Wrong Side of the Claw
Page 13
“Is that your sister’s cat?” Jimmy asked. “The one that hangs around in the bookstore?”
“Yep.” Gus moved her scratching down Pandora’s back, and Pandora let out a purr. “She’s smarter than Willa thinks, aren’t you?”
Yep. Pandora meowed her agreement then flopped on her side so Gus could scratch a different area. Jimmy joined in, and Pandora twitched her tail in pleasure, hitting something metal and cold. Oh, right. The tumbler. Remembering her mission, Pandora rolled back to a sitting position and pushed the cup toward Gus.
Gus pushed it out of the way and continued the petting.
Darn. Pandora would have to come up with another tactic to get the human to drink the tea. She closed her eyes and concentrated all of her feline powers on Gus, willing her to drink.
It took a few minutes to work, but soon Gus’s petting slowed down, and she looked around the desk. Pandora held her breath as Gus’s eyes fell on the tumbler.
Almost there… now drink!
Finally, Gus reached out for the cup. Pandora let out a triumphant meow.
Gus made a face. “Huh. That’s probably spoiled by now. Best throw it out so I don’t get sick.”
No! Pandora meowed loudly and lunged between Gus’s hand and the cup. Gus had misunderstood her communication. She tried one last time, focusing all her energy on getting the human to guzzle the drink down before all was lost.
28
Brenda McDougall glared at me, the gun steady in her hand. “Were you talking to someone? I don’t think so because I’ve been watching your door, and no one else is in the shop.”
I swallowed hard, staring at the gun pointed at my chest. “Uh, no one. I wasn’t talking to anyone. I’m here alone.”
Brenda laughed. “If you’re talking to yourself, maybe you’re crazy. Probably dumb as your sister too. Too bad you weren’t dumb enough to let my husband’s case go. I’m afraid you stuck your nose in too deep.” She waved the gun around as she talked. “Looks like another one of the Mystic Notch robberies will end up in a death.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hedged, praying that Striker would miraculously show up or something. “I don’t know anything about the case. I was just sitting here, reading, and—”
“Stop it! Stop lying.” Brenda glared at me. “I know you’re investigating. Otherwise why text me about the red hairs? They were short, by the way. Yeah. I know all about him and Anne Crosby. Cheater deserved what he got.”
“So, you shot him because he was cheating?” I asked, stalling. “Why not just divorce him?”
“What? And split all the money with him? No way. Besides, I wanted it all for myself.” She snorted. “Then those break-ins came along and gave me the perfect cover.”
At my surprised look, she shook her head. “No. The break-ins weren’t me, but I did take advantage of them. And I was the one who planted the idea in Jack’s head that he should hide in the store to try and catch whoever was doing it.”
“So, he did what you suggested, and then what?” Keeping her monologuing would give me more time to figure a way out of this mess, I hoped.
“Then I went in and shot him.” Brenda shrugged, acting more like she was describing a trip to the grocery store than retelling the murder of her husband. “I knew where he kept the gun, of course. I came to visit him after closing time and found him sitting in that chair, asleep. He never knew what hit him.”
Her flat tone made me shiver. Fear fizzed inside me like soda pop, ready to explode, but I had to stay focused if I wanted to survive. I kept her talking. “What about the deposit?”
“Oh, that.” Brenda gave a dismissive wave of her free hand, the gun still trained on me with the other. “I took the envelope to make it look like a robbery. The idea to set Duane up for it occurred to me later. Would’ve worked too. Then you had to go and stick your big nose into things.”
“So, when you were spotted skulking around the trash bins, it wasn’t to find clues. You were planting the envelope in Duane’s trash can?” At least I’d been right about that. Too bad I hadn’t figured it out until the end of my conversation with Franklin and Robert.
“Yep.” Brenda looked pleased with herself.
“But how did you pull it off? If you followed Mrs. Quimby home that night, how did you get back by ten?”
Brenda’s laugh set my nerves on edge. “That was brilliant, if I do say so myself. Mrs. Quimby’s memory issues played right into my plan. You see, I knew she had forgotten where she parked her car once, so I took her keys from the hook on the door, moved her car, then put the keys back. Of course she just thought I was in the shop getting yarn. Then later that night, I came back just in time to see her standing on the street where her car had been with a confused look on her face. Naturally I offered to help her find her car and follow her home.”
“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain the timing.”
“That’s the brilliant part. It wasn’t the night I killed Jack that I helped her find her car, it was the week before. I knew with her memory issues, I could easily convince folks—and possibly even Mrs. Q herself—that it was the night of Jack’s murder that I’d followed her home.”
“Sneaky,” I said. “So that night you went straight from the knitting class to the card shop and shot Jack?”
“Not exactly. I actually didn’t even go to the knitting class. Couldn’t face that tramp, Anne Crosby.” She made a disgusted face.
I realized I’d made a fatal error of assumption. When I’d seen the lavender shawl in Anne’s bag, I’d assumed that it was Anne who hadn’t attended the knitting class, but it had really been Brenda who didn’t attend. She hadn’t known that the class project had changed from socks to a shawl and had knitted the sock as part of her cover story.
“Anyway, I was waiting until all the shops were closed, and I saw that tramp, Anne, go over. I thought I’d have to give up and try to kill him another night, but she came out quicker than I thought. Guess things didn’t take so long that night. I waited for a bit because I happened to know that Jack would fall asleep right away, and then I snuck in and grabbed the gun.”
“And shot him before he even knew what was happening.”
“Yeah.” She smiled at her own cleverness, then her face snapped back into its previous angry expression. She stepped closer and shoved the gun in my face. “But you asked too many questions, and when I saw you talking to Mrs. Quimby, I knew I had to get rid of you before you spoiled everything. Now get moving to the back of the store.”
As we walked, I could hear her knocking things off the shelves behind me. My heart raced. She was going to stage things to look like another robbery. I needed a plan and quickly diverted my steps to lead her past the presidential biography section.
“Hey. Wait a minute. Where do you think you’re going? This place needs to look messier. Help me pull some more of those books off the shelf…” She pointed the gun toward the Franklin Pierce biographies and tugged on a book, then froze, frowning and looking around her. “Do you feel that? It’s really cold!”
I seized my opportunity and tackled her to the floor. We rolled around between the shelves, both fighting for control of the gun. I glanced up and saw Franklin and Robert hovering over us, cheering me on.
“Kick her in the shin, Willa! She knocked down my memoir!” Franklin yelled.
I rolled to the right and tried to kick, but my old leg injury flared up, causing me to lose my grip on her.
“Aha!” She gained the advantage, jumping on top of me.
“Punch her in the jaw!” Robert swirled around the bookshelf, tugging at one of the books. Meanwhile, Brenda was trying to get ahold of my wrists with one hand, presumably so she could pin me down and shoot me. I squirmed and struggled, all the while watching Robert as he tugged on the book.
The book inched out. Brenda pinned my right hand down with her left hand, but she was holding the gun in her right. I swung up with my left hand just as the book Robert was tugging on
teetered at the edge of the shelf.
Bam!
The book fell on Brenda’s head, and she let go of my wrist and slouched forward. “Ouch!”
I was just prying Brenda’s fingers off the gun when a loud crash sounded from the front of the door, and footsteps raced toward us.
“Hands up or I’ll shoot!” Gus said. “And I don’t care who I hit!”
Brenda and I both halted and did as she asked, what with my sister’s weapon pointed in our faces and all.
Gus hauled us to our feet and passed Brenda over to Jimmy, who Mirandized her while slapping handcuffs on her wrists. I brushed off my pants and did my best to calm my thundering pulse just as Striker showed up as well.
My sister gave me a disparaging look and shook her head. “I told you not to butt into my cases, Willa. I know what I’m doing.”
Striker caught my gaze, and we both just shrugged. Pandora twined around my ankles, meowing loudly as Jimmy led Brenda out to his waiting squad car. Seemed we would have a happy ending after all.
29
A few days later, we were all gathered in the seating area at the front of Last Chance Books. My sister was her old self again, and of course, she was still lecturing me about the dangers of butting in on official law-enforcement business. But given how things turned out, I was okay with it.
“And what the hell was that drink you gave me from Elspeth?” Gus asked, her nose wrinkled. “Seriously. It tasted like old socks. You told me it was the stuff she made for us when we were kids, but it certainly was not! I’m not even sure what possessed me to drink it after it had been sitting on my desk for so long. Good thing I didn’t get food poisoning. Yuck!”
I snorted. “What’s really lucky is that you weren’t poisoned from the drinks Felicity was giving you at the Blue Moon.”
“Huh?” Gus looked confused. “Felicity Bates gave me drinks? When? I don’t even like her. Besides, she’s the one who broke into the other shops. No way would I befriend a criminal.”
Striker and I exchanged glances. Yep. My sister was definitely back to normal.
“I gave her a fine too,” Gus continued. “Couldn’t arrest her, unfortunately, since nothing was stolen. Doubted I could make it stick. So, the fine was the best I could do.” She shook her head, scowling. “All these rich types. Got nothing better to do. Hopefully there’ll be no more shenanigans from her or that other one. Sarah Delaney. You ask me, those two are bad news.”
“What do you think about Felicity getting fined?” I asked Striker. I admit I was testing him to see what he would say. The way Felicity kept showing up at the shop and asking for “Eddie” still had me riled up.
“Huh?” He gave me a confused stare.
“Felicity,” I repeated. “She told me that she’d only give her alibi to you. Seems pretty friendly to me. How well do you two know each other?”
“Not that well,” he said, his hand squeezing mine. “Trust me. I’m guessing she only wanted to talk to me because I’m law enforcement too, and Gus was… well, under the weather. Probably wanted to make sure she didn’t get nailed for murder.”
“Hmm.” It was good to know that he wasn’t any friendlier with Felicity than I’d thought. I still wondered about her motives. Did she want to slip him a potion, or was her interest for another reason? It didn’t matter, though. Things were good with me and Striker right now. I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Okay.”
Gus made a face at us. Yep, she was back to her old self.
“So I guess I was right about the white hairs from the break-in at the lamp shop being cat hair,” I said. Striker had told me the report had come back from the lab indicating the hair was feline.
Gus narrowed her eyes at me. “Yeah, but don’t let that go to your head. It was an easy guess. Who else’s white hair would it be?”
Her question brought on a pang of guilt. How could I have suspected Mrs. Quimby?
“Brenda’s lie about her following Mrs. Quimby home had me going for a while. What about you?” I asked my sister.
“Nah. I figured she was lying. Mrs. Quimby had sworn she didn’t lose her car that night. But then she waffled.” Gus looked at me almost as if she’d known that I’d also questioned Mrs. Quimby about that night. I shrank back in my seat a little under her withering stare. “However, I happened to know that Mrs. Quimby often does that. She doesn’t want others to know that her memory is bad, so sometimes she just agrees even if she isn’t sure that’s what really happened.”
“Oh, I hope she’ll be okay,” I said.
“She’s fine. Memory issues are common with age, and according to her doctor, hers aren’t getting worse,” Gus said. “Besides, she’s still sharp enough to remember that I like iced coffee with extra sugar.”
“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on her, make sure she finds her car at night.” It was the least I could do, considering how I’d suspected her, even if it was only for a brief moment.
“I need to get back to work,” Gus said, pushing to her feet. She stopped at the door and looked back at us. “Willa, I’m telling you, mind your own business. And keep that cat of yours out of my office too.”
She left, and Pandora jumped up on the seat between us.
Striker put his arm around me, petting the cat with his other hand. “Looks like we got our old Gus back.”
“Yeah,” I said, watching my sister walk away outside. “But is that a good or bad thing?”
While Striker and Willa talked about the case on the couch, Pandora trotted over to her cat bed to relive her own personal victories of the day. She’d pulled out all the stops to concentrate her full focus on getting Gus to drink the tea. It had taken a few precious minutes, but Gus had eventually grabbed the tumbler and guzzled down the drink. She’d burped afterward, too, which Pandora took to mean the elixir was potent. No surprise there since it had come from Elspeth.
After downing the drink, Gus had turned her attention to the whiteboard. A funny look had come over her face, then she’d grabbed the marker from Jimmy and drawn several lines connecting the clues. Cramming the top on the marker, she’d turned to Jimmy and declared, “It’s obvious what happened here and who the killer is!”
Then she’d checked her phone and, upon seeing the message from Willa, had rushed out to the squad car. Pandora could barely keep up with her and just managed to jump into the backseat before Gus took off, with the lights flashing and sirens blaring. On the way to Willa’s, they’d met up with Striker coming from Dixville Pass, and he’d followed behind them all the way to the shop.
Once inside, Gus had no problem capturing Brenda. Of course the humans would never give Pandora credit for the vital role she’d played in this whole thing, but she was used to that. The cats of Mystic Notch were rarely recognized for their achievements, but that was okay as long as peace prevailed in the Notch.
Pandora stared out the window, seeing nothing but empty sidewalks. She’d heard that the fine Gus had levied on Felicity had curtailed her actions. She couldn’t very well keep going around breaking into places now that she’d been caught. But Pandora knew that, while Felicity and Fluff might be gone for now, eventually they would be back and searching even harder. The cats would have to be extra vigilant in the days ahead.
Yawning, Pandora turned over to look at Willa and Striker. At least her cat-to-human communication had improved. Maybe not with Willa, but Gus had certainly succumbed to her wishes. Come to think of it, it would be kind of fun to mess with Gus along those lines in the coming weeks. Pandora wondered just how much control she could gain over the stubborn sheriff.
But there would be plenty of time for that after a nice long nap. Pandora’s eyes grew heavy, and she drifted off to sleep, barely noticing the clump of fluffy white fur stuck to the side of her cat bed.
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Cozy Mysteries
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Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series
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A Spell of Trouble (Book 1)
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Cat Cozy Mystery Series
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A Spirited Tail
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