“Hey, Octo-Cat. What have you been watching on TV lately?” I asked, knowing how impressionable and how theatric he could be. His viewing habits could very well tell me all I needed to decode his slang now.
His ears perked up at this.“Why, Angela, I’m so glad you asked. Usually you don’t show interest in my viewing habits, considering my taste is so much more highbrow than your preferred media consumption.”
“Uh-huh.” I didn’t have it in me to argue with him now, not when he seemed to have some information that I needed.
Octo-Cat straightened and met me with large, glowing eyes.“Lately I’ve found myself rather engrossed with this cheeky little drama set in London. The premise is—”
“Got it. You’ve gone BBC on me.”
“Yes, but what’s that got to—”
“You spend time on Twitter, you pick up that lingo. You spend time in front of BBC, you adopt Britishisms into your everyday speech. It makes perfect sense now.”
He narrowed his eyes, giving his fuzzy countenance a sinister effect.“The Queen’s English is the correct English.”
I shook my finger at him.“Don’t even get me started on that whole argument, or the fact that you’ve never once stepped paw outside of the US. My point is you’re saying torches, but you mean flashlights.”
“Beg pardon?” Now that it had been pointed out, he was really playing up this whole British angle—God help me.
“Wait there,” I instructed, sprinkling a few more treats out onto the ground to assure he would do just that.
I grabbed the flashlight we kept in the hall closet in case of emergencies, then clicked it on before returning to my erstwhile feline companion.“Is this what you saw?” I asked, sweeping the tiny spotlight around the room.
“Yes, that’s a torch, Angela. Brilliant. Very nicely done.” He rolled his eyes in derision. The smarmy part of me wanted to offer him a spot of tea and ask after his mum, but I had more important things to focus on than my cat’s penchant for theatrics.
“What time did you see the lights? Are you sure they were coming from next door?” I pressed.
“Very late. Or rather, quite early. Maybe two, three o’clock. And they definitely started next door, but then they moved to the woods.”
“Did they ever come to our yard?” I asked, a fresh jolt of fear striking me dead in the heart. The neighbor and I shared a name. What if whoever was out there had meant to come for me, but somehow got their wires crossed? And what if they were still coming?
A woman was dead, and still the vultures were out there picking at the crime scene. Who were they, and what could they possibly want?’
Octo-Cat finished devouring his treats, then began to groom himself as he liked to do post-meal. He paused thoughtfully after several strokes of his tongue across his tail.“I must say, my dear Angela, it seems that something odd is afoot.”
“Why yes, Octo-Cat. I couldn’t have said it better myself.” I smiled at this. While he was being rather annoying today, at least I had his interest. That meant he would help me, despite his lack of sleep the night before. And as they say, two heads are better than one, even when one of those heads is adorned with whiskers.
10
After opening a fresh can of Octo-Cat’s preferred cat pate and pouring him a teacup of Evian, I spent the next ten minutes waiting while he took his time with breakfast. In the meantime, I polished off all three scones and made a mental note to have my wedding dress refitted just in case all this stress eating was having an effect on my waistline.
Upon finishing his meal, Octo-Cat then had to tend to his morning ministrations. The small amount of grooming he’d managed while we talked in the office was nowhere near enough to satisfy his habitual self-care.
As he tended to his hygiene, I composed a lengthy text to Charles to catch him up on everything that had gone down since I saw him for our date last night. The poor guy had been working overtime—and then some—to ensure he’d be able to take a full two weeks off for our honeymoon. I hated to bother him with my problems, but I also knew I’d never hear the end of it if I failed to inform him of something so major going on in my life.
I explained the situation as succinctly as I could, finished my message, and hit send.
Less than a minute later, I received notification of his reply. Just enough of it popped up on screen to tell me I shouldn’t open it to read the full thing—at least not yet.
Whatever you do, don’t disturb the scene to—
Yeah, nope. If I opened that, he’d know I saw his message and then consciously chose to ignore it. Charles knew me well enough by now to know exactly what I planned to do, which is why he was trying to warn me off it.
Maybe if I called the police with this new intel, they’d head over to investigate, but that wasn’t a chance I could afford to take. Not when they’d dismissed my concerns about the shoeprints so quickly yesterday.
Besides, I just had a hunch that Ms. Miller’s death wasn’t as open and shut as it seemed. Something strange was going on over there, and I intended to figure out what.
“Are you ready, Angela?” Octo-Cat asked after one last lap at his paw. Like Charles, my cat also knew exactly what I planned to do. That’s part of the reason we made such good partners—at least when we weren’t bickering and nitpicking each other.
I nodded.“Let’s go check it out.”
“Tut, tut. Cheerio.” This whole English act was quickly draining on me. I needed Octo-Cat to be wearing his detective hat, not one that belonged to a misguided thespian. Luckily, I knew just how I could shut this down while making it seem like the whole thing had been his idea.
“Cheerio, funny. You know, that reminds me of the time Pringle knighted himself and decided to vanquish forest monsters in the name of the queen. What was it he would say? Oh, right.” I put on my most horrible impression of an accent combined with my most horrible impersonation of Pringle to seal the deal. “Pip, pip, cheerio, my good lad.”
I glanced down to Octo-Cat and found his face filled with derision.
“Gag. Could we not talk about the trash panda?” he begged, reverting to his normal East Coast polish. “I’d rather die choking on a hairball, thank you very much.”
I smiled to myself as we exited the house side by side and trekked through the woods.
“So remind me again why we’re investigating?” the tabby asked as our feet crunched over fallen leaves that had been left to decay since last autumn. We couldn’t exactly rake up the entire forest.
“Because the neighbor is dead, and it might have been murder,” I reminded him, surprised he had forgotten our mission so quickly today.
“Right, but we hated her. Also aren’t you busy enough planning your wedding?” He stopped to sniff the base of an old tree, and I waited.
“Hate is such a strong word,” I reasoned.
He smirked.“But it’s the correct word, isn’t it?”
I groaned in acknowledgment, unable to address his pointed comment with actual words.“I am busy with the wedding, but I can’t just let a murder go unsolved.” The truth was I’d already finished the hardest part of planning my nuptials—figuring out the guest list and sending out formal invitations. As it turns out, I know a lot of people, making the rest of it far easier bycomparison.
“Why not? The police do it all the time,” he commented rudely, once again making me wonder how much time my cat spent browsing Twitter.
Just like I hadn’t wanted to talk religion with the pets, I also didn’t want to get into something so political. “Don’t talk like that. The police do their best, but not every case is solvable.” Debating Octo-Cat never went well, no matter what the topic. He didn’t consider facts valid unless they proved the point he already wanted to make.
He left the strange-smelling tree behind and began moving forward again, leading us both through the woods.“So what makes you think this one is? Solvable, I mean?”