“Just like Roy Avino,” Chester replied. “If Marlena Rappaport blinks her fake eyelashes at a man, he’s on his knees begging to serve her for life. Roy Avino was no different.”
“I bet that left a lot of jealous wives around,” Nat pointed out.
“Not as many as you might think,” Chester replied. “Most of the wives of Marlena's men would be glad to have them after someone else for a change. Take Nick Porter, the owner of the Columba Street auto body shop. He did his dash with Marlena for over two years, but it wasn’t until Marlena dumped him that his wife Trish divorced him and took half his assets in the bargain.”
“Why did she do that?” Willow asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Chester asked. “She didn’t want him back. She didn’t mind him running around with Marlena, making a fool out of himself in front of the whole town. At least Marlena kept him out of her hair. When he came crawling back to Trish with nothing but the shirt on his back, she kicked him in the teeth and sent him to live in the Figure 8 Motel. He wasn’t coming back to her for all the tea in China.”
“That couldn’t be happening between Josephine and Roy Avino,” Willow reasoned. “Josephine got mad enough at Roy for taking up with Marlena that she hooked up with a penniless baker from the Morningside. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t want payback.”
“Payback? Ha!” Chester grumbled under his breath. “Where have you been living, young lady—under a rock? Maybe she was waiting for years to go out on Roy. Maybe she had her eye on the baker from the beginning, and she only used Marlena as an excuse to get what she always wanted. We have no way of knowing if she was really angry and hurt. Maybe she was delighted.”
Willow narrowed her eyes at him. “I may be nothing but a glorified house cat, but you can’t tell me a married woman would be glad to have her husband go after somebody else. People don’t function that way.”
Chester stared at her. Then he made an even more disgusting face and turned away. “You’ve got a lot to learn about human nature, little lady.”
Chapter 6
“What can you tell us about the fire?” Nat asked.
Chester licked the front of his chest. “I can’t tell you anything. I didn’t even know it happened until you showed up here talking about it.”
Bella jumped off the rim of the dumpster onto the lowest wrung of a fire escape hanging over her head. She scrambled up it onto a window ledge in the side of the building. She perched there and peered down at the cats on the ground below her.
Willow stared up at her in awe. If that tiny cat could jump and climb and balance that way, surely Willow herself could do the same. She must have underestimated her own abilities. She would push herself harder from now on. She wouldn’t rest until she became the best police cat ever.
“Don’t listen to him, Nat,” Bella piped. “That fire has been the talk of the town all day. Every cat in a seven-block radius came over to tell us about it, and they gave us all the details.”
“Did they say anything about how the fire got started?” Nat asked.
“How could they know how the fire got started?” Chester asked. “I’m sure it got started in the usual way. The Morningside Bakery was located in an old building. The wiring must have given out and set the place on fire. It happens all the time.”
“I’m afraid not,” Nat returned. “Carl and Naya found traces of cloth soaked in some kind of accelerant behind one of the ovens. They think it was used to set off the gas in the gas line. Josephine Avino says Roy was negligent and stored chemicals inside the bakery that shouldn’t have been there. She thinks Roy’s negligence started the fire.”
Chester shrugged. “I don’t know, but there’s a very simple way to find out. A cat’s nose is a lot stronger than anything the crime lab can come up with.”
Bella took a flying leap off her window ledge and landed on all fours next to Willow. Willow jumped back in surprise. “Great!” Bella peeped. “We’re going on a bear hunt!”
Willow gasped. “Bears!”
“That’s just an expression,” Bella told her. “It’s my way of saying we’re going to do some hunting around.”
“You mean, like going out into the field?” Willow asked.
Bella cocked her head to one side. “What field?”
Nat walked away down the alley. “We’re already in the field, Willow. This is the field. Everything outside the police station is the field. What Bella means is that we’re going to investigate the fire ourselves. We might find something Carl and Naya missed.” Nat led the way, and Chester followed him. Willow scampered behind them.
Bella sprang up into the air again. This time, she didn’t even touch the fire escape. She sailed straight to the window ledge. From there, she soared out over the alley and pounced onto the side of a brick. She didn’t land on top of it. She landed on the side of the wall. Willow couldn’t see a foothold anywhere on it, but Bella found some. She stuck to the side of the wall just long enough to make her next jump onto the back bumper of a car sitting up on blocks.
Every time Bella made one of her acrobatic leaps, Willow stopped to stare at her. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” Bella chirped.
“That,” Willow replied. “How do you jump like that from one place to the other? I never saw a cat do that.”
“You can do it, too,” Bella told her. “Any cat can do it.”
“Really?” Willow asked. “Can Chester do it, too?”
Bella paused. “Well, I’ve never seen him do it. But it’s not difficult. You just have to try.”
“Have you seen any other cats do it?” Willow asked.
“Well, no, now that you mention it,” Bella replied. “But I’m sure there are lots of cats who can do it. I’m nothing special.”
“You’re not like any cat I’ve ever seen before,” Willow told her. “Look at Nat and Chester up there. They walk along the ground. They don’t fly through the air from one perilous brick to the next.”
“You’re the one who has an unusual life,” Bella returned. “You live at the police station. That must be so exciting. I wish my life was half as interesting as yours.”
“There’s nothing interesting about the police station,” Willow told her. “There’s nothing to do but sit around and eat and sleep. Occasionally, you get to sit on someone’s lap and they pet you. It’s really boring.”
“It can’t be boring,” Bella argued. “Look at you. You’re out here investigating the Morningside fire. No other cat gets to do that.”
“You’re doing it right now,” Willow pointed out, “and you’re not a police station cat. I never would have thought twice about getting involved in police work if Nat hadn’t told me I could and how to do it. He’s the one you should admire, not me.”
Bella gazed ahead at the two male cats walking side by side. “He really is an amazing cat. He’s the smartest cat in town—except for Chester, of course.”
“Is Chester your mate?” Willow asked.
Bella’s tinkling laugh rang through the alley. “Chester? No, he’s not my mate. I don’t think Chester’s had a mate in years.” She laughed again.
“How did you end up living with him here in this...?” Willow trailed off.
“In this alley?” Bella asked. “It’s okay. You can say it. There’s nothing shameful about living in an alley.”
Willow shook herself. “I’m sorry. It’s just that my mother told me the most spine-chilling stories about alley cats. She said they were....Well, I won’t tell you what she said.”
“That’s okay,” Bella replied. “I know all about it. Chester told me certain housecats have a prejudice against alley cats. You think we’re dirty and unscrupulous. I understand. But here you are, talking to one. It's not what you expected, is it?”
Willow cast a hesitant glance toward Chester. “I don’t know. Chester certainly is the most unwashed cat I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Bella laughed again. “He hates washing. He’s the only cat
I’ve ever met that does. That’s probably why he hasn’t had a mate. I for one wouldn’t go near him.”
“How did you end up living in this alley?” Willow asked.
“I was born here,” Bella replied. “I was born in that dumpster where I first met you. This is the first time I’ve ever left the alley.”
Willow gasped. “Really? Why haven’t you gone anywhere?”
“I was born in that dumpster,” Bella explained, “and after the first week, my mother disappeared. I don’t know what happened to her, but she never returned. I’m the only one of her five kittens who survived, and I had to learn quickly how to find food for myself.”
“It must have been awful,” Willow exclaimed.
Bella shrugged. “I learned that when you find a source of food, you hold onto it tooth and nail. If you have a steady supply of food, you stay near it and don’t go wandering off where you might starve again. That’s why I never left the alley.”
“Does the alley have a good supply of food?” Willow asked.
Bella nodded. “That dumpster belongs to the Nickel Alley Cafe. They throw out all the scraps from the customers’ plates. Chester and I have all the food we could want.”
Willow cocked her head to one side. “The Nickel Alley Cafe?”
“That’s what I said,” Bella replied.
Willow stopped walking and turned toward Bella, but the tiny cat wouldn’t stop bouncing from one place to another. Willow turned a complete circle trying to face her.
In the end, Bella landed on the lid of a metal trash can. The can teetered under her weight, and Bella crouched on it to gain her balance. Then she looked up at Willow. “What’s the matter?”
“Where we you and Chester this morning, Bella?” Willow asked. “Where were you.....I’d say between the hours of seven and nine?”
Bella put her head to one side. “What?”
Willow took a step toward the trash can. “If you were in the alley this morning, you can give us some very important information about the fire?”
“How can I give you information about the fire?” Bella asked. “The bakery’s three blocks away.”
Willow dropped her voice, but her heart wouldn't stop pounding. “The baker, Jason Dempsey, says he wasn’t in the bakery this morning when the fire started. He says he was here, behind the Nickel Alley Cafe, with Josephine Avino, the murder victim’s wife.”
Bella stared at her. Then she burst out laughing again. “You see what I mean? You sound like a police cat already.” She started moving down the alley again.
Willow ran to catch up with her. “If you know something about this case, I sure wish you’d tell me. We can use all the help we can get to find out who killed Roy.”
Bella sprang down to the ground and, for the first time, she stood perfectly still in front of Willow. “Josephine and Jason were in the alley. I saw them when I came out of the dumpster after breakfast. But Jason didn’t stick around. He left….I'd say about eight o'clock. You can ask Chester. He saw them, too.”
Willow looked around. “Where are they?”
Bella trotted forward. “Don’t worry. They went to investigate the fire.”
“Where is that?” Willow asked.
“Right here.” Bella turned a corner and disappeared.
Willow ran after her and rounded the corner, but she froze in her tracks at what she saw. A big square of space between the buildings yawned wide and empty in the moonlight. Black charred remains of beams and sheetrock lay scattered over the ground, and piles of charcoal gleamed in the darkness. A few spikes of steel roof beams stuck up out of the ruins, but most of the concrete slab lay bare and blank before them.
Out of the darkness, a cat’s sneeze brought Willow’s attention to the far corner of the site. She shot forward and found Nat and Chester rummaging in a pile of broken glass and melted metal.
“Nat, Nat!” Willow panted. “Guess what? Chester and Bella live in that dumpster behind the Nickel Alley Cafe. Bella says Josephine and Jason really were in the alley when the fire started. That means Jason’s alibi is solid.”
Nat pulled his head out from under a charred two-by-four. “I’m glad to hear you’re keeping your wits about you, Willow, but I already discussed the situation with Chester. He saw Josephine and Jason in the alley this morning, too.”
“It looks like Naya was right,” Nat replied. “If Jason’s alibi is solid, then he's innocent and someone framed him for this murder. Too many of the other suspects have a motive to undermine him and pin Roy’s death on him.”
“How can you be certain Naya believes that?” Willow asked. “I understood from Carl’s remarks that she only told Jason she thought he was innocent.”
Nat sneezed again and bent over the burned remains of the bakery. “I don’t think so. She might not have completely ruled him out, but he didn’t kill Roy. He had no motive, and now we’ve got corroboration of his alibi. Meanwhile, we have three other people with motives to frame him.”
“Three?” Willow asked. “I can only think of two— Josephine and Annika Neilsson.”
“There’s Marlena,” Nat replied.
“What motive could she possibly have to frame Jason?” Willow asked. “She didn’t even know him.”
“If she had a reason to kill Roy,” Nat replied, “she would want someone to frame, wouldn’t she?”
“She had no reason to kill Roy,” Willow argued.
“None that we know of,” Nat corrected her. “Maybe she didn’t care who knew they were messing around with each other, but she could have had another reason. We’ll find that out tomorrow when Carl and Naya go to interview her.”
Chapter 7
Nat and Chester stuck their noses farther into the piles of charcoal and wooden fragments. Chester came out more soiled and grimy than when he went in. Willow barely recognized him. He didn’t even look like a cat anymore. He reminded her of some kind of reptile she saw on Animal Planet. “What are you looking for?”
Nat sat back and brushed the soot off his whiskers. “I had occasion to go into the Morningside Bakery once. This is the corner where the ovens were hooked up to the gas lines. This would be the corner where the crime lab found the accelerant that started the fire.”
“How did you manage to get inside the bakery?” Willow asked.
Nat shrugged and turned away. “Roy left the back door open on hot summer afternoons. The smell was irresistible. I went in and stole one of the fresh chocolate chip cookies. I ran off with it while Roy was on the phone. He never even knew I was there.”
Chester chuckled to himself. “That’s just like you, Nat. You’re a terror.”
Willow shook her head in wonder. “I wish I had the guts to do something like that.”
Nat started cleaning his face. “Everybody’s got to start somewhere. You were a housecat until you came to the police station. I was born wild, so these things come naturally to me. You’ll get the hang of it, but you have to start practicing your craft.”
Willow nodded. “I’m beginning to understand that.”
Bella touched a charred piece of metal with her paw. “So what did you find? Did you detect any accelerant among the remains of the bakery equipment?”
“As I told you,” Nat replied, “a cat’s nose is several hundred times more sensitive than any detection method the crime lab uses. There are traces of several chemicals in this corner. One of them is paint stripper, and another is toluene with a trace of hydrocarbon propellent. That kind of product comes in a spray can. Roy would have used to clean the chrome on his BMW motorcycle.”
“Then Josephine was right,” Willow remarked. “Roy kept chemicals in the bakery, and that’s what set off the fire.”
“Not so fast,” Chester added. “We also detected a variety of jet fuel with an admixture of stabilizer to keep it in a liquid state. The only place you find that particular combination of fuels is in certain proprietary blends of camping stove cartridges.”
Willow blinked. She didn’t unders
tand half the big words the tom cats used. “Camping stoves? How did that wind up in the bakery?”
Chester sneezed again, but he made no effort to wash the black grime off his face and body. He must have enjoyed making a startling impression. “That’s precisely the point, my dear. It wouldn’t have wound up in the bakery unless someone put it there. Roy never went camping in his life, and neither did Josephine.”
“Someone started that fire by planting camping fuel in the bakery,” Nat added. “The question is, who had an interest in camping?”
“Jason,” Chester replied.
Nat’s head shot up, and Willow whirled around to face him. “He did?”
Chester snorted. “You police cats don’t have your ears to the ground like we do. You need an alley cat to tell you these things. Jason went camping almost every weekend. He would have had those cartridges.”
“Tell the whole story, Chester,” Bella chided. “Jason wasn’t the only one who went camping. He took his girlfriend Annika with him when he went. She had access to those fuel cartridges, too.”
“That’s another reason to believe she had something to do with the murder,” Nat remarked. “She could have started the fire to cast the blame back on Jason.”
Willow shook her head. “Wait a minute. Bella says Jason left the alley about eight o'clock. What if he went back to the bakery and started the fire? He could be the one trying to frame Annika.”
Nat licked his now-clean lips. “When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you develop a sense of who’s innocent and who isn’t. I have a feeling about Jason Dempsey, and he didn’t kill Roy.”
“Not so fast, my friend,” Chester grumbled. “You may be resident police cat around here, but stand aside for the superior skills of the alley cat. Over here, you’ll find the trace of another chemical I believe sheds a new light on this case.”
The other cats ran to the spot, and Chester flipped over a shard of twisted metal with his paw. “What is it?”
“It looks like a soda can,” Willow remarked.
“It’s the last fragment of the fuel cartridge,” Chester told them. “It must have exploded when the fire hit it. You can smell the fuel on it.”
Cats on the Prowl (A Cat Detective cozy mystery series Book 1) Page 4
