The Cat's Paw Cozy Mysteries

by Fiona Snyckers

  “Family discount?” said the dad. “We didn’t know there was such a thing.”

  “Of course, there is,” said Fay who had just made it up on the spot. “The tickets are normally two pounds, but if every member of the family plays, you get the tickets for one pound fifty each. That’s a total saving of two pounds.”

  The mom and dad looked at each other.

  “Seems like a good deal,” she said.

  Her husband nodded. He reached into his wallet and took out six pounds. “We’ll take the family discount then, thanks.”

  “How does it work?” asked the little boy.

  “You pull the handle to spin the barrel over here. When it stops spinning, you put your hand inside and pull out a ticket. If the ticket has a gold star on it, that means it’s a winner and I’ll tell you what prize you’ve won.”

  “I like the picture of the kitty-cat on the barrel,” said the little girl shyly.

  “So do I,” said Fay. “It’s really old too, which makes it extra special.”

  The tombola barrel was decorated with a Victorian painting of a smartly dressed cat pulling the handle of another tombola barrel which had a picture of another cat on it pulling the handle of a tombola barrel, and so forth. It was like a funhouse mirror.

  “Say, have you seen any of the real kitty-cats around here?” Fay asked the children. “We don’t call it the Cat’s Paw B&B for nothing.”

  The little girl giggled and nodded.

  “We nearly tripped over an enormous shaggy cat sleeping in the middle of the field earlier,” said the mom.

  “That would be Ivan. He’s a Siberian and sleeps wherever he likes in all weathers. I’m always tripping over him myself.”

  The family pulled the handle of the tombola one by one and handed their tickets to Fay who inspected them solemnly. This was the best part of her job. She had total discretion in deciding who got prizes and who didn’t. And because she was a soft-hearted soul, everyone got prizes. Luckily, there were more than enough prizes to go around. The only restriction was that each person was only allowed to try the tombola five times in the day. And because all the prizes were donated, the money raised was pure profit for the various charities that the spring fair supported.

  She saw how tired and overheated this family were looking and decided to give them a break.

  “Good news!” she announced, consulting her prize book. “Dad has won a free beer at the beer tent. Mom has won a manicure at the spa tent, and the kids have won free pony rides supervised by a qualified instructor.”

  She gave them their vouchers and they went away with big smiles on their faces. Fay couldn’t help feeling pleased with herself.

  “If you carry on in this reckless fashion, you will run out of prizes before the end of the day.”

  She turned in surprise at the sharpness of this warning. A woman in her fifties confronted her with her hands on her hips.

  “Oh, hello. It’s Mrs. Saville, isn’t it? I’m Fay Penrose.”

  “I know perfectly well who you are, Miss Penrose. That’s your grandmother’s legacy you’re tarnishing by playing fast and loose with the tombola prizes.”

  “My grandmother’s legacy was all about kindness, Mrs. Saville. She loved the spring fair and she loved making people happy with the prizes. I think she’d be proud of how I’m running it. Besides, there are always so many prizes that we have plenty left over at the end of the fair. I’d rather see them going to people who will enjoy them rather than cluttering up my attic for another year.”

  The woman snorted. “Wastefulness – that’s what it is.”

  “I…”

  But she had already moved on to harass the person running the balloon-shaving competition at the next stall. This was the first time they had met, although Fay had been aware of her presence in the village for some time. She was the sort of woman who stuck her nose into every aspect of village life. There wasn’t a committee she didn’t sit on or an event she didn’t try to run.

  Fay was a newcomer to the village and had a feeling that Mrs. Saville was too. But whereas Fay tried to make herself agreeable to the villagers, the older woman seemed to be trying the opposite tactic.

  “How’s it going here?”

  Fay smiled as a more welcome voice made her turn.

  “You mean aside from the fact that I’m slowly boiling to death in this suit?”

  “It’s a tradition,” said Morwen. “Your grandmother wore it every year. And your grandfather before her. It’s not that bad, is it?”

  “It’s worse,” grumbled Fay. “And the pants are turning green from dragging on the damp grass.”

  “Ah, well. We’ll send it off to be dry-cleaned, just like your granny did every year.”

  “I wish someone would dry-clean me. I feel like the makeup I put on this morning must be a distant memory by now.”

  Morwen took a proper look at Fay’s face and swallowed a laugh. “Okay, maybe you don’t look quite as put together as you did this morning, but who does? I’ve just finished a shift at the tea table and now I have to do one in the beer tent. I must be looking like something the cat dragged in.”

  Fay looked at Morwen in her pretty, sleeveless sundress and shook her head. “You look as cool as a cucumber. You look like I would have looked if I weren’t in this stupid suit.”

  Fay reached a hand over her shoulder and tried to scratch the middle of her back. She couldn’t quite reach the spot through the thick fabric.

  “I hate this waistcoat. It itches like a fiend.”

  “Was that Mrs. Saville you were talking to earlier?”

  “It was, yes. First time I’ve met her, actually.”

  “What was she moaning about this time?”

  “Oh, nothing too serious. Just that I’m disgracing my grandmother’s legacy by letting too many people win prizes at the tombola.”

  “She’s a real ray of sunshine, isn’t she? Don’t pay any attention to her. The tombola is always our biggest money-earner at the fair and your grandmother used to do exactly the same thing. Everyone won a prize when she was in charge. Look.” Morwen glanced towards the tea tent. “There she goes – spreading sweetness and light.”

  Mrs. Saville moved from stall to stall, stopping to have a word with each person. Each time she moved on, the person she had just been speaking to was left with a scowl on their face.

  “She’s not from around here, is she?” asked Fay.

  “She moved to the island about ten years ago. What tipped you off?”

  “She doesn’t sound like the rest of you. I’m starting to recognize the island accent. When I first got here, you all sounded the same to me. Now I can pick out the west country accent from all the other British accents. Mrs. Saville definitely comes from somewhere else.”

  “London, I believe.” Morwen spotted a teacher from one of the mainland schools leading a train of students towards the tombola.

  “You’re going to have your hands full in a moment. I’ll be getting on to the beer tent now. There’ll be fireworks when it gets dark and that signals the official end of the fair.”

  “When does it ever get dark around here? Last night, I went for a walk around the garden at nine-thirty and it was almost light enough to read.”

  “What can I say?” said Morwen. “We’re very far west here.”

  It was ten o’clock by the time the fireworks started.

  The temperature had dropped dramatically over the past two hours, making Fay almost grateful for her hot, scratchy suit. More than one lady in a sundress had borrowed her partner’s jacket as the evening wore on. Fay didn’t have a partner, so she made do with the scratchy suit.

  The fireworks display started tamely enough with Roman candles and pinwheels. Then it got bigger and brighter and noisier as it built to a big finale.

  Fay couldn’t help smiling as she saw the round eyes and enthralled faces of the children in the crowd enjoying the spectacle.

  As someone who had seen in many New Year�
�s Eve celebrations in Times Square, Fay was not blown away by the fireworks. But there was something magical about watching them here on Bluebell Island in the grounds of this house that had been hers for such a short time. It was the people that made it special. Some had become close friends, while others were still acquaintances, but they had all absorbed her into their community so warmly that she couldn’t quite believe it.

  The fireworks were getting louder and louder. Some of the noise-sensitive children put their hands over their ears. The display was spectacular but the noise intense.

  Suddenly Fay heard something – a sound that didn’t belong. Every muscle in her body tensed as she registered that it was a gunshot. She had heard it too many times before – that unmistakable whip-crack of a bullet breaking the sound barrier. It had been close, too. Very close to where she was standing.

  Fay looked around, her head moving from side to side. No one else seemed to have noticed it. On the other side of the field, next to the kebab stand, she saw a figure slowly sinking to the ground.

  Fay took off at a run before her brain registered what was happening. In seconds she was at the person’s side. A huge firework lit up the field and she saw that it was Mrs. Saville. She had been hit in the center of her chest and was quite dead.

  The moment Fay realized that there was nothing she could do for the victim, her attention turned to everyone else at the fair. There was an active shooter running around in this overcrowded situation. The thought of a shooter on the loose among so many civilians turned her knees to water.

  The fireworks were still too noisy. There was no way she could make herself heard over them. She wanted to grab her megaphone and yell at everyone to shelter in place – the standard warning given to civilians caught up in an active shooter situation. But no one would hear her. There was nothing she could do. A feeling of helplessness threatened to overwhelm her.

  Her ballistics training kicked into gear. Where had the shot come from? Where had the shooter been standing?

  Taking her best guess, she ran back across the field to where the shot might have originated from. It was not far from where she had been standing.

  Fay pushed her way through the crowds staring agog at the fireworks. Near Mrs. Saville, people were starting to realize that something was wrong. A small group of people were kneeling around her, trying to raise the alarm.

  As she emerged through the crowds, Fay found herself near the ticket booth of the Ferris wheel. A glint of something metallic caught her eye.

  There on the ground lay an old-fashioned silver revolver.

  Chapter 2

  Fay let her breath out in a whoosh of relief.

  This wasn’t an active shooter situation. The shooter had fired the gun, abandoned it, and left the scene. There was no reason to think that anyone else was in danger.

  The fireworks were building up to a big finale. There was a flurry of bangs and crashes, with spectacular illuminations lighting up the sky. Then suddenly it was all over, and silence fell like a blanket over the Lower Field of Penrose House. It lasted for no more than a second before the crowd cheered and applauded. Most were still unaware of what had happened.

  Fay stood next to the gun, unwilling to leave it until it could be taken into custody by the proper authorities. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and took photographs of the gun with the flash on. It was lying on the grass untouched, exactly where she had found it.

  The group of people gathered around Mrs. Saville was getting bigger. They stepped aside as two figures arrived on the scene. It was Bluebell Island’s doctors, and Fay was very pleased to see them. The elder was Bartemius Dyer – known affectionately as Doc Dyer – and the younger was his son, David. He was a Harvard-trained surgeon, and nobody had yet dared to give him a nickname.

  Fay knew that Mrs. Saville had been dead before she hit the ground, but she was glad that the Dyers had arrived to take care of the body while she guarded the murder weapon.

  People were drifting towards their cars or setting out on the short walk to Bluebell Village. The fireworks marked the end of the spring fair and people wanted to get home for the night. Those who had come from the mainland would catch the last ferries back to Falmouth or Truro.

  “What happened? Why are you standing here?” Morwen hurried over, looking anxious. “Is it true that Mrs. Saville has been hurt?”

  “She was shot dead. I heard it happen during the fireworks. I thought there was a shooter in the crowd, but then I found this.” She pointed to the revolver.

  “Oh, wow.” Morwen bent to pick it up but stopped when Fay caught her arm. “Okay, right. I suppose it’s evidence, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely.”

  “What a strange object. It doesn’t look real.”

  “It’s real, all right. Just very old.”

  “Are you sure this is what killed Mrs. Saville? It looks like a child’s toy or a fancy-dress prop.”

  “I’m positive. This gun has just been fired. You can see by looking at the barrel. It’s still warm too. I held my hand near it to check.”

  “But who on earth …?” Morwen looked around as though the shooter would be found loitering nearby. A loud, aristocratic voice made them jump to attention.

  “What on earth is going on here? I demand an explanation.”

  It was Lady Chadwick. She was accompanied by Nella Harcourt. They were the two great ladies of the village. Fay’s grandmother had been their equal, but at thirty Fay knew she was too young to be seen as anything more than a child in their eyes. Together with Morwen, these two ladies had organized the spring fair. Every year, it was held either at Chadwick Manor or at Penrose House. This year it was Penrose House’s turn.

  “Is it true that Mrs. Saville is dead?” demanded Lady Chadwick. “It was the electromagnetic fields, wasn’t it? They struck her down.”

  Lady Chadwick made swatting motions at the air around her head as though she were chasing mosquitoes.

  Nella didn’t quite roll her eyes, but it was close. “I heard it was a gunshot. Can anyone confirm that?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Fay indicated the gun she was guarding. “And here’s the murder weapon.”

  The ladies slipped their spectacles onto their noses. “That?” barked Lady Chadwick. “Why, that’s nothing but a toy. It’s a theatrical prop. It was used in the pantomime that was performed at two o’clock this afternoon. Little Red Riding Hood used it to shoot the big bad wolf.”

  “Are you quite sure of that, Lady Chadwick? This is the gun that was used in the play?”

  “My dear Miss Penrose. I could hardly mistake it. It belongs to me, after all. The Chadwicks have lent it to the pantomime every year for decades now.”

  “The thing is, Mary,” said Nella. “It’s apparently not a toy at all but a functioning weapon.”

  “Well, I know that, Nella. But it certainly wasn’t loaded, and I doubt it is still in working order. This can’t possibly be what killed poor Mrs. Saville.”

  “I doubt Miss Penrose is mistaken. She was a police officer in New York City until recently. A homicide detective, I believe?”

  “That’s right,” said Fay. “This is definitely the murder weapon. It is perfectly safe as long as it’s unloaded. Unfortunately, it looks as if someone found the correct ammunition and loaded it.”

  Morwen looked up. “Oh, thank goodness. Here come the police.”

  Fay looked up too. Sergeant Jones and Constable Chegwin were approaching at an unhurried pace. She wasn’t quite as overjoyed to see them as Morwen. They were lovely men but not the sharpest minds on the island.

  “Evening, all.” Sergeant Jones hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “What’s all this about a murder weapon?”

  It was eleven-thirty by the time Fay had finally brushed her teeth and put on her pajamas.

  The local high school traditionally cleaned up Lower Field after the spring fair as part of their community service. She had almost wanted to tell them to leave everything as it
was until the next morning so that a proper search could be conducted in daylight. But she wasn’t running the investigation. Once the murder weapon had been taken into custody, Sergeant Jones had given the kids the go-ahead to start clearing up.

  Doc Dyer and David had taken charge of the body, and Constable Chegwin had gone off to do the next-of-kin notifications.

  It was sad that the spring fair had ended on such an awful note because it had been a very successful day otherwise, with record amounts of money being raised for charity. According to Morwen, this wasn’t even the first time that the spring fair had been marred by murder. Twenty-five years earlier, the leading man in the pantomime had stabbed his rival to death in what was supposed to be a pretend sword fight. That murder had taken place in front of an audience of at least a hundred people, so there had been no mystery about it. Arrest and prosecution had followed swiftly afterwards.

  This was more complicated.

  A gun that had been used as a stage prop would probably be covered in fingerprints from a host of different people. The fireworks had been the perfect time to commit the murder. Fay was the only person to realize that a gun had been fired. Had anyone seen the shooter? That was something Sergeant Jones would (or should) be trying to establish. An eyewitness would break the case wide open, but no one had come forward yet.

  As Fay settled into bed and picked up a book from her nightstand, she heard thumping noises coming from her office next door. The kittens were restless. At two months old, they were ready to be moved out of her office. Until recently, she had kept them in a large playpen where they had toddled around on their baby legs, getting stronger and more confident every day. Then they had started threatening to jump the walls of their enclosure and had graduated to having the run of the office, with several cat trees, platforms, and scratching posts to teach them to climb.

  Now they would need more room to explore and some supervised time in the garden. She would make sure they were completely comfortable with people and other cats before she tried to home them at three months.