Undercover Kitty

by Sofie Ryan

  Avery shifted from one foot to the other, twisting the collection of bracelets she was wearing on her arm around and around. “You’re going to get set up at lunchtime for the show, right?”

  I nodded. The plan was to drop off Rose, Elvis and Mr. P. with all of the gear and then I’d pick up Debra and Socrates and ferry them to the arena as well.

  “I was wondering . . . could I come with you, just for a while until you’re ready to come back to the store? I can help Mr. P. get everything set up and stuff.”

  I could hear the enthusiasm in her voice and the hopeful smile on her face. “How would you feel about spending the afternoon at the show?” I asked.

  “Seriously?” Her eyes lit up, but almost as quickly the excitement faded. “But I have to work this afternoon. I was going to wash more teacups because we’re out of teacup gardens and those chairs that Mac wants me to bring in are going to have to be cleaned and—”

  I held up one hand. “The cups can wait one more day.”

  “But what if we get more bus tours? Those people love the teacup gardens.”

  I smiled at her. “First of all, there are no bus tours coming today that I’ve heard of. And number two, if one shows up this afternoon there are a lot of other things they can buy.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but I didn’t give her the chance. “Charlotte will be here and so will I. We can both vacuum and wipe down chairs. The question is, do you want to spend the afternoon setting up for the cat show?”

  Avery nodded.

  “It’s settled then,” I said. “Go check in with Mac.”

  She hesitated for a second, then flung her arms around me in a fast, tight hug. “You’re the best, Sarah,” she said.

  I watched her cross the room in large strides before disappearing through the door to the workroom and it struck me once again that coming to live with Liz hadn’t just been good for Avery. It had also been good for the rest of us, too.

  Charlotte arrived at eleven. By that time, Avery had brought in eight chairs—all different styles. She’d also found time to wash half a dozen teacups and plant them with tiny zebra plants from the collection that lived on one of the wide windowsills in Mac’s apartment.

  We loaded all of the supplies for both cats in the SUV. Then I drove Rose, Elvis, Avery and Mr. P. over to the arena. The parking lot was busy, but I managed to find a spot at the end of a row. I backed in and Elvis craned his neck to look out the rear window, backseat driving as usual.

  Mr. P. had spoken to Memphis and there was a participant badge waiting for Avery. “Oh wow!” she exclaimed as she stepped into the show space. Since the North Harbor show was bigger than the one in Searsport, it was being held in a larger space and there were a lot more people. This time the staging areas for the cats were set up in two sections with a wide aisle down the middle. The judging stands were against the back wall of the space with the same setup as the previous show. Even though the pet expo was in the adjoining building, there were some smaller vendors set up in the show space, too. At the far left end I spotted an area set up like a small café. I remembered getting coffee with Christine at the previous cat show and had to take a couple of deep breaths.

  “Here we are,” Mr. P. said, putting a hand on an empty section of table at the end of a row to the right of the main aisle.

  The space just to the left of us was empty as well. Rose followed my gaze and guessed what I was thinking. “Yes, Debra is beside us again,” she said. “Alfred spoke to Jacqueline and she arranged it.”

  Jacqueline. It took me a moment and then I remembered that Jacqueline was Jacqueline Beyer, the Hartmans’ social media director.

  Rose set her tote bag up on the table. “I thought Debra might feel better to have a friend beside her and I feel better knowing we can keep an eye on her just in case.”

  Mr. P. got Elvis settled in his crate and Rose and Avery began opening the boxes. I checked my watch. “I’m going to head out to get Debra and Socrates,” I said. “Is there anything else we need?”

  Mr. P. slid a practiced eye over everything we’d brought. Then he smiled at me. “We seem to have what we need,” he said.

  I zipped up my jacket. “Okay. I won’t be long.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Debra was waiting on the front steps, a carrier bag very similar to the one I used with Elvis slung over one shoulder and a tote bag that I recognized as one of Rose’s at her feet. She climbed into the driver’s side of the car and smiled. “Before you ask, no, you’re not late,” she said, settling the cat carrier at her feet. “I was just getting antsy, which Socrates always picks up on, so I decided to come outside to wait.” Both her smile and the cheery tone of her voice seemed a little forced.

  “Rose and Alfred are already at the arena getting everything set up,” I said as I backed out of the driveway. “Socrates is right next to Elvis again and everything he needs is already over there.”

  “All of you have been so generous,” Debra said.

  “A friend of Rose is a friend of the rest of us,” I said, giving her a quick, sideways glance. “I should warn you that’s not always a good thing.”

  She smiled again, a little less forced than the previous time. “Can I ask you how you make it work? Living with Rose and your grandmother? If I’m being nosy, just tell me.”

  “You’re not being nosy,” I said. “It’s not the first time someone has asked me that question.”

  “So what’s your secret?”

  I laughed. “Well, it helps that we each have our own space. And we have our own lives.”

  “I thought someone had told me that Rose was living in a seniors’ apartment complex,” Debra said. “Legacy something?”

  I nodded. “Legacy Place. She was. Let’s just say the building wasn’t a good fit for her. Most of the time she referred to it as Shady Pines.”

  She laughed. “That sounds like Rose.”

  We spent the rest of the drive with Debra telling me more about the presentation Rose had done for their instructional methods class. “You should have seen the instructor’s face when she started out by playing ‘Walk This Way.’”

  We were still laughing when I drove in to the parking lot at the arena complex. A half-ton truck was just pulling out so I managed to snag a spot close to the main doors.

  Debra looked around. “There are a lot of cars here.”

  “More than half of them are people at the pet expo,” I said. “It’ll be even busier tomorrow once the show starts.”

  She nodded, lips pressed together. I waited, letting the silence hang between us.

  “Sarah, what am I doing here?” she finally said.

  I exhaled slowly. “I didn’t know Christine very well, but there was something about her, something that made me hope that we’d end up as friends.”

  “She was like that,” Debra said quietly.

  “But you already were her friend,” I continued, “and I can’t imagine how you feel. From the short time I knew Christine I don’t think she’d want you to get swallowed up by your grief. I think she’d want you to keep going. If this is your way of keeping going, then let’s head inside. If it isn’t, or if it’s just too soon, then I’ll take you and Socrates anywhere else you want to go—at least until we run out of gas.”

  The crack about the gas got me a tiny smile. Debra stared at the building for a long moment. Then she squared her shoulders and reached for the strap of the carrier bag. “Let’s do this,” she said.

  Inside the building we found Rose brushing Elvis’s fur and Avery deep in conversation with a woman holding a Sphynx cat in her arms. The hairless cat was wearing a pink knitted sweater and seemed to like Avery. Mr. P. was nowhere to be seen.

  Rose smiled at her friend. “We have everything you need,” she said. “And you can put Avery and me to work getting set up.”
r />   Debra set Socrates on the counter next to Elvis’s crate. Socrates peered through the mesh top at Elvis. “Mrrr,” he said.

  Elvis meowed back in response.

  Avery ended her conversation with the Sphynx cat and its owner and joined Rose, who introduced her to Debra. “Your cat’s beautiful,” Avery said. “Rose showed me pictures of him.”

  “Thank you,” Debra said. “I like the privacy screen you made for Elvis’s litter box.”

  Avery smiled. “Thanks. He likes his privacy when he does his thing.”

  Rose started to cough. I wasn’t sure if she had a dry throat or it was because of Avery’s comment.

  I patted her on the back. “Oh goodness,” she said. “Something went down the wrong way.” Her gaze shifted to Avery for a moment. Okay, so it wasn’t a dry throat.

  “Is there anything else you need from me?” I asked.

  “Nah, we got this,” Avery answered.

  A hint of a smile played across Rose’s face. “As Avery said, everything is under control.”

  I zipped up my jacket and felt for my keys. “Okay, I’ll be back to pick you up. If anything changes, let me know.”

  Debra caught my eye. “Thank you, Sarah, for everything,” she said.

  “You’re very welcome,” I said. I shifted my attention to Avery.

  “I know. Stay out of trouble,” she said.

  I smiled. “I was going to say have fun.”

  She pushed back her sleeves and slid her bracelets up her arm. “I’m already having fun.” She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “What do you think Nonna would say about getting one of those hairless cats?”

  I could think of several potential responses Liz would have to a hairless cat—to any kind of cat at all. She was a dog person through and through.

  Rose laid a hand on the teen’s arm. “There are a lot of different breeds here. Why don’t you wait until you’ve seen a few more before you tackle your grandmother?”

  Avery nodded. “Yeah, I should probably do that. But you know she’d freak, right?”

  “Yes, we know,” I said.

  She smiled and went to help Debra with a box.

  “What was Liz like at that age?” I said to Rose.

  “A lot like Avery,” Rose said. “Opinionated. Stubborn. And soft-hearted underneath that prickly outside.”

  “So pretty much the way she is now?”

  Rose laughed. “Yes.” She brushed some cat hair off the front of her sweater. “So are you going to tell me to stay out of trouble?” she asked, a teasing edge to her voice.

  I shook my head. “I am not,” I said solemnly. “I know an exercise in futility when I see it.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you later.” I poked a finger at the side of Elvis’s tent. “You, too.”

  He murped at me and rolled over onto his back. It seemed the life of a show cat was very tiring.

  Chapter 12

  I was cleaning chairs in the workroom about forty-five minutes later when Nick came in the back door. “Hey, what are you doing here?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “Mom said that Debra Martinez is staying with Rose. I was wondering if she’d said anything more about the night of the fire.”

  “Not to me,” I said. “And Rose didn’t mention anything.” I got to my feet, dropping the cloth I’d been using back into my bucket. The reproduction of an Eames fiberglass shell chair wasn’t what Maud Fitch would be looking for, but it was interesting enough to put out in the shop.

  Nick looked around. “Is she here?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. She’s getting set up for the cat show over at the arena complex. If Debra said anything to her, Rose would tell you.”

  His snort told me what a bad liar I was.

  “Probably,” I added. “Eventually.” I wiped my damp hands on my jeans. “What about you? Have you come up with anything that proves the fire wasn’t an accident?” I wasn’t sure whether he’d answer my question.

  “Tom Manning, the arson investigator, has already talked to several neighbors who knew Christine and they all say she would never have taken the battery out of the smoke detector.”

  “Do you think someone deliberately disabled it?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. It’s also possible the battery was running down and making that annoying beeping sound and she just took it out because she was trying to study and planned to replace it later.”

  “First of all, it doesn’t take that long to replace a battery. And second, the old battery would have been in the trash or with her recycling, or on the closest table. It had to be somewhere in that apartment. Did you look?”

  There was an awkward pause. “This is not my first investigation, Sarah,” Nick said. “It’s not Tom Manning’s, either.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. It’s just that this case feels personal. I had lunch down at Glenn’s with Christine and a few hours later she was dead.”

  Nick’s expression softened. “I know. Just try to remember it’s my job to collect evidence, all the evidence, no matter where it leads.”

  My stomach flip-flopped. “Does this mean you have some sort of proof one way or the other?”

  The silence stretched between us. “I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Nick said.

  I stayed silent.

  He blew out a breath. “Look, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, and it’s still really early in the investigation.”

  I knew there was a “but” coming.

  “But it’s looking more and more like the fire was an accident.”

  I was shaking my head before he’d gotten all the words out. “C’mon, Nick. That doesn’t fit with the battery being out of the smoke detector. It doesn’t fit with all the other coincidences. Too many coincidences. I’m not saying someone set out to kill Christine, but I do think the fire was set deliberately.”

  “Coincidences happen,” he said. “I’m sorry. Sometimes people die because of stupid accidents. Just because you were right about the smoke detector battery doesn’t mean Christine Eldridge was murdered.”

  “Where did the fire start?” I asked, ignoring what he’d just said.

  “The sofa, just as I suspected. You know that little lamp Mom has in her spare room? The bottom is just a cube and it has a fabric shade.”

  “Gram gave it to her.”

  “Christine had the same lamp. It looks as though it fell over onto the couch. There was an old incandescent bulb in the lamp that would have gotten very hot. Someone had probably been sitting there reading because there were a few potato chips on the sofa. At first glance, the firefighters thought they were pieces of cardboard. They would have ignited very quickly.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Was I wrong? Was I just trying to find something suspicious about Christine’s death because I didn’t want it to be just a “stupid accident”?

  “Christine died of smoke inhalation,” Nick continued. “The sofa and foam cushions were old. The smoke was dense and it spread throughout the apartment very quickly.” He cleared his throat. “She didn’t . . . suffer. She was likely overcome before she realized what was wrong.”

  “I hope that’s true,” I said. There didn’t seem to be much more to say. Nick seemed certain that Christine’s death was an accident and I wasn’t sure what to think.

  “I have to get back to the office,” he said. “I’m going to try to make the jam tonight. You’ll be there, right?”

  I nodded, accepting the change of subject because I really didn’t have anything more to say.

  “Is Mac going, too?”

  “Yes, finally,” I said. I saw a hint of a smile play across Nick’s face.

  “Good,” he said. “I need more testosterone at the table. You and Jess always stick together.”

  “Jess an
d I are like peanut butter and jelly—good apart but even better together.”

  Nick laughed. “And sometimes when the two of you are together, things can get very sticky.”

  I smiled at his bad joke.

  “I’ve really gotta go,” he said. “See you tonight.”

  I watched him head out the back door and thought about how much his attitude had changed toward the Angels since he’d first found out what his mother and her friends were doing. Back then, Nick spent more time trying to shut the agency down than he did listening to their ideas—or mine. He actually had listened this time even though he thought I was wrong. And he hadn’t said a word about the Angels looking into Christine’s death even though he believed it had been an accident.

  I knew it made me sound like Rose, but in my gut I knew Nick was wrong. So as far as I was concerned, the case was going forward until I had incontrovertible proof that gut feeling was wrong.

  * * *

  * * *

  It was a quiet afternoon and Mac booted me out a few minutes early to head over to the arena. “I’ll see you at the pub,” he said. The number of times we’d been derailed was becoming laughable. A water main break downtown the previous Thursday had meant the jam was cancelled altogether.

  I smiled at him. “Jess and I will save you a table.”

  When I got to the arena, I found Avery holding Elvis, pointing out the banners all over the space with different sayings about cats on them. I remembered Rose telling me the banners were the idea of Jacqueline Beyer. Debra was brushing Socrates’s fur and Rose was just ending a call on her cell phone.

  “Hello, sweet girl,” she said. “You’re right on time.”

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t be,” I said. “I had to circle the lot twice to find a parking spot.”

  Rose had on one of the aprons she wore in the shop and she plucked a bit of cat hair off the front. “The pet expo has been busy since they opened the doors yesterday. Record attendance, according to Chloe Hartman.”