TITLES BY SOFIE KELLY
curiosity thrilled the cat
sleight of paw
copycat killing
cat trick
final catcall
a midwinter’s tail
faux paw
paws and effect
a tale of two kitties
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2017 by Penguin Random House LLC
“The Cat Burglar” copyright © 2016 by Sofie Kelly
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BERKLEY is a registered trademark and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the B colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
“The Cat Burglar” was previously published in the eBook Two Tall Tails.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kelly, Sofie, 1958– author.
Title: A tale of two kitties / Sofie Kelly.
Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2017. | Series: Magical cats ; 9
Identifiers: LCCN 2017010909 (print) | LCCN 2017010934 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399584572 (hardback) | ISBN 9780399584589 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cat owners—Fiction. | Women librarians—Fiction. | Cats—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Mystery fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths.
Classification: LCC PR9199.4.K453 T35 2017 (print) | LCC PR9199.4.K453
(ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010909
First Edition: September 2017
Cover art by Tristan Elwell
Cover design by Rita Frangie
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For Patrick
contents
Titles by Sofie Kelly
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
epilogue
Bonus Story: The Cat Burglar
acknowledgments
There are so many people working behind the scenes at Berkley Prime Crime that I never talk to directly, who helped put together this book. Thanks to each one of you. A special thank-you goes to my editor, Jessica Wade; her assistant, Miranda Hill; and PR whiz, Roxanne Jones. I’m so glad we’re on the same team.
Thanks as well are due to my agent, Kim Lionetti, and the entire staff at Bookends Literary Agency. I don’t tell you nearly enough how much I appreciate your hard work and unfailing good humor.
To all the readers, bloggers, reviewers and booksellers who have embraced Kathleen, Owen and Hercules, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And, as always, thanks to Patrick and Lauren. Love you both!
chapter 1
You’d think by now it wouldn’t bother me to step on a body in the middle of the kitchen floor, but I was in my sock feet and the body—missing its head, no surprise—was damp.
With cat slobber.
“Owen!” I yelled, hopping on one foot while I rubbed the other against my pant leg.
The cat stuck his gray tabby head around the living room doorway and looked at me, face tipped quizzically to one side.
“Come and get this,” I said, pointing at the headless yellow catnip chicken, aka Fred the Funky Chicken, I’d just stepped on.
He craned his neck to see what I was referring to, then gave a murp of recognition almost as though he were saying, “So that’s where I left it.” He came across the floor, picked up the chicken body in his mouth and deposited it next to his food dish beside the refrigerator, nudging it out of the way with one paw. Then he turned to look at me.
“Thank you,” I said. I leaned down to pick up the few bits of catnip that had fallen out of the mangled cat toy. Owen had a thing for catnip in general, and neon-yellow chickens stuffed with it in particular, and I had friends who bought them for him just about as fast as he could chew them apart.
I dumped the bits of dried catnip in the garbage and reached for my shoes on the mat near the back door.
“Mrr?” Owen said.
“I have a meeting at the library.”
He immediately raised his paw and took a couple of passes at his face with it. Then he crossed to sit in front of the kitchen door.
I knew what that meant. “No, you can’t come with me,” I said.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Mrr,” he said again.
I shook my head. “You can’t come. Cats don’t belong at the library.” They didn’t belong at the library, but both of mine had ended up there more than once. “Just because I’m the head librarian doesn’t mean that you and your brother get special privileges.”
Owen narrowed his golden eyes. His whiskers twitched, and then he disappeared.
Literally. It was his superpower, so to speak, the way the Flash could run faster than anyone else on the planet, although I was pretty sure Owen hadn’t gotten his ability due to the explosion of a particle accelerator during a thunderstorm.
I’d gotten very blasé about Owen’s ability to just vanish whenever he wanted to. I remembered how it had made me think I was losing my mind the first few times I’d seen it happen, and then the stomach-churning fear I’d felt when I realized what could happen to him and his brother, Hercules, if anyone found out about my cats’ unbelievable abilities. Hercules couldn’t become invisible at will; he could walk through walls. Both cats also had a seemingly uncanny ability to understand what was said to them. And now, to make things ten times more complicated, I was almost positive that Marcus’s little ginger tabby, Micah, had the same vanishing skill as Owen.
My Marcus. Detective Marcus Gordon, who only believed in the facts, in things he could see and touch. If I was right about Micah there was a lot I’d need to explain. Not that I had any explanation. All three cats came from the old Henderson estate, Wisteria Hill. That had to have something to do with their abilities. I just had no idea what.
I’d sold my car when I’d moved to Mayville Heights from Boston two and a half years ago to supervise the renovations at the library. I spent my first few weeks in town exploring, walking for miles, which is how I’d stumbled on Wisteria Hill. At the time the property was abandoned. Now my friend Roma owned it, and the old farmhouse was full of life again. Back then it had seemed lonely and forgotten.