Till the Cat Lady Sings (Bought-the-Farm Mystery 4)

by Ellen Riggs

  “Portia Parson,” I said. “The Cat Lady. And unless I’m much mistaken, that rattling sound was a plastic cat carrier.”

  “Oh great,” Kellan said. “Now Clover Grove has its own rescue mafia. My job just got even more complicated.”

  “At least she didn’t steal rifles,” I said. “At least I hope not.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Because I’m going to pay her a little visit.”

  Chapter Five

  “Ouch! Can you—” Jilly’s voice cut off abruptly as we hit another rock. After a second or two she added, “Slow down.”

  “Sure, sure,” I said. “There’s no hurry.”

  “Right. And I can’t help thinking it would be better to take it easy in this particular vehicle,” Jilly said. I could feel her staring at the side of my head but it was too dark to see, even if I dared take my eyes off the small circle of light cast by the golf cart’s headlights. “If you don’t care about your own safety, maybe think about mine. Not to mention theirs.”

  Her fingers released their tight grip on the dashboard just long enough to jerk her thumb at the back seat. Keats and Percy had begun our journey on the cushions but gravitated quickly to the footwells.

  “I don’t hear them complaining,” I said, grinning as I slowed down. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “Excuse me?” Her voice was a bit shrill. “I’ve joined you on many a crazy adventure, Ivy Galloway. But I have to say I prefer jolting around in the pickup to this. At least the truck won’t tip over.”

  “I’ll crawl, don’t worry. Just got carried away for a second.”

  “For a second…” she grumbled under her breath in a way that reminded me of Keats. “Try six months.”

  “Well, who does she think she is, capturing Edna’s cats and making decisions about their welfare? It’s none of her business. She’s a stuck-up—”

  A particularly large rock choked off my next word.

  “I agree, which is the only reason I joined you,” Jilly said. “But we could have parked out at the highway and walked in from there.”

  “Both of my vehicles are recognizable, particularly by Portia Parson. She’d be on the lookout.” I steered the golf cart carefully around a hairpin turn and headed south on the trail. “Luckily this network covers half of Clover Grove. It supposedly dates back to rum-running prohibition days. Kellan says it’s still used by those who want to have some adult beverages and avoid the law.”

  “Fabulous,” Jilly said. “So we might encounter a drunk teenage driver at any time.”

  “Think positively,” I said. “It’s far more likely a big root would kill us first. Anyway, I mapped out the route to Portia’s carefully and we’re almost there. Remember the plan. We park in the bush and I sneak over to the house with Keats and Percy to do a quick reconnaissance. Then we’re gone.”

  “Kellan said he’d drop by and see Portia. Wasn’t that enough?”

  “Do you really think Kellan would recognize any of Edna’s cats? His eyes glazed over as I flicked through the photos. It was like a stupor.”

  “He’s not a pet lover,” she said. “Besides, it takes a week or two to get to know them by sight. Then they’re as unique as snowflakes, I admit. Except for the gray tabbies. There are so many of them I still get stumped.”

  “Me too. I’m glad Percy is so distinctive. He’s a very handsome cat.”

  “Sshhh,” Jilly said. “You’ll hurt Keats’ feelings. His nose is already out of joint.”

  “Well, Keats is even more distinctive.” I raised my voice so the dog could hear me over the whirring motor and thudding sound of the wheels on the path. “That blue eye is downright magical.”

  “Much better,” Jilly said. “Don’t forget your HR skills. Gotta keep the team happy so we operate like a well-oiled machine.”

  “I never expected my squad to include a genius border collie, let alone an audacious cat.” After navigating a particularly treacherous hill, I added, “But it sure beats the Flordale team. I trust you and these boys with my life.”

  “Exactly. So be sure to offer lots of validation and rewards.” She gave a little scream as we tilted perilously. “Otherwise they’ll be asking me to headhunt new jobs. And you know who’d snap Keats up in a heartbeat? Cori Hogan.”

  “Don’t even go there, Jilly Blackwood. No one comes between me and Keats. Ever.”

  “Except Kellan, maybe?” I was surprised at how cunning she could be in life-and-death circumstances.

  “Kellan won’t come between Keats and me. He can stand on my other side. With you.”

  I rather liked that mental image. It reminded me of a wedding party. Shaking my head, I tried to dispel the notion. Romance was the last thing I should be thinking of in the middle of an important mission.

  “Sounds good,” Jilly said. “Now focus.”

  “Yeah. We’re almost there.” I slowed even more as we rounded the last bend and then tucked the cart into the bushes. Turning off the lights, I whispered, “It’s the old Bingham manor.”

  Jilly strained to peek through the branches but it was too dark. “How’d she luck out on this place? It doesn’t seem like cat sitting would finance a manor?”

  “Same way I lucked out on Runaway Farm. Miss Bingham took a shine to Portia and offered her a deal on the place in exchange for caring for her six cats. After breaking her hip last year, Miss Bingham decided to move into Sunny Acres retirement villa. This way she still gets to visit.”

  “I hope someone offers me a manor some day,” Jilly said. “More like a sweet little bistro that needs to be rescued.”

  “It could happen and you deserve it,” I said, patting her arm. “In the meantime, you keep honing your chops in my lucky kitchen with all its granite and marble. You’ll never see the likes of that pantry again.”

  “True,” she said. “Now, hurry up and slow down, okay?”

  I laughed quietly as I got out of the cart. “I like the way you think, my friend.”

  Keats and Percy didn’t wait to be invited. I heard the rustle of dry leaves and felt fur on either side as they brushed past. It figured they’d want to be ahead of me. I had no issue with Keats taking a few liberties, but Percy could be a liability here. A cat like him would be like… well, catnip to the Cat Lady.

  “Stay with me,” I hissed into the darkness, and both animals circled back to brush my legs again. “Thank you. I’ve got enough to worry about without losing track of you. Just in and out, okay? I promised Jilly.”

  I’d also more or less promised Kellan not to interfere. The “more or less” part was crucial. My exact wording had deliberately left wiggle room. After a decade in HR, I knew the value of a loophole.

  The old manor looked ominous in the darkness, but I remembered seeing the place during its glory days. It had been everything a country manor should be, with golden brown brick, white trim and coppery accents. A quick flick of my phone light told me it needed more care than Portia Parson could afford. Like me, she was batting out of her league with real estate. Cat-sitting was probably about as lucrative as my innkeeping had been so far. My nest egg from selling my condo in Boston was all but gone and if business didn’t pick up soon, I’d be forced to get a regular job in town to stay afloat.

  With one pet on either side, I crept to the side of the manor, where the ground floor windows were smaller. If Portia were home, she’d likely be in the living room at the front of the house, chilling with a reality TV show.

  “Easy,” I whispered, stooping as I moved closer. Every crunch of leaves underfoot sounded like cannon fire. Autumn wasn’t the best season for snooping, but at least there were no mosquitos.

  Under the window, I dropped to my knees and waited till I caught my breath. Then I gripped the windowsill, feeling the chipped paint under cold fingertips, and slowly pulled myself up to peer into the house. Pressing my forehead nearly to the glass, I waited for my eyes to adjust.

  The room inside was well lit. There was a grand oak dining table tha
t had to be 12 feet long in the center of the room. What I saw sitting on that fine antique made me release the windowsill and drop hard onto my butt on the damp earth. I almost let out a scream but Keats gave me a sharp poke with his long muzzle and mumbled something I took to mean, “Shut it.”

  Percy, on the other hand, leapt up to the windowsill and released a long low hiss. Then he jumped down, ran a few yards and looked back.

  The order to evacuate was loud and clear, and I was willing to let the cat call the shots.

  Chapter Six

  Jilly took a breath that sounded like a solid nine-count and let it out slowly as we walked down Clover Grove’s main street toward Bloomers. Every week there seemed to be more quaint, antique-style storefronts that resembled those of Dorset Hills, or Dog Town, the neighboring city that attracted more tourism dollars than we ever could. I understood the County’s desire to capitalize on Dog Town’s popularity, but I wished they’d find a unique claim to fame. Clover Grove had plenty of virtues that Dorset Hills could no longer claim because it was too big and commercialized now. Our sweet niche was there, waiting to be exploited, and it started with the homesteading craze, if you asked me.

  “Do you want me to do the talking?” Jilly asked, when I was silent for too long. She didn’t want me ruminating because rumination led to blurting. And blurting led to bad press for the inn.

  “I’d like to give it a try,” I said. “Although I’m still spitting mad.”

  “And rightly so, but you know as well as I do that it’s always better to negotiate peacefully. I really think you can talk your way through this if you keep a cool head.”

  I looked down at Keats. “Can we do that, buddy? How cool do you feel today?”

  His ears were forward and tail up. A good sign.

  “All right then,” Jilly said. “I’ll put my energy into handling your mother.”

  “That’s more than half the battle, my friend. Thank you.”

  A chime sounded as I pushed open the salon door and walked inside, sandwiched by Keats in front and Jilly behind. Percy wasn’t invited and he’d taken the rejection hard. He was trapped and wailing in the laundry room when we left, and I half expected him to find a way out. Sometimes it seemed like he knew how to teleport or at least fold himself into a paper airplane and fly away. But I knew he was just observant and opportunistic. He could tell when my attention was focussed elsewhere. With all the distractions in my life, and my brain still not operating at full warp, it probably wasn’t that hard for a smart cat to escape.

  Percy’s bigger challenge was evading the dog’s detection. As farfetched as it sounded, I believed Percy had deliberately created his chance to joyride into town for the salon launch by decoying the dog with the runaway llama. If so, that would make this feline Houdini a bigger challenge than my sly sow, Wilma, though decidedly less lethal.

  It was disheartening that my animals could often outthink me, but at least I generally handled people with skill. My years spent in the trenches of HR had taught me more than I ever wanted to know about the workings of the human mind.

  “Ivy, darling!” Mom came around the counter with a rapid click-click of stilettos. She’d covered a red skirt and plunging sweater with a white lab coat—the uniform of the late-blooming lady barber, I presumed. “What a surprise!”

  The only surprise was her overacting. Mom was as sly and slippery as Wilma and Percy. Either she was creating drama to spice things up, or she was actually nervous. Maybe Jilly was right about Mom being so committed to the salon venture that her normal nonchalance had vanished. She no longer had the luxury of fanning the flames of gossip just for fun. Word of mouth and a good reputation meant everything in a small town, so she’d have to do a complete U-turn if she wanted to drive business. Given her notorious challenges behind the wheel of Buttercup, this would be interesting.

  For once, I empathized with Mom. It wasn’t easy to court public favor in Clover Grove when you had a history. Putting your fate into the hands—or more specifically, the mouths—of the local citizenry was frustrating. Today, we’d need to dig deep and possibly even grovel, because Iris’s special guest could do our reputations a world of harm. Fortunately, we could fall back on Jilly, who rarely made a social misstep. She could soothe the worst egos and leave people thinking her big ideas emerged from their own small minds, like genies from a crusty old beer bottle.

  I trusted her implicitly, but my stomach still sank when I saw the wild gray mop in the red vinyl styling chair. Iris had brushed Portia Parson’s hair into a frizzy cloud that hung nearly to her waist.

  “Hey, Mom. How’s it going?” I summoned my blandest smile and hauled out my old HR skills. I could fake it with the best in my day. To channel my inner professional, I’d even worn my old suit jacket. It hung open and unbuttoned, yet I felt like I was suffocating. “Oh, hi there, Portia. Sorry for interrupting your makeover. Jilly just wanted to drop off some cookies for Mom.”

  Jilly pried the cover off the batch of still-warm cookies and waved the container to send a waft of sweet chocolatey air toward the styling chair. Portia frowned and fanned one hand, as if dispersing the stench of cat litter.

  “I don’t eat cookies.” She scanned Jilly and me. “Carbs are the devil’s work.”

  I stuck my face in my elbow and pretended to sneeze to disguise my snort of laughter. Jilly and I had both lost weight because we were often too busy to do more than sample the fine cuisine at the inn. On top of that, hard labor had given me “pipes.” As a formerly pasty exec, I took pride in flexing sometimes. I’d earned it.

  “I’d love one,” Iris said. “Put them on the counter for when I finish Portia’s transformation.”

  “In Clover Grove we just call it a haircut,” Portia said. “Affectations won’t take you far, Iris.”

  “A good haircut truly has the power to transform,” Jilly said, easing up beside Portia’s chair. “My hair is nearly as curly as yours, Portia, but Iris has tamed it with her magic scissors and products.”

  The Cat Lady eyed Iris’s gold-handled scissors and grunted. “I don’t have time to worry about my hair. I’m only here because she offered me a free cut. Free is the only magic I need.”

  “I hear you,” I said. “I’m always looking for ways to squeeze a penny now that I have so many mouths to feed.” I gestured to Keats, whose tail swished, as it always did in Mom’s presence. “I assume you have a few pets, too, Portia?”

  She gave me a sharp-eyed stare that told me I’d have to “subtle down.” Portia was annoying but she wasn’t stupid.

  “I took over Miss Bingham’s cats when she sold me the manor,” she said. “It was part of the deal.”

  Nicely done. She got full points for telling the truth while covering a huge lie. I had another wily critter on my hands.

  “What a lucky break that was,” Mom trilled, grabbing a glass pitcher of water and lemon slices. “Miss Bingham was so generous with you.” Portia started to speak but Mom blundered on. “Of course, you’d earned that break with years of dedicated service.”

  “Exactly right.” Portia eyed Mom now, as if looking for the arrow in the lemon water. “And what seems like a great deal on the surface isn’t the full story. It’s one problem after another in an old place like that.”

  “Same with the farm,” I said. “I got one heck of lucky break, but it’s costly to keep the place up.”

  Portia’s wary eyes moved from one of us to the other, so distracted that she failed to notice Iris snipping. One inch turned into three and then five. Gray frizz fell to the gleaming hardwood floor and formed tumbleweeds that Keats half-heartedly chased. He’d taken issue with Portia at the launch but he didn’t seem put off by her now.

  “Our situations are nothing alike, Ivy,” Portia said at last. “You swanned in and took advantage of a heartbroken heiress after one dog rescue. I spent over twenty years couch surfing at one place after another serving the cats of Clover Grove. I earned that break. It wasn’t luck at all.”

>   “Well, it couldn’t have happened to a more committed animal lover,” Jilly said, her voice becoming velvety.

  “Cat lover,” Portia corrected, glancing at Keats with thinly veiled disgust. “Dogs torment cats and make my job harder. I saw how this one harassed the marmalade tabby you brought in here. He’s one heck of a cat and he deserves better.”

  Jilly gripped my arm to push the words back up the pipe.

  “Keats and Percy are still adjusting to each other,” Jilly said. “Believe it or not, the cat has the upper paw. He’s so clever and brave.”

  Portia gave a grudging nod. “I could see that. Where did you find him?”

  Jilly squeezed my arm harder before answering for me. “He found us. One day he was just sitting on the porch swing and he never left.”

  “You probably stick him in the barn to deal with rats,” Portia said.

  This time my laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “He slept on the pillow beside mine last night. I woke up with orange fur in my eyelashes.”

  For a second her hard expression softened. “He’d be happier with other cats, though. They’re pack animals.”

  I got my sleeve up in time to muffle the next snort, which allowed Jilly to pick up again.

  “We’re hoping the two barn cats Hannah left behind come home soon,” she said. “Of course, they’ll be welcome in the house, too. I’ve always been a cat lover.”

  “Me too,” Mom said. She brushed her white lab coat with one hand, exposing her blatant lie. “They’re fascinating creatures, aren’t they?”

  I gave her a look and she raised well-manicured eyebrows defiantly. Before we could take the stare-off any further, however, Wayne Flagg, her client with the dyed hair, stepped into the shop.

  He turned to me after greeting my mother. “There is nothing more relaxing than an old-fashioned straightedge shave, and the only other barber in town stopped offering it two years ago. Your mother’s a godsend and word’s getting around fast.”