“Why do you have to be so excited about this?” I asked, resigned to the fact that I was apparently opening a business now—and, worse still, that my cat would be my new business partner.
“That’s branding, baby,” Mom answered with a glamorous flip of her hair.
Oh, brother. Or rather—oh, mother.
I took a couple big steps back, careful not to upset the crime scene as I walked away from the crazy lady who just so happened to be my mother. Turning to the door now, I said, “Okay, great. So, I’m just going to go make sure the police know the cats are up there. With the stairs cordoned off, it might not be easy to get them down.”
Mom followed after me as I returned to the bright world outside. I squinted from the sudden onslaught of sunniness and swept my eyes over the premises in search of the one officer I knew well enough to approach. Once my eyes adjusted to the light again, I spotted Officer Bouchard at the edge of the property examining a small copse of evergreens at the edge of a much larger deciduous forest that divided Harlow’s property from mine.
I jogged over to him, knowing my mom would have no trouble keeping up if she wanted to.
“Did you know there are cats inside?” I asked him, embarrassed by the fact my breaths came out labored from that short burst of exercise.
“That would be Jacques and Jillianne,” he said with a chuckle. “Ugly little things, aren’t they?”
“They’re… cute. Um, in a different way,” I insisted. In a very different way. Still, even though I’d just had the same thought myself, I suddenly felt defensive on their behalf.
My mom joined us then, having chosen to stroll elegantly across the field rather than run like I did. I guess it was now part of her persona or something. The news waits for no man, she’d often told me, but for a woman, it just might.
Officer Bouchard smiled kindly at Mom. “Yeah. The senator picked them up from a breeder in France, thus the fancy names. They’re slippery little buggers, too. I’ve been trying to catch them all morning, but so far, no luck. Figure with the next of kin on the way, the cats can be his problem when he gets here.”
“Next of kin?” Mom inserted herself between me and him. She’d already pulled out her phone and started the recording app, which she now held up to him like a microphone. “And who might that be?”
Officer Bouchard stared at the phone, then cleared his throat and answered in a crisp, clear voice, “Her son, Matthew Harlow. Lives in Chicago. Should be here by nightfall.”
“And who do you think killed Lou Harlow?” Mom asked, pressing the phone even closer to his face.
He sighed and pushed her hand aside. “I think it’s too soon to say. We haven’t even ruled out the possibility of it being an accident yet.”
Until today, I’d only seen one crime scene before—Bill and Ruth Hayes, who were murdered in their own home. I saw it long after the fact, but I’d had the same feeling today as I’d had then.
Call it my gut.
Call it intuition.
Or maybe even just a lucky guess.
Whatever the case, I knew it had been no accident that killed Lou Harlow. Someone had wanted her dead and decided to take matters into his or her own hands.
Now we just had to figure out who.
The Pet Whisperer P.I. was officially on the case.
Chapter Four
As promised, Mom stuck around to help me finish my packing and, as much as it pained me to admit, I almost wished she wouldn’t have. For starters, she had an opinion on everything.
I’m not exaggerating either. Everything.
As she picked up each of my possessions one by one, she frowned and turned them over in her hands. Apparently she believed that if she studied my things from all angles, they might suddenly transform into something that would match her expectations.
Growing up, I had often wondered if she felt the same way about me, but now I knew better. Mom was a nice lady and I know she loved me as best she could, but she had most definitely not been cut from the divine maternal cloth.
“Do you really need to take this with you?” she asked me now. “I can get you a newer one. A better one.”
After about an hour of this same conversation over and over again, she’d basically promised to buy me a new life as part of my housewarming gift. I know our tastes didn’t match up—Mom was far more sophisticated than I’d ever be—but still, it would have been nice for her to give it a rest.
The other problem I had just then was that I desperately wanted to discuss the crime scene and those weird Sphynx cats with Octo-Cat. Yes, even though Mom knew I could talk to him, it still felt weird to carry on a conversation right there in front of her.
Our tastes weren’t the only thing that differed. Mom was all cold, hard facts and evidence. She’d ask a million and one questions, including many I wouldn’t know how to answer. Namely, how come you two can talk to each other?
I still had no idea why Octo-Cat and I had formed this connection or even really how it worked. One day I’d love to figure all that out, but I was too busy with my move at present to sit around and speculate all the many possibilities with my mom.
“You know,” Mom said as she studied the plates and bowls stacked in one of my kitchen cupboards. “You’re going to be living in a manor house now. A lot of your things don’t really match that aesthetic. It may be jarring for visitors.”
“It’s fine, Mom,” I said, nudging her out of the way with my hip and packing away the offensive dishes myself. “I don’t really plan on having a lot of visitors, and I’m not really the hoity-toity type. You know that about me.”
She stepped to the side and opened another cabinet. “Maybe there’s a middle ground here,” she insisted. “Nan has a nice set of dinnerware. You could throw yours out and stick with hers instead. Oh! Or you could donate yours. You love those charity shops, right?”
“Maybe,” I said to acknowledge the topic so that we could both move on. I did like the thrift shops, but I much preferred buying from them over donating my own things.
Mom frowned, and I hugged one of my cheery red plates to my chest. I liked my plates, and I liked my life, too. Why couldn’t Mom just accept that she and I were never going to see eye to eye on certain issues? So what if most of the things in my kitchen came from the dollar store? They all worked just as well as the things Mom bought for a hundred times the price at her fancy chain boutiques.
“Oh, I like these,” she said, staring into the next cupboard over as she grabbed a floral-patterned Lenox teacup and studied it with wide eyes.
“I don’t want her messing with my stuff,” Octo-Cat informed me, hopping up onto the counter and giving Mom such a startle, she dropped the much admired teacup right onto the ground.
The three of us watched what followed in slow motion, but it was already, regrettably too late. The delicate cup burst into smithereens and Octo-Cat let out an ear-piercing cry. “My Evian vessel!”
Mom took a step back. “I’m so sorry,” she told me, and I could tell she genuinely meant it. Maybe she picked at me not to be mean, but just because she sometimes had a hard time thinking of other things to discuss. Maybe that was why she got so excited over sharing the Lou Harlow murder investigation with me.
“I’ll get you a new set, I promise,” she said, blinking back tears. Suddenly, I felt like the absolute worst daughter in the world. Why did I have such difficulty spending more than a few minutes at a time in my mom’s company? I’d need to try harder.
Of course, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that this particular set was irreplaceable. They’d belonged to Octo-Cat’s previous owner, the late Ethel Fulton, and they were one of the few things he still had left of her. Granted, we’d soon be moving into her mostly furnished manor home, but still. This tea set had been special to Octo-Cat. It was the only way he’d take his food or water, and now that he was down a cup, I’d have to increase my dish-washing schedule to boot.