Crafts, Cat Burglars, and Murder

by Stacey Alabaster

  Con eyed me suspiciously. “What are you looking for him for?”

  “I’ve, erm, got an event coming up. I’m organizing a friend’s wedding and the live entertainment cancelled. Very last minute. I was hoping to ask Andrew if he might play at the wedding instead.”

  Con nodded, though he didn’t look terribly convinced. I supposed the fact that I was holding what was practically a police sketch of his face didn’t help matters. But he did answer me. “Down in one of those student-type residences. Hazelwood Street. By the lake.”

  I knew the area. It wasn’t too far from my house. I wrote the exact address down and thanked Con for his time and his help.

  “And if you do find him, tell him I’m still waiting for my cut!” Con called after me.

  Perhaps taking a dog with me to hunt down a cat burglar—and a bunch of cats—wasn’t the best plan, but I wanted Jasper by my side in case I got into any trouble. (It happens more often than you’d think.) I dashed home to retrieve him from Adam’s grip.

  My other little doggie ran up to me as soon as I walked in the door. I would have loved to have taken them both, but Casper has little legs and didn’t fare well on long walks or adventures.

  I gave her some little treats before I left and promised to bring her back some extra treats when I got home.

  “I can come with you,” Adam offered. He was already walking toward the door to grab his coat.

  “I’ll be fine with Jasper, thank you,” I said briskly, fastening the leash to his collar with a snap as I stood up. “Please give Casper some attention though, while I’m gone. I think she feels a little sad at always being left out.”

  Pottsville was an artistic community, there was no doubt about that. It was home to artists and writers and crafters and people who grew their own vegetables and ate only homegrown organic food. But most of the population were older, retirees, and there weren’t many ‘studenty’ types. The hipsters tended to avoid the town in favor of the cities and the younger areas.

  But this little enclave, Hazelwood Street, was the exception to the rule.

  You could tell it was young and trendy just at a glance. The houses were small and colorfully painted and decorated, with posters in windows and old secondhand sofas out on the balconies.

  I double-checked that I had the right address for Andrew Combs.

  There were pumpkins growing in his small front garden and a poster of Taylor Swift in the front window.

  “Who is this guy?” I said out loud.

  Jasper was barking a little, pulling me in the direction of the door. Maybe he could sense the cats inside. Or smell them. I didn’t know how well Jasper got along with cats at that point—I’d never actually seen him interact with any—but I supposed I was about to find out because I had no intention of leaving Andrew’s house empty-handed.

  There was a guitar leaning against the side of the house next to the screen door and the wooden door wasn’t even shut properly.

  From inside, I could hear cats meowing and howling to get out. Or to get food. I rang the doorbell, but there was no response.

  I banged on the half-open wooden door while Jasper began to bark loudly. I was starting to get the bad feeling that he didn’t get along with cats. I should have guessed by his interactions with Casper, who was barely larger than cat-sized. Jasper would occasionally get jealous and assert his dominance as the alpha pet by running after Casper and chasing her under a sofa.

  “Hey! Open up!” I yelled, banging on the door again. “Andrew?” I called out, thinking maybe he’d think there was a friend there at the door if I called out his name.

  I looked down at an over-excited Jasper. “Well, if we’re not going to be invited in, we are just going to have to let out ourselves in.”

  If Andrew was going to be a coward and refuse to face up, I had no qualms about entering and taking matters into my own hands. Besides, the front door was already open. If the police asked, I could just claim that I feared animal endangerment and was trying to rescue them.

  “Hello?” I called out again as I tiptoed through the front room, full of mismatched sofas and footrests in various colors of the rainbow.

  The cats, I was surprised to find, were not locked up in cages. They were free to roam the house and I counted ten in the living room alone, most of them crying out and howling as though some terrible tragedy had struck them.

  “Hello, big guy,” I said, reaching down to pet my grumpy ginger friend from the shelter. “How are you, boy?”

  Meanwhile, Jasper was barking wilding, his eyes darting around the room of cats, a look in them that was both terror and excitement. Either way, he was making so much noise that it wasn’t possible that Andrew hadn’t heard us come through the door.

  I decided that the open front door meant that Andrew wasn’t home. I was a little frazzled, though. How was I going to get all the cats out of there before Andrew got home? There were at least a dozen of them. Andrew must have been stealing them from the shelter over the course of the last few months, not just the last couple of days.

  I shook my head. There was no use. I couldn’t wrangle a dozen cats and an over-agitated border collie all on my own.

  I was going to have to call the police. After all, Andrew had committed a crime.

  But what I didn’t realize was that I was about to have to call the cops for a very different sort of crime indeed.

  Jasper was pulling so hard on his leash that he just about yanked my shoulder out of its socket. It caused me to drop my cell phone. He was pulling me towards what I assumed had to be the kitchen.

  Thinking that maybe there were more cats in there, I let Jasper lead the way. Eventually he pulled so hard he got free and I had to chase after him frantically, worried he might start going after the cats.

  I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what was laying on the floor.

  A lifeless body.

  No wonder the cats were so hungry and restless.

  Andrew was dead.

  Chapter 3

  Brenda was appalled by the scene in front of her. Well, appalled was really an understatement. There was practically steam coming from the top of her head.

  “They can’t all stay here!” she cried.

  She was, of course, referring to the dozen or so cats that I had rescued from Andrew’s house. A few of them were old familiar faces from my shift at the shelter, but there were about eight that I didn’t recognize. Andrew must have been stealing them from the shelter—or other places— over a period of a few months.

  But now they all had a new home. Temporarily, at least. My craft shop. And they had made themselves at home quickly.

  “Well, I don’t want to take them back to the shelter, and there’s no way I can keep them at my house with two dogs there,” I explained to Brenda as calmly as I could. “So they’ll just have to stay here until we find homes for them and get them adopted.”

  “We?” Brenda was incredulous.

  “Yes. You can help.” I sat down the final cat cage and dusted my hands clean. To his credit, Adam had helped me transport all the cats from Andrew’s house using a friend’s truck that he had borrowed. But I’d thanked him for his service and let him know that he could return home. “The sooner we get them adopted, Brenda, the sooner you will be free of them.” I already had a plan of attack, but I didn’t think I was going to need it. I believed that as soon as our customers saw the cats lazing around the store, and heard the story, that they would happily adopt them all and we’d have an empty store by the end of the day.

  “Are you okay, Georgina?” Brenda called in concern after I hadn’t said anything for a while.

  “Just a little tired,” I said, going to the back to pour myself a glass of water. I realized my hands were shaking as I brought the glass to my lips. I’d thrown myself into the task of getting the cats out of there, in part, I had to admit, because I didn’t want to deal with the horror that I had seen in Andrew’s kitchen.

  I reached into my pocket
and pulled out the guitar pick that was lying near Andrew’s lifeless hand. Somehow, this seemed the saddest part of all. Andrew had been doing something he loved—playing the guitar— when he’d been killed. I shook my head and turned over the blue pick in my hand. He hadn’t even seen it coming.

  I placed it back in my pocket and closed my eyes, finishing off the glass of water.

  Time to pull yourself together, George. You’ve got work to do now.

  I wasn’t sure at first that opening all the cages would be the wisest idea, but after an hour or so of seeing all the cats locked up, meowing to get free and pawing at the doors, I couldn’t bear to see them all so restless, and couldn’t bear the looks on their little faces, and so I decided to unlock them all. Set all the cats free.

  Some of them sprinted like their lives were on the line and we lost a few vases and mirrors, while Brenda went around the shop tutting with a broom and dustpan. But after the initial carnage, they more or less settled in and, thankfully, most of them were sleeping by midday and all the customers who came in exclaimed how cute the store looked with cats laying lazily on every shelf and surface.

  Brenda was less impressed. By mid-afternoon, she still hadn’t softened. She does hate to admit that she is wrong, though. “It’s one thing for you to constantly have your dog in here, but now you’ve decided to turn the place into a veritable petting zoo!” she exclaimed. “Our customers are going to be confused when they come on. Is this a craft shop? Or a pet shop?”

  But our customers adored the cats on that first day. Everyone who came in clasped their hands together and delighted at our new friends. “Oh, they are so sweet! I can’t believe anyone would abandon these precious creatures!”

  So I figured that giving them away to good homes was going to be a piece of cake. Like I said, I’d barely even thought of my plan B.

  “You can adopt any one of them!” I said enthusiastically to everyone who commented on how gorgeous or cute the cats were, but their adoration seemed to stop at admiring the cats from afar. By the middle of the afternoon, I hadn’t managed to give even one cat away. Every time the conversation turned towards actually taking the cats home, the customers started averting their eyes and changed the subject.

  Hmm. This was going to be harder than I thought. Tensions between Brenda and I were growing and she made a huge show and fuss of how ‘difficult’ it was, every time she had to move a cat to get to an item. They couldn’t have weighed more than three pounds each, so I just ignored her grumbling on that particular subject.

  But she had different complaints, as well.

  “We can’t keep their food and water bowls in the middle of the shop!” Brenda exclaimed, tripping over one and sending water flying up into the air and onto the ankles of her trousers.

  But, still, I had more pressing thoughts on my mind by then.

  All I could think about was Andrew’s body, so still and lifeless on his kitchen floor. He’d been so young, early twenties, and clearly he had been talented. Why would anyone take away his life when it was only just beginning?

  I glanced around at the cats. If only cats could talk. We had a dozen witnesses to the crime, but they were all covered in fur, and more interested in napping and grooming themselves than they were with putting a murderer behind bars.

  It was after six and Brenda had taken off, promising to go into early retirement if the cats weren’t out of the shop by the end of the week.

  I was still not excited about going home, so I’d settled in to balance the books, climbing up onto a stool behind the counter and lighting a vanilla candle for company.

  A cat, a sweet little white-furred kitten, had curled up into my lap and closed his eyes immediately, sleeping and purring within seconds.

  He didn’t even open his eyes when there was a knock on the door from the local police detective.

  I smiled and waved him in, mouthing to him that the door was open. Not only was Ryan a police detective, he was also someone I kind of, sort of, dated. Or at least, I would have liked to. There was a bit of an age gap between us—he’s in his late twenties—and in small towns like Pottsville, people talk. They tend to have opinions on things like this. But the age gap doesn’t bother me. I just wondered if it bothered Ryan. We hadn’t been out for a drink for a few weeks.

  Then again, my ex-husband at home might have had something to do with that.

  I was pleased to see Ryan, and not just because I was hoping we might be able to make plans for a night out soon. I really, really, wanted to help out with the Andrew Combs case, which I had to assume was the reason he was there, considering that he was wearing his uniform. And if I didn’t end up helping him, I thought that maybe he could help me, as I intended to investigate the case on my own and I hoped he might let something slip, shed a little light on the whole case.

  “What did you see, exactly?” Ryan asked me, after the small talk was out of the way.

  I shook my head. “I was really more focused on the cats. At first I didn’t even notice Andrew at all, just heard the cats crying out like they were hungry or distressed. Which, of course, they were. Poor things.”

  “And so you entered the property, of your own volition?”

  “Are you asking me if I broke in? No. The door was open.” I knew that still didn’t give me permission to enter someone else’s property though, so I hurried to add, “I could hear the cats crying out. I could tell l there were too many inside one house. I thought they might be neglected, or worse. So, I entered the house.”

  “Right.” Ryan wrote something down on his notepad. He looked really good that day in his suit and badge, and he’d gotten a new hair cut, a closer crop, and it almost made him look a little older.

  Ryan looked up at me. “And why were you visiting Andrew Comb’s house in the first place?”

  Geez. I wondered if he was hinting at something there. I wasn’t a suspect, was I?

  I suddenly had a flashback to something that I’d said to Con at the supermarket. “Just wait till I get my hands on him,” I’d said. Con had actually looked a little frightened. I gulped. I wonder if Ryan has interviewed Con yet…

  “I told you. I saw him stealing cats from the shelter that I was volunteering at…”

  Ryan interrupted me. “And how did you know that man was Andrew?”

  I reached down under the counter, pulled the sketch out, and slid it across to him, trying not to wake the sleeping feline who was laying there undisturbed by all the fuss.

  “I made this and showed it to a few people,” I mumbled, not being any more specific than that.

  Ryan didn’t seem at all surprised by the drawing. “Yes, I’ve already been down to the supermarket and talked to the manager.”

  Oh, shoot.

  Ryan was still writing. “He said there was a woman asking about Andrew right before he died. From the description he gave me, I assumed it was you.”

  “Honestly, I was only looking for the cats. I didn’t know Andrew before that, and I certainly didn’t wish him any harm…”

  “I know,” Ryan said, popping the cap back on his pen.

  “But I was mad that he had stolen the cats. I’m not going to lie about that.”

  Ryan looked with amusement at the cat laying in my lap. Then he glanced around the rest of the shop where another dozen cats were sleeping or poking around. “Haven’t you, essentially, stolen these cats, by that reckoning?”

  Gosh, maybe he had a point. “Oh, but I just can’t bear to put them back in that place, as nice as the shelter is, by shelter standards. They’ve only got limited resources there, and you know what happens to cats who aren’t adopted after a certain number of day.” I couldn’t even bear to think about it, let alone say it. It was too horrible. I’d already grown too attached to these cats to think about anything happening to them. And I just know I can find them all homes, Ryan, if I just have a few days.” I waved my arm around the shop. “This is the perfect place to showcase them. Crafts and cats just go together.�
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  “Fine. Find them homes by the end of the week and I’ll look the other way,” Ryan said quietly with a little wink. “But don’t go causing any more trouble, okay? And don’t go making any more casual threats that could end up looking bad when people die.”

  He left and I went back to my paperwork with a little sigh, wondering if we were ever going to go on another date before I—officially—turned into an old crazy cat lady.

  And in spite of Ryan’s warnings, I had no intention of dropping the case. Ryan just told me to stay out of trouble. Told me to find the cats new homes.

  He never said I couldn’t find out who killed Andrew Combs.

  Chapter 4

  I wasn’t sure if it was a wise move to return to the scene of my own little crime. By now, Tom had long figured out that I’d fudged the record books and that the cats had been stolen by Andrew, not adopted out. I wasn’t sure if he was going to forgive me for that little lie, but I at least stood a chance, given that I wasn’t entirely at fault.

  But I was definitely at fault over the fact that I still had the cats in my care. In my shop.

  And that was something that Tom definitely didn’t know.

  I’d made sure I’d picked all the cat fur off my black cardigan—complimented by a bright red beaded necklace and bracelets—before I arrived at the shelter, but I still had this worried feeling that Tom would be able to tell that I’d spent the morning playing with a dozen cats.

  Tom greeted me with a wide grin. “I thought you left us, George,” he said.

  “Never,” I said, retuning the grin a little nervously. “If you still need me, then I am here to help.”

  Tom knew all about the details of Andrew’s death through the small town gossip chain and knew that Andrew had been the one stealing the cats from the shelter.

  But what I didn’t know, and what I was about to find out, was that Tom was aware that I was the one who’d found the body. Shoot. That meant he might know something else.