by Molly Fitz
I’d only made it a few feet when the crunching started up again.
I wanted to run but knew attempting to move faster with my injury would only lead to another wipeout. So, I plodded slowly along with some unknown animal following close in pursuit. I’d reached the halfway point between the senator’s house and mine when I heard Octo-Cat shout, “Oh, if you’re looking for trouble, you’ve found it, all right!”
“Octo-Cat?” I called, turning behind me to search the trees for his tiny striped body. I’d never been so happy to hear his demanding, little voice in all my life.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t him I found standing before me now. Rather, twin pairs of yellow-green eyes blinked into view, moving closer and closer until we were only a few feet away from each other. The white spots on the smaller cat made him easier to pick out, but the large black Sphynx remained mostly shrouded in the shadows, save for those large, glowing eyes.
Octo-Cat broke through the tangled limbs of the forest a few seconds later and looked me up and down. “What happened to you?”
“I fell,” I said flatly, unwilling to take my eyes off our two strange visitors. Although, I supposed these woods belonged to them as much as it did us.
“Did they trip you?” He put himself between me and the other cats and growled, making me feel slightly safer and a lot more loved.
“I don’t think so,” I said, searching the forest floor for the nasty root that had caused my fall but coming up short in the expanding darkness.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it past them,” he mumbled.
The larger Sphynx stepped forward and let out a string of deep meows.
“Oh, jeez, not this again,” my cat hissed in response.
“What did he say?” I asked, hobbling over to the nearest tree and extending a hand to rest on its trunk so that I wouldn’t be stuck standing on one foot for this entire exchange.
As much as he’d hated working with the traumatized Yorkie on our last case, he seemed even angrier about having to speak to the Sphynxes. Octo-Cat took a deep breath before translating. “He said, ‘at night the owl sounds in such a way our curiosity compounds.’”
Well, that hadn’t been what I expected. “Um, what?” I asked, shifting my weight to give even more of it to the tree.
“Not what,” Octo-Cat corrected with a heave sigh. “Who?”
“Huh?” I brought my free hand up to scratch at my head, completely baffled now.
He sighed again. “Remember how I told you I don’t like their kind? This is why. It’s not because they look funny. It’s because they talk funny. Everything they say comes out as a riddle. It’s why they’re called Sphynx cats. Get it now?”
“You mean like the mythical creature that guarded the secrets of the gods?” I found it both crazy and fascinating that an old story I barely remembered actually had bearing on our modern world.
“Oh, it wasn’t as selfless as that,” Octo-Cat spoke as if he’d personally known the Sphinx of ancient Greek mythology. “It was a nasty demon, tormenting everyone just because it could.” He spat toward our two hairless visitors and raised the hairs on his back menacingly.
“Wow,” I said, hardly above a whisper.
Octo-Cat turned back toward me, somehow even more agitated than before. “So now you can see why I wasn’t too keen to go chatting these guys up. The big one is Jillianne, by the way, and the little one is Jacques.”
“I know you’re a little uncomfortable right now,” I said placatingly. It didn’t escape me that each of the three cats had four good, strong legs, and I only had one. Despite his frustration, at least Octo-Cat had stayed by my side. “But we could really use their help,” I continued. “Could you please just tell them that I’m their new neighbor and that I’m thrilled to meet them?”
“You know the ancient Sphinx enjoyed killing people, too?” Octo-Cat licked his paw while talking, perhaps because he didn’t like sitting in the dirty forest, or perhaps to show off that he had fur while our two conversants did not.
After a little back and forth, he informed me, “They say, and I quote, ‘Whether written on note or banner or mat, this is our greeting, to human from cat.’”
“Ha, they’re saying welcome!” I cried, having far more fun now than my poor, long-suffering cat. “How do they come up with those so fast? They must be geniuses.”
Octo-Cat growled. Once again, it seemed, our definitions differed. “I don’t have to sit here and take this, you know. If you want my help, you’ll refrain from encouraging their unwieldy behavior.”
I thought he’d said they always talked like this, but correcting him now would just send him scampering off toward home, and I still had so much more I needed to find out from our two hairless wonders. “Can you ask them if they know who killed their owner, please?” I said instead.
Octo-Cat kept his eyes firmly on mine, a challenge. “This is getting old real fast, so I suggest you think over each question carefully, because I am definitely not doing this all night,” he warned.
“Fine, fine,” I groused. “Now, tell me, what did they say?”
He pressed his ears back against his skull and shook his head. “Yeah, you’re enjoying this way too much, but I’m telling you right now, we are not adopting them.”
I was just about to yell at Octo-Cat again, when he delivered the next riddle in a bored monotone. “What we say to confirm, even if it makes one squirm.”
“Yes!” I shouted gleefully. “That means yes, right? They know!” This case really could be open and shut, seeing as we had two key witnesses right here and more than happy to talk to us.
Octo-Cat let out a dreadful groan, then turned tail and disappeared between the tree branches.
“Hey, wait!” I cried, slowly attempting to follow after him. I hoped the Sphynxes would follow, too. I was dying to ask them the next question. It would be the only one we needed to find the murderer—oddly my question would be the same as the answer to their first riddle: Who? As in, who killed the senator? How was Octo-Cat not getting this?
“They know who killed the senator,” I shouted after him. “Now you just have to ask one more question and we’ll have solved this one in record time!”
I couldn’t see him anywhere. Had he really just run off and abandoned me? And here I was starting to think he cared. Well, two could play the punishment game, and I suspected I’d have a much easier time annoying him than he had bugging me.
“Oh, Octo-Cat!” I called in one last ditch attempt to lure him in with kindness. “Where are you?”
Nothing. Even the wind had stopped howling through the trees.
Well, this was just great. He’d run off and left me injured and alone in a scary forest. Unless…
I turned around to search for the Sphynxes behind me, but instead bumped into a large, barrel-shaped chest. A human chest.
I didn’t even bother to look at his face as I twisted around fast and made an attempt to run. Hurt foot or not, I needed to get back to the relative safety of my house. Needed to get out of these twisted woods now. My very life might just depend on it.
I’d only made it a single step, when he grabbed my arms and pulled me back into his chest.
“Hey, what are you—?” I yelled as I struggled to get away.
He brought one sweaty hand up and clamped it over my mouth before I could finish my cry for help.
Well, this was it. This was how I died—not on the stairs but lost in the woods just a couple dozen feet away from my new palatial home.
This was not turning out to be a very good moving day.
Not at all.
Chapter Nine
This was it. Fight of flight. Preferably both.
I’d been detained by a murderer before. I’d been pitched into the wharf and left for dead. I could survive this. Summoning all my strength, I bit down on the fleshy palm that covered my mouth.
Yes! That did it.
My attacker cried out in pain. He pulled away at once, clutching his injured
hand. “Ouch, what’d you do that for?” his voice came out a bit high-pitched for a man—nasally, too.
“Hey, you’re the one who attacked me!” I corrected, studying his red face and matching red flannel pajama pants. He was far less scary now that I got a good look at him, but it didn’t change the fact that he could easily overpower me with his size and strength.
“Who are you?” I demanded. “What are you doing in my woods?” He didn’t need to know I’d only just moved in that afternoon. In fact, I’d probably be safer if he didn’t.
At least he had the decency to look properly chastised. Still clutching his wounded hand, he rushed in with an explanation. “I heard talking, so I came out to see what was going on, and then you ran straight into me.”
I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest. It must be nice to be a man, to be able to wander into the dark woods with no worries for your safety beyond the normal serial killer with a chainsaw type of thing. Then again, I often found myself charging into dangerous situations with little more than my temperamental tabby to back me up. I guess that meant I couldn’t judge him too harshly. “That still doesn’t tell me who you are.”
“I’m Matt Harlow,” he said, thrusting his uninjured hand toward me in greeting.
“I bit the first. Do you really want to trust me with the second?” I asked, widening my eyes in challenge just like my cat so often did to me. I wouldn’t feel safe until we got out of the forest. I was at way too much at a disadvantage here in the dark unknown with a much larger man before me and an injury slowing me down.
Matt jolted back and offered up a nervous laugh. At least he was scared, too. “Good point,” he said. “So you’re okay, right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, even as the throbbing in my toes intensified.
“That’s all I needed to know.” He lifted his arm in a swift wave, then turned back in the direction he came from. “Have a good night.”
I stood watching him go until he ducked out of eyesight, then continued my journey back toward home. So that was Matt Harlow, the senator’s next of kin. Had we met under different circumstances, I could have prodded him for information, see what he knew. As it was, though, I’d much prefer to wait for the light of day and a reliable cell signal before possibly accusing him of murder.
Okay, so he seemed like a nice enough guy—tall, chubby, not unlike a teddy bear, but that didn’t change the fact that his inclination upon meeting me had been to grab hold of me and cover my mouth. That was way creepier than those hair-lacking, riddle-smacking cats would ever be.
“I’m home,” I called when at last I trudged through the door. I’m not sure why I even bothered announcing myself when clearly my feline roommate wasn’t too bothered about my safety.
Octo-Cat intelligently remained hidden. Otherwise, I definitely would have given him a stern talking to about abandoning me in the woods right when the Sphynxes were about to reveal something crucial to our case. Well, if he wanted to hide from me, he could go to bed without dinner for all I cared.
I stomped through the house just to make sure he knew how angry I was with him. On my third pass through the open floor plan of the lower level, I stopped off at the kitchen to plop a fresh serving of Fancy Feast into Octo-Cat’s bowl. As much as I wanted to teach him a lesson, I also didn’t want to have to deal with an entire night’s worth of his yowling.
But I got my jab in, anyway, because I served him his least favorite flavor—the chicken we had only because it was part of the multi-pack I got from our local warehouse club store. Normally I saved up several dozen, then dropped them off as a donation for the local animal shelter, but I figured it would be okay to use one for a very necessary revenge.
Not satisfied, I marched up the stairs to my tower bedroom and wedged the door shut behind me. The cable company would be coming by tomorrow to connect the Internet, so for now I had to depend on my phone’s mobile connection to surf the web before bedtime. Although the pages loaded painfully slow due to our proximity to the woods, I wanted to do some quick research into the senator’s recent activity to see if anything jumped out as a possible clue to her murder.
While I was at it, I looked up Matt Harlow, too. From what I could tell, he was just a normal middle-aged guy from the city who’d recently gotten divorced and worked a job in sales. Nothing jumped out at me as serial killerish, but it was possible he’d only killed once to date, provided that Lou’s untimely demise could be pegged squarely on her son’s shoulders.
Honestly, I was stumped here.
An impatient scratching sounded outside my door.
“Go away!” I called, not wanting to deal with my diva cat just then.
Octo-Cat murmured a few soft words to himself that I couldn’t discern, although it sounded like he was having some sort of argument. “I’m sorry!” he called to me after a slight bit of hesitation.
I was so shocked I dropped my phone onto the bed beside me. I don’t think I’d ever heard that particular combination of words cross his lips. “You’ll be sorry,” sure, but never a genuine, heartfelt apology.
I smiled to myself, ready to milk this moment for all it was worth. Just like Octo-Cat, I had to get my victories somehow. “What was that?” I asked, pretending I hadn’t heard.
Whether he was here to demand a better flavor of Fancy Feast or because he genuinely felt bad, I didn’t know. At least it was something, though.
When his voice came out strained, I could tell this moment was punishment enough. “You know what I said. You’re just—aargh! I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry!”
I raced toward the door as if in slow motion. Honestly, the moment wasn’t that different from all those times the heroine runs in slow motion through a field of bright flowers to reach her hero. Yes, I loved my cat, and this moment was special to me, so don’t judge.
Swinging the door open, I smiled down at him and said, “I forgive you.”
“Great,” he said with a sly smile. “By the way, there’s some nice green puke waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs.” He trotted away, swinging his hips triumphantly. Honestly, I couldn’t even remember what the green puke punishment was about, but I had bigger fish to fry.
Leaving my door open in case he wanted to come back for some apology cuddles, I snuggled back on my bed and returned to my research on the late senator and her next of kin.
First I read all the news articles pertaining to her from this past month. That bored me out of my mind, so I shifted focus to what I personally knew already.
With the notes app on my phone open and ready, I typed in everything I’d discovered so far:
Served four terms, likely to be reelected.
Died by falling down the stairs.
Bottom stair smashed in.
Mom asked to investigate for the news.
Icky gut feeling at the crime scene.
Two Sphynx cats from breeder in France.
Officer Bouchard stood guard outside for the better part of the day.
Mr. Thompson came to visit and was turned away.
Next of kin is Matt Harlow. He ran into me in the woods and covered my mouth when I tried to scream.
There, that was everything so far, right? If I considered everyone mentioned in the list that meant my first round of suspects included Officer Bouchard, Matt Harlow, Mr. Thompson, my mom, and some cat breeder in France. And, oh yeah, also her two cats. I should have probably added any person who was rumored to be running for the senator’s seat in the next mid-term election, too. We were still more than two years away, which made me think a political opponent was rather unlikely.
That led me back to another very important question: how did the senator know Mr. Thompson? Sure, I could just ask him the next time I showed up at the firm for work, but would he be willing to tell me the truth or just send me further astray?
I Googled for close to an hour, searching for any connection between Harlow and Thompson, but came up short. Since I was still off work for the remainder of
the week, I decided to call in a favor from a friend.
“Hello?” Charles, the junior partner at our firm and my former crush, answered in a hushed whisper.
“Charles, I need a favor,” I told him.
“I’m at the movies with Breanne. Just a sec.” I heard some angry groans from his fellow movie goers, then a minute later his voice came back loud and strong. “In the lobby now. What’s up?”
“The senator was murdered today,” I told him in case he didn’t already know.
But he did. Of course he did. “They haven’t ruled out an accident,” he corrected.
“But I have,” I said, and he knew better than to argue. “Anyway, interesting fact: Thompson showed up this afternoon and tried to gain entry to the house, but the cops turned him away.”
“That’s weird. Wait, how do you know that?”
“I live next door now. Remember?” I answered matter-of-factly.
“You just can’t keep away from a good mystery, can you, Russo?” he said with a laugh, even though we were talking about a murder here. It made my heart melt for him a little all over again. Seeing as he was spoken for, though, I swallowed back that particular feeling and returned my focus to the facts before us.
“Can you look into Thompson for me?” I asked. “Find out how he knew the senator? Why he showed up today?”
“Will do,” he said. “That all?”
“Yeah, get back to your date, lover boy.” I hoped he couldn’t detect the sarcasm in my voice. Whatever the case, he quickly ended the call, leaving me alone in my giant house once again—and possibly with a murder next door.
Maybe I could convince Nan to move in early? Then I would have a temperamental cat and a feisty old lady to protect me, should trouble come calling.
