by Denise Dietz
“Liar!” Annie’s eyes narrowed. “I bumped into the manager of the guitar shop. He never heard of you!”
Ah, Portly Man, the man with the braids, I thought, as Annie began to rummage through Robert’s pockets.
“I don’t have any cat-show money!” Robert cried.
I glanced around, thinking the money might have fallen out of his jacket, but all I saw was the bombe, so I took a few more licks before it melted.
Annie turned to Miller. “Rocky must have hidden the money, or dropped it, but that doesn’t matter because Ellie can pick him out of a lineup. By smell, if nothing else. Book him,” she said in a perfect imitation of Jack Lord on the Hawaii Five-O reruns we like to watch.
“No, wait . . . stealing the money wasn’t my idea . . . it was hers,” Robert babbled. He pointed at Patricia, who stood on the edge of the crowd. Her face was flour-white, as white as the albino feline in one of the tailgate cages. “I told you stealing the money was a bad idea, Patsy.”
Patsy?
Patricia said, “Shut up, you idiot!
“Did you see what happened when I sang, Patsy? I swear one of the girls fainted, and my CDs sold out, and the YouTube moms shot a video that I bet will go viral, and—”
“You slept with Patricia?” Annie’s voice cut through Robert’s babble. Curious, I stopped licking the bombe.
“No,” he said. “God, no. Patsy . . . Patricia is my sister. She needs money real bad. She’s about to lose her house. Her husband had insurance, double indemnity, the reason she killed him and made it look like an accident, but she didn’t know he was in debt up to his ears . . .”
Robert stopped blathering. I had the feeling he’d have clamped his hand over his mouth, had his wrists not been cuffed.
“You left for Vegas directly after the funeral,” Annie said. “That’s where you dumped Patricia’s gun, which makes you an accessory to murder! You hid the gun in the pillowcase that serves as your suitcase, right?”
“I want a lawyer,” Robert mumbled.
“It was an accident,” Patricia wailed. “I didn’t mean to kill him . . .”
I tuned her out because I now knew why she looked so familiar. If Robert looked like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise, Patricia D-for-Dumbrowski Graham bore more than a vague resemblance to Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall.
What a relief! A feline prides itself on its memory and — oh, shoot, the bombe had completely melted. Maybe if I purred loud enough, MJ would buy me another one.
AND THE WINNERS ARE. . .
MJ won the Bermuda cruise, which in my humble opinion would make a wonderful honeymoon milieu.
Before she left for the cop shop, Patricia begged Annie to take care of The Fluffster, but that wasn’t necessary. Becky got permission from her mom to adopt “Panda,” the new name she bestowed on Fluffy. Last I saw of “Panda,” she was comfortably entrenched on Becky’s lap, atop the wheelchair. I’d miss her, of course, but I had a feeling Miss Evel Knievel was more my cup of cream, and I knew where to find her. The motorcycle gang frequented the local epicurean restaurant, the one with Chef Ratatouille. Many times I’d seen their bikes parked outside.
The Fluffster won Best Of Show. Her prize was a trophy and a soft plush scratching post with a padded top platform and a dangling pom-pom toy.
Ellie Bernstein’s black Persian, Jackie Robinson, came in second. His prize was a smaller trophy and a cat bed shaped like a tuna can.
I came in third. Ask me if I give a rat’s spit.
Third prize was a year’s worth of gourmet cat food!
About the Author
When Denise Dietz was in grade school, she tried to hide her mom’s hardcover Gone With the Wind inside her Dick and Jane reader. She got caught, learned her lesson, and hid her dad’s Perry Mason paperbacks instead. Denise is the author of 17 novels and novellas, including the best-selling Diet Club Mysteries and Footprints in the Butter, co-starring Hitchcock the Dog. She almost always has a cat or dog in her books. For example, her soap opera mystery, Soap Bubbles, has a cat named Snowball, who, when neutered, is called Snow. Denise often donates pet characters to charity auctions. One winner, a cat name “Boogers,” appears in Strangle a Loaf of Italian Bread. How Boogers got his name will make you cry happy tears. You can learn more about Denise at www.denisedietz.com
