Crafts, Cat Burglars, and Murder

by Stacey Alabaster

  I was starting to get fed up with Adam being in my business all the time. I hadn’t asked him to make me dinner and wait up for me. Just like I had never asked him to turn up in my life unexpectedly after not seeing him for fifteen years. Just like I had never asked him to stay in town after he had promised to leave.

  “Well, I was just trying to be nice!” Adam said, tossing the salad tongs down on the table with a frustrated growl. “I suppose this is what I get for trying!”

  He stormed off to the spare bedroom down in the basement while I walked over to the pantry, took out a bottle of red, poured it up to the top, drank it all in one go, and composed myself. After that I simply walked over to the table, sat down, and started eating my cold pasta. Hey, it was better than no food at all, and I was starving. I also couldn’t stand waking up to another guilt trip from Adam.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. I’m not sure whether it was the two plates of pasta (I’d finished off Adam’s as well once I was done with mine) sitting heavily on my stomach, or whether it was guilt.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Andrew Combs. He had been so young, all his life in front of him, and talented as well by the sounds of it. He’d even had a shot at a record deal.

  Why would someone have taken that all from him?

  And I kept wondering—what if I could have done something to stop it?

  Maybe it was stupid to think these things. I hadn’t dared speak to anyone else about it, but I kept thinking that I should have chased him down at the shelter. He had been carrying two cat carriers, after all, and he was on foot. If I’d stopped him right then, he might still be alive.

  Of course, if I’d done that at the time, I would have only thought I’d been chasing a cat burglar. Not stopping a murder.

  I couldn’t have known.

  But it still gave me the shivers to think that I might have been the last person—aside from the killer—to see Andrew alive.

  I had to do something.

  I got out my dry erase board and started writing up a list of suspects while Jasper sat by my feet. I was as quiet as possible, not wanting to wake Adam up for love or money. So I placed the board down on top off the shaggy white rug in the living room and bribed Jasper with some dry kibble to keep him quiet.

  Casper was already long asleep in her basket, so she wouldn’t be causing me any trouble.

  “What do you think, Jasper?” I whispered. “Who should we start with?”

  At the top of the board I wrote “Sian” and sketched a photo of her, including the feathered earrings she wore and the nose stud. “I need to find out more about this one,” I said to Jasper. “She was a strange little bird.”

  If Andrew had kicked her out of their ‘band’ right before they got a record deal, was that enough reason to kill him? Anger can do crazy things to people, sure, but I felt like I was missing part of the story there. Killing Andrew wouldn’t bring her any closer to success. Would it?

  I circled the sketch I had made of her face. “I’m going to have to figure a way to speak to her again,” I mused, tapping the marker quietly as I thought. Or at least a way to observe her from afar. What I needed to do was find out where her next gig was. Then I could turn up, all innocently, as a fan, just there to watch her play.

  Pleased with my plan, I added the task to the board and decided to leave it for now.

  Next to Sian, I paused for a second. Did I have any other suspects?

  I thought for a moment before leaning down and making a quick drawing of Con, the manager of the supermarket. “He told me that Andrew owed him money,” I explained to Jasper when he gave me a skeptical look. Dogs are more than capable of giving skeptical looks, you know. Especially this one.

  “What is it, Jasper?” I asked him.

  He walked over to the door and started nudging his nose at his leash. At first I thought he wanted to go for a walk. Seeing as it was well after midnight that was a crazy proposition, but I stood up and let him outside to do his business, thinking maybe that was what he was getting at.

  But as soon as he was back inside, nudging his nose against the lead again and whimpering. He looked up at me with pleading eyes like he was trying to tell me something.

  That was when I looked down at the leash and noticed something. It was the leash we had gotten from the shelter on the day I had adopted Jasper.

  I frowned and picked it up, looking at the Pottsville Pet Rescue logo on the side of it, which had faded considerably in the four months since I’d adopted Jasper. “What are you trying to tell me, Jasper?”

  I turned the leash over in my hands and then looked down at the dry erase board again, while Jasper continued to whimper at me. He wasn’t asking for a walk. He was trying to tell me that something was going on with the shelter. That I had someone else to add to our suspect list after all.

  I shook my head. “No, Tom didn’t have anything to do with Andrew’s death, Jasper,” I said, sitting back down. It was silly. “Tom is a good man,” I said to Jasper, who was still looking entirely unconvinced. I mean, I’m not a crazy person. I know that dogs can’t actually communicate in the same way humans can. I know that Jasper can’t actually talk to me. Yet I still knew that Jasper was trying to tell me something. “Tom is the reason you live with me, you know. You shouldn’t go accusing him of things like this without any solid proof.”

  But Jasper wouldn’t let it go. He was still whimpering, convinced that he was right.

  I sighed and took the cap off the black marker again. Reluctantly, I began to draw a sketch of Tom’s face next to Sian and Con’s. And slowly, I started to come around to the theory as well.

  I guessed Tom did have a good reason to be angry at Andrew. Andrew had been stealing cats from right under Tom’s nose, for months. That must have been incredibly stressful for Tom.

  I suddenly thought of something. “Tom said that after Andrew’s application was rejected, he started stealing the cats. But how did Andrew break into the shelter so many times without Tom ever catching him before?” It just didn’t make sense to me. If I was Tom, I would have changed the locks.

  I looked at Jasper, who was now more settled—happy, now that I had finally taken his suggestion seriously.

  I started making notes under Tom’s face. He hadn’t been at the shelter on the day that Andrew stole the cats.

  I stopped and stared at Jasper. “What if you’re really onto something here, boy?” I wrote down ‘Alibi?’ on the board. On the day that Andrew had stolen the last batch of cats, Tom had called me up and told me he had the flu. But I’d been into the shelter a couple of days later and there had been no lingering signs of symptoms.

  I needed to find out where Tom had been—really been—that day.

  I added the task to the list and was just about to rack my brain for more suspects to the list when I was suddenly rudely interrupted.

  Casper, the one who was supposed to be my little angel, starting yelping at the top of her tiny lungs. I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs from the basement.

  I glanced at the time. After 2:00 am. Well, time to get some sleep anyway. I sat the dry erase board down for now and pushed it underneath the sofa before escaping up the stairs to my own bedroom, just in time before Adam appeared in the living room.

  The next day was adoption day. And I needed my beauty rest.

  Chapter 6

  Brenda was already at the store, decorating it with streamers and balloons, and bright signs that read “Adoption Day!” in fluorescent colors in front of the shop, by the time I arrived.

  I was pleasantly surprised to see her getting into the festive spirit so much.

  She was up on a step ladder, her back to me, hanging up a pink streamer as I walked in.

  “Wow, Brenda…this looks…” I stopped talking when she spun around and I saw her sweater.

  It was pink, with an image on the front of what looked like a water color painting of a grey cat and Brenda herself, with a love heart around them both.


  “You look great,” I said to Brenda, trying not to laugh and wondering if she had knit the sweater herself.

  “I figured I might as well get into the spirit. Anything to get these cats out of here,” she said, dusting off her hands as she climbed down from the stepladder.

  I was about to turn the sign around to ‘open’ when I saw Ryan walking up the street, making a bee-line for the shop.

  Great. Perfect timing.

  “I just came by to wish you good luck today,” Ryan said, popping his head in. “I hope that you find all these cats happy homes. If you have a flier, I’ll be happy to hang one up at the precinct.”

  I was relieved that he wasn’t there to disrupt the adoption day and I relaxed a little.

  “Thank you. That would be perfect,” I said with a grin as I handed him one. I was feeling more than confident now—especially with the bright, welcoming decorations—that we were going to find every last cat a home.

  We had our first prospective buyer as soon as we opened, right after 9:00.

  “How much does it cost to adopt a cat?” the first prospective adopter, a short middle-aged woman with bight pink hair, asked me as she picked up our ragdoll cat. I’d already known he would be the first one to go with his beautiful full coat and bright blue eyes.

  I was a little hesitant to give the price. “Seventy dollars. All the cats are up to date with their vaccinations.”

  She hesitated a little before handing over the cash. Thank goodness. We had our first cat in a new home.

  Charging for the cats wasn’t about making a profit. In fact, I fully intended to donate all profits made to the shelter, anonymously. It was about making sure the cats went to good homes, to people who actually wanted them and had the resources to care for them, not just people looking for a freebie.

  Still, some people thought the seventy-dollar price tag was a little steep, so at lunch I dropped it to fifty dollars, just wanting to get the cats in proper homes so they wouldn’t need to be returned to the shelter, or worse.

  At fifty dollars, I had a few more buyers, though I made sure to ask questions to make sure that every home was a good home. I asked if the potential pet owners were renting or owning their houses, what their schedules were, and whether they had any other pets. Preferably, no dogs, and if they did have dogs, I needed reassurance that the dogs were placid and cat-tolerant.

  Not like a certain dog who would remain nameless.

  And one by one, each cat found a new, warm home to go to and a loving owner or family to call their own.

  I’d grown attached to the little creatures so it was a little bittersweet to see them all walking out the door. But I was also overjoyed to know that they had found owners to love them and that they no longer had to worry about going back to sleeping on a cold shelter floor.

  I was also pleased that I had succeeded in my task. I couldn’t wait to tell Ryan that I’d given all the cats away, and to rub it in Brenda’s face, just a little.

  “Well, we did amazingly today!” I called out to Brenda as I tallied all the money and started to close up the shop for the day. No matter what Jasper’s suspicions had been the night before, I still intended to give Tom all the money. I didn’t truly believe he was guilty, and the shelter animals still deserved the money either way.

  “Hang on!” Brenda called out, warily. “Don’t get too excited just yet.”

  Oh no. What the heck was she talking about? I started to get a little worried, flicking the lights back on that I’d already switched off.

  She stood up and shook her head. “Looks like we’ve got a stowaway here,” she said, pointing down to a bottom shelf.

  Oh, no! It was my old friend, Mr. Grumpy Ginger Cat. He looked a little frightened, hidden away down there.

  “Oh, poor boy, you must have been too overwhelmed.” I stood up and looked at Brenda. “He’s hidden himself away from everyone. That’s why no one adopted him today.”

  “More like he is such a grumpy pants that no one wanted him,” Brenda said.

  “Brenda!” I admonished her. “Don’t say that!” I reached under the shelf and scooped him out, trying to cuddle him against my chest while he wriggled to get free. “He might be able to understand you.”

  She was right, though. Our tubby ginger friend didn’t have the most playful, sunny disposition in the world. Kind of reminded me of a human I knew.

  “Well, he’s going to have to stay here in the meantime,” I said, staying cheerful. “I propose that we call him Carrot!”

  “You are avoiding me,” Adam said, the following morning while I was trying to leave for work.

  I actually wasn’t. Maybe it started out that way, but now I had more on my plate than I could manage and I genuinely needed to get out of the house.

  It seemed like I had more items on my ‘to do’ list than I had time to do them. Andrew’s killer was still on the loose, and for all I knew, he could strike again. I mean, if he was targeting people that stole cats then I was lucky I had survived so far.

  “Please, Adam, I need to go,” I said, pushing my way past him so I could get out the door. I still had my loose earring in my hand and tried to put it on as I hurried down the driveway.

  Before I went to work, I needed to find out where Sian Miller was playing next. A quick walk past her usual corner outside the supermarket proved fruitless when there was an entirely different person busking there. But the young guy was handing out fliers to people walking past and it was only when I got back to the shop and finally looked at it that I noticed it was advertising his next gig. And underneath his name was the name of his support act.

  Sian Miller.

  Now I just needed an excuse to go to the gig.

  But still, I had a plan.

  The shop seemed a little empty without all my little feline friends, though Brenda was much happier to only have one cat to deal with rather than a dozen.

  I even interrupted her picking up Carrot to give him a little cuddle as I walked through the door.

  Haha. She’d been caught showing affection towards another living being. She quickly put him down and pretended she hadn’t been doing anything, while I tried to hide my smile.

  “Good morning so far?” I asked, hanging up my scarf.

  “It’s been good for you, I see,” Brenda commented, looking me up and down. “You’ve clearly been off enjoying yourself. Gallivanting around town like usual, I see.”

  I wasn’t going to take the bait, which was lucky because I could see Ryan walking towards the shop and I wanted to be in a good mood when I saw him. I placed the flier on the counter, pushing it away as I sat down.

  Ryan walked through the doors with a sunny greeting for both of us. Brenda rolled her eyes and turned away, though I heard her mutter, “First it’s a zoo in here, next it’s a dating service.”

  I waved around the mostly empty shop. “As you can see, we got rid of all the cats. Well, all of them except one.”

  Ryan grinned. “That’s great to see. But I actually didn’t drop by to talk about cats.”

  “Oh?” I asked hopefully, leaning forward on my stool.

  “I actually came to ask you if you wanted to go get a drink again some time soon.”

  I glanced at the flier out of the corner of my eye. Shoot, the gig was that very night. Didn’t give us a lot of time to plan.

  “I’d love that. Are you free tonight?” I asked brightly. I had to not care if I sounded a little too desperate in that moment.

  Ryan looked caught a little off-guard, but after a moment of thinking, he answered. “Sure. Tonight works for me. I might have to rearrange a few things, but I can make it work.”

  Phew. I felt a little relieved. This plan could work after all. And, as a bonus, I was getting a date with a handsome guy out of it. I would work on the logistics of dragging a cop along to spy on a murder suspect a little later on.

  From the back of the shop, I heard Carrot make a yelping, meowing sound like he was in pain.

  Br
enda looked up but she wasn’t particularly apologetic.

  “He gets a little unsettled with all these non-paying customers in the shop,” she said pointedly, looking at Ryan.

  I rolled my eyes and turned away from her. “All” these non-paying customers was just one person. He wasn’t a customer, anyway. He was my date for this evening.

  “Just ignore her.”

  Ryan shook his head and laughed a little. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to ignore Brenda.

  “So, what were you thinking?” Ryan asked. “About tonight?”

  I tried to glance at the flier without Ryan noticing what I was doing.

  “I’ve actually really been wanting to check out this local singer….” I said. I started to say her name and then thought better of it. “Some singer, it starts with S, I think… She plays at this little bar just out of town called the Red Room.”

  “Yeah, I know the venue,” Ryan said, nodding. “You do as well?”

  “Oh yes. I’m a big fan of the place.”

  Ryan looked at me in surprise.

  “Why do you look so shocked?” I asked.

  “I just didn’t know that you were into…that sort of music. Or those sorts of bars.”

  Ah right, because of my age. Maybe he really did think I was too old for him.

  I could feel the amusement creep over my face, but I decided that I was going to make him sweat it out a little. “I may be ancient, Ryan, but I do still have my finger on the pulse of the local music scene, you know.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Sure. If you want to go and check her out tonight, I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  The Red Room was a cafe by day and a bar by night. At 7:00 pm on the dot, they turned their coffee machine off and switched to cocktails, which, I had to admit, was a little high concept for me but I was determined to prove that I was still young enough to mix with the hipsters, who were spilled out onto the balcony of the cafe/bar underneath outdoor heaters when we arrived.

  It turned out I hadn’t read the flier very thoroughly. All I’d seen was Sian’s name written on it, and knew that she was performing. I didn’t know it was a theme night.