The Missing Cash Mystery

by Doris Hay

  The Missing Cash Mystery (Mystery Cats on the Case, Book 1)

  © 2019 by Doris Hay

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.

  Cover design © 2019

  First Edition 2019

  The Missing Cash Mystery

  Mystery Cats on the Case

  Book One

  Doris Hay

  Chapter 1

  On days as gorgeous as this, Doris likes digging around in the garden.

  Sometimes I help.

  I’m pretty good at weeding, but, if I’m totally honest, I do tend to get distracted by worms. I can’t help it. The way they writhe and squirm when they’re sticking halfway out of the earth, oh I can’t resist pouncing on them!

  The others tease me about stuff like that.

  Butterball gazes wistfully into the blue sky and says, “Ahhh, to be a kitten again!”

  After that, I feel self-conscious and I try to control my impulses. But I feel my tail twitching behind me. If he’d only go back inside, I’d be on that worm like butter on toast.

  Today I’m not being helpful. Today I’m just watching Doris pull up the weeds sprouting among the flowers in the front border.

  The low stone wall at the front of our property is one of my favourite places to be, especially when the sun is shining bright. Feels like warm fingers stroking my fur, fingers of trust, like Doris’s. I trust those fingers. I hardly ever attack them anymore, except when Doris wants to play.

  Humans, they need their exercise, you know. And play is good for their emotional well-being.

  Everything about today has been perfect so far, but like Doris always says: “Nothing gold can stay.” That means that, even when things are going right, you need to be prepared for them to go wrong.

  Because they will.

  Without a doubt.

  Sure enough, who should prance down the sidewalk but that little pest from next door: a pest by the name of Oopsie.

  I can only guess how he got a name like that. They should have called him Yappy, because that’s what he does every time he spots me and the others: he yaps. One of those annoying high-pitched barks that can only come out of the tiniest of dogs.

  And is Oopsie ever tiny! He’s almost as small as I am, and people always tell me I could fit in their purses, although thankfully nobody’s ever put that theory to the test.

  When he spots me, he starts yapping and jumping, yapping and jumping, like he’s on springs! I back up along the stone wall even though I know he can’t get to me. His human’s got him on a leash.

  But this is a different human than usual.

  Doris knows her.

  “Gemma!” Doris says, brushing dirt from her hands onto her green gardening apron. “It’s been too long! How on earth are you?”

  The lady named Gemma doesn’t answer Doris’s question. Instead, she tells Oopsie to stop jumping up, stop barking, be good for once. She has an accent like on the British murder mysteries Butterball’s always watching on TV, and I’m instantly fascinated by her because I’ve never heard an accent like that in the real world.

  Gemma is tiny like Oopsie. She’s got silvery hair and wiry fingers and leathery skin—the opposite of Doris in just about every way possible, except that they’re both pretty old.

  But everyone is old compared to me—that’s what Butterball says.

  Doris tries again with Gemma, saying, “I’ve never seen you out walking Oopsie. Taking advantage of the warm weather?”

  “If I wanted to take advantage of the sun, I’d be on a beach somewhere,” Gemma replies. “I wouldn’t be walking this bloody fleabag.”

  “It’s usually Tommy I see walking Oopsie,” Doris replies.

  “And it’s not even Tommy’s mutt!”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “You think my son would willingly adopt a mangy little rat creature like this?” Gemma asks.

  Oopsie gazes up at her, adoringly, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. I’ve got to admit, he’s pretty cute when he isn’t causing a racket.

  “No,” Gemma continues. “Oopsie belongs to my son’s good-for-nothing girlfriend. Amber. Can you believe that name? Amber. Sounds like a stripper, if you ask me.”

  I think Amber’s a nice name. If my name wasn’t Ginger, I’d want it to be Amber. Amber sounds warm and strong. I like it a lot.

  Doris says, “Well, it certainly is sweet of you to walk a dog for a girl you don’t much care for.”

  “They didn’t give us much choice, did they?” Gemma asks. “Tommy up and says, ‘Mum, Dad, I’m taking Amber to the tropics for a week. Can you feed Oopsie twice a day and take him out whenever he needs to go?’ Can you believe the almighty cheek? I mean, really! Expecting us to drop everything to care for this piddle factory.”

  Oopsie smiled as joyfully as ever. He really isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but that doesn’t mean this lady should say mean things about the little guy.

  “At least you’re able to take time off from the business whenever you want,” Doris says. “I remember when you and Ed were just starting out, the two of you working all hours just to make ends meet, asking me to proofread memos and work orders, make sure there were no typos.”

  Gemma looks forlorn when she says, “All that work. All for what?”

  “Well,” Doris replies, indicating the huge house next door. “For that, for starters.”

  The house next door is by far the biggest on the block, probably twice the size of where we live. And it’s got a huge yard for Oopsie to run around in.

  Doris goes on to say, “You and Ed have done very well for yourselves. All those investment properties you’ve got going! And the business! Remember when you were just starting out, you used to dream of being able take a step back? Hand stuff over to project managers and just relax? I remember when you used to do it all. Now look at you! You’ve achieved your dream!”

  “Yes,” Gemma grumbles. “Aren’t we lucky…?”

  She’s staring up at her house. Doris is staring at her. Oopsie is peeing on the stone wall.

  I’m just taking it all in.

  “Gemma?” Doris asks. “What’s wrong?”

  Gemma purses her thin lips. She shakes her head. She isn’t looking at Doris.

  “Gemma, come on now. How long have we known each other? You can’t pretend with me.”

  The neighbour lady looks down at Oopsie, who is now sniffing the spot where he’s peed. Dogs are so strange.

  Doris changes the subject. In a chipper tone, she asks, “So, where did Tommy take his girlfriend on holiday?”

  “Saint Lucia,” Gemma absently replies. “She’s got family there.”

  “You don’t think—”

  Doris cuts herself off, covering her smile with one hand. She realizes too late her hand still has dirt on it from gardening, and now she’s got dirt on her face too. She brushes it off on her forearm.

  I think this is all very funny, but Gemma doesn’t seem to notice. She asks, “I don’t think what?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Doris replies.

  “Come on, Dori. Out with it.”

  Gemma’s brow furrows, and that’s enough to get Doris talking. “I just thought perhaps… do you think Tommy’s going to ask his girlfriend to marry him?”

  “Good God, I hope not!” Gemma groans.

  “You don’t approve of their relationship?”

  “That’s putting i
t mildly,” Gemma replies. “This girl, I swear to you, Dori, she’s nothing but trouble.”

  “Oh?”

  “She’s a bad influence. You know she used to a drug addict?”

  The look on Doris’s face seems kind of sad, but I can’t figure out why until she says, “Gemma, come now. You know better than anyone that a person can change for the better. Any habit can be kicked, and kicked for good. It takes willpower and perseverance, but change can stick.”

  What does that mean? Did the neighbour lady used to be a drug addict too? I’ll have to remember to ask Butterball. He’s been around the longest. He’s sure to be up on all the gossip.

  But I can’t flee the scene just yet, because Gemma’s getting really upset now. I can tell by the way she’s flicking her wrist, making her bracelets jingle together. “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “So tell me the whole story,” Doris pleads. “I’ll help if I can.”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  Oopsie’s clearly ready to move on. He’s tugging on the leash. Gemma doesn’t even notice. Her eyes are filling with tears. Her thin lips are starting to quiver. Is she about to cry? Sure looks that way.

  “Oh, Dori! We’ve been robbed!” Gemma says, and as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she breaks down.

  This whole time Doris and the neighbour lady have been on opposite sides of this stone wall I’m perched on, but Gemma’s show of emotion is obviously bringing out the nurturer in my cat-mom. She opens the squeaky iron gate and throws herself at the neighbour, but Gemma backs away.

  Oopsie’s watching all this, looking about as confused as I am, but probably Gemma is a bit like a cat. We don’t always want humans taking us in their arms, even if we know them well. Touch has to be on our own terms.

  Doris backs away until her bum meets the stone wall. Her foot is an inch away from crushing a marigold, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

  Gemma remains on the sidewalk.

  “Robbed how? Burgled, you mean? When did this happen?” Doris asks. She’s wringing her hands. She’s full of questions. “Do the police have a suspect? Have they caught the guy? Did the robbers break a window to get in? What was stolen? Did you get it back? How are you holding up?”

  Gemma looks over one shoulder and then the other, like she wants to be very sure nobody else hears what she’s about to say. “We haven’t called the police. We’re not going to.”

  “What?” Doris squeals. “Why not?”

  When Gemma takes a deep breath, I notice the tears are gone from her eyes. She looks angry, not sad, when she says, “The burglary was very… very targeted, shall we say.”

  “What do you mean?” Doris asks, seeming very concerned about her old friend.

  Oopsie’s pulling toward home so hard he’s going to pass out if he doesn’t give it a rest, but Gemma doesn’t notice this at all. She shakes her head, says, “Ed and I were out of the country at the time, checking on one of our investment properties. Tommy and that girlfriend of his were housesitting.”

  “I thought Tommy still lives with you,” Doris pipes up.

  Gemma’s brow flattens. She says, “Yes, well, anyway it was just him and his girlfriend here. And then we get this call and it’s Tommy saying one of the safes has been broken into.”

  “One of the safes?” Doris asks.

  Gemma seems increasingly unimpressed by Doris’s questions. “We have one safe for jewellery, one for business documents, and one that contains only cash… contained only cash. That’s the one that was hit. Whoever stole that cash knew precisely which safe to hit, and how to crack it. And it had to be someone who could get into the house without setting off the alarm system.”

  “An inside job,” Doris says, understanding her neighbour’s meaning.

  “Had to be. There’s no other explanation.”

  Oopsie’s given up on pulling. Now he’s chewing on the geraniums.

  “You think it was this Amber girl?” Doris asks. “Tommy’s girlfriend?”

  Gemma seems surprised by the suggestion.

  Clearly, Doris can read her old friend’s expression, because she changes her theory: “You think it was Tommy.”

  “Well, what am I meant to think? This burglary happens when Ed and I are out of the country, we come back and suddenly Tommy has the money to take his girlfriend to the Caribbean? I love my son, but he’s never worked a day in his life. Where else would that money have come from?”

  “But why would he steal it? I thought you and Ed provided anything he asked for.”

  “Well, Ed’s been tightening the purse strings lately. Tommy’s in his thirties, after all.”

  “I’m surprised,” Doris says reflectively. “The way you were talking about this Amber girl earlier, I’d have thought you’d lay the blame on her for sure.”

  “I’d love to, I really would, but if you’d seen her face when Tommy announced he was taking her on holiday… I was in the room, Dori. He made a big show of it, and Amber was every bit as surprised as we were. She works, this girl, I’ll give her that. I get the sense that, ever since Ed cut him off, Amber’s been footing the bills when they go out. She asked him flat out where he got the money to pay for a beach vacation.”

  “And?”

  “Said he saved for it.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  That question is clearly more than Gemma can handle, because she snaps, “What do you think?”

  Doris isn’t put off. She says, “Gemma, you need to report this theft. You need to call the police.”

  “On my own son?”

  “You don’t know for sure that he did it. Call them in. Have the police investigate. Maybe it really was some band of clever thieves who beat the security system.”

  “And knew precisely which safe to hit and where it was and how to crack it?”

  “You never know.”

  Looking off at the house in the distance, Gemma says, “I know.”

  “Even if it was Tommy who stole your money, don’t you think there should be repercussions? Look at the distress he’s causing you. Whoever did this, and I’m not saying it was Tommy, just whoever did it… they should pay for their actions.”

  “What do you know?” Gemma replies, practically spitting the words in Doris’s face. “You don’t have children. You don’t know what it’s like. Daddies are always devoted to their daughters, and mothers to their sons. That’s just the way it goes, with families.”

  There are a lot of things Doris could say, but I think Gemma’s words have hit her like a punch. She seems a lot greyer than usual. She doesn’t respond.

  When Gemma notices what Oopsie’s done to Doris’s geraniums, her cheeks get splotchy red. “Bad dog,” she says as she tugs the Yorkshire terrier along the sidewalk.

  Doris bends to fix her chewed-up plants. I can’t see her face from this angle, but I know how she must be feeling. All I want to do is run inside and tell the others what I’ve just overheard, but I can’t leave my cat-mom in her time of need.

  From the stone wall, I leap down onto her shoulder. At first, she jumps, but when she realizes it’s just me, she chuckles and calls me her little sweetheart, and I’m glad I could make her feel a little bit better.

  Chapter 2

  After gardening, Doris heads inside to clean up.

  She’ll probably write for a while, once she’s scrubbed the dirt from underneath her fingernails. Usually I would stay by her side. She likes to bounce ideas off me, especially when she’s plotting one of her mystery novels, but today I’ve got other things on my mind.

  I hop down the stairs of our split-level house to find Butterball and Zorro engrossed in their respective books. They’re readers, not writers. We all are, all three of us cats. Butterball’s a fan of your typical British mystery, Agatha Christie style. Zorro’s usually got a thriller on the go. He particularly likes Joy Fielding, because she’s from Toronto, just like us.

  Me? I’m all about the cozies. I like cute stories abo
ut cats and cooking, that sort of thing. I like a murder mystery that makes you feel good, which is actually kind of strange, when you say it out loud.

  Anyway, the three of us cats created a book review site on the internet. It’s called Cats Read Mysteries. Since we each have our own taste in books, we review different kinds of mysteries. It’s fun and it gives us something to do, a way to share our opinions with the world.

  Cats are taking over the internet and we want to be a part of it!

  “You won’t believe what I just found out!” I say when I’ve reached the lounge. This is our main room, where we hang out and read books during the day, then watch TV with Doris in the evenings.

  Butterball and Zorro don’t even look up from their books.

  “Hey guys, did you hear me?” I ask. “I just heard about something when I was outside with Doris. It’s really juicy! Don’t you want me to tell you?”

  Zorro looks up first. He’s a shorthair with lots of white on his belly, legs and face, but silvery-grey sort of tabby fur on top. He meets my gaze with striking green eyes and says, “What’s the gossip, Ginge?”

  “Make it quick,” Butterball yowls from his favourite chair. “All this chatter is interrupting my reading.”

  Butterball’s the kind of cat who always looks dusty, even when he’s not. He’s a lot bigger than I am, and his eyes are a queasy shade of yellow. He’s grumpy a lot of the time, and I mostly stay out of his way.

  But today I’m so excited about what I’ve just overheard that I don’t even care if I’m interrupting Butterball’s precious reading time. I tell the boys, “What I’ve got to say is more interesting than any novel. You know why? Because it’s a real-life mystery!”

  I wait for the boys to react, but they just stare at me blankly.

  Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. Zorro and Butterball have lived here a lot longer than I have, so I ask, “Do you know the lady who lives next door? Her name is Gemma.”

  “Yes,” Butterball replies, but that’s not much help.

  “Okay,” I say. “Well, I just overheard her talking to Doris and you’ll never guess what she said.”