Probable Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series Book 5)

by Leighann Dobbs

  I walked over to the far wall, perusing the contents of a shelf. It was mostly computer equipment, technical manuals, and few old, broken china teacups. “Where are your grandmother’s things? My neighbor said she had this place fixed up nice, but all I see is computer equipment and broken stuff.”

  Max’s eyes dropped to the floor. “She did have it set up nice, but the past few years—after she got sick—she didn’t come out here so much. That’s when she said I could use it. She hadn’t really used it in a long time anyway, and most of the stuff was from the big house that she was storing here. We moved most of it over to the historical society.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Moved it, or sold it to Felicity Bates?”

  Max screwed up his face. “Felicity Bates? No, she’s awful. I wouldn’t sell her anything.”

  “That’s not how your stepmother feels. She seems to be acquiring quite a collection for Felicity.”

  “That figures. I have a trust fund. I don’t need to sell things. And I sure as hell wouldn’t sell off family heirlooms. Gram always said to make sure it all stays in the family. I’d tell my dad, but he won’t stand up to Lisa.”

  I crossed to the empty window seat, which was surrounded by built-in shelves. The shelves were empty. “And what about your grandmother’s books? Where are they?”

  Max nodded at a brown water stain on the ceiling above the shelves. “Most of them got ruined. The ones that could be salvaged, I packed away and brought to the society.”

  My stomach tightened. What if the spell book had been ruined? Would that be good or bad? If it had been thrown out or destroyed, that meant that Felicity, or anyone who wanted to use it for evil intent, couldn’t get their hands on it. But did that also mean that Adelaide would haunt me forever about it?

  I continued my perusal of the room while Striker questioned Max about the morning Adelaide was found. He was also perusing the room as he talked. I was looking for the book, but what was Striker looking for? Evidence for Adelaide’s murder case? It seemed unlikely any would be in the cottage if she was killed in her bed. Maybe he thought Max had brought it here to hide it. I glanced out the window at the spot where I’d seen the earth disturbed the first night I’d been here. Had Max buried evidence there?

  I spun from the window, only to bump into Striker. He’d made his way around the room but apparently didn’t find what he’d been looking for. Maybe I should tell him about the disturbed earth in the daisy field.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with my grandmother’s death, if that’s what you guys are looking for. I told you, Aunt Josie lied about being there that morning, so why aren’t you interrogating her?” Max asked.

  “What do you mean she lied?” Striker asked.

  Max shot me a look. “You really didn’t tell him?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me what?” Striker frowned at me. I was in trouble.

  “My surveillance camera caught Aunt Josie leaving the house early that morning. Before Gram was … discovered.” Max choked out the last word then continued. “Later on she claimed she’d been in the house, asleep in the library, the whole time. Why would she lie if she wasn’t guilty?”

  “Good question,” Striker answered Max but was staring at me. “It would have been nice to know that before.”

  My cheeks flamed. I probably should have told him, but I’d promised Max, and I didn’t like to go back on my word. “Sorry.”

  Max sat down at the leather office chair in front of the monitors, and his fingers tapped on the keys, bringing the monitors to life. “Well, if you guys are done, I’d like to get back to my game. I bet my buddy that I could make it past the dungeon and into level five tonight.”

  “We’re done.” Striker grabbed my elbow and propelled me toward the door. “If you think of anything else that might be of interest, let me know.”

  “Just what were you looking for in there?” Striker asked once we were outside.

  “What were you?”

  “Evidence.”

  “Did you see any?”

  “No, but if I’d known about Josie, maybe I would have gone over there first.” Striker jerked his head toward the Hamilton house as he dragged me away from the cottage. “You do realize that not telling me about that could be considered obstruction of justice. Maybe even aiding and abetting a criminal.”

  “Sorry, Max made me promise.” I glanced at the daisy field as he pulled me past. “But there is something I can tell you that might help.”

  “What?”

  “When I was here the other night, Pandora was digging in one spot…and it looked to me like that spot had been disturbed before.”

  Striker stopped short, his gaze swinging to the daisy field. “Where?”

  I led him over to the spot. It was hard to tell what was from Pandora digging and what had been there before. Since it had been a few days, the daisies had sprung back up. “It was here. The flowers were all trampled.”

  Striker took out his flashlight and aimed it on the spot. He scuffed some of the dirt with the toe of his boot. “It’s hard to tell when this happened.” He glanced back at the cottage. “Do you think Max knows something’s buried out here? He did come out and warn you off when he saw you here.”

  “I’m not sure. He said there was a time capsule, but that’s hardly anything to worry about. He seems like a nice kid, and Adelaide …”

  “What about Adelaide?”

  I had been about to say Adelaide had said he was a good kid, but I couldn’t tell Striker that. “Umm… she let him use the cottage. It might not have been him that buried it, though. I thought I saw wheelchair tracks coming from the mansion.”

  Striker pursed his lips as he studied the ground. “I doubt the killer would bury something in this field. It’s out in the open. If you were burying evidence that implicated you in a murder, would you bury it in an open field like this?”

  He had a point. “I guess not. I wouldn’t want to be seen, so I’d probably stick to the more secluded gardens near the house.”

  “It was probably just a dog that came out here and buried a bone,” Striker suggested. “Pandora must’ve smelled it and wanted to dig it up.”

  I reluctantly let Striker lead me away. He was probably right.

  “So what made you come here tonight, anyway?” Striker asked. “Are you following me?”

  “Me following you?” I was pretty sure that he had been following me. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you everywhere today. Passed you on the way into town. Saw you at the cafe. What gives?” He glanced down at me, his face softening. “Not that I don’t like seeing you everywhere...or having you chase after me.”

  “I’m not chasing after you,” I huffed. Images of the oversized glass of Pepper’s togetherness tea that I’d guzzled down the night before came to mind. Was the tea bringing us together? Normally I’d be happy, but right now I needed time away from Striker, or I’d never be able to find the darn spell book.

  Striker walked me to my Jeep, opened the door, and tucked me inside. He leaned down to talk to me through the open window.

  “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m on duty.” A flicker of emotion softened his gray eyes. “It seems like we’re ships passing in the night lately, but I’d like to remedy that.”

  My stomach did a flip-flop, and I looked into his sincere gray eyes. “Me too.”

  “Good. Then if you stop butting into my case, I can get it finished quickly, and we can schedule in some time…alone.” He leaned in and dropped a soft kiss on my lips, then before I could say a word he turned and strode back to his sheriff car.

  I felt a little disappointed that he hadn’t made any more solid plans. Then again, it was probably for the best. Even if we managed to carve out some alone time, I was sure Adelaide’s ghost would ruin it.

  18

  The moon peeked out from behind a cloud, illuminating the ground around the Hamilton mansion. Pandora didn’t need a full moon to see, nor did the
dozens of cats who had volunteered for the mission and were now sitting in strategic spots around the house, with their extrasensory skills dialed up to the highest notch.

  The cats surrounded the house, forming the shape of a pentagram. The shape amplified the cat's skills, giving them extreme sensitivity to items of magical powers. Alone, each cat was able to sense magic. Good and evil. But pinpointing a small item within a large space was only possible when they combined their efforts.

  Pandora scrunched up her nose, concentrating on her abilities and homing in on the house, but it was no use. She didn’t feel a thing.

  “I’m not feeling it,” said Dewey, as if reading her mind. Dewey’s white chest glowed in the moonlight, the orange tips of his striped fur standing on end from the static electricity generated by the cats’ paranormal efforts. Dewey was formerly one of the feral cats of Mystic Notch who had found a forever home and had volunteered to help on this important mission.

  “Me either,” Pandora said and turned to the cat on the other side of her, an older but very wise Siamese named Thunder. “What about you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  Inkspot appeared beside her. “It seems as if the book is no longer in the house…if it ever was there.”

  “I know. Maybe Willa was wrong. At least now I can discourage her from coming here…” Something at the edge of the field caught Pandora’s eye. A splash of light illuminated the daisy field in front of the stone cottage. A familiar scent drifted over to her. The scent of her human. Willa and Striker were looking at the area she’d dug in the other night. She’d sensed something there, but her senses had not been dialed up, and she’d not had the benefit of other cat companions, so she wasn’t sure if it was something as important as a spell book.

  “Isn’t that your human?” Inkspot asked.

  “Yes. I dug there the other night. There is something there … but I couldn’t be sure what. Perhaps it is the book.”

  “We should check it out after the humans have—”

  “Stop that! You’re stealing Hamilton family heirlooms!” a woman’s voice blared from the house.

  “I’m not stealing. This stuff is as much mine as it is yours.” A second woman’s voice. “Tell her, David!”

  “Well, technically Mom’s will never said anything about the household items—” The man’s voice was so soft that Pandora had to angle her ears forward to pick up the words.

  “Oh sure, you won’t say boo to anyone in your family, even your weirdo son. What’s he doing out in the cottage, anyway? Probably watching porn.”

  “My nephew is not watching porn.”

  “How would you know, Josie? You can’t even keep track of your own daughters. Why, one of them is upstairs with that boyfriend of hers doing God knows what right now.”

  “We weren’t doing anything up there!” a young girl’s voice cut in.

  “That’s right. My girls are good girls.”

  “Good girls?” The original woman snorted. “Why, look at the way this one dresses. She looks like Elvira. And anyway, how would you know? You’re usually three sheets to the wind.”

  “I am not three sheetsh to the wind.” The words were slightly slurred.

  “What’s that in your hand? Is that great-great-great-grandma Hamilton’s flow blue soup tureen? That came over on the Mayflower!” A different young female voice this time.

  “Put that stuff down. How many times do I have to tell you not to be selling off the family goods?” This time a crotchety-sounding old lady.

  “You’re not the boss of me,” the accused stealer said. “And who are you to say, anyway? You aren’t even part of the Hamilton family, Marion.”

  “Why, I never!”

  Pandora worried that the old woman, whom she now realized was Adelaide’s wheelchair-bound twin sister, was going to have a coronary, by the shrill sound of her voice.

  “Shhh… Auntie Marion. Don’t listen to her. Come outside. The cool night will calm you.”

  The door on the side of the house opened, and a dark-haired girl rolled Marion out onto the stone patio. From everything Pandora had heard, she assumed that girl was Adelaide’s granddaughter Evie. The argument continued inside, but Pandora zoned them out and focused on the two women on the patio.

  “Now calm down, Aunty. It’s not good to get too excited at your age.”

  “Did you see her? She’ll rob us blind!”

  “No, she won’t. We’ll stop her. Now take a deep breath and look up at the beautiful moon. That will calm you down.”

  “You and your moon. It doesn’t have any powers, you know.”

  “I think it’s very soothing. Do you want me to wheel you around the grounds or through the fields like the other day?”

  “No! I can wheel myself around quite nicely, thank you very much.”

  Evie wrestled a flyaway hair into place, only to have it zing out again. Pandora’s own hairs were still feeling the effects of the static electricity, though that was waning now, as most of the cats had dialed down their senses.

  “Okay then, we’ll just sit out here and …” Evie’s voice broke off, and she turned in Pandora’s direction, craning her neck and squinting her eyes. Pandora shuddered. It was almost as if the girl could see right into her.

  “Do you see something out there?” Evie asked.

  “What? No, there’s nothing out there, silly girl.”

  “It sounds like there is much unrest among the humans.” Otis had come up to join them. His words drew Pandora’s attention from the two women.

  “Yes. But that is none of our affair,” Inkspot said. “We have done what we came to do. The spell book is not in that house.”

  Otis turned a concerned eye toward the Hamilton mansion, his gaze drifting over the two women on the patio to the lighted windows of the house. “The spell book is not, but somebody evil is.”

  “That’s hardly news. We know we need to watch out for one of them.” Inkspot turned his head toward the stone cottage. “Pandora’s human is gone now. We can go see what is so important in the field.”

  Most of the other cats had dispersed, their mission complete. Even though they had not located the book of spells, at least they knew one place where it was not. Pandora led Inkspot, Otis, and a few of the others from Elspeth’s barn to the spot in the daisy field. Though it was dark, they could clearly see the marks where she had dug the night before.

  Pandora sniffed the earth, the sour smell of fear curling her whiskers. “There is something in here, but I don’t think it’s the book.”

  Otis’s whiskers twitched, his nose pointing in the air. “There is much here. I smell hopes and dreams, memories and aspirations, fear and death.” He looked around at them dramatically. “But no magic.”

  Pandora sniffed again. She hadn’t smelled all that. But Otis had been periodically exhibiting extraordinary powers ever since he drank a magic extract that nearly killed him. She assumed it had affected his power of smell.

  The other cats took turns checking the area out, some of them putting their noses close to the ground, others scenting the air. They all agreed something was buried there, but it was not the book of spells.

  Sasha turned in a slow circle, sniffing the air. “The good news is that I don’t smell Fluff. He must not be onto this place.”

  “Well, since the spell book isn’t here, that’s no surprise. Maybe he was smarter than us and knew not to come here.”

  “Smarter?” Kelley scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

  “Now what?” Snowball, her white fur gleaming silver in the moonlight, asked. “How will we get the spell book to Elspeth?”

  “We have to figure out where it is, or depend on the humans to do it,” Inkspot said. “Either way, it better happen soon. I sense that time is not on our side.”

  19

  The next day I went to the Hamilton house again on the pretext of having lost something when I was visiting the day before. John, the butler, had actually given me the idea when I’d visited
with Pepper. I knew it was kind of lame, but I had to get back into that library. The cottage had been a bust, and the library was my only lead.

  I stood at the door, mustering my courage to knock, when a car pulled into the driveway behind me.

  I turned to look, my stomach plummeting at the sight of the brown Crown Victoria sheriff car. Striker!

  I tried not to wilt under his glare as he exited the car and mounted the steps. ”What are you doing here?”

  “I left something here the other day.”

  Striker’s brow creased into a “V” of suspicion. “What?”

  “A bracelet my grandmother—”

  I was saved from elaborating on the lie by the door opening. For once I was glad to see the annoying butler, whose skeptical eyes darted from me to Striker. At least Striker, in his brown sheriff uniform, looked as if he was there on official business. “Is there a problem?”

  John’s eyes flicked back to me when he said “problem,” as if he associated the very word with me.

  “I’d like to talk to Josie Hamilton, if I may,” Striker said.

  John hesitated then opened the door, inviting Striker in. I slipped in behind him, hoping I could just tag along and eavesdrop on Striker’s conversation. I assumed he was there to question Josie about Max’s surveillance footage of her leaving the house the morning of Adelaide’s death.

  John led us to the sitting room and excused himself to summon Josie.

  “What are you still doing here?” Striker hissed.

  “Looking for my bracelet.” I grappled under the cushion for the fictional bracelet. “I think I lost it when I was here the other day.”

  Striker slid skeptical eyes in my direction. “What bracelet? I don’t know how you knew I would be coming here now, but I think you’re just trying to spy—”

  “You wanted to speak to me?” Josie interrupted as she entered the room.

  “Just a few questions,” Striker said.

  “Whatever for?” Josie’s voice wobbled nervously. “Is it one of my girls? Julie’s boyfriend, Brian?”