Рита Браун - Probable Claws

“Pewts. Jump up here,” said Mrs. Murphy.

“I’m happy where I am. I smell treats in this lower drawer.”

“Come up here. It’s important.”

“She’ll open this drawer. I want to be right here,” Pewter argued.

“It’s dog treats.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t lick them.” Pewter swept her whiskers forward.

“Dammit, Pewter, get up here,” Mrs. Murphy growled.

As the tiger cat rarely swore, Pewter figured out this was important so she leapt up onto the desk as Harry ignored both of them. She was accustomed to working with feline help.

“Put your nose there, right there on the right-hand corner of the book.”

Pewter sniffed, her eyes watered. “Eww.”

“Something bad is on those pages.” Mrs. Murphy sounded firm. “We can’t let Harry open the book.”

“She can’t smell it.” Pewter took a moment, then realized what Mrs. Murphy was saying. “Poison?”

“It’s stung our eyes. We smell something bitter inside. Whatever it is, Pewts, it can’t be good.”

“Let’s push it on the floor.”

“No! Then she’ll pick it up and open it.”

Pewter backed off, as did Mrs. Murphy, putting themselves between Harry and the dinosaur book.

Harry reached for the book to page through a bit, see if there were any notes therein.

“Don’t touch it.” Mrs. Murphy batted her hand away.

“That’s enough.” Harry reached again and this time both cats swatted at her.

Leaning back in the comfortable chair, the human observed her cats. She knew, as do most people who live close to animals, that their senses prove far superior to human ones. Each time she reached for the book, she met increasingly fierce resistance. She paused, then considered she should leave the book where it was. She wasn’t sure why she did this, but she did trust her cats. A human without close ties to a higher vertebrate would think her foolish, but cat, dog, horse owners eventually learned to trust their friends. Puzzled, she closed her notebook, left the office, stopped by Felipe’s door.

“Do you know there’s a rubber spider behind Lisa’s books?”

He nodded. “Raynell told her to put it there.”

Raynell called out, “I am not an arachnophobe but I don’t want to look at spiders.”

Harry laughed. “Few of us do.”

“I know where there is a monstrous spider.”

“Pewter, they don’t care,” her friend advised.

“If they saw her they would.”

Once in her kitchen, horses still out, Harry sat down. She’d need to bring them in in an hour. Harry cheated by opening their outside barn doors and letting them run into their stalls. One is supposed to put on a halter, walk them in the center aisle, slip off the halter once the horse is in his or her stall. Granted this freedom meant a certain amount of visiting someone else’s stall to check that that horse wasn’t getting better food. Lasted all of a minute, when Harry would chide the animal, who would walk out, throw a little head toss, and go to his or her stall. This way Harry could perform the chore much more quickly and, in the bitter cold, she was happy to do so. Luckily, all her horses got along, some of the credit belonging to Harry, who knew how to introduce animals to one another. Gazing at her friends, blankets on, playing in the snow, she thought where did we go wrong? When we separated from nature? When we considered ourselves superior to other life-forms? Why were we so destructive, often cruel, killing animals, one another? Something went amiss in the human brain and she prayed it hadn’t gone amiss in her own. Then she would think of her friends, good, loving people, and she knew millions of others were also good and loving. For whatever reason those people had not made common cause whereas the brutal, the controlling, the violent had.

An odd idea followed this reverie. She lifted the receiver of the wall phone off its cradle. She got better reception with a landline.

“Cooper.”

“Yes.”

“Did you read the notes I sent you?”

“I did. You’ve spent a great deal of time and thought on the books, the file boxes, articles, little rubber dinosaurs. I admit that Lisa and Gary having so many books, articles, items in common is possibly important, but it’s still a stretch and I have no idea where to go with it. I see the common thread, but why would it lead to murder?”

“And you don’t know how Lisa was poisoned?”

“Still.”

“Do something for me.”

“Depends.”

“Go to Lisa’s office, take the dinosaur book off her desk, and test it. I was there today and…”

“Harry.”

“I know, I know, but I wanted to double-check her books and stuff against Gary’s. Anyway, I have the time, you don’t, and this isn’t the most promising path to sell to Rick. Our sheriff likes more facts up front.”

“Remember, Sheriff Shaw only has but so much manpower. He can’t send us off on a whim.”

“I do understand but please do this. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter wouldn’t allow me to touch that book. Say what you will, their senses are far better than ours.”

“Why? Tell me why. You’ve told me what the cats did, but what’s behind this?”

A long pause followed, then Harry replied. “It hit me when I left Nature First. I used to tease Lisa that she was an old lady. She’d lick her finger before turning the page of a book. I said I only ever saw old people do that. She would shoot back that pages stick together in a new book and she didn’t feel like rubbing them together or sliding a penknife between them to pop them apart. Check the book.”

Cooper didn’t argue. “Right.”

By the time the deputy reached Nature First, the book was gone. Neither Felipe nor Raynell said they took it.

She left them, walked over to Anne de Vault at Over the Moon.

“Anne, did you like Lisa Roudabush?”

“Adored her. She was a good customer and fun to chat with. Why would you ask me that? You know I liked her. We were all in shock when she died.”

“It’s not public yet but she was poisoned. We’re trying to keep our cards close to our chest.”

“Who would poison Lisa?”

“That’s why I’m here. Who would poison Lisa?”

“I can’t think of anyone who didn’t like her.”

“Let me show you something.” Cooper, a quick study, picked up a book off a display area.

“Yes?” Anne watched as Cooper opened the book, licked her finger, turned a page.

The tall deputy did this a few times when Anne’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh God!”

“I think this is what killed her.”

“Oh God. One of the books I sold her. No. No. Who would do something like that?”

“Someone who knew her very well.” Cooper then said, “Close up the store and come with me.”

“You don’t think I did this. You can’t.”

“I don’t, Anne, I don’t. But come along. You’re going to answer many questions down at HQ. You may have overlooked something that we can pick up. You have a right not to testify…”

Unnerving as being considered a suspect was, Anne understood. At police headquarters she endured the grilling because she wanted to find out who killed Lisa. Cooper drove her back to the store.

As Anne opened the door to get out of the car, Cooper said, “Thank you. I know that wasn’t pleasant but it wasn’t awful, either. Be vigilant, Anne. I mean it. Whoever did this knew Lisa inside and out. Whoever did it was clever enough to use a habit to wipe her out. And now the book is missing.”