“It’s not…” Clara paused. Cats may be philosophers, but abstract concepts are difficult for everyone. Still, she did her best to explain about bookkeeping and the crime of embezzling from what she had heard. “Anyway,” she concluded, “that’s why the older lady thinks that girl did it, because she works for her and could have changed the numbers.”
“Maybe she tried to poison the girl.” Laurel’s tail lashed like she was remembering a hunt. “And when it didn’t work, she came to Becca.”
It was an interesting idea, and the three cats were busy considering it, tails twitching in contemplation, when the front door opened.
“Hello, you three.” Becca looked down at her pets, beaming. “I’m glad to see you’re not fighting anymore.”
“We don’t fight. We’re sisters!” Laurel twined around Becca’s legs as she removed her jacket. “We sometimes have heated discussions.”
“Don’t distract her.” Clara looked on with concern. From the way Laurel’s whiskers were bristling, her sister knew she was working hard to implant an idea in their person’s mind. “She needs to think clearly before she gets any deeper into this.”
“I don’t see any treats.” Harriet had stood up on her hind legs to sniff the air around Becca, in the hope that a bag of cookies might be hidden on her person. “Didn’t you say she was eating treats?”
“You three.” Becca shook her head. “You’d think I’d been gone all day instead of just an hour. I bet you’re hungry. Am I right?”
Laurel turned to Clara with a smirk, letting her baby sister know just who had suggested that thought. Harriet, meanwhile, ran ahead, laser focused on being the first to the kitchen.
“You’re not going to distract her from the case forever.” Clara took up the rear.
“Bought us time, though, didn’t I?” Laurel wrapped her chocolate-tipped tail around her feet as she waited. Harriet was brazenly begging, her wide bottom making it easy for her to sit up in a fashion that her youngest sister privately thought was rather dog-like. “Time for us to look into the whole poison thing.”
“There you go, girls.” Becca laid down Harriet’s bowl first, knowing the orange cat would push aside her sisters to take it in any case. Then Laurel’s and then Clara’s, before washing her hands. Despite the talk of poison, all three dived in. “And now, kitties, I’ve got to get to work. I’ve got to call that Margaret Cross and tell her I can’t take her case.”
For a moment, Clara dared hope. Even the glint of triumph in Laurel’s blue eyes didn’t bother her. If only… But then Becca turned and wiped her hands dry.
“And then,” she said, returning the dish cloth to its hook, “I have to start figuring out how I can help poor Gaia.”
She returned to the living room, and Clara lifted her head. Her person seemed to be fussing, her movements growing more frantic.
“You done?” Harriet’s fuzzy snout pushed into her dish.
“No!” Clara raised a paw, peeved at the interruption, but she stopped herself from going further. It wouldn’t do to smack Harriet. Besides, the big marmalade did need more food than the petite calico, and Clara was aware of her own well-padded form. Any more poundage, and she might have trouble passing through closed doors. “Well, okay.” She backed away, ceding the dish, even as Laurel looked at her quizzically.
“I want to hear what Becca is doing,” Clara explained. Harriet, oblivious, kept eating. But even by the time the big cat had joined her two siblings in the living room, nothing had been resolved.
“What’s going on?” Harriet asked as she began to wash her face.
“A lot of fuss about nothing.” Laurel yawned as she stretched along the back of the sofa. “Becca needs to nap more.”
“No, it’s not that.” Clara knew better than her sisters what Becca’s increasingly frenzied activity meant. “I mean, I don’t think so,” she added, in deference to her sister.
As the three cats looked on, Becca knelt down beside the couch. Reaching, she retrieved two toy mice and a pencil that Clara hadn’t been able to resist batting around the week prior from underneath, but still she did not appear sated. If anything, she looked increasingly distraught.
“You three didn’t…” She sat on the rug and addressed the cats. “No, you have too much sense. Even you, Harriet.”
The big longhair blinked.
“It must have been when she gathered her bags up to leave.” Becca rose to her feet, talking to herself as much as the three felines. “I can’t…”
She stopped talking as she bolted into the kitchen, but a thorough examination of the trash, the teapot, and the dirty mugs didn’t seem to appease her. When she came back into the living room, she plopped down on the sofa, a dazed expression on her face.
“Well, if this doesn’t beat all,” she said, one hand absently reaching out for Clara, who had jumped up beside her. “I’ve got one client who worries she’s being poisoned, and another who thinks that the first client is a thief. Only, unless I am very much mistaken, the second client just stole the evidence that the first client brought me.”
Chapter 5
“I didn’t want to go down to the store.” Becca addressed Clara’s wordless query. Becca’s smallest cat had followed her to the front door, where she was donning her coat. “I mean, I really didn’t want Margaret and Gaia to know that I’d taken cases from them both. Not when I realized they worked together. But Margaret’s not answering her phone. For all I know, she only came by here to steal that root back.
“I should have known.” She paused, mid-button, to rest her hand on the lapis pendant. “Maybe I’m not using this right.”
Looking on, Clara thought of her sisters. She couldn’t tell for sure if Laurel had helped plant the idea the three cats had shared about the root—and the possibility that that nasty older woman had been behind the attempted poisoning. For a moment, Clara even toyed with asking Harriet to get rid of that stupid necklace, which Becca seemed to trust so much. They all had complementary powers, she mused. Maybe that was for a reason.
But for any of that to be effective, the three would have to work together. And while Clara knew her sisters loved her—at least, she assumed they did—she’d been teased for too long and too often to trust them to follow her guidance. “Clara the clown,” she could hear the echo of Laurel’s distinctive Siamese yowl. If anything, they’d do the opposite, just to mess with her, not realizing how their actions affected the human they loved. No, the plump calico realized, in this, she and Becca were alone.
Her person seemed to have reached the same conclusion.
“Well, nothing for it.” Becca had added a hat to her ensemble. A new addition to her wardrobe, the maroon velvet cloche sported a feather that only Laurel’s sense of style had kept intact. “Don’t worry, kitties. I won’t be out too late!”
“Cute.” Clara turned to see that Laurel had come up silently beside her. “That hat. Don’t you think?”
“I guess.” In truth, the little calico hadn’t paid much attention to her person’s outfit. She’d been focused on her own concerns, as well as the undercurrent of concern in Becca’s voice. “That feather will make it easier to follow her. But I won’t touch it!”
That was to Harriet, who had ambled up beside her, as much as to Laurel. Harriet considered all toys hers by right, and Clara knew she had her golden eyes on the perky plume. With a satisfied blink, Harriet accepted her little sister’s capitulation, sprawling in a fur mess on the floor. Laurel, meanwhile, had twisted around to lick the base of her tail, secure in the knowledge that neither would nab the tempting feather without her consent and seemingly unconcerned about anything else her baby sister might do. And so with a shimmy of her hindquarters, as if she were readying to jump, the calico slipped through the molecules that made up the closed door.