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

Mom stood and marched over to me, then shoved the planner in my free hand. “Her planner has a cat show in that area early next week.”

So a sudden change of plans, then. “I wonder if the person she met at our stop said something that spooked her. Like maybe a threat. Maybe she reached out to me in the dining car because she felt safer with company.”

Now I felt terrible. Had I been given the opportunity to save her, only to run away because I couldn’t take another mundane cat story?

“That’s a lot of maybes,” Mom said, rubbing my shoulder like she somehow knew I was partially blaming myself for poor Rhonda’s fate. “I do agree this is all very suspicious, but we don’t know anything for sure.”

I shook those feelings aside and focused on the facts. Whether or not I’d played a role in what had happened, the best thing I could do now was to find justice for the poor lonely woman who loved her cat more than anything else in this world.

“She was wearing a necklace when I met her, but the necklace was gone when Octo-Cat and I came in presumably just minutes after her murder,” I told Mom, forcing myself to move on.

Mom frowned and set the planner down where she’d initially found it. “Missing necklace. Quick visit to the platform in Bangor. Abandoned trip to Houston. Five stab wounds. We have a lot of little bits and pieces, but not enough to know what kind of puzzle we’re building.”

“Don’t forget the distraught feline. It was Grizabella’s cries that alerted us to the trouble.” Despite the Himalayan’s cool demeanor when we’d first met her in the dining car, her reaction to Rhonda’s death showed the cat had loved her owner just as much as she’d been loved by her.

“Now that’s interesting. Could it be a jealous cat show competitor?” Mom ventured, taking the planner back from me and holding it in both her hands as we continued to talk. “They were on their way to a show, after all. Maybe someone threatened them to keep them on the sidelines this year, so another cat could take the crown.”

“I don’t think cat shows work the same as beauty pageants,” I said with a wry laugh. Laughing was good. It kept the horror from creeping in. “But it’s not a bad theory. A jealous rival killed her off and then took the necklace to make it look like a simple robbery.”

Mom nodded, but her face remained grim. “There are worse reasons to take a life. Not many, mind you, but I’m sure there are at least some.”

The door swung open so suddenly, it made us both jump in fright. My heart hammered a heavy tattoo against my chest.

“Helloooooo!” a young male voice bellowed. Then he gasped and his voice became higher. “Holy heck, so that guy’s crazy claims are true, after all.” He moved into the room and shone his lantern-style flashlight on Rhonda’s body. The curly red hair immediately struck me as familiar. This was the same worker I’d spied in the snack car, the one I’d almost bought snacks from before Rhonda intercepted me.

“Hi. That crazy guy was my husband,” Mom said, offering him a friendly wave.

The man—who couldn’t have been much older than a teenager—staggered back and lifted a hand to his chest. “Yeesh, don’t do that! I thought the dead was rising again.”

Okay, so this kid had seen one too many zombie movies in his day. He also had access to the dining car and all of its knives. Could he be the killer returning to the scene of the crime? If so, Mom and I could definitely take him. Not that I wanted to engage in a fight to the death… now or ever.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked, studying him closely. His pale, blemished skin looked ghastly in the glow of his lantern. His skinny arms didn’t appear strong enough to inflict the wounds I’d seen on Rhonda, but then again, young mothers could lift entire vehicles to save trapped babies—or so the rumor went.

“My boss sent me over here to check it out, since my station was the closest. He said that—” He stopped abruptly and raised his light higher. “Ha! Nice way to distract me. What are you doing in here alone with a dead body?”

He took another big leap back into the hall, terror washing over his once accusing features. “Wait. Did you kill her? Are you going to kill me?”

“Well, that depends…” Mom said and then moved slowly toward the frightened worker.

Yikes! What was happening?

Chapter Nine

“Mom,” I shouted, at the same time elbowing her in the stomach.

“She’s kidding,” I assured the young train worker. He hadn’t shown up at work today knowing he’d have a dead body and a crazy small-town news anchor to deal with, and Mom’s attempt at humor was definitely not helping to ease the tension this time.

Mom said nothing, so I continued chatting nervously, even going so far as to raise my hands to show we meant the young man before us no harm. “We were the ones who discovered the body. Dad went to tell your boss while we stayed here to make sure no one would disturb the scene. You work in the dining car, right? I think I saw you there earlier. What’s your name?”

He stepped back into the room, his shoulders sloped forward defensively or perhaps in defeat. “Yes, that’s me. My name is Dan, and I’m just trying to do my job and—you know—not get murdered.”

“Aren’t we all?” Mom said, and I elbowed her in the ribs again.

“I’m Angie, and I’m a private investigator back in Maine. The deceased is Rhonda Lou Ella Smith. I met her earlier today. Perhaps you saw us together in the dining car.”

Dan nodded, even chanced a smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I did.”

Good. This was good. Now that he recognized me, he relaxed enough to hold a rational conversation and to stop accusing me and mom of murder.

“I’m trying to piece together what I can, so I can hand things over to the cops when they arrive,” I continued, motioning toward the planner in mom’s hands and then showing him the phone in mine. “Was she there a long time before I came in or a long time after I left? Did you notice anything unusual about her?”

Dan took the phone from me but didn’t do anything with it other than hold it at his side. It seemed to further relax him, though. After all, most murderers wouldn’t hand over evidence that could likely convict them.

“I don’t know,” he said after a slight pause. “She seemed normal enough. Weird, but normal.”

“Weird how?” I pressed, keeping my eye on the phone. I would need that back at some point.

“She kept talking to her cat like it was a person. I noticed people looking at her funny, but I thought it was kind of nice. Who’s to say cats can’t understand us, right?”

“Sure,” I said dismissively, happy Mom kept quiet on that one. While she thought revealing my secret pet-whispering ability would make for a great human-interest story, she at least respected that I’d prefer not to let the world in on my strange power. “Did you notice when she arrived in the dining car or when she left?”

“She came in right when we left the Bangor station,” Dan said, then nodded in confirmation. “I remember, because she was my first customer and it was just the two of us until you arrived a short while later.”

“Did the two of you talk?”

“Just enough for her to place an order. It was a big one.”

“Could you tell me if—?”

The door swung open again, and in marched my father. The two cats followed him inside, and then a fourth figure joined us in the private room. Dad shut off his phone—not needing it now that Dan was here with his lantern—then made his way to Mom’s side.

The cats stayed quiet, watching us from near the doorway.

I couldn’t quite make out who the new person was, given that the brim of his hat cast his face in creepy shadows. But then he opened his mouth to talk, leaving no doubt as to his identity.