Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

I must say having another pair of eyes and feet on the job so Midnight Inc. Investigations can cover two fronts is pretty handy. Uh, pretty mitty.

Miss Midnight Louise leads me around to the back, where the evening’s earlier cat-and-mouse game has resulted in, according to her, multiple home invasion, confrontation, and escape events.

I am beginning to think that Miss Midnight Louise gets all the down-and-dirty action while I dither among the much more civilized Red Hat set.

I recall my Miss Temple remarking in the past that it would take a tank to break into Mr. Max’s house. These super-heavy safeguards seem to be mostly disabled, maybe because the original furnishings had beat a retreat and then been installed again.

Obviously, my Miss Temple was meant to think Mr. Max was long gone. This raises my hopes that the newspaper article was a rush to judgment and that he is not really dead. Or maybe the returned furniture was meant to make someone else think that he was not dead, when he really is.

My Miss Temple’s visit was predictable, but the subsequent visits of various dark-clothed intruders was not. I would love to know who they all were and why they were here.

Despite all the nighttime action, the house smells deserted when the chit and I eel through the broken screen on the outer back door and the slightly ajar solid wood door itself. The inside is dim, but I can scent my Miss Temple’s previous trails through here, and so I tell Louise.

“You are no bloodhound,” she scoffs.

“Nevertheless, I have cohabited with Miss Temple for more than a year now. I know the scent of everything from her hair preparations to her foot powder.”

“Well, I may not know those trivial scents, but I can tell you one thing. There is a trail of fairly fresh blood in the hall and in the adjacent room.”

Blood! I trot along and do indeed find a dried trail in those places. Unfortunately, unlike the ignoble canine, I cannot recognize people by their blood trails. Besides, I would need blood samples to compare this trail with and I am not up to scratching random Las Vegas citizens in search of a similar taste. Yes, different people’s blood tastes different to my tongue. I do not know if all of my kind are similarly sensitive, but it works for me. In fact, if I do encounter someone who strikes me as a suspectfor these breakins, I might just give them a full-frontal, full-shiv whack to check it out.

“You are sure that my Miss Temple was not among the cat burglars?” I ask Louise.

“I do not think so, but I cannot be certain. You know how hard our signature color is to differentiate from the darkness? The other two I saw were large and likely male, like Mr. Mate

“You are not suggesting–?”

“Of course not. I only meant that neither larger figure was as tall as Mr. Max. So we cannot console ourselves that he was sneaking back into his own house. The first one turned tail and ran when the other two came, but those two arrived separately. One of the second two was hurt, and the third escorted that one out. I heard voices then. One was female, the other male

“Maybe these are former associates of Mr. Max. The movers’ ninja costumes you mentioned sound like something from a magic stage show. It is not easy to come up with so many so-called cat suits in a short timer

“They did move as if choreographed,” Louise concedes. “I can see that Mr. Max’s associates would wish to remove his belongings after his demise, but why would they replace them?”

“Demise!” I huff. “That remains to be seen or, rather, the remains remain to be seen, and no one has, have they?” Miss Louise blinks old-gold confusion at my rather convoluted phrasing. “The answer to your question is clear. The house was changed like a stage set for Miss Temple and Miss Temple only, to convince her that seeking Mr. Max here was hopeless. Why would that be necessary unless he was not dead?”

“I do not know. You have pulled a big disappearing act in your life, Pops, on my mama and all us kits. You just wandered off, never to return. You did not need to stage anything.”

“Now, Louise, do not be bitter. We guys all wandered off in those days.”

“Apparently you still are doing so.”

I ignore her, always a good policy, and slip through the empty rooms again. My sniffer is not at the level of a professional like Nose E., the Maltese drug-and bomb-sniffing dog. But I have something better than a canine sniffer. I have experience.

Hence it is that I discover the really shocking piece of physical evidence on the premises.

“Louise! Take a look at this. It is right up our alley.”

She hisses a little, but soon pads into the hall to pause in the doorway of the room I occupy.

“What is it? A garbage can?”

“It is something certainly ready for a garbage can. Get over here and look for yourself.”

She does, her eyes not as adjusted as mine to the light level, and peers through the open closet door.

“It looks like a fine nest for a nap. Count on you to lie down on the job.”

“Look again. Go on, run your shivs through it.”

She ventures into the closet, acting like she thinks I might slam the door shut on her any minute. If my moseying down the road after a short round of hanky-panky with her mother has made her the eternally suspicious little dame that she is, then maybe I have something to answer for, after all.

Her mitts are testing the dark stuff on the floor, then moving it around and sniffing the pieces, her tail slashing back and forth hard enough to swipe the whiskers off my kisser.

I step back. “Well?”

“These are remnants of wool. Wool is subject to the attacks of moths, but these garments have been destroyed by slashes. Maybe Lucky and Kahlua, the Cloaked Conjuror’s black panthers, came by for an exercise bout. The Fontana brothers wear the finest lightweight wool from Italy, so I ought to know. These are from a black sheep, though, whereas they wear only white sheep wool.”

“Black sheep wool. A signature of Mr. Max. The person you saw helped out of here last night was not the only victim of knife work.”

“A human was sharpening his claws on Mr. Max’s clothes?”

“Or hers. Maybe the same person who engineered his fatal fall came here later to gloat.”

“Great. And we have no idea who all these people coming and going here were and where they are now!”

“But we know enough to keep an eye peeled for them infuture. You had better stay here on watch outside. I need to get back to the Crystal Phoenix until that crime scene is resolved.”

“And what will I do for breakfast?”

“I’ll, ah, see what I can pick up in the neighborhood.”

With that I dash away like the busy CEO I am. I sure hope the refuse collectors have not hit the trash cans around here yet.

Chapter 48

Knife Act

“Lieutenant?”

Molina looked up from her desk, trying to keep her face smooth and untroubled. The knife wound felt like a pack of gerbils were gnawing at her side, trying to exit her chest cavity.

“Yeah, Morrie?”

It would have to be Alch, whom she not only owed common courtesy, but who had a way of seeing beneath surfaces.

“It’s not looking good for Mrs. Lark over at the Phoenix. I don’t think she did it, but the local media is all over this Red Hat event and the department is looking bad for not making an arrest.”

“We can’t just arrest the most likely suspect. We have to make it”—the word really stuck in her craw right now—“stick.”

“You’re right. I’m right. I’ll try to hold back Su and the entire West Coast media.”

“The media you can handle. Su, I don’t know.”

“You okay?”

“Why not?”