering if he had a corresponding muscle. If he did, would he be able to water-ski? There’d been that video of a water-skiing squirrel; maybe I could make Eddie famous.

“Mrr,” he said, stretching out a long paw.

“Sorry.” I nodded. “Back to the inventory. Shoulders hurt the most; thighs aren’t far behind. And my neck is stiff, although I’m not sure why.”

Eddie flopped over on his side with a soft thump .

“You’re right,” I agreed. “It probably is from that last time I crashed. I hit the water pretty hard.” I rotated my head around, trying to loosen up the muscles. “And all that crawling around on the floor of Pam’s store, sorting out books, probably didn’t help, either.” Or the sleep I’d lost. But, hey, I was young and relatively fit, and I’d be able to catch up on sleep soon enough. All I needed was a hot shower and breakfast.

Eddie yawned and drew himself into a ball that was half his size, a miracle achieved on a daily basis by cats around the world.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” I told him as I headed toward the bathroom. “It’s a bookmobile day, you know.”

His eyes opened wide.

“Would I mess with you about a thing like that?” I asked. “Yes, I might give you a hard time about your snoring, your tendency to sleep draped across my neck, and your complete disregard of the only ultimate demand I’ve ever had of you—you know, that one about staying off the kitchen counter—but I would never joke with you about the bookmobile.”

“Mrr!”

He jumped off the bed, galloped through the bedroom and up the stairs, and only screeched to a stop when he reached my backpack, upon which he sat upright until it was time to leave.

* * *

The bookmobile day was crowded with patrons who wanted information even more than they wanted books. We were making stops in this part of the county for the first time since Andrea’s murder, and by this time, even the people who eschewed newspapers had heard the news.

But even though the concern about a murder was real, what seemed to be upsetting people the most was the attack on the bookmobile.

“It’s all right, isn’t it?” asked seven-year-old Ethan Engstrom. He looked up at me anxiously, his face full of concern.

I’d met Ethan on the first stop of the bookmobile’s maiden voyage, the one upon which Eddie had been a stowaway. Not wanting word of a cat hair–laden beast to get back to my boss, I’d emptied a storage cabinet and encouraged Eddie to stay inside during the stops.

Young Ethan was curious and helpful, and he’d opened the Eddie cabinet in hopes of finding a place to store the things I’d taken out of Eddie’s cabinet and had to put on the floor. Eddie came out of the closet, and life hadn’t been the same since.

“The bookmobile is fine,” I assured him.

“They didn’t hurt Eddie, did they?” asked Cara, the middle of the three Engstrom girls.

“Eddie was sound asleep in bed,” I told her, smiling. “He wasn’t anywhere near the bookmobile when it happened.”

This, apparently, puzzled Emma, the youngest Engstrom girl. Emma was twin to Ethan. Cara was twins with Patrick, and the oldest of the statistically impossible Engstrom twins were Trevor and Rose, now thirteen. Last year Rose had been going through a princess phase, but she seemed to have grown past that and was now into horses.