The Language of Death (A Darcy Sweet Coy Mystery)

by K. J. Emrick

  When my gaze passes across the doors, time freezes. Standing on the other side of the glass, staring at me, is the most beautiful cat I've ever seen. She's all gray except for the white tips of her ears, with silky fur and a long tail. Her big, expressive eyes are the color of clear blue water. She's looking at me now like I'm crazy, and I suppose I probably seemed insane, banging into glass doors while holding a diamond ring in my mouth. I've never been so embarrassed in all my nine lives.

  Looking back, I should have proposed to her. Right there and right then. When I meet her again later I'll wish that I had. I mean, I had the ring already. Hard to think of those things when you're running for your life, though.

  Promising myself that I will find her again I get my feet working and scramble back across a sea of grabbing hands. Everyone in the restaurant is trying to stop me, but I'm just too quick.

  Actually, it would be closer to the truth to say I was just plain lucky. Chairs crashed over and people screamed and food flew every which way, and in the chaos I made it back up into the attic where all the cardboard boxes of cups and plastic forks were stored. The window I came in through is right there. Just like that, I'm gone again.

  Panting, excited with my success, I jump out the window and aim for the soft garbage down below.

  And miss.

  Ow.

  Ow, ow, ow.

  If you ever jump down onto the edge of a metal garbage bin, you'll know what I mean. Just…ow.

  But no, I didn't lose a life there, either. Stay with me. The story isn't over yet.

  ***

  Ring still in my mouth, paws sore and head ringing, I pad out to the front corner of the restaurant where I can see Ginny standing on the sidewalk, upset and worried and wringing her hands as she paced back and forth. I stopped there, and watched.

  The cat I saw before is gone now, leaving me wondering who she was and how I would find her again. She must have just arrived in town. I've never noticed her before, and believe me, I would have noticed her.

  I don't have time to find her now. Ginny is still pacing, waiting for something.

  It doesn't take very long for Pat to show up. Ginny must have called him on her cell phone. Sometimes I wish cats had cell phones, but then I think…where would we carry them?

  "Where is it?" Pat asks Ginny immediately.

  "I told you," she answers him, "the crazy cat took it! It's gone!"

  Pat's face is pinched with anger. The shoelace in his left sneaker is undone, like he had rushed here without time to stop and tie it. Now that he doesn't have his glasses on I can see the blazing green color of his eyes. This is not a nice man. "Ginny, we need that ring!"

  "Will you keep it down?" Ginny hisses. "Look, I didn't want to do this in the first place. Just…just forget it. I'm staying here with my folks. When you can earn enough money to support us without stealing, then we can talk about getting back together. I can't be with a man who steals for me!"

  There are tears in her eyes as she runs away, but I can tell she isn't crying because she's sad. She's relieved. Relieved to be dumping Pat.

  Can't blame her. The guy smells like rotten fish. I kid you not. Sour and icky and, well, yuck.

  He stands there on the sidewalk, calling after her, his hands balled into fists. When she doesn't come back he kicks at a paper hotdog basket with the Dog Shack logo on it, and then stalks away. I decide to follow him. It's time to see who this ring belongs to and I have a feeling Pat will lead me right there.

  "Caw!"

  Turning quickly at the sound, I find a crow standing right behind me. This isn't the crow I saw in the woods. This is Corvin. He and I are acquaintances, you might say. He lives with some of his family in the park at the town center, and he's always getting in the way. Like now.

  "What ya got there?" Corvin asks in that screeching voice of his. "It's sparkly, real sparkly. Is it mine?"

  "Are oo stherious?" I ask, the ring in the way of my words. "No, iss not yourths!"

  "What?"

  "I sthaid, iss not yourths!"

  "Oh," he says, obviously disappointed. "Is it yours then? Yours?"

  "Uh, no." Oh, for the love of catnip, why am I explaining this to a crow? "Corvin, I gotha go."

  "'Kay," Corvin says, twisting his head sideways. "Come back when you have something that can be mine! Mine!"

  ***

  It takes me a moment to catch back up to Pat. I thought at first that Corvin had made me lose him, but then I see him again, that loose shoelace flopping along with every footstep. I hang back, all stealthy like, and soon enough he leads me to a very nice house with an immaculately trimmed lawn. It's narrow and tall and painted in beige and white, and with the molding and the heart shapes that are cut into the shutters, it looks for all the world like a gingerbread house.

  Not something that I pictured tough-guy Pat living in.

  When he opens the door to go inside he throws it wide and it bangs against the interior wall, staying open. I race inside behind him and hide between a wall and a shoe rack.

  Some of these shoes are Pat's. They smell like dead fish. So, he does live here.

  "Patrick?" a frail voice calls from further inside. "Is that you, Patrick?"

  "Grandma, I asked you not to call me that," he calls in to her, anger still seething in his voice. "Everyone calls me Pat!"

  "Now, don't you talk to me like that," his grandmother answers. "And you shut that door!"

  Pat obliges, a little more forcefully than he needed to. Bang, goes the door.

  This explains a lot. Pat is living with his grandmother in her house. Not a penny to his name, probably. That must be why he stole the ring.

  "Come on in here, Patrick. I want to talk to you."

  Grumbling under his breath, he nevertheless walks down the entryway toward a living room space filled with dark wood and Victorian style furniture with high backs and floral designs. I follow, a shadow hugging the walls. Well. A shadow made of white and black fur. Not exactly invisible, but still unseen. You have to remember, people don't look down.

  In the living room sits an older woman, a pink sweater snugged around her shoulders, thick glasses perched on a button nose in a wide face. Her hair is completely white. Her rocking chair creaks back and forth and I twitch my tail nervously. Cats and rocking chairs do not mix.

  "What is it, Grandma?" Pat asks, a little nicer than before, as he flops down on the sofa. He puts his feet up on the coffee table, and the look his grandmother gave him could have melted ice in the dead of winter.

  Oh. That's when it came to me. Here was the person Pat had stolen the ring from. His own grandmother.

  That's pretty low.

  "Where is it?" she asked him, and I knew she was asking him about the ring.

  "Where's what?" He didn't even look at her, just sat fiddling with his fingernails.

  "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, young man. Your grandfather gave me that ring, and I've kept it all these years. I will not have my own grandson steal from me. You hear me? I won't have it."

  "You can't prove I stole it," Pat said in a very calm voice.

  I guess he figured since his girlfriend had lost the ring to a cat, he didn't have to worry about anyone finding it again.

  Guess he'd be wrong.

  I slink further into the room, silently moving on little cat's paws, until I'm underneath the sofa Pat is sitting on, and there I wait.

  "You better return that ring to me, mister," Pat's grandmother says with a stern shake of her finger. "You don't, and I'm going to bounce you out on your ear like I should have done already."

  "Grandma, where would I go?"

  "You're twenty-one years old. You're old enough to take care of yourself, since you don't want to live by the rules of my house. Especially if you think you can start stealing from me." She stopped her rocking as she leaned towards him. "You heard my terms. You return that ring or I'm going to toss you out."

  Jumping up from the sofa, Pat's voice raises until
it's loud enough to echo off the ceiling. "You can't make me leave just because you think I stole your ring. You can't prove it! What, you think I've got the ring on me? Is that it? Here, check my pockets. Here, look!"

  What's he doing? I edge out enough to see him tugging his pockets inside out. Pieces of paper and coins and other things fall to the hardwood floor.

  Ha. I was hoping he'd do something like that.

  With a shake of my head, I drop the ring. It clatters with a metallic sound and rolls on its edge before it falls neatly on the floor between them. Silence falls over the whole house.

  I really wish I could have seen Pat's face. Here was the ring he thought was gone, right out in the open where his grandmother could see it, looking like it had been dropped from his own pockets.

  Gotchya.

  "Th-that wasn't there," he stutters. "I mean, I didn't have it in my pocket. No! I mean…"

  I can see his grandmother's face from where I am, and the smile of satisfaction I see suits her really well. I don't know what this grandson of hers has put her through before all this happened, but I can imagine. Now she finally had good reason to make him leave her house. She'd be free of him.

  Not only that, but Ginny had left Pat too, so he wouldn't be able to ruin her life. Win, win.

  Not exactly the happy ending you get in fairytales, but it's one I could live with.

  ***

  I had to sneak through most of the house before I found an open window to jump out of. Smiling to myself, I let my thoughts wander back to the memory of that girl cat I had seen through the Dog Shack's door. If you've ever been distracted by thoughts like that, you'll understand what happens next.

  Out into the street I went, not looking, and not seeing the big green truck speeding at me. The driver blared the horn and brakes squealed and I jumped faster and farther than I'd ever jumped before.

  The truck narrowly missed me. I could feel the breeze from it ruffling my fur. You guessed it. That's not where I lost that one life either. It was a close thing, though.

  Landing on the sidewalk, panting, fur standing on end, I made a beeline for my house. All the way across town I ran and didn't stop for anything. I ran, and I ran, and I ran until I was home.

  Home. It just has a nice, safe sound to it, doesn't it? Like no matter what's going on in your day, you know you're safe when you get home. That's exactly how I felt as I went around to the back of the house where my secret little entrance is. There's a gap in the foundation where the cellar walls meet the support beams. Easy enough to slip through. Just like that, I was in.

  Home.

  Couldn't be any safer than I am right now.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, I shook myself all over and drank probably half of the water in my dish. Solving mysteries around this town can make a guy thirsty. It's sort of becoming a habit for me. Not that I mind. I kind of like helping out where I can. I just hope it doesn't become something I have to do all the time.

  Climbing up the stairs I can feel the day catching up to me. The sun is still out, and it's still warm, and with everything else I've done today sleep is ready to claim me. So up the stairs I went, stretching out on the carpet along the very top stair. It's one of my favorite sleeping places. Right in the middle of everything, but still nice and cozy. I stretch out and yawn, my tongue curling as my muscles twitch and I close my eyes, looking forward to a nice long nap.

  I roll over onto my side, thoughts of a certain gray cat running through my mind, completely forgetting where I am.

  Stairs.

  And down I went.

  Ow…

  Wait…

  No, not the…

  Ooph…

  Ow…

  Ow ow ow…

  Hey isn't there a bottom—

  Meow!

  Ach!

  OW!

  It's a pretty common misconception that cats land on their feet when they fall. That's kind of true. Feet first is the preferred method. Some of us less graceful cats land everywhich way when we fall. Especially when we're falling down a full flight of stairs all the way to the bottom where we end up landing right on the top of our head.

  The rest of my body followed me down, trying to land in the same spot as my head did, and, well, you get the idea. Things can go paws-up in a hurry when you're not being careful.

  I could feel it when it happened. My life slipping away, I mean. It's like you're leaving your own body and I suppose it's kind of like what dying feels like for people. It's a scary thing. A single dreadful moment in a cat's life when they know they've gone from having nine full lives down to having only eight. I guess, considering how hard I fell, I was lucky to only lose the one life.

  Getting back up onto my paws, shaking badly, I meow and spit and call myself every word for stupid that I know. I know a lot of them.

  Today, I had survived a fall from a window, getting nearly scared to death by a stupid crow, running full tilt into a glass door, nearly getting run over by a truck, and several other misadventures. All to wind up falling down the stairs in my own house and losing a life to something as mundane as gravity.

  Don't I feel stupid.

  So, there it is. I've never told anyone this story. It's seriously embarrassing. If the other cats ever found out they'd never let me live it down.

  I wonder what that gray cat with the liquid blue eyes would think? I might just make an exception and tell her, someday. If I can ever find her again.

  Anyway, that's the story of how I ended up having only eight lives. I've been careful ever since not to lose another. Well, more careful than before, anyway. Careful isn't always easy to come by here in Misty Hollow.

  This town is a lot bigger than it seems.

  -End-

  About the Author

  Strongly influenced by authors like James Patterson, Dick Francis, and Nora Roberts, Kathrine Emrick is an up and coming talent in the writing world. She is a new Kindle author/publisher and brings a variety of experiences and observations to her writing.

  Based in Australia, Kathrine has wanted to be an author for the majority of her life and can always be found jotting down daily notes in a journal. Like many authors, she loves to be surrounded by books and is a voracious reader.

  In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and volunteering at the local library.

  Her goal is to become a bestselling author, regularly producing noteworthy content and engaging in a community of readers and writers.

  To find out more please visit the Kathrine's website at kathrineemrick.com or her Amazon author page.

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