by Molly Fitz
The other problem I had just then was that I desperately wanted to discuss the crime scene and those weird Sphynx cats with Octo-Cat. Yes, even though Mom knew I could talk to him, it still felt weird to carry on a conversation right there in front of her.
Our tastes weren’t the only thing that differed. Mom was all cold, hard facts and evidence. She’d ask a million and one questions, including many I wouldn’t know how to answer. Namely, how come you two can talk to each other?
I still had no idea why Octo-Cat and I had formed this connection or even really how it worked. One day I’d love to figure all that out, but I was too busy with my move at present to sit around and speculate all the many possibilities with my mom.
“You know,” Mom said as she studied the plates and bowls stacked in one of my kitchen cupboards. “You’re going to be living in a manor house now. A lot of your things don’t really match that aesthetic. It may be jarring for visitors.”
“It’s fine, Mom,” I said, nudging her out of the way with my hip and packing away the offensive dishes myself. “I don’t really plan on having a lot of visitors, and I’m not really the hoity toity type. You know that about me.”
She stepped to the side and opened another cabinet. “Maybe there’s a middle ground here,” she insisted. “Nan has a nice set of dinnerware. You could throw yours out and stick with hers instead. Oh! Or you could donate yours. You love those charity shops, right?”
“Maybe,” I said to acknowledge the topic so that we could both move on. I did like the thrift shops, but I much preferred buying from them over donating my own things.
Mom frowned, and I hugged one of my cheery red plates to my chest. I liked my plates, and I liked my life, too. Why couldn’t Mom just accept that she and I were never going to see eye to eye on certain issues? So what if most of the things in my kitchen came from the dollar store? They all worked just as well as the things Mom bought for a hundred times the price at her fancy chain boutiques.
“Oh, I like these,” she said, staring into the next cupboard over as she grabbed a floral-patterned Lennox teacup and studied it with wide eyes.
“I don’t want her messing with my stuff,” Octo-Cat informed me, hopping up onto the counter and giving Mom such a startle she dropped the much admired teacup right onto the ground.
The three of watched what followed in slow motion, but it was already, regrettably too late. The delicate cup burst into smithereens and Octo-Cat let out an ear-piercing cry. “My Evian vessel!”
Mom took a step back. “I’m so sorry,” she told me, and I could tell she genuinely meant it. Maybe she picked at me not to be mean but just because she sometimes had a hard time thinking of other things to discuss. Maybe that was why she got so excited over sharing the Lou Harlow murder investigation with me.
“I’ll get you a new set, I promise,” she said, blinking back tears. Suddenly, I felt like the absolute worst daughter in the world. Why did I have such difficulty spending more than a few minutes at a time in my mom’s company? I’d need to try harder.
Of course, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that this particular set was irreplaceable. They’d belonged to Octo-Cat’s previous owner, the late Ethel Fulton, and they were one of the few things he still had left of her. Granted, we’d soon be moving into her mostly furnished manor home, but still. This tea set had been special to Octo-Cat. It was the only way he’d take his food or water, and now that he was down a cup, I’d have to increase my dish-washing schedule to boot.
“Look,” I said, trying to be as gentle as possible. “I think I can handle things from here. Why don’t you go see what else you can find out about the Harlow murder?”
She twisted her hands anxiously. “Are you sure?” Despite her hesitation, I could tell she was just as eager to go as I was to have her leave.
Did I feel guilty? Sure. I’d probably never stop feeling guilty when it came to my strained relationship with her and Dad.
Still, Mom and I had always gotten along best in brief bursts. I loved that we were becoming closer these last few weeks, but we needed more time to navigate our new relationship—and this really wasn’t the best day for us to put in the work, as calloused as that sounded even to my own ear.
It just couldn’t be a priority with all the other things I needed to do.
I side-stepped the broken teacup and gave my mom a tight hug. “I’m sure. I can tell you’re dying to get back on the case. I’ll be fine here.”
Mom sighed happily. “Mmm, you know me so well,” she said before quickly gathering her things and racing toward the door. “I’ll text with any updates. Bye!”
And just like that, she was gone again.
Octo-Cat resumed his agonized mewling. Even though we could understand each other, sometimes he still reverted to the classic cat sounds—usually in periods of intense emotion—like now.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, carefully stroking his head. I hoped it would offer comfort and also that the kindly gesture would not result in me getting bitten, but you kind of never knew with Octo-Cat.
“It’s like Ethel just died all over again,” he told me. His ears twitched then fell flat against his head. His tail swished back and forth like a metronome. His eyes grew so wide and dark that I was sure he would have cried, were such a trait in his biology.
“I’m really sorry,” I told him again, unsure of what else I could do.
He stared at the tiny fragments of Lennox that lay scattered across the kitchen floor. Whites, pinks, gold-trimmed, all nothing more than broken pieces of the life he’d once known. Great. Now I was tearing up, too.
“I’ll just go get the broom,” I mumbled, not wanting him to see how moved I now was on his behalf.
But before I could turn away, Octo-Cat shot out in front of me and screamed, “No!”
My heart beat ratcheted up a few notches, thumping wildly as I wondered what crazy thing my cat might do next. “Whoa, what happened?”
“I’m just not ready yet,” he informed me. “I need some time with it first.”
“With the broken teacup?” I asked gently. He’d gotten better at detecting sarcasm and punished me whenever he heard it in my voice or saw it on my face. He was allowed to talk to me however he pleased, of course, but I had to maintain the utmost respect at all times.
Even times like this.
Octo-Cat sniffed and lifted his nose high as he did whenever he wanted to appear superior. “Yes,” he answered simply.
“Unfortunately, we don’t really have time.” I kept my face placid, understanding. “The movers will be here in an hour or so. And we can’t keep stepping around the mess. It’s dangerous. One of us could cut a foot on those sharp shards.”
He let out a mournful meow, then turned away. “Do as you must.”
I resumed my journey to get the broom and dustpan, feeling like the worst cat owner in the world. That made me the worst daughter and the worst cat owner all within the span of about ten minutes. My stock would not be rising anytime soon.
When I returned, Octo-Cat still stood frozen in that dramatic pose of his. Normally, his antics bugged me, but at that moment, I truly felt sorry for him and his loss.
“Would it help if we said a few words?” I suggested.
The morose tabby turned his head slightly and peered at me from the corners of his eyes. “Like a funeral?”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “Like a funeral.”
He shifted the rest of the way out of his pose and faced me straight on. Already he looked better, like his heart had started to piece itself back together. “Where will be bury it?” he wanted to know.
“Oh. Umm.” I did not have time for this, but he also seemed to sincere and in need of closure, so I suggested something I hoped would suit us both. “We should bury it tonight at Ethel’s.” That would buy me the time I needed to pack at least, and hopefully it would make him feel better about this whole episode, too.
“Great idea, Angela,” Octo-Cat said with one o
f his hard-earned smiles.
I glowed in the light of his rare and wonderful praise. He was a diva, sure, but it did feel good to make him happy, especially considering that most of the time every little thing I did disappointed him greatly.
“Tonight,” he shouted merrily. “That also gives me time to work on what I’ll say.” He then trotted off, leaving me to tidy the mess and prepare it for burial.
Ugh. As glad as I was that he felt better, I’d planned to talk to him about Lou Harlow’s murder and the strange cats she’d left behind.
Well, that would just have to wait.
Why was my to do list only getting longer the harder I worked today?
Chapter Five
All of Octo-Cat’s previous sorrow evaporated the moment we pulled into the long, winding driveway of Fulton Manor.
“Home!” he yowled, even being so brave as to detach his claws from my thigh so he could prop himself up and look out the window. “Oh, it feels so good to be home!”
I parked and opened my driver’s side door, and he immediately jumped over me to get to the ground outside. “Home!” he continued to cry as he rolled back and forth in the grass like a crazy kitty.
I was just about to ask him to rein it in when he raced up the porch steps and through his specialty cat door, which slid open in response to a special signal his collar emitted. All this time I’d never replaced his collar and he’d never asked me to. He probably always knew we’d end up here someday. After all, he’d engineered the entire thing.
Octo-Cat had clearly found a way to keep himself occupied. Meanwhile, the movers were still packing things up at my old rental, which gave me a little bit of time alone with my new mansion now.
A mansion! And it belonged to me!
Ridiculous.
But, okay, also super cool.
My eyes moved up the three stories all the way to the turret rising up beyond the far side of the roof. I’d already decided to make my bedroom there in the tippity top tower just like some kind of weirdo modern-day princess. Nan had claimed the master bedroom, which had belonged to Ethel before she died. It was also where she had died, and I just felt icky about being in the same house, let alone the very same bedroom.
Nan simply laughed and said, “Oh, sweetie pie. Death is a part of life.” I figured at her advanced age, it must not bother her as much as it did me. Personally, I hoped I never reached the point in life where I was comfortable sleeping in the same spot a dead body had lain only months before.
It was eerie enough moving into a house that had served as a scene of a murder. In fact, I was still working on coming to terms with it. By now, I felt pretty sure my first electric bill would be many hundreds of dollars, seeing as I planned to sleep with every single light on until I no longer felt afraid of my own house.
Had it been my choice, I’d never had picked a dwelling so grand. But Octo-Cat had insisted upon it. Even Mr. Fulton—my former boss—seemed happy to be unloading the house quickly, even at a substantial loss to himself and the other heirs.
As I watched Octo-Cat run back and forth through the cat door, moaning with delight each and every time, I really did have to admit the place suited him. So what if he was a common housecat? Looks could be deceiving, and his heart was definitely bourgeois to the max.
I left him to his merriment and grabbed one of the lighter boxes from my trunk. Inside, a thin veil of dust clung to almost every possible surface. I probably should have cleaned it out before moving in, but I didn’t exactly have the cash to hire someone. Besides, the move had happened so suddenly, I barely had time to pack, let alone do much of anything else.
We’d get to it. Eventually.
Just add it to the bottom of my never-ending to do list. Or maybe somewhere in the middle.
My goal was to have the place at least livable before Nan joined us at the end of the month. She needed more time to pack up the entire life she’d lived in Blueberry Bay as well as all her mementos from her time on Broadway.
I understood that, so I didn’t tell her how the thought of sleeping in this giant place alone frightened me to the very core. I had Octo-Cat, who may or may not protect me in the event of danger. A fifty-fifty shot was still better than having zero help, if the need for it were to suddenly occur.
Another unsettling thing?
Fulton Manor and Harlow Manor next door had almost the exact same blueprint. Although they were both built well before the rise of the McMansion, I guess somebody had liked the first so much, they’d decided to build a second almost exactly like it.
Somehow, I found myself drifting toward the grand staircase time and again. It looked so much like the one next door that it made me shudder each time I passed. I was like a deranged moth drawn right into the middle of the flame. Burn, baby, burn.
“What’s wrong with you?” my cat asked, eyeing me wearily after his ten-millionth time through the cat door.
I shrugged. “Just a bit weirded out by the murder next door.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, not even putting his front left paw all the way down as he stared at me. “Wait, what? Somebody killed that nice old lady? When?”
Oh, that was right. We hadn’t gotten the chance to talk yet, given the entire teacup episode. “This morning,” I told him, watching him carefully to see how he’d react once he had more information. “Or, probably last night, actually.”
He gasped and stomped his paw down onto the hardwood floor. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“There was that whole thing with the teacup, and I… I’m sorry.” I apologized, knowing that it was the most surefire way to avoid an altercation. Octo-Cat loved fighting and hating losing, which meant I was constantly on the bum end of that deal.
He shook his head in dismay and stared at me for an uncomfortably long time before trotting up a few stairs and positioning himself just so. “Go on. Tell me now,” he demanded. “I need to know exactly what happened.”
I felt nervous under the spotlight of his scrutinous gaze but did as I was told. For as much as he was supposed to be my pet, it really felt as if I were the one who’d been trained. “The senator was killed. Someone pushed her down the staircase,” I explained.
“The staircase!” Octo-Cat exclaimed, lifting one paw and then the other while he stared at the stoop beneath him.
I nodded dumbly, unable to form words just then.
“Jacques and Jillianne,” he somehow managed to hiss between clenched teeth. “I’ll skin them alive, those good for nothings.” He jogged down the steps and was just about to dart out the cat door again before I stopped him.
“Wait!” I cried. “You know Jacques and Jillianne?” I felt so stupid every time I said their Frenchified names. Why did cats need such fancy names? Octo-Cat was bad enough with his eight names, but at least all of them were in English. Wait. They were, right? It was honestly kind of hard to remember, thus his new and improved—and much, much shorter—moniker.
He sighed but kept his back to me. His tiny kitty shoulders heaved with the weight of his obvious disappointment in me. “Of course I know them. We used to live next door and—will you look at that?—now we do again.”
“Are you friends?” I asked eagerly, running a half circle around him so that we were once again face to face.
He looked like he was about to sneeze. He didn’t. Instead, he said, “With those weirdos? No way.”
“I mean, they look a little different, but that’s not reason—”
“It’s not their looks, Angela. It’s the way they talk.” He growled at me, much like the big hairless cat had that morning.
I wasn’t sure what game we were playing here, but I hated to be left out. I shook my head and scowled at him. “You’re not sounding any less racist here. Or is it breedist? Whatever the case, not a shining moment from you.”
He simply chuckled. “Oh, you’ll see what I mean. Give it some time. Shouldn’t take too long.”
He trotted up a few steps and then turned back to me, so
mething I couldn’t quite interpret shining in his eyes. “By the way,” he said as if a sudden thought had just occurred to him.
“Death by staircase? Yeah, classic cat move.”
“What do you—?” I started.
He cut me off with a villainous laugh he liked to trot out whenever he wanted to be particularly theatrical. Apparently, this was one of those blessed times.
“I mean,” he said, between manic gasps for air. “Jacques and Jillianne killed your senator. The cats are guilty. Case closed.” He sulked slowly away, still laughing to himself.
I took two giant steps back, feeling like I’d just looked into the void and saw my death play out before my very eyes. Whatever happened next, I’d make sure to watch my step when it came to the grand staircase I’d once considered the crowning feature of my new home.
Octo-Cat’s laughter echoed through the halls. Why was this so funny to him? Why was he still laughing, and about this?
Apparently, he and my mom shared the same morbid fascination with the senator’s death. Too bad they both talked to me instead of each other.
It’s just his way, I reminded myself. He likes being the center of attention. He’d never actually hurt you.
But then I thought of all those little old cat ladies who died in the city only to be devoured by their most beloved pets and shuddered again…
Well, at least I knew Octo-Cat would only eat Fancy Feast.
Chapter Six
Even though I needed to take some items upstairs, I decided to stick to the main level of the house while the movers hauled all my heaviest belongings in through the front door. I’d need just a little bit more time to come to grips with what Octo-Cat had just revealed about feline-on-human homicide and the preferred method for it.
Here I hadn’t even known such a horror existed. Silly me.
Truth be told, I hadn’t brought much from my old place, and so my preliminary unpacking was quick. Since I still felt queasy every time I passed by the staircase, I decided to head outside and take a walk around the property.
