Molly Fitz: Himalayan Hazard (Pet Whisperer P.I. Book 8)

Having Mom here centered me. Not only was there safety in numbers, but she also might catch something that I would otherwise overlook. Together, we could do some good here—or at least keep things from getting worse.

“She asked me to sit with her and bond over our crazy cat ladiness,” I admitted with a fond smile as I remembered how desperate she had been simply to make a new friend. “That Himalayan belongs to her, and Octo-Cat is quite smitten.”

“He always did like the finer things,” my mom said thoughtfully, then cleared her throat and focused her phone on Rhonda’s body. “Did she tell you anything that might be relevant to her murder?”

I bit my lip as I studied Rhonda’s face. Her features weren’t distorted by terror or even anger. She simply looked at peace, which I found all the more unsettling. “We didn’t say much, and I wasn’t cataloging our conversation for later use, but at least one thing stood out. She either didn’t know or wouldn’t share her destination.”

Mom flinched at this revelation, turning to face me with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I told her we were going to Georgia, and she said she’d probably get off before then. Probably. Not definitely.”

“So she had no clear destination in mind,” she summed up.

“That’s what I’m thinking. Or something happened to make her want to get off earlier than planned.” She’d looked distracted and had glanced out the window an awful lot. Could that be related?

“Lot of good that did her.” Mom swept the light down Rhonda’s body and paused when she reached her stomach. “Stabbed multiple times. It looks like maybe five. It’s hard to tell with all the blood.”

I felt sick to my stomach, remembering how much I’d craved steak earlier that evening. Now I would probably never want to eat it again—or at least I’d be using a butter knife to saw off bite-sized pieces. “Someone had to have enough foresight to take the steak knife from the dining car, but the presence of multiple wounds makes me think this was a crime of passion.”

“So, premeditated, but only very slightly. Hmm.” Mom’s carefully coifed hair didn’t even move as she shook her head from side to side. Small wrinkles lined her forehead and the edges of her mouth, though, while she stared at the body pensively.

“Grizabella—that’s her cat—said she heard Rhonda talking with someone after they entered the room. She was in the bathroom at the time and couldn’t make out any of the words. She also couldn’t tell if the visitor was male or female,” I revealed, wanting to make sure she had just as much information as I did.

Mom sighed. “Meaning we don’t have much to go on.”

“Maybe the room has a clue. You have the light, so maybe you can search her things while I see what I can find on her phone.”

She turned on me so fast, I lost my breath from the sudden fright. “Why don’t you have a light?”

“My phone is almost out of battery. Trying to conserve it in case there’s an emergency later.”

Mom sighed. “I’d tell you to be more responsible, but I’m guessing this is already one heck of a lesson. Let’s find her phone so you can get started.”

She shone her tiny flashlight around the room, locating Rhonda’s cell phone almost immediately. It lay on the dresser beside a small travel case that looked like it would be used for makeup or toiletries. “I’ll start here,” Mom said, unzipping the case and riffling through the contents.

While she did that, I picked up the phone, praying it would be easy to access. And yes! Thankfully, Rhonda had elected to use a fingerprint to unlock her phone rather than a passcode, so I returned to her body, then very carefully and very respectfully pressed her index finger to the surface. The dark lock screen gave way to a photo of Grizabella sitting on a plump pillow and staring straight into the camera.

Aww. She really had loved her cat.

While that was sweet, however, it wouldn’t help me figure out who killed her or why. I needed to learn more than just the surface stuff during our search, needed to find something that could set me and my mom on the right path.

So first I checked her email.

All the unread messages made me cringe. I’d always been an inbox clearer and couldn’t understand people who hoarded thousands of unread messages, especially when so much of it appeared to be spam. After scrolling through the first several dozen emails and finding nothing but cat blogs and clothing sales, I decided to move on to her social media.

Unsurprisingly, Rhonda’s Instagram was actually a fan account for Grizabella. She only had a couple thousand followers, but they appeared to interact regularly with her posts. I scrolled through the recent hearts and found almost every profile picture to be either a cat or a person smiling beside a cat. Well, Rhonda clearly had one very specific use for the platform—one and nothing else.

On Twitter, she followed a handful of politicians and other celebrities but didn’t appear to tweet anything herself. Also not helpful.

But what would Facebook bring? Hopefully something a bit more useful.

Here, Rhonda had very few friends and posted rather infrequently. Her most recent update was a check-in at a train station in New Brunswick, which was strange because I was pretty sure I remembered seeing her on the platform when we’d boarded in Bangor.

Rhonda’s post simply read: Off on another journey!

Scrolling through her feed revealed the usual combination of baby pics, wedding pics, and humble brags from her modest friends list. Hmm.

“Angie,” my mom whispered. She hadn’t been whispering before, so whatever she had to say, I was guessing it would be good. “I’ve found something.”

I swung the phone around to illuminate the room and found her sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs crossed at the ankle. In her hand, she held a small book, and on her face she wore an excited smile.

Here we go.

Chapter Eight

Like most older people I knew, Rhonda had kept her phone fully charged, which meant I didn’t need to be careful about preserving its battery life—and thank goodness for that. I used the screen to illuminate my path as I moved carefully past her body and joined my mother at the bed.

“It’s her personal planner,” Mom revealed, flipping through the pages demonstratively. “You know, like the calendar app, but on paper.”

“C’mon, Mom. I know what a personal planner is.” The cover on this one was made of blue leather that I suspected matched the exact shade of Grizabella’s eyes. Gold trimmed the edges of each page, not unlike a Bible.

Mom shook her head and continued to search through the entries until she landed on the current week. “Here,” she pointed to the box reserved for yesterday. “She got on in New Brunswick. A bit earlier than us.”

“I found the same thing on her Facebook profile, but I could’ve sworn we saw her when we were saying goodbye to Nan. She was in a hurry, but I definitely remember that blinged out cat carrier of hers.”

Mom tucked her heavily hair sprayed hair behind her ears, but it immediately bounced back to its previous shape. “Huh. I don’t remember seeing her, but maybe she just got off to stretch her legs.”

“Or to a say a quick hello to someone waiting at the station,” I suggested. We’d only seen her returning, though. Huh, indeed.

“So she got off, but she got back on,” Mom recapped with a shrug. “Hang on. Let me see what else is in here.”

While she thumbed through the planner, I returned to Rhonda’s email and searched the name of the train company. Sure enough, since she never discarded anything, her travel itinerary popped right up.

“She was headed to Houston,” I told Mom hardly believing anyone would want to be on a train for such a very long trip, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad with a private room. Still, she had either knowingly lied to me or changed her plans quite suddenly. “She told me she’d probably get off before Georgia.”